# What's Changed?
- Telemetry support for usage of any type in old/new solver
- Bug fixes and flag removals with the new solver
## New Solver
- Fixed constraint ordering bug to infer types more accurately
- Improved inferring a call to `setmetatable()`
## VM
- Restored global metatable lookup for `typeof` on lightuserdata to fix
unintentional API change (Fixes#1335)
---
### 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: 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 new
* A bug in exception handling in GCC(11/12/13) on MacOS prevents our
test suite from running.
* Parser now supports leading `|` or `&` when declaring `Union` and
`Intersection` types (#1286)
* We now support parsing of attributes on functions as described in the
[rfc](https://github.com/luau-lang/rfcs/pull/30)
* With this change, expressions such as `local x = @native function(x)
return x+1 end` and `f(@native function(x) return x+1 end)` are now
valid.
* Added support for `@native` attribute - we can now force native
compilation of individual functions if the `@native` attribute is
specified before the `function` keyword (works for lambdas too).
### New Solver
* Many fixes in the new solver for crashes and instability
* Refinements now use simplification and not normalization in a specific
case of two tables
* Assume that compound assignments do not change the type of the
left-side operand
* Fix error that prevented Class Methods from being overloaded
### VM
* Updated description of Garbage Collector invariant
---
### 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: 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: 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>
* Fix a use-after-free bug in the new type cloning algorithm
* Tighten up the type of `coroutine.wrap`. It is now `<A..., R...>(f:
(A...) -> R...) -> ((A...) -> R...)`
* Break `.luaurc` out into a separate library target `Luau.Config`. This
makes it easier for applications to reason about config files without
also depending on the type inference engine.
* Move typechecking limits into `FrontendOptions`. This allows embedders
more finely-grained control over autocomplete's internal time limits.
* Fix stability issue with debugger onprotectederror callback allowing
break in non-yieldable contexts
New solver:
* Initial work toward [Local Type
Inference](0e1082108f/rfcs/local-type-inference.md)
* Introduce a new subtyping test. This will be much nicer than the old
test because it is completely separate both from actual type inference
and from error reporting.
Native code generation:
* Added function to compute iterated dominance frontier
* Optimize barriers in SET_UPVALUE when tag is known
* Cache lua_State::global in a register on A64
* Optimize constant stores in A64 lowering
* Track table array size state to optimize array size checks
* Add split tag/value store into a VM register
* Check that spills can outlive the block only in specific conditions
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* Added support for async typechecking cancellation using a token passed
through frontend options
* Added luaC_enumheap for building debug tools that need a graph of Luau
heap
In our new typechecker:
* Errors or now suppressed when checking property lookup of
error-suppressing unions
In our native code generation (jit):
* Fixed unhandled value type in NOT_ANY lowering
* Fast-call tag checks will exit to VM on failure, instead of relying on
a native fallback
* Added vector type to the type information
* Eliminated redundant direct jumps across dead blocks
* Debugger APIs are now disabled for call frames executing natively
* Implemented support for unwind registration on macOS 14
* Optimized operations like instantiation and module export for very
large types
In our new typechecker:
* Typechecking of function calls was rewritten to handle more cases
correctly
* Fixed a crash that can happen after self-referential type is exported
from a module
* Fixed a false positive error in string comparison
* Added handling of `for...in` variable type annotations and fixed
issues with the iterator call inside
* Self-referential 'hasProp' and 'setProp' constraints are now handled
correctly
In our native code generation (jit):
* Added '--target' argument to luau-compile to test multiple
architectures different from host architecture
* GC barrier tag check is skipped if type is already known to be
GC-collectable
* Added GET_TYPE/GET_TYPEOF instructions for type/typeof fast-calls
* Improved code size of interrupt handlers on X64
Lots of things going on this week:
* Fix a crash that could occur in the presence of a cyclic union. We
shouldn't be creating cyclic unions, but we shouldn't be crashing when
they arise either.
* Minor cleanup of `luau_precall`
* Internal change to make L->top handling slightly more uniform
* Optimize SETGLOBAL & GETGLOBAL fallback C functions.
* https://github.com/Roblox/luau/pull/929
* The syntax to the `luau-reduce` commandline tool has changed. It now
accepts a script, a command to execute, and an error to search for. It
no longer automatically passes the script to the command which makes it
a lot more flexible. Also be warned that it edits the script it is
passed **in place**. Do not point it at something that is not in source
control!
New solver
* Switch to a greedier but more fallible algorithm for simplifying union
and intersection types that are created as part of refinement
calculation. This has much better and more predictable performance.
* Fix a constraint cycle in recursive function calls.
* Much improved inference of binary addition. Functions like `function
add(x, y) return x + y end` can now be inferred without annotations. We
also accurately typecheck calls to functions like this.
* Many small bugfixes surrounding things like table indexers
* Add support for indexers on class types. This was previously added to
the old solver; we now add it to the new one for feature parity.
JIT
* https://github.com/Roblox/luau/pull/931
* Fuse key.value and key.tt loads for CEHCK_SLOT_MATCH in A64
* Implement remaining aliases of BFM for A64
* Implement new callinfo flag for A64
* Add instruction simplification for int->num->int conversion chains
* Don't even load execdata for X64 calls
* Treat opcode fallbacks the same as manually written fallbacks
---------
Co-authored-by: Arseny Kapoulkine <arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Vyacheslav Egorov <vegorov@roblox.com>
* 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
* A small subset of control-flow refinements have been added to
recognize type options that are unreachable after a
conditional/unconditional code block. (Fixes
https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/356).
Some examples:
```lua
local function f(x: string?)
if not x then return end
-- x is 'string' here
end
```
Throwing calls like `error` or `assert(false)` instead of 'return' are
also recognized.
Existing complex refinements like type/typeof and tagged union checks
are expected to work, among others.
To enable this feature, `LuauTinyControlFlowAnalysis` exclusion has to
be removed from `ExperimentalFlags.h`.
If will become enabled unconditionally in the near future.
* Linter has been integrated into the typechecker analysis so that
type-aware lint warnings can work in any mode
`Frontend::lint` methods were deprecated, `Frontend::check` has to be
used instead with `runLintChecks` option set.
Resulting lint warning are located inside `CheckResult`.
* Fixed large performance drop and increased memory consumption when
array is filled at an offset (Fixes
https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/590)
* Part of [Type error suppression
RFC](https://github.com/Roblox/luau/blob/master/rfcs/type-error-suppression.md)
was implemented making subtyping checks with `any` type transitive.
---
In our work on the new type-solver:
* `--!nocheck` mode no longer reports type errors
* New solver will not be used for `--!nonstrict` modules until all
issues with strict mode typechecking are fixed
* Added control-flow aware type refinements mentioned earlier
In native code generation:
* `LOP_NAMECALL` has been translated to IR
* `type` and `typeof` builtin fastcalls have been translated to
IR/assembly
* Additional steps were taken towards arm64 support
* 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
* Fixed garbage data in module scopes when type graph is not retained
* LOP_MOVE with the same source and target registers is no longer
generated (Fixes https://github.com/Roblox/luau/issues/793)
* Fixed unions of `nil` types displaying as `?`
* Internal normalization now handles class types which can make
previously failing (incorrectly) sub-typing checks to succeed
- Remove type definitions of
`utf8.nfcnormalize`/`nfdnormalize`/`graphemes` that aren't supported by
standalone Luau library
- Add `lua_costatus` to retrieve extended thread status (similar to
`coroutine.status`)
- Improve GC sweeping performance (2-10% improvement on allocation-heavy
benchmarks)
- Fix autocomplete not suggesting globals defined after the cursor (fixes#622)
- Improve type checker stability
- Reduce parser C stack consumption which fixes some stack overflow crashes on deeply nested sources
- Improve performance of bit32.extract/replace when width is implied (~3% faster chess)
- Improve performance of bit32.extract when field/width are constants (~10% faster base64)
- Heap dump now annotates thread stacks with local variable/function names
* Run clang-format
* Contains a preliminary implementation of deferred constraint resolution
* Reduce stack usage by some recursive functions
* Fix a bug when smartCloning a BoundTypeVar
* Remove some GC related flags from VM
- Improve refinement support for unions, in particular it's now possible to implement tagged unions as a union of tables where individual branches use a string literal type for one of the fields.
- Fix `string.split` type information
- Optimize `select(_, ...)` to run in constant time (~2.7x faster on VariadicSelect benchmark)
- Improve debug line information for multi-line assignments
- Improve compilation of table literals when table keys are constant expressions/variables
- Use forward GC barrier for `setmetatable` which slightly accelerates GC progress
- Fix some cases where type checking would overflow the native stack
- Improve autocomplete behavior when assigning a partially written function call (not currently exposed through command line tools)
- Improve autocomplete type inference feedback for some expressions where previously the type would not be known
- Improve quantification performance during type checking for large types
- Improve type checking for table literals when the expected type of the table is known because of a type annotation
- Fix type checking errors in cases where required module has errors in the resulting type
- Fix debug line information for multi-line chained call sequences (Add function name information for "attempt to call a nil value" #255)
- lua_newuserdata now takes 2 arguments to match Lua/LuaJIT APIs better; lua_newuserdatatagged should be used if the third argument was non-0.
- lua_ref can no longer be used with LUA_REGISTRYINDEX to prevent mistakes when migrating Lua FFI (Inconsistency with lua_ref #247)
- Fix assertions and possible crashes when executing script code indirectly via metatable dispatch from lua_equal/lua_lessthan/lua_getfield/etc. (Hitting a crash in an assert after lua_equal is called. #259)
- Fix flamegraph scripts to run under Python 2
Changes:
- Support for time tracing for analysis/compiler (not currently exposed
through CLI)
- Support for type pack arguments in type aliases (#83)
- Basic support for require(path) in luau-analyze
- Add a lint warning for table.move with 0 index as part of
TableOperation lint
- Remove last STL dependency from Luau.VM
- Minor VS2022 performance tuning
Co-authored-by: Rodactor <rodactor@roblox.com>