Release 1.14.0

_releases/2024-10-09-1.14.0-released.md

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+---
+title: Crystal 1.14.0 is released!
+version: 1.14.0
+date: 2024-10-09
+author: straight-shoota
+---
+We are announcing a new Crystal release with several new features and bug fixes.
+
+Pre-built packages are available on [GitHub Releases](https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/releases/tag/1.14.0)
+and our official distribution channels.
+See [crystal-lang.org/install](https://crystal-lang.org/install/) for
+installation instructions.
+
+## Stats
+
+This release includes [134 changes since 1.13.3](https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pulls?q=is%3Apr+milestone%3A1.14.0)
+by 13 contributors. We thank all the contributors for all the effort put into
+improving the language! ❤️
+
+## Advances in multi-threading support
+
+The [project to improve multi-threading support](/2024/02/09/84codes-manas-mt) with the help of [84codes] is still ongoing.
+This release doesn't include any big changes. There are a couple of smaller concurrency improvements, though.
+
+We expect to roll out a major performance upgrade to the event loop for the 1.15 development cycle.
+See [New Event Loop (UNIX): call for reviews & tests](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/new-event-loop-unix-call-for-reviews-tests/7207)
+for a heads up.
+
+The upcoming execution contexts API from [RFC 2](https://github.com/crystal-lang/rfcs/pull/2) is available as a standalone shard for testing:
+[`ysbaddaden/execution_context`](https://github.com/ysbaddaden/execution_context).
+
+## Changes
+
+Below we list the most remarkable changes in the language, compiler and stdlib.
+For more details, visit the [full changelog](https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/releases/tag/1.14.0).
+
+### Breaking
+
+⚠️ [`Slice#[start, count]`][slice_accessor] now accepts a negative index for `start`, like similar methods already do.
+This would break existing code that depends on the current behaviour that a negative start index raises `IndexError` ([#14778]).
+
+[slice_accessor]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Slice.html#%5B%5D%28start%3AInt%2Ccount%3AInt%29%3ASlice%28T%29-instance-method
+[#14778]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14778
+
+⚠️ Finalizers for [`Socket`] and [`IO::FileDescriptor`] do no longer flush.
+We realized that flushing is too heavy for a finalizer, as it might involve the event loop and even memory allocations which must be strictly avoided in a finalizer.
+Be sure to always flush before letting a stream go out of scope, ideally with an explicit `#close` ([#14882]).
+
+[`Socket`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Socket.html
+[`IO::FileDescriptor`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/IO/FileDescriptor.html
+[#14882]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14882
+
+⚠️ [`XML::Error.errors`] had been deprecated since [1.7.0](/_releases/2023-01-09-1.7.0-released.md), but continued to work.
+This unconditioned availability causes a serious memory leak, which cannot be fixed without disabling `XML::Error.errors`.
+In order to make this obvious, calling the method causes a compile time error now. ([#14936]).
+
+[`XML::Error.errors`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/XML/Error.html#errors:Array(XML::Error)|Nil-class-method
+[#14936]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14936
+
+⚠️ `Hash::Entry` has been removed from public API docs. It was never intended to be a public type. ([#14881]).
+
+[#14881]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14881
+
+*Thanks [@ysbaddaden], [@straight-shoota] and [@Blacksmoke16]*
+
+### Language features
+
+Allow `^` in constant numeric expressions ([#14951]). This operator was oddly missing even though `|` and `&` were already supported.
+
+*Thanks [@HertzDevil]*
+
+[#14951]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14951
+
+`HashLiteral` and `NamedTupleLiteral` respond to `#has_key?`, just like their regular counterparts `Hash` and `NamedTuple` ([#14890]).
+
+*Thanks [@kamil-gwozdz]*
+
+[#14890]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14890
+
+### Standard library
+
+The [`WaitGroup`] concurrency primitive gains some convenience methods,
+[`WaitGroup.wait`] and [`WaitGroup#spawn`] ([#14837]).
+
+```crystal
+require "wait_group"
+WaitGroup.wait do |wg|
+  10.times do
+    wg.spawn do
+      sleep 5.seconds
+    end
+  end
+end
+```
+
+*Thanks [@jgaskins]*
+
+[`WaitGroup`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/WaitGroup.html
+[`WaitGroup.wait`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/WaitGroup.html#wait%3ANil-instance-method
+[`WaitGroup#spawn`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/WaitGroup.html#spawn%28%26block%29%3AFiber-instance-method
+[#14837]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14837
+
+There are two new methods for working with slices: [`Slice#same?`] checks
+if two slices point to the same memory ([#14728]).
+And [`Pointer::Appender#to_slice`] ([#14874]) makes it easy to create a slice
+containing the items from an appender.
+
+[`Slice#same?`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Slice.html#same?(other:self):Bool-instance-method
+[`Pointer::Appender#to_slice`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Pointer/Appender.html#to_slice:Slice(T)-instance-method
+[#14728]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14728
+[#14874]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14874
+
+*Thanks [@straight-shoota]*
+
+A minor fix turning an eager class getter into a lazy one avoids linking `libpcre`
+for programs that do not use `Regex` ([#14891]).
+
+*Thanks [@kojix2]*
+
+[#14891]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14891
+
+### Windows
+
+Windows support is making good progress.
+
+The interpreter runs on Windows ([#14964]). There is still a limitation:
+networking does not work due to [#12495].
+
+And the compiler can now target ARM64 Windows, i.e. `aarch64-windows-msvc`.
+It's not 100% polished, but looking pretty well. Read [#14911] for details on how to test it out.
+Currently we still need to cross-compile because the compiler itself does not run on ARM64 Windows yet.
+
+Starting with this release, DNS requests resolve asynchronously on Windows ([#14979]).
+It's actually the first platform to support that.
+
+There are also a number of improvements regarding non-blocking IO:
+
+- Support non-blocking `File#read` and `#write` ([#14940]), `File#read_at` ([#14958]), `Process.run` standard streams ([#14941]), `IO::FileDescriptor#flock_*` ([#14943]).
+- Emulate non-blocking `STDIN` console ([#14947]).
+- Open non-blocking regular files as overlapped ([#14921]).
+
+And we add implementations of `System::User` ([#14933]) and `System::Group` on Windows ([#14945]).
+
+*Thanks [@HertzDevil]*
+
+[#14911]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14911
+[#14921]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14921
+[#14940]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14940
+[#14958]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14958
+[#14941]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14941
+[#14943]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14943
+[#14947]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14947
+[#14979]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14979
+[#14933]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14933
+[#14945]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14945
+[#14964]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14964
+[#12495]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/issues/12495
+
+### `URI::Params`
+
+[`URI::Params::Serializable`] is a new serialization API which works similar to
+the JSON and YAML variants, but for the URI query parameters format ([#14684]).
+
+```crystal
+require "uri/params/serializable"
+
+record Applicant,
+  first_name : String
+  last_name : String
+  qualities : Array(String) do
+  include URI::Params::Serializable
+end
+
+applicant = Applicant.from_www_form "first_name=John&last_name=Doe&qualities=kind&qualities=smart"
+applicant # => Applicant(@first_name="John", @last_name="Doe", @qualities=["kind", "smart"])
+applicant.to_www_form # => "first_name=John&last_name=Doe&qualities=kind&qualities=smart"
+```
+
+[`URI::Params::Serializable`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/URI/Params/Serializable.html
+
+*Thanks [@Blacksmoke16]*
+
+In a related matter, `URI` is now applicable as a key in JSON objects via [`URI.from_json_object_key?`] ([#14834]).
+
+*Thanks [@nobodywasishere]*
+
+[`URI.from_json_object_key?`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/URI.html#from_json_object_key%3F%28key%3AString%29%3AURI%7CNil-class-method
+
+[#14834]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14834
+[#14684]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14684
+
+### Compiler tools
+
+The compiler binary can now execute external programs as subcommands:
+`crystal foo` tries to run `crystal-foo` if `foo` is not an internal command.
+This allows us to split the compiler binary into separate executables which helps
+improve iteration speed ([#14953]).
+
+*Thanks [@bcardiff]*
+
+[#14953]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14953
+
+### Performance
+
+This release includes some minor performance improvements, particularly in the
+compiler ([#14748], [#14992], [#15002]).
+
+*Thanks [@ysbaddaden], [@HertzDevil], [@ggiraldez]*
+
+[#15002]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/15002
+[#14992]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14992
+[#14748]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14748
+
+### Dependency Updates
+
+- `LibCrypto` bindings now support LibreSSL 3.5+ ([#14872]).
+- Support for Unicode 16.0.0 ([#14997]).
+- Support for LLVM 19.1 ([#14842])
+
+*Thanks [@straight-shoota], [@HertzDevil]*
+
+[#14842]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14842
+[#14872]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14872
+[#14997]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14997
+
+## Deprecations
+
+[`Pointer.new(Int)`] was deprecated in favour of `Pointer.new(UInt64)` ([#14875]).
+Deprecation warnings for argument type that autocast to `UInt64` can be ignored
+or disabled by explicitly casting to `UInt64`.
+
+*Thanks [@straight-shoota]*
+
+[`Pointer.new(Int)`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Pointer.html#new(address:Int)-class-method
+[#14875]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14875
+
+We updated a couple of APIs that receive a time span argument.
+[`Benchmark.ips`] ([#14805]) and [`::sleep`] ([#14962]) now explicitly require
+[`Time::Span`]. The overloads with `Number` are deprecated.
+You can convert bare numbers with [`Int#seconds`] to use the valid overload.
+
+*Thanks [@HertzDevil]*
+
+[#14805]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14805
+[#14962]: https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/14962
+[`Benchmark.ips`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Benchmark.html#ips%28calculation%3ATime%3A%3ASpan%3D5.seconds%2Cwarmup%3ATime%3A%3ASpan%3D2.seconds%2Cinteractive%3ABool%3DSTDOUT.tty%3F%2C%26%29-instance-method
+[`::sleep`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/toplevel.html#sleep%28time%3ATime%3A%3ASpan%29%3ANil-class-method
+[`Time::Span`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Time/Span.html
+[`Int#seconds`]: https://crystal-lang.org/api/1.14.0/Int.html#seconds:Time::Span-instance-method
+---
+
+> **THANKS:**
+> We have been able to do all of this thanks to the continued support of [84codes](https://www.84codes.com/) and every other [sponsor](/sponsors).
+> To maintain and increase the development pace, donations and sponsorships are
+> essential. [OpenCollective](https://opencollective.com/crystal-lang) is
+> available for that.
+>
+> Reach out to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
+> if you’d like to become a direct sponsor or find other ways to support Crystal.
+> We thank you in advance!
+
+[@bcardiff]: https://github.com/bcardiff
+[@Blacksmoke16]: https://github.com/Blacksmoke16
+[@ggiraldez]: https://github.com/ggiraldez
+[@HertzDevil]: https://github.com/HertzDevil
+[@jgaskins]: https://github.com/jgaskins
+[@kamil-gwozdz]: https://github.com/kamil-gwozdz
+[@kojix2]: https://github.com/kojix2
+[@nobodywasishere]: https://github.com/nobodywasishere
+[@straight-shoota]: https://github.com/straight-shoota
+[@ysbaddaden]: https://github.com/ysbaddaden
+[84codes]: https://www.84codes.com/