6.23 Configuration, Features and Runtime Options

Why is my Guile different from your Guile? There are three kinds of possible variation:

• build differences — different versions of the Guile source code, installation directories, configuration flags that control pieces of functionality being included or left out, etc.
• differences in dynamically loaded code — behaviour and features provided by modules that can be dynamically loaded into a running Guile
• different runtime options — some of the options that are provided for controlling Guile’s behaviour may be set differently.

Guile provides “introspective” variables and procedures to query all of these possible variations at runtime. For runtime options, it also provides procedures to change the settings of options and to obtain documentation on what the options mean.