GHC 9.2.1 is now available

bgamari - 2021-10-29

The GHC developers are very happy to at long last announce the availability of GHC 9.2.1. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org.

GHC 9.2 brings a number of exciting features including:

  • A native code generation backend for AArch64, significantly speeding compilation time on ARM platforms like the Apple M1.

  • Many changes in the area of records, including the new RecordDotSyntax and NoFieldSelectors language extensions, as well as Support for DuplicateRecordFields with PatternSynonyms.

  • Introduction of the new GHC2021 language extension set, giving users convenient access to a larger set of language extensions which have been long considered stable.

  • Merging of ghc-exactprint into the GHC tree, providing infrastructure for source-to-source program rewriting out-of-the-box.

  • Introduction of a BoxedRep RuntimeRep, allowing for polymorphism over levity of boxed objects (#17526)

  • Implementation of the UnliftedDataTypes extension, allowing users to define types which do not admit lazy evaluation (proposal)

  • The new [-hi profiling][] mechanism which provides significantly improved insight into thunk leaks.

  • Support for the ghc-debug out-of-process heap inspection library ghc-debug

  • Significant improvements in the bytecode interpreter, allowing more programs to be efficently run in GHCi and Template Haskell splices.

  • Support for profiling of pinned objects with the cost-centre profiler (#7275)

  • Faster compilation and a smaller memory footprint

  • Introduction of Haddock documentation support in TemplateHaskell (#5467)

Finally, thank you to Microsoft Research, GitHub, IOHK, the Zw3rk stake pool, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Moreover, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release.

As always, do open a ticket if you see anything amiss.

Happy testing,

  • Ben