# Draft of 8.12 release notes **URL:** \ **Category:** Internals\ **Tags:** release-management, release\ **Created:** [January 31, 2024, 7:44am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692 "2024-01-31T07:44:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 7:44am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/1 "2024-01-31T07:44:51Z")
Here's a first draft of the release notes for version 8.12. Please let me know about edits you'd like to make, missing information, and other important things! * * * Racket automatically sets the close-on-exec flag when opening a file, on systems where this is available. This is a lower-cost way to avoid problems that can occur when file descriptors become accidentally shared between processes. Match includes `hash` and `hash*` patterns. The `vector-set/copy` function allows creation of a new vector that differs at only one index. The `pregexp-quote` function brings the functionality of `regexp-quote` to pregexps. The C FFI convention-based converter supports PascalCase and CamelCase in addition to an underscore-based convention. The `racket/case` library allows `case`-like forms that use different equality comparisons, such as `eq?` and `equal-always?`. The `for/fold` form has a more consistent treatment of the rare situation in which an iteration clause shadows an accumulator. Scribble rendering to HTML includes hidden buttons on heading titles. The ''Die Macht der Abstraktion'' language levels are no longer present, replaced by the "Schreibe dein Programm'' language levels which have been available for several years. The `interval-map` data structure supports iterator functions in the style of `gen:ordered-dict`. * * * ---
**Author:** ![shhyou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@shhyou](https://racket.discourse.group/u/shhyou)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 2:19pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/2 "2024-01-31T14:19:24Z")
It was suggested here [https://github.com/racket/racket/issues/4843](https://github.com/racket/racket/issues/4843) that the release announcement could include `raco pkg migrate` upgrade instructions. ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 3:22pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/3 "2024-01-31T15:22:03Z")
@spdegabrielle , I think you're planning to start with the release notes bullets and add instructions about upgrading, is that right? ---
**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 3:53pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/4 "2024-01-31T15:53:06Z")
@shhyou @jbclements Thanks for the reminder to close that issue as done Some use platform specific repos to install racket so I’d be in favour of keeping the `raco pkg migrate 8.11.1` advice text at the end of the announcement for the immediate future. I think we will eventually get to a place where you can type `raco up` to get new releases or nightlies depending on the ‘channel’ you have subscribed and avoid depending on platform specific package installation or needing to run `raco pkg migrate`. (If anyone has strong feelings about this please start a new topic because it isn’t applicable to 8.12) In the meantime - and for 8.12 I feel it is good to help the user. I am planning a new racket survey - it is an opportunity to get feedback about the install and upgrade experiences; [Survey planning](https://racket.discourse.group/t/49-of-racketeers-were-professional-software-developers-in-2020-how-has-that-changed/2693) ![IMG_7898](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/racket/original/2X/f/f1266154d81c4f0d4e1fb3c441f78c08fc3f9103.png) ---
**Author:** ![samth](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/samth/32/3_2.png) [@samth](https://racket.discourse.group/u/samth)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 5:04pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/5 "2024-01-31T17:04:59Z")
1. I think we should move the incompatible changes (removing DMdA and changing `for/fold`) higher up and note that they may break things. 2. The vector changes should also mention optimization of other operations such as `vector-append`. 3. The "lower-cost way" phrasing is confusing -- what is it lower-cost than? ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 4:55am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/6 "2024-02-01T04:55:18Z")
@samth: (1) thanks, done. (2), done. (3) Here's the commit message I'm condensing: * * * Matthew Flatt [mflatt@racket-lang.org](mailto:mflatt@racket-lang.org) 2023-12-10T02:28:32Z 529f14dd3467ac4262878a6b5792d30b39950b43 set FD\_CLOEXEC on all file descriptors and change `subprocess` handling Intended to address #4836, this is a relatively small change to the implementation, and I think it will work right for nearly all uses of Racket. Still, changing the rules here might create a file-descriptor leak in a program that uses both foreign libraries or embeds Racket and that also uses `subprocess`. Setting `current-subprocess-keep-file-descriptors` to `null` (which is an existing part of the Racket API) should restore the old behavior in that case. The root of the problem is that a `fork`+`exec` on Unix keeps all file descriptors from the original process open in the new process. Racket has long used a traditional correction of closing all file descriptors in a forked process, specifically by trying `close` on every file descriptor up to the maximum value. That worked fine when the file-descriptor limit was something like 256 or 1024. These days, it can be 1M, and 1M erroring `close` system calls can take a while. Many OSes offer an enumeration of open file descriptors through a "/proc/self/fd" or /dev/fd" device that acts like a directory, but accessing that information is not completely reliable (due to the possibility of `chroot`, for example), and it's not so easy in the phase between `fork` and `exec` that permits only async-signal-safe functions. A modern alternative is to set the FD\_CLOEXEC flag on descriptors so that they are automatically closed on the `exec` step, and leave FD\_CLOEXEC off on the file descriptors that you intend to be comunicated to the subprocess. This strategy works as long as everyone plays along, because FD\_CLOEXEC is not the default. Also, if you have `fork` calls that might happen concurrently with file-descriptor creation, the two-step process of creating a file descriptor and then setting its FD\_CLOEXEC flag is another problem. Linux helps to avoid the race by having a variant of each descriptor-creating system call with an extra flag to set FD\_CLOEXEC, but that's not portable. The change here adapts Racket at the rktio level to set FD\_CLOEXEC on all created file descriptors, but mostly through portable APIs (i.e., not Linux-specific) plus an extra lock to prevent a `subprocess`-based `fork` concurrent to a file descriptor's creation. The extra lock works because rktio controls the call to `fork`. Foreign libraries are expected to play along as well as they can, and libraries like glib, sqlite3, and Gtk+ do seem to work that way (i.e., they set FD\_CLOEXEC, and they tend to use the atomic interface where available). Meanwhile, the old behavior for `subprocess` is still available by setting the `current-subprocess-keep-file-descriptors` parameter to `null` --- an API that was already in place, because Racket's behavior on Windows was already closer to the FD\_CLOEXEC world. Also, if FD\_CLOEXEC is not available from the operating system (as determined at compile time), everything works as before. There's no Racket-level or even rktio-level way here to create file descriptors without FD\_CLOEXEC when FD\_CLOEXEC is supported, except for pipes at the rktio level. Adding a way to do that would make sense, if it one day seems useful. Even better, `subprocess` could take a list of file descriptors to share, which seems more declarative; the `null` value of `current-subprocess-keep-file-descriptors` was meant to support an extension in that direction. The Windows implementation of `subprocess` was closer to right before, mainly because non-sharing of file handles is the default there. The way `subprocess` created inherited stdin, stdout, and stderr pipes created a race among calls to `subprocess` in parallel places, however, and that's fixed here. * * * My reading of this (and a quick read of the commit suggests that I could be right) is that it replaces a potentially-very-expensive scan of all open file descriptors with an automatic close-on-exec flag whenever it's available. So the change should make the new version of racket lower-cost than the old one. I've rephrased this bullet to hopefully make that more clear. Here's my new proposed text: * * * The `Die Macht der Abstraktion'' language levels are no longer present, replaced by the `Schreibe dein Programm'' language levels which have been available for several years. The `for/fold` form has a more consistent treatment of the rare situation in which an iteration clause shadows an accumulator. This could break code that depended on the old behavior. Racket automatically sets the close-on-exec flag when opening a file, on systems where this is available. This change lowers the cost of avoiding problems that can occur when file descriptors become accidentally shared between processes. Match includes `hash` and `hash*` patterns. The `vector-set/copy` function allows creation of a new vector that differs at only one index. This change also adds `vector-append` and `vector-copy` primitives. The `pregexp-quote` function brings the functionality of `regexp-quote` to pregexps. The C FFI convention-based converter supports PascalCase and CamelCase in addition to an underscore-based convention. The `racket/case` library allows `case`-like forms that use different equality comparisons, such as `eq?` and `equal-always?`. Scribble rendering to HTML includes hidden buttons on heading titles. The `interval-map` data structure supports iterator functions in the style of `gen:ordered-dict`. * * * ---
**Author:** ![usao](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/usao/32/1375_2.png) [@usao](https://racket.discourse.group/u/usao)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 6:14am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/7 "2024-02-01T06:14:24Z")
The FFI identifier convention change should note that the _old_ convention, which misbehaves (named `camelcase` but actually does PascalCase), is kept as is, while two new conventions are added. Edit: Also note that camel case is stylized as “camelCase”, if it is to be stylized. ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 6:47am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/8 "2024-02-01T06:47:19Z")
@usao My thinking was that existing users are unlikely to be burned by the fact that the existing wrongly-named converter is kept as is, and indeed that people might be confused by mentioning it. I also think the docs are pretty clear. Insofar as the release notes are attracting new users to a feature, I think the new modes (and the existing correctly-named one) are the ones to draw attention to. It's perhaps also worth noting that the final release notes will include links to documentation. I totally agree that the string "CamelCase" should instead be "camelCase", and I've made that change in my copy. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding you, or if I've missed something! ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/robby/32/7_2.png) [@robby](https://racket.discourse.group/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 12:10pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/9 "2024-02-01T12:10:01Z")
Was the acmart.cls update in the previous release, or this one? If not the previous one, how about adding this bullet: - The scribble/acmart language uses v2.01, which avoids errors about the hyperref package in some latex installations ? ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/10 "2024-02-01T22:40:37Z")
Um... it looks to me like that commit (39f96fc58baba913b4) was done after branch day, and therefore will be a part of the _next_ release... ? But I'll put this bullet aside for the 8.13 release notes! [https://pre-release.racket-lang.org/status/?repo=racket/scribble](https://pre-release.racket-lang.org/status/?repo=racket/scribble) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/robby/32/7_2.png) [@robby](https://racket.discourse.group/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 12:15am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/11 "2024-02-02T00:15:31Z")
Oh! Okay. I guess that was intentional, but one of the changes in acmart is a bugfix and, without it, acmart papers won't build on, at least "TeX Live 2023/Debian", due to the following error: ```scheme ! Package hyperxmp Error: hyperref must be loaded before hyperxmp. See the hyperxmp package documentation for explanation. Type H for immediate help. ... l.276 } ``` ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 7:17pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/12 "2024-02-02T19:17:39Z")
Are you suggesting maybe we should add a bullet about the known problem? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/robby/32/7_2.png) [@robby](https://racket.discourse.group/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/13 "2024-02-03T22:06:56Z")
No, I was suggesting taking the commit. But I'm okay not to. Maybe it is too late at this point. ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/14 "2024-02-03T22:19:06Z")
I'm ... optimistic that our power users will be able to handle this? I would really prefer not add anything to the release at this point, even though a scribble change is probably relatively unlikely to cause problems. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/robby/32/7_2.png) [@robby](https://racket.discourse.group/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/15 "2024-02-03T22:31:29Z")
That makes sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![sorawee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@sorawee](https://racket.discourse.group/u/sorawee)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 10:39pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/16 "2024-02-03T22:39:27Z")
Hi John, It appears that my email to you went to the spam folder or got lost, so let me repeat my reply here: - For Scribble, I think "Scribble rendering to HTML adds linking and information buttons on hovering over heading titles." would work better. - Could you also compile the contributor list ("The following people contributed to this release:") now? Is there a way to make sure I can communicate with you? I also tried Discord, but that didn't work either. Thanks! Sorawee ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 11:33pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/17 "2024-02-03T23:33:48Z")
Many thanks for your persistence, and please accept my apologies. Here's the updated release notes; I replaced the word "on" with "when" in one place. * * * The `Die Macht der Abstraktion'' language levels are no longer present, replaced by the `Schreibe dein Programm'' language levels which have been available for several years. The `for/fold` form has a more consistent treatment of the rare situation in which an iteration clause shadows an accumulator. This could break code that depended on the old behavior. Racket automatically sets the close-on-exec flag when opening a file, on systems where this is available. This change lowers the cost of avoiding problems that can occur when file descriptors become accidentally shared between processes. Match includes `hash` and `hash*` patterns. The `vector-set/copy` function allows creation of a new vector that differs at only one index. This change also adds `vector-append` and `vector-copy` primitives. The `pregexp-quote` function brings the functionality of `regexp-quote` to pregexps. The C FFI convention-based converter supports `PascalCase` and `camelCase` in addition to an underscore-based convention. The `racket/case` library allows `case`-like forms that use different equality comparisons, such as `eq?` and `equal-always?`. Scribble rendering to HTML adds linking and information buttons when hovering over heading titles. The `interval-map` data structure supports iterator functions in the style of `gen:ordered-dict`. The following people contributed to this release: Alex Harsányi, Alex Knauth, Alex Muscar, Alexis King, Ben Greenman, Bert De Ketelaere, Bob Burger, Bogdan Popa, Chris Payne, Fred Fu, J. Ryan Stinnett, Jamie Taylor, Jared Forsyth, Jarhmander, Jens Axel Søgaard, Joel Dueck, John Clements, Jordan Johnson, Ken Harris, Laurent Orseau, Mao Yifu, Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen, Matteo d’Addio, Matthew Flatt, Matthias Felleisen, Micah Cantor, Mike Sperber, naveen srinivasan, Oscar Waddell, Philip McGrath, Philippe Meunier, Robby Findler, Rocketnia, Sam Phillips, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Sarthak Shah, Shu-Hung You, Sorawee Porncharoenwase, Stephen De Gabrielle, Tom Price, ur4t, Wing Hei Chan, and ZhangHao * * * ---
**Author:** ![EmEf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/53a042/32.png) [@EmEf](https://racket.discourse.group/u/EmEf)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 1:25am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/18 "2024-02-04T01:25:35Z")
(‘more’ comes w/o comparison; see Strunk and White. And frankly for/fold was buggy before or violated common-sense binding structure.) “”" The release fixes a problem with the binding structure of the for/fold form concerning the rare situation in which an iteration clause identifier shadowed an accumulator identifier. This change may break that depended on the old binding structure. “”” ---
**Author:** ![jbclements](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jbclements/32/11_2.png) [@jbclements](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jbclements)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 5:53am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/draft-of-8-12-release-notes/2692/19 "2024-02-04T05:53:59Z")
Sure. How about this? * * * The "Die Macht der Abstraktion" language levels are no longer present, replaced by the "Schreibe dein Programm" language levels which have been available for several years. The release fixes a problem with the binding structure of the `for/fold` form in the rare situation when an iteration clause identifier shadowed an accumulator identifier. This change may break code that depends on the old binding structure. Racket automatically sets the close-on-exec flag when opening a file, on systems where this is available. This change lowers the cost of avoiding problems that can occur when file descriptors become accidentally shared between processes. Match includes `hash` and `hash*` patterns. The `vector-set/copy` function allows creation of a new vector that differs at only one index. This change also adds `vector-append` and `vector-copy` primitives. The `pregexp-quote` function brings the functionality of `regexp-quote` to pregexps. The C FFI convention-based converter supports `PascalCase` and `camelCase` in addition to an underscore-based convention. The `racket/case` library allows `case`-like forms that use different equality comparisons, such as `eq?` and `equal-always?`. Scribble rendering to HTML adds linking and information buttons when hovering over heading titles. The `interval-map` data structure supports iterator functions in the style of `gen:ordered-dict`. The following people contributed to this release: Alex Harsányi, Alex Knauth, Alex Muscar, Alexis King, Ben Greenman, Bert De Ketelaere, Bob Burger, Bogdan Popa, Chris Payne, Fred Fu, J. Ryan Stinnett, Jamie Taylor, Jared Forsyth, Jarhmander, Jens Axel Søgaard, Joel Dueck, John Clements, Jordan Johnson, Ken Harris, Laurent Orseau, Mao Yifu, Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen, Matteo d’Addio, Matthew Flatt, Matthias Felleisen, Micah Cantor, Mike Sperber, naveen srinivasan, Oscar Waddell, Philip McGrath, Philippe Meunier, Robby Findler, Rocketnia, Sam Phillips, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Sarthak Shah, Shu-Hung You, Sorawee Porncharoenwase, Stephen De Gabrielle, Tom Price, ur4t, Wing Hei Chan, and ZhangHao * * *