Nim/changelog.md

v2.0.0 - yyyy-mm-dd

Changes affecting backward compatibility

• httpclient.contentLength default to -1 if the Content-Length header is not set in the response, it followed Apache HttpClient(Java), http(go) and .Net HttpWebResponse(C#) behavior. Previously it raised ValueError.

• addr is now available for all addressable locations, unsafeAddr is now deprecated and an alias for addr.

• Certain definitions from the default system module have been moved to the following new modules:

  • std/syncio
  • std/assertions
  • std/formatfloat
  • std/objectdollar
  • std/widestrs
  • std/typedthreads
  • std/sysatomics

  In the future, these definitions will be removed from the system module, and their respective modules will have to be imported to use them. Currently, to make these imports required, the -d:nimPreviewSlimSystem option may be used.

• Enabling -d:nimPreviewSlimSystem also removes the following deprecated symbols in the system module:

  • Aliases with Error suffix to exception types that have a Defect suffix (see exceptions): ArithmeticError, DivByZeroError, OverflowError, AccessViolationError, AssertionError, OutOfMemError, IndexError, FieldError, RangeError, StackOverflowError, ReraiseError, ObjectAssignmentError, ObjectConversionError, FloatingPointError, FloatOverflowError, FloatUnderflowError, FloatInexactError, DeadThreadError, NilAccessError
  • addQuitProc, replaced by exitprocs.addExitProc
  • Legacy unsigned conversion operations: ze, ze64, toU8, toU16, toU32
  • TaintedString, formerly a distinct alias to string
  • PInt32, PInt64, PFloat32, PFloat64, aliases to ptr int32, ptr int64, ptr float32, ptr float64

• Enabling -d:nimPreviewSlimSystem removes the import of channels_builtin in in the system module.

• Enabling -d:nimPreviewCstringConversion, ptr char, ptr array[N, char] and ptr UncheckedArray[N, char] don't support conversion to cstring anymore.

• The gc:v2 option is removed.

• The mainmodule and m options are removed.

• The threads:on option is now the default.

• Optional parameters in combination with : body syntax (RFC #405) are now opt-in via experimental:flexibleOptionalParams.

• Automatic dereferencing (experimental feature) is removed.

• The Math.trunc polyfill for targeting Internet Explorer was previously included in most JavaScript output files. Now, it is only included with -d:nimJsMathTruncPolyfill. If you are targeting Internet Explorer, you may choose to enable this option or define your own Math.trunc polyfill using the emit pragma. Nim uses Math.trunc for the division and modulo operators for integers.

• shallowCopy and shallow are removed for ARC/ORC. Use move when possible or combine assignment and sink for optimization purposes.

• The nimPreviewDotLikeOps define is going to be removed or deprecated.

• The {.this.} pragma, deprecated since 0.19, has been removed.

• nil literals can no longer be directly assigned to variables or fields of distinct pointer types. They must be converted instead.

  type Foo = distinct ptr int
  
  # Before:
  var x: Foo = nil
  # After:
  var x: Foo = Foo(nil)
  

• Removed two type pragma syntaxes deprecated since 0.20, namely type Foo = object {.final.}, and type Foo {.final.} [T] = object.

• foo a = b now means foo(a = b) rather than foo(a) = b. This is consistent with the existing behavior of foo a, b = c meaning foo(a, b = c). This decision was made with the assumption that the old syntax was used rarely; if your code used the old syntax, please be aware of this change.

• Overloadable enums and Unicode Operators are no longer experimental.

• Removed the nimIncrSeqV3 define.

• macros.getImpl for const symbols now returns the full definition node (as nnkConstDef) rather than the AST of the constant value.

• Lock levels are deprecated, now a noop.

• ORC is now the default memory management strategy. Use --mm:refc for a transition period.

• strictEffects are no longer experimental. Use legacy:laxEffects to keep backward compatibility.

• The gorge/staticExec calls will now return a descriptive message in the output if the execution fails for whatever reason. To get back legacy behaviour use -d:nimLegacyGorgeErrors.

• Pointer to cstring conversion now triggers a [PtrToCstringConv] warning. This warning will become an error in future versions! Use a cast operation like cast[cstring](x) instead.

• logging will default to flushing all log level messages. To get the legacy behaviour of only flushing Error and Fatal messages, use -d:nimV1LogFlushBehavior.

• Object fields now support default values, see https://nim-lang.github.io/Nim/manual.html#types-default-values-for-object-fields for details.

• Redefining templates with the same signature was previously allowed to support certain macro code. To do this explicitly, the {.redefine.} pragma has been added. Note that this is only for templates. Implicit redefinition of templates is now deprecated and will give an error in the future.

• Using an unnamed break in a block is deprecated. This warning will become an error in future versions! Use a named block with a named break instead.

• Several Standard libraries are moved to nimble packages, use nimble to install them:

  • std/punycode => punycode
  • std/asyncftpclient => asyncftpclient
  • std/smtp => smtp
  • std/db_common => db_connector/db_common
  • std/db_sqlite => db_connector/db_sqlite
  • std/db_mysql => db_connector/db_mysql
  • std/db_postgres => db_connector/db_postgres
  • std/db_odbc => db_connector/db_odbc

• Previously, calls like foo(a, b): ... or foo(a, b) do: ... where the final argument of foo had type proc () were assumed by the compiler to mean foo(a, b, proc () = ...). This behavior is now deprecated. Use foo(a, b) do (): ... or foo(a, b, proc () = ...) instead.

Standard library additions and changes

• OpenSSL 3 is now supported.

• macros.parseExpr and macros.parseStmt now accept an optional filename argument for more informative errors.

• Module colors expanded with missing colors from the CSS color standard. colPaleVioletRed and colMediumPurple have also been changed to match the CSS color standard.

• Fixed lists.SinglyLinkedList being broken after removing the last node (#19353).

• The md5 module now works at compile time and in JavaScript.

• Changed mimedb to use an OrderedTable instead of OrderedTableRef to support const tables.

• strutils.find now uses and defaults to last = -1 for whole string searches, making limiting it to just the first char (last = 0) valid.

• random.rand now works with Ordinals.

• Undeprecated os.isvalidfilename.

• std/oids now uses int64 to store time internally (before it was int32).

• std/uri.Uri dollar $ improved, precalculates the string result length from the Uri.

• std/uri.Uri.isIpv6 is now exported.

• std/logging.ConsoleLogger and FileLogger now have a flushThreshold attribute to set what log message levels are automatically flushed. For Nim v1 use -d:nimFlushAllLogs to automatically flush all message levels. Flushing all logs is the default behavior for Nim v2.

• std/net.IpAddress dollar $ improved, uses a fixed capacity for the string result based from the IpAddressFamily.

• std/jsfetch.newFetchOptions now has default values for all parameters

• std/jsformdata now accepts Blob data type.

• Added ISO 8601 week date utilities in times:
  • Added IsoWeekRange, a range type for weeks in a week-based year.
  • Added IsoYear, a distinct type for a week-based year in contrast to a regular year.
  • Added a initDateTime overload to create a datetime from an ISO week date.
  • Added getIsoWeekAndYear to get an ISO week number and week-based year from a datetime.
  • Added getIsoWeeksInYear to return the number of weeks in a week-based year.
• Added new modules which were part of std/os:
  • Added std/oserrors for OS error reporting. Added std/envvars for environment variables handling.
  • Added std/paths, std/dirs, std/files, std/symlinks and std/appdirs.
  • Added std/cmdline for reading command line parameters.
• Added sep parameter in std/uri to specify the query separator.
• Added bindings to Array.shift and queueMicrotask in jscore for JavaScript targets.
• Added UppercaseLetters, LowercaseLetters, PunctuationChars, PrintableChars sets to std/strutils.
• Added complex.sgn for obtaining the phase of complex numbers.
• Added insertAdjacentText, insertAdjacentElement, insertAdjacentHTML, after, before, closest, append, hasAttributeNS, removeAttributeNS, hasPointerCapture, releasePointerCapture, requestPointerLock, replaceChildren, replaceWith, scrollIntoViewIfNeeded, setHTML, toggleAttribute, and matches to std/dom.
• Added jsre.hasIndices
• Added capacity for string and seq to return the current capacity, see https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/460
• Added openArray[char] overloads for std/parseutils allowing more code reuse.
• Added openArray[char] overloads for std/unicode allowing more code reuse.
• Added safe parameter to base64.encodeMime.

• Deprecated selfExe for Nimscript.
• Deprecated std/sums.
• Deprecated std/base64.encode for collections of arbitrary integer element type. Now only byte and char are supported.

• Removed deprecated module parseopt2.

• Removed deprecated module sharedstrings.

• Removed deprecated module dom_extensions.

• Removed deprecated module LockFreeHash.

• Removed deprecated module events.

• Removed deprecated oids.oidToString.

• Removed define nimExperimentalAsyncjsThen for std/asyncjs.then and std/jsfetch.

• Removed deprecated jsre.test and jsre.toString.

• Removed deprecated math.c_frexp.

• Removed deprecated httpcore.`==`.

• Removed deprecated std/posix.CMSG_SPACE and std/posix.CMSG_LEN that takes wrong argument types.

• Removed deprecated osproc.poDemon, symbol with typo.

• Removed deprecated tables.rightSize.

• Removed deprecated posix.CLONE_STOPPED.

Language changes

• Tag tracking supports the definition of forbidden tags by the .forbids pragma which can be used to disable certain effects in proc types.

• Case statement macros are no longer experimental, meaning you no longer need to enable the experimental switch caseStmtMacros to use them.

• Full command syntax and block arguments i.e. foo a, b: c are now allowed for the right-hand side of type definitions in type sections. Previously they would error with "invalid indentation".

• defined now accepts identifiers separated by dots, i.e. defined(a.b.c). In the command line, this is defined as -d:a.b.c. Older versions can use accents as in defined(`a.b.c`) to access such defines.

• Macro pragmas changes:

  • Templates now accept macro pragmas.

  • Macro pragmas for var/let/const sections have been redesigned in a way that works similarly to routine macro pragmas. The new behavior is documented in the experimental manual.

  • Pragma macros on type definitions can now return nnkTypeSection nodes as well as nnkTypeDef, allowing multiple type definitions to be injected in place of the original type definition.

    import macros
    macro multiply(amount: static int, s: untyped): untyped =
      let name = $s[0].basename
      result = newNimNode(nnkTypeSection)
      for i in 1 .. amount:
        result.add(newTree(nnkTypeDef, ident(name & $i), s[1], s[2]))
    type
      Foo = object
      Bar {.multiply: 3.} = object
        x, y, z: int
      Baz = object
    # becomes
    type
      Foo = object
      Bar1 = object
        x, y, z: int
      Bar2 = object
        x, y, z: int
      Bar3 = object
        x, y, z: int
      Baz = object
    

• A new form of type inference called top-down inference has been implemented for a variety of basic cases. For example, code like the following now compiles:

  let foo: seq[(float, byte, cstring)] = @[(1, 2, "abc")]
  

• cstring is now accepted as a selector in case statements, removing the need to convert to string. On the JS backend, this is translated directly to a switch statement.

• Nim now supports out parameters and "strict definitions".

• Nim now offers a strict mode for case objects.

Compiler changes

• The gc switch has been renamed to mm ("memory management") in order to reflect the reality better. (Nim moved away from all techniques based on "tracing".)

• Defines the gcRefc symbol which allows writing specific code for the refc GC.

• nim can now compile version 1.4.0 as follows: nim c --lib:lib --stylecheck:off compiler/nim, without requiring -d:nimVersion140 which is now a noop.

• --styleCheck, --hintAsError and --warningAsError now only apply to the current package.

• The switch --nimMainPrefix:prefix has been added to add a prefix to the names of NimMain and related functions produced on the backend. This prevents conflicts with other Nim static libraries.

• When compiling for Release the flag -fno-math-errno is used for GCC.

Tool changes

• Nim now supports Nimble version 0.14 which added support for lock-files. This is done by a simple configuration change setting that you can do yourself too. In $nim/config/nim.cfg replace pkgs by pkgs2.