Chez Scheme Version 7.9.3 Release Notes
Copyright © 2009 Cadence Research Systems
All Rights Reserved
August 2009

1. Overview

This document outlines the changes made to Chez Scheme for Version 7.9.3 since Version 7.4, most of which are focused on converting Chez Scheme into an implementation of the new Scheme standard described in Revised6 Report on Scheme.

Version 7.9.3 is available for the following platforms:

This document contains three sections describing significant (1) functionality changes, (2) bugs fixed, and (3) performance enhancements. A version number listed in parentheses in the header for a change indicates the first minor release or internal prerelease to support the change.

Version 7.9.3 is a prerelease of Version 8 and has not been fully tested or tuned. Several additional changes are expected in Version 8, and some may be incompatible with Version 7.9.3. More information on Chez Scheme and Petite Chez Scheme can be found at http://www.scheme.com, and extensive documentation is available in the recently published The Scheme Programming Language, 4th edition (available directly from MIT Press or from online and local retailers) and the draft Chez Scheme Version 8 User's Guide. Online versions of both books can be found at http://www.scheme.com.

2. Functionality Changes

2.1. New compile-program procedure (7.9.3)

A new compile-program procedure has been added. It is similar to compile-script but differs in that it implements the semantics of RNRS top-level programs, while compile-script implements the semantics of the interactive top-level. The resulting compiled program will also run faster than if compiled via compile-file or compile-script.

2.2. #!fold-case and #!no-fold-case (7.9.3)

The reader now recognizes two new comment directives, analogous to the existing #!r6rs and #!chezscheme directives. If #!fold-case has been seen (more recently than #!no-fold-case) in an input stream, subsequent reads from port are case-insensitive, i.e., symbols and character names are case-folded, as if by string-foldcase. If #!no-fold-case has been seen (more recently than #!fold-case) in an input stream, subsequent reads from the port are case-sensitive. If neither has been seen in an input stream, case-sensitivity is determined as before by the case-sensitive parameter, whose value defaults to #t. The case sensitive parameter is not consulted if either #!fold-case or #!no-fold-case has been seen. #!fold-case, #!no-fold-case, and case-sensitive are all ignored when vertical bars or slashes (excluding Unicode hex escapes) are seen. Like #!r6rs and #!chezscheme, #!fold-case and #!no-fold-case do not require delimiting, so #!fold-caseaBc reads as the symbol abc.

2.3. New mechanisms for specifying library directories and extensions (7.9.3)

The --libdirs option can be used to specify additional directories for import to search. The format of the --libdirs argument string used to specify directories is a sequence of substrings separated by a colon (:) or, under Windows, a semi-colon (;). If a colon (semi-colon under Windows) appears at the end of the string, the default libraries are searched as well (after the ones specified). Otherwise, the system searches only for those specified by the option argument. The default set of libraries can be determined by calling the Scheme parameter library-directories, without arguments, and the effect of specifying the --libdirs option is to set this parameter. If no --libdirs option appears and the CHEZSCHEMELIBDIRS environment variable is set, the string value of CHEZSCHEMELIBDIRS is treated as if it were specified by a --libdirs option.

Similarly, if a library upon which a top-level program depends has an extension other than one of the standard extensions, the --libexts option can be used to specify additional extensions to search. The format and treatment of its argument is the same as for the --libdirs option, the corresponding environment variable is CHEZSCHEMELIBEXTS, and the corresponding parameter is library-extensions.

The library-directories and library-extensions parameters have been extended to accept a string in the format described above, as an alternative to a list of strings naming individual directories.

2.4. New library extensions (7.9.3)

By default, import now searches for files with the extensions ".chezscheme.so" and ".chezscheme.sls" before files with other extensions to facilitate the use of libraries specialized to Chez Scheme. The default set of extensions can be overridden with the library-extensions parameter.

2.5. New (chezscheme) library (7.9.3)

The new (chezscheme) library is identical to the existing (scheme) library. The new name can be used to make clear that Chez Scheme extensions are involved.

2.6. New --optimize-level command-line option (7.9.3)

The new --optimize-level option sets the initial value of the optimize-level parameter to 0, 1, 2, or 3. The value is 0 by default.

2.7. Procedures for manipulating top-level keyword bindings (7.9.3)

The new procedure define-top-level-syntax, which accepts a symbol representing a keyword, a transformer, and an optional environment defaulting to the current interaction environment, can be used to establish a top-level keyword binding in an interactive environment, just as define-top-level-value can be used to establish a top-level variable binding. The new procedure top-level-syntax, which accepts a symbol and an optional environment, can be used to retrieve the transformer associated with a keyword in an environment.

2.8. file-buffer-size parameter (7.9.3)

A new parameter, file-buffer-size, has been added. This parameter controls the size of a buffer used when a file is opened with anything by buffer mode none. The default value of this parameter is currently set at the minimum of 4096 and the value of the underlying operating system's stdio BUFSIZ constant.

2.9. current-exception-state parameter (7.9.3)

The new current-exception-state may be used to save and later restore the state of the exception system.

2.10. fork-thread and multiple values (7.9.3)

fork-thread now permits its thunk argument to return zero values or more than one value.

2.11. system return value (7.9.3)

The system procedure, which runs a command in a newly forked process and waits for it to terminate, now raises an exception if the subprocess creation fails, if the exit status of the forked process cannot be determined, or if the forked process is terminated by a signal. Otherwise, it returns the exit status of the child process.

2.12. abort optional argument (7.9.3)

The abort procedure now takes an optional argument, like exit, that may be used to specify the exit code for the Scheme process.

2.13. New inspector commands (7.9.3)

The interactive inspector now supports reset (r) and abort (a) commands, which may be used to reset to the current REPL or abort from the system.

For characters and strings, the interactive inspector also supports a new unicode command that displays the Unicode scalar values of the character or string elements.

2.14. inspect/object extensions (7.9.3)

The continuation and code inspector-object source-path message now returns a position as well as a file name if the file name is known but the (unmodified) file cannot be found. Previously, it returned a single value in this case, the file name.

2.15. New I/O procedures and support for nonblocking I/O (7.9.3)

New input procedures get-string-some, get-string-some!, and get-bytevector-some! have been added. get-string-some is like the R6RS get-bytevector-some but operates on textual input ports and returns a string rather than a bytevector. get-string-some! and get-bytevector-some! are like the R6RS get-string-n! and get-bytevector-n! except they may return less than the requested count.

The new procedures put-string-some and put-bytevector-some are like put-string and put-bytevector except they do not guarantee to write the entire string or bytevector, and they return a count of the actual number of elements written.

The procedure set-port-nonblocking! may be used to put a port into nonblocking mode. When a port is in nonblocking mode, get-string-some may return an empty string, get-bytevector-some may return an empty bytevector, and get-string-some! and get-bytevector-some! may return 0, in each case indicating that no input is available, i.e., an attempt to read would block. Similarly, put-string-some and put-bytevector-some may return 0, indicating that an attempt write to the port would block.

The procedure port-nonblocking? may be used to determine if a port is in nonblocking mode. The predicates port-has-port-nonblocking?? and port-has-set-port-nonblocking!? return #t if the nonblocking status of a port may be queried or set and #f otherwise. They should be called before attempting to use the set-port-nonblocking! or port-nonblocking? procedures.

2.16. Expression editor delimiter handling (7.9.3)

The expression editor no longer changes the corresponding close delimiter when an open delimiter is inserted into existing code, since this often led to surprising results.

2.17. file-directory? and file-exists? change under Windows (7.9.3)

The file-directory? and file-exists? predicates now return #t under Windows for existing drive names like c:, mounted volumes like //server/mount, and directories specified with (or without) a trailing slash (and regardless of whether forward or backward slashes are used).

2.18. R6RS (7.9.2)

(Initial support was included in Version 7.9.1.)

Version 7.9.3 implements the entire language of the Revised6 Report on Scheme (R6RS) and associated libraries, including all of the syntactic requirements and each export of the standard libraries, namely:

(rnrs)
(rnrs arithmetic bitwise)
(rnrs arithmetic fixnums)
(rnrs arithmetic flonums)
(rnrs base)
(rnrs bytevectors)
(rnrs conditions)
(rnrs control)
(rnrs enums)
(rnrs eval)
(rnrs exceptions)
(rnrs files)
(rnrs hashtables)
(rnrs io ports)
(rnrs io simple)
(rnrs lists)
(rnrs mutable-pairs)
(rnrs mutable-strings)
(rnrs programs)
(rnrs r5rs)
(rnrs records procedural)
(rnrs records syntactic)
(rnrs records inspection)
(rnrs sorting)
(rnrs syntax-case)
(rnrs unicode)

Top-level programs are supported via the --program command-line option, i.e., the shell command:

scheme --program pathname

runs the top-level program contained in the file named by pathname. To create an executable R6RS top-level program on Unix-based system, insert:

#! /usr/bin/scheme --program

at the front of the top-level program (adjusting the path for scheme or replacing scheme with petite as appropriate) and give the file execute permissions. To make use of existing executable top-level programs containing the "shebang" line

#! /usr/bin/env scheme-script

recommended by R6RS nonnormative appendix D.1, create a copy or symbolic link of the Scheme executable to scheme-script and copies or symbolic links of the "scheme" or "petite" boot file to scheme-script.boot. Place the former somewhere in the path searched by /usr/bin/env and the latter in a standard directory for Chez Scheme boot files, e.g., the same place where scheme.boot and/or petite.boot already reside. (This may already be done as part of the installation process.)

2.19. Interaction environment and R6RS (7.9.2)

The default interaction environment used for any code that occurs outside of an R6RS top-level program or library (including such code typed at the REPL or loaded from a file) contains all of the bindings of the (scheme) library (or scheme module, which exports the same set of bindings). This set contains a number of bindings that are not in the R6RS libraries. It also contains a number of bindings that extend the R6RS counterparts in some way and are thus not strictly compatible with the R6RS bindings for the same identifiers. To replace these with bindings strictly compatible with R6RS, simply import the rnrs libraries into the interaction environment by typing the following into the REPL or loading it from a file:

(import
  (rnrs)
  (rnrs eval)
  (rnrs mutable-pairs)
  (rnrs mutable-strings)
  (rnrs r5rs))

To obtain an interaction environment that contains all and only R6RS bindings, use the following.

(interaction-environment
  (copy-environment
    (environment
      '(rnrs)
      '(rnrs eval) 
      '(rnrs mutable-pairs) 
      '(rnrs mutable-strings) 
      '(rnrs r5rs))
    #t))

The read-eval-print loop (REPL) and files loaded using load or included using include also support various Chez Scheme lexical extensions, by default. To disable these extensions, #!r6rs can be inserted at the front of a file to be loaded or included or before the start of an expression typed into the REPL. The #!r6rs mode is implicit for libraries loaded as a result of an import form and for R6RS top-level programs. To enable Chez Scheme extensions in libraries and R6RS top-level programs, the prefix #!chezscheme can be used.

To be useful for most purposes, library and import should probably also be included, from the (scheme) library.

(interaction-environment
  (copy-environment
    (environment
      '(rnrs)
      '(rnrs eval) 
      '(rnrs mutable-pairs) 
      '(rnrs mutable-strings) 
      '(rnrs r5rs)
      '(only (scheme) library import))
    #t))

It might also be useful to include debug in the set of identifiers imported from (scheme) to allow the debugger to be entered after an exception is raised.

Most of the identifiers bound in the default interaction environment that are not strictly compatible with the R6RS are variables bound to procedures with extended interfaces, i.e., optional arguments or extended argument domains. The others are keywords bound to transformers that extend the R6RS syntax in some way. This should not be a problem except for R6RS programs that count on exceptions being raised in cases that coincide with the extensions. For example, if a program passes the = procedure a single numeric argument and expects an exception to be raised, it will fail in the initial interaction environment because = returns #t when passed a single numeric argument.

The procedures that are not strictly compatible include the following, which return #t for one argument (while the R6RS versions require two or more):

<, <=, =, >, >=, char<=?, char<?, char=?, char>=?, char>?, string<=?, string<?, string=?, string>=?, string>?, char-ci<=?, char-ci<?, char-ci=?, char-ci>=?, char-ci>?, string-ci<=?, string-ci<?, string-ci=?, string-ci>=?, string-ci>?;

the following, which are extended to accept zero or more arguments:

fx*, fx+, exit;

the following, which is extended to accept one or more arguments:

fx-;

the following, which allow radixes 3, 5-7, 9-15, and 17-36:

string->number, number->string;

the following, which accepts either one or two arguments and allows the first argument to represent a definition:

eval;

the following, for which the argument is optional and defaults to the current output port:

flush-output-port;

the following, which are parameters and thus may be used to alter the encapsulated value:

command-line, current-error-port, current-input-port, current-output-port,
standard-error-port, standard-input-port, standard-output-port;

the following, which accept an "options" symbol or list:

call-with-input-file, call-with-output-file, open-input-file, open-output-file,
with-input-from-file, with-output-to-file;

and the following, which accept optional arguments:

delete-file, dynamic-wind, file-exists?, record?.

The only keyword that is not strictly compatible is syntax-rules, which allows fenders.

For details on the (scheme) library versions of these procedures and syntactic forms, see the Chez Scheme Version 7 User's Guide.

2.20. Incompatible Changes (7.9.2)

Although we have strived to maintain backward compatibility with earlier versions of Scheme wherever possible, the following incompatible changes have been made to support R6RS.

2.21. C library routines for 32- and 64-bit integers (7.9.2)

Four new C library operators have been added for converting 32- and 64-bit integers from their Scheme representations:

An exception is raised if a 32-bit value is not in the range -231 through 232 - 1 or a 64-bit values is not in the range -263 through 264 - 1.

Similarly, four new C library operators have been added for converting 32- and 64-bit integers to their Scheme representations:

Each returns a Scheme exact integer whose value is x. The arguments are signed or unsigned 32- or 64-bit C integers, as appropriate.

2.22. New nonstandard character names (7.9.2)

The characters #\nel and #\ls, representing the Unicode next-line and line-separator characters, are recognized by the reader (except after #!r6rs).

2.23. Fewer "invalid context for definition" errors (7.9.2)

The expander now expands library body forms left-to-right even after discovering an apparent expression so that a spelling error in a definition keyword (e.g., defnie for define) results in an "unbound identifier" error rather than an "invalid context for definition" error for some subsequent definition.

2.24. Windows library change (7.9.1/7.9.2)

Windows builds of Chez Scheme now link against msvcr90.dll. Static libraries built using libcmt are also available.

2.25. Saved heaps not currently supported (7.9.1)

None of the operating systems upon which Chez Scheme runs provide the guarantees about storage allocation needed to restore a saved heap with absolute addresses, and while restoration used to work on some operating systems even without the guarantee, this is generally no longer the case as the operating systems are randomizing the addresses of data and even code for security purposes. We are looking into ways to address this problem, including relocatable saved heaps, but for the present, support for saved heaps has been removed from the system.

2.26. Thread-safe console ports (7.9.1)

Unbuffered file output ports are no longer thread-safe. The default console output port remains thread-safe, however, and the default console input port is now thread-safe as well. There is a substantial performance cost in both cases, so programs that need faster I/O should create their own ports and either avoid using them from multiple threads or arrange for appropriate synchronization. (This is relevant only for the threaded versions of Chez Scheme.)

2.27. input-port-ready? and char-ready? (7.9.1)

A new input-port-ready? procedure has been that is similar to the old char-ready? but works on both binary and textual ports. The char-ready? procedure still works for textual ports.

Under Windows, these procedures properly handle files and ports, while in previous releases, char-ready? always returned #t. In cases where the system cannot determine if input is ready, e.g., for a console port that has no data already buffered, each of these procedures raises an exception so that the application can control what happens in such cases. Thus, these procedures either (a) return #f if no input is ready and the port is not at end of file, (b) return #t if input is ready or the port is at end of file, or (c) raise an exception if the ready status cannot be determined.

2.28. X86_64 Support (7.9.1)

Support for running Chez Scheme with 64-bit pointers on the x86_64 architecture under Linux, MacOS X, and OpenBSD with machine types a6le, a6osx, and a6ob for nonthreaded and ta6le, ta6osx, and ta6ob for threaded, has been added. C code intended to be linked with these versions of the system should be compiled using the Gnu C compiler's -m64 option, which may or may not be the default.

2.29. Additional byte-vector operations (7.9.1)

In addition to the standard R6RS bytevector operations, Chez Scheme also supports the following procedures:

(bytevector->s8-list bytevector<graphic> list
(s8-list->bytevector s8-list<graphic> bytevector
(bytevector fill ...) <graphic> bytevector

where each element of s8-list is an exact integer value ranging from -128 through +128 and each fill is an exact integer value ranging from -128 through +255.

As with vectors and bytevectors, the reader allows an optional length to appear in the bytevector prefix, e.g.:

(bytevector? #10vu8(0))

is a bytevector containing 10 zero bytes. (This cannot be used following #!r6rs, which limits the syntax recognized by the reader to R6RS-only features.)

The read-token procedure returns token types vu8paren and vu8nparen for bytevector prefixes, analogous to the vparen and vnparen token types for vector prefixes.

The C library interface supports four new bytevector operators:

2.30. meta-cond generalization (7.9.1)

The meta-cond syntax has been extended to allow it to be used in definition contexts. meta-cond still expands into (void) if no clause's test evaluates to true and no else clause is present, however, which is not suitable in a definition context. To avoid this problem, use an explicit else clause and expand into (begin).

2.31. Default heap/boot search path (7.9.1)

The default heap and boot search path on Unix-based systems now starts with ~/lib/csv%v/%m if the home directory can be determined. The default heap and boot search path is still determined by a registry setting under Windows.

2.32. Tilde-prefixed paths under Windows (7.9.1)

The filename prefix ~/ now expands to the user's home directory under Windows, as on Unix-based systems, if the HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH environment variables are set.

2.33. Months range from 1 to 12 (7.5)

The month field of a date record, e.g., one returned by current-date, runs from 1 through 12 rather than 0 through 11, for compatibility with SRFI 19.

2.34. Monotonic time (7.5)

Requesting monotonic no longer fails on Linux systems that do not support monotonic clocks; on such systems, the real-time clock is now used instead. All of the high-precision time procedures now fall back on older time mechanisms when requesting high-precision timers fails.

2.35. New and altered expression-editor key bindings (7.5)

The expression editor now binds the common delete-key sequence (Esc[3~) to ee-delete-char and escape followed by the same sequence to ee-delete-sexp. The effect of this is that the delete key should now delete forward rather than backward. The backspace key should still delete backward.

New bindings have also been added for the home and end keys of certain terminal emulators, including the Gnome terminal.

2.36. Top-level value handling (7.5)

The top-level-value and top-level-bound? procedures now recognize as bound a variable assigned by a file compiled in one session and loaded into another session---even if the variable was not defined.

3. Bug Fixes

3.1. Work-around for automatic margins on MacOS X Terminal (7.9.3)

The expression editor disables automatic margins (i.e., automatic line wrapping) when possible so it can use the last column without scrolling the display. Unfortunately, when automatic margins are disabled in the MacOS X Terminal application, they are disabled simultaneously for all windows, not just for the current window, causing problems when the expression editor is running in one window and long lines are printed in another. The expression editor now disables automatic margins only temporarily while writing text to the last column, reducing (though not entirely eliminating) the possibility that other windows are affected.

3.2. Invalid memory reference using hashtables (7.9.3)

A bug that caused corruption of the heap and typically resulted in an "unrecoverable invalid memory reference" while using the R6RS eq hashtable interface has been fixed.

3.3. Bug in format tabulation (7.9.3)

A bug resulting in an "undefined for zero" error when the optional column width specifier in a tabulate directive is zero, e.g., ~1,0t, has been fixed.

3.4. Expansion internal error (7.9.3)

A bug in the expander that sometimes resulted in an internal error ("source-wrap ae/x mismatch") has been fixed.

3.5. Expression editor datum comment handling (7.5)

The expression editor no longer returns end-of-file for an entry containing only a single commented-out datum.

3.6. Expression editor clipboard bug under Windows (7.5)

The expression editor now properly closes the clipboard after a paste (control-v) operation, i.e., no longer prevents new items from being copied to the clipboard.

3.7. Bug in ash (7.5)

A bug that caused ash to return the wrong result for word-sized or greater negative (right) shifts of large powers of two has been fixed.

3.8. Bug in inexact (7.5)

A bug that could cause inexact (aka exact->inexact) to improperly round an exact value halfway between two floating-point values has been fixed.

3.9. Bug in handling of compile (7.5)

A bug in the compiler that caused it to treat the return value of compile as true in test context, no matter what it actually returns, has been fixed.

4. Performance Enhancements

4.1. Reduced letrec* undefined-variable checking overhead (7.9.3)

A improvement in the handling of letrec*, which also affects internal definitions, including library and top-level program definitions, causes the compiler to produce fewer checks for undefined variables. Improvements in safe code can be substantial (up to 15% or so), but the amount of improvement is highly dependent on the structure of the code. Unsafe code (code compiled at optimize-level 3) is not affected, since these checks are not performed in unsafe code.

4.2. Improved register assignment for x86 (7.9.1)

A better choice of register assignments has resulted in measurable improvement in x86 performance. Actual improvements differ from one program to another, and we've seen anything from -9% decreases in speed to 36% increases, with increases of 5-15% appearing typical.

4.3. Improved recursive bindings (7.9.1)

The compiler now generates better code for some letrec expressions, letrec* expressions, and bodies containing internal definitions by taking advantage of the R6RS restriction that right-hand-side expressions should not return to their continuations multiple times.

4.4. Improved procedural record interface (7.9.1)

Record constructors, predicates, accessors, and mutators created with the procedural record interface are often faster than before because the compiler now tracks record-type information through to the sites where constructors, predicates, accessors, and mutators are created in order to generate specific and inlinable code for them. The effects of this optimization can be seen with expand/optimize. (This optimization is not performed by Petite Chez Scheme.)