36.2 Known Names

An experimental database of known names provided by the core Guile system (available with guile -c) can be queried by evaluating:

     (use-modules (ice-9 known-names))

The database is read-only, and contains items specific to the installed Guile. Each item belongs in one or more groups and has exactly one class. These are the groups:

C+scheme

in both groups `scheme' and `C' – should be empty!

embedded-libltdl

begins with lt_ – should become empty over time

libguile-internal

begins with scm_i_

gdb

begins with gdb_

coop

begins with coop_

gh

begins with gh_

g-fdes

begins with g and ends with fds

r-fdes

begins with r and ends with fds

scm

begins with scm_

k

constants

POSIX

POSIX support

math

math functions

docinfo

documented in the info manual

guile-C-API

the official guile API available to C programs

questionable

exposed to C but not in the official API and not scm_

An item's class is a symbol describing the nature of the item and how to interpret the extra information (if any) associated with that item. In the following table, we call this extra. It is a string, possibly empty.

none

There is no additional information available for this item.

letter

letter is in the range A through Z, inclusive. This means that the item is a C symbol and probably belongs to the C group. The letter is from the second column of the nm(1) output from which this item was scanned.

single-symbol

This class is presently unused, so it's probably a bug if any item claims to belong to it. Please report the freak occurance!

primitive

The item is a primitive Scheme procedure (see API Overview).

primitive-alias

The item is an alias for a primitive Scheme procedure. extra names the primitive Scheme procedure. For example, format is an alias for simple-format.

procedure

The item is a Scheme procedure. extra is a representation of the arguments taken by the procedure. For example, extra for item atan is (z . y), while for item error it is args.

procedure-alias

The item is an alias for a Scheme procedure. extra is the name of the Scheme procedure followed by space followed by a representation of the arguments taken by the procedure.

[Probably with a SMOP, this module's interface can be formalized into some kind of discovery protocol, which would allow us to make guile-tools generate-METAINFO emit all the necessary code for arbitrary module collections. –ttn]