6. Release notes for version 8.4.4

6.1. Highlights

This is a bug-fix release resolving several regressions introduced in 8.4.1.

The highlights, since the 8.4.3 release, are:

  • A bug which could result in memory unsafety with certain uses of touch# has been resolved. (Trac #14346)

  • A compiler panic triggered by some GADT record updates has been fixed (Trac #15499)

  • The text library has been updated, fixing several serious bugs in the version shipped with GHC 8.4.3 (see #227, #221, and #197.

  • A serious code generation bug in the LLVM code generation, potentially resulting in incorrect evaluation of floating point expressions, has been fixed (Trac #14251)

6.2. Full details

In addition to the highlights listed above, this release resolves a number of other issues, described below.

6.2.1. Compiler

  • A compiler panic triggered by case alternatives matching on invalid tags returned by dataToTag#, has been fixed (Trac #15436)

  • Package environments can now be explicitly disabled using the new -package-env - flag. (Trac #13753)

6.2.2. Runtime system

No changes.

6.2.3. Template Haskell

No changes.

6.2.4. ghc library

No changes.

6.2.5. base library

  • Version bumped to 4.11.1.0 to account for the addition of GHC.IO.FixIOException

  • Add the readFieldHash function to GHC.Read which behaves like readField, but for a field that ends with a # symbol.

6.2.6. integer-gmp library

No changes.

6.2.7. Build system

No changes.

6.3. Included libraries

The package database provided with this distribution also contains a number of packages other than GHC itself. See the changelogs provided with these packages for further change information.

Package Version Reason for inclusion

ghc

8.4.4

The compiler itself

Cabal

2.2.0.1

Dependency of ghc-pkg utility

Win32

2.6.1.0

Dependency of ghc library

array

0.5.2.0

Dependency of ghc library

base

4.11.1.0

Core library

binary

0.8.5.1

Dependency of ghc library

bytestring

0.10.8.2

Deppendency of ghc library

containers

0.5.11.0

Dependency of ghc library

deepseq

1.4.3.0

Dependency of ghc library

directory

1.3.1.5

Dependency of ghc library

filepath

1.4.2

Dependency of ghc library

ghc-boot

8.4.4

Internal compiler library

ghc-compact

0.1.0.0

Core library

ghc-prim

0.5.2.0

Core library

ghci

8.4.4

The REPL interface

haskeline

0.7.4.2

Dependency of ghci executable

hpc

0.6.0.3

Dependency of hpc executable

integer-gmp

1.0.2.0

Core library

mtl

2.2.2

Dependency of Cabal library

parsec

3.1.13.0

Dependency of Cabal library

process

1.6.3.0

Dependency of ghc library

template-haskell

2.13.0.0

Core library

text

1.2.3.1

Dependency of Cabal library

time

1.8.0.2

Dependency of ghc library

transformers

0.5.5.0

Dependency of ghc library

unix

2.7.2.2

Dependency of ghc library

xhtml

3000.2.2.1

Dependency of haddock executable