2020.06

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
June 2020 release of Rakudo #136. Rakudo is an implementation of
the Raku[^1] language.

The source tarball for this release is available from
https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

New in 2020.06:

• SPECIAL NOTES:
  • Results of dir routine called with dirty base path are presented
    as cleaned up for some paths (like /// or a/../a) unlike
    before. While compatibility with most of other cases is preserved
    and no ecosystem fallout was observed, be cautious of the possible
    observable changes if the code does not clean dirty paths using cleanup method.
  • Since this release, when you start Raku with "-" as a single positional parameter, it
    will now check if STDIN is connected to a terminal. If it is, then
    the REPL will be started, rather than appearing to freeze waiting
    for the user to enter something and issue an EOF. If STDIN is not
    connected to a terminal, then Raku will read from STDIN and process
    that as the source of a program.
  • The run routine, Proc.spawn and Proc::Async.new are
    extended with a new argument :$win-verbatim-args defaulting to
    False. If the argument is left off or set to False, the
    arguments are quoted according to the Microsoft convention. This
    is identical to Rakus previous behavior and thus backwards
    compatible. When passing True the passed arguments are
    concatenated with a single space. No other processing takes
    place. This allows to manually quote the arguments as necessary.
• Changes:
  • Support verbatim argument handling for Proc [709941c][9a75738]
  • Signatures of slurp and spurt routines not accepting redundant arguments is
    now compile time error rather than run-time one [22f4344]
  • The Distro.desc method now states codename for MacOS [b4b2a5e]
  • The gist method output for multi-dimensional arrays is truncated now [cfc3e57][4bfe5bd]
  • Parametrization a variable type in form my $foo is Type[Foo, Bar] works for all types now [de43f19]
  • The rotate method now returns Seq instead of List [4b501bd]
  • Add CACHEDIR.TAG to mark cache dirs as cache [37646b8][c3bdb61][ef90599]
  • Improve GNU C++ name mangling [4f672c2]
  • Make Instant.raku output simpler [c0b5fb2]
  • Improve smartmatching against Mu/Any/Junction types
    (Mu.new ~~ Mu does not die anymore, any(Mu, Any) ~~ Mu returns True now) [3b4794f][840d3e8]
• Fixes:
  • Fix code objects created BEGIN time EVAL getting lost in precompilation [537f887][169f63d]
  • The is routine from Test module now handles types that cannot be stringified and
    compares them using raku method now [c9e9462]
  • Fix various JVM and JS backend issues [8e5b610][2b81f97]
    [12f8f1e][5b86436][1464b35][a059373][9fe471c]
  • Fix BEGIN time EVAL accidentally running CHECK phasers of the outer comp unit [eeb4f43][b874c68]
  • Fix results o "١٢٣".Numeric and "١٢٣".Int [c2e8b22]
  • Fix race in PIO method of IO::Handle [f33ce01]
  • Fix Date(now) call [9dcbc5f]
  • Fix .comb(Str) to ensure non-overlapping results [8d5a0f7]
  • Fix Instant.raku for Rational values [f506cc0]
  • Fix sorting of 2 element native arrays [becb85e]
  • Make sure push-all does not push when exhausted when splitting using a regex [077300c]
  • Improve error message for method calls placed after white space [4278e4c]
  • Improve X::Syntax::Variable::MissingInitializer exception's error message [ee005d8]
  • Improve X::Method::NotFound exception's error message to only suggest a submethod if correct [b02a741]
  • Improve malformed loop spec related errors [d3c3e53]
  • Improve error message for case of too many directives in routine sprintf [c988f83]
  • Improve detection of a version control conflict marker to provide an error message [65e412f]
• Additions:
  • Add IO::Handle.do-not-close-automatically method [61046d7][999d04a]
  • Add IO::Path::Parts class [4387f28][187312b][e9ea048][30ae200]
  • Add support for printf($format, Junction) [110324d]
  • Add Supply.rotate method [9f7c927]
  • Add Capture.EXIST-POS method [6a4f79e][b55ecdf][3372352]
  • Add RAKU_REPL_OUTPUT_METHOD environment variable which sets
    the method used to stringify a value of an expression in REPL, default is gist [285717a]
  • Add :chomp named argument to Str.lines similar to the same named argument of IO::Handle.new [1bcc5d7]
• Efficiency:
  • Make creation of regex captures faster [15961f9][272c463]
    [ed65d73][e3fa44a][7f47db8][0b48651][537a6e4][f627d2c][6f6b2df][219199b]
  • Make file test methods like .d or .x faster [c821bbc]
  • Make Match.caps about 35% faster [87e91de]
  • Make Str.split(Regex) up to 2x faster [9c74d98]
  • Make Str.split(Regex, *%_) up to 2x faster [a9796fe]
  • Make dir routine about 15% faster [700b743]
  • Make Blob.join between 4% and 11% faster [84ff64c]
  • Make Blob.gist about 2x as fast [b55667e]
  • Make QuantHash implementation a bit faster [4a728f2]
  • Make IO::Spec::Win32.basename about 1.7x as fast [ecd06c9]
  • Make IO::Spec::Win32.tmpdir about 1.8x as fast [6d427d4]
  • Make IO::Spec::Win32.path about 2x as fast [1a8e07c]
  • Make IO::Spec::Unix.path about 3.5x as fast [8dc58ab]
  • Make IO::Spec::Unix.basename and IO::Spec::Unic.extension about 1.7x as fast [f89fad8]
  • Make IO::Spec::Unix.tmpdir about 1.8x as fast [a2860ea]
  • Make WhateverCode.ACCEPTS about 2x as fast [853e622]
  • Make IO::Path.sibling about 2x as fast [a5eb1d4]
  • Make IO::Path.succ and IO::Path.pred about 3x as fast [26b9f38][7238b09]
  • Make IO::Path.parent about 2.7x as fast [71cb0c5]
  • Make IO::Path.parent(N) about 2x as fast [f93ce87]
  • Make IO::Path.child about 1.4x as fast [f5b2c24]
  • Make IO::Path.add about 1.25x as fast [718d305]
  • Make IO::Path.dir between 1.5x and 2.2x as fast [b63976a]
    [6b22c1e][7691742][9b9d9f6]
  • Make IO::Path.is-absolute a bit faster [fc88b9c][bd7fcb2]
  • Make IO::Path.spurt up to 35% faster [7571f65]
  • Make IO::Path.slurp up to 4.7x as fast [d03fa4b][cde948a][36d89cf]
  • Make slurp routine up to 40% faster [f3baa38][fc3e1ae]
  • Make spurt routine a few % faster [da5825e]
  • Make Str.Numeric about 4.3x as fast [a0e5841]
  • Make .IO method and IO::Path.new about 2x as fast [2a88990]
  • Make IO::Spec.curupdir about 25% faster [6a0eaab][16d93e2]
  • Make "42".Int about 4.3x faster [3ee1777]
  • Reduce overhead of Code.ACCEPTS(value) by 20% [2eec62f]
  • Make so and not routines faster [d8c2650][8a3c36f][5c93dda][cb69cfc]
  • Optimize symbol lookup [c5f5d7e][dc6594d][5d61b3d]
  • Prevent $*OUT lookup for each eigenstate of Junction when calling print or put [4297cb0]
  • Make printf routine up to 5% faster [e46d459]
  • Streamline variable is and of handling [5561669]
  • Make Hash.sort a tiny bit faster [cd61724]
  • Various small optimizations [a907497][b50fd8b][65e17c4]
• Internal:
  • Set up CI with Azure Pipelines [ae07d68][43213e4][55529de]
    [78fe25b][42c3799][4085cfd][5b4faed][5587574][fce783a][adfa192]
  • Fix main-version.nqp dependencies [b71cb3a]
  • Improve say, put, print, note methods of IO::Handle [7a902b5]
    [88d9822][627b39b][438c1d2][483cac3][2b38666]
  • Simplify Shaped1Array.reverse [de173a1]
  • Simplify EVAL(:check) code [afe8511]
  • Rework part of Match internals [0a84aa7]
  • Simplify Kernel.signals using Signal values [5644c70]
  • Simplify Grammar.parse code [f10e5bc][8be2406][1402c1d]
  • Allow debuggers for Rakudo to be specified by environment variables [48e073e]
  • Default to using egdb when possible in rakudo-gdb-m which covers OpenBSD developer environments [b01b012]
  • Introduce INTERPOLATE [417a591][777e7b6][3f9f23a][638517d][0590722]
  • Various internal improvements to the code base [ef0c457][e71d3cb]
    [37533ee][b3d933b][4afaab7][3796405][17bf5d5][d9defb6][2aac854]
    [799d627][a56e62d][c1decf2][a69465a][26d88b9][44b2701][95f7d34]
    [b5bf1bf][285717a][21c3ef8][4103a30][a616fe5][e645ff6][ea8c04d]
    [ad9b9f4][9942ccc][1c94538][9f73351][e9f8035][a431968][519a572]
    [4ba70b7][496e916][d984e7c][bf01f84][da9943a][150af9a][6f45945]
    [92d0183][98dec90][792a0f0][902401b][4d1ef59][2bfaab6]
  • Update INSTALL.txt for the latest changes [8bb0235][e1db95e][bd5e19e]
  • Various small improvements to compiler's user-facing documentation [dac68b2]
    [302bc8e][736ce71][10a8f6a][627ffd4][3d6756b][eab17e7][18ecb60]
    [2cff6dd][77b2f2a][197bba9][621577b][d09cf9d][8a8f62c][a79efde]
    [797c96d][8c3f013][11afa53][fbb0abc]
  • Various changes to documentation related to renaming process
    [6ead4ce][142d03b][e0384ee][0ccd4cf][4d6031f][d53a3b1][de6ebd4][b003239]

The following people contributed to this release:

Elizabeth Mattijsen, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Patrick Böker,
Will "Coke" Coleda, Daniel Green, Stoned Elipot, Alexander Kiryuhin, Stefan Seifert,
Sizhe Zhao, Christian Bartolomäus, Tom Browder, Vadim Belman,
Jonathan Worthington, Tim Smith, Luis F. Uceta, andreoss, Suman Khanal,
Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev, Nicholas Clark,
Luc St-Louis, Mike Swierczek, Timo Paulssen, Ben Davies,
Wenzel P. P. Peppmeyer, Donald Hunter, Jan-Olof Hendig, Jac...

2020.05.1

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm announcing an
out-of-schedule release of the Rakudo compiler.
Rakudo is an implementation of the Raku¹ language.

This release is a point release in addition to the regular, monthly
releases. This release fixes relocatability on Windows.
Users of other platforms or those who don't need relocatability
should continue to consider Rakudo 2020.05 release to be the latest stable.

The tarball for this release is available from http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2020.05.1:

• Fixes:
  • Fix relocatable builds on the moar backend [46648b9]

The following people contributed to this release:

Patrick Böker, Sizhe Zhao, Alexander Kiryuhin

This release implements 6.c and 6.d versions of the Raku specification.
6.c version of the language is available if you use the use v6.c
version pragma, otherwise 6.d is the default.

Upcoming releases in 2020 will include new functionality that is not
part of 6.c or 6.d specifications, available with a lexically scoped
pragma. Our goal is to ensure that anything that is tested as part of
6.c and 6.d specifications will continue to work unchanged. There may
be incremental spec releases this year as well.

If you would like to contribute or get more information, visit
https://raku.org, https://rakudo.org/community, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #raku on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you to make a donation to The Perl Foundation
to sponsor Raku development: https://donate.perlfoundation.org/
(put “Raku Core Development Fund” in the ‘Purpose’ text field)

The next release of Rakudo (#136), is tentatively scheduled for 2020-06-20.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback -- get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

1. See https://raku.org/ ↩

2020.05

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
May 2020 release of Rakudo #135. Rakudo is an implementation of
the Raku[^1] language.

The source tarball for this release is available from
https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

New in 2020.05:

• Fixes:
  • Decontainerize attribute default values [d71761e]
  • Fix Cool catchers for some Str methods
    [a91d7d7][63a7265][af8788b]
  • Update some internal documentation to use Raku name [f2cc20c]
  • Add Cool.contains(Regex) candidates [c3c1e8c]
  • Make format of all QuantHash's classes .gist uniform [cf01f7a]
  • Method objects that don't have *%_ in their signature, .gist ok [ac5f353]
  • Fix DateTime default stringification when the second is 0 [95de785]
  • Make Blob/Buf.list non-lazy so they can be used in hypers [6d146b5][291aa58]
  • Remove unnecessary parentheses from Pair.raku [35a827a]
  • IO::CatHandle.slurp did not accept :bin parameter [42c4c3f]
  • Fixed some cases where IO::Handle.slurp was used without :close [efab398]
  • run routine with out named parameter being a Handle and merge flag
    enabled now writes both stdout and stderr to the handle [1f83879]
  • A single whenever react based on a signal is now serialized by default [8aa25bf]
  • &cmp-ok subroutine of Test module now works with objects without support for methods [fc0f78d]
  • Ensure meta-ops respect user-defined chain ops [ac012f1]
  • Fix exception when mixing in roles that use is built at runtime [4c026ab]
  • Fix inconsistent match result when using a code block in a regex [1e0474d]
  • Fix error message related to nextcallee subroutine [136087e]
  • Fix regression in sequence operator [0a6456a]
  • Fix reflection for . twigilled parameters [296fbcf]
  • Fix Parameter.raku with OUTER default values [87d2ff9][2f8538e]
  • Fix Capture.WHICH for subclasses of Capture [8808401]
  • Fix Capture.EXISTS-KEY for some Capture values [2d18cde]
  • Make (1..-Inf).reverse) work as intended [3983b4f]
  • Make (foo .. foo).reverse correctly [c588323]
  • Properly throw an exception on attempts to add a key to an immutable Map [1a10b63]
  • INPUTRC environment variable is now checked for a Readline config when using REPL [61a4836]
  • Add missing label support for some loop constructs [66a2250]
  • Make Real.sign always return an Int [42a303e]
  • Result of reverse called on a List value with holes returns a
    reverse of the list with Nil in place of holes instead of Mu now [e9468d6][ca49c15]
  • Various small JVM backend related improvements [945a4d8][b4819e7][f6f8ac0][25a1929][717b326]
• Additions:
  • Added docs/IN-MEMORIAM.md to commemorate departed contributors [9b6d89b][f9f3b66][170add2]
  • Implement support of environment variables RAKULIB and RAKUDOLIB
    to eventually replace deprecated PERL6LIB
    [b3bb0d3][cc165a0][1fd660a][00c0dec][be9bb4b][30a3186][e8f7eb5][61124c3][013b47d]
  • Implement support for environment variables RAKU_TEST_DIE_ON_FAIL and RAKU_TEST_TIMES
    to replace PERL6_TEST_DIE_ON_FAIL and PERL6_TEST_TIMES [30e7a67][afff3b0]
  • Show timing information when installing core modules in build process [58e6135]
  • Add multiple needles feature to Str.index/rindex [4cec44a][cf02c2e]
  • dd can now also handle BOOTContext objects [8b70bfb]
  • Str now has .Date and DateTime coercers [d95d218]
  • Date.yyyy-mm-dd now takes a separator parameter, defaulting to - [3017cfe]
  • Added Date.dd-mm-yyyy and Date.mm-dd-yyyy methods [70ac9b7]
  • IterationBuffer now has a .Slip method for easier iteration [d68fe5e]
  • Add is implementation-detail trait and hide exposed internals with it
    [12a3363][09c1b05][2ae9fdf][20c978e][78371bb][1d57d17][0c36feb]
  • Introduce ^... and ^...^ sequence generator operators [371590f][bbed225]
  • Add Date.last-date-in-month and Date.first-day-in-month methods [2fb7198][20ce556]
  • Add a parents metamethod to Metamodel::ParametricRoleGroupHOW [8dcfa84]
• Removals:
  • Remove undocumented Seq.new-consumed [0f97a7f]
  • Move implementation detail to internals [aed658d][b639221][86bc3b3]
    [75f34c5][d3385e7][73c7ded][9429728][509a7f6][439b860][e152aa6][ebb2949]
  • Turn infix:<…> and infix:<…^> into aliases [bd4e119]
• Build system:
  • Fix CircleCI configuration [efba963][ffcc619]
  • Be more robust when working with git reference directories that has spaces in path
    [3ec5848][e6044df][2f0dd45]
  • Move prebuild archive scripts to scripts folder [e111420]
  • Change update-submodules.pl to not use the shell at all [0ae8b4e]
  • Fix installation of perl6 aliases [aeb418a]
  • Move RUN_CLEAN_TARGET_FILES to a separate script [ffad102]
  • Fix building non-moar backends on Windows [47650eb]
  • Fix --nqp-home Configure.pl parameter [94fdb3d][59fe24b]
  • Make timing based performance tests opt in via RAKUDO_RUN_TIMING_TESTS environment variable [31ffc2b]
• Efficiency:
  • Speed up compilation of large projects [c909258][6956c06]
  • Make raku -n as fast as manual iteration with .IO.lines [be9c139][5cad8fe]
  • Improve behavior of default ThreadPoolScheduler,
    increasing efficiency of multithreaded applications [77a2201][750abe0]
  • Make method lookup with the handles trait 13% faster in certain cases [af59492]
  • Simplify "previous setting" logic [9f4a0f1]
  • Make creation of Failure objects faster [79ca396]
  • Make default DateTime stringification about 12% faster [0e87235][d95141e]
  • Make all IO::Path filetest methods a few percent faster [76c20d2][355b520][bd9d7c1]
  • Make IO::Path.mode about 14x as fast [a093b7f]
  • Make Date.yyyy-mm-dd about 250x as fast [3017cfe][f9ecf6e]
  • Make accessing native shaped arrays about 15x faster [80f2aeb]
  • Make Seq.Numeric and Seq.Int slightly faster [b7b9358]
  • Make a number of traits around 2% faster [4bbe308]
  • Make a minor optimization to a bunch of STORE methods [a4fbbfa]
  • Make Capture.raku 45% faster [5baa645][d6298ed]
  • Make Capture.WHICH 60% faster [688f671]
  • Make Capture.AT-KEY 2% faster [22c0a53]
  • Make push(@a, foo) about 20x as fast [385ab4c]
  • Make append(@a, foo) about 20x as fast [b98d2e0][1e4c736]
  • Make unshift(@a, foo) about 20x as fast [6541775]
  • Make prepend(@a, foo) about 20x as fast [9b735b7]
  • Make Num.Rat faster [f987cdb][2d1ba43]
  • Make Date.succ faster for days 28-31 [285da3b]
  • Make Str.tc about 10% faster [5610416]
  • Make Supply.grab a few percent faster [e0336d5]
  • ... (SEQUENCE) optimizations [fc8c828][935ee30][08545a3][d2ed7fa][fbf54e1][0fba27d]
    [8fe30b9][58fa99b][cf6177e][75c6ac3][500dc66][9286def][1355924][99cb2fa]
  • CompUnit::* optimizations [1dbb227][0249f23][28bd424][b4cdccc][cb7be78][638c895]
    [c9d9a09][83fed55][2cc509c][f1cdfb1][9d1b3f6][db6d230][7c9951c][83ddbab]
    [196db68][551c157][07643d3][e56eddd][20d3713][b4d32c9][8ac2eec][4e3e937]
    [6c7ffbd][17c45d8][8950380][747a35b][dedb744][cbd75f7][81ac37f][f54ad73]
    [fae4d45][d55146b][e33fe87][b712789][e756e62][199888a][95e8906][5271d12]
    [f48b80c][954e545][ef2d7d8][778ce37][1a0cc94][11b186c][dec40dc][d38d76d]
    [f31bd5b][e1af740][33fc895][a62da30][0736bf7][437f9f4][6e95e1b][6723d3a]
    [24fd100][b3f7ad2][c29a2bf][b07224f][7de42d4][7b5e143][68cadd7][f980898]
    [bec2ac4][d66068c][31197cd][2899d73][d4231b1][c2a1ee9][6d3f1c1][dceef85]
    [859d8f0][5ea1c34][2a58eb3][3d6e8d6][ea4bdf9][38a0eb8][2075489][13ca677]
  • Be better at inlining any Junction [76923be]
  • Optimize symbol lookup at compunit creation time [3583254][75da4cf]
  • Numerous small optimizations and improvements [014d493][776ef80][8722687]
    [49d1dcd][d8366ff][61b5e48][6793713][2edce41][d0e427d][0b414c0][88a9a36]
    [604085f][f70d95e][db6048e][a66f5c2][80be7d1][a5535b2][0d5f87c][3c83ce7]
    [3aaca26][43c7e96][dc7a796][e78483e][7bbf12d][b9b46c0][b0a720c][fcda03b]
    [4339073][cfc6cc3][33f4196][0aa8b2a][9cabea0][9b50329][6bb8710]
• Internal:
  • Update Appveyor perl requirement on Windows to 5.22 [370956b]
  • Add optional "lazy" flag to Rakudo::Iterator.SequentialIterators [101a80f]
  • Give IterationBuffer its own iterator method [2b49d68]
  • Adopt MoarVM-provided value_desc_cont [4221f82]
  • Add Rakudo::Iterator.AllButLast iterator [77defa7][aa5154e]
  • Add Rakudo::Iterator.AllButFirst iterator [4fe18a4]
  • Add and use Rakudo::Iterator.ReifiedListReverse iterator
    [3ca3802][270cc27][cea0fc7][4025ca4][447b396]
  • Add Exception.message stub [2e60552]
  • Make Mu.iterator use Rakudo::Iterator.OneValue [65fdea7]
  • Make Rakudo:Iterator.OneValue a PredictiveIterator [ec50b96]
  • Rename SlippyIterator to Rakudo::SlippyIterator [50f13f0][fa3c0db]
  • Don't use named variables between internal methods [9275057]
  • Implement VM.request-garbage-collection [e223be5]
  • Rakudo::Iterator.ReifiedList now returns a PredictiveIterator [063bfa0]

The following people contributed to this release:

Elizabeth Mattijsen, Stefan Seifert, Will "Coke" Coleda,
Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Daniel Green, Vadim Belman,
Tom Browder, Jonathan Worthington, Ben Davies, Patrick Böker, Alexander Kiryuhin,
Stoned Elipot, Christian B...

2020.02.1

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm announcing an
out-of-schedule release of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler.
Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Moar Virtual Machine¹.

This release is a point release in addition to the regular, monthly
releases. This release fixes building MoarVM on systems which are using musl,
such as Alpine GNU/Linux distro.

The tarball for this release is available from http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2020.02.1:

• Fixes:
  • Fix building with musl [979d384]

The following people contributed to this release:

Tassilo Philipp, Patrick Böker, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Alexander Kiryuhin

This release implements 6.c and 6.d versions of the Raku specification.
6.c version of the language is available if you use the use v6.c
version pragma, otherwise 6.d is the default.

Upcoming releases in 2020 will include new functionality that is not
part of 6.c or 6.d specifications, available with a lexically scoped
pragma. Our goal is to ensure that anything that is tested as part of
6.c and 6.d specifications will continue to work unchanged. There may
be incremental spec releases this year as well.

If you would like to contribute or find out more information, visit
http://perl6.org, http://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #perl6 on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you to make a donation to The Perl Foundation
to sponsor Perl 6 development: https://donate.perlfoundation.org/
(put "Perl 6 Core Development Fund" in the 'Purpose' text field)

The next release of Rakudo (#135), is tentatively scheduled for 2020-03-28.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback -- get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

1. See <http://moarvm.org/ ↩

2020.02

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
February 2020 release of Rakudo #134. Rakudo is an implementation of
the Raku[^1] language.

The source tarball for this release is available from
https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

New in 2020.02:

• Changes:
  • throws-like sub from Test module now throws an exception on
    Bool:D matchers [f4ad0c2][50f084d][5696dbd]
  • RAKUDOLIB environment variable now mentioned in --help [f9b7de2]
  • Supply.repeated now has unique rather than squish semantics [0521331]
• Fixes:
  • Fix mixing in Raku-level code to the grammar [992f1b8]
  • Fixed concurrency issue with re-checking a precomp file's dependencies [f5ce80e]
  • Ensure Rakudo can be located in a path with Unicode characters on Windows [4c6cd03]
  • Smart matching a Regex no longer breaks if $/ is not a container [b777d6f]
  • raku -v now mentions Raku as the languages [15621b8]
  • Fixed typecheck on bound attributes (is built(:bind))
    [4b64338][8920343][8a46fca][d75a703]
  • Fixed location of REPL history and made the RAKUDO_HIST
    environment variable work [c5c98de][94713af]
  • Fixed problem with .rotor when given a Seq [c7e0df6]
  • Restored exact stringification behaviour of index, indices, contains on List [2176292]
  • Improved invalid TypeSmiley error message [246f20d]
  • Assume 1 core is always available in case nqp::cpucores fails [1a7f16b]
  • Lock.protect now allows return of a container [b90beba]
  • Fixed Parameter.raku's handling of default values [21b8097][2aa4d09]
  • Work around spurious error in Lock::Async that
    could lead to crashing [d18d6e9][2854144]
  • Fixed handle leak when chaining Proc::Async [cdbd60c]
  • Restore creating a Parameter instance using named arguments [b2c809e]
  • Fixed behavior of eqv operator on two Seq objects [76187b5]
  • Fixed variable declared by shape match in signature [ca78390]
  • Fixed calling of a module sub without & and parentheses [e1faa70]
  • Fixed consuming of all Channel values which has prevented
    reusing it in multiple react blocks [6fbfc4a]
  • Fixed usage of $^a withing a substitution regex [50ca2ed][adb85e4]
  • Fixed clonning of multi-dim arrays [4a954cb]
  • Fixed $*USER and other dynamic variables coercion for some buggy cases [3a86272]
  • Fixed internal compiler error on parameter re-declaration [3498c54]
  • Fixed unhandled exceptions in REPL [6bf227d]
  • Fixed stringification if Signature for some edge cases [b2962b1][56ccd13]
  • Fixed is rw trait application to roles [4de852e][85660c8]
  • Improved error message when putting a positional parameter after a named one [8dcf1a8]
  • Improved error message when referring to a non-existent class whose name contains a :: [ca1e51c]
  • Improved error message for Buf stringification [539e96c][3f637af]
  • Made sure Version objects can coerce themselves [5eb113b]
  • Various fixes for JVM backend [a08f043][5984ce9]
• Additions:
  • Enable user-defined chaining operators to work [d027ee0]
  • Added prefix and suffix methods to Parameter class which return
    textual prefix and suffix of the parameter [bd68955]
  • Made an improperly typed default for an attribute a compile time error
    [d8e859d][05b5f81][a8bb85a][b6fa5f5][13c9da9][4c0761a][c592b80]
  • Added SetHash.set and SetHash.unset methods [6df78ca]
  • Added BagHash.add and BagHash.remove methods [c1b8ff6]
  • Str.contains now also can take a Regex [c3c5dae]
  • Add :i(ignorecase) and :m(ignoremark) support to
    index, starts-with, ends-with, contains, substr-eq, indices
    [49aaa6f][60b0d86][8498774][0b2236a][d91c773][2e3c091][46ef7f4]
    [9f71002][19576d6][90fc61b][ec13c3d][ea44c19][327c74a][73c5a25]
    [d49a418][5a716a3][7cb0481][0761a88][b140d7a][c2e608b][a6acfd0]
    [aefc851][597288b][b32048d]
  • The IterationBuffer class now has a Seq method [c87f5df]
  • The Compiler class now has a backend method [61b416e]
  • The Match class now has a replace-with method
    [b43c839][1ac3c5c][7f3e852][cd4ab4f][930e518]
    [488feaf][b4e0012]
  • Cool.subst doesn't need a replacement string anymore [dfb563a]
  • Supply.first now also works without a matcher [57dbc35]
  • Properly show enums, subsets and routine return type in Pod::To::Text output
    [f60d969][91f8943][0b0a1aa]
  • Added iterator implementation for Junction (fixes e.g. calling ^name on a Junction) [bceaeb1]
• Removals:
  • Remove deprecated support for implicit Distribution::Builder prefix [593db2d]
• Build system:
  • Implement an automated pipeline to create precompiled releases
    [6504be7][d01d4b2][aaf9a93][8c995fe]
  • Implement --git-cache-dir Configure.pl option.
    It can save time and bandwidth when doing more than one build [322b095][ac6c437]
  • Add a --build-only option for install-dist.p6 script [4c6c027]
  • made building optional when installing in install-dist.p6 script [411db10]
• Efficiency:
  • Simplify exception throwing in bootstrap [d18c69b]
  • Made Seq.list return cached list if present [8ccfa87]
  • Made .List and .Slip more efficient [d1d931a]
  • Made Str.comb(Regex) about 1.8x as fast [9e8adb6][4df7472]
  • Made Str.split(Regex) about 15% faster [931f5ae][ba2c58a]
  • Made Supply.unique a few percent faster [32bd4ed]
  • Made internal Match stringification a few percent faster [495ddcc]
  • Made various aspects of Date and DateTime faster
    [076ef98][ced67b8][b086a9f][99b67a4][e979f17][af8cca7]
    [65d0422][b19c4ee][fa7d3bf][16962c8][c0e8091][0286904]
  • Made Date.new(Str) about 9.8x as fast [0408d6e][497afda]
  • Made Date.new(Instant) about 12.5x as fast [f91a161]
  • Made Date.today about 4.5x as fast [1d7a916][7a2d68f][1344419][8876e03]
  • Made Date.earlier / Date.later between 1.5x and 5.5x as fast [4ebbddf][5943cbf]
  • Made Date.succ / Date.pred (used in ++ and --) about 2.8x as fast [9707384]
  • Made Date integer arithmetic about 2.3x as fast [cfe2cdc]
  • Made Date.Str about 250x as fast with the default formatter [67022d4]
  • Made DateTime.new(Str) about 30% faster [578935e]
  • Made DateTime.Str about 90x as fast with the default formatter [a331ac4][2b7d5ff]
  • Made Instant.new a few percent faster [5b97dde][bd948ba]
  • Made creation of a Junction about 3.5x as fast [470f7fd]
  • Made Junction.defined between 15% and 40% faster [7a561d6][423d9ad][6844be9]
  • Hash.DELETE-KEY does one less hash lookup [9217b1c]
  • Made various aspects of Proc::Async faster [0c5a707][ca49dcb][1db4161][356bf3f][05916ef]
  • Made Channel.list around 16x faster [82bd76f]
• Internal:
  • Preparations for UNIX sockets support [7c7d3b9][1a5b218][ed4226d][ce5b5de][62cb756]
  • Simplify leap date updating logic [25c84b3][bdb0074]
  • Removed perlcritic config file [5ac792a]
  • Add support for use BUILDPLAN class [8fdce75]
  • Add support for nqp arrays to dd [255318e]
  • Change of IO::Path!new-from-absolute-path internal method signature [1d946e1]
  • Correctly set up values for $*DISTRO initialization [22d5ffc]
  • Change file extensions to Raku format
    [61821ff][8c242d5][582c14a][5e9d98c][ea1cb40][3b8104e]
    [4677f74][ac652c0][e572320][deac440][7b67960][416fd51]
    [ca99c7c][5437517][82ea329][4ec31e2]
  • Other internal changes related to Perl 6 -> Raku migration
    [10e5390][8fd7172][af29258][81014e7][925e73d][dd7b4ce]
  • Tests added [2132019][ffabf8d]
  • Remove unused nqp::p6decodelocaltime as NQP has nqp::decodelocaltime [e2ba546][663c427]
  • Rename the Junction $!storage attribute to $!eigenstates [1a6f83c][911cac4]
  • Simplify fetching of the kept Promise sentinel in Lock::Async [e81e516]
  • Simplify Parameter.raku implementation and improve how it handles parametert names [3f6a2a2]
  • Added *_RUNNER_OPTS variable to Makefiles [701c38d]
  • Make rakudo binaries default ones and perl6 to be aliases,
    as well as include some other renaming-related changes
    [f5f6f76][23ca695][519a741][536a2d2]

The following people contributed to this release:

Elizabeth Mattijsen, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Jonathan Worthington,
Stoned Elipot, Vadim Belman, Patrick Böker, Daniel Green, Will "Coke"
Coleda, Alexander Kiryuhin, Ben Davies, Stefan Seifert, Trey Harris,
Christian Bartolomäus, Josh Soref, Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev,
Brian Duggan, Luis F. Uceta, Mikhail Khorkov, Tom Browder, Jan-Olof Hendig,
Jeremy Studer, Konrad Bucheli, Rod Taylor, Samantha McVey, Bahtiar Gadimov,
Ven de Thiel.

This release implements 6.c and 6.d versions of the Raku specification.
6.c version of the language is available if you use the use v6.c
version pragma, otherwise 6.d is the default.

Upcoming releases in 2020 will include new functionality that is not
part of 6.c or 6.d specifications, available with a lexically scoped
pragma. Our goal is to ensure that anything that is tested as part of
6.c and 6.d specifications will continue to work unchanged. There may
be incremental spec releases this year as well.

If you would like to contribute or find out more information, visit
https://raku.org, https://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #raku on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you t...

2020.01

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
January 2020 release of Rakudo #133. Rakudo is an implementation of
the Raku[^1] language.

The source tarball for this release is available from
https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.
Pre-compiled archives will be available shortly.

New in 2020.01:

• Changes:
  • A big overhaul of role applying rules and behavior or
    submethods, constructors and destructors
    [38c7264][a8f6188][cddcd46][61d3aef][27147ed][cbc4b83]
    [3f7caf5][f242bcf][cd74a3a][51055d0][9369c68][ad92abc]
    [00fec7c][6f0dd1e][c9ac15c][cb90366][d89a0c9][a08e1ff]
    [c674a1d][0654d3e][fffb5c9][232382f][b47be20][44648fb]
    [c2d5c20][48fc44c][7afffd6][17537ab][b1e288c][32e210c]
    [fc4a5a3][1e166e4][7a94c4e][3eb63b3][a4ad1a8][526d38d]
    [9e4087e][aeb10ef][c4f1cff][1f62040][b83e069][4d69fda]
    [c7a8705][13ae929][0fb7a69][86b1ccb][ca2cb4a][e843fd2]
    [a92ade4][bdcf314][93d0575][2319120][595e0ca][2c4fa98]
    [b51c1fc][afcbeb5][eadc158][548dea5][1aad348][4a962e0]
    [0b6a934][bb2600d][5d10e91][139d528][f2a4161][262b6fc]
  • Smartmatching typed Arrays against same-typed Positionals now
    returns True (e.g. Array[Str:D] ~~ Positional[Str:D]), which
    returned False before [fb55ae2]
  • Class attributes and methods are now prioritized over those from
    roles [f19e2ee][2fc87db][4c265c7][9357edd][83d26dd][9f2a2f6][55b51a2]
  • DateTime class now accepts picosecond precision [9eef0e6]
  • Make default degree for hyper/batch utilize number of CPU cores better
    [9fd29cd][5def05c][3f51728]
  • $*ARGFILES special variable now defaults to $*IN if no arguments [bde1069]
  • An attempt to use methods index, indiced, contains on a List
    now gives a warning [c9b0218]
• Fixes:
  • Fix repository name lookup on windows [13c5d04]
  • Fix leaking file handles when loading modules [1c46740]
  • Fix Parameter.sigil for anonymous scalar params with default values [8c0a5d6]
  • Fix raw slurpy onearg parameter handling in Parameter.raku [3399302]
  • Fix construction of Parameter object [68808c5]
  • Fix error when calling Parameter.usage-name on unnamed parameters [81311a2]
  • Fix hang when initializing Int with a type object [0e9f96e]
  • Fix missing dependency information when precompiling large dependency trees [9fa82b8]
  • Fix off-by-one error in Supply.head(limit) [80f60c0]
  • Fix for parameterized roles not found for FQN lookup if applied to a
    parent class [27b3db2]
  • Fix double execution of ENTER block in some cases [d8c7d87]
  • Fixed compile-time subroutine candidate matching when is rw
    trait is used on JVM [12d4514][fae105b][73d5e74][d81212b][5c65a12]
  • Improved error message for invalid Pod6 leading and trailing
    declarator blocks [26f63ff]
  • Prevented ASSIGN-POS method on Any from decontainerizing,
    allowing its correct overloading in roles [ed8f514]
  • Prevent name MOP method from returning a NQPMu when no name
    is set by returning an empty string instead [dabf83a]
  • Fixed relocatability of bundled native libraries
    [55b3ed5][0e4f835]
  • Made Range.int-bounds(from,to) always return correct result
    [8c3f292]
  • Fixed a precompilation bug related to determining class language
    version [15a5580]
  • Fix "expected IO::Handle:D but got IO::Handle" in parallel test
    runs [efadff2]
  • Fix calling a qualified method from role on JVM backend [5648a4f]
  • Fix roundrobin method, cross and zip operators on a 1-element
    lists [f602c02][737dd1b][87de5ee]
  • Fix MoarVM::Profiler.report [734047a]
• Additions:
  • Add Version type coercer to Str [e3cbd32]
  • Add Supply.repeated method [ff08697]
  • Add Supply.decode($encoding) method [59f6a03]
  • Add Supply.first method [ace9853]
  • Add Supply.collate method [4079702]
  • Allow Supply.head(*-3) to be synonym of Supply.tail(3) [6d6318d]
  • Add Supply.encode($encoding = "utf8") method [5d6c0b6]
  • Add Supply.comb method [348d54d][3dd9edf][67ec4b2]
    [1331128f][07dce51][147ce39][550bf09][a666e73][92d465d]
    [622b20f][f74e506][f872445]
  • Add new is built attribute trait
    [e76f8e4][98abd6a][e81b0b6][826c3ea][f1f690e][ada7c36]
    [ecf8a3f][7bbb76d][8ab5302][3f0dca4]
  • Add Supply.split method
    [cac64ca][4fa60ab][c16a648][9b29bcc][2188f13]
  • Add Supply.lines(:nl-in<foo>) method [c63d8a8]
  • Allow user to retain formatting of Pod6 leading declarator
    blocks (#|) using RAKUDO_POD_DECL_BLOCK_USER_FORMAT env var,
    instead of always collapsing them into a single string. The
    latter remains the default behavior [9a4c83a]
  • Made .perl (now .raku) method call on signature of {...} display $_
    variable from outer scope [e7c2038]
  • Add $*RAKU variable [a05e169]
  • Raku is now allowed to be used as a language in EVAL
    [1c5d010][632c008]
  • Add :$match named parameter to comb subroutine when called
    on Cool object when the $matcher argument is a Regex
    [dd2f072][a9cd640]
  • Add log2 subroutine, which accepts Cool and Numeric
    arguments, as well as its method form (Numeric.log2)
    [f6254be]
  • Allowed colon syntax on $.foo method, making $.foo: 42 work
    as well as equivalent self.foo: 42
    does [4a1323e][6abdf27][0f86e49]
  • Add RAKU_EXCEPTIONS_HANDLER env variable,
    which is not supported as an alias for PERL6_EXCEPTIONS_HANDLER [90408d1]
• Build system:
  • Renamed PERL6_HOME env var into RAKUDO_HOME, preserving
    backward compatibility. Rakudo Configure.pl now accepts
    --rakudo-home in addition to --perl6-home [7cfdd59]
  • Add --force-rebuild command line option. Together with
    --gen-* options is causes corresponding components to
    recompile irrelevant to their existence and version
    conformance [15255b0][2022b9c][1945b9d]
  • Fix set-env.sh script [0b8ede6]
  • Fix raku symlinks relocability [a00628e]
  • Prevent silently swallowing errors on submodule update
    [db43d13]
  • Use Visual Studio 2017 in AppVeyor [7ecc5bf][7ce4947]
  • Various tweaks and small improvements
    [75056df][8b7d065][52a7bab][d7d9a2f][470c9b7]
  • Skip 'make test' on JVM backend [e5627b8]
• Efficiency:
  • Make StrDistance.new about 30% faster [91a324a]
  • Make Rational.Str 10% faster [272b658]
  • Make Rational.Str a few % faster with 20% fewer allocations [73e98a6]
  • Make Rational.base at least 2.5x as fast [97e7cdb]
  • Make Array[Int].raku at least 5% faster [66cf6f8]
  • Make NumStr.raku about 60% faster [e262da1]
  • Make IntStr.raku about 2x as fast [2261ef1]
  • Optimize Pair.raku [0d96bed][08aec41]
  • Make Mu.raku about 40% faster [585227e]
  • Optimize Str.raku [09e66e5][a4b62fb]
  • Make Str.rindex a few percent faster [7ecc3e8]
  • Make Str.index a few percent faster [d5719bb]
  • Make Str.contains a few percent faster [030ed10]
  • Make Str.substr-eq between 1.4x and 2.4x faster [276d096]
  • Made Str.chomp between 10x and 100x faster [b9c0196]
  • Made Str.chop(N) between 3x and 17x faster [b569e11]
  • Made Str.chop between 1.8x and 30x faster [f196362]
  • Made Str.trim-trailing up to 2x as fast [657d36f]
  • Made Str.trim between 1.5x and 3x faster [0d0d419]
  • Made Str.substr(N) between 1.5 and 3x faster [4252a8c]
  • Made Str.substr(N,M) about 1.5x faster [908dd25]
  • Made Str.substr(N, Inf) about 15% faster [25a2998]
  • Made Str.trim-leading between 20x and 90x faster [3941fef]
  • Made Str.parse-base between 7x (with decimal point) and 12x
    (without) faster, decreased its memory pressure
    [74c8017][3ce9245][9b8ce73]
  • Made Str.Numeric a few percent faster and 13x faster for an
    empty string [37474a7]
  • Made Str.Int a few percent faster [b42957c]
  • Made DateTime.new(epoch) about 20% faster [9d89591]
  • Made DateTime.new($epoch) about 50% faster [cd32125]
  • Made the decont operator about 20x faster [872cb7c]
  • Improved efficiency of JIT for split subroutine [3e2cfb4]
  • Fix regression in performance of async socket [4e9487c]
  • Micro-optimize set_name MOP method [88741d9]
  • Make lazy gather up to 15% faster [971174f]
  • Make emit about 30% faster [aea2a36]
  • Make take foo about 20% faster [a91813d]
  • Make take-rw foo about 20% faster [533a2ad]
  • Make take foo, bar about 60% faster [e1aaa83]
  • Make take-rw foo, bar about 60% faster [bed716b]
  • Make Supply.lines a few percent faster [0f4ef3c]
  • Numerous micro-optimizations [f5583de]
    [05aff92][488f21a][9c15d71][6c85e69][60a9ff6][779b0a2]
    [fc8bfc2][11a8d57][392af08][3326669]
• Internal:
  • Add mechanism for seeding typename suggestions [b291fc7]
  • Removed SUBSTR-(START|CHARS)-OOR from Rakudo::Internals, they
    are now Str private methods [ab99c2d]
  • Simplify Str.substr implementation
    [99a0610][1a89106][e342657][f79102f]
  • Fixed some regressions related to v6.e.PREVIEW usage
    [6c251f2][8d03bdf][94b4ca9][466f7de][65847f7][a59fec7][755c803][0d2eb1c]
  • Reflect Raku renaming on codebase [604ca34][186c4ce]
  • Numerous small codebase improvements, including ones related to
    renaming process
    [8f30cc7][fc30941][540162c][6a12949][1003bb9][68cee0d]
    [2652d9c][f9e30a0][ee66a6b...

Release #132 (2019.11)

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
November 2019 release of Rakudo #132. Rakudo is an implementation of
Raku on the Moar Virtual Machine¹.

This release implements 6.c and 6.d versions of the Raku specification.
6.c version of the language is available if you use the use v6.c
version pragma, otherwise 6.d is the default.

Upcoming releases in 2019 will include new functionality that is not
part of 6.c or 6.d specifications, available with a lexically scoped
pragma. Our goal is to ensure that anything that is tested as part of
6.c and 6.d specifications will continue to work unchanged. There may
be incremental spec releases this year as well.

The tarball for this release is available from https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution² — it’s announcing a new release of the compiler
only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
https://rakudo.org/files/star.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2019.11:

• SPECIAL NOTES:
  • Perl 6 is now Raku! This release comes with initial changes
    required for the language rename. For more info see
    Path to Raku
• Fixes:
  • Fixed the signature of signal [eb88e64][fcf1f76][a46c414]
  • Fixed laziness propagation in KeyValue/Pair iterators [abbd128]
  • Fixed loading of COREs allowing for defining new symbols for
    new language releases [56af07b]
  • die and fail now use $! from the calling lexical scope if
    called without arguments [56af07b]
  • Fixed a bug in require with incorrect installation of imported
    submodules [56af07b]
  • Fixed outer signatures getting into string interpolation
    [7cab810]
  • Fixed segfault when using meta ops in threaded code [60cfbb3]
  • Fixed Maps to keep containers [2ee82af][42d6e0b][cb1fbf6]
  • Made sure Date.new-from-daycount takes right candidate
    [ac11774]
  • Fixed passing of formatter in operations on Date objects
    [971d4bf]
  • Fixed .wrap when used with callsame/nextsame/etc. [da65fb5]
  • Fixed a bug when a wrapped method is called first [2e915d7]
  • Fixed :D check when used with where [58c2d64]
  • Made socket family handling portable [16607d3][17f6603]
    [39b04dc][7e10626][d7d8d37]
  • Fixed RakuDoc parser to allow empty config values [7c3b257]
  • Fixed handling of :every(Inf) in ThreadPoolScheduler.cue
    [74f2d3f]
  • Fixed exception propagation with race inside race [9d1505d]
  • Fixed Proc to return Failure with non-zero signals [89fc9f3]
    [6b42d31]
  • Made sure that doing keep/break on a vow more than once throws
    [c7ec96a][0f31d35][5aa998f][f32b86a][b8f92d2]
  • Made sure that Backtrace.list lists all the frames [559c24f]
  • Made the Buf.write-* methods return self [dae981e]
  • Allowed type objects on Buf.write-int/num/bits [43b5e76]
    [18ff905]
• Changes:
  • [6.e] Pseudo-packages now return Failure for a missing
    symbol (was Nil) [56af07b]
  • EVAL no longer wraps evaluated code into own CORE context but
    shares the one used by the calling scope. It also means that
    use v6.X statement is not effective inside EVALs anymore
    [56af07b]
  • [6.e] Grammar now returns Failure when failing to parse
    [b21a577][daebcd2][4cdd2d1][d46a908]
• Additions:
  • [6.e] LEXICAL:: pseudo-package includes all symbols visible in
    the lexical scope, including dynamic symbols from caller
    chain [56af07b]
  • [6.e] SETTING:: pseudo-package includes all symbols from all
    available COREs [56af07b]
  • [6.e] UNIT:: pseudo-package includes all lexicals visible at
    unit level [56af07b]
  • [6.e] Symbol binding is now possible for all
    pseudo-packages [56af07b]
  • Individual language-release COREs are now accessible
    via CORE::v6<rev> namespaces. [6a88590]
  • Added GB2312 and GB18030 encodings [a95cb03][4cee2c3]
  • Added support for Unicode v12.1 [f5ef0b3][7056a25]
• Build system:
  • Added raku and rakudo executables [5090206][ab0a6d6]
  • Added --rakudo-home alias to --perl6-home [dfeb712]
  • Added --nqp-home and --perl6-home configure options to set
    custom home dirs [e16e61a]
  • Added RAKUDO_HOME environment variable [dfeb712][24abab8]
  • Added support for .rakumod extension [daa16b9]
  • Added --silent-build option [f9ee604]
  • Fixed errors when building from a release archive [78c05c1]
  • Fixed installation to /usr [1e0220f]
  • Fixed build in folders with spaces [9366990][abc072c][f117089]
    [0365662][f7f9b1f][ceb457e][12d9e34]
  • Created a process for making binary releases [3427391]
    [1c76440][f7b4d71]
  • Fixed libffi include issue [98e0bb6]
  • Removed --libdir configure option [cdd57cd]
  • Fixed the build to not create folders outside the build
    directory [cbd1dc2]
  • Minor build system fixes [165f3fb][3d5c551][579ac66]
    [d487cd8][c2808b3][cfb0a26]
  • General build system cleanup [90de22f][983c398][4ce5b7c]
    [ff9272b][608c6cd][9fefa33]
• Efficiency:
  • Made sure dependencies are not recompiled if another process
    already did it [23cfe1c]
  • Many small internal optimizations [f44c14c][82fc4e5][af10886]
    [01b86fa][c7056f2][0dd6573][207b825][e424248][57f4a4c]
    [19e075f][c392692][44a6a0d][696eea2][1d4c21d][6f5232f]
    [3697325][6297b0e][519cfde][25abfe2][1e2b0ec]
• Internal:
  • NQP vars and ops will now default to int instead of num [290cd79]
    [5876d38][62e2555][1e4d3ac][cf6f6d9]
  • Optimizer: Don't use Int*Ref in first arg
    of if/unless/while/until [84ee0c8]
  • Fixed BYTE_SUPPLY_DECODER breaking after exceptions [9162431]
  • Reduced .moarvm size by replacing die X::Foo.new by
    X::Foo.new.throw [6d8f405][88dfe55]
  • Stagestats are now shown for dependent precompilation [238f8e5]
    [960e5b4]
  • Added more tests for symbols in CORE and SETTING [5cd45f9]
    [53bb28d]
  • Added nqp::p6client* family of ops for finding first Raku
    caller from different package and determining its language
    version [86525a3]
  • Added nqp::p6getlexclient op and $*OPTIMIZER-SYMBOLS
    [cbce0ed][f8768ae]
  • Added Sprintf.pm6 stub for development convenience [4bd25bf]
  • Fixed inconsistent state of NativeCall subs after
    repossession [573f6a2]
  • Fixed native subs declared in BEGIN blocks and role
    bodies [e45bb34]
  • Fixed optimizer interfering with some native subs [d662912]
  • Fixed leaking an open file handle when re-precompiling [2dd570d]

The following people contributed to this release:

Vadim Belman, JJ Merelo, Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev, Timo Paulssen,
Patrick Böker, Stefan Seifert, Daniel Green, Elizabeth Mattijsen,
Tom Browder, Will "Coke" Coleda, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Bart Wiegmans,
Paweł Murias, Jonathan Worthington, Antonio, Ben Davies, Samantha McVey,
threadless-screw, ZhongnianTao, Stoned Elipot, Altai-man, Luis F. Uceta,
Jan-Olof Hendig, cfa, Christian Bartolomäus, Stéphane Payrard,
Peter du Marchie van Voorthuysen, cygx, Greg Donald, Naoum Hankache,
finanalyst, holli-holzer, Alexander, German Rodriguez Herrera, Nick Logan,
Stefan Fischer, ab5tract, Chloé Kekoa, Dominika Góral, Paul Marquess, sarna,
stoned, Aearnus, Claudio Ramirez, Clifton Wood, David Warring,
Deven T. Corzine, Jack Kuan, Jeremy Studer, Jimmy Zhuo, Kent Fredric,
Kevin Pye, Larry Wall, Mike Swierczek, Moritz Lenz, Nele Schwarz,
Salve J. Nilsen, Skye Shaw, Suman Khanal, Tim Van den Langenbergh,
Tobias Boege, alanrocker, lukasvalle, peschwa, tusindfryd

If you would like to contribute or find out more information, visit
https://raku.org, https://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #raku on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you to make a donation to The Perl Foundation
to sponsor Raku development: https://donate.perlfoundation.org/
(put “Raku Core Development Fund” in the ‘Purpose’ text field)

The next release of Rakudo (#133), is tentatively scheduled for 2019-12-21.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback – get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Raku language.
Not much more.

The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection
of useful Raku modules, a module installer, Raku introductory
documentation, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo
compiler to enhance its utility.

1. See http://moarvm.org/ ↩

2. What’s the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo
   Star distribution? ↩

Release 2019.07.1

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm announcing an
out-of-schedule release of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler.
Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Moar Virtual Machine¹.

This release is a point release in addition to the regular
releases. Rakudo 2019.07 (note: no .1) was discovered to have some
issues with the build system that affected packaging. Moreover, this
release comes with a corresponding MoarVM point release which has some
important stability and reliability fixes.

The tarball for this release is available from https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution² — it’s announcing a new release of the compiler
only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
https://rakudo.org/files/star.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2019.07.1:

• Build system:
  • Fixed issues when installing into /usr [f41db04]
  • Fixed unnecessary use of git in release tarballs [540926b][e18b4f3]
  • Fixed intermittent failures in one of the performance tests [bd29d3f]

The following people contributed to this release:

Patrick Böker, Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev, Timo Paulssen,
Jonathan Worthington, Stefan Seifert, Samantha McVey

If you would like to contribute or find out more information, visit
https://perl6.org, https://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #perl6 on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you to make a donation to The Perl Foundation
to sponsor Perl 6 development: https://donate.perlfoundation.org/
(put “Perl 6 Core Development Fund” in the ‘Purpose’ text field)

The next release of Rakudo (#132), is tentatively scheduled for 2019-09-21.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback – get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language.
Not much more.

The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection
of useful Perl 6 modules, a module installer, Perl 6 introductory
documentation, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo
compiler to enhance its utility.

1. See http://moarvm.org/ ↩

2. What’s the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo
   Star distribution? ↩

Release #131 (2019.07)

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I’m very happy to announce the
July 2019 release of Rakudo Perl 6 #131. Rakudo is an implementation of
Perl 6 on the Moar Virtual Machine[^1].

This release implements 6.c and 6.d versions of the Perl 6 specification.
6.c version of the language is available if you use the use v6.c
version pragma, otherwise 6.d is the default.

Upcoming releases in 2019 will include new functionality that is not
part of 6.c or 6.d specifications, available with a lexically scoped
pragma. Our goal is to ensure that anything that is tested as part of
6.c and 6.d specifications will continue to work unchanged. There may
be incremental spec releases this year as well.

The tarball for this release is available from https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution[^2] — it’s announcing a new release of the compiler
only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
https://rakudo.org/files/star.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2019.07:

• SPECIAL NOTES:
  • Upcoming releases after this one will have a different changelog format
  • Java 9 is now required for JVM backend [ea94966][8a37b93][b1fac3d]
• Deprecations:
  • --profile-filename will be deprecated in the future. Instead, there
    is a --profile-kind option that accepts the instrumented (default)
    or heap arguments, and --profile(-compile) accepts a filename as an
    argument [31e534c]
• Fixes:
  • Fixed asinh with large negative arguments [5281c23]
  • Fixed laziness check on [\+] [8f424c9]
  • Fixed representation of constant constraint in Parameter.perl [a1591fb]
  • Fixed $*KERNEL.bits on Windows [5a9b720][6e8df01]
  • Made sure creating a Failure from a Failure object throws [c911065]
  • Made a Failure throw when it is used as something Iterable [23fca8f]
    [4ffb408]
  • Fixed CLIENT::.keys [6599998]
  • Fixed a crash when values are deleted from (Set|Bag|Mix)Hash while
    iterating [a6a6070][1f066d9][6365798][c566430][787d5bf]
  • Fixed method cloning [d14fad4]
  • Fixed USAGE message to not omit candidates when it shouldn't [bea5199]
    [dd1c805][2b99166]
  • Class symbols are now merged into stub when
    using require STUB:file<> [f03c781]
  • Fixed named parameters in MAIN so that a single parameter for a
    @-sigilled parameter is now accepted [87d219e]
  • Improved USAGE message for @ sigilled parameters [d5faa02]
  • Implemented :123foo parameter format in POD6 config [95ce37d]
  • Fixed notification queue growth in Channel.Supply [d5044de]
  • Fixed FatRat.base failure for large denominators [d4e1d8e][b69964b]
  • Allowed :at/:in/:every to be Inf/-Inf/NaN
    in ThreadPoolScheduler.cue [cc88d63][de76a05][9b46cb9]
    [c977d6c][1a19c66]
  • Fixed an error when RAKUDO_EXCEPTIONS_HANDLER is set [939ea41]
  • Fixed parsing of Unicode brackets in string interpolation [ba07a62]
  • Fixed a lot of reproducibility issues in Rakudo and precompiled modules
    [0990ecc][5069981][e1f1eb0][7926cdd][95af2f4][a2ba573][4af81c3]
    [5ee341c][5b8b9c0][5dcc687][aa1d1ce][7b5a998][a973dae][4d44bd9]
    [8ec2c43][532d19f][5669bc9][37b7ef7][5c24182][c5bc71e][cd11b50]
    [b0dd44b]
  • Fixed an issue with multiple dimensioned indexes throwing rather than
    failing [7bbbebc][9ce87ee]
  • Made sure the REPL creates a history file if it doesn't exist [cb691da]
  • Made sure that .head/.tail can take Cool values [74c8f04]
  • Fixed bogus role conflict when the same method is added under
    multiple names [e274f4a]
  • Made sure classes doing the QuantHash role have .hash and
    .Hash [650bbc1]
  • Fixed ThreadPoolScheduler.cue when called with a times named
    parameter [48a1255]
  • Fixed an off-by-one error in infinite range subscript [35b69f0]
  • Fixed colon parsing of adverbs [76e5ee1][9135914][c227693][a26e95b]
  • Fixed List.perl for lazy lists [ec97878]
  • Fixed compile_in_context with an immediate block [b9f8995]
  • Fixed parsing of & in regexes [f18af94]
  • Allowed capture argument to MAIN to accept arguments [410ff56]
  • Made Date.truncate-to('day') a no-op [e943f3e]
  • Fixed assigning Nil to a scalar declared with captured type [c0134d2]
  • Fixed roles inheriting from a class failing to type check against
    that class [90d81c7][41f6f9e]
  • Fixed type checking on curried roles [8629088][5f07a39]
    [9b65b33][9c6fa1e]
  • Fixed type matching of parameterized roles [0023f64]
  • Fixed type matching of roles against their "parent" classes [6c02354]
  • Fixed role exports [163f0a0]
  • Fixed assigning a native array from an Array with deleted
    elements [ef76601]
  • Fixed number of elements when Slipping an Array [f5f4190]
  • Fixed multi-dimensional EXISTS-POS for out of bounds
    dimensions [ca7408e][c9a7892]
  • Made sure sorting a 2-element list with a mapper is stable [ab56324]
  • Made sure calling push/append/unshift/prepend as a sub with
    named parameters dies [b20ccba]
  • Made is export export role's group [120b8d9]
  • Fixed internal from-json so that it doesn't create nested arrays
    on assign [b7e0e89]
  • Made sure Channel.fail, .poll, and .receive will update status
    of Channel.closed [ef1ea42]
  • Made some methods return Bools instead of 0 or 1 [6f8442a]
  • Made sure formatter information is kept when using operators
    on Date/DateTime [34c0e89][5bdeedc][f05b1b0]
  • Fixed require to do the right thing when importing sigilless
    symbols [63b9e1f]
  • Implemented a more fine-grained deconting of exported symbols [93f2087]
  • Made sure Junctions used in a grep are interpreted in Bool
    context [8652386]
  • Fixed signatures on several multi methods in core [66d92c6]
    [8969399][9b63996]
  • Changed the value of RAKUDO_FIRST_FLAG to avoid collision
    with MVM_CF_FORWARDER_VALID [bf61f59]
  • Various fixes for the JVM backend [e84f727][a5b2238][f26fbd3]
    [3e51bd4][1aae63a][5e8451f][96a976b][417fa68][f1c80fd]
    [07b4f74][ee2297b]
  • Various fixes for the JS backend [0ecd037][4f8a16e][6e650cd]
    [b0668b2][75e2fb7][9d18728][7aa72ce][1aae63a][f1c80fd]
    [8abfbbc][07f6ccc][8871219][ea79571]
  • Various improvements to produced messages [54a89b6][6563f1a]
    [2732a28][69d88be][1ec4f17][33e2d7f][2f6e5fd][2e8f326]
    [e352962][24eb4d5][8f59177][d8a41f7][aeba161][a362fac]
• Additions:
  • Added an X::Cannot::Map exception [fd8a00a][ef8899f][a804ed0]
  • Telemetry's snap now also accepts an optional
    "checkpoint" message [afc9f84]
  • Telemetry: allow snap :heap for heap snapshots [90e18b6][0c80e06]
  • CompUnit::Repository::FileSystem objects can now also be
    created from an IO::Path [e9bbefd][b2e72d6]
  • Added support for use v6.e.PREVIEW [d4afd48]
  • EVAL now supports a :check flag to just check
    syntax (like perl6 -c) [d41f162][5b3a8ce]
  • Implemented support for Kernel.free-memory and
    Kernel.total-memory [31671f8]
  • Added the CachedIterator role for creating iterators on cached
    lists [94ba19f][a4d3853]
  • By default a parametric role group would now choose non-signatured
    candidate for introspection; if there is no such candidate then
    the first one would be chosen [6c02354]
  • Added --confprog, a way to configure the behavior of some
    moarvm-internal systems like the profiler [9733471]
• Removals:
  • Removed :where support for Signature/Parameter.perl [4cfe5ec]
  • Removed several internal functions from CORE:: and
    SETTING:: namespaces [45eb1c5][ed074cd][8018503][bf57f76]
  • Removed wrappers for no longer existing internal function
    from RESTRICTED setting [47832fe]
  • Removed Compiler::build-date [019ccf0][35423a6]
  • Removed the timestamp in Distro's desc [2d4d2ca]
  • Removed unused %opts argument from
    Perl6::World::load_module_early [bc764c2]
• Build system:
  • Replaced shell runner scripts with native executables
    [ed9b963][7ab1981][5366c4f][4b461bf][2c9c823][e0f84e0][637ba57]
    [1853eb9][9e63da4][7846144][787596d][5bc6269][4459364][bb7e609]
    [11c55fb][34162e9][9aec73a][134b1ba][8fac109][c4f33fc][afc79c2]
    [474997f][ef0bc23][c63c06e][40cc12a]
  • Made Rakudo relocatable on most platforms [b989882][e27c1ec][efa9f54]
    [171bb6e][a11e9ab][d76fe0a][aed2923][f20a2b6][98a0df6][ab96f1a]
    [f0915e9][e00c9ea][4ec400b][52b80c4][27adb55][ffaf3fc][a542ec9]
    [090f1c9][4a7c487][efb35b0][1add622][1d53897][e20dcc4][d3d4b2e]
    [65217aa][109ce1f][9917624][249c730][340f692][5a07a7f][8809b9c]
    [de42e71][cac95fb][0c8f269][96e8d4f][3fffe28][83f6256][65ed824]
    [3f0dfcd][f8ced49][3a4ebf3][75e234a][6c5be5e]
  • Revamped the whole build system [db5becf][c1c108f][bafa523][3627de6]
    [6d40290][2c4f7c7][9ce9809][c7b3bd7][2974076][d54fafc][7c20b9c]
    [2c25653][0299578][01e8b85][55ebbac][9ac5261][59d44cf][8784b21]
    [cc584b7][cf33f1a][7960454][b619b56][86fe3a0][825b678][38980f0]
    [4b48119][dd25002][6695777][7d2bb28][13d6504][0adb776][5404c2a]
    [c314acc][8d2fade][e91668a][5935b1d][f12a8c9][99c53c3][141bd4e]
    ...

Release 2019.03.1

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm announcing an
out-of-schedule release of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler.
Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Moar Virtual Machine¹.

This release is a point release in addition to the regular, monthly
releases. Rakudo 2019.03 (note: no .1) was discovered to have issues
on Windows where calling certain methods on $*KERNEL
(like $*KERNEL.bits) would throw instead of returning a proper
value. This release is for Windows users only: users on other systems
do not need to update, but are of course welcome to.

The tarball for this release is available from https://rakudo.org/files/rakudo.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution² — it’s announcing a new release of the compiler
only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
https://rakudo.org/files/star.

The changes in this release are outlined below:

New in 2019.03.1:

• Fixes:
  • Fixed issues with $*KERNEL on Windows [190a714][2f9d69c]

The following people contributed to this release:

Nick Logan, Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev

If you would like to contribute or find out more information, visit
https://perl6.org, https://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the
perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #perl6 on freenode.

Additionally, we invite you to make a donation to The Perl Foundation
to sponsor Perl 6 development: https://donate.perlfoundation.org/
(put “Perl 6 Core Development Fund” in the ‘Purpose’ text field)

The next release of Rakudo (#131), is tentatively scheduled for 2019-04-20.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback – get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language.
Not much more.

The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection
of useful Perl 6 modules, a module installer, Perl 6 introductory
documentation, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo
compiler to enhance its utility.

1. See http://moarvm.org/ ↩

2. What’s the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo
   Star distribution? ↩