HHVM 4.72 is released! This release marks the end of support for 4.65; HHVM 4.66–4.71 remain supported, as do the 4.32 and 4.56 LTS releases.

Highlights

  • Various varray and darray runtime errors (e.g. out of bounds access) now have clearer error messages, and are consistent with the equivalent vec/ dict error messages.
  • If hhvm.hack_arr_compat_notices is enabled, a notice is now raised when a varray is indexed by a string.
  • Typechecker errors for uninitialized properties now suggest the specific nullable type and property (e.g. ?int $myPropertyName) instead of the placeholder ?YourTypeHere.
  • It is now possible to enable unstable features on a per-file basis for experimentation - see below for details.

Breaking Changes

  • <<__Override>> attributes were not checked on abstract classes; this bug has now been fixed, so type errors will now be raised if a method on an abstract class is marked with this attribute, but it is in fact not overriding a parent definition.
  • it is now a typechecker error to use class_meth(), fun(), meth_caller() etc to create a reference to functions or methods with reified generics, as any call to such a reference is an error.
  • references to abstract methods have been similarly banned.
  • class_meth(__CLASS__) in non-final classes is now a typechecker error. This can be resolved by:
    • making the class final.
    • replacing with the more-explicit static::class or self::class.

Enabling Unstable Features

Unstable features are likely to be completely rewritten, restricted to builtins, or removed entirely, and any issues will generally be considered very low priority.

Experimental features can be enabled by:

  • adding allow_unstable_features=true to /etc/hh.conf or /usr/local/etc/hh.conf (location may vary depending on your platform and package source).
  • adding hhvm.hack.lang.allow_unstable_features=true to your HHVM configuration
  • adding a file-level attribute at every usage, indicating which specific experimental feature is being used.

For example:

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<<file:__EnableUnstableFeatures('union_intersection_type_hints')>>

function use_unstable_feature((int | bool) $x): int {
  if ($x is bool) {
    return $x ? 1 : 0;
  } else {
    return $x as int;
  }
}

Experimental features should not be used in production code.