# What's Changed?
- Code refactoring with a new clang-format
- More bug fixes / test case fixes in the new solver
## New Solver
- More precise telemetry collection of `any` types
- Simplification of two completely disjoint tables combines them into a
single table that inherits all properties / indexers
- Refining a `never & <anything>` does not produce type family types nor
constraints
- Silence "inference failed to complete" error when it is the only error
reported
---
### Internal Contributors
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Dibri Nsofor <dnsofor@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Jeremy Yoo <jyoo@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh Vijay <vvijay@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh <vvijay@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: David Cope <dcope@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
# What's changed?
* Luau allocation scheme was changed to handle allocations in 513-1024
byte range internally without falling back to global allocator
* coroutine/thread creation no longer requires any global allocations,
making it up to 15% faster (vs libc malloc)
* table construction for 17-32 keys or 33-64 array elements is up to 30%
faster (vs libc malloc)
### New Type Solver
* Cyclic unary negation type families are reduced to `number` when
possible
* Class types are skipped when searching for free types in unifier to
improve performance
* Fixed issues with table type inference when metatables are present
* Improved inference of iteration loop types
* Fixed an issue with bidirectional inference of method calls
* Type simplification will now preserve error suppression markers
### Native Code Generation
* Fixed TAG_VECTOR skip optimization to not break instruction use counts
(broken optimization wasn't included in 614)
* Fixed missing side-effect when optimizing generic loop preparation
instruction
---
### Internal Contributors
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh <vvijay@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: David Cope <dcope@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
# What's changed?
* Check interrupt handler inside the pattern match engine to eliminate
potential for programs to hang during string library function execution.
* Allow iteration over table properties to pass the old type solver.
### Native Code Generation
* Use in-place memory operands for math library operations on x64.
* Replace opaque bools with separate enum classes in IrDump to improve
code maintainability.
* Translate operations on inferred vectors to IR.
* Enable support for debugging native-compiled functions in Roblox
Studio.
### New Type Solver
* Rework type inference for boolean and string literals to introduce
bounded free types (bounded below by the singleton type, and above by
the primitive type) and reworked primitive type constraint to decide
which is the appropriate type for the literal.
* Introduce `FunctionCheckConstraint` to handle bidirectional
typechecking for function calls, pushing the expected parameter types
from the function onto the arguments.
* Introduce `union` and `intersect` type families to compute deferred
simplified unions and intersections to be employed by the constraint
generation logic in the new solver.
* Implement support for expanding the domain of local types in
`Unifier2`.
* Rework type inference for iteration variables bound by for in loops to
use local types.
* Change constraint blocking logic to use a set to prevent accidental
re-blocking.
* Add logic to detect missing return statements in functions.
### Internal Contributors
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh <vvijay@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: David Cope <dcope@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
# What's changed?
- Record the location of properties for table types (closes#802)
- Implement stricter UTF-8 validations as per the RFC
(https://github.com/luau-lang/rfcs/pull/1)
- Implement `buffer` as a new type in both the old and new solvers.
- Changed errors produced by some `buffer` builtins to be a bit more
generic to avoid platform-dependent error messages.
- Fixed a bug where `Unifier` would copy some persistent types, tripping
some internal assertions.
- Type checking rules on relational operators is now a little bit more
lax.
- Improve dead code elimination for some `if` statements with complex
always-false conditions
## New type solver
- Dataflow analysis now generates phi nodes on exit of branches.
- Dataflow analysis avoids producing a new definition for locals or
properties that are not owned by that loop.
- If a function parameter has been constrained to `never`, report errors
at all uses of that parameter within that function.
- Switch to using the new `Luau::Set` to replace `std::unordered_set` to
alleviate some poor allocation characteristics which was negatively
affecting overall performance.
- Subtyping can now report many failing reasons instead of just the
first one that we happened to find during the test.
- Subtyping now also report reasons for type pack mismatches.
- When visiting `if` statements or expressions, the resulting context
are the common terms in both branches.
## Native codegen
- Implement support for `buffer` builtins to its IR for x64 and A64.
- Optimized `table.insert` by not inserting a table barrier if it is
fastcalled with a constant.
## Internal Contributors
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
## What's changed
- `bit32.byteswap` added
([RFC](4f543ec23b/docs/function-bit32-byteswap.md))
- Buffer library implementation
([RFC](4f543ec23b/docs/type-byte-buffer.md))
- Fixed a missing `stdint.h` include
- Fixed parser limiter for recursive type annotations being kind of
weird (fixes#645)
### Native Codegen
- Fixed a pair of issues when lowering `bit32.extract`
- Fixed a narrow edge case that could result in an infinite loop without
an interruption
- Fixed a negative array out-of-bounds access issue
- Temporarily reverted linear block predecessor value propagation
### New type solver
- We now type check assignments to annotated variables
- Fixed some test cases under local type inference
- Moved `isPending` checks for type families to improve performance
- Optimized our process for testing if a free type is sufficiently
solved
- Removed "none ptr" from lea instruction disassembly logging
### Build system & tooling
- CMake configuration now validates dependencies to maintain separation
between components
- Improvements to the fuzzer coverage
- Deduplicator for fuzzed callstacks
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh Vijay <vvijay@roblox.com>
### What's Changed
- Improve readability of unions and intersections by limiting the number
of elements of those types that can be presented on a single line (gated
under `FFlag::LuauToStringSimpleCompositeTypesSingleLine`)
- Adds a new option to the compiler `--record-stats` to record and
output compilation statistics
- `if...then...else` expressions are now optimized into `AND/OR` form
when possible.
### VM
- Add a new `buffer` type to Luau based on the [buffer
RFC](https://github.com/Roblox/luau/pull/739) and additional C API
functions to work with it; this release does not include the library.
- Internal C API to work with string buffers has been updated to align
with Lua version more closely
### Native Codegen
- Added support for new X64 instruction (rev) and new A64 instruction
(bswap) in the assembler
- Simplified the way numerical loop condition is translated to IR
### New Type Solver
- Operator inference now handled by type families
- Created a new system called `Type Paths` to explain why subtyping
tests fail in order to improve the quality of error messages.
- Systematic changes to implement Data Flow analysis in the new solver
(`Breadcrumb` removed and replaced with `RefinementKey`)
---
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vighnesh Vijay <vvijay@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aviral Goel <agoel@roblox.com>
* Include `windows.h` rather than `Windows.h` to make things compile on
MinGW.
* Custom implementation of timegm/os.time for all platforms
* Disable builtin constant folding when getfenv/setfenv are used
* Fixes https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/1042
* Fixes https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/1043
New Type Checker
* Initial work toward type states.
* Rework most overloadable operators to use type families.
* Initial work toward our new nonstrict mode.
Native Codegen
* Fix native code generation for dead loops
* Annotate top-level functions as cold
* Slightly smaller/faster x64 Luau calls
* emitInstCall used to not set savedpc itself, but now it does for
consistency with all other implementations
* Implement cmov support for X64
* Fix assertion in luau-compile when module is empty
* Optimize A64 calls at some code size cost
* Inline constant array index offset into the load/store instruction
* Increase x64 spill slots from 5 to 13
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Lily Brown <lbrown@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Aaron Weiss <aaronweiss@roblox.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexander McCord <amccord@roblox.com>
* Definition files can now ascribe indexers to class types.
(https://github.com/Roblox/luau/pull/949)
* Remove --compile support from the REPL. You can just use luau-compile
instead.
* When an exception is thrown during parallel typechecking (usually an
ICE), we now gracefully stop typechecking and drain active workers
before rethrowing the exception.
New solver
* Include more source location information when we hit an internal
compiler error
* Improve the logic that simplifies intersections of tables
JIT
* Save testable type annotations to bytecode
* Improve block placement for linearized blocks
* Add support for lea reg, [rip+offset] for labels
* Unify X64 and A64 codegen for RETURN
* Outline interrupt handlers for X64
* Remove global rArgN in favor of build.abi
* Change A64 INTERRUPT lowering to match X64
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* Fixed gcc warning about uninitialized `std::optional`
* Fixed inlining of functions when they are used to compute their own
arguments
In the new type solver:
* Type families that are not part of a function signature cannot be
resolved at instantiation time and will now produce an error. This will
be relaxed in the future when we get constraint clauses on function
signatures (internally)
* `never` type is now comparable
* Improved typechecking of `for..in` statements
* Fixed checks for number type in `Add` type family
* Performance was improved, with particularly large gains on large
projects
And in native code generation (jit):
* We eliminated the call instruction overhead when native code support
is enabled in the VM
* Small optimizations to arm64 lowering
* Reworked LOP_GETIMPORT handling to reduce assembly code size
* Fixed non-deterministic binary output
* Fixed bad code generation caused by incorrect SSA to VM register links
invalidation
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Andy Friesen <afriesen@roblox.com>
* `ClassType` can now have an indexer defined on it. This allows custom
types to be used in `t[x]` expressions.
* Fixed search for closest executable breakpoint line. Previously,
breakpoints might have been skipped in `else` blocks at the end of a
function
* Fixed how unification is performed for two optional types `a? <: b?`,
previously it might have unified either 'a' or 'b' with 'nil'. Note that
this fix is not enabled by default yet (see the list in
`ExperimentalFlags.h`)
In the new type solver, a concept of 'Type Families' has been
introduced.
Type families can be thought of as type aliases with custom type
inference/reduction logic included with them.
For example, we can have an `Add<T, U>` type family that will resolve
the type that is the result of adding two values together.
This will help type inference to figure out what 'T' and 'U' might be
when explicit type annotations are not provided.
In this update we don't define any type families, but they will be added
in the near future.
It is also possible for Luau embedders to define their own type families
in the global/environment scope.
Other changes include:
* Fixed scope used to find out which generic types should be included in
the function generic type list
* Fixed a crash after cyclic bound types were created during unification
And in native code generation (jit):
* Use of arm64 target on M1 now requires macOS 13
* Entry into native code has been optimized. This is especially
important for coroutine call/pcall performance as they involve going
through a C call frame
* LOP_LOADK(X) translation into IR has been improved to enable type
tag/constant propagation
* arm64 can use integer immediate values to synthesize floating-point
values
* x64 assembler removes duplicate 64bit numbers from the data section to
save space
* Linux `perf` can now be used to profile native Luau code (when running
with --codegen-perf CLI argument)
* Work toward affording parallel type checking
* The interface to `LazyType` has changed:
* `LazyType` now takes a second callback that is passed the `LazyType&`
itself. This new callback is responsible for populating the field
`TypeId LazyType::unwrapped`. Multithreaded implementations should
acquire a lock in this callback.
* Modules now retain their `humanReadableNames`. This reduces the number
of cases where type checking has to call back to a `ModuleResolver`.
* https://github.com/Roblox/luau/pull/902
* Add timing info to the Luau REPL compilation output
We've also fixed some bugs and crashes in the new solver as we march
toward readiness.
* Thread ICEs (Internal Compiler Errors) back to the Frontend properly
* Refinements are no longer applied to lvalues
* More miscellaneous stability improvements
Lots of activity in the new JIT engine:
* Implement register spilling/restore for A64
* Correct Luau IR value restore location tracking
* Fixed use-after-free in x86 register allocator spill restore
* Use btz for bit tests
* Finish branch assembly support for A64
* Codesize and performance improvements for A64
* The bit32 library has been implemented for arm and x64
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* Fixed exported types not being suggested in autocomplete
* `T...` is now convertible to `...any` (Fixes
https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/767)
* Fixed issue with `T?` not being convertible to `T | T` or `T?`
(sometimes when internal pointer identity is different)
* Fixed potential crash in missing table key error suggestion to use a
similar existing key
* `lua_topointer` now returns a pointer for strings
C++ API Changes:
* `prepareModuleScope` callback has moved from TypeChecker to Frontend
* For LSPs, AstQuery functions (and `isWithinComment`) can be used
without full Frontend data
A lot of changes in our two experimental components as well.
In our work on the new type-solver, the following issues were fixed:
* Fixed table union and intersection indexing
* Correct custom type environments are now used
* Fixed issue with values of `free & number` type not accepted in
numeric operations
And these are the changes in native code generation (JIT):
* arm64 lowering is almost complete with support for 99% of IR commands
and all fastcalls
* Fixed x64 assembly encoding for extended byte registers
* More external x64 calls are aware of register allocator
* `math.min`/`math.max` with more than 2 arguments are now lowered to IR
as well
* Fixed correctness issues with `math` library calls with multiple
results in variadic context and with x64 register conflicts
* x64 register allocator learnt to restore values from VM memory instead
of always using stack spills
* x64 exception unwind information now supports multiple functions and
fixes function start offset in Dwarf2 info
* `table.sort` was improved further. It now guarentees N*log(N) time
complexity in the worst case.
* Fix https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/880
We are also working on fixing final bugs and crashes in the new type
solver.
On the CodeGen front we have a few things going on:
* We have a smarter register allocator for the x86 JIT
* We lower more instructions on arm64
* The vector constructor builtin is now translated to IR
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* Fixed incorrect lexeme generated for string parts in the middle of an
interpolated string (Fixes https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/744)
* DeprecatedApi lint can report some issues without type inference
information
* Fixed performance of autocomplete requests when suggestions have large
intersection types (Solves
https://github.com/Roblox/luau/discussions/847)
* Marked `table.getn`/`foreach`/`foreachi` as deprecated ([RFC:
Deprecate
table.getn/foreach/foreachi](https://github.com/Roblox/luau/blob/master/rfcs/deprecate-table-getn-foreach.md))
* With -O2 optimization level, we now optimize builtin calls based on
known argument/return count.
Note that this change can be observable if `getfenv/setfenv` is used to
substitute a builtin, especially if arity is different.
Fastcall heavy tests show a 1-2% improvement.
* Luau can now be built with clang-cl (Fixes
https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/736)
We also made many improvements to our experimental components.
For our new type solver:
* Overhauled data flow analysis system, fixed issues with 'repeat'
loops, global variables and type annotations
* Type refinements now work on generic table indexing with a string
literal
* Type refinements will properly track potentially 'nil' values (like
t[x] for a missing key) and their further refinements
* Internal top table type is now isomorphic to `{}` which fixes issues
when `typeof(v) == 'table'` type refinement is handled
* References to non-existent types in type annotations no longer resolve
to 'error' type like in old solver
* Improved handling of class unions in property access expressions
* Fixed default type packs
* Unsealed tables can now have metatables
* Restored expected types for function arguments
And for native code generation:
* Added min and max IR instructions mapping to vminsd/vmaxsd on x64
* We now speculatively extract direct execution fast-paths based on
expected types of expressions which provides better optimization
opportunities inside a single basic block
* Translated existing math fastcalls to IR form to improve tag guard
removal and constant propagation
* Fixed rare use-after-free in analysis during table unification
A lot of work these past months went into two new Luau components:
* A near full rewrite of the typechecker using a new deferred constraint
resolution system
* Native code generation for AoT/JiT compilation of VM bytecode into x64
(avx)/arm64 instructions
Both of these components are far from finished and we don't provide
documentation on building and using them at this point.
However, curious community members expressed interest in learning about
changes that go into these components each week, so we are now listing
them here in the 'sync' pull request descriptions.
---
New typechecker can be enabled by setting
DebugLuauDeferredConstraintResolution flag to 'true'.
It is considered unstable right now, so try it at your own risk.
Even though it already provides better type inference than the current
one in some cases, our main goal right now is to reach feature parity
with current typechecker.
Features which improve over the capabilities of the current typechecker
are marked as '(NEW)'.
Changes to new typechecker:
* Regular for loop index and parameters are now typechecked
* Invalid type annotations on local variables are ignored to improve
autocomplete
* Fixed missing autocomplete type suggestions for function arguments
* Type reduction is now performed to produce simpler types to be
presented to the user (error messages, custom LSPs)
* Internally, complex types like '((number | string) & ~(false?)) |
string' can be produced, which is just 'string | number' when simplified
* Fixed spots where support for unknown and never types was missing
* (NEW) Length operator '#' is now valid to use on top table type, this
type comes up when doing typeof(x) == "table" guards and isn't available
in current typechecker
---
Changes to native code generation:
* Additional math library fast calls are now lowered to x64: math.ldexp,
math.round, math.frexp, math.modf, math.sign and math.clamp
* Fix autocompletion of if-then-else expressions
* Fix a potential crash surrounding improper use of `%*` in a string
format specifier
* All Python scripts now invoke Python via `python3` rather than
`python`.
* Improved error handling for string interpolation with too many
arguments.
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* Fixed unions of `nil` types displaying as `?`
* Internal normalization now handles class types which can make
previously failing (incorrectly) sub-typing checks to succeed
* Reduce the stack utilization of type checking.
* Improve the error message that's reported when a delimiting comma is
missing from a table literal. eg
```lua
local t = {
first = 1
second = 2
}```
* Support `["prop"]` syntax on class definitions in definition files.
(#704)
* Improve type checking performance for complex overloaded functions
* Fix rare cases of incorrect stack traces for out of memory errors at
runtime
* Reoptimized math.min/max/bit32 builtins assuming at least 2 arguments are used (1-2% lift on some benchmarks)
* Type errors that mention function types no longer have redundant parenthesis around return type
* Luau REPL now supports --compile=remarks which displays the source code with optimization remarks embedded as comments
* Builtin calls are slightly faster when called with 1-2 arguments (~1% improvement in some benchmarks)
- Fix rare type checking bugs with invalid generic types escaping the
module scope
- Fix type checking of variadic type packs in certain cases
- Implement type normalization, which resolves a large set of various
issues with unions/intersections in type checker
- Improve parse errors for trailing commas in function calls and type
lists
- Reduce profiling skew when using --profile with very high frequencies
- Improve performance of `lua_getinfo` (`debug.info`, `debug.traceback`
and profiling overhead are now 20% faster/smaller)
- Improve performance of polymorphic comparisons (1-2% lift on some
benchmarks)
- Improve performance of closure creation (1-2% lift on some benchmarks)
- Improve string comparison performance (4% lift on string sorting)
- Improve ComparisonPrecedence lint suggestions for three-way comparisons (X < Y < Z)
- Improve type checking stability
- Improve location information for errors when parsing invalid type annotations
- Compiler now generates bytecode version 3 in all configurations
- Improve performance of comparisons against numeric constants on AArch64
* Adds a currently unused x86-64 assembler as a prerequisite for possible future JIT compilation
* Fix a bug in table iteration (closes Possible table iteration bug #504)
* Improved warning method when function is used as a type
* Fix a bug with unsandboxed iteration with pairs()
* Type of coroutine.status() is now a union of value types
* Bytecode output for tests/debugging now has labels
* Improvements to loop unrolling cost estimation
* Report errors when the key obviously doesn't exist in the table
