Releases: elixir-lang/elixir
v1.9.0
Releases
The main feature in Elixir v1.9 is the addition of releases. A release is a self-contained directory that consists of your application code, all of its dependencies, plus the whole Erlang Virtual Machine (VM) and runtime. Once a release is assembled, it can be packaged and deployed to a target as long as the target runs on the same operating system (OS) distribution and version as the machine running the mix release
command.
You can start a new project and assemble a release for it in three easy steps:
$ mix new my_app
$ cd my_app
$ MIX_ENV=prod mix release
A release will be assembled in _build/prod/rel/my_app
. Inside the release, there will be a bin/my_app
file which is the entry point to your system. It supports multiple commands, such as:
-
bin/my_app start
,bin/my_app start_iex
,bin/my_app restart
, andbin/my_app stop
- for general management of the release -
bin/my_app rpc COMMAND
andbin/my_app remote
- for running commands on the running system or to connect to the running system -
bin/my_app eval COMMAND
- to start a fresh system that runs a single command and then shuts down -
bin/my_app daemon
andbin/my_app daemon_iex
- to start the system as a daemon on Unix-like systems -
bin/my_app install
- to install the system as a service on Windows machines
Why releases?
Releases allow developers to precompile and package all of their code and the runtime into a single unit. The benefits of releases are:
-
Code preloading. The VM has two mechanisms for loading code: interactive and embedded. By default, it runs in the interactive mode which dynamically loads modules when they are used for the first time. The first time your application calls
Enum.map/2
, the VM will find theEnum
module and load it. There’s a downside. When you start a new server in production, it may need to load many other modules, causing the first requests to have an unusual spike in response time. Releases run in embedded mode, which loads all available modules upfront, guaranteeing your system is ready to handle requests after booting. -
Configuration and customization. Releases give developers fine grained control over system configuration and the VM flags used to start the system.
-
Self-contained. A release does not require the source code to be included in your production artifacts. All of the code is precompiled and packaged. Releases do not even require Erlang or Elixir in your servers, as they include the Erlang VM and its runtime by default. Furthermore, both Erlang and Elixir standard libraries are stripped to bring only the parts you are actually using.
-
Multiple releases. You can assemble different releases with different configuration per application or even with different applications altogether.
Hooks and Configuration
Releases also provide built-in hooks for configuring almost every need of the production system:
-
config/config.exs
(andconfig/prod.exs
) - provides build-time application configuration, which is executed when the release is assembled -
config/releases.exs
- provides runtime application configuration. It is executed every time the release boots and is further extensible via config providers -
rel/vm.args.eex
- a template file that is copied into every release and provides static configuration of the Erlang Virtual Machine and other runtime flags -
rel/env.sh.eex
andrel/env.bat.eex
- template files that are copied into every release and executed on every command to set up environment variables, including ones specific to the VM, and the general environment
We have written extensive documentation on releases, so we recommend checking it out for more information.
Configuration overhaul
A new Config
module has been added to Elixir. The previous configuration API, Mix.Config
, was part of the Mix build tool. But since releases provide runtime configuration and Mix is not included in releases, we ported the Mix.Config
API to Elixir. In other words, use Mix.Config
has been soft-deprecated in favor of import Config
.
Another important change related to configuration is that mix new
will no longer generate a config/config.exs
file. Relying on configuration is undesired for most libraries and the generated config files pushed library authors in the wrong direction. Furthermore, mix new --umbrella
will no longer generate a configuration for each child app, instead all configuration should be declared in the umbrella root. That's how it has always behaved, we are now making it explicit.
Other enhancements
There are many other enhancements. The Elixir CLI got a handful of new options in order to best support releases. Logger
now computes its sync/async/discard thresholds in a decentralized fashion, reducing contention. EEx
templates support more complex expressions than before. Finally, there is a new ~U
sigil for working with UTC DateTimes as well as new functions in the File
, Registry
, and System
modules.
v1.9.0 (2019-06-24)
1. Enhancements
EEx
- [EEx] Allow more complex mixed expressions when tokenizing
Elixir
- [Access] Allow
Access.at/1
to handle negative index - [CLI] Add support for
--boot
,--boot-var
,--erl-config
,--pipe-to
,--rpc-eval
, and--vm-args
options - [Code] Add
static_atom_encoder
option toCode.string_to_quoted/2
- [Code] Support
:force_do_end_blocks
onCode.format_string!/2
andCode.format_file!/2
- [Code] Do not raise on deadlocks on
Code.ensure_compiled/1
- [Config] Add
Config
,Config.Reader
, andConfig.Provider
modules for working with configuration - [File] Add
File.rename!/2
- [Inspect] Add
:inspect_fun
and:custom_options
toInspect.Opts
- [Kernel] Add
~U
sigil for UTC date times - [Kernel] Optimize
&super/arity
and&super(&1)
- [Kernel] Optimize generated code for
with
with a catch-all clause - [Kernel] Validate
__struct__
key in map returned by__struct__/0,1
- [Module] Add
Module.get_attribute/3
- [Protocol] Improve
Protocol.UndefinedError
messages to also include the type that was attempted to dispatch on - [Protocol] Optimize performance of dynamic dispatching for non-consolidated protocols
- [Record] Include field names in generated type for records
- [Regex] Automatically recompile regexes
- [Registry] Add
Registry.select/2
- [System] Add
System.restart/0
,System.pid/0
andSystem.no_halt/1
- [System] Add
System.get_env/2
,System.fetch_env/1
, andSystem.fetch_env!/1
- [System] Support
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
for reproducible builds
ExUnit
- [ExUnit] Allow multiple
:exclude
on configuration/CLI - [ExUnit.DocTest] No longer wrap doctest errors in custom exceptions. They ended-up hiding more information than showing
- [ExUnit.DocTest] Display the actual doctest code when doctest fails
IEx
- [IEx.CLI] Copy ticktime from remote node on IEx
--remsh
- [IEx.CLI] Automatically add a host on node given to
--remsh
Logger
- [Logger] Use a decentralized mode computation for Logger which allows overloads to be detected more quickly
- [Logger] Use
persistent_term
to store configuration whenever available for performance
Mix
- [Mix] Follow XDG base dir specification in Mix for temporary and configuration files
- [Mix.Generator] Add
copy_file/3
,copy_template/4
, andoverwite?/2
- [Mix.Project] Add
preferred_cli_target
that works likepreferred_cli_env
- [mix archive.uninstall] Allow
mix archive.uninstall APP
to uninstall any installed version of APP - [mix new] No longer generate a
config/
directory for mix new - [mix release] Add support for releases
- [mix release.init] Add templates for release configuration
- [mix test] Allow running tests for a given umbrella app from the umbrella root with
mix test apps/APP/test
. Test failures also include theapps/APP
prefix in the test location
2. Bug fixes
EEx
- [EEx] Consistently trim newlines when you have a single EEx expression per line on multiple lines
Elixir
- [Code] Quote
::
inCode.format_string!/1
to avoid ambiguity - [Code] Do not crash formatter on false positive sigils
- [Enum] Ensure the first equal entry is returned by
Enum.min/2
andEnum.max/2
- [Kernel] Improve error message when string interpolation is used in a guard
- [Kernel] Properly merge and handle docs for callbacks with multiple clauses
- [Kernel] Guarantee reproducible builds on modules with dozens of specs
- [Kernel] Resolve
__MODULE__
accordingly in nesteddefmodule
to avoid double nesting - [Kernel] Type variables starting with an underscore (
_foo
) should not raise compile error - [Kernel] Keep order of elements when macro
in/2
is expanded with a literal list on the right-hand side - [Kernel] Print proper location on undefined function error from dynamically generated functions
- [System] Make sure
:init.get_status/0
is set to{:started, :started}
once the system starts - [Path] Do not expand
~
inPath.expand/2
when not followed by a path separator - [Protocol] Ensure
debug_info
is kept in protocols - [Regex] Ensure inspect returns valid
~r//
expressions when they are manually compiled with backslashes - [Registry] Fix ETS leak in
Registry.register/2
for already registered calls in unique registries while the process is still alive
ExUnit
- [ExUnit] Raise error if attempting to run single line tests on multiple files
- [ExUnit] Return proper error on duplicate child IDs on
start_supervised
IEx
- [IEx] Automatically shut down IEx if we receive EOF
Logger
- [Logger] D...
v1.9.0-rc.0
Release v1.9.0-rc.0
v1.8.2
1. Bug fixes
EEx
- [EEx] Raise readable error message on bad EEx state
Elixir
- [Protocol] Ensure
:debug_info
is kept in protocols
Logger
- [Logger] Make sure Logger v1.8 does not get stuck in discard mode
- [Logger.Translator] Translate remote process crash in Logger
Checksums
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v1.8.1
1. Bug fixes
Elixir
- [Float] Fix rounding for subnormal floats
IEx
- [IEx] Fix
IEx.pry
crash when IEx isn't running - [IEx.CLI] Add IEx warning when using
--remsh
with "dumb" terminal - [IEx.Helpers] Sort results by arity on
h
helper
Mix
- [mix compile] Do not include optional dependencies in extra applications as it is incompatible with shared deps in umbrellas
Checksums
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v1.8.0
Elixir v1.8 comes with many improvements at the infrastructure level, improving compilation time, speeding up common patterns, and adding features around introspection of the system.
Custom struct inspections
Elixir now provides a derivable implementation of the Inspect
protocol. In a nutshell, this means it is really easy to filter data from your data structures whenever they are inspected. For example, imagine you have a user struct with security and privacy sensitive information:
defmodule User do
defstruct [:id, :name, :age, :email, :encrypted_password]
end
By default, if you inspect a user via inspect(user)
, it will include all fields. This can cause fields such as :email
and :encrypted_password
to appear in logs, error reports, etc. You could always define a custom implementation of the Inspect
protocol for such cases but Elixir v1.8 makes it simpler by allowing you to derive the Inspect
protocol:
defmodule User do
@derive {Inspect, only: [:id, :name, :age]}
defstruct [:id, :name, :age, :email, :encrypted_password]
end
Now all user structs will be printed with all remaining fields collapsed:
#User<id: 1, name: "Jane", age: 33, ...>
You can also pass @derive {Inspect, except: [...]}
in case you want to keep all fields by default and exclude only some.
Time zone database support
In Elixir v1.3, Elixir added four types, known as Calendar types, to work with dates and times: Time
, Date
, NaiveDateTime
(without time zone) and DateTime
(with time zone). Over the last releases we have added many enhancements to the Calendar types but the DateTime
module always evolved at a slower pace since Elixir did not provide support for a time zone database.
Elixir v1.8 now defines a Calendar.TimeZoneDatabase
behaviour, allowing developers to bring in their own time zone databases. By defining an explicit contract for time zone behaviours, Elixir can now extend the DateTime
API, adding functions such as DateTime.shift_zone/3
. By default, Elixir ships with a time zone database called Calendar.UTCOnlyTimeZoneDatabase
that only handles UTC.
Other Calendar related improvements include the addition of Date.day_of_year/1
, Date.quarter_of_year/1
, Date.year_of_era/1
, and Date.day_of_era/1
.
Faster compilation and other performance improvements
Due to improvements to the compiler made over the last year, Elixir v1.8 should compile code about 5% faster on average. This is yet another release where we have been able to reduce compilation times and provide a more joyful development experience to everyone.
The compiler also emits more efficient code for range checks in guards (such as x in y..z
), for charlists with interpolation (such as 'foo #{bar} baz'
), and when working with records via the Record
module.
Finally, EEx templates got their own share of optimizations, emitting more compact code that runs faster.
Improved instrumentation and ownership with $callers
The Task
module is one of the most common ways to spawn light-weight processes to perform work concurrently. Whenever you spawn a new process, Elixir annotates the parent of that process through the $ancestors
key. This information can be used by instrumentation tools to track the relationship between events occurring within multiple processes. However, many times, tracking only the $ancestors
is not enough.
For example, we recommend developers to always start tasks under a supervisor. This provides more visibility and allows us to control how those tasks are terminated when a node shuts down. In your code, this can be done by invoking something like: Task.Supervisor.start_child(MySupervisor, task_specification)
. This means that, although your code is the one who invokes the task, the actual parent of the task would be the supervisor, as the supervisor is the one spawning it. We would list the supervisor as one of the $ancestors
for the task, but the relationship between your code and the task is lost.
In Elixir v1.8, we now track the relationship between your code and the task via the $callers
key in the process dictionary, which aligns well with the existing $ancestors
key. Therefore, assuming the Task.Supervisor
call above, we have:
[your code] -- calls --> [supervisor] ---- spawns --> [task]
which means we store the following relationships:
[your code] [supervisor] <-- ancestor -- [task]
^ |
|--------------------- caller ---------------------|
When a task is spawned directly from your code, without a supervisor, then the process running your code will be listed under both $ancestors
and $callers
.
This small feature is very powerful. It allows instrumentation and monitoring tools to better track and relate the events happening in your system. This feature can also be used by tools like the "Ecto Sandbox". The "Ecto Sandbox" allows developers to run tests concurrently against the database, by using transactions and an ownership mechanism where each process explicitly gets a connection assigned to it. Without $callers
, every time you spawned a task that queries the database, the task would not know its caller, and therefore it would be unable to know which connection was assigned to it. This often meant features that relies on tasks could not be tested concurrently. With $callers
, figuring out this relationship is trivial and you have more tests using the full power of your machine.
1. Enhancements
EEx
- [EEx] Optimize the default template engine to compile and execute more efficiently
Elixir
- [Calendar] Add
Calendar.TimeZoneDatabase
and aCalendar.UTCOnlyTimeZoneDatabase
implementation - [Calendar] Add callbacks
day_of_year/3
,quarter_of_year/3
,year_of_era/1
, andday_of_era/3
- [Code.Formatter] Preserve user's choice of new line after most operators
- [Date] Add
Date.day_of_year/1
,Date.quarter_of_year/1
,Date.year_of_era/1
, andDate.day_of_era/1
- [DateTime] Add
DateTime.from_naive/3
,DateTime.now/1
, andDateTime.shift_zone/3
- [File] Allow
:raw
option inFile.exists?/2
,File.regular?/2
, andFile.dir?/2
- [File] Allow POSIX time as an integer in
File.touch/2
andFile.touch!/2
- [Inspect] Allow
Inspect
protocol to be derivable with the:only
/:except
options - [Kernel] Do not propagate counters to variables in quote inside another quote
- [Kernel] Warn on ambiguous use of
::
and|
in typespecs - [Kernel] Add
:delegate_to
@doc
metadata tag when usingdefdelegate
- [Kernel] Improve compile-time building of ranges via the
..
operator - [Kernel] Compile charlist interpolation more efficiently
- [Kernel] Add
floor/1
andceil/1
guards - [Kernel.SpecialForms] Add
:reduce
option tofor
comprehensions - [List] Add
List.myers_difference/3
andList.improper?/1
- [Macro] Add
Macro.struct!/2
for proper struct resolution during compile time - [Map] Optimize and merge nested maps
put
andmerge
operations - [Range] Add
Range.disjoint?/2
- [Record] Reduce memory allocation when updating multiple fields in a record
- [Registry] Allow associating a value on
:via
tuple - [String] Add
String.bag_distance/2
- [Task] Add
$callers
tracking toTask
- this makes it easier to find which process spawned a task and use it for tracking ownership and monitoring
ExUnit
- [ExUnit] Add
ExUnit.after_suite/1
callback - [ExUnit.Assertions] Show last N messages (instead of first N) from mailbox on
assert_receive
fail
IEx
- [IEx.Helpers] Add
port/1
andport/2
- [IEx.Server] Expose
IEx.Server.run/1
for custom IEx sessions with the ability to broker pry sessions
Mix
- [Mix] Add
Mix.target/0
andMix.target/1
to control dependency management per target - [Mix.Project] Add
:depth
and:parents
options todeps_paths/1
- [mix archive.install] Add a timeout when installing archives
- [mix compile] Include optional dependencies in
:extra_applications
- [mix escript.install] Add a timeout when installing escripts
- [mix format] Warn when the same file may be formatted by multiple
.formatter.exs
- [mix test] Allow setting the maximum number of failures via
--max-failures
- [mix test] Print a message instead of raising on unmatched tests inside umbrella projects
2. Bug fixes
Elixir
- [Calendar] Allow printing dates with more than 9999 years
- [Exception] Exclude deprecated functions in "did you mean?" hints
- [Float] Handle subnormal floats in
Float.ratio/1
- [Kernel] Remove
Guard test tuple_size(...) can never succeed
Dialyzer warning ontry
- [Kernel] Expand operands in
size*unit
bitstring modifier instead of expectingsize
andunit
to be literal integers - [Kernel] Do not deadlock on circular struct dependencies in typespecs
- [Kernel] Raise proper error message when passing flags to the Erlang compiler that Elixir cannot handle
- [Kernel] Do not leak variables in
cond
clauses with a single matching at compile-time clause - [NaiveDateTime] Do not accept leap seconds in builder and parsing functions
- [String] Fix ZWJ handling in Unicode grapheme clusters
- [StringIO] Handle non-printable args in StringIO gracefully
IEx
- [IEx.Helpers] Use typespec info (instead of docs chunk) and properly format callbacks in
b/1
Logger
- [Logger] Allow Logger backends to be dynamically removed when an application is shutting down
Mix
- [mix compile] Ensure changes in deps propagate to all umbrella children - this fix a long standing issue where updating a dependency would not recompile all projects accordingly, requiring a complete removal of
_build
- [mix compile] Av...
v1.8.0-rc.1
Release v1.8.0-rc.1
v1.8.0-rc.0
Release v1.8.0-rc.0
v1.7.4
1. Enhancements
Elixir
- [Kernel] Expand
left..right
at compile time in more cases, which leads to improved performance under different scenarios, especially onx in left..right
expressions
Mix
- [mix deps.loadpaths] Add
--no-load-deps
flag. This is useful for Rebar 3 compatibility
2. Bug fixes
Elixir
- [Calendar] Fix for converting from negative iso days on New Year in a leap year
- [Kernel] Ensure
@spec
,@callback
,@type
and friends can be read accordingly - [Module] Avoid warnings when using Module.eval_quoted in the middle of existing definitions
Mix
- [mix archive.build] Unload previous archive versions before building
- [mix format] Expand paths so mix format
path\for\windows.ex
works - [mix test] Ensure that
--cover
displays correct coverage in an umbrella app
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v1.7.3
1. Bug fixes
ExUnit
- [ExUnit.Assertions] Do not attempt to expand
try/1
as it is a special form
Mix
- [mix compile.app] Do not include applications with
runtime: false
as a runtime dependency for applications coming from Hex
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v1.7.2
v1.7.2 (2018-08-05)
1. Bug fixes
Elixir
- [Kernel] Do not emit warnings for repeated docs over different clauses due to false positives
Mix
- [mix compile] Properly mark top-level dependencies as optional and as runtime. This fixes a bug where Mix attempted to start optional dependencies of a package when those optional dependencies were not available
- [mix compile] Avoid deadlock when a config has a timestamp later than current time
- [mix test] Do not fail suite if there are no test files
2. Enhancements
Elixir
- [DateTime] Take negative years into account in
DateTime.from_iso8601/1
Mix
- [mix help] Show task and alias help when both are available
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