1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Changes in 2.0.4 (since 2.0.3):
12 ** Better debuggability for interpreted procedures.
14 Guile 2.0 came with a great debugging experience for compiled
15 procedures, but the story for interpreted procedures was terrible. Now,
16 at least, interpreted procedures have names, and the 'arity procedure
17 property is always as correct (or, as it can be, in the presence of
20 ** Support for cross-compilation.
22 One can now use a native Guile to cross-compile `.go' files for a
23 different architecture. See the documentation for `--target' in the
24 "Compilation" section of the manual, for how to use the cross-compiler.
25 See the "Cross building Guile" section of the README, for more on how to
26 cross-compile Guile itself.
28 ** Fluids can now have default values.
30 Fluids are used for dynamic and thread-local binding. They have always
31 inherited their values from the context or thread that created them.
32 However, there was a case in which a new thread would enter Guile, and
33 the default values of all the fluids would be `#f' for that thread.
35 This has now been fixed so that `make-fluid' has an optional default
36 value, which defaults to `#f'.
38 ** Garbage collector tuning.
40 The garbage collector has now been tuned to run more often under some
43 *** Unmanaged allocation
45 The new `scm_gc_register_allocation' function will notify the collector
46 of unmanaged allocation. This will cause the collector to run sooner.
47 Guile's `scm_malloc', `scm_calloc', and `scm_realloc' unmanaged
48 allocators eventually call this function. This leads to better
49 performance under steady-state unmanaged allocation.
51 *** Transient allocation
53 When the collector runs, it will try to record the total memory
54 footprint of a process, if the platform supports this information. If
55 the memory footprint is growing, the collector will run more frequently.
56 This reduces the increase of the resident size of a process in response
57 to a transient increase in allocation.
59 *** Management of threads, bignums
61 Creating a thread will allocate a fair amount of memory. Guile now does
62 some GC work (using `GC_collect_a_little') when allocating a thread.
63 This leads to a better memory footprint when creating many short-lived
66 Similarly, bignums can occupy a lot of memory. Guile now offers hooks
67 to enable custom GMP allocators that end up calling
68 scm_gc_register_allocation'. These allocators are enabled by default
69 when running Guile from the command-line. To enable them in libraries,
70 set the `scm_install_gmp_memory_functions' variable to a nonzero value
73 Thanks to Mark Weaver for inspiration.
75 ** SRFI-39 parameters are available by default.
77 Guile now includes support for parameters, as defined by SRFI-39, in the
78 default environment. See "Parameters" in the manual, for more
79 information. `current-input-port', `current-output-port', and
80 `current-error-port' are now parameters.
82 ** Add `current-warning-port'
84 Guile now outputs warnings on a separate port, `current-warning-port',
85 initialized to the value that `current-error-port' has on startup.
89 Following Racket's lead, Guile now supports syntax parameters. See
90 "Syntax parameters" in the manual, for more.
92 Also see Barzilay, Culpepper, and Flatt's 2011 SFP workshop paper,
93 "Keeping it Clean with syntax-parameterize".
96 `primitive-load' returns the values yielded from evaluating the last
97 expression in the file. This in turn makes `load' always return the
98 results of the last expression, both when interpreted and compiled.
100 ** Parse command-line arguments from the locale encoding.
102 Guile now attempts to parse command-line arguments using the user's
103 locale. However for backwards compatibility with other 2.0.x releases,
104 it does so without actually calling `setlocale'. Please report any bugs
105 in this facility to bug-guile@gnu.org.
109 ** (ice-9 session): `apropos-hook'
110 ** New print option: `escape-newlines', defaults to #t.
111 ** (ice-9 ftw): `file-system-fold', `file-system-tree', `scandir'
115 ** Fix R6RS `fold-left' so the accumulator is the first argument.
116 ** fix <dynwind> serialization.
117 ** Fix bugs in the new `peval' optimizer.
118 ** Allow values bound in non-tail let expressions to be collected.
119 ** Fix bit-set*! bug from 2005.
120 ** Fix bug in `make-repl' when `lang' is actually a language.
121 ** Hack the port-column of current-output-port after printing a prompt.
122 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the CIF made by `procedure->pointer'.
123 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the procedure passed to `procedure->pointer'.
124 ** FFI: Properly unpack small integer return values in closure call.
125 ** Allow overlapping regions to be passed to `bytevector-copy!'.
126 ** Fix `validate-target' in (system base target).
127 ** `,language' at REPL sets the current-language fluid.
128 ** `primitive-load' returns the value(s) of the last expression.
129 ** Add an exception printer for `getaddrinfo-error'.
130 ** Add a deprecated alias for $expt.
131 ** Document invalidity of (begin) as expression; add back-compat shim.
132 ** Web: Allow URIs with empty authorities, like "file:///etc/hosts".
133 ** HTTP: Fix validators for various list-style headers.
134 ** HTTP: Extend handling of "Cache-Control" header.
135 ** HTTP: Fix qstring writing of cache-extension values
136 ** HTTP: `write-request-line' writes absolute paths, not absolute URIs.
137 ** HTTP: Permit non-date values for Expires header.
138 ** FreeBSD build fixes.
139 ** Fix generalized-vector-{ref,set!} for slices.
140 ** Fix erroneous check in `set-procedure-properties!'.
141 ** Don't leak file descriptors when mmaping objcode.
142 ** Fix bugs related to mutation, the null string, and shared substrings.
143 ** Deprecate SCM_ASRTGO.
144 ** Add deprecated shim for `scm_display_error' with stack as first argument.
145 ** i18n: Fix gc_malloc/free mismatch on non-GNU systems.
146 ** Make sure `regexp-quote' tests use Unicode-capable string ports.
147 ** Have `cpu-word-size' error out on unknown CPUs; add support for MIPSEL.
148 ** `scm_from_stringn' always returns unique strings.
149 ** Empty substrings no longer reference the original stringbuf.
150 ** `scm_i_substring_copy' tries to narrow the substring.
151 ** Avoid calling `u32_conv_from_encoding' on the null string.
153 Changes in 2.0.3 (since 2.0.2):
157 ** Guile has a new optimizer, `peval'.
159 `Peval' is a partial evaluator that performs constant folding, dead code
160 elimination, copy propagation, and inlining. By default it runs on
161 every piece of code that Guile compiles, to fold computations that can
162 happen at compile-time, so they don't have to happen at runtime.
164 If we did our job right, the only impact you would see would be your
165 programs getting faster. But if you notice slowdowns or bloated code,
166 please send a mail to bug-guile@gnu.org with details.
168 Thanks to William R. Cook, Oscar Waddell, and Kent Dybvig for inspiring
169 peval and its implementation.
171 You can see what peval does on a given piece of code by running the new
172 `,optimize' REPL meta-command, and comparing it to the output of
173 `,expand'. See "Compile Commands" in the manual, for more.
175 ** Fewer calls to `stat'.
177 Guile now stats only the .go file and the .scm file when loading a fresh
182 ** New module: `(web client)', a simple synchronous web client.
184 See "Web Client" in the manual, for more.
186 ** Users can now install compiled `.go' files.
188 See "Installing Site Packages" in the manual.
190 ** Remove Front-Cover and Back-Cover text from the manual.
192 The manual is still under the GNU Free Documentation License, but no
193 longer has any invariant sections.
195 ** More helpful `guild help'.
197 `guild' is Guile's multi-tool, for use in shell scripting. Now it has a
198 nicer interface for querying the set of existing commands, and getting
199 help on those commands. Try it out and see!
201 ** New macro: `define-syntax-rule'
203 `define-syntax-rule' is a shorthand to make a `syntax-rules' macro with
204 one clause. See "Syntax Rules" in the manual, for more.
206 ** The `,time' REPL meta-command now has more precision.
208 The output of this command now has microsecond precision, instead of
209 10-millisecond precision.
211 ** `(ice-9 match)' can now match records.
213 See "Pattern Matching" in the manual, for more on matching records.
215 ** New module: `(language tree-il debug)'.
217 This module provides a tree-il verifier. This is useful for people that
218 generate tree-il, usually as part of a language compiler.
220 ** New functions: `scm_is_exact', `scm_is_inexact'.
222 These provide a nice C interface for Scheme's `exact?' and `inexact?',
227 See the git log (or the ChangeLog) for more details on these bugs.
229 ** Fix order of importing modules and resolving duplicates handlers.
230 ** Fix a number of bugs involving extended (merged) generics.
231 ** Fix invocation of merge-generics duplicate handler.
232 ** Fix write beyond array end in arrays.c.
233 ** Fix read beyond end of hashtable size array in hashtab.c.
234 ** (web http): Locale-independent parsing and serialization of dates.
235 ** Ensure presence of Host header in HTTP/1.1 requests.
236 ** Fix take-right and drop-right for improper lists.
237 ** Fix leak in get_current_locale().
238 ** Fix recursive define-inlinable expansions.
239 ** Check that srfi-1 procedure arguments are procedures.
240 ** Fix r6rs `map' for multiple returns.
241 ** Fix scm_tmpfile leak on POSIX platforms.
242 ** Fix a couple of leaks (objcode->bytecode, make-boot-program).
243 ** Fix guile-lib back-compatibility for module-stexi-documentation.
244 ** Fix --listen option to allow other ports.
245 ** Fix scm_to_latin1_stringn for substrings.
246 ** Fix compilation of untyped arrays of rank not 1.
247 ** Fix unparse-tree-il of <dynset>.
248 ** Fix reading of #||||#.
249 ** Fix segfault in GOOPS when class fields are redefined.
250 ** Prefer poll(2) over select(2) to allow file descriptors above FD_SETSIZE.
253 Changes in 2.0.2 (since 2.0.1):
257 ** `guile-tools' renamed to `guild'
259 The new name is shorter. Its intended future use is for a CPAN-like
260 system for Guile wizards and journeyfolk to band together to share code;
261 hence the name. `guile-tools' is provided as a backward-compatible
262 symbolic link. See "Using Guile Tools" in the manual, for more.
264 ** New control operators: `shift' and `reset'
266 See "Shift and Reset" in the manual, for more information.
268 ** `while' as an expression
270 Previously the return value of `while' was unspecified. Now its
271 values are specified both in the case of normal termination, and via
272 termination by invoking `break', possibly with arguments. See "while
273 do" in the manual for more.
275 ** Disallow access to handles of weak hash tables
277 `hash-get-handle' and `hash-create-handle!' are no longer permitted to
278 be called on weak hash tables, because the fields in a weak handle could
279 be nulled out by the garbage collector at any time, but yet they are
280 otherwise indistinguishable from pairs. Use `hash-ref' and `hash-set!'
283 ** More precision for `get-internal-run-time', `get-internal-real-time'
285 On 64-bit systems which support POSIX clocks, Guile's internal timing
286 procedures offer nanosecond resolution instead of the 10-millisecond
287 resolution previously available. 32-bit systems now use 1-millisecond
290 ** Guile now measures time spent in GC
292 `gc-stats' now returns a meaningful value for `gc-time-taken'.
296 The statprof profiler now exports a `gcprof' procedure, driven by the
297 `after-gc-hook', to see which parts of your program are causing GC. Let
298 us know if you find it useful.
300 ** `map', `for-each' and some others now implemented in Scheme
302 We would not mention this in NEWS, as it is not a user-visible change,
303 if it were not for one thing: `map' and `for-each' are no longer
304 primitive generics. Instead they are normal bindings, which can be
305 wrapped by normal generics. This fixes some modularity issues between
306 core `map', SRFI-1 `map', and GOOPS.
308 Also it's pretty cool that we can do this without a performance impact.
310 ** Add `scm_peek_byte_or_eof'.
312 This helper is like `scm_peek_char_or_eof', but for bytes instead of
315 ** Implement #:stop-at-first-non-option option for getopt-long
317 See "getopt-long Reference" in the manual, for more information.
319 ** Improve R6RS conformance for conditions in the I/O libraries
321 The `(rnrs io simple)' module now raises the correct R6RS conditions in
322 error cases. `(rnrs io ports)' is also more correct now, though it is
323 still a work in progress.
325 ** All deprecated routines emit warnings
327 A few deprecated routines were lacking deprecation warnings. This has
332 ** Constants in compiled code now share state better
334 Constants with shared state, like `("foo")' and `"foo"', now share state
335 as much as possible, in the entire compilation unit. This cuts compiled
336 `.go' file sizes in half, generally, and speeds startup.
338 ** VLists: optimize `vlist-fold-right', and add `vhash-fold-right'
340 These procedures are now twice as fast as they were.
342 ** UTF-8 ports to bypass `iconv' entirely
344 This reduces memory usage in a very common case.
348 The compiler is now about 40% faster. (Note that this is only the case
349 once the compiler is itself compiled, so the build still takes as long
354 Some assertions that were mostly useful for sanity-checks on the
355 bytecode compiler are now off for both "regular" and "debug" engines.
356 This together with a fix to cache a TLS access and some other tweaks
357 improve the VM's performance by about 20%.
359 ** SRFI-1 list-set optimizations
361 lset-adjoin and lset-union now have fast paths for eq? sets.
363 ** `memq', `memv' optimizations
365 These procedures are now at least twice as fast than in 2.0.1.
369 ** Deprecate scm_whash API
371 `scm_whash_get_handle', `SCM_WHASHFOUNDP', `SCM_WHASHREF',
372 `SCM_WHASHSET', `scm_whash_create_handle', `scm_whash_lookup', and
373 `scm_whash_insert' are now deprecated. Use the normal hash table API
376 ** Deprecate scm_struct_table
378 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME',
379 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS',
380 `scm_struct_table', and `scm_struct_create_handle' are now deprecated.
381 These routines formed part of the internals of the map between structs
384 ** Deprecate scm_internal_dynamic_wind
386 The `scm_t_inner' type and `scm_internal_dynamic_wind' are deprecated,
387 as the `scm_dynwind' API is better, and this API encourages users to
388 stuff SCM values into pointers.
390 ** Deprecate scm_immutable_cell, scm_immutable_double_cell
392 These routines are deprecated, as the GC_STUBBORN API doesn't do
397 Andreas Rottman kindly transcribed the missing parts of the `(rnrs io
398 ports)' documentation from the R6RS documentation. Thanks Andreas!
402 ** Fix double-loading of script in -ds case
403 ** -x error message fix
404 ** iconveh-related cross-compilation fixes
405 ** Fix small integer return value packing on big endian machines.
406 ** Fix hash-set! in weak-value table from non-immediate to immediate
407 ** Fix call-with-input-file & relatives for multiple values
408 ** Fix `hash' for inf and nan
409 ** Fix libguile internal type errors caught by typing-strictness==2
410 ** Fix compile error in MinGW fstat socket detection
411 ** Fix generation of auto-compiled file names on MinGW
412 ** Fix multithreaded access to internal hash tables
413 ** Emit a 1-based line number in error messages
414 ** Fix define-module ordering
415 ** Fix several POSIX functions to use the locale encoding
416 ** Add type and range checks to the complex generalized vector accessors
417 ** Fix unaligned accesses for bytevectors of complex numbers
419 ** Fix erroneous VM stack overflow for canceled threads
422 Changes in 2.0.1 (since 2.0.0):
426 ** guile.m4 supports linking with rpath
428 The GUILE_FLAGS macro now sets GUILE_LIBS and GUILE_LTLIBS, which
429 include appropriate directives to the linker to include libguile-2.0.so
430 in the runtime library lookup path.
432 ** `begin' expands macros in its body before other expressions
434 This enables support for programs like the following:
439 (or (= x 0) (odd? (- x 1)))))
442 ((odd? x) (not (even? x)))))
445 ** REPL reader usability enhancements
447 The REPL now flushes input after a read error, which should prevent one
448 error from causing other errors. The REPL also now interprets comments
451 ** REPL output has configurable width
453 The REPL now defaults to output with the current terminal's width, in
454 columns. See "Debug Commands" in the manual for more information on
457 ** Better C access to the module system
459 Guile now has convenient C accessors to look up variables or values in
460 modules and their public interfaces. See `scm_c_public_ref' and friends
461 in "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual.
463 ** Added `scm_call_5', `scm_call_6'
465 See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
467 ** Added `scm_from_latin1_keyword', `scm_from_utf8_keyword'
469 See "Keyword Procedures" in the manual, for more. Note that
470 `scm_from_locale_keyword' should not be used when the name is a C string
473 ** R6RS unicode and string I/O work
475 Added efficient implementations of `get-string-n' and `get-string-n!'
476 for binary ports. Exported `current-input-port', `current-output-port'
477 and `current-error-port' from `(rnrs io ports)', and enhanced support
480 ** Added `pointer->scm', `scm->pointer' to `(system foreign)'
482 These procedure are useful if one needs to pass and receive SCM values
483 to and from foreign functions. See "Foreign Variables" in the manual,
486 ** Added `heap-allocated-since-gc' to `(gc-stats)'
488 Also fixed the long-standing bug in the REPL `,stat' command.
490 ** Add `on-error' REPL option
492 This option controls what happens when an error occurs at the REPL, and
493 defaults to `debug', indicating that Guile should enter the debugger.
494 Other values include `report', which will simply print a backtrace
495 without entering the debugger. See "System Commands" in the manual.
497 ** Enforce immutability of string literals
499 Attempting to mutate a string literal now causes a runtime error.
501 ** Fix pthread redirection
503 Guile 2.0.0 shipped with headers that, if configured with pthread
504 support, would re-define `pthread_create', `pthread_join', and other API
505 to redirect to the BDW-GC wrappers, `GC_pthread_create', etc. This was
506 unintended, and not necessary: because threads must enter Guile with
507 `scm_with_guile', Guile can handle thread registration itself, without
508 needing to make the GC aware of all threads. This oversight has been
511 ** `with-continuation-barrier' now unwinds on `quit'
513 A throw to `quit' in a continuation barrier will cause Guile to exit.
514 Before, it would do so before unwinding to the barrier, which would
515 prevent cleanup handlers from running. This has been fixed so that it
516 exits only after unwinding.
518 ** `string->pointer' and `pointer->string' have optional encoding arg
520 This allows users of the FFI to more easily deal in strings with
521 particular (non-locale) encodings, like "utf-8". See "Void Pointers and
522 Byte Access" in the manual, for more.
524 ** R6RS fixnum arithmetic optimizations
526 R6RS fixnum operations are are still slower than generic arithmetic,
529 ** New procedure: `define-inlinable'
531 See "Inlinable Procedures" in the manual, for more.
533 ** New procedure: `exact-integer-sqrt'
535 See "Integer Operations" in the manual, for more.
537 ** "Extended read syntax" for symbols parses better
539 In #{foo}# symbols, backslashes are now treated as escapes, as the
540 symbol-printing code intended. Additionally, "\x" within #{foo}# is now
541 interpreted as starting an R6RS hex escape. This is backward compatible
542 because the symbol printer would never produce a "\x" before. The
543 printer also works better too.
545 ** Added `--fresh-auto-compile' option
547 This allows a user to invalidate the auto-compilation cache. It's
548 usually not needed. See "Compilation" in the manual, for a discussion.
552 ** GOOPS documentation updates
556 Thanks to Mark Harig for improvements to guile.1.
558 ** SRFI-23 documented
560 The humble `error' SRFI now has an entry in the manual.
564 ** `(ice-9 binary-ports)': "R6RS I/O Ports", in the manual
565 ** `(ice-9 eval-string)': "Fly Evaluation", in the manual
566 ** `(ice-9 command-line)', not documented yet
570 ** Fixed `iconv_t' memory leak on close-port
571 ** Fixed some leaks with weak hash tables
572 ** Export `vhash-delq' and `vhash-delv' from `(ice-9 vlist)'
573 ** `after-gc-hook' works again
574 ** `define-record-type' now allowed in nested contexts
575 ** `exact-integer-sqrt' now handles large integers correctly
576 ** Fixed C extension examples in manual
577 ** `vhash-delete' honors HASH argument
578 ** Make `locale-digit-grouping' more robust
579 ** Default exception printer robustness fixes
580 ** Fix presence of non-I CPPFLAGS in `guile-2.0.pc'
581 ** `read' updates line/column numbers when reading SCSH block comments
582 ** Fix imports of multiple custom interfaces of same module
583 ** Fix encoding scanning for non-seekable ports
584 ** Fix `setter' when called with a non-setter generic
585 ** Fix f32 and f64 bytevectors to not accept rationals
586 ** Fix description of the R6RS `finite?' in manual
587 ** Quotient, remainder and modulo accept inexact integers again
588 ** Fix `continue' within `while' to take zero arguments
589 ** Fix alignment for structures in FFI
590 ** Fix port-filename of stdin, stdout, stderr to match the docs
591 ** Fix weak hash table-related bug in `define-wrapped-pointer-type'
592 ** Fix partial continuation application with pending procedure calls
593 ** scm_{to,from}_locale_string use current locale, not current ports
594 ** Fix thread cleanup, by using a pthread_key destructor
595 ** Fix `quit' at the REPL
596 ** Fix a failure to sync regs in vm bytevector ops
597 ** Fix (texinfo reflection) to handle nested structures like syntax patterns
598 ** Fix stexi->html double translation
599 ** Fix tree-il->scheme fix for <prompt>
600 ** Fix compilation of <prompt> in <fix> in single-value context
601 ** Fix race condition in ensure-writable-dir
602 ** Fix error message on ,disassemble "non-procedure"
603 ** Fix prompt and abort with the boot evaluator
604 ** Fix `procedure->pointer' for functions returning `void'
605 ** Fix error reporting in dynamic-pointer
606 ** Fix problems detecting coding: in block comments
607 ** Fix duplicate load-path and load-compiled-path in compilation environment
608 ** Add fallback read(2) suppport for .go files if mmap(2) unavailable
609 ** Fix c32vector-set!, c64vector-set!
610 ** Fix mistakenly deprecated read syntax for uniform complex vectors
611 ** Fix parsing of exact numbers with negative exponents
612 ** Ignore SIGPIPE in (system repl server)
613 ** Fix optional second arg to R6RS log function
614 ** Fix R6RS `assert' to return true value.
615 ** Fix fencepost error when seeking in bytevector input ports
616 ** Gracefully handle `setlocale' errors when starting the REPL
617 ** Improve support of the `--disable-posix' configure option
618 ** Make sure R6RS binary ports pass `binary-port?' regardless of the locale
619 ** Gracefully handle unterminated UTF-8 sequences instead of hitting an `assert'
623 Changes in 2.0.0 (changes since the 1.8.x series):
625 * New modules (see the manual for details)
627 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
628 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
629 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
630 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
631 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
632 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
633 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
634 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
635 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
636 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
637 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
638 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
639 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
640 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
641 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
642 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
643 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
644 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
645 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
646 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
647 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
648 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
649 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
651 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
653 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
654 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
655 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
657 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
658 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
659 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
661 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
663 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
664 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
665 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
667 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
669 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
670 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
673 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
675 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
677 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
678 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
680 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
682 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
683 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
684 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
686 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
687 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
689 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
690 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
691 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
694 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
696 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
697 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
699 ** Remove old Emacs interface
701 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
702 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
703 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
706 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
708 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
709 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
710 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
713 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
715 ** Command line additions
717 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
718 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
721 ** New reader options: `square-brackets', `r6rs-hex-escapes',
724 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
725 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
726 parentheses. This option is on by default.
728 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
729 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
730 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
731 so this option is off by default.
733 Additionally, Guile follows the R6RS newline escaping rules when the
734 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled.
736 See "String Syntax" in the manual, for more information.
738 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
740 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
741 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
742 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
744 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
745 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
747 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
749 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
750 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
751 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
753 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
754 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
755 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
756 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
758 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
759 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
762 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
764 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
767 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
769 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
770 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
771 include `/path/to/lib'.
773 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
775 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
778 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
780 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
781 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
782 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
783 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
786 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
788 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
789 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
790 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
792 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
794 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
795 just for the operator position.
797 ** Expression-oriented readline history
799 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
800 input lines. Let us know what you think!
802 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
804 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
805 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
807 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
809 ** Support for R6RS libraries
811 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
812 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
813 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
814 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
815 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
817 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
819 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
820 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
821 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
823 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
825 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
828 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
829 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
830 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
833 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
834 mentioned in that compatibility list.
836 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
838 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
839 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
840 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
841 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
843 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
844 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
845 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
846 code, and simplifying debugging.
848 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
849 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
851 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
852 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
853 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
854 both of these situations.
856 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
857 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
858 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
859 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
861 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
863 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
864 not apply to the compiler.
866 ** No more `local-eval'
868 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
869 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
870 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
871 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
874 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
875 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
878 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
880 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
881 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
882 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
884 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
885 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
886 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
889 Auto-compiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
890 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
891 will be created if needed.
893 To inhibit automatic compilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
894 variable to 0, or pass --no-auto-compile on the Guile command line.
896 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
898 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
899 in the next prerelease.
901 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
903 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
905 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
907 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
909 ** Multicast socket options
911 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
912 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
915 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
917 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
918 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
920 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
922 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
924 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
926 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
928 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
930 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
931 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
932 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
934 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
935 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
936 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
937 procedures' docstrings for more information.
939 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
940 combining arity and formals. For example:
942 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
943 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
945 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
948 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
950 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
951 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
952 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
953 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
955 ** New language: ECMAScript
957 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
958 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
959 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
960 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
962 ** New language: Brainfuck
964 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
965 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
966 languages. See the manual for details, or
967 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
968 Brainfuck language itself.
970 ** New language: Elisp
972 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
973 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
974 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
976 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
978 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
979 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
980 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
981 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
984 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
986 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
987 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
988 properties. For example:
994 (procedure-properties foo)
995 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
997 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
1000 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1002 (procedure-properties bar)
1003 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1005 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
1008 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
1011 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
1013 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
1014 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
1015 like this works now:
1017 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
1018 (define (helper x) ...)
1020 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
1022 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
1025 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
1026 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
1028 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
1030 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
1031 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
1032 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
1034 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
1036 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
1037 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
1038 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
1039 for more information.
1041 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
1043 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
1044 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
1046 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
1048 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
1051 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
1053 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
1054 in the manual, for more information.
1056 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
1059 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
1060 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
1062 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
1064 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
1066 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
1068 It is possible to circumvent this restriction with e.g.
1069 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. Contact the list if you
1072 ** Support for `letrec*'
1074 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
1075 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
1076 manual, for more details.
1078 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
1080 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
1081 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
1086 (define baz (+ bar 20))
1089 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
1090 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
1091 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
1094 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
1095 in earlier Guile dialects.
1097 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
1099 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
1100 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
1101 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
1102 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
1104 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
1105 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
1106 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
1107 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
1110 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
1112 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
1113 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
1116 (define (helper x) ...)
1117 (define-macro (foo bar)
1120 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
1123 (define (helper x) ...)
1124 (define-macro (foo bar)
1125 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
1127 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
1131 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
1133 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
1135 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
1142 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
1143 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
1146 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
1148 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
1149 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
1152 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
1154 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
1155 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
1156 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
1158 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
1160 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
1164 (define-macro (ref x) x)
1167 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
1168 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
1169 macros before code that uses them.
1171 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
1174 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
1176 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
1177 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1178 (double-literal 2) => 4
1180 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
1181 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
1182 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
1184 (eval-when (load compile eval)
1185 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
1186 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1187 (double-literal 2) => 4
1189 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
1191 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
1193 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
1194 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
1195 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
1196 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
1199 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
1201 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
1202 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
1204 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
1206 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
1207 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
1208 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
1210 ** Incompatible change to #'
1212 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
1213 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
1214 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
1215 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
1217 ** `unquote' and `unquote-splicing' accept multiple expressions
1219 As per the R6RS, these syntax operators can now accept any number of
1220 expressions to unquote.
1222 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
1224 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
1227 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
1229 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
1230 in the manual, for more information.
1232 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
1233 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
1235 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
1236 works (with compiled procedures)
1238 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
1239 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
1240 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
1241 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
1243 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
1244 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
1245 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
1246 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
1247 number of stack frames.
1249 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
1250 active in the current continuation
1252 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
1253 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
1254 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
1255 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
1257 ** `positions' reader option enabled by default
1259 This change allows primitive-load without --auto-compile to also
1260 propagate source information through the expander, for better errors and
1261 to let macros know their source locations. The compiler was already
1262 turning it on anyway.
1264 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
1266 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
1268 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
1269 through to the expanded code
1271 This should result in better backtraces.
1273 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
1275 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
1277 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
1279 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
1280 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
1283 ** New procedure, `define!'
1285 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
1286 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
1287 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
1288 less verbose than `module-define!'.
1290 ** All modules have names now
1292 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
1293 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
1294 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
1295 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
1297 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
1299 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
1300 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
1301 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
1302 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
1304 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
1305 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
1306 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
1307 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
1308 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
1309 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
1311 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
1312 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
1313 days of Guile's modules.
1315 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
1316 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
1317 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
1318 record accessors appropriately.
1320 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
1321 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
1322 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
1324 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
1325 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
1326 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
1328 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
1329 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
1332 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
1333 namespaces instead of values.
1335 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
1337 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
1338 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
1339 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
1340 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
1342 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
1344 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
1346 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
1348 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
1349 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
1351 ** Modules load within a known environment
1353 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
1354 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
1355 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
1358 ** `load' is a macro (!) that resolves paths relative to source file dir
1360 The familiar Schem `load' procedure is now a macro that captures the
1361 name of the source file being expanded, and dispatches to the new
1362 `load-in-vicinity'. Referencing `load' by bare name returns a closure
1363 that embeds the current source file name.
1365 This fix allows `load' of relative paths to be resolved with respect to
1366 the location of the file that calls `load'.
1368 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
1370 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
1371 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
1372 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
1374 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
1375 values to the expected number
1377 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
1378 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
1379 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
1381 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
1382 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
1383 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
1384 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
1386 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
1387 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
1388 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
1390 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
1393 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
1395 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
1397 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
1398 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
1399 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
1400 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
1401 the interpreter would proceed.
1403 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
1404 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
1405 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
1406 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
1408 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
1410 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
1411 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
1412 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
1413 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
1414 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
1415 you to contact the Guile developers.
1417 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
1419 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
1420 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
1421 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
1423 ** psyntax is now the default expander
1425 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
1426 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
1429 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
1430 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
1431 code in question was memoized.
1433 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
1434 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
1435 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
1436 `x432' instead of `x'.
1438 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1439 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1440 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1441 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1443 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1445 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1446 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1447 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1450 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1451 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1452 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1453 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1455 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1457 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1458 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1459 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1460 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1463 (syntax-rules (else)
1464 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1467 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1468 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1469 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1471 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1472 by nonhygienic macros.
1474 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1475 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1478 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1479 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1480 (define-macro (ref x)
1482 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1487 (define-syntax bind-x
1489 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1490 (define-macro (ref x)
1492 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1494 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1495 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1496 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1497 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1498 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1499 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1501 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1503 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1504 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1506 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1507 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1510 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1512 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1513 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1514 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1515 transformer procedures.
1517 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1519 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1520 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1521 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1523 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1525 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1526 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1527 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1528 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1530 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1532 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1533 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1534 arity that the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1537 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1539 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1540 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1541 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1542 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1544 ** New syntax: define-once
1546 `define-once' is like Lisp's `defvar': it creates a toplevel binding,
1547 but only if one does not exist already.
1549 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1551 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1552 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1553 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1556 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1557 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1558 documentation for more details.
1560 ** Better pretty-printing
1562 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1563 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1565 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1567 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1568 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1570 Also, it used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in
1571 some cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
1573 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1575 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1576 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1577 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1578 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1579 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1580 addressed by element and not by byte.
1582 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1583 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1584 endianness, as one would expect.
1586 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1587 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1588 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1589 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1592 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1593 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1595 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1596 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1598 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1600 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1602 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1603 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1604 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1606 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1607 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1609 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1611 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1613 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1614 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1616 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1618 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1619 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1622 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1624 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1625 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1627 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
1629 *** Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
1631 Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
1632 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
1633 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
1634 floating point numbers.
1636 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
1637 must be non-zero. Each set of operators computes an integer quotient
1638 Q and a real remainder R such that N = Q*D + R and |R| < |D|. They
1639 differ only in how N/D is rounded to produce Q.
1641 `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and `euclidean-remainder'
1642 returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/'
1643 returns both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each
1644 separately. Note that when D > 0, `euclidean-quotient' returns
1645 floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns ceiling(N/D).
1647 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
1648 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
1649 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer. Note that these
1650 operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division operators `div',
1651 `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and `div0-and-mod0'.
1653 `floor-quotient' and `floor-remainder' compute Q and R, respectively,
1654 where Q has been rounded toward negative infinity. `floor/' returns
1655 both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each separately.
1656 Note that when applied to integers, `floor-remainder' is equivalent to
1657 the R5RS integer-only `modulo' operator. `ceiling-quotient',
1658 `ceiling-remainder', and `ceiling/' are similar except that Q is
1659 rounded toward positive infinity.
1661 For `truncate-quotient', `truncate-remainder', and `truncate/', Q is
1662 rounded toward zero. Note that when applied to integers,
1663 `truncate-quotient' and `truncate-remainder' are equivalent to the
1664 R5RS integer-only operators `quotient' and `remainder'.
1666 For `round-quotient', `round-remainder', and `round/', Q is rounded to
1667 the nearest integer, with ties going to the nearest even integer.
1669 *** Complex number changes
1671 Guile is now able to represent non-real complex numbers whose
1672 imaginary part is an _inexact_ zero (0.0 or -0.0), per R6RS.
1673 Previously, such numbers were immediately changed into inexact reals.
1675 (real? 0.0+0.0i) now returns #f, per R6RS, although (zero? 0.0+0.0i)
1676 still returns #t, per R6RS. (= 0 0.0+0.0i) and (= 0.0 0.0+0.0i) are
1677 #t, but the same comparisons using `eqv?' or `equal?' are #f.
1679 Like other non-real numbers, these complex numbers with inexact zero
1680 imaginary part will raise exceptions is passed to procedures requiring
1681 reals, such as `<', `>', `<=', `>=', `min', `max', `positive?',
1682 `negative?', `inf?', `nan?', `finite?', etc.
1684 **** `make-rectangular' changes
1686 scm_make_rectangular `make-rectangular' now returns a real number only
1687 if the imaginary part is an _exact_ 0. Previously, it would return a
1688 real number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1690 scm_c_make_rectangular now always returns a non-real complex number,
1691 even if the imaginary part is zero. Previously, it would return a
1692 real number if the imaginary part was zero.
1694 **** `make-polar' changes
1696 scm_make_polar `make-polar' now returns a real number only if the
1697 angle or magnitude is an _exact_ 0. If the magnitude is an exact 0,
1698 it now returns an exact 0. Previously, it would return a real
1699 number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1701 scm_c_make_polar now always returns a non-real complex number, even if
1702 the imaginary part is 0.0. Previously, it would return a real number
1703 if the imaginary part was 0.0.
1705 **** `imag-part' changes
1707 scm_imag_part `imag-part' now returns an exact 0 if applied to an
1708 inexact real number. Previously it returned an inexact zero in this
1711 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
1713 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
1714 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
1715 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
1716 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
1719 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
1721 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
1722 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
1723 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
1724 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
1726 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
1728 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
1729 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
1730 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
1731 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
1732 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
1733 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
1736 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
1738 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
1739 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
1740 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
1741 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
1744 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
1746 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
1747 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
1748 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
1749 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
1750 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
1751 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
1752 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
1753 even support multiplication.
1755 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
1757 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
1758 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
1759 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
1760 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
1762 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
1764 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
1765 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
1766 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
1768 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
1770 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
1771 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
1772 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
1775 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
1777 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
1778 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
1779 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
1780 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
1781 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
1783 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
1785 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
1786 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
1787 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
1788 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
1790 *** New procedure: `finite?'
1792 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
1793 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
1794 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
1795 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
1797 *** Improved exactness handling for complex number parsing
1799 When parsing non-real complex numbers, exactness specifiers are now
1800 applied to each component, as is done in PLT Scheme. For complex
1801 numbers written in rectangular form, exactness specifiers are applied
1802 to the real and imaginary parts before calling scm_make_rectangular.
1803 For complex numbers written in polar form, exactness specifiers are
1804 applied to the magnitude and angle before calling scm_make_polar.
1806 Previously, exactness specifiers were applied to the number as a whole
1807 _after_ calling scm_make_rectangular or scm_make_polar.
1809 For example, (string->number "#i5.0+0i") now does the equivalent of:
1811 (make-rectangular (exact->inexact 5.0) (exact->inexact 0))
1813 which yields 5.0+0.0i. Previously it did the equivalent of:
1815 (exact->inexact (make-rectangular 5.0 0))
1819 ** Unicode characters
1821 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
1822 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
1823 probably be introduced at some point.
1827 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
1828 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
1829 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
1831 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
1832 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
1833 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
1834 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
1838 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
1840 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
1842 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
1843 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
1844 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
1845 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
1846 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
1849 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
1850 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
1851 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
1853 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
1855 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
1856 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
1859 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
1861 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
1862 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
1864 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
1866 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
1867 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
1868 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
1871 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
1872 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
1873 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
1875 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
1877 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
1879 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
1880 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
1881 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
1882 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
1884 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
1886 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
1887 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
1888 Unicode code points.
1890 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
1892 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
1893 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
1894 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
1897 ** EBCDIC support is removed
1899 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
1900 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
1901 and was unmaintained.
1903 ** Compile-time warnings
1905 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
1906 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
1907 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
1908 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
1911 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
1912 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
1913 `#:warnings' as above.
1915 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
1916 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
1917 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
1919 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
1921 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
1924 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
1926 This slightly improves program startup times.
1928 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
1930 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
1932 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
1934 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
1935 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
1936 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
1937 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
1939 ** New helpers: `print-exception', `set-exception-printer!'
1941 These functions implement an extensible exception printer. Guile
1942 registers printers for all of the exceptions it throws. Users may add
1943 their own printers. There is also `scm_print_exception', for use by C
1944 programs. Pleasantly, this allows SRFI-35 and R6RS exceptions to be
1945 printed appropriately.
1947 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
1949 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
1950 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
1951 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
1952 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
1954 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
1955 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
1956 implement method combinations.
1958 ** Applicable struct support
1960 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
1961 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
1962 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
1963 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
1964 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
1965 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
1966 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
1967 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
1971 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
1972 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
1973 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
1974 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
1975 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
1977 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
1979 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
1980 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
1981 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
1982 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
1984 ** eqv? not a generic
1986 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
1987 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
1988 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
1989 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
1991 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
1993 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
1994 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
1995 functions are deprecated.
1997 ** `getopt-long' parsing errors throw to `quit', not `misc-error'
1999 This change should inhibit backtraces on argument parsing errors.
2000 `getopt-long' has been modified to print out the error that it throws
2003 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
2005 See "File System" in the manual.
2007 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
2009 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
2010 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
2011 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
2013 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
2015 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
2016 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
2017 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
2019 ** Fast bit operations.
2021 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
2022 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
2023 it's for number crunching too.
2025 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
2027 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
2028 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
2029 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
2030 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
2032 ** R6RS block comment support
2034 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
2035 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
2037 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
2039 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
2040 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
2042 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
2043 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
2044 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2046 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
2047 ;; separate compilation phase.
2048 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2050 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
2052 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
2054 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
2056 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
2057 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
2058 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
2059 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
2060 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
2063 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
2064 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
2065 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
2066 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
2067 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
2069 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
2071 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
2073 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
2075 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
2077 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
2079 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
2081 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
2082 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
2083 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
2085 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
2087 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
2088 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
2090 ** New readline history functions
2092 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
2093 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
2094 History library functions.
2096 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
2097 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
2099 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
2102 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
2104 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
2105 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
2106 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
2107 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
2108 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
2109 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
2110 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
2112 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
2113 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
2115 The following bindings have been totally removed:
2116 `before-signal-stack'.
2118 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
2119 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
2120 a deprecation warning.
2122 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
2124 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
2125 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
2126 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
2127 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
2130 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
2132 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
2133 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
2134 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
2135 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
2137 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
2138 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
2140 ** `top-repl' has its own module
2142 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
2143 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
2144 left in the default environment.
2146 ** `display-error' takes a frame
2148 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
2149 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
2150 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
2151 information for the error.
2153 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
2155 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
2156 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
2157 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
2159 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
2161 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
2162 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
2164 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
2166 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
2169 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
2171 ** Remove obsolete print-options
2173 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
2176 ** Remove obsolete read-options
2178 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
2179 obsolete, so they have been removed.
2181 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
2183 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
2186 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
2188 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
2189 on their replacements.
2191 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
2193 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
2194 should use Guile with Emacs.
2196 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
2198 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
2199 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
2200 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
2201 `with-throw-handler'.
2203 ** Deprecated: primitive properties
2205 The `primitive-make-property', `primitive-property-set!',
2206 `primitive-property-ref', and `primitive-property-del!' procedures were
2207 crufty and only used to implement object properties, which has a new,
2208 threadsafe implementation. Use object properties or weak hash tables
2211 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
2213 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
2214 and is no longer used.
2216 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
2218 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
2219 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
2221 Additionally, the procedures `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
2222 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
2223 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', and `set-batch-mode?!' have all
2226 ** Add support for unbound fluids
2228 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
2231 ** Add `variable-unset!'
2233 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
2235 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
2237 * Changes to the C interface
2239 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
2241 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
2242 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
2243 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
2245 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
2246 code easier and less error-prone.
2248 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
2249 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
2250 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_string{n,}
2252 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
2253 particular encodings.
2255 Users should continue to use locale encoding for user input, user
2256 output, or interacting with the C library.
2258 Use the Latin-1 functions for ASCII, and for literals in source code.
2260 Use UTF-8 functions for interaction with modern libraries which deal in
2261 UTF-8, and UTF-32 for interaction with utf32-using libraries.
2263 Otherwise, use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a specific
2266 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
2268 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
2269 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
2270 available to C. Have fun!
2272 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
2274 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
2276 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
2279 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
2280 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
2282 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
2284 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
2285 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
2286 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
2289 ** Remove old evaluator closures
2291 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
2292 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
2293 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
2294 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
2297 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
2299 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
2300 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
2301 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
2302 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
2303 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
2304 both with the old 1.8 and with the current 1.9 branch.
2306 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
2307 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
2308 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
2309 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
2310 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
2311 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
2313 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
2314 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
2315 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
2316 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
2317 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
2319 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
2320 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
2321 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
2322 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
2323 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
2324 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
2326 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
2327 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
2328 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
2329 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
2332 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
2333 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
2336 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
2338 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
2339 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
2340 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
2341 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
2342 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
2344 ** Remove unused snarf macros
2346 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
2347 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
2349 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
2351 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
2352 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
2354 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
2356 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
2357 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
2359 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
2361 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
2362 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
2363 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
2364 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
2365 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
2368 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
2370 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
2371 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
2372 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
2373 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
2376 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
2377 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
2378 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
2379 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
2381 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
2383 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
2384 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
2385 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
2388 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
2389 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
2390 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
2391 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
2393 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
2395 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
2397 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
2399 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
2402 ** Inline vector allocation
2404 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
2405 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
2406 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
2407 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
2410 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
2412 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
2413 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
2417 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
2418 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
2419 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
2420 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
2421 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
2423 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
2425 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
2426 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
2427 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
2428 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
2429 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
2430 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
2434 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
2435 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
2436 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
2437 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
2439 ** Deprecate trampolines
2441 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
2442 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
2443 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
2444 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
2445 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
2447 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
2449 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
2451 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
2453 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
2454 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
2455 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
2456 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
2458 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
2460 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
2461 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
2462 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
2463 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
2464 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
2465 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
2466 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
2468 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
2470 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
2471 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
2474 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
2475 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
2477 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
2479 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
2480 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
2482 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
2484 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
2485 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
2486 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
2487 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
2489 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
2491 * Changes to the distribution
2493 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
2495 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
2496 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
2501 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
2502 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
2504 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
2506 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
2507 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
2509 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
2511 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
2512 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
2513 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
2516 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
2518 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
2519 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
2521 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
2523 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
2524 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
2526 ** Parallel installability fixes
2528 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
2529 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
2530 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
2532 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
2533 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
2534 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
2537 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
2539 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
2540 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
2541 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
2542 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
2543 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
2545 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
2547 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
2548 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
2549 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
2550 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
2551 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
2552 searched before the global site directory.
2554 ** New dependency: libgc
2556 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
2558 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
2560 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
2561 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
2563 ** New dependency: libffi
2565 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
2569 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
2573 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
2574 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
2575 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
2578 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
2580 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2582 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
2586 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
2587 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
2588 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
2589 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
2590 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
2591 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
2592 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
2593 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
2594 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
2595 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
2596 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
2598 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
2600 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
2601 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
2602 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
2605 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
2608 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
2610 * New features (see the manual for details)
2612 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
2614 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
2616 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
2617 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
2618 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
2620 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
2622 * Changes to the distribution
2624 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
2626 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
2627 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
2629 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
2631 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
2632 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
2637 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
2638 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
2639 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
2640 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
2641 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
2642 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
2643 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
2644 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
2645 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
2646 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
2647 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
2648 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
2649 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
2650 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
2652 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
2653 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
2654 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
2655 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
2656 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
2659 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
2661 * Infrastructure changes
2663 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
2665 The new repository can be accessed using
2666 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
2667 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
2669 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
2671 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
2673 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2677 * New features (see the manual for details)
2679 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2680 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2681 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2683 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2684 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2685 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2686 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2688 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2690 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2691 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2692 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2696 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2697 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2699 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2700 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2702 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2703 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2705 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2706 lead to a stack overflow.
2708 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2709 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2710 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2711 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2712 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
2713 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
2714 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
2715 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
2716 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
2717 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
2718 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
2719 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
2720 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
2721 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
2722 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
2723 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
2726 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
2730 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
2731 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
2732 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
2733 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
2734 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
2735 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
2736 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
2737 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
2738 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
2739 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
2740 system and library calls.
2741 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
2742 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
2743 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
2744 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
2745 uniform vectors on AIX.
2746 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
2747 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
2748 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
2749 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
2750 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
2752 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2756 * Documentation fixes and improvements
2758 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
2760 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
2761 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
2763 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
2765 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
2767 * Changes to the distribution
2769 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
2771 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
2772 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
2773 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
2775 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
2777 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
2780 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
2782 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2789 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
2790 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
2791 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
2792 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
2793 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
2794 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
2795 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
2797 * Implementation improvements
2799 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
2800 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
2803 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
2805 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2807 ** set-program-arguments
2810 * Incompatible changes
2812 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
2814 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
2815 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
2816 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
2817 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
2822 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
2823 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
2824 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
2825 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
2826 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
2827 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
2829 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
2830 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
2831 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
2832 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
2833 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
2834 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
2835 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
2836 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
2837 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
2838 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
2839 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
2840 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
2841 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
2842 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
2843 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
2844 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
2847 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
2849 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
2851 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
2853 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
2854 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
2855 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
2856 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
2857 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
2858 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
2866 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
2868 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
2870 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
2872 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
2874 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
2876 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
2878 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
2879 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
2880 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
2882 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
2884 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
2886 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
2887 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
2889 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
2891 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
2892 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
2894 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
2896 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
2898 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
2900 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
2902 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
2904 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
2906 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
2908 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
2910 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
2912 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
2913 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
2914 file was on a different device.
2917 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
2919 * Changes to the distribution
2921 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
2923 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
2925 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
2927 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
2929 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
2931 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
2934 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
2936 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
2937 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
2938 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
2939 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
2940 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
2941 items like the versioned share directory name
2942 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
2944 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
2945 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
2946 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
2947 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
2948 with each micro release during a stable series.
2950 ** Thread implementation has changed.
2952 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
2953 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
2954 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
2955 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
2956 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
2959 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
2960 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
2961 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
2962 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
2965 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
2966 in which case "null" threads are used.
2968 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
2969 "Blocking", and others.
2971 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
2973 This is a milder form of deprecation.
2975 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
2976 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
2977 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
2978 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
2979 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
2981 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
2982 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
2984 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
2986 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
2987 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
2989 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
2992 This SRFI is always available.
2994 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
2996 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
2997 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
2998 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
2999 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
3002 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
3004 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
3005 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
3006 parameters without currying.
3008 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
3010 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
3011 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
3013 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
3014 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
3017 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
3018 with a renaming import, for example.
3020 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
3022 The official version is good enough now.
3024 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
3026 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
3027 provided. Use 'make html'.
3029 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
3031 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
3032 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
3033 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
3034 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
3036 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
3038 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
3041 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3043 ** New command line option `-L'.
3045 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
3047 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
3049 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
3050 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
3052 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
3054 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
3055 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
3057 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
3059 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
3060 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
3063 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
3066 (define-module (demo)
3070 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
3073 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3075 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
3077 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
3078 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
3079 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
3081 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
3083 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
3084 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
3086 ** New function hashx-remove!
3088 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
3090 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
3091 barriers and dynamic states.
3093 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
3094 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
3095 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
3098 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
3099 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
3100 Barriers" in the manual.
3102 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
3103 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
3105 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
3107 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
3108 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
3109 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
3110 variable %load-path.
3112 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
3114 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
3115 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
3117 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
3118 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
3119 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
3121 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
3122 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
3124 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
3125 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
3126 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
3128 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
3129 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
3130 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
3133 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
3134 substrings and read-only strings.
3136 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
3137 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
3140 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
3142 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
3151 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
3152 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
3153 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
3155 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
3156 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
3157 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
3158 on an ANSI terminal:
3160 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
3161 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
3164 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
3166 See the manual for details.
3168 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
3170 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
3173 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
3175 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
3176 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
3177 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
3178 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
3180 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
3181 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
3182 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
3185 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
3187 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
3188 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
3199 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
3203 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
3208 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
3212 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
3216 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
3219 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
3220 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
3221 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
3222 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
3224 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
3225 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
3228 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
3231 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
3235 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
3237 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
3238 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
3239 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
3242 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
3245 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
3247 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
3250 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
3251 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
3254 (define-module (foo)
3259 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
3260 has been detected is to
3262 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
3263 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
3264 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
3267 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
3270 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
3272 to your .guile init file.
3274 ** New define-module option: :replace
3276 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
3279 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
3280 for the core binding `format'.
3282 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
3284 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
3285 a prefix to all imported bindings.
3287 (define-module (foo)
3288 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
3290 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
3293 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
3295 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
3296 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
3297 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
3299 ** New function: effective-version
3301 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3302 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3303 to the distribution" above.
3305 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
3307 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
3308 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
3310 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
3312 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
3313 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
3315 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
3317 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
3318 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
3321 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
3323 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
3325 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
3327 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
3328 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
3329 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
3332 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
3333 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
3334 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
3335 'system-async-mark'.
3337 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
3338 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
3340 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
3341 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
3342 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
3345 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
3347 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
3348 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
3351 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
3352 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3354 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
3355 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
3356 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
3357 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
3358 level for the current thread.
3360 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
3362 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
3364 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3365 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
3368 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
3370 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
3372 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
3375 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
3377 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
3380 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
3381 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
3382 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
3384 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
3385 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
3386 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
3387 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
3398 ERROR: Numerical overflow
3400 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
3403 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
3405 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
3406 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
3407 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
3418 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
3420 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
3421 them is also done exactly, of course:
3426 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
3427 for exact arguments.
3429 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
3430 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
3432 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
3434 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
3435 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
3436 equal to a floating point number. For example:
3438 (inexact->exact 1.234)
3439 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
3441 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
3443 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
3446 ** New function 'rationalize'.
3448 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
3449 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
3451 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
3454 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
3455 result when both its arguments are exact.
3457 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
3459 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
3460 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
3461 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
3463 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
3465 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
3466 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
3467 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
3469 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
3472 ** pretty-print has more options.
3474 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
3475 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
3476 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
3478 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
3480 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
3481 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
3482 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
3484 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
3486 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
3487 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
3489 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
3491 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
3492 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
3495 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
3497 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
3498 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
3499 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
3500 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
3501 without the soft port blocking.
3503 ** Deprecated: undefine
3505 There is no replacement for undefine.
3507 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
3508 have been discouraged.
3510 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
3511 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
3512 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
3515 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
3517 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
3519 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
3520 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
3521 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
3522 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
3525 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
3526 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
3527 be removed in the next major Guile release.
3529 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
3531 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
3532 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
3533 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
3534 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
3535 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
3536 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
3538 * Changes to the C interface
3540 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
3541 take a 'delete' function argument.
3543 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
3544 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
3546 This is an incompatible change.
3548 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
3550 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
3551 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
3552 --disable-deprecated.
3554 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
3556 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
3557 Scheme values has been added.
3559 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
3560 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
3563 - int scm_is_* (...)
3565 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
3566 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
3568 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
3570 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
3571 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
3574 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
3576 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
3577 scm_from_int for ints.
3579 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
3580 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
3581 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
3583 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
3585 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
3586 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
3587 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
3590 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
3592 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
3594 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
3596 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
3597 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
3598 following alternatives.
3600 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
3601 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
3602 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
3603 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
3605 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
3606 do the validating for you.
3608 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
3609 have been discouraged.
3611 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
3612 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
3615 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
3617 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
3618 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
3621 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
3623 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
3626 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
3629 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
3631 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
3632 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
3634 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
3635 scm_truncate_number should have.
3637 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
3638 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
3640 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
3643 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
3644 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
3645 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
3647 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
3648 easier to use from C.
3650 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
3651 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
3653 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
3654 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
3655 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
3658 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
3659 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
3660 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
3661 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
3664 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
3665 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
3666 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
3667 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
3668 and is thus quite efficient.
3670 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
3672 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
3673 about the character encoding.
3675 Replace according to the following table:
3677 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
3678 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
3679 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3680 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3681 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3682 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3683 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3684 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3685 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3687 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3688 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3690 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3692 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3693 now also available to C code.
3695 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3697 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3698 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3699 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3701 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3704 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3706 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3707 unceremoniously removed.
3709 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3710 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3711 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
3713 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
3714 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
3715 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3716 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3717 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
3718 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
3721 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
3723 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
3724 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
3725 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
3726 manual for more details.
3728 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3729 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3731 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
3732 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
3733 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3735 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
3737 Migrate according to the following table:
3739 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
3740 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
3741 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
3742 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
3743 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
3744 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
3745 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
3747 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
3748 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
3749 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
3750 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
3751 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
3752 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
3753 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
3755 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
3757 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
3758 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
3760 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
3761 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
3762 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
3763 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
3765 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
3767 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
3768 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
3769 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
3771 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
3772 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
3774 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
3775 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
3776 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
3777 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
3779 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
3781 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
3782 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
3783 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
3784 prevent a potential memory leak:
3791 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
3793 mem = scm_malloc (100);
3794 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
3796 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
3797 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
3804 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
3805 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
3809 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
3811 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
3813 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
3814 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
3815 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
3817 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3818 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
3820 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
3822 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
3824 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
3825 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
3826 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
3828 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
3829 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
3831 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
3832 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
3833 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
3834 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
3837 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
3839 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
3840 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
3841 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
3843 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
3845 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
3846 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
3848 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
3850 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
3851 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
3853 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
3855 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
3856 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
3857 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
3859 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
3861 You should not have used them.
3863 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
3865 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
3866 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
3868 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
3870 This macro is not intended for public use.
3872 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
3874 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
3876 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
3878 Use scm_is_real instead.
3880 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
3882 Use scm_is_complex instead.
3884 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
3886 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
3887 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
3889 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
3890 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
3892 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
3893 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
3895 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
3897 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
3900 ** New function: scm_effective_version
3902 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3903 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3904 to the distribution" above.
3906 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
3908 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
3909 arguments are now passed directly:
3911 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
3913 This is an incompatible change.
3915 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
3917 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
3918 function in the init section.
3920 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
3922 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
3924 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
3925 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
3926 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
3927 stays roughly constant.
3929 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
3930 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
3931 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
3932 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
3933 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
3936 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
3937 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
3938 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
3939 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
3941 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
3942 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
3943 objects for every type.
3946 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
3948 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
3950 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
3952 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
3953 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
3954 initializes a new cell (see below).
3956 ** New functions for memory management
3958 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
3959 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
3960 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
3961 cause aborts in long running programs.
3963 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
3964 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
3966 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
3967 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
3968 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
3969 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
3970 details and for upgrading instructions.
3972 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
3973 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
3974 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
3976 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
3978 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
3979 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
3980 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
3981 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
3982 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
3984 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
3985 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
3986 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
3988 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
3989 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
3991 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
3993 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
3994 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
3995 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
3996 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
3997 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
3999 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
4001 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
4004 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
4006 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
4008 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
4010 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
4011 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
4013 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
4015 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
4016 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
4018 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
4019 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
4021 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
4023 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
4025 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
4026 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
4027 blocking it is not well defined.
4029 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
4031 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
4032 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
4033 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
4034 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
4035 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
4036 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
4037 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
4038 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
4039 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
4040 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
4041 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4042 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
4043 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
4044 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
4045 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
4046 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
4047 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
4048 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4049 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
4050 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
4051 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
4052 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
4053 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
4054 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
4055 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
4056 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
4057 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
4058 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
4059 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
4060 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
4061 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
4063 * Changes to bundled modules
4067 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
4068 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
4069 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
4070 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
4071 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
4074 Changes since Guile 1.4:
4076 * Changes to the distribution
4078 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
4080 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
4082 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
4083 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
4084 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
4085 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
4086 indicate major changes in Guile.
4088 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
4089 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
4090 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
4091 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
4093 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
4094 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
4095 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
4096 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
4097 micro version number.
4099 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
4101 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
4103 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
4104 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
4106 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
4108 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
4109 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
4110 See INSTALL and README for more information.
4112 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
4114 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
4115 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
4116 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
4119 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
4121 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
4124 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
4126 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
4127 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
4129 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
4131 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
4132 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
4135 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
4137 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
4140 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
4143 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
4145 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
4147 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
4148 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
4149 open-output-string, get-output-string.
4151 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
4153 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
4155 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
4158 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
4160 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
4162 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
4164 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
4165 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
4166 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
4168 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
4170 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
4172 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
4173 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
4182 See README there for more info.
4184 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
4185 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
4188 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
4190 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
4192 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
4194 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
4195 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
4196 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
4198 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
4200 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
4201 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
4202 to be named `and-let*', of course.
4204 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
4205 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
4207 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
4210 (oop goops describe)
4212 (oop goops active-slot)
4213 (oop goops composite-slot)
4215 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
4216 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
4217 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
4219 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
4221 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
4222 in the default environment:
4224 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
4225 %read-line write-line
4227 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
4228 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
4230 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
4232 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
4235 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
4236 can be used for similar functionality.
4238 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
4240 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
4241 it defines two procedures:
4243 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4245 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
4246 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4247 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
4250 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4252 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
4253 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4254 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
4255 write large strings.
4257 ** New module (ice-9 match)
4259 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
4260 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
4262 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
4264 for complete documentation.
4266 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
4268 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
4269 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
4270 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
4271 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
4273 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
4274 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
4278 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
4279 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
4280 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
4283 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
4286 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
4287 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
4289 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
4290 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
4293 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
4296 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
4298 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
4300 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4302 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
4304 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
4305 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
4306 Scheme programs easier.
4308 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
4309 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
4310 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
4311 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
4312 `cond-expand' when using this option.
4315 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
4316 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
4318 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
4321 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
4323 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
4324 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
4325 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
4328 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4330 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
4332 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
4333 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
4334 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
4335 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
4336 was also ASCII, for example.
4338 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
4340 tag - no replacement.
4341 fseek - replaced by seek.
4342 list* - replaced by cons*.
4344 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
4348 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
4349 (define m (make-safe-module))
4350 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
4351 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
4352 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
4354 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
4356 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
4357 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
4358 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
4360 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
4362 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
4363 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
4364 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
4365 from the issues related to the module system.
4367 *** New function: load-extension
4369 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
4371 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
4373 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
4374 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
4375 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
4377 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
4379 This function registers a initialization function for use by
4380 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
4381 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
4382 support dynamic linking).
4384 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
4386 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
4387 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
4388 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
4389 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
4392 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
4393 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
4394 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
4395 library and initialize it explicitly.
4397 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
4398 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
4400 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
4402 (define-module (foo bar))
4404 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
4406 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
4408 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
4409 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
4411 (scheme-report-environment 5)
4412 (null-environment 5)
4413 (interaction-environment)
4419 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
4421 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
4422 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
4423 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
4424 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
4426 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
4427 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
4428 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
4429 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
4430 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
4431 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
4432 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
4433 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
4434 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
4435 one eval to the next.
4437 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
4438 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
4439 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
4440 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
4441 subforms are at the top-level as well.
4443 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
4444 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
4445 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
4446 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
4447 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
4448 used in a lexical environment.
4450 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
4451 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
4452 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
4453 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
4454 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
4455 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
4457 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
4459 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
4460 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
4461 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
4462 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
4463 new facilities: selection and renaming.
4465 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
4466 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
4467 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
4469 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
4470 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
4472 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
4473 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
4474 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4476 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4477 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
4479 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
4480 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
4481 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
4482 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
4485 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4486 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
4487 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
4488 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4490 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4491 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4492 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
4494 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4495 ;; and all four by upcasing.
4496 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
4497 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
4498 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
4500 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4502 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4503 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4504 :renamer upcase-symbol))
4506 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
4507 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
4508 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
4510 See manual for more info.
4512 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
4514 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
4515 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
4516 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
4518 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
4520 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
4521 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
4522 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
4524 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
4525 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
4526 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
4527 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
4529 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
4531 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
4532 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
4534 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
4535 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
4536 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
4537 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
4538 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
4541 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
4542 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
4543 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
4544 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
4545 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
4546 successful and #f if it wasn't.
4548 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
4549 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
4550 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
4551 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
4552 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
4554 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
4555 objects are usually permanent.
4557 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
4558 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
4560 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
4562 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
4563 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
4566 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
4570 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
4575 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
4577 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
4578 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
4579 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
4580 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
4582 ** New function `make-object-property'
4584 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
4585 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
4589 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
4590 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
4594 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
4595 source properties eventually.
4597 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
4599 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
4600 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
4601 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
4603 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
4604 will be removed in the next release.
4606 ** New define-module option: pure
4608 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
4613 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
4616 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
4618 Export names NAME1 ...
4620 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
4621 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
4625 (define-module (foo)
4627 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
4630 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
4635 ** New function: object->string OBJ
4637 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
4639 ** New function: port? X
4641 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
4642 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
4644 ** New function: file-port?
4646 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
4648 ** New function: port-for-each proc
4650 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
4651 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
4652 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
4653 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
4654 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
4656 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
4658 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
4659 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
4660 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
4661 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
4662 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
4665 ** New function: close-fdes fd
4667 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
4668 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
4669 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
4670 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
4673 ** New function: crypt password salt
4675 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
4678 ** New function: chroot path
4680 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4682 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4684 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4687 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4689 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4691 ** New function: getpass prompt
4693 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4696 ** New function: flock file operation
4698 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4700 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4702 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4705 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4707 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4708 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4709 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4710 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4711 of the temporary file.
4713 ** New function: open-input-string string
4715 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
4716 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
4717 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
4719 ** New function: open-output-string
4721 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
4722 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
4724 ** New function: get-output-string
4726 Return the contents of an output string port.
4728 ** New function: identity
4730 Return the argument.
4732 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
4733 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
4735 ** New function: inet-pton family address
4737 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
4738 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
4739 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4742 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
4743 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
4745 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
4747 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
4748 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
4749 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4752 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
4753 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
4754 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
4758 Use `identity' instead.
4764 ** Deprecated: return-it
4768 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
4770 Use `string-length' instead.
4772 ** Deprecated: flags
4774 Use `logior' instead.
4776 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
4778 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
4779 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
4780 port-for-each is more flexible.
4782 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
4783 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
4784 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
4786 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
4788 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
4790 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
4792 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
4794 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
4796 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
4797 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
4799 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
4800 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
4802 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
4803 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
4805 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
4807 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
4808 Removed function: builtin-bindings
4810 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
4811 Use module system operations for all variables.
4813 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
4815 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
4818 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
4820 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
4821 The following bugs have been fixed:
4823 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
4824 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
4827 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
4828 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
4829 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
4831 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
4832 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
4834 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
4835 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
4838 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
4839 The expansion used to be like so:
4841 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
4843 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
4845 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
4847 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
4848 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
4850 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
4852 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
4853 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
4854 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
4858 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
4859 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
4861 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
4866 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
4867 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
4869 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
4870 and `d', other keywords allowed.
4871 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
4873 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
4876 * Changes to the C interface
4878 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
4880 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
4881 with "_t". What a concept.
4883 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
4885 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
4887 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
4891 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
4892 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
4894 *** C Functions removed
4896 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
4897 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
4898 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
4899 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
4900 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
4901 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
4902 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
4904 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
4906 Use scm_mem2string instead.
4908 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
4910 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
4912 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
4913 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
4915 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
4917 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
4920 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
4922 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
4924 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
4926 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
4927 Evaluation" in the manual.
4929 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
4931 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
4932 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
4934 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
4936 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
4937 Constructors" in the manual.
4939 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
4941 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
4942 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
4944 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
4946 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
4948 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
4949 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
4950 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
4952 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4954 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
4956 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
4957 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
4958 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
4961 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
4963 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
4965 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
4966 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
4968 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
4970 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
4971 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
4972 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
4973 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
4975 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
4976 scm_primitive_property_ref
4977 scm_primitive_property_set_x
4978 scm_primitive_property_del_x
4980 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
4981 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
4983 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
4985 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
4986 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
4987 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
4988 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
4990 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
4992 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
4993 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
4994 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
4995 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
4996 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
4997 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
4998 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
5000 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
5001 scm_remember_upto_here
5003 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
5005 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
5007 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
5008 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
5010 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
5012 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
5014 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
5016 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
5018 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
5020 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
5021 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
5022 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
5023 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
5024 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
5025 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
5027 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
5029 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5031 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
5032 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5033 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
5035 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
5037 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
5038 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5039 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
5041 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
5043 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
5044 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
5047 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
5050 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
5051 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
5054 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5056 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
5058 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
5060 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5062 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
5064 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
5066 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
5067 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
5068 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
5069 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
5070 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
5071 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
5072 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
5073 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
5074 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
5075 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
5076 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
5077 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
5078 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
5079 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
5080 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
5082 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
5083 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
5084 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
5085 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
5086 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
5087 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
5088 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
5089 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
5090 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5091 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
5092 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
5093 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
5094 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
5095 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
5096 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
5097 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5098 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5099 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
5100 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
5101 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
5102 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
5103 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
5104 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
5105 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
5106 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
5107 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
5108 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
5109 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
5110 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
5112 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
5114 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
5116 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
5117 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
5119 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
5121 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
5123 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
5125 Use scm_string_hash instead.
5127 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
5129 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
5131 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
5133 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
5135 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
5138 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
5139 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
5141 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
5143 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
5145 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
5147 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
5149 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
5151 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
5153 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
5155 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
5158 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
5160 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
5162 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
5164 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
5165 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
5167 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
5168 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
5170 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
5172 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
5173 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
5174 scm_module_define, scm_define.
5176 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
5178 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
5180 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
5181 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
5183 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
5184 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
5185 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
5186 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
5188 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
5189 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
5190 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
5192 Use the new ones from above instead.
5194 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
5196 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
5197 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
5198 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
5200 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
5201 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
5203 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
5204 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
5207 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
5208 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
5210 Use the new functions instead.
5212 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
5215 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
5217 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
5219 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
5222 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
5224 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
5227 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
5229 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
5232 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
5233 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
5234 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
5236 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
5238 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
5239 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
5241 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
5242 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
5243 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
5244 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
5247 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
5249 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
5250 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
5251 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
5252 inexact for an exact.
5254 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
5255 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
5256 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
5259 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
5260 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
5261 accept an inexact argument.
5263 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
5264 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
5266 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
5269 ** New number validation macros:
5270 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
5274 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
5276 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
5277 scm_unprotect_object.
5279 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
5281 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
5283 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
5286 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
5288 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
5292 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
5294 * Changes to the distribution
5296 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
5298 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
5299 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
5300 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
5301 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
5302 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
5303 obtain these programs.
5304 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
5305 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
5307 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
5308 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
5309 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
5310 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
5311 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
5313 However, this approach means that minor differences between
5314 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
5315 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
5316 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
5320 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
5323 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
5324 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
5325 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
5326 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
5328 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
5330 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
5332 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
5333 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
5335 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
5336 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
5338 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
5339 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
5341 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
5342 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
5343 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
5344 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
5346 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
5348 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
5352 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
5353 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
5355 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
5357 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
5358 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
5360 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
5361 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
5362 number of objects of that kind.
5364 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
5366 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
5367 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
5368 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
5369 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
5370 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
5372 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
5374 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
5376 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
5378 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
5381 ** New module (ice-9 time)
5383 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
5385 ** New module (ice-9 history)
5387 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
5389 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5391 ** New command line option --debug
5393 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
5395 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
5397 ** New help facility
5399 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
5400 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
5401 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
5402 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
5403 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
5404 (help) gives this text
5406 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
5407 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
5409 Examples: (help help)
5411 (help "output-string")
5413 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
5415 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
5417 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
5418 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
5421 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
5422 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
5423 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
5426 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
5427 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
5428 use absolute filenames when possible.
5430 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
5431 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
5432 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
5435 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
5437 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
5438 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
5439 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
5440 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
5442 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
5444 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
5446 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
5447 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
5448 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
5450 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
5451 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
5452 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
5454 (read-enable 'positions)
5455 (debug-enable 'debug)
5457 ** Backtraces in scripts
5459 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
5463 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
5465 at the top of the script.
5467 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
5468 The second enables backtraces.)
5470 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
5472 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
5473 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
5474 substantially faster than before.
5476 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
5477 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
5479 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
5480 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
5482 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
5484 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
5485 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
5486 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
5488 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
5489 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
5490 when this hook is run in the future.
5492 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
5493 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
5495 ** Improvements to garbage collector
5497 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
5498 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
5501 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
5502 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
5503 more and more memory for certain programs.)
5505 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
5506 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
5508 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
5509 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
5511 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
5512 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
5513 in order not to need further allocation.)
5515 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
5518 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
5519 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
5520 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
5521 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
5523 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
5525 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
5528 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
5530 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
5533 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
5534 GC in percent of total heap size
5537 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
5538 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
5540 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
5542 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
5543 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
5545 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
5547 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
5548 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
5550 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
5552 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
5553 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
5557 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
5558 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
5560 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
5562 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5564 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
5566 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
5568 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
5570 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
5571 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
5573 (simple-format port message . args)
5574 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
5575 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
5576 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
5577 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
5578 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
5579 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
5580 Does not add a trailing newline."
5582 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
5584 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
5585 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
5587 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
5588 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
5590 ** Deprecated: list*
5592 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
5594 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
5596 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
5597 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
5599 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
5600 is returned as result.
5602 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
5604 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
5606 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
5608 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
5609 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
5612 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
5614 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
5616 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
5617 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
5619 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5621 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
5623 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
5625 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5627 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
5629 Thanks to Greg Badros!
5631 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5633 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5634 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
5635 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
5637 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
5640 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
5642 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
5643 the readability of argument checking.
5645 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
5647 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
5649 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
5651 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
5652 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
5653 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
5654 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
5655 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
5656 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
5657 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
5659 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
5661 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
5663 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
5664 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
5666 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
5668 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
5669 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
5672 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
5674 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
5675 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
5676 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
5678 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
5679 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5680 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5682 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5683 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5684 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5685 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5686 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5687 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5688 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5690 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5691 scm_end_input (object);
5692 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5693 ptob->flush (object);
5695 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5696 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5699 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5701 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5703 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5704 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5705 removed in a future version.
5707 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5709 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5710 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5711 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5712 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
5714 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
5715 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
5717 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
5720 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
5722 in your configure.in.
5724 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
5729 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
5735 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
5737 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
5741 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
5742 (define make-message string-append)
5744 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
5746 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
5750 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
5755 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
5759 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
5761 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
5762 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
5764 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
5766 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
5767 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
5768 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
5769 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
5770 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
5771 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
5773 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
5774 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
5775 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
5777 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
5778 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
5779 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
5782 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
5783 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
5784 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
5785 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
5786 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
5788 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
5789 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
5790 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
5791 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
5792 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
5793 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
5794 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
5796 Destructors are not yet implemented.
5798 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
5799 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
5800 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
5802 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
5803 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
5804 KEY in the calling thread.
5806 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
5807 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
5808 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
5809 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
5810 associated with the key.
5812 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
5814 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
5815 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
5817 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
5819 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
5820 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
5821 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
5823 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
5825 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
5826 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
5828 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
5830 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
5832 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
5833 returned is undefined.
5835 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
5836 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
5837 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
5839 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
5840 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
5841 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
5843 ** New C level GC hooks
5845 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
5847 scm_before_gc_c_hook
5850 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
5851 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
5852 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
5854 scm_before_mark_c_hook
5855 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
5856 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
5858 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
5859 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
5862 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
5864 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
5865 allocation parameters
5867 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
5868 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
5869 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
5873 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
5874 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
5875 scm_default_max_segment_size
5877 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
5879 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
5880 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
5882 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
5884 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
5885 object and count on the object being protected until
5886 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
5888 The functions also have better time complexity.
5890 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
5891 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
5892 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
5893 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
5894 are no longer needed.
5896 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
5898 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
5899 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
5900 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
5901 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
5903 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
5905 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
5907 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
5909 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
5910 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
5911 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
5912 until this issue has been settled.
5914 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
5916 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
5918 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
5921 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
5923 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5925 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
5926 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
5927 descriptors were checked.
5929 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
5930 atomically written to a pipe.
5932 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
5933 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
5934 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
5935 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
5936 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
5937 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
5938 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
5941 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
5942 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
5943 is changed without calling tzset.
5945 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
5947 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
5948 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
5949 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
5951 (define write-network-long
5952 (lambda (value port)
5953 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5954 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
5955 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
5957 (define read-network-long
5959 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
5960 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
5961 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
5963 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
5964 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
5966 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
5967 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
5968 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
5969 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
5971 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
5972 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
5973 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
5974 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
5978 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
5980 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5984 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
5985 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
5986 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
5992 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
5993 for a description of available commands.
5995 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
5996 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
5997 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
5999 (debug-enable 'backwards)
6001 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
6002 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
6004 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
6006 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
6008 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
6009 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
6010 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
6011 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
6012 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
6013 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
6016 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
6018 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
6019 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
6020 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
6021 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
6023 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
6024 the file and should not be affected by this change.
6026 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
6028 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6030 ** Readline support has changed again.
6032 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
6033 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
6034 to activate readline is now
6036 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
6039 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
6041 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
6042 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
6043 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
6046 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
6047 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
6048 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
6051 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
6052 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
6053 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
6054 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
6055 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
6056 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
6058 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
6059 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
6061 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
6063 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
6064 object it receives is the same string passed to
6065 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
6066 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
6067 string, not the suffix.
6069 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
6070 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
6071 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
6073 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
6075 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
6076 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
6077 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
6078 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
6081 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6083 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
6085 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
6086 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
6087 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
6088 appear from left to right.
6090 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
6093 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
6095 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
6096 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
6098 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6102 *** New function: hook? OBJ
6104 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
6106 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
6108 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
6109 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
6110 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
6112 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
6114 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
6116 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
6118 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
6121 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
6123 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
6124 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
6125 mentioning it here anyway.
6127 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
6129 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
6130 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
6131 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
6132 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
6135 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
6137 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
6139 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
6141 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
6142 otherwise return #f.
6144 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
6146 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
6147 returned by `opendir'.
6149 ** New function: using-readline?
6151 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
6153 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6155 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
6156 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6158 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6160 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6162 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
6163 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
6164 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6166 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
6168 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
6169 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
6171 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
6173 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
6174 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
6175 documentation slots are not yet used.
6177 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
6179 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
6180 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
6181 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
6186 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
6187 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
6188 (string-append x y))
6190 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
6191 can also be used for concatenating strings.
6193 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
6194 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
6195 be made in a clean way.]
6197 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
6199 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6201 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6203 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
6204 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
6206 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6208 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
6210 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6212 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6214 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
6215 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
6216 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
6217 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
6220 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6222 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
6224 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6226 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6228 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
6229 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
6231 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6233 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
6235 Evaluates the body of a special form.
6237 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
6239 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
6240 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
6241 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
6242 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
6243 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
6244 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
6246 This should not make any difference for most users.
6248 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
6250 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
6251 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
6253 *** New functions for applying generic functions
6255 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
6256 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
6257 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
6258 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
6259 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
6261 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
6263 It is now replaced by:
6265 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
6267 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6268 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6270 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6272 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
6273 This might change when we get the new module system.
6275 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
6279 Changes since Guile 1.3:
6281 * Changes to mailing lists
6283 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
6285 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
6288 * Changes to the distribution
6290 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
6292 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
6293 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
6294 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
6295 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
6296 you explicitly specify it.
6298 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
6299 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
6300 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
6301 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
6302 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
6305 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
6306 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
6307 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
6308 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
6310 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
6311 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
6312 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
6315 You can activate the readline support by issuing
6317 (use-modules (readline-activator))
6320 from your ".guile" file, for example.
6322 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6324 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
6325 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
6326 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
6327 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
6329 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
6330 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
6333 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6335 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
6336 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
6337 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
6338 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
6339 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
6340 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
6341 the Guile interpreter or other unwanted results. An example of
6342 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
6354 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
6355 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
6356 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
6357 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
6358 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
6363 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
6364 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
6372 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
6377 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
6378 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
6381 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
6382 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
6383 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
6384 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
6386 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
6388 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
6390 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
6391 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
6393 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
6395 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
6397 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
6398 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
6400 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
6403 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
6405 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
6407 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
6409 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
6411 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
6413 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
6415 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
6416 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
6417 when the hook was created.
6419 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
6420 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
6421 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
6422 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
6423 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
6424 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
6425 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
6426 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
6427 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
6429 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
6430 the dlopen family of functions.
6432 ** New function `provided?'
6434 - Function: provided? FEATURE
6435 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
6436 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
6437 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
6439 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
6441 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
6442 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
6443 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
6444 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6447 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6448 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
6449 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
6450 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
6452 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
6453 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
6454 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
6457 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
6458 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
6459 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
6460 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
6461 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
6462 but with the flag set.
6464 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
6466 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
6467 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
6469 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
6470 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
6471 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
6472 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
6473 available Scheme format implementations.
6475 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
6476 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
6477 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
6478 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
6479 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
6480 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
6481 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
6482 output is to the current error port if available by the
6483 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
6486 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
6487 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
6488 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
6489 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
6490 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
6491 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
6492 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
6493 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
6495 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
6496 be executed at a time.
6499 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
6501 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
6502 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
6503 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
6505 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
6506 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
6507 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
6508 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
6509 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
6510 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
6511 general form of a directive is:
6513 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
6515 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
6517 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6519 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
6520 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
6521 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
6524 Any (print as `display' does).
6528 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
6532 S-expression (print as `write' does).
6536 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
6542 print number sign always.
6545 print comma separated.
6547 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
6553 print number sign always.
6556 print comma separated.
6558 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
6564 print number sign always.
6567 print comma separated.
6569 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
6575 print number sign always.
6578 print comma separated.
6580 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
6585 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
6589 print a number as a Roman numeral.
6592 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
6595 print a number as an ordinal English number.
6598 print a number as a cardinal English number.
6603 prints `y' and `ies'.
6606 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6609 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6614 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
6618 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
6621 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
6622 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
6624 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6627 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
6628 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
6630 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6633 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
6635 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
6637 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6640 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
6642 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
6644 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6647 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
6650 The sign appears before the padding.
6658 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
6660 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
6665 print N page separators.
6675 newline is ignored, white space left.
6678 newline is left, white space ignored.
6683 relative tabulation.
6689 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6691 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6694 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6696 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6699 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6702 converts by `string-upcase'.
6705 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6707 jumps N arguments forward.
6710 jumps 1 argument backward.
6713 jumps N arguments backward.
6716 jumps to the 0th argument.
6719 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
6721 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
6722 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
6724 take argument from N.
6727 true test conditional.
6730 if-else-then conditional.
6736 default clause follows.
6739 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
6741 at most N iterations.
6744 args from next arg (a list of lists).
6747 args from the rest of arguments.
6750 args from the rest args (lists).
6761 aborts if N <= M <= K
6763 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6766 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6769 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
6775 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
6777 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
6779 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
6780 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
6781 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
6782 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
6783 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
6784 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
6788 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
6792 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
6798 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
6801 Print a `#\space' character
6803 print N `#\space' characters.
6806 Print a `#\tab' character
6808 print N `#\tab' characters.
6811 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
6812 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
6813 must be a positive decimal number.
6816 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6817 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6818 be processed by `read'.
6821 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
6822 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
6823 be processed by `read'.
6826 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
6829 prints format version.
6832 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
6833 and format it accordingly.
6835 *** Configuration Variables
6837 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
6838 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
6839 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
6840 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
6843 format:symbol-case-conv
6844 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
6845 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
6846 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
6847 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
6848 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
6850 format:iobj-case-conv
6851 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
6852 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
6855 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
6858 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
6864 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
6865 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
6866 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
6867 `format' padding style.
6870 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
6871 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
6872 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
6873 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
6877 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
6878 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
6879 directive parameters or modifiers)).
6882 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
6883 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
6884 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
6885 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
6886 parameters or modifiers)).
6889 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
6891 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
6893 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
6894 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
6896 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
6897 string-downcase! functions.
6899 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
6900 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
6902 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
6905 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
6908 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
6909 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
6911 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
6913 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
6914 the symbol had be read by `read'.
6916 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
6917 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
6918 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
6919 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
6920 would if STRING were input.
6922 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
6924 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
6925 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
6926 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
6927 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
6930 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
6932 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
6933 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
6936 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
6938 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
6939 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
6941 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
6942 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
6944 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
6945 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
6946 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
6947 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
6949 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
6950 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
6952 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
6953 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
6954 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
6956 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
6957 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
6959 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
6960 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
6961 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
6962 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
6963 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
6965 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
6966 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
6967 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
6968 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
6969 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
6970 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
6972 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
6973 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
6974 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
6977 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
6978 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
6979 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
6980 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
6981 the following grammar:
6982 ((apples (single-char #\a))
6983 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
6984 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
6985 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
6986 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
6987 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
6988 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
6989 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
6990 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
6991 last option in its combination)
6993 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
6994 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
6995 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
6996 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
6998 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
6999 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
7000 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
7002 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7003 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7004 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
7006 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
7007 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
7008 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
7009 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
7010 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
7011 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
7012 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
7013 ordinary argument strings.
7015 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
7016 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
7017 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
7018 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
7020 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
7021 as a list, associated with the empty list.
7023 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
7024 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
7025 - a required option is omitted
7026 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
7027 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
7028 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
7029 - an option predicate fails
7034 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
7037 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
7038 (verbose (required? #f)
7041 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
7042 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
7043 (predicate ,string?))))
7045 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
7046 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7048 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7049 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
7050 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
7051 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
7054 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
7056 It will be removed in a few releases.
7058 ** New syntax: lambda*
7059 ** New syntax: define*
7060 ** New syntax: define*-public
7061 ** New syntax: defmacro*
7062 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
7063 Guile now supports optional arguments.
7065 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
7066 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
7067 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
7068 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
7069 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
7071 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
7072 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
7073 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
7075 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
7077 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
7078 and examples for `lambda*':
7081 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
7083 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
7084 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
7085 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
7086 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
7087 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
7088 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
7089 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
7090 can be checked with the bound? macro.
7092 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
7094 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
7095 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
7096 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
7097 are given as keywords are bound to values.
7099 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
7100 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
7101 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
7102 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
7103 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
7104 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
7105 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
7106 and until the procedure is called.
7108 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
7110 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
7111 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
7112 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
7113 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
7114 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
7115 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
7116 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
7117 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
7118 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
7119 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
7121 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
7122 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
7123 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
7124 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
7127 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
7129 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
7130 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
7131 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
7132 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
7134 ** New syntax: and-let*
7135 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
7137 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
7138 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
7139 (<variable> <expression>)
7142 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
7143 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
7144 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
7147 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
7148 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
7149 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
7150 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
7151 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
7152 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
7153 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
7155 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
7156 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
7157 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
7158 shadow earlier bindings.
7160 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
7162 ** New sorting functions
7164 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
7165 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
7166 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
7167 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
7169 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
7170 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
7173 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7174 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
7175 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
7177 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
7178 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
7179 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
7180 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
7182 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7183 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
7184 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
7185 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
7186 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
7189 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7190 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
7191 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
7192 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
7193 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
7194 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
7196 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
7197 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
7198 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
7200 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7201 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
7202 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
7205 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
7206 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
7207 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
7209 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
7210 Added for compatibility with scsh.
7212 ** New built-in random number support
7214 *** New function: random N [STATE]
7215 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
7216 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
7217 returned have a uniform distribution.
7219 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
7220 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
7221 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
7222 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
7223 effect of the `random' operation.
7225 *** New variable: *random-state*
7226 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
7227 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
7228 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
7229 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
7230 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
7233 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
7234 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7235 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7236 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
7237 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
7239 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
7240 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7241 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7242 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
7243 initialized using SEED.
7245 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
7246 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
7247 range between 0 and 1.
7249 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7250 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
7251 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
7252 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
7253 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
7254 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
7255 or a uniform vector of doubles.
7257 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7258 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
7259 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
7260 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
7261 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
7262 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7264 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
7265 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
7266 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
7267 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
7269 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
7270 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
7271 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
7272 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7274 *** New function: random:exp STATE
7275 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
7276 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
7278 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
7280 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
7283 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
7284 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
7287 ** New function: make-guardian
7288 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
7289 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
7290 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
7291 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
7292 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
7294 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
7295 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
7296 one object if at all.
7298 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
7299 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
7300 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
7302 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
7303 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
7304 read again in last-in first-out order.
7306 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
7307 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
7309 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
7311 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
7312 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
7313 file position is used.
7315 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
7316 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
7317 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
7319 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
7320 redefined using seek.
7322 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
7323 size is not supplied.
7325 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
7326 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
7328 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
7329 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
7331 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
7333 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
7334 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
7335 and returns the contents as a single string.
7337 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
7338 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
7339 lists in serial order.
7341 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
7342 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
7343 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
7345 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
7346 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
7347 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
7348 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
7350 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
7351 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
7352 and #f if an error occured.
7354 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
7356 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
7357 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
7358 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
7359 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
7361 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
7363 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
7366 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
7368 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
7371 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7375 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
7376 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
7378 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
7379 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
7383 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7385 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
7387 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
7388 binds a variable named NAME to it.
7390 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
7392 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
7393 might change when we get the new module system.
7395 ** The smob interface
7397 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
7398 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
7400 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
7402 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
7406 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
7407 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
7408 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
7409 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
7410 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
7411 will be freed by the default free function.
7413 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7414 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
7415 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7416 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7418 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7419 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
7420 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7421 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7423 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
7425 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
7426 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
7430 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
7431 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7432 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7434 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
7435 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
7436 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7437 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7439 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
7440 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
7441 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
7443 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
7444 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
7445 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
7446 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
7448 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
7449 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
7450 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
7452 *** scm_newptob has been removed
7456 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
7458 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
7459 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
7460 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
7462 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
7463 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
7464 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
7466 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
7467 a string port's buffer.
7469 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
7470 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
7471 function pointers which together define the current random number
7472 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
7473 number library functions.
7475 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
7478 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
7479 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
7482 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
7483 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7485 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
7486 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
7488 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
7489 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
7492 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
7493 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
7494 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
7495 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
7497 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
7498 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
7499 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
7500 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
7501 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
7502 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
7503 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
7505 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
7506 by libguile and the application.
7508 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7509 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7510 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
7511 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
7513 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
7514 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
7516 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7517 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
7518 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
7520 ** Random number library functions
7521 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
7522 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
7523 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
7525 The default random state is stored in:
7527 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
7528 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
7529 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
7534 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
7536 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
7537 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
7538 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
7539 isn't a random state.
7541 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
7542 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
7544 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
7545 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
7546 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
7547 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
7549 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7550 Return 32 random bits.
7552 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7553 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
7555 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7556 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
7558 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7559 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
7561 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
7562 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7564 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
7565 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7566 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
7570 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
7572 * Changes to the distribution
7574 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
7575 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
7576 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
7579 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
7580 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
7581 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
7583 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
7584 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
7585 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
7586 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
7589 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
7590 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
7591 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
7593 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7595 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
7597 *** Function: batch-mode?
7599 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
7602 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
7604 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
7605 case has not been implemented.
7607 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
7608 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
7609 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
7612 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
7613 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
7615 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
7617 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7619 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
7621 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
7622 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
7625 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
7626 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
7627 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
7628 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
7631 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
7633 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
7634 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
7635 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
7636 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
7637 find those libraries.
7639 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
7640 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
7643 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
7645 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
7646 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
7647 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
7648 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
7650 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
7651 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
7652 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
7656 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
7658 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
7659 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
7660 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
7663 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
7664 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
7665 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
7666 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
7668 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
7669 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
7672 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
7673 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
7674 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
7675 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
7676 compiler where to find the libraries.
7678 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
7679 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7680 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7682 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7683 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7684 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7685 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7686 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7690 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7692 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7693 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7694 internationalization support.
7696 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7697 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7698 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7699 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7700 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7702 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7703 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7704 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7705 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7706 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7708 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7709 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7710 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7711 any GNU mirror site.
7713 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
7715 ** New function: add-history STRING
7716 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
7717 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
7718 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
7720 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
7722 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
7723 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
7724 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
7727 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
7728 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
7729 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
7731 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
7733 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
7736 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
7737 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
7740 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
7741 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
7742 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
7743 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
7744 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
7745 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
7747 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
7748 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
7749 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
7750 of the form mentioned above.
7752 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
7753 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
7754 returned in the special `rest' list.
7756 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
7757 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
7759 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
7761 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
7763 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
7765 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
7766 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
7767 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
7768 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
7769 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
7770 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
7771 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
7772 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
7775 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
7777 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
7779 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
7780 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
7783 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
7784 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
7785 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
7789 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
7790 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
7791 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
7792 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
7793 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
7794 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
7795 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
7796 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
7799 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
7801 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
7802 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
7803 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
7805 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
7807 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
7808 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
7810 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
7811 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
7812 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
7814 Why do we have this function?
7815 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
7816 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
7817 primitive, and display it differently, and
7818 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
7819 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
7822 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
7823 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
7826 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
7827 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
7828 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
7829 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
7831 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
7832 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
7835 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
7836 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
7838 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
7840 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
7841 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
7842 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
7843 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
7844 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
7845 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
7846 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
7849 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
7851 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
7852 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
7854 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
7855 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
7856 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
7857 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
7858 properly continue the print chain.
7860 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
7861 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
7862 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
7863 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
7864 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
7865 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
7866 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
7867 print-state, it is simply ignored.
7869 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
7870 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
7871 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
7872 safest to not check for these pairs.
7874 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
7875 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
7876 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
7877 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
7879 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
7881 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
7882 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
7884 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
7886 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
7888 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
7889 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
7890 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
7892 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
7893 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
7894 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
7896 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
7897 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
7898 the following functions and macros:
7900 Function: make-fluid
7902 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
7903 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
7904 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
7905 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
7906 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
7908 Function: fluid? OBJ
7910 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
7912 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
7913 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
7915 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
7916 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
7918 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
7920 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
7921 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
7922 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
7923 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
7924 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
7925 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
7926 modified by `with-fluids*'.
7928 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
7930 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
7931 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
7932 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
7933 should evaluate to a fluid.
7935 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
7937 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
7938 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
7939 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
7940 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
7941 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
7943 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
7946 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
7948 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
7950 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
7952 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
7955 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
7956 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
7957 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
7958 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
7959 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
7962 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
7963 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
7964 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
7966 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
7967 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
7968 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
7970 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
7971 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
7972 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7973 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
7975 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
7976 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
7977 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
7978 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
7980 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
7981 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
7982 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
7983 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
7985 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
7986 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
7987 their revealed counts set to zero.
7989 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7990 Returns an integer file descriptor.
7992 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7993 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
7995 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7996 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
7998 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
7999 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
8000 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
8002 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
8003 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
8004 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
8006 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
8007 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
8008 default environment inherited by child processes.
8010 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
8011 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
8012 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
8014 The return value is unspecified.
8016 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
8017 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
8018 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
8019 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
8020 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
8022 The return value is unspecified.
8024 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
8025 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
8033 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
8034 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
8037 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
8040 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
8041 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
8042 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
8044 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
8045 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
8046 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
8047 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
8050 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
8051 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
8053 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
8054 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
8055 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
8056 the `environ' procedure.
8058 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
8059 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
8062 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
8063 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
8065 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
8066 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
8067 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
8068 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
8070 *** procedure: times
8071 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
8072 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
8073 return a selected component:
8076 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
8080 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
8083 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
8087 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
8088 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
8092 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
8093 terminated child processes.
8095 ** Removed: list-length
8096 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
8097 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
8099 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
8101 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
8103 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
8105 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
8106 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
8107 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
8108 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
8110 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
8111 extra complexity it introduces.
8113 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
8114 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
8116 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
8117 variable to any non-empty value.
8119 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
8120 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
8122 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8124 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
8125 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
8127 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
8129 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
8130 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
8132 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
8134 ** vector handling routines
8136 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
8137 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
8138 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
8139 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
8140 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
8142 ** pair and list routines
8144 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
8147 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
8149 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
8152 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8154 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
8156 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
8157 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
8158 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
8159 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
8160 site-specific initialization code.
8162 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
8163 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
8164 initialization processes.
8166 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
8167 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
8168 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
8169 initialized properly.
8171 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
8172 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
8173 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
8175 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
8176 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
8177 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
8178 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
8179 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
8181 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
8183 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
8184 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
8185 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
8186 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
8187 objects the smob refers to get marked.
8189 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
8190 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
8191 which look like this:
8194 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
8196 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
8197 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
8200 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
8201 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
8204 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
8206 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
8207 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
8208 you will need to change your functions slightly.
8210 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
8211 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
8212 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
8213 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
8214 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
8216 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
8217 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
8219 int (*free) (SCM port);
8220 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
8221 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
8222 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
8226 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
8227 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
8228 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
8230 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
8233 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
8234 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
8235 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
8237 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
8238 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
8239 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
8242 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
8246 struct timeval *timeout);
8248 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
8249 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
8250 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
8251 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
8252 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
8253 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
8255 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
8256 scm_catch_body_t body,
8258 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8261 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
8262 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
8263 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
8264 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
8265 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
8266 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
8268 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
8270 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8273 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
8274 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
8275 spawning threads from application C code.
8277 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
8278 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
8279 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
8280 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
8281 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
8282 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
8284 ** Removed functions:
8286 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
8287 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
8289 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
8291 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
8292 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
8294 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
8296 ** mbstrings are now removed
8298 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
8299 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
8301 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
8303 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
8304 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
8305 their new names and arguments:
8307 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
8308 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
8309 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
8310 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
8313 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
8315 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
8317 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
8320 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
8322 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
8323 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
8324 pass a #f arg to catch.
8326 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
8328 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
8329 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
8332 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
8333 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
8334 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
8335 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
8336 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
8337 reclaim its storage.
8339 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
8340 worrying that some other function you call will call
8341 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
8342 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
8343 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
8344 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
8347 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
8349 * Changes to the distribution
8351 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
8352 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
8355 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
8356 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
8358 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8359 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8361 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
8363 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
8364 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
8365 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
8367 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8369 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
8370 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
8371 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
8372 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
8373 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
8374 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
8376 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
8377 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
8378 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
8381 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
8382 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
8383 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
8384 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
8386 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
8387 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
8388 libraries to your link command:
8390 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
8391 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
8392 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8393 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8395 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
8396 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
8397 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
8399 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
8401 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
8402 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
8405 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
8407 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
8408 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
8409 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
8410 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
8411 searched is system dependent.
8413 (dynamic-object? VAL)
8415 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
8417 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
8419 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
8420 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
8422 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8424 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
8425 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
8426 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
8427 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
8428 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
8431 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8433 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
8434 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
8435 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
8436 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
8437 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
8439 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
8441 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
8442 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
8444 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
8446 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
8447 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
8448 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
8451 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
8453 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
8454 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
8455 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
8456 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
8458 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
8459 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
8461 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
8463 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
8464 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
8466 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
8468 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
8469 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
8477 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
8479 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
8480 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
8481 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
8482 a more informative way.
8484 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
8485 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
8486 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
8487 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
8488 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
8489 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
8491 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
8492 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
8495 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
8496 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
8497 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
8500 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
8501 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
8502 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
8503 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
8504 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
8505 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
8507 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
8508 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
8509 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
8510 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
8513 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
8514 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
8515 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
8516 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
8517 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
8518 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
8520 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
8521 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
8522 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
8523 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
8524 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
8526 *** regexp functions
8528 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
8529 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
8530 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
8532 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
8533 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
8534 with SCSH regular expressions.
8536 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
8537 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
8538 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
8539 position of STR at which to begin matching.
8541 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
8542 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
8543 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
8544 `string-match' returns `#f'.
8546 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
8547 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
8548 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
8549 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
8550 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
8551 match strings against the compiled regexp.
8553 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
8554 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
8555 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
8556 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
8557 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
8559 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8561 **** Constant: regexp/extended
8562 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
8563 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
8564 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
8566 **** Constant: regexp/icase
8567 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
8568 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
8570 **** Constant: regexp/newline
8571 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
8573 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
8576 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
8577 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8578 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
8580 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
8581 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8582 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
8584 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
8585 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
8586 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
8587 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
8588 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
8591 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8593 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
8594 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
8595 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
8596 used when different portions of a string are passed to
8597 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
8598 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
8600 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
8601 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
8602 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
8604 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
8605 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
8608 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
8609 and replace them with the contents of another string.
8611 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
8612 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
8613 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
8614 may be one of the following arguments:
8616 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
8618 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
8620 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
8621 the regexp match is written.
8623 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
8624 following the regexp match is written.
8626 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
8627 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
8630 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
8631 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
8632 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
8633 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
8634 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
8635 which should be matched against this regular expression.
8637 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
8640 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
8641 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
8642 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
8643 written out to PORT.
8645 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
8646 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
8647 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
8648 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
8649 will return after processing a single match.
8651 *** Match Structures
8653 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
8654 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
8655 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
8656 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
8657 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
8658 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
8661 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
8662 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
8663 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
8664 information about the original target string that was matched against a
8665 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
8667 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
8668 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
8669 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
8671 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
8672 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
8673 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
8674 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
8675 number N did not match, return `#f'.
8677 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
8678 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8680 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8681 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8683 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8684 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8686 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8687 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8689 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8690 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8691 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8692 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8694 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8695 Return the original TARGET string.
8697 *** Backslash Escapes
8699 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8700 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8701 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8702 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8703 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8704 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8706 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8707 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8708 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8709 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8710 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8711 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8712 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
8713 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
8715 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
8716 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
8717 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
8718 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
8719 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
8720 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
8721 each match a single backslash in the target string.
8723 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
8724 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
8725 return the resulting string.
8727 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
8728 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
8729 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
8730 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
8731 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
8732 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
8733 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
8734 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
8735 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
8736 translated to the single character `*'.
8738 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
8739 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
8740 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
8741 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
8742 consecutive backslashes:
8744 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
8746 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
8747 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
8748 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
8750 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
8751 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
8752 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
8753 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
8754 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
8755 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
8757 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
8759 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
8760 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
8761 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
8762 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
8763 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
8764 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
8765 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
8766 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
8767 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
8768 cumbersome escape syntax.
8770 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8772 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8774 * Changes to system call interfaces:
8776 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
8779 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
8781 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
8783 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
8786 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
8787 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
8788 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
8789 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
8790 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
8792 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
8793 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
8794 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
8795 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
8796 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
8797 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
8798 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
8801 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
8802 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
8803 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
8806 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
8807 `force-output' on every port open for output.
8809 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
8810 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
8811 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
8812 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
8813 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
8814 installed, you can say:
8816 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
8819 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8821 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
8822 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
8823 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
8824 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
8825 new dynamic roots and threads.
8828 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
8830 * Changes to the distribution.
8832 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
8834 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
8835 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
8836 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
8837 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
8838 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
8839 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
8840 programming language. These are packaged together because the
8841 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
8843 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
8846 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
8847 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
8852 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
8854 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
8855 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
8857 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
8858 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
8859 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
8860 the (command-line) function.
8861 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
8862 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
8863 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
8865 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
8866 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
8867 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
8868 command line arguments
8869 -ds do -s script at this point
8870 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
8871 -h, --help display this help and exit
8872 -v, --version display version information and exit
8873 \ read arguments from following script lines
8875 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
8876 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
8878 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8881 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8885 (main (command-line))
8887 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
8889 ekko a speckled gecko
8891 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
8892 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
8893 following list of command-line arguments:
8895 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
8897 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
8898 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
8899 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
8900 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
8901 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8903 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
8905 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
8907 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
8908 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
8911 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
8912 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
8913 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
8914 SCSH) for circumventing them.
8916 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
8917 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
8918 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
8919 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
8921 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
8925 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
8929 If the user invokes this script as follows:
8931 ekko a speckled gecko
8933 Unix expands this into
8935 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
8937 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
8938 read from the second line of the script, producing:
8940 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8942 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
8943 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
8945 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
8946 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
8947 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
8948 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
8949 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
8950 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
8951 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
8952 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
8953 it only terminates the argument list.)
8954 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
8955 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
8956 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
8957 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
8958 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
8959 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
8960 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
8961 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
8963 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8965 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
8966 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
8967 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
8968 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
8969 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
8971 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
8972 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
8973 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
8975 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
8977 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
8978 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
8979 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
8980 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
8983 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
8984 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8985 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8987 * Changes to Scheme functions
8989 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
8990 and disabled by default.
8992 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
8993 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
8994 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
8995 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
8997 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
8999 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
9001 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
9002 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
9004 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
9005 (read-set! keywords #f)
9007 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
9008 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
9009 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
9012 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
9013 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
9014 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
9017 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
9018 support for Scheme functions.
9020 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9021 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
9022 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
9023 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
9026 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9027 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
9028 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
9031 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
9032 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
9033 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
9036 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
9037 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
9038 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
9039 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
9040 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
9041 display the result as a prompt.
9042 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
9044 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
9045 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
9046 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
9049 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
9050 procedure of zero arguments.
9052 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
9053 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
9054 argument is bound in the current module.
9056 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
9057 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
9058 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
9059 public bindings into the current module.
9061 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
9062 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
9064 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
9065 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
9067 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
9068 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
9070 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
9071 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
9073 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
9074 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
9076 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
9077 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
9078 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
9079 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
9080 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
9082 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
9083 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
9084 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
9085 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
9087 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
9090 ** Changes to I/O functions
9092 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
9093 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
9094 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
9096 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
9097 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
9098 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
9100 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
9101 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
9103 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
9104 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
9105 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
9106 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
9108 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
9110 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
9111 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
9113 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
9114 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
9115 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
9116 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
9117 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
9120 'trim omit delimiter from result
9121 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
9122 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
9123 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
9125 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
9127 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
9128 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
9130 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
9131 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
9132 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
9133 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
9134 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
9136 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
9137 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
9138 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
9140 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
9141 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
9142 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
9143 above, and defaults to 'peek.
9145 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
9146 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9148 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
9149 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
9151 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
9153 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
9154 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
9155 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
9156 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
9157 a delimiting character.
9158 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
9160 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
9161 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
9162 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
9163 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
9164 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
9165 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
9167 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
9168 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9170 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
9171 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
9172 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
9174 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
9175 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
9176 the array to read and write.
9178 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
9179 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
9182 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
9184 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
9187 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
9188 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
9189 Values for COMMAND are:
9191 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
9192 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
9193 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
9194 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
9195 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
9196 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
9197 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
9198 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
9200 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
9202 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
9203 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
9204 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
9205 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
9206 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
9207 corresponding return set will be the same.
9209 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
9212 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
9213 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
9214 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
9215 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
9216 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
9217 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
9218 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
9219 special file being created.
9221 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
9222 clashing with various SCSH forks.
9224 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
9225 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
9226 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
9227 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
9228 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
9229 and originating address.
9231 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
9232 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
9233 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
9235 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
9238 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
9239 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
9242 (status:exit-val STATUS)
9243 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
9244 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
9245 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
9246 this function returns #f.
9248 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
9249 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
9250 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
9253 (status:term-sig STATUS)
9254 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
9255 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
9258 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
9259 a valid STATUS value.
9261 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
9263 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
9264 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
9266 Component Accessor Setter
9267 ========================= ============ ============
9268 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
9269 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
9270 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
9271 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
9272 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
9273 year tm:year set-tm:year
9274 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
9275 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
9276 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
9277 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
9278 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
9280 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
9281 describing the host system:
9284 ============================================== ================
9285 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
9286 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
9287 release level of the operating system utsname:release
9288 version level of the operating system utsname:version
9289 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
9291 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
9292 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
9293 system's user database:
9296 ====================== =================
9297 user name passwd:name
9298 user password passwd:passwd
9301 real name passwd:gecos
9302 home directory passwd:dir
9303 shell program passwd:shell
9305 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
9306 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
9307 system's group database:
9310 ======================= ============
9311 group name group:name
9312 group password group:passwd
9314 group members group:mem
9316 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
9317 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
9321 ========================= ===============
9322 official name of host hostent:name
9323 alias list hostent:aliases
9324 host address type hostent:addrtype
9325 length of address hostent:length
9326 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
9328 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
9329 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
9333 ========================= ===============
9334 official name of net netent:name
9335 alias list netent:aliases
9336 net number type netent:addrtype
9337 net number netent:net
9339 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
9340 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
9344 ========================= ===============
9345 official protocol name protoent:name
9346 alias list protoent:aliases
9347 protocol number protoent:proto
9349 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
9350 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
9354 ========================= ===============
9355 official service name servent:name
9356 alias list servent:aliases
9357 port number servent:port
9358 protocol to use servent:proto
9360 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
9361 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
9364 ======================================== ===============
9365 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
9366 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
9367 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
9368 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
9370 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
9371 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
9372 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
9374 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
9375 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
9377 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
9378 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
9380 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
9381 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
9383 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
9385 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
9387 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
9388 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
9389 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
9391 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
9392 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
9393 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
9394 return the remaining characters as a string.
9396 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
9397 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
9398 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
9400 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
9402 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9404 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
9407 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
9410 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
9411 and returns the array
9413 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
9414 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
9415 the user to interpret the data both ways.
9417 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9419 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
9420 symbol's value from C code:
9422 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
9423 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
9424 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
9425 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
9427 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
9428 without assigning them a value.
9430 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
9431 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
9432 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
9434 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
9435 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
9436 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
9438 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
9439 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
9441 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
9442 doesn't actually care about that.
9444 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
9445 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
9446 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
9448 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
9449 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
9450 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
9451 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
9452 which we have just created and initialized.
9454 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
9455 should one occur. We call it like this:
9456 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
9458 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
9459 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
9460 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
9461 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
9462 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
9463 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
9466 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
9467 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
9468 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
9469 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
9470 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
9471 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
9472 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
9475 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
9476 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
9477 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
9478 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
9479 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
9482 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
9483 scm_internal_catch, except:
9485 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
9486 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
9487 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
9488 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
9491 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
9492 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
9493 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
9495 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
9496 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
9497 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
9498 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
9501 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
9502 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
9503 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
9505 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
9506 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
9507 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
9508 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
9509 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
9511 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
9512 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
9513 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
9515 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
9516 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
9517 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
9519 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
9520 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
9522 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
9523 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
9524 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
9527 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
9528 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
9529 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
9530 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
9531 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
9532 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
9533 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
9536 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
9537 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
9539 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
9540 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
9541 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
9542 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
9543 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
9546 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
9547 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
9549 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
9550 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
9553 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
9554 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
9556 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9559 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
9560 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
9561 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
9562 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
9563 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
9564 given the following arguments:
9566 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9568 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
9570 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
9572 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9575 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
9576 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
9577 command-line arguments.
9579 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
9580 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
9581 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
9582 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
9583 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
9584 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
9587 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9590 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
9591 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
9593 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
9594 rearranged slightly. They are now:
9596 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9597 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9598 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
9599 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
9601 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9602 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9604 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9605 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
9606 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9607 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
9609 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9610 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9612 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
9613 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
9615 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
9617 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
9618 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
9619 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
9622 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
9623 returns a port instead of an FD object.
9625 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
9626 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
9631 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
9634 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
9636 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
9637 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
9638 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
9639 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
9641 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
9643 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
9645 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
9646 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
9647 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
9648 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
9649 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
9650 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
9651 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
9652 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
9653 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
9654 for more information.
9656 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
9657 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
9659 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
9660 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
9661 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
9662 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
9663 following two lines at the top of the file:
9665 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9668 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
9669 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
9670 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
9672 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
9674 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9676 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
9679 (display (car args))
9680 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9682 (loop (cdr args)))))
9685 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9686 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9687 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9688 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9689 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9690 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9694 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9697 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9700 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9702 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9703 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9704 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9705 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9706 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9709 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9710 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9711 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9712 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
9713 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
9716 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
9719 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
9720 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
9721 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
9724 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
9725 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
9726 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
9728 to see a backtrace, and
9729 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
9730 to see them by default.
9734 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
9736 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
9738 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
9739 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
9742 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
9743 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
9744 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
9745 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
9748 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
9749 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
9750 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
9751 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
9752 functions which inspired them.
9754 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
9755 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
9759 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
9761 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
9763 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
9764 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
9767 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
9768 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
9769 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
9771 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
9772 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
9773 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
9774 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
9775 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
9777 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
9779 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
9780 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
9781 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
9784 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
9787 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
9789 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
9790 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
9791 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
9792 above should serve their purposes.
9794 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
9795 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
9796 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
9797 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
9799 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
9802 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
9803 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
9804 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
9805 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
9807 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
9808 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
9809 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
9810 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
9812 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
9813 for the `read' function.
9816 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
9817 to that of `integer?'.
9819 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
9820 use the R4RS names for these functions.
9822 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
9823 it simply returns the object's property list.
9825 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
9826 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
9827 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
9828 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
9830 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
9832 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
9835 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
9837 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
9838 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
9840 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
9842 void (*main_func) (),
9845 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
9846 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
9847 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
9848 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
9849 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
9851 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
9852 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
9853 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
9854 know which arguments have been processed.
9856 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
9857 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
9858 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
9859 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
9860 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
9862 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
9863 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
9864 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
9865 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
9866 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
9867 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
9868 people from making that mistake.
9870 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
9871 convenient ways to override these when desired.
9873 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
9875 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
9879 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
9882 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
9883 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
9884 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
9885 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
9888 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
9889 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
9890 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
9891 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
9894 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
9895 have been added to the Guile library.
9897 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
9898 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
9899 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
9902 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
9903 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
9904 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
9906 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
9907 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
9908 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
9909 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
9910 argument from the list.
9913 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
9916 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
9917 null-terminated string, and returns it.
9919 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
9920 to a Scheme port object.
9922 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
9923 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
9928 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
9930 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
9931 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
9932 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
9933 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
9934 code as a special datatype.
9936 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
9937 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
9938 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
9939 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
9940 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
9943 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
9944 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
9945 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
9946 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
9947 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
9949 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
9952 Copyright information:
9954 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9956 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9957 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9958 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9959 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9961 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9962 of this document, or of portions of it,
9963 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9964 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9969 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"