Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
-Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end for copying conditions.
Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
\f
Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
-* New primitive: `simple-format', affects `scm-error', scm_display_error, & scm_error message strings
-
-(ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
-extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
-
-(simple-format port message . args)
-Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
-MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
-the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
-~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
-If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
-if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
-Does not add a trailing newline."
-
-The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
-primitive `scm-error', now use scm_format to do their work. This means
-that the message strings of all code must be updated to use ~A where %s
-was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
-
-During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
-you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
-
-There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
-autoconf. Put
-
- AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
-
-in your configure.in.
-
-Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
- preprocessor.
-
-In C:
-
-#ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
-#define FMT_S "~S"
-#else
-#define FMT_S "%S"
-#endif
-
-Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
-
-#define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
-
-In Scheme:
-
-(define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
-(define make-message string-append)
-
-(define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
-
-Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
-
-In C:
-
-scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
- ...);
-
-In Scheme:
-
-(scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
- ...)
-
-* Massive software engineering face-lift by Greg J. Badros <gjb@cs.washington.edu>
-
-Now Guile primitives are defined using the GUILE_PROC/GUILE_PROC1 macros
-and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
-guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
-
-Also, many SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and
-improve the readability of argument checking.
-
-All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
-
-* Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
-
-The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
-replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
-details for us.
-
-The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
-library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
-will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
-libltdl.
-
-The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
-portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
-use absolute filenames when possible.
-
-If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
-try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
-to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
-extensions.
-
* Changes to the distribution
** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
-* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
-** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
+** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
-** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
-only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
+The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
+replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
+details for us.
-** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
-Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
+The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
+library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
+will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
+libltdl.
-* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
+The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
+portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
+use absolute filenames when possible.
+
+If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
+try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
+to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
+extensions.
** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
+* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+
+** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
+
+(ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
+extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
+
+(simple-format port message . args)
+Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
+MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
+the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
+~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
+If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
+if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
+Does not add a trailing newline."
+
+** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
+
+** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
+only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
+
+** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
+Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
+
* Changes to the scm_ interface
+** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: GUILE_PROC/GUILE_PROC1
+
+Now Guile primitives are defined using the GUILE_PROC/GUILE_PROC1 macros
+and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
+guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
+
+** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
+
+SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
+the readability of argument checking.
+
+** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
+
** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
removed in a future version.
+** The format of error message strings has changed
+
+The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
+primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
+This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
+~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
+
+During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
+you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
+
+There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
+autoconf. Put
+
+ AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
+
+in your configure.in.
+
+Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
+ preprocessor.
+
+In C:
+
+#ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
+#define FMT_S "~S"
+#else
+#define FMT_S "%S"
+#endif
+
+Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
+
+#define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
+
+In Scheme:
+
+(define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
+(define make-message string-append)
+
+(define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
+
+Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
+
+In C:
+
+scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
+ ...);
+
+In Scheme:
+
+(scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
+ ...)
+
+
* Changes to system call interfaces:
** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
HCoop / bpt / guile.git / commitdiff