HHVM 4.6 is released! This release will be supported for 6 weeks, and HHVM 4.1+ remain supported.

Highlights

  • await is now supported in many expressions.
  • added concurrent {} blocks as a more readable replacement for HH\Lib\Tuple\from_async() and \HH\Asio\va().
  • added hh_client --file-dependents foo.hack [bar.hack ...] to provide a list of files that are known to dependent on the specified files.
  • generics are now included in typechecker error messages that involve types.
  • Improved typechecker errors for bad uses of Shapes::idx() and Shapes::at()
  • If $c has type errors, do not raise additional errors for $c::f(), to reduce noise.
  • hackfmt now provides information on the problem if it encounters a parse error.
  • Increased performance and reduced memory usage for json_decode() when string keys are already present as literals in the source code.
  • Parser exceptions are now reported as parser errors.
  • Improved performance of type_structure()

await-as-an-expression

For example, $sum = await x() + await y(); is now valid Hack; for details, see the documentation.

concurrent

Concurrent blocks provide a more readable alternative to HH\Lib\Tuple\from_async() and HH\Asio\va(); we expect these functions to be removed in a future release of HHVM and the HSL.

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// Old style:
list($x, $y) = await Tuple\from_async(foo(), bar());
// New style:
concurrent {
  $x = await foo();
  $y = await bar();
}

For details, see the documentation.

Breaking Changes

  • To allow await as an expression, the precedence has changed. hhast-migrate --await-precedence can be used with HHVM 4.5 and HHAST 4.5 to parenthesize affected expresisons.
  • Removed support for variadic references in sscanf() and fscanf().
  • By-reference access to class static variables is no longer supported.
  • By-reference access to pipe variables is no longer supported.
  • The (real) cast has been removed; use (float) instead.
  • func_num_args() is no longer supported; use variadics instead.
  • PHP4-style constructors (class Foo { function Foo() {} }) are no longer supported. Use function __construct() {} instead.
  • If hh_parse encounters errors, it will now report them and exit non-0, unless another behavior is specified with CLI arguments.