Elixir v1.16 released
Elixir v1.16 has just been released. 🎉
The Elixir team continues improving the developer experience via tooling, documentation, and precise feedback, while keeping the language stable and compatible.
The notable improvements in this release are the addition of compiler diagnostics and extensive improvements to our docs in the forms of guides, anti-patterns, diagrams and more.
Code snippets in diagnostics
Elixir v1.15 introduced a new compiler diagnostic format and the ability to print multiple error diagnostics per compilation (in addition to multiple warnings).
With Elixir v1.16, we also include code snippets in exceptions and diagnostics raised by the compiler, including ANSI coloring on supported terminals. For example, a syntax error now includes a pointer to where the error happened:
** (SyntaxError) invalid syntax found on lib/my_app.ex:1:17:
error: syntax error before: '*'
│
1 │ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, *]
│ ^
│
└─ lib/my_app.ex:1:17
For mismatched delimiters, it now shows both delimiters:
** (MismatchedDelimiterError) mismatched delimiter found on lib/my_app.ex:1:18:
error: unexpected token: )
│
1 │ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
│ │ └ mismatched closing delimiter (expected "]")
│ └ unclosed delimiter
│
└─ lib/my_app.ex:1:18
For unclosed delimiters, it now shows where the unclosed delimiter starts:
** (TokenMissingError) token missing on lib/my_app:8:23:
error: missing terminator: )
│
1 │ my_numbers = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
│ └ unclosed delimiter
...
8 │ IO.inspect(my_numbers)
│ └ missing closing delimiter (expected ")")
│
└─ lib/my_app:8:23
Errors and warnings diagnostics also include code snippets. When possible, we will show precise spans, such as on undefined variables:
error: undefined variable "unknown_var"
│
5 │ a - unknown_var
│ ^^^^^^^^^^^
│
└─ lib/sample.ex:5:9: Sample.foo/1
Otherwise the whole line is underlined:
error: function names should start with lowercase characters or underscore, invalid name CamelCase
│
3 │ def CamelCase do
│ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
│
└─ lib/sample.ex:3
A huge thank you to Vinícius Müller for working on the new diagnostics.
Revamped documentation
The ExDoc package provides Elixir developers with one of the most complete and robust documentation generator. It supports API references, tutorials, cheatsheets, and more.
However, because many of the language tutorials and reference documentation were written before ExDoc, they were maintained separately as part of the official website, separate from the language source code. With Elixir v1.16, we have moved our learning material to the language repository. This provides several benefits:
-
Tutorials are versioned alongside their relevant Elixir version
-
You get full-text search across all API reference and tutorials
-
ExDoc will autolink module and function names in tutorials to their relevant API documentation
Another feature we have incorporated in this release is the addition of cheatsheets, starting with a cheatsheet for the Enum module. If you would like to contribute future cheatsheets to Elixir itself, feel free to start a discussion and collect feedback on the Elixir Forum.
Finally, we have started enriching our documentation with Mermaid.js diagrams. You can find examples in the GenServer and Supervisor docs.
Elixir has always been praised by its excellent documentation and we are glad to continue to raise the bar for the whole ecosystem.
Living anti-patterns reference
Elixir v1.16 incorporates and extends the work on Understanding Code Smells in Elixir Functional Language, by Lucas Vegi and Marco Tulio Valente, from ASERG/DCC/UFMG, into the official documention in the form of anti-patterns. Our goal is to provide examples of potential pitfalls for library and application developers, with additional context and guidance on how to improve their codebases.
In earlier versions, Elixir’s official reference for library authors included a list of anti-patterns for library developers. Lucas Vegi and Marco Tulio Valente extended and refined this list based on the existing literature, articles, and community input (including feedback based on their prevalence in actual codebases).
To incorporate the anti-patterns into the language, we trimmed the list down to keep only anti-patterns which are unambiguous and actionable, and divided them into four categories: code-related, design-related, process-related, and meta-programming. Then we collected more community feedback during the release candidate period, further refining and removing unclear guidance.
We are quite happy with the current iteration of anti-patterns but this is just the beginning. As they become available to the whole community, we expect to receive more input, questions, and concerns. We will continue listening and improving, as our ultimate goal is to provide a live reference that reflects the practices of the ecosystem, rather than a document that is written in stone and ultimately gets out of date. A perfect example of this is the recent addition of “Sending unnecessary data” anti-pattern, which was contributed by the community and describes a pitfall that may happen across codebases.
Type system updates
As we get Elixir v1.16 out of door, the Elixir team will focus on bringing the initial core for set-theoretic types into the Elixir compiler, with the goal of running automated analysis in patterns and guards. This is the first step outlined in a previous article and is sponsored by Fresha (they are hiring!), Starfish* (they are hiring!), and Dashbit.
Learn more
Other notable changes in this release are:
-
the addition of
String.replace_invalid/2, to help deal with invalid UTF-8 encoding -
the addition of the
:limitoption inTask.yield_many/2that limits the maximum number of tasks to yield -
improved binary pattern matching by allowing prefix binary matches, such as
<<^prefix::binary, rest::binary>>
For a complete list of all changes, see the full release notes.
Check the Install section to get Elixir installed and read our Getting Started guide to learn more.
Happy learning!
