NEWS for Ruby 2.6.0 ↑

This document is a list of user visible feature changes made between releases except for bug fixes.

Note that each entry is kept so brief that no reason behind or reference information is supplied with. For a full list of changes with all sufficient information, see the ChangeLog file or Redmine (e.g. https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/$FEATURE_OR_BUG_NUMBER)

Changes since the 2.5.0 release ↑

Language changes ↑

Core classes updates (outstanding ones only) ↑

Array
New methods
Modified method

  • Array#to_h now accepts a block that maps elements to new key/value pairs. [Feature #15143]

Aliased methods
Binding
New method

  • Added Binding#source_location. [Feature #14230]

    This method returns the source location of the binding, a 2-element array of __FILE__ and __LINE__. Traditionally, the same information could be retrieved by eval("[__FILE__, __LINE__]", binding), but we are planning to change this behavior so that Kernel#eval ignores binding’s source location [Bug #4352]. So, users should use this newly-introduced method instead of Kernel#eval.

Dir
New methods
Enumerable
New method

  • Enumerable#chain returns an enumerator object that iterates over the elements of the receiver and then those of each argument in sequence. [Feature #15144]

Modified method

  • Enumerable#to_h now accepts a block that maps elements to new key/value pairs. [Feature #15143]

Aliased method
Enumerator::ArithmeticSequence

  • This is a new class to represent a generator of an arithmetic sequence, that is a number sequence defined by a common difference. It can be used for representing what is similar to Python’s slice. You can get an instance of this class from Numeric#step and Range#step.

Enumerator::Chain

  • This is a new class to represent a chain of enumerables that works as a single enumerator, generated by such methods as Enumerable#chain and Enumerator#+.

Enumerator::Lazy
Aliased method
Enumerator
New methods

  • Enumerator#+ returns an enumerator object that iterates over the elements of the receiver and then those of the other operand. [Feature #15144]

ENV
Modified method

  • ENV.to_h now accepts a block that maps names and values to new keys and values. [Feature #15143]

Exception
New options
Hash
Modified methods
Aliased methods
IO
New option

  • Added new mode character 'x' to open files for exclusive access. [Feature #11258]

Kernel
Aliased method

  • Kernel#then is a new alias for Kernel#yield_self. [Feature #14594]

New options
Incompatible changes

  • Kernel#system and Kernel#exec do not close non-standard file descriptors (the default of the :close_others option is changed to false, but we still set the FD_CLOEXEC flag on descriptors we create). [Misc #14907]

KeyError
New options

  • KeyError.new accepts :receiver and :key options to set receiver and key in Ruby code. [Feature #14313]

Method
New methods
Module
Modified methods
NameError
New option

  • NameError.new accepts a :receiver option to set receiver in Ruby code. [Feature #14313]

NilClass
New method

  • NilClass#=~ is added for compatibility. [Feature #15231]

NoMethodError
New option

  • NoMethodError.new accepts a :receiver option to set receiver in Ruby code. [Feature #14313]

Numeric
Incompatible changes
OpenStruct
Modified method

  • OpenStruct#to_h now accepts a block that maps keys and values to new keys and values. [Feature #15143]

Proc
New methods
Incompatible changes

  • Proc#call doesn’t change $SAFE any more. [Feature #14250]

Random
New method
Range
New method

  • Added Range#% instance method. [Feature #14697]

Incompatible changes
Regexp/String

  • Update Unicode version from 10.0.0 to 11.0.0. [Feature #14802]

    This includes a rewrite of the grapheme cluster (/X/) algorithm and special-casing for Georgian MTAVRULI on String#downcase.

  • Update Emoji version from 5.0 to 11.0.0 [Feature #14802]

RubyVM::AbstractSyntaxTree
New methods
RubyVM
New method

  • RubyVM.resolve_feature_path identifies the file that will be loaded by “require(feature)”. [experimental] [Feature #15230]

String
New features

  • String#split yields each substring to the block if given. [Feature #4780]

Struct
Modified method

  • Struct#to_h now accepts a block that maps keys and values to new keys and values. [Feature #15143]

Aliased method
Time
New features
TracePoint
New features

  • “script_compiled” event is supported. [Feature #15287]

New methods
Modified method

  • TracePoint#enable accepts new keywords “target:” and “target_line:”. [Feature #15289]

Stdlib updates (outstanding ones only) ↑

BigDecimal

Update to version 1.4.0. This version includes several compatibility issues, see Compatibility issues section below for details.

Modified method

  • BigDecimal() accepts the new keyword “exception:” similar to Float().

Note for the differences among recent versions

You should want to know the differences among recent versions of bigdecimal. Please select the suitable version of bigdecimal according to the following information.

  • 1.3.5 has BigDecimal.new without “exception:” keyword. You can see the deprecation warning of BigDecimal.new when you specify “-w” option. BigDecimal(), BigDecimal.new, and Object#to_d methods are the same.

  • 1.4.0 has BigDecimal.new with “exception:” keyword. You always see the deprecation warning of BigDecimal.new. Object#to_d method is different from BigDecimal() and BigDecimal.new.

  • 2.0.0 will be released soon after releasing Ruby 2.6.0. This version will not have the BigDecimal.new method.

Bundler

  • Add Bundler to Standard Library. [Feature #12733]

  • Use 1.17.2, the latest stable version.

Coverage

A oneshot_lines mode is added. [Feature #15022]

This mode checks “whether each line was executed at least once or not”, instead of “how many times each line was executed”. A hook for each line is fired at most once, and after it is fired the hook flag is removed, i.e., it runs with zero overhead.

New options

  • Add :oneshot_lines keyword argument to Coverage.start.

  • Add :stop and :clear keyword arguments to Coverage.result. If clear is true, it clears the counters to zero. If stop is true, it disables coverage measurement.

New methods

  • Coverage.line_stub, which is a simple helper function that creates the “stub” of line coverage from a given source code.

CSV
ERB
New options

  • Add :trim_mode and :eoutvar keyword arguments to ERB.new. Now non-keyword arguments other than the first one are softly deprecated and will be removed when Ruby 2.5 becomes EOL. [Feature #14256]

  • erb command’s -S option is deprecated, and will be removed in the next version.

FileUtils
New methods

  • FileUtils#cp_lr. [Feature #4189]

Matrix
New methods

  • Matrix#antisymmetric?, Matrix#skew_symmetric?

  • Matrix#map!, Matrix#collect! [Feature #14151]

  • Matrix#[]=

  • Vector#map!, Vector#collect!

  • Vector#[]=

Net
New options

  • Add :write_timeout keyword argument to Net::HTTP.new. [Feature #13396]

New methods

  • Add Net::HTTP#write_timeout and Net::HTTP#write_timeout=. [Feature #13396]

New constant

  • Add Net::HTTPClientException to deprecate Net::HTTPServerException, whose name is misleading. [Bug #14688]

NKF

  • Upgrade to nkf v2.1.5

Psych

  • Upgrade to Psych 3.1.0

RDoc

  • Become about 2 times faster.

  • Use SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH to generate files.

  • Fix method line number that slipped off.

  • Enable --width, --exclude, and --line-numbers that were ignored.

  • Add support for blockquote by “>>>” in default markup notation.

  • Add support for “Raises” lines in TomDoc notation.

  • Fix syntax error output.

  • Fix many parsing bugs.

REXML
Improved some XPath implementations

  • concat() function: Stringify all arguments before concatenating.

  • string() function: Support context node.

  • string() function: Support processing instruction node.

  • Support "*:#{ELEMENT_NAME}" syntax in XPath 2.0.

Fixed some XPath implementations

  • "//#{ELEMENT_NAME}[#{POSITION}]" case

  • string() function: Fix function(document) returns nodes that are out of root elements.

  • "/ #{ELEMENT_NAME} " case

  • "/ #{ELEMENT_NAME} [ #{PREDICATE} ]" case

  • "/ #{AXIS}::#{ELEMENT_NAME}" case

  • "#{N}-#{M}" case: One or more white spaces were required before "-"

  • "/child::node()" case

  • "#{FUNCTION}()/#{PATH}" case

  • "@#{ATTRIBUTE}/parent::" case

  • "name(#{NODE_SET})" case

RSS
New options

  • RSS::Parser.parse now accepts options as Hash. :validate , :ignore_unknown_element , :parser_class options are available.

RubyGems
Set
Aliased method

  • Set#filter! is a new alias for Set#select!. [Feature #13784]

URI
New constant

  • Add URI::File to handle the file URI scheme. [Feature #14035]

Compatibility issues (excluding feature bug fixes) ↑

Dir

  • Dir.glob with '\0'-separated pattern list will be deprecated, and is now warned. [Feature #14643]

File
Object

  • Object#=~ is deprecated. [Feature #15231]

Stdlib compatibility issues (excluding feature bug fixes) ↑

BigDecimal

  • The following methods are removed.

    • BigDecimal.allocate

    • BigDecimal.ver

  • Every BigDecimal object is frozen. [Feature #13984]

  • BigDecimal() parses the given string similar to Float().

  • String#to_d parses the receiver string similar to String#to_f.

  • BigDecimal.new will be removed in version 2.0.

Pathname

  • Pathname#read, Pathname#binread, Pathname#write, Pathname#binwrite, Pathname#each_line and Pathname#readlines do not invoke external commands even if the path starts with the pipe character '|'. This follows [Feature #14245].

Implementation improvements ↑

Miscellaneous changes ↑