~ chicken-core (master) /NEWS

   16.0.0
   2
   3- Core libraries
   4  - All modules specified by the R7RS small language are now available in
   5    the core system.
   6  - The internal string representation has been converted to UTF-8,
   7    making strings fully UNICODE capable.
   8  - The (chicken blob) module has been replaced with (chicken bytevector),
   9    containing R7RS compatible bytevector operations. Bytevectors are
  10    now fully equivalent to SRFI-4 u8vectors.
  11  - The read-syntax for blobs (`#${...}') has been removed. Bytevectors
  12    can be read using `#u8(...)' or `#u8"..."'.
  13  - `open-input-file' and `open-output-file' accept a file encoding,
  14    supported are currently UTF-8 (the default) and Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1).
  15  - `file-read', `file-write', 'set-pseudo-random-seed!' and `random-bytes'
  16    require a bytevector argument and do not accept strings.
  17  - `process-fork', `process-run', `process' and `process*' return now
  18    a process-object instead of a PID, use process record accessors to
  19    retrieve exit-status and input/output ports. `process-wait' and
  20    `process-signal' accept either a PID or a process object as
  21    argument.
  22  - File-locking operations in the (chicken file posix) module now use the
  23    flock(2) system call, operator over whole files, are thread-safe and
  24    use a simpler interface. `file-test-lock' has been removed.
  25  - `read-u8vector', `read-u8vector!' and `write-u8vector' have been
  26    removed, use the equivalent operations from the (chicken io)
  27    module instead.
  28  - Added `read-bytevector', `read-bytevector!' and `write-bytevector'
  29    to the (chicken io) module.
  30  - Removed `set-port-name!', use the SRFI-17 setter for `port-name'
  31    instead.
  32  - Added `port-encoding' to the (chicken port) module.
  33  - `make-input-port' and `make-output-port' take their optional
  34    port methods as keyword arguments now.
  35  - Locatives on strings are now indexed by code-point, not byte.
  36  - `symbol-escape' now also controls whether symbols are printed in
  37    escaped ("|...|") mode or not.
  38  - Symbol printing is stricter in deciding when symbols should be escaped
  39    or not.
  40  - The following primitives have been moved from (chicken base)
  41    to R7RS modules:
  42    - `exact-integer-sqrt?', `vector-copy!', `make-parameter', `call/cc',
  43      `open-input-string', `open-output-string', `get-output-string',
  44      `input-port-open?', `output-port-open?', `parameterize' and `port?'
  45      moved from the (chicken base) to the (scheme base).
  46    - `case-lambda' moved from (chicken base) to (scheme case-lambda).
  47    - `features' moved from (chicken platform) to (scheme base).
  48    - `write-string' moved from (chicken io) to (scheme base) and its
  49      signature changed to the R7RS one.
  50    - `define-record-type' moved to (scheme base) and is generative,
  51      to be compliant with R7RS.
  52  - `syntax-error' has been removed from (chicken syntax) and is now a
  53    macro and part of (scheme base).
  54  - `record-instance?' and `make-record-instance' accept non-symbolic
  55    type specifiers to support generative record types.
  56  - The new (chicken number-vector) module now provides a superset of
  57    SRFI-4, including 64 and 128-bit complex number vectors, the `srfi-4'
  58    module is still available but exports only those procedures as are
  59    specified in SRFI-4.
  60  - The second (optional) parameter for `load' and `load-relative' may be
  61    either an environment or an evaluation procedure.
  62  - The module aliases `srfi-0', `srfi-6', `srfi-9', `srfi-11', `srfi-23',
  63    `srfi-39' and `srfi-98' have been removed (all of these are covered by
  64    R7RS).
  65  - The modules `r4rs', `r5rs', `r4rs-null' and `r5rs-null' have been
  66    renamed to `(scheme XXX)'.
  67  - Hexadecimal escape sequences in strings and extended symbols must be
  68    terminated by the `;' character, following R7RS.
  69  - The `#ci'/`#cs' read syntaxes have been removed, use
  70    `#![no-]fold-case'
  71    markers instead.
  72  - `include' and `include-relative' accept multiple filenames,
  73    `include-ci'
  74    has been added.
  75  - Added `include-path' to (chicken platform) module.
  76  - Added `number-vector-data' to (chicken memory representation) module.
  77  - The platform-identifier "mingw32" has been renamed to "mingw".
  78  - Library procedures that return paths now always convert them to
  79    contain forward slashes, 'make-pathname' always uses "/" for path
  80    separation.
  81  - Added `expand1' to (chicken syntax) module for expanding a macro
  82    only once, also added the ",x1" command to "csi" for this.
  83
  84- Syntax expander:
  85  - `syntax-rules' attempts to better support tail patterns with ellipses
  86     (#1736).
  87
  88- FFI changes:
  89  - Strings and symbols passed to foreign code are not copied, they are
  90    passed directly, any mutations done by external code will be visible on the
  91    Scheme side.
  92  - Complex numbers, C structs and unions can now be passed directly as
  93    arguments and returned as results when interfacing to C code.
  94
  95- Tools
  96  - The compiler and interpreter option `-r5rs-syntax' has been renamed to
  97    `-r7rs-syntax' and does not disable extended symbol syntax ("|...|")
  98    anymore.
  99  - The "feathers" debugger has been removed from the core and is now
 100    available as an egg.
 101  - The `set-describer!' procedure has been removed from the `csi' module.
 102  - The "csc" program now accepts tool flags (e.g. -compiler, -cc etc)
 103    which have paths with spaces in them without requiring the user to
 104    double-quote them.  As a consequence, it no longer accepts programs
 105    with space separated flags for tool arguments (e.g.
 106    "csc -cc 'gcc -debug'" etc).  If this is desired, write a short
 107    shell script which calls the tool with your flags.
 108  - `chicken-install' now locks the cache directory during
 109    egg-installation.
 110  - Added component type `installed-c-object' to egg format.
 111  - The `csc-options' and `link-options' configuration clauses in egg
 112    specifications now allow `custom-config' forms to produce arbitrary
 113    computed compiler and linker options.
 114
 115- Build system
 116  - A "configure" script is now used to prepare the sources for building
 117    everything. This simplifies the use of "make", allows more elaborate
 118    platform sanity checks and follows conventions.
 119  - On Windows the minimal "mingw" build is not supported anymore, a POSIX
 120    shell and the basic sete of command-line utilities is now required
 121    (formerly the "mingw-msys" build). Chris Wellons "w64devkit" is now
 122    the recommended toolchain. The platform identifier "mingw-msys" has
 123    been renamed to "mingw".
 124  - The system can now be built with "zig cc" as a C compiler/linker
 125    replacement.
 126
 1275.4.0
 128
 129- Security fixes
 130  - CVE-2022-45145: Neutralize possible escape characters in egg metadata
 131    to avoid arbitrary OS command injection during egg installation,
 132    reported by Vasilij Schneidermann who also provided the necessary
 133    patches to mitigate this problem.
 134  - The runtime option "-:b" has been removed, as it was deemed too
 135    insecure to be able to drop to a REPL from the CLI of any program.
 136  - Runtime option processing has been hardened: processing now stops on
 137    the first non-runtime option or after "-:", whichever comes first.
 138
 139- Core libraries
 140  - Fix type declarations for `file-select` (reported by Anton Idukov).
 141  - Change `create-temporary-{file,directory}` fallback code on Windows to
 142    use %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Local/Temp if that environment variable is set.
 143  - Added new thread-safe API for POSIX signals ("make-signal-handler",
 144    "signal-ignore" and "signal-default") and deprecated the existing one.
 145  - Added "make-finalizer" to execute finalizers in a thread-safe
 146    manner.
 147  - Added weak pairs to (chicken base), with similar behaviour to Chez Scheme.
 148  - Added "locative-index", kindly contributed by John Croisant.
 149  - Added "fp*+" (fused multiply-add) to "chicken.flonum" module
 150    (suggested by Christian Himpe).
 151  - Added flonum-specific hyperbolic functions and their inverse to
 152    "chicken.flonum" module (suggested by Christian Himpe).
 153  - The `process-execute` procedure now sets argv[0] to the unmodified
 154    filename. Previously, the directory part would be stripped.
 155  - Added support for embedded strings and characters in SRFI-4 vector
 156    literals.
 157  - read-with-source-info is now documented and officially supported,
 158    from the (chicken syntax) module.  read/source-info is still exported
 159    from the undocumented internal (chicken compiler support) module, but
 160    using it from there is deprecated.
 161  - Added "export/rename" to (chicken module) for renaming identifiers on
 162    export.
 163  - The values of the TMPDIR, TMP and TEMP environment variables are no
 164    longer memoized (fixes #1830).
 165  - Condition objects produced by procedures that change errno now have
 166    an `errno' property.
 167  - Deprecated "chicken-home" and added "include-path" in the
 168    chicken.platform module.
 169  - Irregex has been updated to upstream 0.9.11 plus an additional fix
 170    for sre->string.  The 0.9.11 release fixes a few problems related to
 171    utf-8 handling (which should not affect CHICKEN) and expands the
 172    definition for the 'whitespace character set to include vertical tab,
 173    carriage return and form feed.
 174
 175- Tools
 176  - Fix scripts generated by `chicken-install` on Windows to not quote `>>`
 177    when echoing into files which would result in empty egg-info files
 178    (reported and fixed by Jani Hakala).
 179  - The -R option for csi and csc now accepts list-notation like
 180    e.g. (srfi 1).  Fixes #1809, reported by Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe.
 181  - Fix shell quotation in options passed from csc to other tools.
 182    Fixes #1302, reported by Xin Wang.
 183  - The -prelude and -postlude options for csc work properly again.
 184  - chicken-install now retrieves the latest egg version when
 185    instructed to install an egg that's already installed (#1802).
 186  - When `location' is specified in setup.defaults, chicken-install
 187    will consider two location layouts when looking for eggs:
 188    <location>/<egg> and <location>/<egg>/<version>.
 189  - chicken-install: Fix #1684 (programs that specify
 190    component-dependencies should build-depend on their import
 191    libraries).
 192  - chicken-install now caches eggs installed from local locations.
 193  - chicken-install now accepts the -location command line option
 194    (short: -l) to specify local directories where to get egg sources
 195    from.
 196  - chicken-install now gives a warning on unexpected properties (#1492).
 197  - chicken-install now uses a directory specific for cache metadata
 198    (VERSION, STATUS and TIMESTAMP files) to avoid collisions with source
 199    files on case-insensitive file systems like on MacOS (#1753, reported
 200    by Kon Lovett).
 201
 202- Syntax expander
 203  - When passing a module as an environment to eval, correctly resolve
 204    identifiers in macro expansions (#1295 reported by Caolan McMahon).
 205  - Internal definitions honor rebindings of core special forms (#1132).
 206  - Globally defining an identifier previously bound to a macro now fully
 207    shadows the macro (#1166, reported by Michele La Monaca).
 208
 209- Compiler
 210  - When emitting types files, the output list is now sorted, to ensure
 211    deterministic build output (fixes #1783, reported by "ss2").
 212
 213- Build system
 214  - Fix compiler warnings about zero-sized `memset` (reported by Claude Marinier).
 215  - Disable broken test-create-temporary-file on Windows (reported by "jjhoo").
 216  - Drop use of XCODE_... environment variables on MacOS.
 217  - Add build directory to rpath on MacOS so that the test suite picks up correct
 218    libchicken, even if CHICKEN is already installed (thanks to Christian Himpe).
 219  - Default "cc" on BSD systems for building CHICKEN to avoid ABI problems
 220    when linking with C++ code.
 221
 222- Runtime system
 223  - Make line numbers available for error output and during syntax expansion
 224    in the interpreter as well as the compiler.
 225
 2265.3.0
 227
 228- Core libraries
 229  - In (chicken process-context posix), the setters for current-user-id,
 230    current-effective-user-id and current-group-id now check that the
 231    new user/group value is a fixnum instead of blindly passing it on
 232    to the C implementation (which would cause bogus user ids to be set).
 233    Fixes #1787, thanks to Christopher Brannon.
 234  - The srfi-17 module now exports the `getter-with-setter` and `setter`
 235    procedures, not just the set! macro (thanks to Lassi Kortela)
 236  - Fix hang in chicken-install -update-db on Windows (thanks to Mark
 237    Fisher for reporting and Jani Hakala for debugging and patch).
 238  - Fixed an inadvertant error during error reporting in the `numerator`
 239    and `denominator` procedures when passed non-finite flonums (#1730).
 240  - Fixed a bug where optimisations for `irregex-match?` would cause
 241    runtime errors due to the inlined specialisations not being
 242    fully-expanded (see #1690).
 243  - Irregex has been updated to upstream 0.9.10, which fixes behaviour
 244    of irregex-replace/all with positive lookbehind so all matches are
 245    replaced instead of only the first (reported by Kay Rhodes), and
 246    a regression regarding replacing empty matches which was introduced
 247    by the fixes in 0.9.7 (reported by Sandra Snan).  Also, the
 248    http-url shorthand now allows any top-level domain and the old
 249    "top-level-domain" now also supports "edu" (fixed by Sandra Snan).
 250    Also, a problem was fixed with capturing groups inside a kleene
 251    star, which could sometimes return incorrect parts of the match.
 252    Finally, "bol" handling was fixed to handle newlines consistently
 253    so that multiple matches don't overlap (reported by Sandra Snan).
 254  - current-milliseconds has been deprecated in favor of the name
 255    current-process-milliseconds, to avoid confusion due to naming
 256    of current-milliseconds versus current-seconds, which do something
 257    quite different.  Also, its definition has been tweaked to
 258    guarantee that it returns the time since process startup.  On
 259    Windows, it will now return sane values after 24 days of uptime.
 260    On UNIX, the values returned will be precise to the millisecond
 261    instead of rounded down to the nearest second at startup (which
 262    would result in erratic startup times).
 263  - The default mode for files created by `file-open' has been changed
 264    to 0666 (plus whatever change the effective umask applies), rather
 265    than 0744 (see #1698).
 266  - Fixed type database entry for "log" with second arg (fixes #1725).
 267  - Made topological-sort behave better when dependency target is listed
 268    multiple times by concatenating dependencies (fixes #1185).
 269
 270- Module system
 271  - Reexported macros now work when the reexporting module redefines
 272    identifiers from the original (fixes #1757, reported by Sandra Snan).
 273  - When using "except" in "import" to omit reexported macros,
 274    they are really not imported (#1771, reported by Sandra Snan).
 275
 276- Runtime system
 277  - Sleeping primordial thread doesn't forget mutations made to
 278    parameters in interrupt handlers anymore. (See #1638. Fix
 279    contributed by Sebastien Marie)
 280  - A feature corresponding to the word size is available
 281    regardless of the word size (#1693)
 282  - The default maximum heap size on 64-bit platforms is now the
 283    theoretical maximum addressable memory size (#1675).  Use -:m
 284    if you would like to override this at run-time.
 285  - Deprecated C_(a_i_current_)milliseconds in favor of
 286    C_(a_i_)current_process_milliseconds to match the Scheme-level
 287    deprecation of current-milliseconds.
 288  - Officially deprecated C_pair() in favor of C_a_pair(); it has
 289    been deprecated for years.
 290  - At program cleanup, finalizers are only forced when the live
 291    finalizer count is non-zero
 292  - The symbol `srfi-87` has been added to the list of built-in
 293    feature identifiers.
 294  - Garbage collection algorithm has been changed to reduce thrashing
 295    when heap is almost full, by growing the heap sooner.  A new -:hf
 296    option was added to tweak when heap growth should occur.
 297  - Added `-:R' runtime option to initialize rand() state
 298    deterministically (should help with #1650 and benchmarking).
 299
 300- Compiler
 301  - Statically linked programs using built-in libraries are supported
 302    again (fixes #1788, a regression from 5.2.0).
 303  - Avoid re-using argvector when inline rest operations are being
 304    used in CPS calls (#1703, thanks to Jakob L. Keuze).
 305  - An `emit-types-file` declaration has been added, which corresponds
 306    to the compiler flag of the same name (#1644, thanks to Marco Maggi
 307    for the suggestion).
 308  - Fixed a bug caused by a bad interaction between two optimizations:
 309    argvector rest ops would be applied even if a procedure already got
 310    its rest arg consed at the call site (#1756, thanks to Sandra Snan).
 311
 312- Build system
 313  - Fix build with tcc.
 314  - Fix a few tests on Windows so the suite passes once again.
 315  - Auto-configure at build time on most platforms. Cross-compilation
 316    still requires PLATFORM to be set, and it can still be provided
 317    manually, but it is no longer required in the common case.
 318  - Fix Linux to MingW cross-compilation (#1768, thanks to Théo Cavignac)
 319  - The `clean' target for make now also removes build configuration files.
 320  - The `distclean' target for make has been removed (now `clean' does what
 321    `distclean' used to do).
 322
 323- Tools
 324  - Fix a problem with egg installation scripts on Windows, where the
 325    platform was not correctly identified, depending on the shell used
 326    during installation of the core system (thanks again to Mark Fisher
 327    for reporting and helping in finding the culprit).
 328  - Fixed a bug in chicken-install (#1744) that would cause
 329    `Error: (string->number) bad argument type: #!eof` in some cases.
 330  - If chicken-install has a program prefix/suffix, it now writes to a
 331    cache directory matching its program name (#1713, thanks to Alice Maz)
 332  - Fixed bug in chicken-install regarding variable quotation on UNIX-like
 333    systems which prevented installation into paths with spaces (#1685).
 334  - Fixed a similar bug in chicken-install for paths with spaces on mingw
 335    and mingw-msys (#1727, thanks to Josh Helzer for reporting and Vasilij
 336    Schneidermann for the patch).
 337
 338- Module system
 339  - Fixed a memory leak when calling (import) multiple times in a row
 340    on the same module (#1772; reported by "plugd" on IRC).
 341
 3425.2.0
 343
 344- Core libraries
 345  - Fix `memory-statistics` by returning semi-space bytes and used
 346    semi-space bytes like the documentation says. Old implementation
 347    returned full-heap size and (full-heap - used-semi-space).
 348  - for-each and map now behave consistently in compiled and interpreted
 349    mode, like in SRFI-1.  They now stop when the shortest list is
 350    exhausted instead of raising an exception (fixes #1422).
 351  - There is now a srfi-88 module which contains just the three
 352    procedures from the (chicken keyword) module defined by the SRFI.
 353  - A feature identifier named "srfi-88" is now registered.
 354  - The procedures `record-printer` and `set-record-printer!` and a
 355    corresponding SRFI-17 setter have been added. These deprecate
 356    `define-record-printer` which isn't a "real" definition (see #1294).
 357  - On Windows, `decompose-directory` no longer crashes when a drive
 358    letter is present in the supplied path string.
 359  - irregex-replace[/all] have been fixed for empty matches, so they
 360    will no longer drop characters and ignore the replacement (#1661).
 361  - Irregex has been updated to upstream 0.9.7, which also improves
 362    how empty matches are treated in irregex-fold and irregex-split.
 363
 364- Runtime system
 365  - Quoted empty keywords like ||: and :|| are now read like prescribed
 366    by SRFI-88 in the corresponding keyword mode.  Symbols containing
 367    quoted empty prefixes or suffixes like ||:abc and abc:|| will be
 368    read correctly as symbols now (fixes #1625, thanks to Andy Bennett).
 369  - IEEE floating point negative zero is now properly handled: it can
 370    be read, written and distinguished by eqv? and equal?, but not =
 371    (fixes #1627, thanks to John Cowan).
 372  - ##sys#check-exact and its C implementations C_i_check_exact and
 373    C_i_check_exact_2 have been deprecated (see also #1631).
 374  - When garbage collector is manually invoked from a finalizer, raise
 375    an error instead of hanging forever (fixes #1586).
 376  - define-record-type will now give an error if the constructor
 377    definition refers to field that's not listed elsewhere (see #1633)
 378  - Added new -:hu option to set the memory usage low watermark
 379    percentage at which the heap should be shrunk, and changed the
 380    calculation to actually reflect this (see #1379).
 381
 382- Compiler
 383  - Fixed a bug in lfa2 pass which caused "if" or "cond" nodes to be
 384    incorrectly unboxed if the "else" branch had a flonum result type
 385    (#1624, thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
 386  - Inline files no longer refer to unexported foreign stub functions
 387    (fixes #1440, thanks to "megane").
 388  - In some cases, rest argument lists do not need to be reified, which
 389    should make using optional arguments and case-lambda faster (#1623).
 390  - Values from foreign types which have an argument or return value
 391    converter are no longer inferred to have the Scheme type which
 392    corresponds to the raw foreign type, which was incorrect (#1649).
 393
 394- Module system
 395  - Trying to export a foreign variable, define-inlined procedure or
 396    define-constant variable gives a friendly error instead of saying
 397    the variable doesn't exist (fixes #1346).
 398  - When modules are registered, they no longer pollute the global
 399    environment with imports made in that module (fixes #1548)
 400
 401- Tools
 402  - The new "-module-registration" options causes module registration
 403    code to always be included in the program, even when it has also
 404    been emitted as a separate file (for example with "-J").
 405  - chicken-install now correctly checks server response code to avoid
 406    interpreting error response bodies (like 404, 500) as Scheme code.
 407  - chicken-install now follows HTTP redirects when downloading eggs.
 408  - chicken-install will now change to the correct drive before
 409    attempting to change to the egg directory (fixes #1647).
 410
 411
 4125.1.0
 413
 414- Core libraries
 415  - Symbols ending or starting with a colon are now always pipe-quoted
 416    when written by `write` to ensure they can be read back with a
 417    different keyword-style setting.
 418  - Read-write invariance of special symbols starting with #! other
 419    than #!key, #!rest or #!optional is now preserved (#1572).
 420  - When using (set-file-position!) on a port, its EOF status will now
 421    be reset.
 422  - In (chicken file posix), the values of perm/irgrp, perm/iwgrp,
 423    perm/ixgrp, perm/iroth, perm/iwoth and perm/ixoth are now correctly
 424    defined (they were all for "usr"; #1602, thanks to Eric Hoffman).
 425  - In (chicken file posix), `file-truncate` now accepts also accepts
 426    port objects, for consistency with other file procedures.
 427    All such procedures from (chicken file posix) now have the correct
 428    types in types.db (fixes #1609, thanks to Robert Jensen).
 429  - Add the system-config-directory and system-cache-directory procedures
 430    in the chicken.platform module. These procedures follow the XDG
 431    specification and also give sensible results on Windows.
 432  - Fix get-environment from (chicken process-context) to raise an
 433    error when passed #f instead of segfaulting.
 434  - Qualified symbols (##foo#bar style) are no longer encoded by a
 435    byte prefix inside the symbol name.  This ensures read-write
 436    invariance of symbols which start with a low-byte character
 437    (fixes #1077, except for keywords, which start with NUL bytes).
 438  - Fix a missing export (list->s64vector) in SRFI-4.
 439
 440- Runtime system
 441  - Keywords are now distinct types; they are not a subtype of symbols.
 442  - Use arc4random on FreeBSD (thanks to Tobias Kortkamp and gahr)
 443  - Removed the unused, undocumented (and incorrect!) C functions
 444    C_delete_symbol_table and C_set_symbol_table.
 445  - Continuations which discard additional values beyond the first no
 446    longer accept multiple values via direct invocation after being
 447    captured through `call/cc`, only via `values` (revert of #1390,
 448    due to #1601)
 449  - SRFI-4 vector predicates, reference, set and length procedures
 450    should now be faster in tight loops as they're inlineable (#757).
 451  - Keywords are now interned in a separate keyword table, not in the
 452    standard symbol table.  This brings full read-write invariance
 453    for symbols (they can now also start with NUL bytes).  Keywords
 454    no longer have plists.  Fixes #1576.
 455  - Increased the "binary compatibility version" to 11.
 456
 457- Compiler
 458  - Restored optimized implementations of =, +, -, /, * and quotient in
 459    fixnum-arithmetic mode (fixes #1604 mostly; thanks to "chickendan").
 460  - Added an optimization pass for reducing the amount of boxing of
 461    intermediate floating point values, enabled by the "-lfa2" compiler
 462    option.
 463  - The "lfa2" pass is now enabled at optimization levels 2 or higher.
 464
 465- Module system
 466  - When you try to import the module you are currently defining into
 467    itself, an error will be raised. This prevents an infinite loop in
 468    the compiler when later trying to import that same module (fixes
 469    #1506, thanks to Kristian Lein-Mathisen).
 470
 471- Foreign function interface
 472  - Improved hygiene in FFI macro expansions, which means you don't
 473     have to import "scheme" or "(chicken base)" for them to work.
 474
 475- Type system
 476  - It is now possible to quote free variables in type declarations,
 477     which acts as shorthand for `forall' (thanks to "megane")
 478
 479- Tools
 480  - csi now uses (system-config-directory) to find csirc and falls back to
 481    $HOME/.csirc when needed.
 482  - chicken-install now uses (system-config-directory) to find a user
 483    defined setup.defaults file ; it also uses (system-cache-directory)
 484    for its egg cache directory when the CHICKEN_EGG_CACHE environment
 485    variable is not defined.
 486
 487- Egg specifications
 488  - Allows "cond-expand" and "error" forms in egg specification files.
 489  - Add "c-object" and "object" properties to link separately compiled
 490     C objects into CHICKEN code.
 491
 492
 4935.0.0
 494
 495- Runtime system
 496  - Added support for the full numeric tower, including various new
 497    procedures taken from the "numbers" egg.  All calculations will
 498    now return exact numbers where possible, so code relying on flonums
 499    being returned may need to be changed if rational numbers do not
 500    provide the desired performance.
 501  - Port directionality has been generalized from a simple input/output
 502    flag to a bitmap, to allow for multidirectional ports.
 503  - Weak symbol GC is faster, simpler, and can now collect all
 504    unreferenced symbols instead of a maximum of 997 per major GC.
 505  - The -:w option has been removed; symbols are now always collected.
 506  - Increased the "binary compatibility version" to 9.
 507  - Continuations which discard additional values beyond the first now
 508    also accept multiple values via direct invocation after being
 509    captured through `call/cc`, not just via `values` (#1390)
 510  - Removed the deprecated C_locative_ref and C_mutate2 C functions.
 511  - The trace buffer no longer holds on to thread objects, allowing them to
 512    be garbage collected sooner (#1356, thanks to Kristian Lein-Mathisen)
 513  - On Cygwin and MinGW, the "build-platform" now corresponds to the
 514    tool chain used (gnu, clang, unknown) like on *nix, while the
 515    software-version is now "cygwin" or "mingw32" instead of "unknown".
 516    This also means the features list will now contain the tool chain
 517    on all platforms.
 518  - Symbols starting with #% are no longer treated specially and need
 519    to be quoted with pipes. This makes the "%" sign available for use
 520    in custom/user-defined sharp-sign read syntax.
 521
 522- Compiler
 523  - Fixed an off by one allocation problem in generated C code for (list ...).
 524  - The "-scrutinize" compiler option has been removed.
 525  - The "-module" compiler option (aliased as "-m") now expects a module name.
 526  - The generated C output of the compiler is now deterministic: it
 527    will be bit-for-bit identical when compiling the same Scheme file
 528    with the same version of the compiler.
 529  - the "-consult-type-file" and "-emit-type-file" options have been renamed
 530    to "-consult-types-file" and "-emit-types-file", respectively.
 531
 532- Tools
 533  - The new "-link" option to csc allows linking with objects from extensions.
 534  - The new "-libdir" option to csc allows overriding the runtime library
 535    directory.
 536  - The ambiguous "-l<libname>" option for csc has been removed (#1193).
 537  - Removed deprecated "-n" shorthand for "-emit-inline-file" from csc.
 538  - Removed "chicken-bug" tool.
 539
 540- Core libraries
 541  - Removed support for memory-mapped files (posix), queues
 542    (data-structures), binary-search (data-structures), scan-input-lines
 543    (utils), group-information (posix) object-eviction (lolevel), and
 544    compile-file (utils). These are now available as eggs.
 545  - Removed the srfi-1, srfi-13, srfi-14, srfi-18, srfi-69, and utils
 546    units. These are now available as eggs.
 547  - Added the `executable-pathname` procedure for retrieving a path to
 548    the currently-running executable.
 549  - Removed all support for SWIG.
 550  - Removed interrupts-enabled declaration specifier.
 551  - `sleep` now suspends the current thread when threading is enabled,
 552    otherwise it sleeps the process. The new `process-sleep` procedure
 553    in unit posix can be used to sleep the process unconditionally.
 554  - `with-error-output-to-port' from the ports module has been renamed
 555    to the more common `with-error-to-port', and `with-error-to-string'
 556    has been added for completeness (thanks to Michael Silver).
 557  - A new `make-bidirectional-port' procedure has been added to the
 558    ports unit that will combine separate input- and output- ports into
 559    a single bidirectional port.
 560  - New `input-port-open?` and `output-port-open?` procedures have been
 561    added for testing whether a port is open in a specific direction.
 562  - An `include-relative` form has been added to the (chicken base) module.
 563    This works like `load-relative` but for textual inclusion.
 564  - Keywords are now always written in "portable" style by WRITE, so
 565    that the reader's keyword style doesn't need to match the writer's.
 566  - The environment variable `CHICKEN_PREFIX` has been removed.
 567  - Added the `glob->sre` procedure to the irregex library.
 568  - Removed the `get-host-name' and `system-information' procedures.
 569    These are available in the "system-information" egg.
 570  - Removed the `eval-when`, `select` and `ensure` macros.  These are
 571    available in the "miscmacros" egg.
 572  - Removed the require-extension-for-syntax macro.
 573  - Renamed bit-set? to bit->boolean because of swapped argument order
 574    with respect to SRFI-33 and SRFI-60, which was confusing (fixes
 575    #1385, thanks to Lemonboy).
 576  - file-{read,write,execute}-access will now raise an exception when
 577    the file doesn't exist or some other non-access related problem is
 578    detected (fixes #1386, thanks to Vasilij Schneidermann).
 579  - `change-file-mode` was renamed to set-file-permissions! and SRFI-17
 580    generalized set! support has been added for `file-permissions`.
 581    This procedure now also accepts a file descriptor or a port.
 582  - `file-permissions` now returns one value: the permission integer.
 583  - `read-file` has been renamed to `read-list`.
 584  - `read-all` was dropped, as `read-string` with #f as its NUM argument
 585     is equivalent.
 586  - `read-lines` and `read-all` no longer accept a string naming a file,
 587     only ports.
 588  - The procedures for random numbers have been reimplemented;
 589    access to system-specific entropy is available, together with a reasonably
 590    good pseudo random number generator (WELL512).
 591  - `glob` now returns an empty list for non-existent or inaccessible
 592    directories, instead of erroring out.
 593  - `file-copy' and `file-move' have been renamed to `copy-file' and
 594    `move-file', for consistency with `delete-file' and `rename-file'.
 595  - `rename-file' now refuses to overwrite an existing file unless an
 596    optional "clobber" argument is provided.
 597  - The `r4rs` module no longer exports `eval`, which was not in R4RS.
 598  - `process`, `process*` and `process-execute` now expect lists of the form
 599    (("NAME" . "VALUE") ...) instead of the previous (("NAME=VALUE") ...)
 600    as their environment argument.
 601  - `repository-path` is now a parameter containing a list of strings instead
 602    of a string, as the search path for libraries can now contain multiple
 603    directories.
 604  - `file-read-access?`, `file-write-access?` and `file-execute-access?` have
 605    been renamed `file-readable?`, `file-writable?` and `file-executable?`
 606    into the (chicken file) module.
 607
 608- Module system
 609  - The compiler has been modularised, for improved namespacing.  This
 610    means names from the compiler should not leak out into the compiled
 611    program's (macro) namespace anymore.
 612  - The core units have been converted to modules under the "chicken"
 613    namespace.
 614  - Added support for list-style library names.
 615  - The "use" and "use-for-syntax" special forms have been removed
 616    in favor of "import" and "import-for-syntax" to reduce confusion.
 617  - Module imports are now lexically scoped: identifiers provided by
 618    an (import ...) inside (let ...) won't be visible outside that let.
 619  - Modules implementing an interface can now correctly export extra
 620    identifiers (bug reported by Martin Schneeweis, fix by "megane").
 621
 622- Syntax expander
 623  - Removed support for (define-syntax (foo e r c) ...), which was
 624    undocumented and not officially supported anyway.
 625  - Removed support for normal "lambda" forms as syntax transformers,
 626    which has been deprecated since 4.8.0.
 627  - define and friends are now aggressively rejected in "expression
 628    contexts" (i.e., anywhere but toplevel or as internal defines).
 629  - define-record and define-record-type now create record types
 630    which are tagged with the module in which they're defined, so
 631    predicates no longer return #t for records with the same tag
 632    defined in another module. This tag is now also available under
 633    an identifier that matches the record type name (fixes #1342).
 634  - `include` now splices included expressions in the context in which
 635    the inclusion appears and does not treat the expressions as toplevel
 636    expressions by default.
 637
 638- Eggs management
 639  - Egg-installation and building has been completely overhauled.
 640  - .meta + .setup files have been merged into a single declarative
 641    ".egg" file.
 642  - More static checks for egg descriptions, simplified generation
 643    of OS-specific build + install commands that is (hopefully)
 644    more practical for package maintainers.
 645  - Egg sources are cached locally to reduce download and rebuild
 646    times.
 647  - Dropped many obscure or unimportant options and features from
 648    `chicken-install`: (`-keep-installed`, `-reinstall`, `-proxy`,
 649    `-no-install`, `-username`, `-password`, `-init`, `-deploy`,
 650    `-keep-going`, `-scan`, `-csi`, `-show-depends`, `-show-foreign-depends`,
 651    `-prefix`.
 652  - Added new "-from-list" option to chicken-install.
 653  - Eggs can now be installed and located in multiple directories,
 654    using the `CHICKEN_REPOSITORY_PATH` +
 655    `CHICKEN_INSTALL_REPOSITORY`
 656    environment variables.
 657  - Static compilation of eggs is now fully supported and static
 658    versions of compiled eggs are available by default.
 659  - In a statically built chicken, the egg-tools ("chicken-install", "...-status",
 660    "...-uninstall") are still available, but only support static compilation
 661    of eggs.
 662
 663- Foreign function interface
 664  - The foreign type specifier "ssize_t" is now accepted, and "size_t"
 665    arguments now only accept positive integers.  Return values of
 666    type size_t are no longer truncated on 32-bit platforms.
 667
 668
 6694.13.0
 670
 671- Security fixes
 672  - CVE-2017-6949: Remove unchecked malloc() call in SRFI-4 constructors
 673    when allocating in non-GC memory, resulting in potential 1-word
 674    buffer overrun and/or segfault (thanks to Lemonboy).
 675  - CVE-2017-9334: `length' no longer crashes on improper lists (fixes
 676    #1375, thanks to "megane").
 677  - CVE-2017-11343: The randomization factor of the symbol table was
 678    set before the random seed was set, causing it to have a fixed value
 679    on many platforms.
 680
 681- Core Libraries
 682  - Unit "posix": If file-lock, file-lock/blocking or file-unlock are
 683    interrupted by a signal, we now retry (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger).
 684  - char-ready? on string ports now also returns #t at EOF, as per R5RS;
 685    in other words, it always returns #t (thanks to Moritz Heidkamp)
 686  - Unit srfi-4: Fixed typo that broke SRFI-17 generalised set! syntax
 687    on s8vectors (thanks to Kristian Lein-Mathisen).
 688  - Large literals no longer crash with "invalid encoded numeric literal"
 689    on mingw-64 (#1344, thanks to Lemonboy).
 690  - Unit irregex: Fix bug that prevented multibyte UTF-8 character sets
 691    from being matched correctly (Thanks to Lemonboy and Chunyang Xu).
 692
 693- Runtime system:
 694  - The profiler no longer uses malloc from a signal handler which may
 695    cause deadlocks (#1414, thanks to Lemonboy).
 696  - The scheduler no longer indirectly hangs on to the old thread
 697    when switching to a new one, which caused excessive memory
 698    consumption (#1367, thanks to "megane").
 699  - C++ programs no longer fail with a symbol lookup error when
 700    compiled with debugger support (-d3 or -debug-info).
 701
 702- Syntax expander
 703  - Renaming an identifier twice no longer results in an undo of the
 704    rename (fixes #1362, thanks to "megane").
 705
 706- Build system
 707  - Fixed broken compilation on NetBSD, due to missing _NETBSD_SOURCE.
 708  - Fixed compilation on DragonflyBSD due to no feature macro support
 709    in its standard C library (thanks to Markus Pfeiffer).
 710
 711- Compiler
 712  - The scrutinizer no longer uses 'fixnum as the type for fixnums
 713    that might not fit into a fixnum on 32-bit architectures.
 714
 715- Foreign function interface
 716  - Correctly calculate memory requirements of Scheme objects produced
 717    from foreign types with "const" qualifiers, avoiding memory
 718    corruption (#1424, thanks to Vasilij Schneidermann and Lemonboy)
 719  - Do not read beyond temporary stack buffer, which could lead to
 720    a crash when returning from a foreign callback (#1428).
 721
 7224.12.0
 723
 724- Security fixes
 725  - CVE-2016-6830: Fix buffer overrun due to excessively long argument
 726    or environment lists in process-execute and process-spawn (#1308).
 727    This also removes unnecessary limitations on the length of
 728    these lists (thanks to Vasilij Schneidermann).
 729  - CVE-2016-6831: Fix memory leak in process-execute and
 730    process-spawn.  If, during argument and environment list
 731    processing, a list item isn't a string, an exception is thrown,
 732    in which case previously malloc()ed strings weren't freed.
 733  - CVE-2016-9954: Irregex has been updated to 0.9.6, which fixes
 734    an exponential explosion in compilation of nested "+" patterns.
 735
 736- Compiler:
 737  - define-constant now correctly keeps symbol values quoted.
 738  - Warnings are now emitted when using vector-{ref,set!} or one
 739    of take, drop, list-ref or list-tail with an out of range index
 740    for vectors and proper lists of a definitely known length.
 741  - The scrutinizer will no longer drop knowledge of the length of a
 742    vector.  It still drops types of its contents (which may be mutated).
 743  - Fixed incorrect argvector restoration after GC in directly
 744    recursive functions (#1317).
 745  - "Direct" procedure invocations now also maintain debug info (#894).
 746
 747- Syntax expander
 748  - DSSSL lambda lists have improved hygiene, so they don't need
 749    the chicken or scheme modules to be imported in full (#806).
 750  - The let-optionals* macro no longer needs "quote", "car" and "cdr"
 751    to be imported and bound to their default values (#806).
 752
 753- Runtime system:
 754  - C_locative_ref has been deprecated in favor of C_a_i_locative_ref,
 755    which is faster because it is inlined (#1260, thanks to Kooda).
 756  - The default error handler now truncates very long condition
 757    messages (thanks to Lemonboy).
 758  - Weak symbol GC (-:w) no longer drops random symbols (#1173).
 759  - The number of arguments to procedures, both via "apply" and direct
 760    invocation, are now limited only by the C stack size (#1098).
 761  - "time" macro now shows peak memory usage (#1318, thanks to Kooda).
 762  - Avoid crashes in ffi callbacks after GC (#1337, thanks to cosarara).
 763
 764- Core libraries:
 765  - Irregex has been updated to 0.9.5, which fixes matching of all "bow"
 766    occurrances beyond the first with irregex-fold (upstream issue #14).
 767  - Keywords are more consistently read/written, like symbols (#1332).
 768  - SRFI-39: When jumping out of a parameterized dynamic extent,
 769    "parameterize" now remember the actual values, so when jumping back
 770    in, they are restored (fixes #1336, thanks to Joo ChurlSoo).
 771    This was a regression caused by the fix for #1227.
 772
 773- Tools:
 774  - "chicken-install"
 775    - When installing eggs in deploy mode with "-keep-installed", eggs
 776      under the prefix won't unnecessarily be reinstalled (#1144).
 777    - Added new option "-no-install-deps" which inhibits automatic
 778      installation of dependencies, useful with "-prefix" (#1298).
 779
 780
 7814.11.0
 782
 783- Security fixes
 784  - Specialisation rules for string-{ref,set!}, bit-set?
 785    and move-memory no longer use unchecked C functions which could
 786    result in undefined behaviour, including buffer overruns (#1216).
 787
 788- Platform support
 789  - CHICKEN now supports the Linux X32 ABI (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf).
 790
 791- Tools
 792  - Feathers now has a more neutral color scheme and larger font size.
 793  - With the -dir option, feathers can now correctly find source code.
 794
 795- Runtime system:
 796  - The calling convention of CPS procedures has been changed to
 797    use "argument vectors" instead of C calling convention.
 798  - The C API of C_values(), C_do_apply() and how to invoke CPS
 799    functions has changed.  The C_procN() macros have disappeared.
 800    The manual example in "Accessing external objects" for C_values
 801    has been updated.  See also the "numbers" egg for examples on
 802    how to support pre- and post-4.10.1 CHICKENs simultaneously.
 803  - Apply hack is no longer used; the limitation of 128 arguments
 804    has been lifted for platforms which had no apply hack.
 805  - Increased the "binary compatibility version" to 8.
 806  - Delivery of signals in other OS-level threads is now dealt with
 807    in a more robust way (#1232) (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger).
 808  - Compiled programs with large literals won't crash on startup (#1221).
 809  - Comparisons of closures now behave in a stable way, whether or not
 810    the code was compiled with the -no-lambda-info option (#1041).
 811  - The signal handling code can no longer trigger "stack overflow" or
 812    "recursion too deep or circular data encountered" errors (#1283).
 813
 814- Compiler:
 815  - Specializations on implicit "or" types like "number" or "boolean" now
 816    work, removing the requirement for the inferred types to match
 817    declared types exactly.  Specializations are matched from first to
 818    last to resolve ambiguities (#1214).
 819  - Compiler rewrites for char{<,>,<=,>=,=}? are now safe (#1122).
 820  - When requesting to emit import libraries that don't exist, the
 821     compiler now gives an error instead of quietly continuing (#1188).
 822  - Don't silently truncate huge literals (thanks to Claude Marinier).
 823
 824- Core libraries
 825  - try-compile from setup-api cleans up temporary output files (#1213).
 826  - SRFI-18: thread-join! no longer gives an error when passed a
 827    thread in the "sleeping" state (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger)
 828  - SRFI-18: mutex-lock! will not set ownership of mutexes when
 829    passed #f as the owner (#1231), not disown a mutex from owner if
 830    locking fails for timeout and not keep the last thread which held
 831    a mutex until the next lock (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger).
 832  - SRFI-39: When a parameter's "guard" procedure raises an exception,
 833    "parameterize" now correctly resets the original values of all
 834    parameters (fixes #1227, thanks to Joo ChurlSoo).
 835  - Irregex has been updated to 0.9.4, which fixes severe performance
 836    problems with {n,m} repeating patterns (thanks to Caolan McMahon).
 837  - Unit "posix": The following posix procedures now work on port
 838    objects: file-stat, file-size, file-owner, file-permissions,
 839    file-modification-time, file-access-time, file-change-time,
 840    file-type and all procedures using file-type. These are:
 841    regular-file?, symbolic-link?, block-device?, character-device?
 842    fifo? and socket?.
 843  - Unit "posix": When "file-close" is interrupted it will retry,
 844    to avoid leaking descriptors (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger).
 845  - Unit "data-structures": alist-{update[!],ref} were made consistent
 846    with srfi-1 in the argument order of comparison procedures.
 847  - Unit "lolevel": locative-ref has been fixed for locatives of u32
 848    and s32vectors (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger for pointing this out).
 849  - string->number now signals exceptions if passed a bad base instead
 850    of segfaulting (#1272; reported by "Tilpner" on IRC).
 851
 852- Tools
 853  - A debugger is now available, known as "feathers", which allows
 854    basic source-level debugging of compiled Scheme code.
 855  - A statistical profiler has been added, enabling sampling-based
 856    runtime profiling of compiled programs.
 857  - "chicken-install"
 858    - When installing eggs in deploy mode, already satisfied
 859      dependencies aren't reinstalled every time (#1106).
 860  - "chicken-uninstall"
 861    - -prefix and -deploy options were added, matching chicken-install.
 862  - "chicken-status"
 863    - -prefix and -deploy options were added, matching chicken-install.
 864  - The -sudo and -s options for chicken-install and chicken-uninstall
 865    now honor a "SUDO" environment variable (thanks to Timo Myyrä).
 866
 867- Syntax expander
 868  - Mixed internal define/define-values are now correctly ordered, so
 869    later defines can refer to earlier define-values (#1274).
 870
 8714.10.0
 872
 873- Security fixes
 874  - CVE-2014-6310: Use POSIX poll() on Android platform to avoid
 875    potential select() buffer overrun.
 876  - CVE-2014-9651: substring-index[-ci] no longer scans beyond string
 877    boundaries.
 878  - CVE-2015-4556: string-translate* no longer scans beyond string
 879    boundaries.
 880
 881- Core libraries
 882  - alist-ref from unit data-structures now gives an error when passed
 883    a non-list, for consistency with assv/assq/assoc.
 884  - Unit tcp now implicitly depends on ports instead of extras.
 885     This may break programs which don't use modules and forgot to
 886     require extras but use procedures from it.
 887  - SRFI-13: fix string-copy! in cases source and destination strings'
 888    memory areas overlap (#1135).
 889  - SRFI-1: Check argument types in lset and list= procedures (#1085).
 890  - Fixed another, similar bug in move-memory! for overlapping memory.
 891  - Fixed broken specialisation for move-memory! on pointer types.
 892  - Fixed broken specialisation for irregex-match-num-submatches.
 893  - Fixed bug in make-kmp-restart-vector from SRFI-13.
 894  - Removed deprecated implicit expansion of $VAR- and ~ in pathnames.
 895     The ~-expansion functionality is now available in the
 896     "pathname-expand" egg (#1001, #1079) (thanks to Florian Zumbiehl).
 897  - normalize-pathname has been simplified to avoid adding trailing
 898     slashes or dots (#1153, thanks to Michele La Monaca and Mario Goulart).
 899
 900- Unit srfi-4:
 901   - write-u8vector has been made more efficient (thanks to Thomas Hintz).
 902   - read-u8vector has been made more efficient (thanks to Andy Bennett
 903      for pointing this out and testing an improvement).
 904
 905- Unit lolevel:
 906  - Restore long-lost but still documented "vector-like?" procedure (#983)
 907
 908- Unit "files":
 909  - normalize-pathname no longer considers paths starting with ".//"
 910    as absolute (#1202, reported by Haochi Kiang).
 911
 912- Unit "posix":
 913  - set-file-position! now allows negative positions for seek/cur (thanks
 914    to Seth Alves).
 915  - file-mkstemp now works correctly on Windows, it now returns valid
 916    file descriptors (#819, thanks to Michele La Monaca).
 917  - create-directory on Windows now creates all intermediate
 918    directories when passed #t as second parameter.
 919
 920- Runtime system:
 921  - Removed several deprecated, undocumented parts of the C interface:
 922    C_zap_strings, C_stack_check, C_retrieve, C_retrieve_proc,
 923    C_retrieve_symbol_proc, C_i_foreign_number_vector_argumentp,
 924    C_display_flonum, C_enumerate_symbols
 925  - Removed several deprecated and undocumented internal procedures:
 926    ##sys#zap-strings, ##sys#round, ##sys#foreign-number-vector-argument,
 927    ##sys#check-port-mode, ##sys#check-port*
 928  - SIGBUS, SIGILL and SIGFPE will now cause proper exceptions instead
 929    of panicking (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger).
 930
 931- Module system
 932  - Allow functor arguments to be optional, with default implementations.
 933  - Fixed a bug that prevented functors from being instantiated with
 934     built-in modules.
 935  - Fixed generation of import libraries for instantiated functors
 936     (#1149, thanks to Juergen Lorenz).
 937
 938- Syntax expander
 939  - define-values, set!-values and letrec-values now support full lambda
 940    lists as binding forms
 941  - cond expands correctly when a constant is used in combination with =>
 942     (thanks to Michele La Monaca)
 943
 944- C API
 945  - Removed deprecated C_get_argument[_2] and
 946    C_get_environment_variable[_2] functions.
 947  - C_mutate2 has been deprecated in favor of C_mutate
 948  - chicken.h can be included in C++ programs in strict C++11 mode
 949     without compiler errors on Linux (thanks to "Izaak").
 950
 951- Foreign function interface
 952  - The foreign type specifier "scheme-pointer" now accepts an optional
 953    C pointer type (thanks to Moritz Heidkamp and Kristian Lein-Mathisen).
 954  - Type hinting for foreign-primitives now allows returning multiple
 955    values when no return type has been specified.
 956
 957- Compiler
 958  - Fixed an off by one allocation problem in generated C code for (list ...).
 959
 960- Build system
 961  - MANDIR was renamed to MAN1DIR and TOPMANDIR was renamed to MANDIR
 962     in order to comply with standard Makefile practice in UNIX.
 963  - INCDIR was renamed to CHICKENINCDIR, and now derives from
 964     INCLUDEDIR, which defaults to $(PREFIX)/include
 965  - BINDIR, LIBDIR, SHAREDIR, INCLUDEDIR, MANDIR, MAN1DIR, DOCDIR,
 966     CHICKENINCDIR and CHICKENLIBDIR will now also be taken from
 967     the environment, if present (like PLATFORM, DESTDIR and PREFIX).
 968
 969- Tools
 970  - "csc"
 971    - On Cygwin, -static now works again (thanks to Michele La Monaca)
 972  - "chicken-install"
 973    - When using chicken-install -retrieve, and an error occurs during
 974       retrieval (or the egg doesn't exist), the egg's directory is
 975       now properly cleaned up (#1109, thanks to Alex Charlton)
 976  - "chicken"
 977    - The -r5rs-syntax option did nothing; this has been fixed.
 978
 9794.9.0
 980
 981- Security fixes
 982  - CVE-2014-3776: read-u8vector! no longer reads beyond its buffer when
 983    length is #f (thanks to Seth Alves).
 984  - CVE-2013-4385: read-string! no longer reads beyond its buffer when
 985    length is #f.
 986  - CVE-2013-1874: ./.csirc is no longer loaded from the current directory
 987    upon startup of csi, which could lead to untrusted code execution.
 988    (thanks to Florian Zumbiehl)
 989  - CVE-2013-2024: On *nix, the qs procedure now single-quotes everything
 990    instead of relying on a blacklist of shell characters to be escaped.
 991    On Windows, it properly duplicates double-quote characters.  (thanks
 992    to Florian Zumbiehl)
 993  - CVE-2013-2075: Use POSIX poll() in other places where select() was
 994    still being used.  (thanks to Florian Zumbiehl and Joerg Wittenberger)
 995  - CVE-2012-6122: Use POSIX poll() on systems where available.  This avoids a
 996    design flaw in select(); it supports no more than FD_SETSIZE descriptors.
 997
 998- Core libraries
 999  - Fix subvector when the TO optional argument equals the given vector
 1000    length (#1097)
1001  - Unit extras now implicitly depends on ports.  ports no longer
1002     implicitly depends on extras.  This may break programs which don't
1003     use modules and forgot to require ports but use procedures from it.
1004  - Support has been added for the space-safe R7RS macro "delay-force".
1005  - Export file-type from the posix unit (thanks to Alan Post).
1006  - SRFI-4 s8vectors now work correctly in compiled code on PowerPC and ARM.
1007  - thread-join! now works correctly even if the waiting thread was
1008     prematurely woken up by a signal.
1009  - unsetenv has been fixed on Windows.
1010  - The process procedure has been fixed on Windows.
1011  - Nonblocking behaviour on sockets has been fixed on Windows.
1012  - Possible race condition while handling TCP errors has been fixed.
1013  - The posix unit will no longer hang upon any error in Windows.
1014  - resize-vector no longer crashes when reducing the size of the vector.
1015  - Distinct types for boolean true and false have been added to the
1016    scrutinizer.
1017  - Fixed bugs in string-trim-right, string-index-right and
1018    string-skip-right, from SRFI-13
1019  - read-line no longer returns trailing CRs in rare cases on TCP ports (#568)
1020  - write and pp now correctly use escape sequences for control characters
1021     (thanks to Florian Zumbiehl)
1022  - posix: memory-mapped file support for Windows (thanks to "rivo")
1023  - posix: find-file's test argument now also accepts SRE forms.
1024  - numerator and denominator now accept inexact numbers, as per R5RS
1025    (reported by John Cowan).
1026  - Implicit $VAR- and ~-expansion in pathnames have been deprecated (#1001)
1027  - Fixed EINTR handling in process-wait and when reading from file ports.
1028  - Irregex is updated to 0.9.2, which includes bugfixes and faster submatches.
1029  - Compile-time expansions for "[sf]printf" are slightly more efficient.
1030  - Removed the deprecated "always?", "never?", "shuffle" and "none?" procedures.
1031  - Fixed problem "make-pathname" that returned an absolute path if given
1032    a relative one without a directory argument.
1033  - The implementation of promises has been made more efficient.
1034  - Removed the deprecated "c-runtime", "null-pointer?" and "pointer-offset"
1035    procedures.
1036  - The deprecated alias "mutate-procedure" for "mutate-procedure!" has
1037    been removed.
1038  - On 64-bit systems the feature identifier "64bit" is registered.
1039  - "process-fork" accepts an optional argument that specifies
1040    wether other threads should be terminated in the child process.
1041  - The "signal/bus" signal identifier was missing.
1042  - Added setter-procedure for "signal-mask".
1043  - Added "recursive-hash-max-length" and "recursive-hash-max-depth"
1044    parameters (srfi-69).
1045
1046- Platform support
1047  - CHICKEN can now be built on AIX (contributed by Erik Falor)
1048  - CHICKEN can now be built on GNU Hurd (contributed by Christian Kellermann)
1049  - Basic support has been added for building Android and iOS binaries (see
1050    the "README" file for caveats and pitfalls) (contributed by Felix Winkelmann
1051    from bevuta IT GmbH)
1052  - Added support for 64-bit Windows (consult the "README" file for more
1053    information).
1054
1055- Runtime system
1056  - finalizers on constants are ignored in compiled code because compiled
1057    constants are never GCed (before, the finalizer would be incorrectly
1058    invoked after the first GC).  (Reported by "Pluijzer")
1059  - The call trace buffer is now also resizable at runtime via ##sys#resize-trace-buffer.
1060  - C_zap_strings and ##sys#zap-strings (undocumented) have been deprecated.
1061  - Special events in poll() are now handled, avoiding hangs in threaded apps.
1062  - When invoking procedures with many rest arguments directly (not via APPLY),
1063    raise an error when argument count limit was reached instead of crashing.
1064  - When the maximum allowed heap size is reached, panic instead of crashing.
1065  - The code generated for mutating data destructively is partially inlined
1066    and thus slightly more efficient.
1067  - Fixed incorrect code in the foreign argument conversion for
1068    "unsigned-integer64" (#955).  For unsigned-integer, integer64 and
1069    unsigned-integer64, disallow floating-point numbers.  Fix behavior
1070    on 32-bit systems.
1071  - On systems that provide sigprocmask(2), segmentation violations, illegal
1072    instruction signals, bus errors and floating-point exceptions are now caught
1073    and trigger normal error-processing (including a backtrace). The handling
1074    of these so called "serious" signals can be disabled by passing the
1075    "-:S" runtime option to executables.
1076  - Reclamation of unused interned symbols (enabled with the "-:w" runtime option)
1077    works much better now.
1078
1079- Build system
1080  - The tests can now be run without having to first install CHICKEN.
1081  - Fixed a dependency problem that made it impossible to build the distribution
1082    tarball on Windows with the mingw compiler.
1083  - Increased the "binary compatibility version" to 7.
1084
1085- Tools
1086  - "csc"
1087    - "-z origin" is now passed as a linker option on FreeBSD when
1088      compiling for deployment (thanks to Jules Altfas & Vitaly Magerya)
1089    - "-deploy" works now on FreeBSD (thanks to Jules Altfas and
1090      Vitaly Magerya), OpenBSD and NetBSD (see README for NetBSD).
1091    - added "-oi"/"-ot" options as alternatives to "-emit-inline-file"
1092       and "-emit-type-file", respectively; "-n" has been deprecated.
1093    - .c/.o files are no longer overwritten when they have the same basename
1094      as a Scheme source file (i.e. "csc foo.scm foo.c -o foo" works now).
1095  - "chicken-install"
1096    - "-deploy" now correctly installs dependencies of
1097      deployed eggs under the deployment directory instead of globally.
1098    - Full URI syntax is now supported for proxy environment variables
1099      (thanks to Michele La Monaca)
1100  - "chicken-status"
1101    - Added -eggs command line option to list installed eggs
1102  - misc
1103    - Removed the deprecated "-v" options (use "-version" instead) in various
1104      core programs.
1105    - The runtime linker path for compiled executables was not set correctly
1106      on FreeBSD systems.  This has now been fixed.
1107    - Removed the deprecated "make" and "make/proc" facility from the
1108      "setup-api" module; also removed the deprecated "required-extension-version"
1109      and "required-chicken-version" procedures.
1110
1111- Syntax
1112  - Added the aliases "&optional" and "&rest" as alternatives to "#!optional"
1113    and "#!rest" in type-declarations (suggested by Joerg Wittenberger).
1114  - Vectors, SRFI-4 number vectors and blobs are now self-evaluating for
1115     R7RS compatibility.  Being literal constants, they are implicitly quoted.
1116  - For R7RS compatibility, named character literals #\escape and #\null are
1117     supported as aliases for #\esc and #\nul.  WRITE will output R7RS names.
1118  - The CASE form accepts => proc syntax, like COND (as specified by R7RS).
1119  - letrec* was added for R7RS compatibility.  Plain letrec no longer behaves
1120    like letrec*.
1121
1122- Compiler
1123  - the "inline" declaration does not force inlining anymore as recursive
1124    inlining could lead to non-termination of the compiler (thanks to
1125    Andrei Barbu).
1126  - Type-analysis ("scrutiny") is enabled by default now, unless
1127    "-optimize-level 0" or "-no-usual-integrations" is given.
1128  - The "-scrutinize" compiler option has been deprecated.
1129  - A new lightweight flow-analysis pass ("lfa2") has been added.
1130    Enable by passing the "-lfa2" option to the compiler.
1131  - The deprecated options "-disable-warning", "-heap-growth", "-heap-shrinkage"
1132    and "-heap-initial-size" have been removed.
1133  - Removed the deprecated "constant" declaration.
1134  - Removed the deprecated "-lambda-lift" and "-unboxing" compiler options.
1135  - Removed the deprecated "-V" compiler option.
1136  - Generated names for formal parameters of foreign functions are slightly
1137    more informative.
1138  - Unused references to variables that name intrinsics can be removed.
1139  - In the flow-analysis pass, matching of combinations of "list"/"list-of" and
1140    "or" types with has been made more reliable.
1141  - Fixed various bugs in the type database.
1142
1143- Syntax expander
1144  - added "require-extension-for-syntax" and "use-for-syntax".
1145  - Extended syntactic definitions are now available by default in all
1146    evaluated code, particularly in code evaluated at runtime in compiled
1147    applications.
1148  - Removed the deprecated variant "(define-compiler-syntax (NAME . LLIST) BODY ...)"
1149    of "define-compiler-syntax".
1150
1151- C API
1152  - Deprecated C_get_argument[_2] and C_get_environment_variable[_2] functions.
1153  - Removed the deprecated "__byte_vector" type.
1154
1155
11564.8.0
1157
1158- Security fixes
1159  - CVE-2012-6125: Improved hash table collision resistance and added
1160    randomization to prevent malicious external causes of collisions.
1161    All SRFI-69 procedures accept extra arguments to control randomization
1162    for testing/debugging.
1163  - CVE-2012-6124: On 64-bit machines the "random" procedure no longer
1164    truncates result values (which caused very nonrandom results for very
1165    large values). Note that random shouldn't be used for
1166    security-critical code.
1167  - CVE-2012-6123: Added checks for embedded '\0' characters in strings
1168    passed to some C functions on a lower level than CHICKEN's FFI.
1169
1170- Build system
1171  - version information has been moved into a separate unit to make the
1172    build-version shown in the banner and accessible through library
1173    procedures more accurate, this also speeds up the build on version-
1174    changes (thanks to Jim Ursetto for contributing this)
1175  - the build was made more reliable with respect to cross-compilation
1176    and custom installation names
1177  - the test-suite is now working on the mingw32 platform (with
1178    a few tests disabled due to missing functionality)
1179  - the version and branch of the sources are now properly compiled
1180    into the core libraries and shown in the "csi" and "chicken"
1181    version headers
1182  - The default target library name for an installation configured for cross-
1183    compilation is now "libchicken" and independent on any particular
1184    setting of PROGRAM_PREFIX/PROGRAM_SUFFIX (thanks to Otavio Salvador)
1185
1186- Compiler
1187  - Fixed bug in handling of symbols in constant-definitions (thanks to Peter
1188    Bex)
1189  - Stricter check for value-part of constant definition (thanks to Kon Lovett)
1190  - Fixed bug that caused argument-signatures of external definitions to be
1191    incorrectly modified during optimization (thanks to Peter Bex)
1192  - Failing constant-folding expressions now produce a compile-time warning
1193  - Fixed various bugs in the internal type-database (thanks to Kon Lovett and
1194    Peter Bex)
1195  - Fixed incorrect optimization rules for some fp-rounding and fixnum operators
1196  - added "-specialize" option and "specialize" declaration which enables
1197    optimizations of uses of core library procedures based on type-
1198    information gathered during flow analysis
1199  - "-optimize-level 3" and higher now implies "-specialize"
1200  - added option "-strict-types" and "-emit-type-file"
1201  - progress-information is now only shown with "-debug p"; the "-verbose"
1202    option only shows informational but noncritical messages
1203  - added optimizations for some library procedures
1204  - variable propagation for global variable accesses is now done in certain
1205    situations
1206  - the algorithmic complexity of the closure-conversion pass has been
1207    reduced which speeds up compilation noticably for large files
1208  - the "-uses" option handles whitespace in unit lists given on the
1209    command line (thanks to Santosh Rajan)
1210  - the alternative branch in a conditional is dropped when the condition
1211    is known to be a non-boolean value (suggested by Joerg Wittenberger)
1212  - implemented numerous fixes and improvements for flow analysis
1213  - fixed a bug in the compiler that could cause some variable bindings
1214    to be optimized away in certain situations involving inlining
1215  - added an experimental optimization called "clustering" (enable
1216    with the compiler option of the same name)
1217  - the optimizations done by the compiler are now listed as a comment
1218    in the generated C file
1219  - the type-information obtained during flow-analysis ("scrutiny") is
1220    now used for performing type-sensitive optimizations of calls to
1221    most of the core-library procedures
1222  - deprecated the "constant" declaration specifier
1223  - "unboxing" optimization has been completely removed - the implementation
1224    was unreliable and unmaintainable; the "-unboxing" compiler option will
1225    still be accepted but will produce a warning
1226  - Peter Bex contributed an optimization to the analysis pass that
1227    greatly reduces compile time for source code containing deeply nested
1228    lexical bindings
1229  - procedures that are known to have the value of a core library procedure
1230    that is a "standard" or "extended binding" will be inlined
1231  - enhanced line number tracking to get better error messages from
1232    the scrutinizer.
1233  - hygiene bugs related to compiler-syntax were fixed.
1234  - the local flow-analysis was sometimes reporting multiple warnings
1235    for the same type-conflict.
1236  - the time/space-complexity of some algorithms used in the compiler
1237    were reduced resulting in much better compile-times especially
1238    for large source files.
1239
1240- Interpreter
1241  - ",q" leaves the currently active REPL invocation instead of
1242    terminating the process (as suggested by John Cowan)
1243  - ",m" properly switches between modules (thanks to Christian Kellermann)
1244
1245- Core libraries
1246  - Cleaned up the set of available internal SRFI-feature-identifiers
1247  - Fixed bugs in "make-pathname" and "normalize-pathname" (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
1248  - The reader is now more consistent when parsing symbol- and keyword names
1249    that are fully or partially escaped (thanks to Kon Lovett)
1250  - The printer now does a better job at escaping certain single-character
1251    symbol names
1252  - Unit "lolevel"
1253    - deprecated "null-pointer" and "null-pointer?"
1254  - Fixed a bug in the Windows implementation of "file-type" (thanks to
1255    Jim Ursetto)
1256  - Fixed a bug in the implementation of "current-milliseconds" that could
1257    result in integer-overflow
1258  - Fixed an incorrect type-check in "list-ref" (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
1259  - Disabled "-setup-mode" when compiling extensions for deployment (thanks
1260    to Ivan Raikov)
1261  - Got rid of some warnings in the C runtime system that were triggered on
1262    the SunPro C compiler (thanks to Joe Python)
1263  - Fixed bug in "string->number" that caused out-of-range characters to
1264    be accepted for base > 10 (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
1265  - added "foldl" and "foldr" procedures, which are more efficient and
1266    have a more consistent argument order than the corresponding
1267    SRFI-1 procedures
1268  - "shuffle" has been deprecated
1269  - added "queue-length"
1270  - "queue->list" allocates and returns a fresh list now
1271  - invoking a parameter-procedure with an argument will return the new
1272    value
1273  - added new procedure "quit"
1274  - port-procedures now check correctly for argument-ports being open
1275    (thanks to Peter Bex)
1276  - "repl" accepts an optional evaluator procedure (suggested by John
1277    Cowan)
1278  - added a setter procedure to "signal-handler" ("posix" unit)
1279  - EINTR is properly handled for input routines that may block
1280    waiting for input
1281  - the implementation of R5RS evaluation environments is now fully
1282    standards compliant
1283  - "file-exists?" and "directory-exists?" work now properly for files
1284    > 2GB (EOVERFLOW handling in stat(3) system call)
1285  - fixed bug in implementation of "fifo?"
1286  - the procedure returned by "condition-predicate" accepts any type
1287    of argument now
1288  - blobs have a readable textual representation ("#{...}")
1289  - "find-files" does not follow symlinks by default (as it did previously)
1290  - also, the old non-keyword argument signature for "find-files" is not
1291    supported anymore
1292  - added "alist-update" ("data-structures" unit)
1293  - "irregex-replace" returns the original string instead of #f when the
1294    regex does not match
1295  - irregex "real" built-in utility pattern now accepts a leading sign
1296  - added "change-directory*" ("posix" unit)
1297  - number parsing has been made more reliable and standards compliant
1298  - deprecated "none?", "always?" and "never?"
1299  - library procedures that take ports as arguments now all perform checks
1300    on port-direction and open/closed state
1301  - "mutate-procedure" has been renamed to "mutate-procedure!" - the old
1302    name is still available but deprecated
1303  - deprecated C_hash_string and C_hash_string_ci functions in the C API in
1304    favor of the more secure versions C_u_i_string_hash, C_u_i_string_ci_hash
1305  - a number of bugs in the irregex regular expression engine have been
1306    fixed; it has been updated to upstream release 0.8.3
1307  - "with-input-from-file", "with-output-to-file", "with-input-from-pipe" and
1308    "with-output-to-pipe" now properly restore the standard input/output
1309    ports in case the body thunk escapes
1310  - symbols with a single-char print-name where not always properly escaped
1311    when printed readably
1312  - the "make" facility of the "setup-api" module has been deprecated,
1313    please use the "make" extension when your egg requires this during
1314    setup.
1315
1316- Core tools
1317  - "csc"
1318    - The environment-variables "CHICKEN_C_INCLUDE_PATH" and
1319      "CHICKEN_C_LIBRARY_PATH" can now be used to add default include-
1320      and link-directories to C-compiler invocations
1321    - "-O5" passed expensive optimization flags to the C compiler which
1322      could expose C-Compiler bugs, depending on the compiler version
1323      (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf for pointing this out).
1324    - "-rpath" is ignored on OS X (thanks to Kon Lovett).
1325    - Fixed handling of "-output-file" (it was being ignored)
1326  - "chicken-install"
1327    - Added option "-override", which allows retrieving extension-
1328      versions from a file - this may be useful to ensure specific
1329      versions of a complete set of eggs are installed
1330    - Added option "-keep-installed"/"-x" that only installs explicitly
1331      named extensions given on the command line, if they are not
1332      already installed
1333    - Added option "-list" that lists all extensions available
1334    - Added option "-csi" to specify what interpreter should be used
1335      to execute the setup-script of an installed extension
1336    - Added option "-scan" that scans a local directory for the highest
1337      available extension versions available
1338    - Added option "-reinstall" that reinstalls all currently installed
1339      eggs, keeping their versions, if possible
1340    - Fixed bug with "chicken-install -test" when multiple extensions where
1341      given on the command line (thanks to Kon Lovett)
1342    - installing subdirectories works now on Windows.
1343    - fixed handling of "-force" when a "chicken" dependency version did
1344      not match
1345    - added new option "-show-foreign-depends" which lists foreign egg
1346      dependencies (if available)
1347    - added new option "-show-depends" which lists egg dependencies
1348    - added support for "or"-dependencies where a dependency is considered
1349      installed if one of a set of candidates is available
1350  - "chicken-profile"
1351    - fixed some bugs in the profiler and the runtime support code for
1352      profiling (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
1353    - fixed broken percentage calculation (thanks to "megane")
1354  - "chicken-status"
1355    - Added option "-list" that dumps versions of installed extensions
1356      in a format suitable for "chicken-install -override ..."
1357    - the "pattern" argument is now actually treated as a pattern and not
1358      as a regex
1359
1360- Core syntax
1361  - "assert" shows the line number of the form when a second argument
1362    is not given or is a literal string
1363  - "parameterize" now correctly omits invoking the guard procedure when
1364    the old value is restored (thanks to Joo ChurlSoo)
1365  - added ":", "the" and "assume" syntax for declaring types
1366  - added "define-specialization" form to declare type-driven procedure
1367    call rewrites in compiled code
1368
1369- Syntax expander
1370  - Fixed a bug that caused imported identifiers to leak into the
1371    macroexpansion/compile-time environment (reported by Christian Kellermann)
1372  - Fixed a bug in the processing of extended lambda-lists (thanks to Peter Bex)
1373  - Peter Bex fixed a bug that caused bound variables to be incorrectly
1374    renamed in quoted literals (thanks to Matthew Flatt)
1375  - fixed devious bug in the invocation and generation of transformer
1376    procedures
1377  - using normal "lambda" forms as transformers for local or global
1378    syntax definitions is deprecated - one should use "syntax-rules",
1379    "er-macro-transformer" or "ir-macro-transformer" from now on
1380
1381- Runtime system
1382  - fixed handling of "inf" and nan" floating-point predicates for Solaris
1383    (thanks to Claude Marinier)
1384  - support for re-loading of compiled files has now been completely
1385    removed
1386  - the maximum length of strings is no longer limited to a 24-bit
1387    number on 64-bit architectures but can be 56 bits.
1388  - string-comparison handles embedded '\0' characters.
1389  - numerical predicates handle infinity and NaN correctly.
1390  - deprecated "[+-]nan", "[+-]inf" and other notations "accidentally"
1391    accepted by CHICKEN due to the underlying C library's strtod() function,
1392    standardizing on "[+-]nan.0" and "[+-]inf.0" from R6RS (and soon R7RS),
1393    when displaying numbers only these forms are generated now.
1394  - signals are queued to some extent and the interrupt handling has
1395    been cleaned up somewhat
1396  - the interpreter handles SIGINT directly - loading the "posix" unit
1397    is not needed anymore to handle this feature
1398  - changed default nursery size slightly and fixed a bug that caused
1399    incorrect (too small) nursery sizes on 64-bit platforms
1400  - deprecated the compiler option "-heap-initial-size", "-heap-growth"
1401    and "-heap-shrinkage"
1402  - the assembly-language stub routine for the implementation of "apply"
1403    was broken for Sparc64 systems and has been disabled for this platform
1404  - signal masks were accidentally reset upon GC for some platforms; use
1405    sigsetjmp/siglongjmp on BSD, Linux, MacOS X and Haiku
1406
1407- Type system
1408  - added new type-specifiers "input-port", "output-port", "(list-of T)"
1409    and "(vector-of T)"
1410  - the type-specifiers "(vector T ...)" and "(list T ...)" represent
1411    fixed size lists and vectors now
1412  - added qualified types ("forall"), optionally with type constrains
1413  - added the "define-type" special form and type-abbreviations
1414  - added "compiler-typecase", a compile-time typematching form
1415
1416- Module system
1417  - Added "interfaces", which are named groups of exports
1418  - Added "functors", which are parameterized modules
1419  - Modules can now be aliased
1420  - New syntax:
1421    (define-interface NAME EXPORTS)
1422    (functor (NAME ...) EXPORTS ...)
1423  - Extended syntax of "module" for aliasing and functor-instantiation
1424  - the "scheme" module has been integrated into the core library and
1425    is not installed as a separate import library anymore
1426  - added core module "r4rs" containing only bindings for R4RS identifiers
1427  - added core module alias "r5rs" for "scheme" module
1428  - added "module-environment" which returns an evaluation environment
1429    for the bindings of a module
1430  - fixed bugs related to using "export"/"reexport" in combination with
1431    wildcard ("*") module export lists (thanks to "megane")
1432
1433- Foreign function interface
1434  - locatives are allowed as arguments declared "c-pointer"
1435  - "int32" was not properly detected as a valid foreign type (thanks
1436    to Jim Ursetto)
1437
1438
14394.7.0
1440
1441- Build system
1442  - On BSD, libchicken.so is linked with -lpthread, as this seems
1443    to be required for linking libraries that require pthreads
1444  - The C header-files are now installed in a subdirectory below
1445    the "PRFIX/include" directory to allow installation of multiple
1446    chickens with different PROGRAM_PREFIX/PROGRAM_SUFFIX settings
1447    in the same prefix; to avoid conflicts with existing CHICKEN
1448    headers, it is recommended to completely remove any old
1449    installation before installing the new version
1450  - the PROGRAM_PREFIX and PROGRAM_SUFFIX configuration settings
1451    are applied to generated files and directories which allows
1452    perform differently named installations into the same PREFIX
1453  - increaded binary-compatibility version from 5 to 6, which
1454    means installed extensions in an existing installations will
1455    have to be re-installed
1456  - bugfixes in mingw/msys makefiles
1457  - Sven Hartrumpf contributed a bugfix to the internal helper
1458    script for creating distribution directories
1459  - Peter Bex has cleaned up the makefiles heavily, making the
1460    build more maintainable and easier to modify; thanks to all
1461    who helped testing this new build
1462  - renamed the makefile to `GNUmakefile' to catch using the
1463    a make(3) other than GNU make
1464  - configuration-header fix for BSD systems (thanks to Peter Bex
1465    and Christian Kellermann)
1466
1467
1468- Core libraries
1469  - the `regex' library unit has been removed and is separately
1470    available as an extension which should be fully backwards-
1471    compatible
1472  - `irregex' is now a core library unit and replaces the  `regex' API
1473  - "extras" unit
1474    - fixed pretty-printer output of certain escaped character
1475      sequences inside strings (thanks to Mario Domenech Goulart,
1476      thanks to Kon Lovett for pointing out a missing test-file)
1477    - The pretty printer did not escape some control characters correctly
1478      (reported by Alan Post)
1479    - control-characters in symbol-names are now properly escaped if
1480     the symbol is printed readably (thanks to Alaric Snell-Pym
1481     for pointing this out)
1482    - the deprecated `random-seed' function has been removed
1483  - "files" unit
1484    - fixed bug in `normalize-pathname'
1485    - `file-copy' and `file-move' check whether the source-file is a
1486      directory
1487    - `delete-directory' now optionally deletes directories recursively
1488  - "irregex" unit
1489    - Peter Bex has contributed various bugfixes and performance
1490      enhancements
1491  - "library" unit
1492    - Added "condition->list" (thanks to Christian Kellermann)
1493    - The reader accepts now escaped octal character codes in string
1494      literals
1495    - Read-syntax can return zero values to indicate ignored objects
1496    - R5RS output output routines now always return a "void" result
1497    - "\|" was not correctly escaped when occurring inside
1498      symbol print names
1499    - added `condition->list', contributed by Christian Kellermann
1500    - added `equal=?'
1501    - removed deprecated `getenv', `left-section', `right-section',
1502      `project', `c-runtime' and `noop'
1503    - added missing import-library entry for `vector-copy!' (thanks
1504      to Jules Altfas)
1505    - circular or excessively deeply nested data generates a more
1506      useful error message when encountered by `equal?'
1507    - `list-tail' gives now a better error message when passed a
1508      non-list argument
1509    - fixed bug in `getter-with-setter' that modified the first
1510      argument if it already had a setter procedure attached
1511    - fixed incorrect size of internal data vector used in `time'
1512      (thanks to Kon Lovett)
1513  - "lolevel" unit
1514    - removed deprecated `global-bound?', `global-make-unbound',
1515      `global-ref' and `global-set!' procedures
1516    - added support for `pointer-vectors':
1517      -  make-pointer-vector
1518      -  pointer-vector?
1519      -  pointer-vector-length
1520      -  pointer-vector-ref
1521      -  pointer-vector-set!
1522  - "posix" unit
1523    - "close-input-pipe" did not return the status code of a
1524      terminated process on Windows (reported by Mario Domenech Goulart)
1525    - added `file-creation-mode' (suggested by Mario Domenech Goulart)
1526  - "setup-api" unit
1527    - `required-extension-version' and `required-chicken-version' have
1528       been deprecated
1529  - "srfi-18" unit
1530    - removed deprecated `milliseconds->time' and `time->milliseconds'
1531      procedures
1532    - `make-mutex' incorrectly created mutexes as initially owned by
1533      the current threads (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger)
1534    - the file-descriptor handling in the scheduler has been simplified
1535      and performs some sanity checks
1536    - deadlock in the scheduler now terminates the process instead of
1537      attempting to throw an error
1538    - added some sanity checks to the scheduler
1539  - "tcp" unit
1540    - Fixed bug in "tcp-abandon-port" (reported by Jim Ursetto)
1541  - "utils" unit
1542    - `compile-file' now returns `#f' when the compilation fails,
1543       instead of raising an error
1544
1545
1546- Compiler
1547  - Removed unreliable lambda-lifting optimization (now, really!);
1548    the "-lambda-lift" option is still accepted but produces a
1549    warning
1550  - When "-scrutinize" is given, installed ".types" files will be
1551    automatically consulted for extensions and used units
1552  - Fixed optimizer bug in handling of "let" forms with multiple
1553    bindings which could result in toplevel assignments being
1554    silently dropped (reported by Moritz Heidkamp)
1555  - the `-accumulate-profile' option did not provide a way to
1556    specify the target profile data file - now `-profile-name'
1557    must always be given when accumulated profiling is done
1558    (thanks to Taylor Venable)
1559  - added `-module' option, which wraps the code into an implicit
1560    module
1561  - removed check for unsafe toplevel calls in safe mode
1562  - intrinsic handling of `exact->inexact' and `string->number' is
1563    now more efficient
1564  - fixed bug in leaf-routine optimization (thanks to David
1565    Dreisigmeyer)
1566  - unit-toplevel entry-points are now named differently, which
1567    may break binary-compatibility with existing compiled Scheme
1568    code modules
1569  - fixed invalid dropping of unused external entry-points in
1570    block-mode
1571  - fixed incorrect lambda-list check in scrutinizer (thanks to
1572    Alan Post)
1573  - Kon Lovett reported numerous bugs in the type-database used
1574    by the scrutinizer
1575  - `-fwrapv' is disabled on OpenBSD, since the default compiler
1576     does not support this option (thanks to Christian Kellermann)
1577  - on Solaris `gcc' is used by default, override `C_COMPILER'
1578    to use the Sun compiler instead
1579  - declaring a function `notinline' will prevent direct-call
1580    optimization for known procedure calls
1581  - the implementation of overflow-detection for arithmetic operations
1582    on fixnums have been replaced and now allow using the full 63-bit
1583    range of fixnums on 64-bit systems
1584  - fixed serious inlining-bug (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
1585  - constant-folding in the compiler has been simplified and
1586    is more reliable (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
1587  - optimization-levels 3 and higher imply `-unboxing -inline-global'
1588  - added new declaration `unsafe-specialized-arithmetic' which allows
1589    optimizing unboxed floating-point arithmetic in safe mode
1590  - removed `scrutinize' declaration
1591  - the warning shown when unimported identifiers are used in compiled
1592    modules now also shows the name of the procedure where the
1593    identifier is referenced (suggested by Alaric Snell-Pym)
1594
1595
1596- Documentation
1597  - Added list of installed files to README
1598  - Documented remaining "c...r" standard procedures (thanks to
1599    Juergen Lorenz)
1600  - The manual is now installed in HTML format in
1601    PREFIX/share/chicken/doc, many thanks to Jim Ursetto for
1602    contributing is excellent `manual-labor' extension which made
1603    this possible
1604
1605
1606- Foreign function interface
1607  - Added support for missing "(const [XXX-]c-string)" foreign type
1608    (thanks to Moritz Heidkamp)
1609  - removed deprecated `pointer', `nonnull-pointer', `byte-vector'
1610    and `nonnull-byte-vector' types
1611  - added missing result-type handling for `unsigned-integer64'
1612    (thanks to Moritz Heidkamp)
1613  - added `foreign-type-size' macro
1614  - added the new foreign type `size_t' (suggested by Moritz
1615    Heidkamp)
1616  - added the missing `unsigned-integer64' foreign type (thanks
1617    to Moritz for catching this)
1618  - added new foreign type `pointer-vector' which maps to `void **'
1619    and provided a low-level API in the `lolevel' library unit for
1620    manipulating pointer vectors
1621
1622
1623- Runtime system
1624  - Fixed typo in "runtime.c" (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
1625  - Little-endian detection on MIPS systems was not correct (thanks
1626    to Christian Kellermann)
1627  - Fixed bug in handling of runtime-options with arguments (also
1628    reported by Christian Kellermann)
1629  - `equal?' does not compare procedures recursively anymore
1630  - fixed incorrect use of alloca.h on OpenBSD (thanks to
1631    Christian Kellermann and Alan Post)
1632  - checks for NaN and infinity are now done using ISO C99
1633    operations, which required various changes to `chicken.h'
1634    to make the code compile in ISO C99 mode
1635  - remaining debris regarding MSVC builds has been removed
1636  - fixed bug in argument-type check for 64-bit integer (thanks
1637    to Kon Lovett)
1638  - increased default trace-buffer size from 10 to 16
1639  - fixed bug in low-level termination routine (thanks to
1640    Jeronimo Pellegrini)
1641  - the scheduler handles violations of internal invariants
1642    regarding threads slightly more gracefully (thanks to Jim
1643    Ursetto)
1644  - fixed broken sleep-time conversion (thanks to Karel Miklav)
1645  - repaired broken handling of multiple finalizers that referred
1646    to the same object (reported by Moritz Heidkamp)
1647  - fixed problem with reader and escaping of single-char symbols
1648
1649
1650- Syntax expander
1651  - For-syntax syntax definitions where not correctly retained inside
1652    modules
1653  - Peter Bex fixed various critical bugs in the expander
1654  - The simplification for quasiquote expressions was unable
1655    to handle certain circular data (reported by Moritz Heidkamp)
1656  - `syntax-rules' now supports tail-patterns and is now fully
1657    SRFI-46 compatible - many thanks to Peter Bex for implementing
1658    this
1659  - Peter Bex provided a bugfix for resolution of primitive imports
1660  - handling of internal definitions with shadowed defining
1661    forms is now done correctly - fix once again from Peter Bex
1662  - corrected non-standard behaviour of quasiquote with respect
1663    to nested quasiquotations - another bugfix by our mighty macro
1664    master
1665  - removed stub-implementation of `define-macro'
1666  - handled case where a global redefinition of `cons' influenced
1667    a non-inlined internal use in the expander (thanks to David
1668    Steiner)
1669  - `define-record' now allows defining SRFI-17 setter procedures
1670    for accessing slots
1671  - the expansion of DSSSL lambda-lists uses now `let-optionals*'
1672    internally instead of `let-optionals' and so allows
1673    back-references to earlier formal variables; this also results in
1674    faster and more compact code for argument-list destructuring
1675    (thanks to Alan Post)
1676  - new "implicit renaming" macro facility contributed by Peter Bex
1677    (see `ir-macro-transformer')
1678  - parameters are now settable and can be modified using `set!'
1679    (SRFI-17)
1680  - added a SRFI-17 setter to `list-ref'
1681  - added literal blob syntax ("#{ ... }")
1682
1683
1684- Tools
1685  - chicken-install
1686    - option "-deploy" does not compile deployed extensions with
1687      "-setup-mode" anymore to avoid problems with dynamic loading on
1688      some platforms (specifically Mac OS X)
1689    - option "-deploy" option did not copy the correct library
1690      (including the version-number) (thanks to Christian Kellermann)
1691    - added support for proxy-authentification (thanks to Iruata Souza)
1692    - when installing from a local directory `chicken-install' now
1693      removes existing `*.so' files in that location to avoid stale
1694      binaries when the `make' syntax is used in setup scripts
1695  - chicken-bug
1696    - removed disabled e-mail support
1697  - csc
1698    - removed `-static-extension' option
1699    - removed deprecated `-windows' option
1700    - fixed incorrect use of `chicken.rc' on non-Windows platforms
1701      in `-gui' mode (thanks to "ddp")
1702    - when compiling in C++ mode, the compiler will be called with the
1703      `-Wno-write-strings' option
1704    - `-frwapv' has been added to the default C compiler options
1705  - csi
1706    - the ",m" toplevel command now accepts "#f" to switch back to
1707      the initial empty module context (suggested by Christian Kellermann)
1708    - fixed broken `,g' toplevel command
1709    - deprecated `script' feature identifier (use `chicken-script'
1710      instead)
1711    - options `-p' and `-P' and `-e' imply `-no-init'
1712    - the call-trace reported will not include exception-handler code
1713      anymore (suggested by Christian Kellermann)
1714
1715
1716
17174.6.0
1718
1719- the licenses used in all components of the core system have
1720  been collected in the LICENSE file (Thanks to Peter Bex)
1721- Added new compiler option `-no-module-registration' which
1722  omits generation of module registration code, even when
1723  generation of import libraries has not been enabled
1724- running `chicken' without arguments now hints at the
1725  existence of `csi' and `csc'
1726- `caar', `cdar' and `cddr' generate faster code
1727- calls to `list', `vector' and the internal structure
1728  allocation primitive that take 1 to 8 arguments generate
1729  faster code
1730- `chicken-install' now checks the version of the setup
1731  configuration file `setup.defaults'
1732- added option `-exact' to `chicken-status' and `chicken-uninstall',
1733  which treats the pattern argument as the literal name of the
1734  extension to be listed/deinstalled
1735- `assert' shows line-number information, if available
1736  (suggested by Alejandro Forero Cuervo)
1737- interpreted code records the lexical-environment at call-
1738  sites, which can in case of an error be inspected with the
1739  new `,c', `,f' and `,g' csi toplevel commands
1740- the evaluation-result history in `csi' can be inspected and
1741  cleared (to reduce memory load) with the toplevel commands
1742  `,h' and `,ch'
1743- unit `data-structures': deprecated `left-section' and
1744  `right-section'
1745- fixed bug that caused the static syntax-environment of
1746  syntax exported by a module to be incomplete
1747- module `setup-api': Documented the `version>=?' and
1748  `extension-name-and-version' proceedures
1749- unit `posix': `utc-time->seconds' is considerably
1750  faster on Mac OS X (thanks to Jim Ursetto);
1751  added new procedure `file-type'
1752- the `time' macro now shows the correct number of minor
1753  garbage collections
1754- the immediate-object check inside the marking procedure
1755  of the garbage collector has been manually inlined which
1756  results in a significant GC speedup, depending on memory
1757  load
1758- unit `srfi-18' and `scheduler': various bugfixes (thanks
1759  to Joerg Wittenberger)
1760- unit `srfi-4': bugfix in 8-bit vector allocation routines
1761  (thanks to Kon Lovett)
1762- added `-:H' runtime option to dump heap state on exit
1763- fixed missing change in Makefile.cygwin (thanks to John Cowan)
1764- fixed bug in `let-optionals' macro that caused problems when the
1765  rest-variable was actually named `rest' (thanks to Alejandro
1766  Forero Cuervo)
1767- when Scheme files are translated to C++ or Objective-C, `csc'
1768  will register the feature-identifiers `chicken-scheme-to-c++'/
1769  `chicken-scheme-to-objc' ar compile-time
1770- fixed bug in expansion of `#!key' parameters in lambda-lists
1771- debug-output for forcing finalizers on exit goes to stderr now
1772  (thanks to Joerg Wittenberger)
1773- the installation routines for extensions automatically add
1774  version-number information if none is given in the extension
1775  property list (suggested by Alejandro Forero Cuervo)
1776- `standard-extension' accepts `#f' now for the version number
1777  and will use the version that has been obtained via
1778  `chicken-install'
1779- `fifo?', `symbolic-link?', `directory?', `regular-file?', `socket?',
1780  `character-device?' and `block-device?' now accepts file-descriptors
1781  or filenames
1782- `find-files' takes keyword arguments, now (including the options
1783  to process dotfiles and ignore symbolic links); the old argument
1784  signature is still supported but deprecated
1785- removed dependency on `symbol-append' in some macros used in
1786  srfi-4.scm to be able to compile the system with older chickens
1787- fixed bug in script that generates development snapshot
1788- added build-variable `TARGET_FEATURES', which can be used to pass
1789  extra options enabling or disabling fetures for a system configured
1790  for cross-compilation
1791- added compiler and interpreter option `-no-feature FEATURENAME' that
1792  disables predefined feature identifiers
1793- code compiled with interrupts disabled will not emit inline files
1794  for global inlining since they may execute in a context where
1795  interrupts are enabled
1796- the `setup.defaults' file that holds download sources for
1797  `chicken-install' now allows aliases for locations
1798- CHICKEN systems build from cross-compilation now by default
1799  transparently build and install extensions for both the host
1800  and target parts of the cross-compilation setup; the options
1801  `-host' and `-target' can now be used to selectively build
1802  an extensions for the host- and the target system, respectively
1803- also added `-host' and `-target' options to `chicken-status' and
1804  `chicken-uninstall'
1805- `chicken-install' now respects the `http_proxy' environment variable
1806  (contributed by Stephen Eilert)
1807- the `srfi-4' library unit has been heavily cleaned up and optimized
1808- optimization-level 3 now enables global inlining
1809- fixed the case that declarations listing global identifiers did not
1810  correctly rename them
1811- deprecated `-N' option shortcut for `-no-usual-integrations' option in
1812  `csc'
1813- `csi' now offers a toplevel command `,e' for invoking an external
1814  editor (suggested by Oivind Binde)
1815- the `describe' command in `csi' now detects many circular lists
1816  (contributed by Christian Kellermann)
1817- `csi' doesn't depend on the `srfi-69' library unit anymore
1818- when a closing sequence delimiter is missing or incorrect, the
1819  reader also reports the starting line of the sequence
1820- the reader signals an error when a file contains certain characters
1821  that indicate that it is a binary file
1822- procedure-information shown by the printer for procedures is now
1823  corrected for some library procedures that where missing the correct
1824  information; `getter-with-setter' copies procedure-information objects
1825  into the newly created accessor procedure, if available
1826- calls to some known pure standard- or extended procedures are removed, if
1827  the procedures are called with side-effect free arguments and the
1828  result is not used (this can also by enabled for user procedures with
1829  the `constant' declaration)
1830- fixed some build-system bugs related to installation
1831- fixed a problem in the C runtime code that prevented it to be compileable
1832  without a configuration header-file
1833- the makefile-target to build a bootstrapping `chicken' executable
1834  performs multi-stage build now
1835- changed error message when required extension is out of date (thanks to
1836  Mario Goulart)
1837- documented library units loaded by default in `csi' (thanks to Moritz
1838  Heidkamp)
1839- added `boot-chicken' makefile target to simplify bootstrapping
1840  the system from sources and documented this in the README
1841  (suggested by Jim Ursetto)
1842- CHICKEN can now be built on haiku (contributed by Chris Roberts)
1843- on Solaris, the system can be compiled with the SunPro C compiler
1844  (thanks to Semih Cemiloglu)
1845- removed the `-disable-warnings' compiler option and `disable-warnings'
1846  declaration specifier
1847- `fx/' and `fxmod' generate now faster code in safe mode
1848- cleaned up manual pages
1849- slightly optimized variable- and procedure-access
1850- in the compiler `-debug-level 2' implies `-scrutinize'
1851- internal compiler-transformation for `for-each' and `map'
1852  apply now with any expression as the procedure argument
1853- the compiler warns about non-intrinsic exported toplevel variables
1854  which are declared to be safe
1855- `csc' didn't handle the `-verbose' option (thanks to Mario Goulart)
1856- the `,d' command in `csi' now detects circular lists (thanks to
1857  Christian Kellermann)
1858- strings passed to C runtime functions and which are converted to
1859  0-terminated C strings are now checked for not containing embedded
1860  `\0' characters (thanks to Peter Bex)
1861- errors in user-defined record printers are caught and shown in the
1862  output instead of throwing an error to avoid endless recursion when
1863  an error message is printed
1864- a feature identifier named `chicken-MAJOR.MINOR' is now defined
1865  to simplify conditionalization of code on the CHICKEN version
1866- `getter-with-setter' copies the lambda-information (if available) from
1867  the getter to the generated procedure
1868- `time' uses a somewhat more concise output format and outputs timing
1869  information to stderr instead of stdout
1870- added a new chapter on cross-development to the manual
1871- added the `safe-globals' declaration specifier
1872- split up manual chapter `Modules and macros' into two chapters
1873  (named `Modules' and `Macros', respectively - suggested by
1874  Mario Goulart)
1875- the last 5 non-precompiled regular expressions are now internally
1876  cached in compiled form, which speeds up repeated matching of
1877  the same uncompiled regular expression dramatically
1878- added the new procedure `yes-or-no?' to the `utils' library unit
1879- added a `bench' makefile target that runs some non-trivial
1880  benchmark programs
1881- added `install-target' and `install-dev' makefile target for
1882  installing only target system libraries in cross-mode and
1883  development files (static libraries and headers)
1884- added `[-]no-procedure-checks-for-toplevel-bindings' compiler
1885  option and declaration
1886- usage of unimported syntax in modules gives more usable
1887  error messages; in particular, used but unimported FFI forms are
1888  now detected
1889- invalid syntactic forms (mostly `()') encountered by the compiler
1890  or interpreter show the contextual form containing the expression,
1891  or, if indicated by the context warns about missing imports
1892- simplified manual pages of all core tools - they now refer to
1893  the output shown by invoking `<tool> -help'
1894- added new option `-feature FEATURE' to `chicken-install' tool
1895  to pass feature-identifiers to invocations of `csc'
1896- removed deprecated `-host-extension' option from `chicken-install'
1897- `chicken-status' in a system built for cross-compilation now
1898  lists extensions installed in the target prefix, unless the
1899  new `-host' option is given on the command line
1900- `chicken-uninstall' in a system built for cross-compilation now
1901  removes extensions installed in the target prefix, unless the
1902  new `-host' option is given on the command line
1903- added missing entry for `finite?' to the `chicken' module
1904  exports
1905- added new procedure `port-closed?' to the `library' unit
1906  (contributed by Peter Bex)
1907- added new procedure `symbol-append' to the library unit
1908- the compiler-option `-optimize-level 0' is equivalent to
1909  `-no-compiler-syntax -no-usual-integrations`
1910- internal rewritings of `map' and `for-each' ensure correct
1911  evaluation order of the arguments and does a better job
1912  at detecting non-list arguments (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
1913- `void' now takes arbitrary arguments and ignores them
1914- deprecated `noop' (from the `data-structures' unit) which
1915  is now replaced by `void'
1916- the `time' macro now performs a major garbage collection
1917  before executing the contained expressions and writes
1918  the timings in a more compact format to the port given
1919  by `(current-error-port)' instead of the standard output
1920  port
1921- definitions of the form `(define define ...)' and
1922  `(define-syntax define-syntax ...)' now trigger an error,
1923  as required by R5RS (thanks to Jeronimo Pellegrini and Alex
1924  Shinn)
1925- deprecated `random-seed' from the `extras' unit, since it
1926  is identical to `randomize'
1927- added new procedure `create-temporary-directory' to the
1928  `files' unit
1929- deprecated the optional path separator argument to
1930  `make-pathname'
1931- slightly improved the performance of keyword argument
1932  processing
1933- removed the deprecated `canonical-path' and `current-environment'
1934  procedures from the `posix' unit
1935- warnings that mostly refer to programming style issues are
1936  now coined `notes' and are only shown in the interpreter
1937  or when debug-mode is enabled or when scrutiny is enabled
1938  when compiling
1939
19404.5.0
1941
1942- internal fixes of handling of alternative installation-prefix
1943  in setup-api
1944- certain compiler-warnings that are in really just notes
1945  and don't indicate a possible error (like reimport of
1946  identifiers) are only shown with -S or in verbose mode
1947- fixed handling of VARDIR in `chicken-install' (thanks to
1948  Davide Puricelli)
1949- `chicken-install -test' doesn't runs tests for dependencies
1950- when a non-else clause follows an else-clause in `cond',
1951  `case' or `select' a warning (note) is shown in verbose
1952  mode
1953- removed the deprecated `define-extension' and
1954  `define-compiled-syntax'
1955- `chicken-uninstall' now always asks before removing
1956  extensions, unless `-force' is given
1957- improved performance of keyword-argument processing slightly
1958- `export' outside of a module definition has no effect
1959- `number->string' now accepts arbitrary bases between 2 and 16
1960  (thanks to Christian Kellermann)
1961- fixed `standard-extension' in `setup-api' module
1962- literal constants keep their identity, even when inlined
1963- Unit library: added `fxodd?' and `fxeven?'
1964- All hardcoded special forms have been replaced with
1965  syntax definitions that expand into internal forms, this
1966  allows redefinition and shadowing of all Scheme core forms
1967- faster implementations of `get' and `put!'
1968- faster implementation of `assq' in unsafe mode
1969- the `-sx' option prefixes each output line with `;'
1970- slightly better expansion performance
1971- more documentation of the C API (thanks to Peter Bex)
1972- `module' supports a shorthand form that refers directly
1973  to a file to be included as the module body
1974- added runtime option `-:G' to force GUI mode (on platforms
1975  that distinguish between GUI and non-GUI applications)
1976- removed the unsafe runtime library (`libuchicken'), this
1977  simplifies and speeds up the build and reduces the risk
1978  of executables loading library units from different
1979  variants of the runtime system
1980- removed the `-unsafe-libraries' option from `chicken'
1981  and `csc'
1982- removed bootstrapping target and bootstrapping files from
1983  development repository; to bootstrap the system, either
1984  use a release or development-snapshot tarball or fetch
1985  a statically linked precompiled `chicken' binary from
1986  http://chicken.wiki.br/chicken-projects/bootstrap/
1987- Jim Ursetto provided some fixes for building universal
1988  binaries on Mac OS X
1989- `csc' now compiles and links Windows resource (.rc) files
1990  when given on the command line
1991- `chicken-install' and `chicken-uninstall' have an embedded
1992  manifest that suppresses the elevation dialog on Windows
1993  Vista and later when UAC is activated (Thanks to Thomas Chust)
1994- the `install' program is not used in the build on mingw
1995  and mingw/MSYS platforms, since this is broken on older
1996  mingw versions
1997- line-number-information is now properly handled (in the
1998  few places where it is used) correctly for included files;
1999  the source file is given in trace-output in addition to
2000  the line number
2001- removed compiler warning for shared objects compiled in
2002  unsafe mode
2003- unboxing is now only done in unsafe mode
2004- in unsafe mode, pointer-accessors from the `lolevel' unit
2005  are now handled intrinsically by the compiler
2006- `chicken-install' accepts now relative pathnames for the
2007  `-prefix' option
2008- `define-record-type' now optionally allows using SRFI-17
2009  setters as record-field modifiers
2010- `integer?' returns `#f' for NaN and infinite numbers
2011- `csc' now has an `-no-elevation' option for embedding a
2012  manifest that prevents the elevation dialog on Windows
2013  Vista and later when IAC is activated
2014- the `,d' csi command displays qualified symbols properly
2015- symbols starting with the `#\#' character trigger an
2016  error when encountered by the reader
2017- Unit posix: `glob->regexp' now always returns a regular
2018  expression object or optionally an SRE
2019- Unit posix: `terminal-port?' and `terminal-size' have been
2020   implemented for Windows, the latter always returns `0 0',
2021  though (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
2022- Unit regex: `regexp' now accepts a regular expression
2023  object as argument
2024- Unit regex: removed `glob?'
2025- fixed bug in `chicken-install'/`chicken-uninstall' and
2026  `chicken-status' that prevented collapsed command-line
2027  options to be handled correctly.
2028- disabled runpath-fix for deployed applications for netbsd
2029  (but resurrected providing a runpath at all, thanks to
2030  Peter Bex)
2031- Peter Bex provided documentation for the `C_closure' C API
2032  function
2033
20344.4.0
2035
2036- the system can now be built with llvm-gcc and/or "clang" (the
2037  LLVM C compiler which doesn't use the GNU C frontend)
2038- added new option `-trunk' to `chicken-install', which forces
2039  building and installing the development version of extensions
2040  in combination with `-t local'
2041- added new option `-deploy' to `chicken-install', which builds
2042  extension for use in "deployed" applications (see below)
2043- added option `-deploy' to `csc', the compiler driver. With this
2044  option `csc' can build fully self-contained application bundles
2045  and double-clickable Macintosh GUI apps; see the "Deployment"
2046  manual chapter for more information
2047- the directory given to the `-prefix' option of `chicken-install'
2048  may now be a relative pathname.
2049- removed GUI-specific runtime library (`libchicken-gui') from
2050  Windows build - GUI- and non-GUI applications now use the same
2051  runtime library
2052- special forms of the foreign-function interface have been replaced
2053  with an internal form and syntax to allow renaming and shadowing of
2054  these forms
2055- the new `-private-repository' option in `csc' compiles executables
2056  with the extension-repository path set to the directory from which
2057  the program was started
2058- `csc': deprecated the `-W' and `-windows' options, added `-gui' as
2059  a platform-independent replacement
2060- `require-extension'/`use' accepts now import-specifications
2061- user-defined extension-specifiers and `set-extension-specifier!'
2062  have been removed
2063- `delete-file[*]', `rename-file', `create-directory', `file-copy',
2064  `file-move', `delete-directory' and `change-directory' return their
2065  argument/destination filename on success
2066- added the missing procedure `condition-variable-name' to the
2067  srfi-18 library unit (Thanks to Joerg Wittenberger)
2068- the `glob?' function from the `regex' unit has been deprecated
2069- added the procedure `scan-input-lines' to the `utils' library unit
2070- added new runtime option `-:g' which enables GC debugging output
2071- reclamation of unused symbols in "symbol-gc" mode (`-:w') now only
2072  takes place for symbols with an empty property-list
2073- on Windows loading of code compiled with [non-]GUI runtime libraries
2074  will fail and produce an error message when the loading executable
2075  is linked with a different runtime system
2076- on Windows, GUI libraries were not correctly linked by `csc'
2077- unit posix: added setter for `file-modification-time'
2078- the banner shows the branchname of the build, unless it's "master"
2079- the `-no-install' option to `chicken-install' is ignored when
2080  building/installing dependencies
2081- `chicken-uninstall' takes a glob instead of a regular expression as
2082  argument
2083- the rename and compare functions for low-level macro-definitions
2084  accept now arbitrary s-expressions and renames/compares them recursively
2085- `number->string' handles negative-numbers with bases different from 10
2086  correctly (thanks to Peter Danenberg)
2087- removed deprecated `setup-install-flag' and `setup-verbose-flag' from
2088  the `setup-api' module
2089- added new option `-repository' to `chicken-install' (Thanks to Christian
2090  Kellermann)
2091- removed `chicken-setup' stub program
2092- fix to `csc' to use the correct library when fixing dynamic load paths
2093  (Thanks to Derrell Piper)
2094- removed html documentation from distribution (the wiki manual will
2095  now be installed)
2096- fixed bug in `reexport' which caused syntax not to be correctly
2097  reexported
2098- previous assignments to a toplevel variable that are separated by
2099  side effect free expressions are removed
2100- fixed windows version of `find-files' (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
2101- documentation for extensions is not installed automatically by
2102  `chicken-install' anymore
2103- changed binary version from "4" to "5", because the new runtime
2104  libraries are not binary-compatible with previous releases; this
2105  means all eggs have to be reinstalled and existing programs be
2106  recompiled!
2107- added unboxing pass to compiler which results in partially dramatical
2108  performance improvements for unsafe floating-point-intensive code;
2109  unboxing is enabled on optimization levels 4 and 5
2110- removed rest-argument-vector optimization as it could conflict
2111  with inlining (thanks to Sven Hartrumpf)
2112- renamed `pointer-offset' to `pointer+' and deprecated `pointer-offset'
2113- toplevel assignments that have no other side-effects can be eliminated
2114  if it can be shown that the value is not used (the compiler will
2115  generate a warning in this case)
2116- removed deprecated `-quiet' option in `chicken' program
2117- removed deprecated `run-time-macros' declaration
2118- removed deprecated `-v2' and `-v3' options in `csc' program
2119- removed deprecated `list-of' function (it is exclusively available
2120  as `list-of?' now)
2121- removed deprecated `stat-...' functions in posix library unit
2122- removed deprecated `for-each-line' and `for-each-argv-line' procedures
2123  in utils library unit
2124- added `fpinteger?' and `fpabs'
2125- deprecated `define-compiled-syntax'
2126- added new floating-point primitives `fpsin', `fpcos', `fptan',
2127  `fpasin', `fpacos', `fpatan', `fpatan2', `fpexp', `fplog',
2128  `fpexpt' and `fpsqrt'
2129- heavy cleanup of floating math functions which gives much better performance,
2130  especially for code compiled in unsafe mode
2131- calling `assert' with a single argument shows the tested expression
2132  on failure
2133- various bugfixes and cleaning up
2134
21354.3.0
2136
2137- fixed bug in `move-memory!' that caused negative offsets to be accepted
2138  (thanks to Jim Ursetto)
2139- removed tracing facility and apply-hook (see the "trace" egg
2140  for a replacement for tracing and breakpoints)
2141- chicken-install(1): renamed `-host-extension' option to `-host'
2142- added support for a make(1) configuration file ("config.make")
2143- `chicken-install' now allows specifiying a proxy for retrieving
2144  extensions over HTTP (thanks to Nicolas Pelletier)
2145- fixed bug in `cond-expand' that incorrectly renamed feature-identifiers
2146  if the form was the product of a syntax expansion (reported by Thomas
2147  Bushnell)
2148- import-libraries are only generated by the compiler if they don't exist
2149  yet and if the content has actually changed (this simplifies makefile-
2150  rules in some cases)
2151- it is now possible to pass a config-file to `make(1)' instead of specifying
2152  all build-options as variables on the command-line (see README)
2153- removed compiler options for "benchmark-mode" and replaced them with a
2154  new optimization level (5) (note that `-O5' does not imply fixnum mode
2155  anymore)
2156- `hen.el' and `scheme-complete.el' are not bundled with the core system
2157  anymore - `hen.el' is currently not maintained, and `scheme-complete.el'
2158  has its own release cycle; both files are available, see
2159  http://chicken.wiki.br/emacs
2160- removed meaningless benchmark suite and cleaned up
2161- added optional argument to `grep' that allows applying a function
2162  to each matched item (contributed by Tony Sidaway)
2163- added extension-property `import-only', which makes it possible to
2164  create extensions that have no runtime part
2165- the argument to `seconds->string', `seconds->utc-time' and
2166  `seconds->local-time' is now optional and defaults to the value
2167  of `(current-seconds)' (suggested by Mario Goulart)
2168- removed read-syntax for `syntax' form
2169- fixed bug in `get-condition-property'
2170- fixed bug in windows version of `process-execute'
2171- TCP timeouts throw exception of kind `timeout' to allow
2172  distinguishing between timeouts and other errors
2173- removed some internal functions that manipulate environments
2174- fixed bugs in `standard-extension' (`setup-api' module) and added keyword
2175  arguments for building static extensions and adding custom properties
2176- when cross-compiling, `chicken-install(1)' doesn't pass `-setup-mode'
2177  (the host tools should not attempt to load target binaries)
2178- `installation-prefix' in the `setup-api' module was not always correctly
2179  set
2180- the `-force' option in `chicken-install(1)' overrides the CHICKEN version
2181  check
2182- disabled e-mail feature in `chicken-bug(1)', since it doesn't work
2183  anyway, in the moment
2184- fixed bug in `reexport' that made it impossible to reexport core library
2185  definitions
2186- fix in optimizer that sometimes caused C functions for inlined
2187  procedures to be emitted multiple times (Thanks to Joerg Wittenberger)
2188- documented `define-compiler-syntax' and `let-compiler-syntax'
2189- printer for hash-tables shows current number of stores items
2190- when upgrading during installation of a dependency `chicken-install'
2191  shows the version to upgrade to (Thanks to Christian Kellermann)
2192- Updated scheme-complete (Thanks to Alex Shinn)
2193- fix for pathnames with whitespace in 'runtests.sh' on Windows
2194- fix for 'normalize-pathname' with absolute pathname argument
2195- added 'decompose-directory' to unit files
2196- fix for 'local-timezone-abbreviation' - wasn't using the current time
2197  so tz-name constant
2198- deprecated 'make-pathname' separator argument
2199
22004.2.0
2201
2202- added compiler option `-emit-all-import-libraries'
2203- added `reexport'
2204- added compiler and interpreter option `-setup-mode'
2205- various minor performance improvements
2206- fix for 'create-directory' when parents wanted
2207- `for-each-line' and `for-each-argv-line' have been deprecated
2208- chicken-install tries alternative servers if server responds with error
2209- fixed load bug (ticket #72)
2210- new library procedure `get-condition-property'
2211- many mingw build fixes (thanks tp Fadi Moukayed)
2212- setup-api: deprecated `cross-chicken' (use `cond-expand' or
2213  `feature?' instead)
2214- added topological-sort to data-structures unit; chicken-install
2215  sorts dependencies before installing them
2216- "-optimize-level 2" enables inlining by default
2217- disable executable stack in assembly code modules (patch by
2218  Zbigniew, reported by Marijn Schouten)
2219- csc now always exits with a status code of 1 on errors (patch by Zbigniew)
2220
22214.1.0
2222
2223- The new parameter "parantheses-synonyms" and the command-line
2224  option "-no-parantheses-synonyms" allow disabling list-like behaviour
2225  of "{ ... }" and "[ ... ]" tokens
2226- The new parameter "symbol-escape" and the command-line
2227  option "-no-symbol-escape" allows disabling "| ... |" symbol escape
2228  syntax
2229- Added command-line option "-r5rs-syntax" to disable CHICKEN-specific
2230  read-syntax
2231- Removed "macro?" and "undefine-macro!"
2232- Support for Microsoft Visual Studio / MSVC has been dropped
2233- The compiler provides now a simple flow-analysis pass that does
2234  basic checking of argument-counts and -types for core library procedure
2235  calls (new option "-scrutinize")
2236- New compiler-options "-no-argc-checks", "-no-bound-checks",
2237  "-no-procedure checks", "-no-procedure-checks-for-usual-bindings",
2238  "-types TYPEFILE" and "-consult-inline-file FILENAME"
2239- Added a "chicken-setup" stub-application to catch incorrect use of
2240  this tool (which has been replaced in 4.0.0 with "chicken-install")
2241- Changed "setup-install-flag" and "setup-verbose-flag" to
2242  "setup-install-mode" and "setup-verbose-mode" in "setup-api" module,
2243  the old names are still available but deprecated
2244- Posix unit:
2245  added "socket?", "block-device?" and "character-device?", deprecated
2246  redundant "stat-..." procedures
2247- Added "directory-exists?"
2248- "(for-each (lambda ...) X)" is compiled as a loop
2249- The argument-count check for format-strings for "[sf]printf" with a constant
2250  string argument is done at compile-time
2251
22524.0.0
2253
2254- removed `apropos' and `apropos-list' from the "utils" library unit;
2255  available as an extension
2256- removed texinfo and PDF documentation - this will possible be added back
2257  later
2258- replaced PCRE regex engine with Alex Shinn's "irregex" regular expression
2259  package
2260- removed `-extension' option
2261- removed `-static-extensions' csc option and added `-static-extension NAME'
2262- `regex' unit: removed `regexp*' and `regex-optimize'
2263- added `CHICKEN_new_finalizable_gc_root()'
2264- `length' checks its argument for being cyclic
2265- removed custom declarations and "link-options" and "c-options" declarations
2266- deprecated "-quiet" option to "chicken" program
2267- added "-update-db" option to chicken-install
2268- the compiler now suggests possibly required module-imports
2269- moved non-standard syntax-definitions into "chicken-syntax" library unit
2270- the pretty-printer prints the end-of-file object readably now
2271- alternative conditional execution paths have separate allocation computation
2272  (previously the allocation of all alternatives was coalesced)
2273- removed unused "%kmp-search" from "srfi-13" library unit
2274- expander handles syntax-reexports and makes unexported syntax available
2275  for exported expanders in import libraries
2276- added checks in some procedures in the "tcp" library unit
2277- the macro system has been completely overhauled and converted
2278  to hygienic macros
2279- a macro-aware module system has been added
2280- added "-sx" option to csi
2281- removed the following deprecated functions:
2282   [un]shift!
2283   andmap ormap
2284   byte-vector? byte-vector-fill!
2285   make-byte-vector byte-vector
2286   byte-vector-set! byte-vector-ref
2287   byte-vector->list list->byte-vector
2288   string->byte-vector byte-vector->string
2289   byte-vector-length
2290   make-static-byte-vector static-byte-vector->pointer
2291   byte-vector-move! byte-vector-append!
2292   set-file-position! set-user-id! set-group-id!
2293   set-process-group-id!
2294   macro? undefine-macro!
2295- the situation-identifiers "run-time" and "compile-time" have
2296  been removed
2297- the compiler options "-check-imports", "-import" and "-emit-exports"
2298  have been removed
2299- new procedures:
2300  strip-syntax
2301  expand
2302- new macros
2303  define-syntax
2304  module
2305  export
2306- the following macros have been removed:
2307    define-foreign-record
2308    define-foreign-enum
2309    define-macro
2310    define-extension
2311- "local" mode, in which locally defined exported toplevel variables can
2312  be inlined
2313- new options and declarations "[-]local", "[-]inline-global" and "-emit-inline-file"
2314- optimization levels changed to use inlining:
2315  -optimize-level 3: enables -inline -local (but *not* -unsafe)
2316  -optimize-level 4: enables -inline -local -unsafe
2317- increased default inlining-limit to 20
2318- support for cross-module inlining
2319- "make <VARIABLES> bench" runs the benchmark suite
2320- "chicken-setup" has been replaced by new command line tools
2321  "chicken-install", "chicken-uninstall" and "chicken-status", which are
2322  more flexible and allow greater freedom when creating local or application-
2323  specific repositories
2324- extension-installation can be done directly from SVN repositories or a local
2325  file tree
2326- enabled chicken mirror site as alternative download location