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 can check for name conflicts among imported
69 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
70 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
78 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
79 has been detected is to
81 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
83 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
86 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
89 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
91 to your .guile init file.
93 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
95 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
97 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
98 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
99 tried until a binding is selected.
101 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
103 check report an error for bindings with a common name
104 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
105 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
106 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
107 and accept the override
108 first select the first encountered binding (override)
109 last select the last encountered binding (override)
111 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
113 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
114 into an <extended-generic>
115 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
117 The default duplicates handler is:
121 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
122 behavior) can be installed with:
124 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
126 ** New define-module option: :replace
128 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
131 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
132 for the core binding `format'.
134 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
136 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
137 a prefix to all imported bindings.
140 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
142 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
145 ** Merging generic functions
147 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
148 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
151 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
152 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
153 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
155 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
156 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
157 generic functions sharing a common name:
159 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
160 :use-module (oop goops)
163 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
164 :use-module (oop goops)
167 (define-module (my-module)
168 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
169 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
170 :duplicates merge-generics)
172 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
175 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
176 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
177 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
180 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
181 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
182 functions, extending its ancestors.
184 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
185 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
186 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
188 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
189 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
190 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
191 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
194 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
195 adding it to the ancestor.
197 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
198 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
200 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
202 ** New function: effective-version
204 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
205 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
206 to the distribution" above.
210 Futures is a way of providing an alternative evaluation policy, very
211 similar in principle to "promises". Like promises, futures allow the
212 main process to continue instantly, but while promises postpone
213 evaluation ("lazy" evaluation) until the value is requested, futures
214 immediately starts evaluation in a parallel thread.
216 Futures are good when you want to express that "I'll need the value of
217 this computation sometime soon" and want to allow processing to go on
218 in the background until that time arrives.
220 ** New syntax: future FORM
222 Begin evaluation of FORM in a parallel thread and return the future
223 immediately. (Akin to 'delay'.)
225 ** New procedure: future-ref FUTURE
227 Return the computed value of the future. Wait if the computation is
228 not finished. (Akin to 'force'.)
230 ** New syntax: parallel FORM ...
232 Compute the results of FORM ... in parallel (in a separate thread for
233 each form) and return them as multiple values.
235 ** New syntax: letpar ((VAR EXP) ...) BODYFORM ...
237 Like 'let' but evaluates the binding expressions EXP ... in parallel.
239 ** New functions: par-map, par-for-each PROC ARGLIST ...
241 Like 'map' and 'for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in a
242 separate thread for each (set of) argument(s). All applications are
243 guaranteed to be completed before the procedure returns.
245 ** New functions: n-par-map, n-par-for-each N PROC ARGLIST ...
247 Like 'par-map' and 'par-for-each' but evaluate the procedure PROC in N
248 threads. This is useful when PROC uses large amounts of resources
249 and/or the argument list(s) is/are long so that one thread per (set
250 of) argument(s) would consume too much system resources. On a
251 dual-CPU system, N = 4 would often be a good choice.
253 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
255 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
256 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
257 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
258 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
261 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
262 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
263 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
264 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
266 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
267 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
270 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
272 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
274 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
276 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
277 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
279 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
281 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
282 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
285 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
287 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
289 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
291 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
292 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
293 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
296 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
297 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
298 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
301 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
302 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
304 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
306 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
307 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
310 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
311 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
313 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
314 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
315 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
316 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
317 level for the current thread.
319 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
321 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
323 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
324 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
327 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
329 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
331 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
334 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
336 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
339 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
340 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
341 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
343 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
344 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
345 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
346 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
357 ERROR: Numerical overflow
359 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
362 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
364 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
365 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
366 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
377 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
379 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
380 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
381 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
383 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
386 ** pretty-print has more options.
388 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
389 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
390 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
392 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
394 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
395 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
396 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
398 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
400 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
401 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
403 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
405 Use `substring-move!' instead.
407 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
409 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
410 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
411 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
413 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
415 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
416 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
417 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
418 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
419 without the soft port blocking.
421 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
423 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
424 chapter in the reference manual.
426 ** Deprecated: undefine
428 There is no replacement for undefine.
430 * Changes to the C interface
432 ** New function: scm_effective_version
434 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
435 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
436 to the distribution" above.
438 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
440 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
441 arguments are now passed directly:
443 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
445 This is an incompatible change.
447 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
449 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
450 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
451 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
453 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
454 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
456 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
458 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
460 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
461 function in the init section.
463 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
465 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
467 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
469 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
470 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
471 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
473 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
475 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
476 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
477 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
478 stays roughly constant.
480 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
481 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
482 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
483 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
484 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
487 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
488 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
489 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
490 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
492 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
494 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
496 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
498 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
499 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
500 initializes a new cell (see below).
502 ** New functions for memory management
504 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
505 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
506 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
507 cause aborts in long running programs.
509 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
510 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
512 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
513 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
514 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
515 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
516 details and for upgrading instructions.
518 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
519 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
520 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
522 ** New function: scm_str2string
524 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
527 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
529 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
530 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
531 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
532 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
533 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
535 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
536 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
537 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
539 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
540 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
542 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
544 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
545 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
546 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
547 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
549 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
551 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
554 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
556 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
558 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
560 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
561 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
562 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
564 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
565 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
566 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
567 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
568 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
569 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
570 gc-protected location.
572 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
574 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
575 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
578 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
580 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
581 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
583 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
585 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
586 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
588 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
590 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
591 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
592 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
595 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
596 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
597 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
599 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
600 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
601 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
602 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
603 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
604 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
605 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
606 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
607 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
608 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
609 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
610 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
611 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
612 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
613 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
614 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
615 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
616 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
617 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
618 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
619 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
620 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
621 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
622 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
623 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
624 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
625 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
626 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
627 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
628 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
629 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
630 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
631 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
632 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
633 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
634 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
635 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
636 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
637 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
638 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
639 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
640 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
641 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
642 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
643 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
644 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
645 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
646 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
647 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
648 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
649 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
650 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
651 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
652 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
653 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
654 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
655 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
656 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
657 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
658 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
659 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
661 Changes since Guile 1.4:
663 * Changes to the distribution
665 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
667 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
669 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
670 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
671 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
672 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
673 indicate major changes in Guile.
675 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
676 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
677 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
678 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
680 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
681 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
682 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
683 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
684 micro version number.
686 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
688 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
690 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
691 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
693 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
695 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
696 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
697 See INSTALL and README for more information.
699 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
701 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
702 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
703 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
706 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
708 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
711 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
713 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
714 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
716 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
718 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
719 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
722 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
724 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
727 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
730 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
732 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
734 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
735 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
736 open-output-string, get-output-string.
738 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
740 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
742 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
745 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
747 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
749 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
751 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
752 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
753 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
755 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
757 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
759 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
760 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
769 See README there for more info.
771 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
772 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
775 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
777 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
779 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
781 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
782 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
783 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
785 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
787 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
788 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
789 to be named `and-let*', of course.
791 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
792 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
794 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
799 (oop goops active-slot)
800 (oop goops composite-slot)
802 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
803 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
804 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
806 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
808 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
809 in the default environment:
811 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
812 %read-line write-line
814 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
815 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
817 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
819 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
822 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
823 can be used for similar functionality.
825 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
827 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
828 it defines two procedures:
830 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
832 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
833 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
834 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
837 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
839 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
840 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
841 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
844 ** New module (ice-9 match)
846 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
847 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
849 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
851 for complete documentation.
853 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
855 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
856 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
857 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
858 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
860 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
861 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
865 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
866 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
867 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
870 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
873 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
874 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
876 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
877 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
880 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
883 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
885 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
887 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
889 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
891 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
892 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
893 Scheme programs easier.
895 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
896 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
897 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
898 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
899 `cond-expand' when using this option.
902 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
903 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
905 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
908 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
910 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
911 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
912 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
915 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
917 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
919 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
920 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
921 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
922 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
923 was also ASCII, for example.
925 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
927 tag - no replacement.
928 fseek - replaced by seek.
929 list* - replaced by cons*.
931 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
935 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
936 (define m (make-safe-module))
937 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
938 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
939 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
941 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
943 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
944 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
945 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
947 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
949 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
950 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
951 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
952 from the issues related to the module system.
954 *** New function: load-extension
956 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
958 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
960 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
961 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
962 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
964 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
966 This function registers a initialization function for use by
967 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
968 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
969 support dynamic linking).
971 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
973 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
974 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
975 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
976 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
979 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
980 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
981 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
982 library and initialize it explicitely.
984 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
985 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
987 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
989 (define-module (foo bar))
991 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
993 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
995 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
996 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
998 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1000 (interaction-environment)
1006 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1008 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1009 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1010 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1011 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1013 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1014 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1015 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1016 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1017 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1018 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1019 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1020 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1021 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1022 one eval to the next.
1024 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1025 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1026 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1027 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1028 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1030 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1031 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1032 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1033 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1034 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1035 used in a lexical environment.
1037 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1038 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1039 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1040 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1041 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1042 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1044 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1046 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1047 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1048 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1049 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1050 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1052 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1053 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1054 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1056 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1057 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1059 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1060 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1061 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1063 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1064 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1066 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1067 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1068 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1069 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1072 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1073 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1074 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1075 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1077 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1078 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1079 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1081 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1082 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1083 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1084 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1085 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1087 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1089 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1090 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1091 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1093 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1094 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1095 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1097 See manual for more info.
1099 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1101 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1102 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1103 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1105 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1107 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1108 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1109 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1111 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1112 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1113 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1114 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1116 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1118 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1119 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1121 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1122 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1123 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1124 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1125 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1128 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1129 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1130 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1131 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1132 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1133 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1135 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1136 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1137 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1138 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1139 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1141 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1142 objects are usually permanent.
1144 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1145 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1147 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1149 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1150 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1153 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1157 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1162 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1164 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1165 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1166 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1167 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1169 ** New function `make-object-property'
1171 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1172 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1176 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1177 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1181 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1182 source properties eventually.
1184 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1186 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1187 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1188 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1190 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1191 will be removed in the next release.
1193 ** New define-module option: pure
1195 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1200 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1203 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1205 Export names NAME1 ...
1207 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1208 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1212 (define-module (foo)
1214 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1217 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1222 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1224 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1226 ** New function: port? X
1228 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1229 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1231 ** New function: file-port?
1233 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1235 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1237 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1238 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1239 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1240 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1241 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1243 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1245 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1246 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1247 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1248 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1249 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1252 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1254 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1255 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1256 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1257 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1260 ** New function: crypt password salt
1262 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1265 ** New function: chroot path
1267 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1269 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1271 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1274 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1276 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1278 ** New function: getpass prompt
1280 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1283 ** New function: flock file operation
1285 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1287 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1289 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1292 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1294 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1295 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1296 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1297 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1298 of the temporary file.
1300 ** New function: open-input-string string
1302 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1303 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1304 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1306 ** New function: open-output-string
1308 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1309 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1311 ** New function: get-output-string
1313 Return the contents of an output string port.
1315 ** New function: identity
1317 Return the argument.
1319 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1320 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1322 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1324 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1325 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1326 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1329 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1330 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1332 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1334 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1335 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1336 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1339 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1340 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1341 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1345 Use `identity' instead.
1351 ** Deprecated: return-it
1355 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1357 Use `string-length' instead.
1359 ** Deprecated: flags
1361 Use `logior' instead.
1363 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1365 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1366 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1367 port-for-each is more flexible.
1369 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1370 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1371 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1373 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1375 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1377 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1379 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1381 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1383 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1384 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1386 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1387 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1389 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1390 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1392 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1394 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1395 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1397 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1398 Use module system operations for all variables.
1400 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1402 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1405 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1407 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1408 The following bugs have been fixed:
1410 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1411 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1414 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1415 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1416 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1418 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1419 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1421 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1422 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1425 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1426 The expansion used to be like so:
1428 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1430 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1432 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1434 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1435 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1437 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1439 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1440 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1441 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1445 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1446 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1448 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1453 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1454 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1456 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1457 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1458 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1460 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1463 * Changes to the C interface
1465 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1467 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1468 with "_t". What a concept.
1470 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1472 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1474 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1478 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1479 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1481 *** C Functions removed
1483 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1484 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1485 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1486 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1487 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1488 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1489 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1491 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1493 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1495 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1497 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1499 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1500 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1502 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1504 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1507 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1509 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1511 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1513 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1517 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1519 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1521 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1526 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1528 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1530 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1532 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1534 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1535 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1537 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1539 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1541 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1542 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1543 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1545 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1547 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1549 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1550 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1551 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1554 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1556 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1558 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1559 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1561 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1563 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1564 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1565 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1566 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1568 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1569 scm_primitive_property_ref
1570 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1571 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1573 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1574 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1576 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1578 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1579 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1580 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1581 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1583 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1585 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1586 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1587 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1588 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1589 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1590 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1591 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1593 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1594 scm_remember_upto_here
1596 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1598 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1600 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1601 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1603 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1605 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1607 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1609 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1611 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1613 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1614 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1615 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1616 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1617 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1618 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1620 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1622 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1624 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1625 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1626 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1628 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1630 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1631 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1632 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1634 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1636 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1637 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1640 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1643 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1644 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1647 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1649 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1651 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1653 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1655 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1657 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1659 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1660 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1661 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1662 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1663 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1664 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1665 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1666 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1667 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1668 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1669 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1670 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1671 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1672 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1673 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1675 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1676 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1677 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1678 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1679 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1680 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1681 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1682 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1683 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1684 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1685 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1686 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1687 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1688 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1689 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1690 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1691 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1692 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1693 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1694 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1695 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1696 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1697 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1698 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1699 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1700 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1701 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1702 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1703 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1705 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1707 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1709 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1710 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1712 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1714 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1716 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1718 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1720 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1722 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1724 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1726 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1728 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1731 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1732 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1734 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1736 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1738 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1740 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1742 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1744 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1746 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1748 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1751 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1753 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1755 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1757 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1758 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1760 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1761 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1763 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1765 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1766 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1767 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1769 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1771 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1773 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1774 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1776 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1777 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1778 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1779 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1781 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1782 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1783 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1785 Use the new ones from above instead.
1787 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1789 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1790 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1791 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1793 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1794 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1796 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1797 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1800 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1801 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1803 Use the new functions instead.
1805 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1808 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1810 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1812 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1815 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1817 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1820 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1822 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1825 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1826 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1827 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1829 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1831 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1832 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1834 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1835 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1836 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1837 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1840 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1842 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1843 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1844 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1845 inexact for an exact.
1847 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1848 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1849 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1852 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1853 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1854 accept an inexact argument.
1856 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1857 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1859 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1862 ** New number validation macros:
1863 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1867 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1869 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1870 scm_unprotect_object.
1872 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1874 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1876 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1879 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1881 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1885 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1887 * Changes to the distribution
1889 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1891 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1892 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1893 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1894 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1895 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1896 obtain these programs.
1897 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1898 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1900 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1901 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1902 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1903 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1904 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1906 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1907 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1908 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1909 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1913 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1916 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1917 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1918 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1919 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1921 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1923 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1925 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1926 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1928 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1929 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1931 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1932 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1934 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1935 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1936 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1937 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1939 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1941 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1945 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1946 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1948 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1950 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1951 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1953 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1954 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1955 number of objects of that kind.
1957 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1959 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1960 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1961 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1962 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1963 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1965 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1967 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1969 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1971 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1974 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1976 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1978 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1980 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1982 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1984 ** New command line option --debug
1986 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1988 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1990 ** New help facility
1992 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1993 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1994 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1995 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1996 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1997 (help) gives this text
1999 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2000 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2002 Examples: (help help)
2004 (help "output-string")
2006 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2008 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2010 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2011 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2014 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2015 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2016 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2019 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2020 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2021 use absolute filenames when possible.
2023 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2024 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2025 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2028 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2030 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2031 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2032 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2033 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2035 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2037 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2039 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2040 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2041 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2043 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2044 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2045 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2047 (read-enable 'positions)
2048 (debug-enable 'debug)
2050 ** Backtraces in scripts
2052 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2056 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2058 at the top of the script.
2060 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2061 The second enables backtraces.)
2063 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2065 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2066 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2067 substantially faster than before.
2069 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2070 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2072 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2073 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2075 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2077 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2078 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2079 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2081 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2082 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2083 when this hook is run in the future.
2085 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2086 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2088 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2090 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2091 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2094 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2095 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2096 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2098 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2099 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2101 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2102 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2104 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2105 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2106 in order not to need further allocation.)
2108 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2111 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2112 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2113 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2114 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2116 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2118 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2121 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2123 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2126 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2127 GC in percent of total heap size
2130 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2131 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2133 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2135 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2136 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2138 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2140 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2141 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2143 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2145 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2146 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2150 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2151 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2153 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2155 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2157 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2159 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2161 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2163 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2164 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2166 (simple-format port message . args)
2167 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2168 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2169 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2170 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2171 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2172 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2173 Does not add a trailing newline."
2175 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2177 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2178 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2180 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2181 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2183 ** Deprecated: list*
2185 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2187 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2189 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2190 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2192 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2193 is returned as result.
2195 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2197 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2199 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2201 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2202 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2205 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2207 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2209 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2210 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2212 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2214 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2216 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2218 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2220 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2222 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2224 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2226 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2227 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2228 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2230 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2233 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2235 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2236 the readability of argument checking.
2238 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2240 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2242 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2244 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2245 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2246 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2247 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2248 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2249 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2250 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2252 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2254 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2256 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2257 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2259 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2261 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2262 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2265 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2267 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2268 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2269 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2271 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
2272 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
2273 implementation with gmp in the future.
2275 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2276 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2277 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2279 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2280 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2281 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2282 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2283 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2284 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2285 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2287 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2288 scm_end_input (object);
2289 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2290 ptob->flush (object);
2292 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2293 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2296 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2298 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2300 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2301 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2302 removed in a future version.
2304 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2306 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2307 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2308 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2309 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2311 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2312 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2314 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2317 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2319 in your configure.in.
2321 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2326 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2332 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2334 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2338 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2339 (define make-message string-append)
2341 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2343 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2347 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2352 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2356 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2358 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2359 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2361 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2363 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2364 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2365 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2366 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2367 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2368 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2370 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2371 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2372 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2374 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2375 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2376 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2379 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2380 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2381 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2382 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2383 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2385 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2386 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2387 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2388 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2389 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2390 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2391 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2393 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2395 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2396 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2397 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2399 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2400 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2401 KEY in the calling thread.
2403 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2404 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2405 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2406 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2407 associated with the key.
2409 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2411 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2412 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2414 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2416 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2417 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2418 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2420 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2422 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2423 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2425 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2427 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2429 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2430 returned is undefined.
2432 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2433 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2434 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2436 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2437 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2438 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2440 ** New C level GC hooks
2442 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2444 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2447 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2448 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2449 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2451 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2452 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2453 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2455 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2456 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2459 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2461 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2462 allocation parameters
2464 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2465 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2466 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2470 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2471 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2472 scm_default_max_segment_size
2474 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2476 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2477 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2479 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2481 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2482 object and count on the object being protected until
2483 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2485 The functions also have better time complexity.
2487 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2488 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2489 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2490 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2491 are no longer needed.
2493 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2495 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2496 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2497 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2498 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2500 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2502 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2504 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2506 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2507 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2508 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2509 until this issue has been settled.
2511 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2513 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2515 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2518 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2520 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2522 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2523 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2524 descriptors were checked.
2526 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2527 atomically written to a pipe.
2529 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2530 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2531 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2532 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2533 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2534 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2535 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2538 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2539 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2540 is changed without calling tzset.
2542 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2544 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2545 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2546 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2548 (define write-network-long
2549 (lambda (value port)
2550 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2551 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2552 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2554 (define read-network-long
2556 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2557 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2558 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2560 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2561 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2563 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2564 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2565 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2566 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2568 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2569 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2570 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2571 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2575 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2577 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2581 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2582 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2583 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2589 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2590 for a description of available commands.
2592 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2593 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2594 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2596 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2598 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2599 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2601 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2603 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2605 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2606 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2607 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2608 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2609 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2610 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2613 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2615 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2616 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2617 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2618 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2620 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2621 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2623 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2625 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2627 ** Readline support has changed again.
2629 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2630 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2631 to activate readline is now
2633 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2636 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2638 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2639 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2640 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2643 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2644 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2645 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2648 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2649 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2650 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2651 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2652 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2653 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2655 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2656 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2658 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2660 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2661 object it receives is the same string passed to
2662 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2663 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2664 string, not the suffix.
2666 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2667 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2668 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2670 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2672 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2673 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2674 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2675 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2678 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2680 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2682 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2683 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2684 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2685 appear from left to right.
2687 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2690 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2692 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2693 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2695 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2699 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2701 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2703 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2705 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2706 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2707 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2709 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2711 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2713 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2715 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2718 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2720 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2721 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2722 mentioning it here anyway.
2724 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2726 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2727 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2728 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2729 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2732 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2734 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2736 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2738 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2739 otherwise return #f.
2741 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2743 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2744 returned by `opendir'.
2746 ** New function: using-readline?
2748 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2750 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2752 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2753 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2755 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2757 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2759 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2760 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2761 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2763 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2765 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2766 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2768 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2770 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2771 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2772 documentation slots are not yet used.
2774 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2776 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2777 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2778 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2783 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2784 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2785 (string-append x y))
2787 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2788 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2790 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2791 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2792 be made in a clean way.]
2794 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2796 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2798 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2800 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2801 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2803 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2805 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2807 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2809 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2811 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2812 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2813 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2814 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2817 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2819 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2821 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2823 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2825 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2826 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2828 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2830 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2832 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2834 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2836 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2837 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2838 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2839 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2840 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2841 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2843 This should not make any difference for most users.
2845 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2847 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2848 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2850 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2852 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2853 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2854 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2855 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2856 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2858 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2860 It is now replaced by:
2862 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2864 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2865 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2867 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2869 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2870 This might change when we get the new module system.
2872 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2876 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2878 * Changes to mailing lists
2880 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2882 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2885 * Changes to the distribution
2887 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2889 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2890 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2891 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2892 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2893 you explicitly specify it.
2895 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2896 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2897 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2898 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2899 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2902 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2903 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2904 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2905 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2907 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2908 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2909 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2912 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2914 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2917 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2919 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2921 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2922 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2923 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2924 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2926 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2927 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2930 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2932 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2933 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2934 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2935 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2936 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2937 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2938 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2939 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2951 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2952 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2953 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2954 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2955 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2960 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2961 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2969 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2974 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2975 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2978 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2979 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2980 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2981 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2983 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2985 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2987 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2988 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2990 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2992 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2994 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2995 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2997 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3000 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3002 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3004 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3006 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3008 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3010 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3012 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3013 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3014 when the hook was created.
3016 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3017 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3018 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3019 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3020 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3021 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3022 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3023 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3024 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3026 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3027 the dlopen family of functions.
3029 ** New function `provided?'
3031 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3032 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3033 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3034 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3036 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3038 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3039 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3040 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3041 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3044 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3045 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3046 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3047 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3049 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3050 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3051 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3054 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3055 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3056 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3057 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3058 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3059 but with the flag set.
3061 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3063 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3064 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3066 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3067 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3068 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3069 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3070 available Scheme format implementations.
3072 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3073 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3074 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3075 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3076 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3077 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3078 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3079 output is to the current error port if available by the
3080 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3083 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3084 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3085 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3086 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3087 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3088 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3089 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3090 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3092 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3093 be executed at a time.
3096 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3098 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3099 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3100 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3102 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3103 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3104 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3105 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3106 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3107 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3108 general form of a directive is:
3110 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3112 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3114 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3116 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3117 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3118 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3121 Any (print as `display' does).
3125 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3129 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3133 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3139 print number sign always.
3142 print comma separated.
3144 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3150 print number sign always.
3153 print comma separated.
3155 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3161 print number sign always.
3164 print comma separated.
3166 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3172 print number sign always.
3175 print comma separated.
3177 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3182 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3186 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3189 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3192 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3195 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3200 prints `y' and `ies'.
3203 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3206 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3211 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3215 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3218 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3219 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3221 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3224 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3225 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3227 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3230 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3232 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3234 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3237 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3239 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3241 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3244 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3247 The sign appears before the padding.
3255 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3257 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3262 print N page separators.
3272 newline is ignored, white space left.
3275 newline is left, white space ignored.
3280 relative tabulation.
3286 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3288 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3291 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3293 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3296 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3299 converts by `string-upcase'.
3302 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3304 jumps N arguments forward.
3307 jumps 1 argument backward.
3310 jumps N arguments backward.
3313 jumps to the 0th argument.
3316 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3318 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3319 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3321 take argument from N.
3324 true test conditional.
3327 if-else-then conditional.
3333 default clause follows.
3336 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3338 at most N iterations.
3341 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3344 args from the rest of arguments.
3347 args from the rest args (lists).
3358 aborts if N <= M <= K
3360 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3363 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3366 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3372 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3374 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3376 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3377 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3378 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3379 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3380 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3381 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3385 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3389 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3395 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3398 Print a `#\space' character
3400 print N `#\space' characters.
3403 Print a `#\tab' character
3405 print N `#\tab' characters.
3408 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3409 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3410 must be a positive decimal number.
3413 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3414 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3415 be processed by `read'.
3418 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3419 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3420 be processed by `read'.
3423 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3426 prints format version.
3429 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3430 and format it accordingly.
3432 *** Configuration Variables
3434 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3435 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3436 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3437 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3440 format:symbol-case-conv
3441 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3442 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3443 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3444 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3445 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3447 format:iobj-case-conv
3448 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3449 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3452 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3455 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3461 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3462 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3463 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3464 `format' padding style.
3467 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3468 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3469 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3470 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3474 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3475 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3476 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3479 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3480 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3481 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3482 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3483 parameters or modifiers)).
3486 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3488 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3490 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3491 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3493 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3494 string-downcase! functions.
3496 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3497 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3499 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3502 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3505 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3506 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3508 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3510 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3511 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3513 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3514 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3515 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3516 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3517 would if STRING were input.
3519 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3521 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3522 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3523 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3524 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3527 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3529 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3530 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3533 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3535 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3536 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3538 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3539 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3541 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3542 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3543 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3544 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3546 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3547 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3549 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3550 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3551 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3553 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3554 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3556 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3557 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3558 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3559 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3560 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3562 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3563 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3564 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3565 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3566 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3567 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3569 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3570 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3571 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3574 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3575 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3576 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3577 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3578 the following grammar:
3579 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3580 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3581 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3582 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3583 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3584 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3585 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3586 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3587 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3588 last option in its combination)
3590 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3591 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3592 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3593 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3595 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3596 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3597 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3599 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3600 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3601 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3603 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3604 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3605 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3606 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3607 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3608 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3609 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3610 ordinary argument strings.
3612 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3613 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3614 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3615 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3617 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3618 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3620 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3621 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3622 - a required option is omitted
3623 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3624 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3625 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3626 - an option predicate fails
3631 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3634 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3635 (verbose (required? #f)
3638 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3639 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3640 (predicate ,string?))))
3642 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3643 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3645 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3646 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3647 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3648 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3651 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3653 It will be removed in a few releases.
3655 ** New syntax: lambda*
3656 ** New syntax: define*
3657 ** New syntax: define*-public
3658 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3659 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3660 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3662 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3663 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3664 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3665 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3666 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3668 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3669 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3670 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3672 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3674 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3675 and examples for `lambda*':
3678 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3680 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3681 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3682 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3683 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3684 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3685 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3686 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3687 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3689 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3691 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3692 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3693 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3694 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3696 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3697 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3698 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3699 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3700 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3701 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3702 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3703 and until the procedure is called.
3705 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3707 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3708 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3709 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3710 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3711 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3712 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3713 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3714 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3715 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3716 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3718 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3719 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3720 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3721 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3724 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3726 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3727 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3728 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3729 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3731 ** New syntax: and-let*
3732 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3734 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3735 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3736 (<variable> <expression>)
3739 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3740 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3741 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3744 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3745 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3746 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3747 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3748 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3749 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3750 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3752 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3753 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3754 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3755 shadow earlier bindings.
3757 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3759 ** New sorting functions
3761 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3762 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3763 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3764 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3766 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3767 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3770 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3771 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3772 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3774 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3775 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3776 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3777 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3779 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3780 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3781 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3782 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3783 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3786 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3787 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3788 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3789 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3790 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3791 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3793 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3794 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3795 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3797 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3798 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3799 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3802 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3803 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3804 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3806 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3807 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3809 ** New built-in random number support
3811 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3812 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3813 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3814 returned have a uniform distribution.
3816 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3817 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3818 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3819 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3820 effect of the `random' operation.
3822 *** New variable: *random-state*
3823 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3824 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3825 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3826 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3827 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3830 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3831 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3832 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3833 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3834 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3836 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3837 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3838 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3839 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3840 initialized using SEED.
3842 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3843 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3844 range between 0 and 1.
3846 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3847 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3848 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3849 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3850 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3851 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3852 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3854 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3855 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3856 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3857 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3858 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3859 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3861 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3862 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3863 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3864 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3866 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3867 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3868 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3869 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3871 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3872 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3873 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3875 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3877 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3880 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3881 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3884 ** New function: make-guardian
3885 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3886 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3887 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3888 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3889 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3891 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3892 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3893 one object if at all.
3895 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3896 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3897 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3899 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3900 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3901 read again in last-in first-out order.
3903 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3904 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3906 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3908 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3909 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3910 file position is used.
3912 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3913 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3914 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3916 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3917 redefined using seek.
3919 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3920 size is not supplied.
3922 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3923 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3925 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3926 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3928 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3930 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3931 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3932 and returns the contents as a single string.
3934 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3935 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3936 lists in serial order.
3938 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3939 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3940 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3942 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3943 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3944 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3945 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3947 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3948 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3949 and #f if an error occured.
3951 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3953 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3954 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3955 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3956 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3958 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3960 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3963 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3965 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3968 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3972 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3973 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3975 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3976 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3980 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3982 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3984 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3985 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3987 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3989 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3990 might change when we get the new module system.
3992 ** The smob interface
3994 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3995 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3997 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3999 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4003 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4004 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4005 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4006 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4007 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4008 will be freed by the default free function.
4010 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4011 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4012 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4013 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4015 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4016 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4017 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4018 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4020 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4022 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4023 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4027 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4028 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4029 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4031 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4032 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4033 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4034 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4036 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4037 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4038 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4040 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4041 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4042 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4043 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4045 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4046 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4047 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4049 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4053 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4055 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4056 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4057 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4059 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4060 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4061 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4063 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4064 a string port's buffer.
4066 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4067 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4068 function pointers which together define the current random number
4069 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4070 number library functions.
4072 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4075 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4076 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4079 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4080 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4082 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4083 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4085 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4086 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4089 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4090 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4091 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4092 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4094 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4095 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4096 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4097 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4098 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4099 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4100 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4102 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4103 by libguile and the application.
4105 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4106 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4107 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4108 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4110 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4111 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4113 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4114 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4115 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4117 ** Random number library functions
4118 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4119 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4120 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4122 The default random state is stored in:
4124 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4125 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4126 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4131 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4133 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4134 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4135 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4136 isn't a random state.
4138 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4139 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4141 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4142 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4143 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4144 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4146 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4147 Return 32 random bits.
4149 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4150 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4152 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4153 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4155 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4156 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4158 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4159 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4161 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4162 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4163 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4167 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4169 * Changes to the distribution
4171 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4172 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4173 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4176 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4177 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4178 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4180 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4181 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4182 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4183 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4186 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4187 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4188 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4190 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4192 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4194 *** Function: batch-mode?
4196 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4199 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4201 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4202 case has not been implemented.
4204 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4205 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4206 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4209 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4210 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4212 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4214 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4216 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4218 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4219 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4222 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4223 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4224 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4225 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4228 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4230 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4231 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4232 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4233 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4234 find those libraries.
4236 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4237 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4240 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4242 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4243 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4244 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4245 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4247 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4248 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4249 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4253 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4255 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4256 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4257 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4260 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4261 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4262 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4263 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4265 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4266 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4269 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4270 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4271 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4272 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4273 compiler where to find the libraries.
4275 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4276 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4277 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4279 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4280 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4281 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4282 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4283 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4287 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4289 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4290 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4291 internationalization support.
4293 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4294 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4295 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4296 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4297 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4299 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4300 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4301 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4302 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4303 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4305 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4306 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4307 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4308 any GNU mirror site.
4310 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4312 ** New function: add-history STRING
4313 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4314 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4315 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4317 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4319 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4320 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4321 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4324 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4325 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4326 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4328 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4330 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4333 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4334 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4337 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4338 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4339 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4340 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4341 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4342 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4344 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4345 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4346 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4347 of the form mentioned above.
4349 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4350 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4351 returned in the special `rest' list.
4353 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4354 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4356 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4358 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4360 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4362 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4363 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4364 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4365 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4366 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4367 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4368 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4369 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4372 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4374 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4376 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4377 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4380 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4381 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4382 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4386 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4387 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4388 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4389 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4390 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4391 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4392 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4393 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4396 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4398 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4399 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4400 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4402 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4404 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4405 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4407 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4408 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4409 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4411 Why do we have this function?
4412 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4413 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4414 primitive, and display it differently, and
4415 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4416 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4419 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4420 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4423 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4424 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4425 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4426 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4428 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4429 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4432 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4433 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4435 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4437 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4438 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4439 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4440 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4441 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4442 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4443 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4446 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4448 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4449 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4451 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4452 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4453 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4454 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4455 properly continue the print chain.
4457 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4458 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4459 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4460 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4461 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4462 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4463 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4464 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4466 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4467 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4468 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4469 safest to not check for these pairs.
4471 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4472 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4473 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4474 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4476 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4478 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4479 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4481 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4483 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4485 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4486 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4487 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4489 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4490 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4491 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4493 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4494 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4495 the following functions and macros:
4497 Function: make-fluid
4499 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4500 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4501 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4502 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4503 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4505 Function: fluid? OBJ
4507 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4509 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4510 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4512 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4513 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4515 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4517 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4518 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4519 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4520 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4521 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4522 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4523 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4525 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4527 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4528 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4529 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4530 should evaluate to a fluid.
4532 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4534 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4535 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4536 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4537 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4538 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4540 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4543 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4545 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4547 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4549 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4552 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4553 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4554 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4555 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4556 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4559 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4560 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4561 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4563 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4564 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4565 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4567 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4568 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4569 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4570 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4572 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4573 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4574 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4575 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4577 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4578 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4579 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4580 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4582 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4583 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4584 their revealed counts set to zero.
4586 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4587 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4589 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4590 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4592 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4593 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4595 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4596 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4597 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4599 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4600 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4601 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4603 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4604 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4605 default environment inherited by child processes.
4607 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4608 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4609 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4611 The return value is unspecified.
4613 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4614 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4615 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4616 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4617 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4619 The return value is unspecified.
4621 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4622 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4630 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4631 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4634 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4637 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4638 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4639 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4641 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4642 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4643 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4644 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4647 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4648 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4650 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4651 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4652 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4653 the `environ' procedure.
4655 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4656 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4659 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4660 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4662 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4663 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4664 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4665 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4667 *** procedure: times
4668 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4669 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4670 return a selected component:
4673 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4677 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4680 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4684 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4685 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4689 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4690 terminated child processes.
4692 ** Removed: list-length
4693 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4694 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4696 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4698 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4700 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4702 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4703 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4704 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4705 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4707 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4708 extra complexity it introduces.
4710 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4711 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4713 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4714 variable to any non-empty value.
4716 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4717 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4719 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4721 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4722 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4724 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4726 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4727 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4729 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4731 ** vector handling routines
4733 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4734 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4735 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4736 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4737 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4739 ** pair and list routines
4741 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4744 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4746 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4749 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4751 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4753 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4754 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4755 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4756 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4757 site-specific initialization code.
4759 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4760 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4761 initialization processes.
4763 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4764 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4765 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4766 initialized properly.
4768 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4769 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4770 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4772 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4773 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4774 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4775 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4776 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4778 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4780 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4781 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4782 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4783 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4784 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4786 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4787 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4788 which look like this:
4791 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4793 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4794 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4797 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4798 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4801 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4803 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4804 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4805 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4807 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4808 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4809 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4810 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4811 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4813 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4814 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4816 int (*free) (SCM port);
4817 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4818 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4819 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4823 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4824 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4825 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4827 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4830 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4831 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4832 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4834 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4835 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4836 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4839 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4843 struct timeval *timeout);
4845 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4846 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4847 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4848 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4849 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4850 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4852 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4853 scm_catch_body_t body,
4855 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4858 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4859 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4860 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4861 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4862 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4863 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4865 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4867 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4870 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4871 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4872 spawning threads from application C code.
4874 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4875 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4876 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4877 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4878 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4879 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4881 ** Removed functions:
4883 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4884 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4886 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4888 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4889 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4891 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4893 ** mbstrings are now removed
4895 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4896 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4898 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4900 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4901 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4902 their new names and arguments:
4904 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4905 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4906 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4907 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4910 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4912 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4914 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4917 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4919 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4920 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4921 pass a #f arg to catch.
4923 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4925 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4926 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4929 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4930 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4931 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4932 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4933 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4934 reclaim its storage.
4936 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4937 worrying that some other function you call will call
4938 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4939 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4940 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4941 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4944 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4946 * Changes to the distribution
4948 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4949 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4952 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4953 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4955 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4956 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4958 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4960 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4961 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4962 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4964 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4966 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4967 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4968 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4969 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4970 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4971 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4973 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4974 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4975 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4978 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4979 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4980 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4981 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4983 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4984 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4985 libraries to your link command:
4987 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4988 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4989 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4990 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4992 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4993 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4994 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4996 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4998 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4999 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5002 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5004 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5005 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5006 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5007 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5008 searched is system dependent.
5010 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5012 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5014 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5016 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5017 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5019 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5021 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5022 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5023 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5024 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5025 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5028 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5030 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5031 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5032 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5033 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5034 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5036 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5038 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5039 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5041 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5043 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5044 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5045 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5048 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5050 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5051 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5052 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5053 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5055 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5056 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5058 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5060 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5061 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5063 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5065 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5066 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5074 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5076 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5077 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5078 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5079 a more informative way.
5081 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5082 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5083 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5084 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5085 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5086 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5088 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5089 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5092 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5093 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5094 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5097 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5098 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5099 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5100 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5101 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5102 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5104 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5105 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5106 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5107 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5110 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5111 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5112 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5113 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5114 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5115 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5117 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5118 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5119 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5120 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5121 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5123 *** regexp functions
5125 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5126 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5127 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5129 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5130 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5131 with SCSH regular expressions.
5133 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5134 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5135 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5136 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5138 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5139 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5140 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5141 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5143 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5144 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5145 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5146 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5147 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5148 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5150 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5151 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5152 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5153 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5154 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5156 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5158 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5159 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5160 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5161 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5163 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5164 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5165 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5167 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5168 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5170 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5173 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5174 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5175 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5177 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5178 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5179 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5181 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5182 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5183 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5184 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5185 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5188 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5190 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5191 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5192 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5193 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5194 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5195 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5197 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5198 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5199 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5201 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5202 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5205 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5206 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5208 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5209 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5210 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5211 may be one of the following arguments:
5213 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5215 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5217 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5218 the regexp match is written.
5220 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5221 following the regexp match is written.
5223 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5224 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5227 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5228 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5229 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5230 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5231 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5232 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5234 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5237 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5238 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5239 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5240 written out to PORT.
5242 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5243 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5244 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5245 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5246 will return after processing a single match.
5248 *** Match Structures
5250 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5251 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5252 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5253 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5254 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5255 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5258 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5259 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5260 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5261 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5262 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5264 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5265 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5266 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5268 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5269 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5270 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5271 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5272 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5274 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5275 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5277 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5278 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5280 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5281 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5283 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5284 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5286 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5287 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5288 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5289 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5291 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5292 Return the original TARGET string.
5294 *** Backslash Escapes
5296 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5297 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5298 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5299 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5300 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5301 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5303 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5304 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5305 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5306 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5307 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5308 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5309 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5310 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5312 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5313 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5314 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5315 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5316 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5317 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5318 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5320 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5321 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5322 return the resulting string.
5324 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5325 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5326 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5327 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5328 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5329 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5330 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5331 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5332 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5333 translated to the single character `*'.
5335 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5336 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5337 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5338 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5339 consecutive backslashes:
5341 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5343 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5344 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5345 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5347 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5348 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5349 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5350 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5351 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5352 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5354 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5356 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5357 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5358 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5359 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5360 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5361 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5362 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5363 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5364 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5365 cumbersome escape syntax.
5367 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5369 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5371 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5373 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5376 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5378 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5380 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5383 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5384 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5385 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5386 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5387 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5389 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5390 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5391 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5392 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5393 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5394 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5395 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5398 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5399 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5400 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5403 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5404 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5406 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5407 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5408 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5409 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5410 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5411 installed, you can say:
5413 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5416 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5418 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5419 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5420 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5421 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5422 new dynamic roots and threads.
5425 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5427 * Changes to the distribution.
5429 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5431 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5432 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5433 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5434 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5435 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5436 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5437 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5438 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5440 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5443 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5444 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5449 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5451 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5452 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5454 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5455 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5456 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5457 the (command-line) function.
5458 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5459 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5460 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5462 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5463 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5464 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5465 command line arguments
5466 -ds do -s script at this point
5467 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5468 -h, --help display this help and exit
5469 -v, --version display version information and exit
5470 \ read arguments from following script lines
5472 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5473 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5475 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5478 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5482 (main (command-line))
5484 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5486 ekko a speckled gecko
5488 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5489 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5490 following list of command-line arguments:
5492 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5494 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5495 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5496 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5497 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5498 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5500 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5502 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5504 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5505 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5508 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5509 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5510 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5511 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5513 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5514 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5515 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5516 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5518 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5522 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5526 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5528 ekko a speckled gecko
5530 Unix expands this into
5532 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5534 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5535 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5537 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5539 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5540 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5542 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5543 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5544 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5545 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5546 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5547 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5548 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5549 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5550 it only terminates the argument list.)
5551 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5552 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5553 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5554 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5555 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5556 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5557 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5558 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5560 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5562 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5563 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5564 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5565 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5566 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5568 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5569 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5570 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5572 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5574 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5575 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5576 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5577 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5580 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5581 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5582 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5584 * Changes to Scheme functions
5586 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5587 and disabled by default.
5589 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5590 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5591 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5592 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5594 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5596 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5598 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5599 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5601 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5602 (read-set! keywords #f)
5604 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5605 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5606 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5609 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5610 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5611 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5614 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5615 support for Scheme functions.
5617 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5618 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5619 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5620 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5623 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5624 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5625 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5628 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5629 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5630 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5633 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5634 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5635 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5636 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5637 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5638 display the result as a prompt.
5639 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5641 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5642 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5643 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5646 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5647 procedure of zero arguments.
5649 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5650 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5651 argument is bound in the current module.
5653 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5654 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5655 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5656 public bindings into the current module.
5658 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5659 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5661 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5662 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5664 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5665 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5667 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5668 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5670 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5671 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5673 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5674 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5675 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5676 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5677 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5679 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5680 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5681 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5682 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5684 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5687 ** Changes to I/O functions
5689 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5690 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5691 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5693 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5694 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5695 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5697 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5698 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5700 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5701 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5702 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5703 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5705 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5707 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5708 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5710 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5711 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5712 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5713 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5714 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5717 'trim omit delimiter from result
5718 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5719 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5720 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5722 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5724 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5725 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5727 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5728 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5729 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5730 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5731 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5733 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5734 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5735 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5737 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5738 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5739 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5740 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5742 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5743 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5745 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5746 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5748 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5750 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5751 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5752 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5753 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5754 a delimiting character.
5755 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5757 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5758 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5759 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5760 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5761 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5762 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5764 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5765 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5767 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5768 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5769 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5771 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5772 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5773 the array to read and write.
5775 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5776 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5779 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5781 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5784 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5785 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5786 Values for COMMAND are:
5788 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5789 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5790 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5791 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5792 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5793 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5794 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5795 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5797 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5799 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5800 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5801 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5802 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5803 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5804 corresponding return set will be the same.
5806 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5809 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5810 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5811 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5812 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5813 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5814 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5815 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5816 special file being created.
5818 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5819 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5821 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5822 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5823 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5824 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5825 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5826 and originating address.
5828 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5829 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5830 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5832 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5835 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5836 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5839 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5840 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5841 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5842 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5843 this function returns #f.
5845 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5846 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5847 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5850 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5851 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5852 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5855 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5856 a valid STATUS value.
5858 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5860 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5861 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5863 Component Accessor Setter
5864 ========================= ============ ============
5865 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5866 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5867 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5868 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5869 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5870 year tm:year set-tm:year
5871 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5872 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5873 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5874 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5875 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5877 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5878 describing the host system:
5881 ============================================== ================
5882 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5883 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5884 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5885 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5886 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5888 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5889 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5890 system's user database:
5893 ====================== =================
5894 user name passwd:name
5895 user password passwd:passwd
5898 real name passwd:gecos
5899 home directory passwd:dir
5900 shell program passwd:shell
5902 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5903 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5904 system's group database:
5907 ======================= ============
5908 group name group:name
5909 group password group:passwd
5911 group members group:mem
5913 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5914 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5918 ========================= ===============
5919 official name of host hostent:name
5920 alias list hostent:aliases
5921 host address type hostent:addrtype
5922 length of address hostent:length
5923 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5925 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5926 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5930 ========================= ===============
5931 official name of net netent:name
5932 alias list netent:aliases
5933 net number type netent:addrtype
5934 net number netent:net
5936 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5937 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5941 ========================= ===============
5942 official protocol name protoent:name
5943 alias list protoent:aliases
5944 protocol number protoent:proto
5946 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5947 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5951 ========================= ===============
5952 official service name servent:name
5953 alias list servent:aliases
5954 port number servent:port
5955 protocol to use servent:proto
5957 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5958 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5961 ======================================== ===============
5962 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5963 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5964 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5965 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5967 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5968 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5969 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5971 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5972 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5974 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5975 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5977 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5978 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5980 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5982 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5984 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5985 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5986 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5988 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5989 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5990 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5991 return the remaining characters as a string.
5993 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5994 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5995 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5997 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5999 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6001 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6004 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6007 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6008 and returns the array
6010 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6011 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6012 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6014 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6016 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6017 symbol's value from C code:
6019 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6020 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6021 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6022 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6024 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6025 without assigning them a value.
6027 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6028 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6029 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6031 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6032 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6033 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6035 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6036 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6038 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6039 doesn't actually care about that.
6041 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6042 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6043 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6045 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6046 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6047 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6048 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6049 which we have just created and initialized.
6051 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6052 should one occur. We call it like this:
6053 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6055 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6056 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6057 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6058 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6059 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6060 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6063 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6064 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6065 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6066 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6067 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6068 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6069 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6072 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6073 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6074 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6075 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6076 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6079 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6080 scm_internal_catch, except:
6082 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6083 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6084 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6085 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6088 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6089 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6090 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6092 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6093 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6094 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6095 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6098 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6099 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6100 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6102 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6103 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6104 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6105 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6106 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6108 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6109 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6110 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6112 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6113 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6114 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6116 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6117 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6119 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6120 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6121 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6124 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6125 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6126 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6127 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6128 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6129 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6130 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6133 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6134 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6136 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6137 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6138 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6139 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6140 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6143 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6144 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6146 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6147 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6150 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6151 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6153 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6156 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6157 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6158 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6159 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6160 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6161 given the following arguments:
6163 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6165 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6167 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6169 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6172 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6173 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6174 command-line arguments.
6176 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6177 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6178 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6179 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6180 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6181 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6184 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6187 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6188 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6190 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6191 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6193 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6194 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6195 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6196 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6198 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6199 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6201 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6202 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6203 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6204 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6206 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6207 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6209 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6210 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6212 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6214 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6215 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6216 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6219 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6220 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6222 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6223 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6228 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6231 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6233 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6234 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6235 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6236 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6238 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6240 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6242 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6243 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6244 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6245 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6246 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6247 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6248 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6249 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6250 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6251 for more information.
6253 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6254 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6256 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6257 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6258 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6259 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6260 following two lines at the top of the file:
6262 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6265 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6266 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6267 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6269 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6271 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6273 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6276 (display (car args))
6277 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6279 (loop (cdr args)))))
6282 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6283 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6284 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6285 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6286 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6287 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6291 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6294 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6297 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6299 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6300 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6301 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6302 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6303 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6306 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6307 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6308 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6309 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6310 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6313 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6316 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6317 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6318 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6321 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6322 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6323 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6325 to see a backtrace, and
6326 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6327 to see them by default.
6331 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6333 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6335 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6336 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6339 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6340 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6341 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6342 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6345 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6346 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6347 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6348 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6349 functions which inspired them.
6351 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6352 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6356 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6358 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6360 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6361 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6364 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6365 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6366 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6368 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6369 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6370 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6371 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6372 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6374 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6376 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6377 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6378 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6381 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6384 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6386 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6387 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6388 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6389 above should serve their purposes.
6391 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6392 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6393 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6394 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6396 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6399 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6400 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6401 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6402 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6404 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6405 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6406 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6407 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6409 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6410 for the `read' function.
6413 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6414 to that of `integer?'.
6416 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6417 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6419 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6420 it simply returns the object's property list.
6422 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6423 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6424 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6425 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6427 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6429 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6432 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6434 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6435 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6437 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6439 void (*main_func) (),
6442 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6443 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6444 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6445 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6446 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6448 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6449 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6450 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6451 know which arguments have been processed.
6453 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6454 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6455 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6456 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6457 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6459 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6460 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6461 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6462 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6463 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6464 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6465 people from making that mistake.
6467 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6468 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6470 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6472 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6476 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6479 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6480 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6481 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6482 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6485 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6486 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6487 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6488 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6491 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6492 have been added to the Guile library.
6494 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6495 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6496 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6499 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6500 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6501 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6503 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6504 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6505 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6506 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6507 argument from the list.
6510 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6513 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6514 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6516 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6517 to a Scheme port object.
6519 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6520 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6525 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6527 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6528 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6529 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6530 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6531 code as a special datatype.
6533 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6534 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6535 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6536 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6537 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6540 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6541 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6542 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6543 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6544 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6546 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6549 Copyright information:
6551 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6553 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6554 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6555 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6556 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6558 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6559 of this document, or of portions of it,
6560 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6561 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6566 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"