OTP 20.0

Erlang/OTP 20.0

Erlang/OTP 20.0 is a new major release with new features, quite a few (characteristics) improvements, as well as a few incompatibilities.

There are only minor changes compared to the second release candidate, some of them listed below:

• ERTS:
  • In the OTP 20 release candidates the function erlang:term_to_binary/1 changed the encoding of all atoms from ATOM_EXT to ATOM_UTF8_EXT and SMALL_ATOM_UTF8_EXT. This is now changed so that only atoms actually containing unicode characters are encoded with the UTF8 tags while other atoms are encoded ATOM_EXT just as before.

Here are some of the most important news in OTP 20:

Potential Incompatibilities

• ERTS:

  • The non SMP Erlang VM is deprecated and not built by default
  • Remove deprecated erlang:hash/2
  • erlang:statistics/1 with scheduler_wall_time now also includes info about dirty CPU schedulers.
  • The new purge strategy introduced in OTP 19.1 is mandatory and slightly incompatible for processes holding funs
    see erlang:check_process_code/3.
  • The NIF library reload is not supported anymore.
  • Atoms can now contain arbitrary unicode characters which means that the DFLAG_UTF8_ATOMS capability in the distribution protocol must be supported if an OTP 20 node should accept the connection with another node or library. Third party libraries which uses the distribution protocol need to be updated with this.

• Asn1: Deprecated module and functions removed (asn1rt, asn1ct:encode/3 and decode/3)

• Ssh: client only option in a call to start a daemon will now fail

Highlights

Erts:

• Dirty schedulers enabled and supported on VM with SMP support.
• support for “dirty” BIFs and “dirty” GC.
• erlang:garbage_collect/2 for control of minor or major GC
• Erlang literals are no longer copied when sending messages.
• Improved performance for large ETS tables, >256 entries (except ordered_set)
• erlang:system_info/1 atom_count and atom_limit
• Reduced memory pressure by converting sub-binaries to heap-binaries during GC
• enif_select, map an external event to message
• Improvements of timers internally in the VM resulting in reduced memory consumption and more efficient administration for timers

Compiler:

• Code generation for complicated guards is improved.
• Warnings for repeated identical map keys. #{'a'=>1, 'b'=>2, 'a'=>3} will warn for the repeated key a.
• By default there is now a warning when export_all is used. Can be disabled
• Pattern matching for maps is optimized
• New option deterministic to omit path to source + options info the BEAM file.
• Atoms may now contain arbitrary unicode characters.
• compile:file/2 has an option to include extra chunks in the BEAM file.

Misc other applications

• Significantly updated string module with unicode support and many new functions
• crypto now supports OpenSSL 1.1
• Unnamed ets tables optimized
• gen_fsm is deprecated and replaced by gen_statem
• A new event manager to handle a subset of OS signals in Erlang
• Optimized sets add_element, del_element and union
• Added rand:jump/0-1
• When a gen_server crashes, the stacktrace for the client will be printed to facilitate debugging.
• take/2 has been added to dict, orddict, and gb_trees.
• take_any/2 has been added to gb_trees
• erl_tar support for long path names and new file formats
• asn1: the new maps option changes the representation of SEQUENCE to be maps instead of records
• A TLS client will by default call public_key:pkix_verify_hostname/2 to verify the hostname
• ssl: DTLS documented in the API, experimental
• ssh: improving security, removing and adding algorithms
• New math:fmod/2

For more details see
http://erlang.org/download/otp_src_20.0.readme

Pre built versions for Windows can be fetched here:
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win32_20.0.exe
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win64_20.0.exe

On line documentation can be browsed here:
www.erlang.org/doc/

Thanks to all contributors.

OTP 20.0 Release Candidate 2

OTP 20 Release Candidate 2

This is the second of two release candidates before the OTP 20 release. The intention with this release is that you as users try it and give us feedback if something does not work as expected. Could be a bug, an unexpected incompatibility, a significant change of characteristics in negative direction, etc.

There are only minor changes compared to the first release candidate, some of them listed below:

• erts: ./configure --enable-lock-counter will enable building of an additional emulator that has support for
  lock counting. (The option previously existed, but would turn on lock counting in the default emulator
  being built.) To start the lock-counting emulator, use erl -emu_type lcnt.
• kernel: Added the process_flag message_queue_data = off_heap to the code_server process in order to
  improve characteristics during code upgrade, which can generate a huge amount of messages.

Here are some of the most important news in OTP 20 (same as in RC1):

Potential Incompatibilities

• ERTS:

  • The non SMP Erlang VM is deprecated and not built by default
  • Remove deprecated erlang:hash/2
  • erlang:statistics/1 with scheduler_wall_time now also includes info about dirty CPU schedulers.
  • The new purge strategy introduced in OTP 19.1 is mandatory and slightly incompatible for processes holding funs
    see erlang:check_process_code/3.
  • The NIF library reload is not supported anymore.

• Asn1: Deprecated module and functions removed (asn1rt, asn1ct:encode/3 and decode/3)

• Ssh: client only option in a call to start a daemon will now fail

Highlights

Erts:

• Dirty schedulers enabled and supported on VM with SMP support.
• support for “dirty” BIFs and “dirty” GC.
• erlang:garbage_collect/2 for control of minor or major GC
• Erlang literals are no longer copied when sending messages.
• Improved performance for large ETS tables, >256 entries (except ordered_set)
• erlang:system_info/1 atom_count and atom_limit
• Reduced memory pressure by converting sub-binaries to heap-binaries during GC
• enif_select, map an external event to message

Compiler:

• Code generation for complicated guards is improved.
• Warnings for repeated identical map keys. #{'a'=>1, 'b'=>2, 'a'=>3} will warn for the repeated key a.
• By default there is now a warning when export_all is used. Can be disabled
• Pattern matching for maps is optimized
• New option deterministic to omit path to source + options info the BEAM file.
• Atoms may now contain arbitrary unicode characters.
• compile:file/2 has an option to include extra chunks in the BEAM file.

Misc other applications

• Unnamed ets tables optimized
• A new event manager to handle a subset of OS signals in Erlang
• Optimized sets add_element, del_element and union
• Added rand:jump/0-1
• When a gen_server crashes, the stacktrace for the client will be printed to facilitate debugging.
• take/2 has been added to dict, orddict, and gb_trees.
• take_any/2 has been added to gb_trees
• Significantly updated string module with unicode support
• erl_tar support for long path names and new file formats
• Dtls: Documented API, experimental
• SSH: improving security, removing and adding algorithms
• New math:fmod/2

For more details see
http://erlang.org/download/otp_src_20.0-rc2.readme

Per built versions for Windows can be fetched here:
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win32_20.0-rc2.exe
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win64_20.0-rc2.exe

On line documentation can be browsed here:
www.erlang.org/documentation/doc-9.0-rc2/doc/

Thanks to all contributors.

OTP 20.0 Release Candidate 1

OTP 20 Release Candidate 1

This is the first of two release candidates before the OTP 20 release. The intention with this release is that you as users try it and give us feedback if something does not work as expected. Could be a bug, an unexpected incompatibility, a significant change of characteristics in negative direction, etc.

Here are some of the most important news:

Potential Incompatibilities

• ERTS:

  • The non SMP Erlang VM is deprecated and not built by default
  • Remove deprecated erlang:hash/2
  • erlang:statistics/1 with scheduler_wall_time now also includes info about dirty CPU schedulers.
  • The new purge strategy introduced in OTP 19.1 is mandatory and slightly incompatible for processes holding funs
    see erlang:check_process_code/3.
  • The NIF library reload is not supported anymore.

• Asn1: Deprecated module and functions removed (asn1rt, asn1ct:encode/3 and decode/3)

• Ssh: client only option in a call to start a daemon will now fail

Highlights

Erts:

• Dirty schedulers enabled and supported on VM with SMP support.
• support for “dirty” BIFs and “dirty” GC.
• erlang:garbage_collect/2 for control of minor or major GC
• Erlang literals are no longer copied when sending messages.
• Improved performance for large ETS tables, >256 entries (except ordered_set)
• erlang:system_info/1 atom_count and atom_limit
• Reduced memory pressure by converting sub-binaries to heap-binaries during GC
• enif_select, map an external event to message

Compiler:

• Code generation for complicated guards is improved.
• Warnings for repeated identical map keys. #{'a'=>1, 'b'=>2, 'a'=>3} will warn for the repeated key a.
• By default there is now a warning when export_all is used. Can be disabled
• Pattern matching for maps is optimized
• New option deterministic to omit path to source + options info the BEAM file.
• Atoms may now contain arbitrary unicode characters.
• compile:file/2 has an option to include extra chunks in the BEAM file.

Misc other applications

• Unnamed ets tables optimized
• A new event manager to handle a subset of OS signals in Erlang
• Optimized sets add_element, del_element and union
• Added rand:jump/0-1
• When a gen_server crashes, the stacktrace for the client will be printed to facilitate debugging.
• take/2 has been added to dict, orddict, and gb_trees.
• take_any/2 has been added to gb_trees
• Significantly updated string module with unicode support
• erl_tar support for long path names and new file formats
• Dtls: Documented API, experimental
• SSH: improving security, removing and adding algorithms
• New math:fmod/2

For more details see
http://erlang.org/download/otp_src_20.0-rc1.readme

Per built versions for Windows can be fetched here:
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win32_20.0-rc1.exe
http://erlang.org/download/otp_win64_20.0-rc1.exe

On line documentation can be browsed here:
www.erlang.org/documentation/doc-9.0-rc1/doc/

Thanks to all contributors.

OTP 19.3

Erlang/OTP 19.3 is the third service release for the 19 major release.
The service release contains mostly bug fixes and characteristics improvements but also some new features.

Some highlights for 19.3

• crypto, ssh: The implementation of the key exchange algorithms
  diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha* are optimized, up to
  a factor of 11 for the slowest ( = biggest and safest)
  group size.

• dialyzer: The peak memory consumption is reduced.
  Analyzing modules with binary construction with huge
  strings is now much faster.

• erts: A received SIGTERM signal to beam will generate a
  'stop' message to the init process and terminate the
  Erlang VM nicely. This is equivalent to calling
  init:stop/0.

• kernel: The functions in the file module that take a list of
  paths (e.g. file:path_consult/2) will now continue to
  search in the path if the path contains something that
  is not a directory.

• kernel: Two OTP processes that are known to receive many
  messages are rex (used by rpc) and error_logger.
  Those processes will now store unprocessed messages
  outside the process heap, which will potentially
  decrease the cost of garbage collections.

• public_key: New function pkix_verify_hostname/2,3 implements
  certificate hostname checking. See the manual and RFC 6125.

• public_key, ssh: The ssh host key fingerprint generation now also takes
  a list of algorithms and returns a list of
  corresponding fingerprints. See
  public_key:ssh_hostkey_fingerprint/2 and the option
  silently_accept_hosts in ssh:connect.

• ssl: Move PEM cache to a dedicated process, to avoid making
  the SSL manager process a bottleneck. This improves
  scalability of TLS connections.

• stdlib: filename:safe_relative_path/1 to sanitize a relative
  path has been added.

• Thanks to more than 20 different contributors

You can find the README and the full listing of changes for this service release at

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.3.readme

The source distribution and binary distributions for Windows can be
downloaded from

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.3.tar.gz
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win32_19.3.exe
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win64_19.3.exe

Note: To unpack the TAR archive you need a GNU TAR compatible program.

For installation instructions please consult the README file that is part
of the distribution.

The Erlang/OTP source can also be found at GitHub on the official Erlang
repository, https://github.com/erlang/otp with tag OTP-19.3

The on-line documentation can be found at: http://www.erlang.org/doc/
You can also download the complete HTML documentation or the Unix manual files

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_html_19.3.tar.gz
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_man_19.3.tar.gz

Please report any new issues via Erlang/OTPs public issue tracker

https://bugs.erlang.org

We want to thank all of those who sent us patches, suggestions and bug reports!

Thank you!

The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson

OTP 19.2

Erlang/OTP 19.2 is the second service release for the 19 major release.
The service release contains mostly bug fixes and characteristics improvements.

Some highlights for 19.2

• STDLIB: The new behaviour gen_statem has been improved with 3 new
  features: the possibility to use old style non-proxy timeouts
  for gen_statem:call/2,3, state entry code, and state
  timeouts. These are backwards compatible. Minor code and
  documentation improvements has been performed including a
  borderline semantics correction of timeout zero handling.
• SSL: Experimental version of DTLS. It is runnable but not complete
  and cannot be considered reliable for production usage. To use
  DTLS add the option {protocol, dtls} to ssl:connect and ssl:listen.
• SSH: Extended the option silently_accept_hosts for ssh:connect to
  make it possible for the client to check the SSH host key
  fingerprint string. Se the reference manual for SSH.
• ~40 contributions since the previous service release OTP 19.1

You can find the README and the full listing of changes for this service release at

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.2.readme

The source distribution and binary distributions for Windows can be
downloaded from

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.2.tar.gz
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win32_19.2.exe
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win64_19.2.exe

Note: To unpack the TAR archive you need a GNU TAR compatible program.

For installation instructions please consult the README file that is part
of the distribution.

The Erlang/OTP source can also be found at GitHub on the official Erlang
repository, https://github.com/erlang/otp with tag OTP-19.2

The on-line documentation can be found at: http://www.erlang.org/doc/
You can also download the complete HTML documentation or the Unix manual files

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_html_19.2.tar.gz
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_man_19.2.tar.gz

Please report any new issues via Erlang/OTPs public issue tracker

https://bugs.erlang.org

We want to thank all of those who sent us patches, suggestions and bug reports!

Thank you!

The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson

OTP 19.1

Erlang/OTP 19.1 is a service release on the 19 track with mostly bug fixes,
but is does contain a number of new features and characteristics improvements
as well.

Some highlights of the release are:

• erts: Improved dirty scheduler support. A purge of a module will not have to wait for completion of all ongoing dirty NIF calls.
• erts: Improved accuracy of timeouts on MacOS X.
• kernel: Add net_kernel:setopts/2 and net_kernel:getopts/2 to control options for distribution sockets in runtime.
• asn1: Compiling multiple ASN.1 modules in the same directory with parallel make (make -j) should now be safe.
• httpd: support for PUT and DELETE in mod_esi
• ~30 contributions since 19.0

You can find the Release Notes with more detailed info at

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.1.readme

You can download the full source distribution from http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.1.tar.gz

Note: To unpack the TAR archive you need a GNU TAR compatible program. For installation instructions please read the README that is part of the distribution.

You can also find the source code at github.com in the official Erlang repository. Git tag OTP-19.1
https://github.com/erlang/otp/tree/OTP-19.1

The Windows binary distributions can be downloaded from

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win32_19.1.exe
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win64_19.1.exe

You can also download the complete HTML documentation or the Unix manual files

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_html_19.1.tar.gz
http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_man_19.1.tar.gz

You can also read the documentation on-line here:
(see the Release Notes mentioned above for release notes which
are not updated in the doc, but the new functionality is)

http://www.erlang.org/doc/

We also want to thank those that sent us patches, suggestions and bug reports.

If you find bugs in Erlang/OTP report them via the public issue tracker at http://bugs.erlang.org

The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson

OTP 19.0

Erlang/OTP 19.0 has been released

Erlang/OTP 19.0 is a new major release with new features, quite a few (characteristics) improvements, as well as a few incompatibilities.

Some highlights of the release are:

• compiler, stdlib:
  • New preprocessor macros ?FUNCTION_NAME, ?FUNCTION_ARITY
  • New preprocessor directives -error(Term) and -warning(Term) to cause a compilation error or warning, respectively.
• gen_statem a new state machine behavior
• mnesia_ext: plugin of external storage solutions to mnesia
• crypto: uses EVP interface in OpenSSL resulting in generally better performance and support for HW acceleration
• ssh: performance improvements, uses the new gen_statem behavior
• ssl: enhanced error log messages
• dialyzer: the support for maps is very much extended both the type specification syntax and the type analysis.
• erts:
  • erlang:open_port(spawn, ...) 3-5 times faster
  • tracing, extensive improvements (scalability, speed, match specifications on send/receive, support for lttng, ...)
  • dirty schedulers improved
  • per process configurable handling of message_queue
  • fast loading of multiple modules
  • max_heap_size process flag
• erts/kernel:
  Experimental support for Unix Domain Sockets
  Example: gen_udp:open(0, [{ifaddr,{local,"/tmp/socket"}}])
• and much more ....

You can find the Release Notes with more detailed info at

http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_19.0.readme

You find the source code at github.com in the official Erlang repository.

Git tag OTP-19.0

https://github.com/erlang/otp/tree/OTP-19.0

You can also read the documentation on-line here:
(see the Release Notes mentioned above for release notes which
are not updated in the doc, but the new functionality is)

http://www.erlang.org/doc

We also want to thank all of you that have contributed with new features, bug-fixes, suggestions and bug reports.

The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson

OTP 19.0 Release Candidate 2

OTP-19.0-rc2

OTP 19 Release Candidate 2

OTP 19.0 Release Candidate 1

Erlang/OTP 19.0-rc1 is available for testing.

This is the release candidate before the final OTP 19.0 product release in June 2016.

Between the 19.0 rc1 and the final release there will be new updates of
the master branch with corrections and minor new features.
Occasionally there might be new tags which we in that
case will communicate and ask you to test.

Erlang/OTP 19.0 is a new major release with new features, quite a few (characteristics) improvements, as well as a few incompatibilities.

See the Release Notes and the documentation for more details.

We would like to ask you to build and test this release candidate and send us
your feedback as soon as possible, so that we can make the necessary
corrections before OTP 19.0.

The release contains many changes; thus, some unexpected incompatibilities
or issues may have slipped through our tests.
Please try to build and run your current products/applications and let us
know about any problems.

Some highlights of the release are:

• compiler, stdlib:
  • New preprocessor macros ?FUNCTION_NAME, ?FUNCTION_ARITY
  • New preprocessor directives -error(Term) and -warning(Term) to cause a compilation error or warning, respectively.
• gen_statem a new state machine behavior
• mnesia_ext: plugin of external storage solutions to mnesia
• crypto: uses EVP interface in OpenSSL resulting in generally better performance and support for HW acceleration
• ssh: performance improvements, uses the new gen_statem behavior
• dialyzer: the support for maps is very much extended both the type specification syntax and the type analysis.
• erts:
  • erlang:open_port(spawn, ...) 3-5 times faster
  • tracing, extensive improvements (scalability, speed, match specifications on send/receive, support for lttng, ...)
  • dirty schedulers improved
  • per process configurable handling of message_queue
  • fast loading of multiple modules
  • max_heap_size process flag
  • and much more ....

You can find the Release Notes with more detailed info at

http://www.erlang.org/download/OTP-19.0-rc1.README

You find the source code at github.com in the official Erlang repository.

Git tag OTP-19.0-rc1

https://github.com/erlang/otp/tree/OTP-19.0-rc1

You can also read the documentation on-line here:
(see the Release Notes mentioned above for release notes which
are not updated in the doc, but the new functionality is)

http://www.erlang.org/documentation/doc-8.0-rc1/doc/

We also want to thank all of you that have contributed with new features, bug-fixes, suggestions and bug reports.

The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson