HHVM 3.29 is released! This release has a large amount of changes in the typechecker; these mostly are now raising type errors for situations that already failed at runtime, or banning rare cases that make the type system unsound.

Breaking Changes

[typechecker] correct inferred types for variables assigned in loops
[typechecker] ban using traits in interfaces (previously failed at runtime, but typechecked fine)
[typechecker] ban generic static properties, as the generic is unresolved until the class is instantiated
[typechecker] keywords are case sensitive again (e.g. new is valid, NEW is not)
[typechecker] ban using various keywords as identifiers, e.g. class true {} is not valid
[typechecker] improved typing of array append - e.g. $x = vec[]; $x[] = 'a string'; now gets you a vec<string>
[typechecker] ban instance methods on abstract final classes
[typechecker] the Throwable class is now sealed to the Exception and Error classes
[typechecker] ban await in pseudomains
[typechecker] ban constructor parameter promotion in traits and interfaces
[typechecker] re-ban anonymous classes; was un-banned by parser replacement
[typechecker] ban the empty string as a shape key
[typechecker] make sure that properties are consistently static or non-static across the hierarchy. Previously a runtime error.
[typechecker] ban taking references to array literals. Previously a runtime error.
[typechecker] ban taking references to expressions including ?-> operator. Previously a runtime error.
[typechecker] ban ::class on the RHS of instanceof expressions; uneeded.
[typechecker] require visibility specifiers for properties again; was un-banned by parser replacement
[typechecker] ban await in non-async lambdas. Previously a runtime error.
[typechecker] ban truthiness checks on objects that are not Containers or SimpleXMLElements
[typechecker] ban impossible types (e.g. abstract final classes) as shape field types
[typechecker] fix typechecking of case statements that are after a default statement
[typechecker] ban the (object) cast (convert to stdClass) in strict mode
[typechecker+HackC] ban the <> operator in Hack -the equivalent != operator is still available- migration included in HHAST: hhast-migrate --ltgt-to-ne
[typechecker] ban methods without a name. Previously a runtime error.
[typechecker] infer better types for Shapes::toDict(), in the same way as Shapes::toArray() - for example, if all the fields are strings, you can get a dict<string, string>
[runtime] removed support for /e modifier (eval) for preg_replace(). Deprecated in PHP 5.5, removed from 7.0. Use preg_replace_callback() instead.
[runtime] stream_await() will throw an InvalidOperationException if called on an unawaitable file descriptor. This includes actual on-disk files on Linux, as they are not supported by epoll. We recommend that callers attempt to stream_await(), and handle this exception if neccessary. The stream metadata can not be used to identify whether or not a stream is awaitable - for example, hhvm foo.php has an awaitable STDIN, but hhvm foo.php < myfile has an awaitable STDIN on MacOS (kqueue) but not on Linux (epoll). In prior releases, behavior varied; the most common result was writing an error to STDOUT, and the awaitable not resolving, with request timeout eventually being reached.
[hackc] ban variable variables ($$foo) in Hack code (previously required by the typechecker)
[hackc] colons are now required again after ‘case’ and ‘default’ labels (previously required by the typechecker)

Features

[hackfmt] added support for // hackfmt-ignore comments, to turn off formatting for a node
[typechecker] null checks on Shapes::idx() results now refine the type of the shape
add support for typed user attributes

Typed User Attributes

Currently, <<Attributes>> are unchecked, except if they start with __ (indicating a builtin), and can contain any amount of static expressions of any type; it was possible to whitelist valid attribute names via user_attributes=foo,bar, but not to provide any additional checking.

We have addressed these problems by introducing typed user attributes, where attributes are represented by classes and objects; the parameters of an attribute must be valid for the class constructor, and the objects can be retrived via reflection.

For example:

<?hh // strict

namespace MyTestFramework {
  final class DataProvider implements \HH\MethodAttribute {
    public function __construct(public string $function) {
    }
  }
}

namespace MyThingBeingTested {
  use type MyTestFramework\DataProvider;
  
  final class MyTest extends MyTestFramework\TestCase {
    <<DataProvider('provideFoo')>>
    public function testFoo(): void {
    }
    
    <<DataProvider(123)>> // type error, not a string
    public function testBar(): void {
    }
    
    <<DataProvider('foo', 'bar')>> // type error, too many arguments
    public function testBaz(): void {
    }
  }
  
  <<DataProvider('foo')>> // type error, can't use DataProvider on functions, only methods
  function doStuff(): void {
  }
}

Attributes can be retrieved via reflection:

<?hh
$rc = new ReflectionClass('C');
$my_attr = $rc->getAttributeClass(MyAttribute::class);
invariant($my_attr is MyAttribute, 'we get an instance of the class');

Attribute classes implement at least one of these interfaces:

ClassAttribute
EnumAttribute
TypeAliasAttribute
FunctionAttribute
MethodAttribute
InstancePropertyAttribute
StaticPropertyAttribute
ParameterAttribute

In 3.29, it is possible to declare attributes with this form, and if done, they were validated. In 3.30, declaring all attributes will be required, and it is possible to require this in 3.29 by setting an empty whitelist in .hhconfig:

user_attributes=

Other Highlights

[typechecker] correct handling of is expressions in pipe expressions
[typechecker] fix handling of as expressions in list assignments, e.g. list($a, $b) = $mixed as (int, int);
[typechecker+HackC] support unambiguous as expressions in foreach, e.g. foreach(f($x as nonnull) as $y)
[runtime] async curl functions are now natively async again
[runtime] handle EINTR (e.g. Xenon) while invoking HackC
[runtime] <<__LateInit>> now works correctly for private properties on abstract classes

Upcoming Changes

[typechecker] remove support for type refinement via is_bool(), is_int() etc. This is currently opt-in via the disable_primitive_refinement .hhconfig option
typed user attributes will be required. This is currently opt-in via the user_attributes= .hhconfig option

Breaking Changes

Features

Typed User Attributes

Other Highlights

Upcoming Changes

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