Support Erlang/OTP 25 new features

[josevalim]

To be implemented when Erlang 25 is released:

• Format terms in binary construction error message (Implement extended error information for binary construction erlang/otp#5281)
• Improved error messages in evaluation (Pass Anno to ExternalFunctionHandler in erl_eval erlang/otp#5631)
• Add pretty printing from EEP 54 (Add options to binary construction error_info formatting erlang/otp#5752)
• Add compile attribute -nifs

To be implemented when we require Erlang 25 exclusively:

• Use "undefined" as node name for remote/rpc and document -start_epmd false -erl_epmd_port 6789 on both vm.args/remote.vm.args if you need epmdless
• Use :erlang.float_to_binary([:short]) in Float.to_string/1 instead of private API
• Use new format_status/1 callback for GenServer
• Remove the calling_self clause in GenServer.call as that is now in Erlang/OTP
• Use new system certificates

Please do not send PRs for those, as it will take a while until we can effectively accept them.

[hauleth]

Erlang 25 will also support reconfiguration of logger, which will allow us to use config :kernel, :logger, […] in development and releases without need for restarting whole init (erlang/otp#5186).

[nathany-copia]

Do you want a separate issue for compiling with OTP 25? This is from GitHub CI, and I tried clearing the CI cache, but it may be related to a NIF?

Running mix local.rebar,--force
  /home/runner/work/_temp/.setup-beam/elixir/bin/mix local.rebar --force
  
  Error: 7.616 [error] beam/beam_load.c(86): Error loading module 'Elixir.Code.Formatter':
  Warning:   lambda already defined for label 749. To fix this, please recompile this module with an OTP 25 compiler.
  
  Error: 7.616 [error] Loading of /home/runner/work/_temp/.setup-beam/elixir/bin/../lib/elixir/ebin/Elixir.Code.Formatter.beam failed: :badfile
  
  ** (UndefinedFunctionError) function Code.Formatter.locals_without_parens/0 is undefined (module Code.Formatter is not available)
      (elixir 1.13.4) Code.Formatter.locals_without_parens()
      (elixir 1.13.4) lib/code/normalizer.ex:22: Code.Normalizer.normalize/2
  Warning:     (elixir 1.13.4) lib/code.ex:1107: Code.quoted_to_algebra/2
  Error: The process '/home/runner/work/_temp/.setup-beam/elixir/bin/mix' failed with exit code 1

[josevalim]

You are using a precompiled Elixir version. It is just a matter of time until we have precompiled versions for OTP 25. It is usually tackled automatically by build tools. You can also compile it yourself.

[nathany-copia]

Thanks. I've opened an issue with erlef/setup-beam.

erlef/setup-beam#117

[dvic]

I noticed there were also changes to the gen_server application (among others): erlang/otp#5792 Is this something that we need to pull into Elixir as well?

[josevalim]

Our goal is to use the task API for that. We will see how it will go once we support it in OTP 24.

[henrythebuilder]

Note for compile attribute -nifs:

reference: erlang/otp pull request 'compiler: Start all potential nif functions with a nif_start #6193', merged on erlang/otp:master

the pull request change the way attribute -nifs is considered (optional ?):

...
Due to backwards compatibility, the nifs attribute is not required,
so when a module containing a call to erlang:load_nif/2 is
encountered, the compiler is forced to conservatively assume that in
such a module, all functions are potential nifs ...
...
This patch extends the v3_core-pass to make all functions start with a
nif_start instruction when the nifs attribute isn't present in the
module but a call to erlang:load_nif/2 is.
...