HHVM 4.21 is released! This release marks the end of support for 4.15; 4.16-4.20 remain supported, as do the LTS releases 3.30 and 4.8.

Highlights

  • This release includes the security patch that was also applied to all supported older releases.
  • We are rewriting parts of our code from OCaml to Rust. This should not cause any user-facing changes. In the previous release (HHVM 4.20), a new parser written in Rust was added. It is now enabled by default, but you can still disable it by adding hack.lang.hack_compiler_use_rust_parser=0 to hhvm.ini. If you see any differences in behavior or other issues, please open a GitHub issue.
  • A new command hh_client --rewrite-parameter-types <filename> is now available to help with migration from partial to strict mode. It adds <<__Soft>> type annotations based on inferred parameter types.
  • Class constants in a subclass can now be declared with a subtype of their type in the parent class (previously the exact same type was required).
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class A { const arraykey C = 'string'; }
class B extends A { const int C = 42; }
  • Fixed a bug that prevented await from working inside echo and unset statements in some cases.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the documentation for many built-in functions from being correctly parsed. As a result, many more functions are now documented at docs.hhvm.com.

Breaking Changes

  • An optional passed-by-reference argument was removed from the following functions. For most of them, a replacement with the old signature is available. For preg_match and preg_match_all, automated migration is available in HHAST 4.15.5 (runs on HHVM 4.18-4.20) and 4.21.2 (runs on HHVM 4.21).
    • icu_match (use icu_match_with_matches instead)
    • idn_to_ascii (no replacement available)
    • idn_to_unicode (no replacement available)
    • idn_to_utf8 (no replacement available)
    • is_callable (use is_callable_with_name instead)
    • preg_match (use preg_match_with_matches instead)
    • preg_match_all (use preg_match_all_with_matches instead)
  • The last argument (passed by reference) was changed from optional to required in the following functions.
    • apc_dec (last 2 arguments)
    • apc_inc (last 2 arguments)
    • curl_multi_info_read
    • datefmt_parse
    • grapheme_extract
    • IntlTimeZone::getCanonicalID
    • intltz_get_canonical_id
    • NumberFormatter::parseCurrency
    • numfmt_parse
    • numfmt_parse_currency
    • SpoofChecker::areConfusable
    • SpoofChecker::isSuspicious
  • Fixed a bug where the last argument of the following functions was incorrectly declared as optional. It was already a runtime error to omit the argument, but now it is also a typechecker error.
    • apc_fetch
    • datefmt_localtime
    • IntlDateFormatter::localtime
  • Fixed a bug that allowed an abstract constant to remain undefined when a trait with require extends is used.

Future changes

  • In HHVM 4.22 (the next release), the old parser will be removed and the Rust parser will become the only one available.
  • The last argument (passed by reference) of NumberFormatter::parse will be removed in the next release. Any calls that require this argument can be migrated to NumberFormatter::parseWithPosition which has the old signature.
  • Soon, it will be an error to use a built-in attribute in an invalid location. You can enable this behavior now by adding check_attribute_locations=true to .hhconfig.
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<<__Memoize>> class C { ... }  // invalid!
<<__ConsistentConstruct>> function f() { ... }  // invalid!