1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** Guile now provide and uses an "effective" version number.
13 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
14 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
15 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
16 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
17 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
18 items like the versioned share directory name
19 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
21 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
22 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
23 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
24 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
25 with each micro release during a stable series.
27 ** There are two new thread implementation options: "null" and "coop-pthreads".
29 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
30 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
31 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
32 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
33 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
36 The "coop-pthread" (or shorter: "copt") thread implementation will use
37 portable POSIX threads but will restrict them so that only one thread
38 can execute 'in Guile' at any one time. This option will give you the
39 same basic behavior as the old "coop" option, but hopefully in a more
42 The default is now "coop-pthread", unless your platform doesn't have
43 pthreads, in which case "null" threads are used.
45 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
47 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
48 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
50 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
52 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
54 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
55 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
57 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
59 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
60 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
62 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
64 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
66 The module system now checks for duplicate imported bindings.
68 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
69 handlers. For example, to get back the old behavior (which was to use
70 the last imported binding of a certain name), write:
77 If you want the old behavior without changing your module headers, put
80 (default-module-duplicates-handler 'last)
82 in your .guile init file.
84 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
86 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
88 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
89 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
90 tried until a binding is selected.
92 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
94 check report an error for bindings with a common name
95 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
96 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
97 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
98 first select the first encountered binding (override)
99 last select the last encountered binding (override)
100 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
101 into an <extended-generic>
102 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
104 The default duplicates handler is:
106 (replace warn-override-core check)
108 ** New define-module option: :replace
110 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
113 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
114 for the core binding `format'.
116 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
118 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
119 a prefix to all imported bindings.
122 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
124 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
127 ** Merging generic functions
129 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
130 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
133 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
134 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
135 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
137 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
138 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
139 generic functions sharing a common name:
141 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
142 :use-module (oop goops)
145 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
146 :use-module (oop goops)
149 (define-module (my-module)
150 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
151 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
152 :duplicates merge-generics)
154 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
157 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
158 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
159 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
162 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
163 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
164 functions, extending its ancestors.
166 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
167 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
168 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
170 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
171 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
172 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
173 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
176 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
177 adding it to the ancestor.
179 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
180 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
182 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
184 ** New function: effective-version
186 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
187 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
188 to the distribution" above.
192 Futures is a way of providing an alternative evaluation policy, very
193 similar in principle to "promises". Like promises, futures allow the
194 main process to continue instantly, but while promises postpone
195 evaluation ("lazy" evaluation) until the value is requested, futures
196 immediately starts evaluation in a parallel thread.
198 Futures are good when you want to express that "I'll need the value of
199 this computation sometime soon" and want to allow processing to go on
200 in the background until that time arrives.
202 ** New syntax: future FORM
204 Begin evaluation of FORM in a parallel thread and return the future
205 immediately. (Akin to 'delay'.)
207 ** New procedure: future-ref FUTURE
209 Return the computed value of the future. Wait if the computation is
210 not finished. (Akin to 'force'.)
212 ** New syntax: parallel FORM ...
214 Compute the results of FORM ... in parallel (in a separate thread for
215 each form) and return them as multiple values.
217 ** New syntax: letpar ((VAR EXP) ...) BODYFORM ...
219 Like 'let' but evaluates the binding expressions EXP ... in parallel.
221 ** New functions: par-map, par-for-each PROC ARGLIST ...
223 Like 'map' and 'for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in a
224 separate thread for each (set of) argument(s). All applications are
225 guaranteed to be completed before the procedure returns.
227 ** New functions: n-par-map, n-par-for-each N PROC ARGLIST ...
229 Like 'par-map' and 'par-for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in N
230 threads. This is useful when PROC uses large amounts of resources
231 and/or the argument list(s) is/are long so that one thread per (set
232 of) argument(s) would consume too much system resources. On a
233 dual-CPU system, N = 4 would often be a good choice.
235 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
237 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
238 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
239 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
240 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
243 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
244 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
245 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
246 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
248 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
249 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
252 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
254 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
256 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
258 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
259 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
261 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
263 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
264 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
267 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
269 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
271 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
273 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
274 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
275 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
278 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
279 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
280 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
283 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
284 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
286 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
288 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
289 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
292 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
293 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
295 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
296 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
297 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
298 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
299 level for the current thread.
301 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
303 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
305 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
306 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
309 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
311 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
313 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
316 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
318 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
321 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
322 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
323 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
325 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
326 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
327 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
328 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
339 ERROR: Numerical overflow
341 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
344 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
346 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
347 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
348 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
359 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
361 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
362 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
363 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
365 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
368 ** pretty-print has more options.
370 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
371 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
372 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
374 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
376 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
377 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
378 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
380 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
382 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
383 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
385 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
387 Use `substring-move!' instead.
389 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
391 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
392 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
393 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
395 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
397 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
398 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
399 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
400 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
401 without the soft port blocking.
403 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
405 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
406 chapter in the reference manual.
408 ** Deprecated: undefine
410 There is no replacement for undefine.
412 * Changes to the C interface
414 ** New function: scm_effective_version
416 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
417 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
418 to the distribution" above.
420 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
422 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
423 arguments are now passed directly:
425 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
427 This is an incompatible change.
429 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
431 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
432 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
433 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
435 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
436 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
438 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
440 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
442 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
443 function in the init section.
445 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
447 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
449 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
451 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
452 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
453 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
455 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
457 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
458 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
459 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
460 stays roughly constant.
462 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
463 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
464 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
465 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
466 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
469 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
470 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
471 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
472 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
474 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
476 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
478 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
480 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
481 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
482 initializes a new cell (see below).
484 ** New functions for memory management
486 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
487 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
488 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
489 cause aborts in long running programs.
491 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
492 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
494 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
495 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
496 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
497 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
498 details and for upgrading instructions.
500 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
501 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
502 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
504 ** New function: scm_str2string
506 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
509 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
511 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
512 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
513 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
514 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
515 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
517 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
518 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
519 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
521 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
522 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
524 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
526 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
527 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
528 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
529 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
531 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
533 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
536 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
538 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
540 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
542 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
543 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
544 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
546 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
547 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
548 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
549 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
550 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
551 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
552 gc-protected location.
554 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
556 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
557 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
560 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
562 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
563 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
565 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
567 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
568 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
570 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
572 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
573 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
574 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
577 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
578 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
579 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
581 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
582 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
583 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
584 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
585 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
586 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
587 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
588 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
589 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
590 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
591 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
592 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
593 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
594 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
595 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
596 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
597 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
598 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
599 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
600 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
601 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
602 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
603 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
604 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
605 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
606 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
607 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
608 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
609 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
610 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
611 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
612 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
613 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
614 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
615 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
616 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
617 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
618 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
619 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
620 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
621 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
622 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
623 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
624 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
625 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
626 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
627 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
628 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
629 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
630 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
631 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
632 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
633 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
634 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
635 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
636 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
637 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
638 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
639 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
640 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
641 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
643 Changes since Guile 1.4:
645 * Changes to the distribution
647 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
649 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
651 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
652 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
653 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
654 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
655 indicate major changes in Guile.
657 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
658 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
659 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
660 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
662 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
663 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
664 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
665 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
666 micro version number.
668 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
670 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
672 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
673 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
675 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
677 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
678 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
679 See INSTALL and README for more information.
681 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
683 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
684 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
685 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
688 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
690 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
693 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
695 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
696 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
698 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
700 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
701 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
704 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
706 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
709 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
712 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
714 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
716 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
717 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
718 open-output-string, get-output-string.
720 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
722 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
724 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
727 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
729 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
731 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
733 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
734 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
735 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
737 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
739 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
741 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
742 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
751 See README there for more info.
753 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
754 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
757 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
759 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
761 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
763 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
764 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
765 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
767 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
769 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
770 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
771 to be named `and-let*', of course.
773 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
774 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
776 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
781 (oop goops active-slot)
782 (oop goops composite-slot)
784 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
785 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
786 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
788 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
790 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
791 in the default environment:
793 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
794 %read-line write-line
796 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
797 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
799 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
801 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
804 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
805 can be used for similar functionality.
807 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
809 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
810 it defines two procedures:
812 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
814 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
815 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
816 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
819 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
821 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
822 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
823 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
826 ** New module (ice-9 match)
828 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
829 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
831 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
833 for complete documentation.
835 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
837 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
838 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
839 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
840 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
842 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
843 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
847 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
848 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
849 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
852 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
855 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
856 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
858 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
859 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
862 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
865 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
867 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
869 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
871 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
873 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
874 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
875 Scheme programs easier.
877 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
878 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
879 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
880 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
881 `cond-expand' when using this option.
884 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
885 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
887 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
890 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
892 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
893 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
894 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
897 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
899 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
901 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
902 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
903 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
904 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
905 was also ASCII, for example.
907 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
909 tag - no replacement.
910 fseek - replaced by seek.
911 list* - replaced by cons*.
913 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
917 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
918 (define m (make-safe-module))
919 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
920 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
921 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
923 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
925 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
926 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
927 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
929 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
931 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
932 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
933 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
934 from the issues related to the module system.
936 *** New function: load-extension
938 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
940 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
942 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
943 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
944 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
946 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
948 This function registers a initialization function for use by
949 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
950 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
951 support dynamic linking).
953 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
955 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
956 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
957 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
958 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
961 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
962 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
963 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
964 library and initialize it explicitely.
966 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
967 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
969 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
971 (define-module (foo bar))
973 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
975 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
977 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
978 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
980 (scheme-report-environment 5)
982 (interaction-environment)
988 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
990 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
991 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
992 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
993 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
995 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
996 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
997 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
998 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
999 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1000 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1001 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1002 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1003 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1004 one eval to the next.
1006 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1007 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1008 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1009 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1010 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1012 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1013 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1014 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1015 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1016 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1017 used in a lexical environment.
1019 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1020 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1021 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1022 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1023 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1024 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1026 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1028 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1029 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1030 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1031 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1032 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1034 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1035 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1036 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1038 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1039 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1041 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1042 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1043 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1045 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1046 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1048 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1049 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1050 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1051 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1054 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1055 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1056 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1057 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1059 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1060 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1061 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1063 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1064 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1065 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1066 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1067 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1069 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1071 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1072 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1073 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1075 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1076 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1077 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1079 See manual for more info.
1081 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1083 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1084 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1085 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1087 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1089 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1090 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1091 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1093 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1094 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1095 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1096 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1098 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1100 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1101 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1103 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1104 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1105 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1106 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1107 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1110 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1111 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1112 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1113 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1114 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1115 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1117 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1118 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1119 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1120 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1121 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1123 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1124 objects are usually permanent.
1126 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1127 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1129 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1131 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1132 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1135 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1139 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1144 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1146 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1147 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1148 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1149 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1151 ** New function `make-object-property'
1153 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1154 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1158 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1159 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1163 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1164 source properties eventually.
1166 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1168 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1169 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1170 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1172 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1173 will be removed in the next release.
1175 ** New define-module option: pure
1177 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1182 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1185 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1187 Export names NAME1 ...
1189 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1190 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1194 (define-module (foo)
1196 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1199 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1204 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1206 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1208 ** New function: port? X
1210 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1211 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1213 ** New function: file-port?
1215 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1217 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1219 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1220 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1221 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1222 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1223 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1225 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1227 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1228 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1229 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1230 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1231 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1234 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1236 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1237 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1238 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1239 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1242 ** New function: crypt password salt
1244 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1247 ** New function: chroot path
1249 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1251 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1253 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1256 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1258 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1260 ** New function: getpass prompt
1262 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1265 ** New function: flock file operation
1267 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1269 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1271 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1274 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1276 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1277 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1278 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1279 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1280 of the temporary file.
1282 ** New function: open-input-string string
1284 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1285 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1286 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1288 ** New function: open-output-string
1290 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1291 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1293 ** New function: get-output-string
1295 Return the contents of an output string port.
1297 ** New function: identity
1299 Return the argument.
1301 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1302 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1304 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1306 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1307 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1308 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1311 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1312 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1314 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1316 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1317 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1318 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1321 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1322 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1323 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1327 Use `identity' instead.
1333 ** Deprecated: return-it
1337 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1339 Use `string-length' instead.
1341 ** Deprecated: flags
1343 Use `logior' instead.
1345 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1347 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1348 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1349 port-for-each is more flexible.
1351 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1352 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1353 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1355 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1357 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1359 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1361 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1363 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1365 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1366 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1368 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1369 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1371 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1372 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1374 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1376 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1377 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1379 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1380 Use module system operations for all variables.
1382 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1384 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1387 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1389 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1390 The following bugs have been fixed:
1392 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1393 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1396 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1397 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1398 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1400 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1401 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1403 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1404 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1407 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1408 The expansion used to be like so:
1410 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1412 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1414 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1416 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1417 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1419 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1421 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1422 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1423 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1427 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1428 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1430 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1435 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1436 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1438 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1439 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1440 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1442 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1445 * Changes to the C interface
1447 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1449 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1450 with "_t". What a concept.
1452 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1454 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1456 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1460 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1461 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1463 *** C Functions removed
1465 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1466 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1467 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1468 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1469 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1470 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1471 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1473 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1475 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1477 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1479 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1481 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1482 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1484 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1486 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1489 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1491 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1493 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1495 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1499 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1501 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1503 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1508 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1510 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1512 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1514 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1516 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1517 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1519 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1521 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1523 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1524 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1525 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1527 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1529 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1531 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1532 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1533 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1536 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1538 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1540 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1541 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1543 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1545 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1546 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1547 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1548 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1550 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1551 scm_primitive_property_ref
1552 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1553 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1555 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1556 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1558 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1560 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1561 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1562 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1563 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1565 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1567 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1568 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1569 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1570 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1571 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1572 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1573 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1575 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1576 scm_remember_upto_here
1578 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1580 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1582 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1583 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1585 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1587 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1589 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1591 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1593 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1595 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1596 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1597 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1598 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1599 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1600 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1602 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1604 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1606 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1607 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1608 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1610 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1612 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1613 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1614 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1616 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1618 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1619 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1622 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1625 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1626 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1629 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1631 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1633 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1635 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1637 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1639 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1641 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1642 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1643 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1644 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1645 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1646 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1647 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1648 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1649 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1650 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1651 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1652 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1653 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1654 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1655 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1657 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1658 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1659 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1660 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1661 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1662 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1663 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1664 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1665 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1666 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1667 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1668 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1669 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1670 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1671 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1672 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1673 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1674 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1675 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1676 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1677 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1678 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1679 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1680 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1681 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1682 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1683 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1684 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1685 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1687 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1689 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1691 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1692 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1694 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1696 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1698 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1700 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1702 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1704 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1706 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1708 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1710 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1713 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1714 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1716 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1718 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1720 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1722 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1724 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1726 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1728 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1730 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1733 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1735 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1737 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1739 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1740 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1742 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1743 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1745 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1747 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1748 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1749 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1751 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1753 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1755 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1756 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1758 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1759 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1760 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1761 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1763 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1764 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1765 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1767 Use the new ones from above instead.
1769 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1771 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1772 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1773 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1775 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1776 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1778 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1779 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1782 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1783 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1785 Use the new functions instead.
1787 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1790 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1792 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1794 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1797 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1799 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1802 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1804 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1807 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1808 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1809 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1811 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1813 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1814 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1816 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1817 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1818 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1819 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1822 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1824 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1825 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1826 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1827 inexact for an exact.
1829 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1830 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1831 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1834 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1835 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1836 accept an inexact argument.
1838 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1839 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1841 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1844 ** New number validation macros:
1845 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1849 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1851 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1852 scm_unprotect_object.
1854 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1856 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1858 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1861 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1863 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1867 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1869 * Changes to the distribution
1871 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1873 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1874 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1875 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1876 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1877 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1878 obtain these programs.
1879 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1880 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1882 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1883 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1884 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1885 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1886 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1888 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1889 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1890 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1891 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1895 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1898 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1899 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1900 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1901 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1903 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1905 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1907 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1908 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1910 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1911 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1913 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1914 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1916 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1917 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1918 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1919 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1921 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1923 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1927 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1928 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1930 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1932 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1933 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1935 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1936 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1937 number of objects of that kind.
1939 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1941 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1942 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1943 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1944 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1945 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1947 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1949 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1951 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1953 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1956 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1958 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1960 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1962 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1964 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1966 ** New command line option --debug
1968 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1970 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1972 ** New help facility
1974 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1975 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1976 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1977 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1978 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1979 (help) gives this text
1981 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1982 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1984 Examples: (help help)
1986 (help "output-string")
1988 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1990 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1992 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1993 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1996 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1997 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1998 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2001 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2002 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2003 use absolute filenames when possible.
2005 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2006 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2007 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2010 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2012 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2013 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2014 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2015 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2017 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2019 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2021 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2022 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2023 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2025 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2026 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2027 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2029 (read-enable 'positions)
2030 (debug-enable 'debug)
2032 ** Backtraces in scripts
2034 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2038 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2040 at the top of the script.
2042 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2043 The second enables backtraces.)
2045 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2047 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2048 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2049 substantially faster than before.
2051 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2052 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2054 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2055 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2057 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2059 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2060 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2061 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2063 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2064 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2065 when this hook is run in the future.
2067 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2068 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2070 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2072 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2073 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2076 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2077 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2078 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2080 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2081 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2083 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2084 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2086 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2087 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2088 in order not to need further allocation.)
2090 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2093 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2094 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2095 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2096 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2098 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2100 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2103 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2105 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2108 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2109 GC in percent of total heap size
2112 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2113 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2115 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2117 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2118 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2120 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2122 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2123 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2125 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2127 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2128 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2132 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2133 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2135 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2137 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2139 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2141 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2143 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2145 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2146 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2148 (simple-format port message . args)
2149 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2150 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2151 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2152 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2153 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2154 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2155 Does not add a trailing newline."
2157 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2159 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2160 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2162 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2163 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2165 ** Deprecated: list*
2167 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2169 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2171 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2172 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2174 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2175 is returned as result.
2177 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2179 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2181 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2183 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2184 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2187 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2189 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2191 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2192 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2194 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2196 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2198 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2200 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2202 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2204 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2206 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2208 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2209 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2210 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2212 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2215 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2217 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2218 the readability of argument checking.
2220 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2222 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2224 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2226 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2227 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2228 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2229 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2230 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2231 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2232 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2234 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2236 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2238 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2239 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2241 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2243 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2244 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2247 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2249 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2250 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2251 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2253 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2254 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2255 implementation with gmp in the future.
2257 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2258 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2259 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2261 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2262 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2263 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2264 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2265 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2266 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2267 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2269 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2270 scm_end_input (object);
2271 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2272 ptob->flush (object);
2274 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2275 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2278 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2280 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2282 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2283 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2284 removed in a future version.
2286 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2288 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2289 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2290 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2291 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2293 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2294 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2296 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2299 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2301 in your configure.in.
2303 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2308 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2314 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2316 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2320 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2321 (define make-message string-append)
2323 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2325 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2329 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2334 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2338 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2340 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2341 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2343 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2345 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2346 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2347 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2348 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2349 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2350 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2352 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2353 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2354 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2356 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2357 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2358 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2361 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2362 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2363 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2364 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2365 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2367 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2368 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2369 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2370 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2371 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2372 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2373 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2375 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2377 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2378 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2379 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2381 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2382 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2383 KEY in the calling thread.
2385 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2386 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2387 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2388 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2389 associated with the key.
2391 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2393 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2394 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2396 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2398 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2399 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2400 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2402 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2404 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2405 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2407 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2409 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2411 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2412 returned is undefined.
2414 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2415 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2416 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2418 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2419 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2420 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2422 ** New C level GC hooks
2424 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2426 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2429 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2430 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2431 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2433 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2434 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2435 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2437 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2438 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2441 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2443 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2444 allocation parameters
2446 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2447 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2448 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2452 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2453 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2454 scm_default_max_segment_size
2456 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2458 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2459 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2461 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2463 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2464 object and count on the object being protected until
2465 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2467 The functions also have better time complexity.
2469 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2470 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2471 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2472 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2473 are no longer needed.
2475 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2477 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2478 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2479 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2480 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2482 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2484 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2486 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2488 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2489 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2490 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2491 until this issue has been settled.
2493 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2495 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2497 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2500 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2502 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2504 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2505 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2506 descriptors were checked.
2508 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2509 atomically written to a pipe.
2511 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2512 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2513 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2514 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2515 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2516 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2517 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2520 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2521 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2522 is changed without calling tzset.
2524 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2526 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2527 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2528 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2530 (define write-network-long
2531 (lambda (value port)
2532 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2533 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2534 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2536 (define read-network-long
2538 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2539 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2540 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2542 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2543 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2545 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2546 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2547 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2548 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2550 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2551 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2552 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2553 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2557 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2559 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2563 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2564 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2565 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2571 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2572 for a description of available commands.
2574 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2575 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2576 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2578 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2580 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2581 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2583 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2585 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2587 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2588 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2589 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2590 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2591 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2592 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2595 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2597 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2598 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2599 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2600 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2602 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2603 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2605 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2607 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2609 ** Readline support has changed again.
2611 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2612 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2613 to activate readline is now
2615 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2618 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2620 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2621 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2622 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2625 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2626 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2627 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2630 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2631 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2632 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2633 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2634 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2635 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2637 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2638 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2640 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2642 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2643 object it receives is the same string passed to
2644 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2645 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2646 string, not the suffix.
2648 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2649 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2650 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2652 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2654 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2655 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2656 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2657 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2660 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2662 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2664 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2665 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2666 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2667 appear from left to right.
2669 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2672 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2674 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2675 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2677 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2681 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2683 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2685 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2687 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2688 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2689 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2691 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2693 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2695 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2697 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2700 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2702 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2703 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2704 mentioning it here anyway.
2706 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2708 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2709 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2710 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2711 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2714 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2716 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2718 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2720 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2721 otherwise return #f.
2723 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2725 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2726 returned by `opendir'.
2728 ** New function: using-readline?
2730 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2732 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2734 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2735 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2737 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2739 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2741 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2742 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2743 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2745 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2747 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2748 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2750 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2752 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2753 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2754 documentation slots are not yet used.
2756 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2758 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2759 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2760 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2765 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2766 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2767 (string-append x y))
2769 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2770 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2772 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2773 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2774 be made in a clean way.]
2776 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2778 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2780 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2782 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2783 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2785 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2787 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2789 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2791 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2793 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2794 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2795 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2796 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2799 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2801 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2803 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2805 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2807 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2808 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2810 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2812 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2814 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2816 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2818 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2819 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2820 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2821 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2822 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2823 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2825 This should not make any difference for most users.
2827 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2829 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2830 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2832 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2834 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2835 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2836 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2837 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2838 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2840 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2842 It is now replaced by:
2844 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2846 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2847 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2849 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2851 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2852 This might change when we get the new module system.
2854 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2858 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2860 * Changes to mailing lists
2862 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2864 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2867 * Changes to the distribution
2869 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2871 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2872 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2873 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2874 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2875 you explicitly specify it.
2877 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2878 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2879 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2880 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2881 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2884 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2885 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2886 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2887 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2889 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2890 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2891 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2894 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2896 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2899 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2901 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2903 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2904 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2905 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2906 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2908 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2909 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2912 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2914 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2915 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2916 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2917 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2918 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2919 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2920 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2921 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2933 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2934 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2935 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2936 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2937 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2942 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2943 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2951 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2956 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2957 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2960 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2961 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2962 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2963 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2965 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2967 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2969 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2970 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2972 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2974 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2976 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2977 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2979 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2982 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2984 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2986 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2988 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2990 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2992 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2994 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2995 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2996 when the hook was created.
2998 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2999 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3000 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3001 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3002 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3003 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3004 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3005 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3006 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3008 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3009 the dlopen family of functions.
3011 ** New function `provided?'
3013 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3014 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3015 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3016 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3018 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3020 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3021 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3022 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3023 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3026 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3027 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3028 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3029 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3031 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3032 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3033 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3036 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3037 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3038 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3039 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3040 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3041 but with the flag set.
3043 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3045 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3046 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3048 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3049 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3050 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3051 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3052 available Scheme format implementations.
3054 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3055 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3056 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3057 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3058 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3059 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3060 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3061 output is to the current error port if available by the
3062 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3065 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3066 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3067 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3068 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3069 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3070 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3071 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3072 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3074 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3075 be executed at a time.
3078 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3080 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3081 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3082 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3084 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3085 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3086 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3087 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3088 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3089 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3090 general form of a directive is:
3092 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3094 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3096 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3098 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3099 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3100 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3103 Any (print as `display' does).
3107 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3111 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3115 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3121 print number sign always.
3124 print comma separated.
3126 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3132 print number sign always.
3135 print comma separated.
3137 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3143 print number sign always.
3146 print comma separated.
3148 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3154 print number sign always.
3157 print comma separated.
3159 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3164 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3168 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3171 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3174 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3177 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3182 prints `y' and `ies'.
3185 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3188 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3193 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3197 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3200 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3201 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3203 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3206 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3207 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3209 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3212 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3214 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3216 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3219 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3221 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3223 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3226 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3229 The sign appears before the padding.
3237 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3239 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3244 print N page separators.
3254 newline is ignored, white space left.
3257 newline is left, white space ignored.
3262 relative tabulation.
3268 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3270 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3273 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3275 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3278 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3281 converts by `string-upcase'.
3284 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3286 jumps N arguments forward.
3289 jumps 1 argument backward.
3292 jumps N arguments backward.
3295 jumps to the 0th argument.
3298 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3300 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3301 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3303 take argument from N.
3306 true test conditional.
3309 if-else-then conditional.
3315 default clause follows.
3318 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3320 at most N iterations.
3323 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3326 args from the rest of arguments.
3329 args from the rest args (lists).
3340 aborts if N <= M <= K
3342 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3345 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3348 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3354 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3356 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3358 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3359 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3360 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3361 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3362 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3363 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3367 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3371 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3377 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3380 Print a `#\space' character
3382 print N `#\space' characters.
3385 Print a `#\tab' character
3387 print N `#\tab' characters.
3390 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3391 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3392 must be a positive decimal number.
3395 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3396 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3397 be processed by `read'.
3400 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3401 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3402 be processed by `read'.
3405 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3408 prints format version.
3411 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3412 and format it accordingly.
3414 *** Configuration Variables
3416 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3417 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3418 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3419 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3422 format:symbol-case-conv
3423 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3424 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3425 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3426 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3427 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3429 format:iobj-case-conv
3430 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3431 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3434 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3437 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3443 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3444 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3445 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3446 `format' padding style.
3449 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3450 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3451 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3452 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3456 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3457 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3458 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3461 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3462 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3463 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3464 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3465 parameters or modifiers)).
3468 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3470 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3472 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3473 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3475 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3476 string-downcase! functions.
3478 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3479 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3481 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3484 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3487 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3488 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3490 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3492 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3493 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3495 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3496 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3497 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3498 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3499 would if STRING were input.
3501 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3503 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3504 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3505 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3506 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3509 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3511 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3512 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3515 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3517 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3518 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3520 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3521 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3523 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3524 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3525 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3526 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3528 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3529 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3531 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3532 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3533 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3535 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3536 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3538 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3539 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3540 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3541 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3542 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3544 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3545 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3546 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3547 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3548 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3549 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3551 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3552 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3553 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3556 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3557 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3558 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3559 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3560 the following grammar:
3561 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3562 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3563 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3564 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3565 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3566 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3567 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3568 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3569 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3570 last option in its combination)
3572 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3573 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3574 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3575 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3577 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3578 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3579 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3581 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3582 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3583 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3585 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3586 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3587 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3588 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3589 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3590 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3591 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3592 ordinary argument strings.
3594 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3595 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3596 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3597 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3599 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3600 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3602 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3603 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3604 - a required option is omitted
3605 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3606 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3607 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3608 - an option predicate fails
3613 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3616 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3617 (verbose (required? #f)
3620 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3621 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3622 (predicate ,string?))))
3624 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3625 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3627 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3628 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3629 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3630 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3633 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3635 It will be removed in a few releases.
3637 ** New syntax: lambda*
3638 ** New syntax: define*
3639 ** New syntax: define*-public
3640 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3641 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3642 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3644 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3645 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3646 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3647 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3648 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3650 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3651 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3652 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3654 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3656 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3657 and examples for `lambda*':
3660 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3662 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3663 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3664 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3665 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3666 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3667 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3668 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3669 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3671 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3673 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3674 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3675 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3676 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3678 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3679 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3680 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3681 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3682 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3683 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3684 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3685 and until the procedure is called.
3687 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3689 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3690 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3691 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3692 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3693 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3694 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3695 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3696 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3697 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3698 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3700 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3701 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3702 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3703 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3706 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3708 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3709 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3710 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3711 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3713 ** New syntax: and-let*
3714 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3716 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3717 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3718 (<variable> <expression>)
3721 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3722 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3723 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3726 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3727 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3728 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3729 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3730 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3731 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3732 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3734 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3735 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3736 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3737 shadow earlier bindings.
3739 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3741 ** New sorting functions
3743 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3744 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3745 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3746 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3748 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3749 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3752 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3753 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3754 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3756 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3757 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3758 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3759 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3761 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3762 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3763 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3764 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3765 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3768 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3769 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3770 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3771 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3772 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3773 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3775 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3776 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3777 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3779 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3780 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3781 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3784 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3785 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3786 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3788 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3789 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3791 ** New built-in random number support
3793 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3794 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3795 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3796 returned have a uniform distribution.
3798 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3799 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3800 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3801 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3802 effect of the `random' operation.
3804 *** New variable: *random-state*
3805 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3806 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3807 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3808 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3809 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3812 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3813 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3814 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3815 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3816 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3818 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3819 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3820 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3821 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3822 initialized using SEED.
3824 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3825 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3826 range between 0 and 1.
3828 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3829 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3830 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3831 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3832 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3833 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3834 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3836 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3837 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3838 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3839 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3840 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3841 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3843 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3844 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3845 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3846 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3848 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3849 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3850 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3851 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3853 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3854 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3855 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3857 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3859 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3862 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3863 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3866 ** New function: make-guardian
3867 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3868 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3869 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3870 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3871 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3873 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3874 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3875 one object if at all.
3877 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3878 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3879 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3881 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3882 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3883 read again in last-in first-out order.
3885 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3886 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3888 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3890 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3891 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3892 file position is used.
3894 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3895 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3896 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3898 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3899 redefined using seek.
3901 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3902 size is not supplied.
3904 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3905 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3907 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3908 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3910 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3912 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3913 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3914 and returns the contents as a single string.
3916 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3917 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3918 lists in serial order.
3920 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3921 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3922 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3924 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3925 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3926 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3927 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3929 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3930 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3931 and #f if an error occured.
3933 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3935 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3936 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3937 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3938 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3940 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3942 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3945 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3947 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3950 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3954 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3955 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3957 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3958 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3962 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3964 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3966 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3967 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3969 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3971 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3972 might change when we get the new module system.
3974 ** The smob interface
3976 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3977 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3979 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3981 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3985 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3986 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3987 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3988 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3989 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3990 will be freed by the default free function.
3992 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3993 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3994 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3995 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3997 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3998 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3999 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4000 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4002 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4004 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4005 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4009 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4010 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4011 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4013 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4014 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4015 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4016 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4018 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4019 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4020 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4022 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4023 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4024 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4025 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4027 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4028 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4029 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4031 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4035 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4037 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4038 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4039 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4041 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4042 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4043 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4045 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4046 a string port's buffer.
4048 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4049 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4050 function pointers which together define the current random number
4051 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4052 number library functions.
4054 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4057 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4058 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4061 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4062 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4064 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4065 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4067 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4068 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4071 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4072 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4073 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4074 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4076 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4077 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4078 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4079 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4080 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4081 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4082 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4084 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4085 by libguile and the application.
4087 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4088 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4089 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4090 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4092 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4093 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4095 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4096 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4097 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4099 ** Random number library functions
4100 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4101 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4102 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4104 The default random state is stored in:
4106 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4107 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4108 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4113 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4115 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4116 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4117 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4118 isn't a random state.
4120 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4121 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4123 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4124 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4125 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4126 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4128 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4129 Return 32 random bits.
4131 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4132 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4134 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4135 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4137 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4138 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4140 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4141 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4143 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4144 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4145 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4149 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4151 * Changes to the distribution
4153 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4154 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4155 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4158 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4159 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4160 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4162 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4163 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4164 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4165 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4168 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4169 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4170 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4172 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4174 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4176 *** Function: batch-mode?
4178 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4181 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4183 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4184 case has not been implemented.
4186 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4187 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4188 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4191 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4192 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4194 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4196 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4198 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4200 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4201 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4204 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4205 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4206 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4207 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4210 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4212 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4213 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4214 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4215 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4216 find those libraries.
4218 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4219 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4222 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4224 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4225 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4226 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4227 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4229 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4230 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4231 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4235 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4237 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4238 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4239 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4242 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4243 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4244 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4245 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4247 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4248 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4251 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4252 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4253 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4254 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4255 compiler where to find the libraries.
4257 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4258 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4259 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4261 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4262 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4263 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4264 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4265 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4269 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4271 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4272 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4273 internationalization support.
4275 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4276 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4277 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4278 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4279 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4281 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4282 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4283 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4284 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4285 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4287 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4288 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4289 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4290 any GNU mirror site.
4292 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4294 ** New function: add-history STRING
4295 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4296 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4297 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4299 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4301 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4302 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4303 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4306 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4307 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4308 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4310 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4312 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4315 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4316 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4319 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4320 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4321 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4322 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4323 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4324 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4326 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4327 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4328 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4329 of the form mentioned above.
4331 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4332 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4333 returned in the special `rest' list.
4335 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4336 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4338 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4340 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4342 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4344 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4345 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4346 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4347 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4348 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4349 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4350 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4351 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4354 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4356 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4358 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4359 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4362 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4363 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4364 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4368 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4369 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4370 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4371 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4372 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4373 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4374 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4375 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4378 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4380 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4381 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4382 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4384 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4386 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4387 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4389 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4390 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4391 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4393 Why do we have this function?
4394 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4395 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4396 primitive, and display it differently, and
4397 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4398 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4401 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4402 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4405 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4406 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4407 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4408 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4410 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4411 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4414 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4415 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4417 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4419 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4420 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4421 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4422 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4423 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4424 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4425 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4428 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4430 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4431 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4433 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4434 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4435 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4436 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4437 properly continue the print chain.
4439 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4440 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4441 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4442 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4443 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4444 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4445 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4446 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4448 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4449 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4450 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4451 safest to not check for these pairs.
4453 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4454 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4455 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4456 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4458 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4460 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4461 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4463 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4465 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4467 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4468 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4469 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4471 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4472 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4473 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4475 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4476 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4477 the following functions and macros:
4479 Function: make-fluid
4481 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4482 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4483 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4484 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4485 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4487 Function: fluid? OBJ
4489 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4491 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4492 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4494 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4495 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4497 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4499 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4500 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4501 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4502 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4503 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4504 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4505 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4507 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4509 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4510 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4511 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4512 should evaluate to a fluid.
4514 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4516 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4517 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4518 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4519 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4520 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4522 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4525 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4527 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4529 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4531 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4534 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4535 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4536 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4537 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4538 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4541 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4542 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4543 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4545 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4546 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4547 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4549 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4550 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4551 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4552 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4554 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4555 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4556 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4557 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4559 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4560 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4561 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4562 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4564 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4565 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4566 their revealed counts set to zero.
4568 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4569 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4571 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4572 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4574 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4575 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4577 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4578 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4579 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4581 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4582 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4583 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4585 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4586 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4587 default environment inherited by child processes.
4589 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4590 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4591 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4593 The return value is unspecified.
4595 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4596 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4597 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4598 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4599 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4601 The return value is unspecified.
4603 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4604 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4612 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4613 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4616 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4619 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4620 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4621 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4623 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4624 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4625 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4626 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4629 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4630 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4632 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4633 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4634 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4635 the `environ' procedure.
4637 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4638 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4641 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4642 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4644 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4645 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4646 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4647 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4649 *** procedure: times
4650 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4651 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4652 return a selected component:
4655 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4659 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4662 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4666 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4667 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4671 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4672 terminated child processes.
4674 ** Removed: list-length
4675 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4676 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4678 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4680 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4682 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4684 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4685 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4686 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4687 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4689 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4690 extra complexity it introduces.
4692 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4693 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4695 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4696 variable to any non-empty value.
4698 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4699 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4701 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4703 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4704 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4706 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4708 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4709 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4711 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4713 ** vector handling routines
4715 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4716 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4717 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4718 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4719 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4721 ** pair and list routines
4723 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4726 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4728 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4731 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4733 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4735 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4736 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4737 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4738 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4739 site-specific initialization code.
4741 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4742 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4743 initialization processes.
4745 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4746 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4747 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4748 initialized properly.
4750 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4751 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4752 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4754 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4755 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4756 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4757 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4758 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4760 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4762 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4763 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4764 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4765 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4766 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4768 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4769 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4770 which look like this:
4773 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4775 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4776 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4779 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4780 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4783 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4785 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4786 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4787 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4789 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4790 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4791 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4792 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4793 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4795 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4796 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4798 int (*free) (SCM port);
4799 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4800 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4801 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4805 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4806 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4807 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4809 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4812 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4813 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4814 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4816 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4817 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4818 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4821 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4825 struct timeval *timeout);
4827 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4828 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4829 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4830 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4831 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4832 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4834 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4835 scm_catch_body_t body,
4837 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4840 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4841 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4842 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4843 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4844 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4845 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4847 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4849 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4852 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4853 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4854 spawning threads from application C code.
4856 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4857 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4858 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4859 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4860 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4861 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4863 ** Removed functions:
4865 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4866 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4868 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4870 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4871 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4873 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4875 ** mbstrings are now removed
4877 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4878 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4880 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4882 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4883 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4884 their new names and arguments:
4886 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4887 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4888 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4889 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4892 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4894 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4896 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4899 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4901 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4902 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4903 pass a #f arg to catch.
4905 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4907 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4908 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4911 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4912 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4913 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4914 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4915 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4916 reclaim its storage.
4918 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4919 worrying that some other function you call will call
4920 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4921 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4922 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4923 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4926 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4928 * Changes to the distribution
4930 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4931 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4934 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4935 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4937 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4938 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4940 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4942 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4943 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4944 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4946 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4948 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4949 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4950 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4951 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4952 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4953 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4955 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4956 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4957 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4960 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4961 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4962 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4963 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4965 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4966 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4967 libraries to your link command:
4969 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4970 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4971 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4972 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4974 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4975 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4976 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4978 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4980 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4981 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4984 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4986 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4987 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4988 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4989 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4990 searched is system dependent.
4992 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4994 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4996 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4998 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4999 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5001 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5003 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5004 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5005 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5006 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5007 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5010 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5012 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5013 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5014 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5015 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5016 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5018 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5020 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5021 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5023 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5025 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5026 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5027 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5030 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5032 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5033 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5034 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5035 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5037 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5038 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5040 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5042 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5043 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5045 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5047 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5048 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5056 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5058 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5059 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5060 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5061 a more informative way.
5063 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5064 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5065 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5066 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5067 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5068 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5070 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5071 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5074 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5075 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5076 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5079 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5080 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5081 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5082 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5083 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5084 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5086 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5087 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5088 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5089 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5092 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5093 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5094 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5095 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5096 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5097 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5099 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5100 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5101 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5102 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5103 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5105 *** regexp functions
5107 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5108 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5109 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5111 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5112 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5113 with SCSH regular expressions.
5115 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5116 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5117 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5118 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5120 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5121 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5122 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5123 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5125 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5126 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5127 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5128 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5129 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5130 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5132 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5133 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5134 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5135 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5136 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5138 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5140 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5141 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5142 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5143 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5145 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5146 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5147 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5149 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5150 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5152 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5155 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5156 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5157 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5159 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5160 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5161 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5163 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5164 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5165 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5166 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5167 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5170 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5172 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5173 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5174 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5175 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5176 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5177 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5179 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5180 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5181 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5183 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5184 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5187 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5188 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5190 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5191 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5192 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5193 may be one of the following arguments:
5195 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5197 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5199 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5200 the regexp match is written.
5202 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5203 following the regexp match is written.
5205 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5206 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5209 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5210 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5211 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5212 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5213 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5214 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5216 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5219 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5220 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5221 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5222 written out to PORT.
5224 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5225 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5226 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5227 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5228 will return after processing a single match.
5230 *** Match Structures
5232 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5233 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5234 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5235 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5236 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5237 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5240 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5241 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5242 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5243 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5244 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5246 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5247 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5248 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5250 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5251 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5252 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5253 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5254 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5256 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5257 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5259 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5260 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5262 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5263 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5265 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5266 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5268 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5269 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5270 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5271 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5273 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5274 Return the original TARGET string.
5276 *** Backslash Escapes
5278 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5279 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5280 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5281 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5282 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5283 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5285 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5286 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5287 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5288 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5289 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5290 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5291 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5292 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5294 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5295 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5296 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5297 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5298 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5299 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5300 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5302 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5303 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5304 return the resulting string.
5306 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5307 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5308 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5309 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5310 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5311 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5312 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5313 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5314 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5315 translated to the single character `*'.
5317 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5318 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5319 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5320 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5321 consecutive backslashes:
5323 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5325 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5326 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5327 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5329 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5330 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5331 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5332 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5333 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5334 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5336 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5338 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5339 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5340 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5341 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5342 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5343 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5344 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5345 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5346 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5347 cumbersome escape syntax.
5349 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5351 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5353 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5355 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5358 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5360 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5362 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5365 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5366 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5367 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5368 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5369 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5371 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5372 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5373 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5374 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5375 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5376 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5377 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5380 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5381 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5382 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5385 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5386 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5388 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5389 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5390 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5391 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5392 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5393 installed, you can say:
5395 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5398 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5400 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5401 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5402 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5403 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5404 new dynamic roots and threads.
5407 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5409 * Changes to the distribution.
5411 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5413 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5414 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5415 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5416 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5417 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5418 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5419 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5420 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5422 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5425 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5426 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5431 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5433 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5434 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5436 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5437 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5438 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5439 the (command-line) function.
5440 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5441 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5442 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5444 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5445 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5446 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5447 command line arguments
5448 -ds do -s script at this point
5449 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5450 -h, --help display this help and exit
5451 -v, --version display version information and exit
5452 \ read arguments from following script lines
5454 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5455 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5457 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5460 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5464 (main (command-line))
5466 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5468 ekko a speckled gecko
5470 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5471 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5472 following list of command-line arguments:
5474 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5476 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5477 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5478 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5479 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5480 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5482 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5484 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5486 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5487 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5490 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5491 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5492 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5493 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5495 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5496 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5497 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5498 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5500 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5504 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5508 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5510 ekko a speckled gecko
5512 Unix expands this into
5514 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5516 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5517 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5519 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5521 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5522 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5524 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5525 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5526 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5527 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5528 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5529 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5530 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5531 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5532 it only terminates the argument list.)
5533 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5534 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5535 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5536 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5537 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5538 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5539 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5540 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5542 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5544 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5545 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5546 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5547 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5548 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5550 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5551 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5552 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5554 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5556 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5557 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5558 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5559 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5562 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5563 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5564 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5566 * Changes to Scheme functions
5568 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5569 and disabled by default.
5571 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5572 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5573 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5574 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5576 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5578 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5580 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5581 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5583 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5584 (read-set! keywords #f)
5586 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5587 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5588 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5591 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5592 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5593 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5596 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5597 support for Scheme functions.
5599 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5600 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5601 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5602 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5605 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5606 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5607 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5610 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5611 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5612 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5615 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5616 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5617 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5618 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5619 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5620 display the result as a prompt.
5621 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5623 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5624 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5625 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5628 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5629 procedure of zero arguments.
5631 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5632 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5633 argument is bound in the current module.
5635 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5636 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5637 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5638 public bindings into the current module.
5640 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5641 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5643 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5644 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5646 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5647 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5649 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5650 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5652 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5653 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5655 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5656 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5657 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5658 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5659 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5661 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5662 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5663 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5664 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5666 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5669 ** Changes to I/O functions
5671 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5672 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5673 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5675 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5676 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5677 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5679 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5680 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5682 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5683 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5684 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5685 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5687 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5689 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5690 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5692 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5693 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5694 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5695 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5696 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5699 'trim omit delimiter from result
5700 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5701 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5702 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5704 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5706 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5707 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5709 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5710 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5711 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5712 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5713 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5715 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5716 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5717 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5719 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5720 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5721 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5722 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5724 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5725 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5727 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5728 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5730 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5732 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5733 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5734 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5735 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5736 a delimiting character.
5737 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5739 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5740 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5741 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5742 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5743 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5744 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5746 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5747 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5749 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5750 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5751 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5753 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5754 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5755 the array to read and write.
5757 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5758 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5761 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5763 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5766 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5767 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5768 Values for COMMAND are:
5770 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5771 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5772 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5773 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5774 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5775 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5776 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5777 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5779 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5781 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5782 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5783 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5784 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5785 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5786 corresponding return set will be the same.
5788 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5791 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5792 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5793 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5794 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5795 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5796 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5797 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5798 special file being created.
5800 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5801 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5803 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5804 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5805 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5806 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5807 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5808 and originating address.
5810 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5811 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5812 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5814 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5817 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5818 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5821 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5822 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5823 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5824 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5825 this function returns #f.
5827 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5828 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5829 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5832 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5833 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5834 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5837 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5838 a valid STATUS value.
5840 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5842 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5843 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5845 Component Accessor Setter
5846 ========================= ============ ============
5847 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5848 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5849 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5850 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5851 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5852 year tm:year set-tm:year
5853 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5854 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5855 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5856 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5857 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5859 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5860 describing the host system:
5863 ============================================== ================
5864 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5865 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5866 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5867 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5868 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5870 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5871 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5872 system's user database:
5875 ====================== =================
5876 user name passwd:name
5877 user password passwd:passwd
5880 real name passwd:gecos
5881 home directory passwd:dir
5882 shell program passwd:shell
5884 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5885 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5886 system's group database:
5889 ======================= ============
5890 group name group:name
5891 group password group:passwd
5893 group members group:mem
5895 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5896 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5900 ========================= ===============
5901 official name of host hostent:name
5902 alias list hostent:aliases
5903 host address type hostent:addrtype
5904 length of address hostent:length
5905 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5907 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5908 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5912 ========================= ===============
5913 official name of net netent:name
5914 alias list netent:aliases
5915 net number type netent:addrtype
5916 net number netent:net
5918 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5919 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5923 ========================= ===============
5924 official protocol name protoent:name
5925 alias list protoent:aliases
5926 protocol number protoent:proto
5928 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5929 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5933 ========================= ===============
5934 official service name servent:name
5935 alias list servent:aliases
5936 port number servent:port
5937 protocol to use servent:proto
5939 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5940 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5943 ======================================== ===============
5944 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5945 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5946 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5947 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5949 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5950 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5951 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5953 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5954 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5956 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5957 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5959 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5960 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5962 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5964 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5966 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5967 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5968 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5970 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5971 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5972 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5973 return the remaining characters as a string.
5975 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5976 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5977 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5979 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5981 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5983 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5986 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5989 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5990 and returns the array
5992 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5993 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5994 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5996 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5998 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5999 symbol's value from C code:
6001 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6002 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6003 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6004 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6006 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6007 without assigning them a value.
6009 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6010 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6011 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6013 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6014 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6015 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6017 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6018 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6020 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6021 doesn't actually care about that.
6023 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6024 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6025 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6027 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6028 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6029 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6030 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6031 which we have just created and initialized.
6033 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6034 should one occur. We call it like this:
6035 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6037 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6038 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6039 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6040 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6041 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6042 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6045 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6046 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6047 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6048 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6049 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6050 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6051 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6054 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6055 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6056 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6057 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6058 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6061 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6062 scm_internal_catch, except:
6064 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6065 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6066 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6067 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6070 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6071 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6072 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6074 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6075 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6076 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6077 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6080 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6081 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6082 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6084 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6085 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6086 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6087 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6088 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6090 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6091 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6092 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6094 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6095 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6096 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6098 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6099 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6101 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6102 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6103 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6106 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6107 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6108 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6109 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6110 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6111 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6112 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6115 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6116 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6118 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6119 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6120 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6121 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6122 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6125 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6126 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6128 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6129 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6132 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6133 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6135 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6138 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6139 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6140 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6141 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6142 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6143 given the following arguments:
6145 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6147 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6149 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6151 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6154 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6155 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6156 command-line arguments.
6158 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6159 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6160 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6161 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6162 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6163 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6166 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6169 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6170 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6172 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6173 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6175 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6176 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6177 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6178 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6180 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6181 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6183 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6184 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6185 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6186 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6188 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6189 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6191 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6192 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6194 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6196 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6197 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6198 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6201 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6202 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6204 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6205 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6210 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6213 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6215 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6216 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6217 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6218 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6220 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6222 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6224 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6225 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6226 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6227 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6228 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6229 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6230 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6231 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6232 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6233 for more information.
6235 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6236 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6238 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6239 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6240 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6241 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6242 following two lines at the top of the file:
6244 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6247 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6248 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6249 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6251 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6253 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6255 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6258 (display (car args))
6259 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6261 (loop (cdr args)))))
6264 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6265 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6266 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6267 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6268 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6269 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6273 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6276 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6279 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6281 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6282 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6283 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6284 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6285 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6288 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6289 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6290 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6291 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6292 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6295 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6298 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6299 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6300 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6303 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6304 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6305 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6307 to see a backtrace, and
6308 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6309 to see them by default.
6313 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6315 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6317 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6318 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6321 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6322 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6323 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6324 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6327 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6328 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6329 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6330 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6331 functions which inspired them.
6333 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6334 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6338 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6340 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6342 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6343 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6346 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6347 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6348 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6350 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6351 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6352 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6353 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6354 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6356 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6358 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6359 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6360 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6363 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6366 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6368 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6369 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6370 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6371 above should serve their purposes.
6373 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6374 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6375 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6376 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6378 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6381 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6382 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6383 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6384 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6386 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6387 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6388 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6389 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6391 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6392 for the `read' function.
6395 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6396 to that of `integer?'.
6398 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6399 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6401 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6402 it simply returns the object's property list.
6404 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6405 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6406 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6407 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6409 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6411 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6414 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6416 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6417 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6419 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6421 void (*main_func) (),
6424 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6425 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6426 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6427 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6428 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6430 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6431 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6432 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6433 know which arguments have been processed.
6435 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6436 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6437 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6438 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6439 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6441 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6442 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6443 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6444 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6445 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6446 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6447 people from making that mistake.
6449 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6450 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6452 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6454 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6458 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6461 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6462 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6463 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6464 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6467 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6468 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6469 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6470 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6473 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6474 have been added to the Guile library.
6476 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6477 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6478 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6481 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6482 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6483 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6485 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6486 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6487 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6488 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6489 argument from the list.
6492 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6495 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6496 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6498 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6499 to a Scheme port object.
6501 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6502 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6507 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6509 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6510 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6511 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6512 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6513 code as a special datatype.
6515 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6516 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6517 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6518 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6519 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6522 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6523 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6524 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6525 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6526 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6528 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6531 Copyright information:
6533 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6535 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6536 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6537 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6538 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6540 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6541 of this document, or of portions of it,
6542 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6543 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6548 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"