* Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
-** You can now use the 'build-guile' utility to link against Guile.
+** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to link against Guile.
-Guile now includes a command-line utility called 'build-guile', which
+Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
writes to its standard output a list of flags which you must pass to
the linker to link against the Guile library. The flags include
'-lguile' itself, and any other libraries the Guile library depends
from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
foo: ${FOO_OBJECTS}
- ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `build-guile link` -o foo
+ ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
-It is more robust to use build-guile, since it records exactly which
+It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
libraries the installed Guile library requires.
+This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
+`guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
+the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
+`gtk-config'.
+
* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
+** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
+
+This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
+function:
+
+Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
+ Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
+ descriptions.
+
+ Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
+ it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
+ `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
+ returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
+ name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
+ an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
+
+ As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
+ car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
+ containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
+ of the form mentioned above.
+
+ The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
+ list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
+ returned in the special `rest' list.
+
+ This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
+ You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
+
** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
+** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
+
+Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
+That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
+passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
+buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
+
+This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
+extra complexity it introduces.
+
* Changes to the gh_ interface
+** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
+gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
+
** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
missing.
+** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
+
+New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
+and C.
+
* Changes to the scm_ interface
+** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
+
+Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
+care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
+Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
+bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
+site-specific initialization code.
+
+Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
+is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
+initialization processes.
+
+This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
+make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
+non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
+initialized properly.
+
+** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
+Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
+see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
+
+** Function: scm_load_startup_files
+This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
+(`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
+this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
+probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
+
+** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
+
+The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
+structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
+smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
+set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
+objects the smob refers to get marked.
+
+Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
+already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
+which look like this:
+
+ {
+ if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
+ return SCM_BOOL_F;
+ SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
+ ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
+ }
+
+are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
+other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
+to work this way.
+
+
** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
SELECT_TYPE *rfds,
SELECT_TYPE *wfds,
use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
+** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
+ void *body_data,
+ scm_catch_handler_t handler,
+ void *handler_data)
+
+Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
+scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
+spawning threads from application C code.
+
** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
scm_putc, scm_puts, scm_lfwrite, scm_getc, scm_ungetc, and
scm_do_read_line.
+** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
+
+Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
+take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
+pass a #f arg to catch.
+
\f
Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):