HHVM 4.120 is released! This release marks the end of support for 4.113 and 4.114; HHVM 4.115–4.118 remain supported, as do the 4.80 and 4.102 LTS releases. HHVM 4.119 was skipped due to personal circumstances of the team.

Highlights

  • autocomplete can now provide documentation for suggestions
  • autocomplete now understands built-in primitive types like string
  • stream_select() and pagelet_server_task_result() will no longer be inlined, so will appear correctly in profilers like Xenon.
  • added HH\\Lib\\Legacy_FIXME namespace, containing several functions emulating PHP behavior that we intend to remove from the core language. New code should never use these functions, and projects should aim to remove them over time. Currently, these include:
    • Legacy_FIXME\\increment(mixed) and decrement(mixed): reimplements the current coercion behavior of ++ and -- on null and string inputs; the coerced value is returned, not mutated in place.
    • Legacy_FIXME\\cast_for_arithmetic(mixed): match PHP’s implicit coercion for math operations on null, bools, strings (int-like, float-like, and neither), and resources.
    • lt(mixed, mixed), lte(mixed, mixed), gt(mixed, mixed), gte(mixed, mixed), cmp(mixed, mixed), eq(mixed, mixed(), neq(mixed, mixed)
    • optional_arraykey_to_int_cast_for_switch(?arraykey $value)[]: int
    • optional_num_to_int_cast_for_switch(?num $value)[]: int
    • int_cast_for_switch(mixed $value, ?arraykey $first_truthy); the second parameter is required when switching on an enum.
    • string_cast_for_basic_switch(mixed $value, ?arraykey $first_case)

These last few functions are intended to be used by replacing switch($foo) with switch(Legacy_FIXME\\string_cast_for_basic_switch($foo)), for example.

Breaking Changes

  • The typechecker now detects several more forms of invalid generic types; for example, X<bool> is invalid if X is defined as X<T as arraykey>
  • Class method references can no longer be coerced to other types, e.g. Foo::bar<> could previously have been coerced to vec['Foo', 'bar']. Exceptions are now raised for these conversions. On previous versions, this can be configured with the hhvm.is_compatible_cls_meth_type, hhvm.raise_cls_meth_conversion_warning, hhvm.raise_cls_meth_comparison_warning, and hhvm.is_compatible_cls_meth_type INI settings.
  • ++ and -- now raise notices when the types are coerced. Ideally, avoid the coercion, otherwise migrate to the new Legacy_FIXME\\increment() and Legacy_FIXME\\decrement() functions.
  • fb_intercept() has been removed; use fb_intercept2()
  • removed support for a global handler in fb_intercept2() as it would not reliably trigger, could recurse, and could crash HHVM.
  • hphp_debugger_attached() always returns false in repo-authoritative mode, as it could have performance implications, and is not reliable when attached in repo-authoritative mode.

Future Changes

  • Built-in operators will error on the behaviors implemented by the Legacy_FIXME functions in a future release.