8 Library modules - Overview

In the following chapters, we explain library modules bundled with Gauche’s distribution. These modules should generally be loaded and imported (usually using use - See Using modules, for details), unless otherwise noted.

Some modules are described as "autoloaded". That means you don’t need to load or use the module explicitly; at the first time the bindings are used in the program, the module is automatically loaded and imported. See Autoload, for the details of autoloading.

As the number of bundled libraries grows, it becomes harder to find the one you need. If you feel lost, check out the section Finding libraries you need, in which we categorize libraries by their purposes.

The following four chapters describe bundled modules, grouped by their names.

• Library modules - Gauche extensions contains a description of gauche.* modules, which are more or less considered the core features of Gauche but separated since less frequently used. (Some modules are rather ad-hoc, but here for historical reasons).
• Library modules - R7RS standard libraries explains how Gauche integrates R7RS into existing Gauche structures. If you want to write R7RS-compliant portable programs, you definitely want to check the first two sections of this chapter. What follows is the description of R7RS modules. The “small” part of R7RS has been frozen, but the “large” part–additional libraries–are still growing.
• Library modules - SRFIs describes the modules which provide SRFI functionalities. They have the names beginning with srfi.. Note that some of SRFI features are built in Gauche core and not listed here. See Standard conformance, for the entire list of supported SRFIs.
• Library modules - Utilities describes other modules —including database interface, filesystem utilities, network protocol utilities, and more.

There are a few procedures that help your program to check the existence of certain modules or libraries at run-time. See Operations on libraries, for the details.

• Finding libraries you need:
• Naming convention of libraries:
• Obsolete and superseded modules: