1.84.0 post

Author: Mark-Simulacrum

posts/2025-01-09-Rust-1.84.0.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Announcing Rust 1.84.0"
+author: The Rust Release Team
+release: true
+---
+
+The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.84.0. Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.
+
+If you have a previous version of Rust installed via `rustup`, you can get 1.84.0 with:
+
+```console
+$ rustup update stable
+```
+
+If you don't have it already, you can [get `rustup`](https://www.rust-lang.org/install.html) from the appropriate page on our website, and check out the [detailed release notes for 1.84.0](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/releases.html#version-1840-2025-01-09).
+
+If you'd like to help us out by testing future releases, you might consider updating locally to use the beta channel (`rustup default beta`) or the nightly channel (`rustup default nightly`). Please [report](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/new/choose) any bugs you might come across!
+
+## What's in 1.84.0 stable
+
+### Cargo can use toolchain version for library version selection
+
+1.84.0 stabilizes the minimum supported Rust version (MSRV) aware resolver,
+which uses the declared [minimum supported Rust version](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/rust-version.html) from
+dependencies, if available, to improve package version selection. Rust version
+aware selection allows library authors to easily adopt newer Rust versions
+while providing library consumers a way to opt-in to using new package versions
+if they need compatibility with older toolchains.
+
+Library authors should start declaring their MSRV. Previously, bumping the
+version at each release to latest stable would force downstream consumers
+requiring an older Rust version to avoid running `cargo update` and/or require
+pinning the version of the library in use, but now those consumers will be able
+to automatically avoid pulling in new library versions if they want
+compatibility with an older toolchain. We expect this to provide more options
+for library authors for picking their preferred support strategy for Rust
+versions.
+
+The new resolver will be enabled by default with the 2024 edition (expected to
+stabilize in 1.85), but can be enabled as of 1.84 by setting
+`resolver.incompatible-rust-versions = "fallback"`.
+
+TODO: Should we talk about resolver v3 and/or recommend that as the path to enabling instead?
+
+Read [the documentation](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/resolver.html#rust-version) for more details.
+
+### Migration to a new trait solver begins
+
+The Rust compiler is in the process of moving to a new implementation for the
+trait solver. The next-generation trait solver is a reimplementation of a core
+component of Rust's type system. It is not only responsible for checking
+whether trait-bounds - e.g. `Vec<T>: Clone` - hold, but is also used by many
+other parts of the type system, such as normalization - figuring out the
+underlying type of `<Vec<T> as IntoIterator>::Item` - and equating types
+(checking whether T and U are the same).
+
+In 1.84, the new solver is used for checking coherence of trait impls. At a
+high level, coherence is responsible for ensuring that there is at most one
+implementation of a trait for a given type, including *globally* in not yet
+written or visible code in downstream crates from the current compilation.
+
+This stabilization does include some breaking changes, primarily by fixing some
+correctness issues with the old solver. Typically these will show up as new
+"conflicting implementations of trait ..." errors that were not previously
+reported. We expect instances of this to be rare based on evaluation of
+available code through [Crater], as the soundness holes in the previous solving
+engine used relatively esoteric code. It also improves our ability to detect
+where impls do *not* overlap, allowing more code to be written in some cases.
+
+For more details, see a [previous blog post](https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/12/04/trait-system-refactor-initiative.html)
+and the [stabilization report](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/130654)
+
+[Crater]: https://github.com/rust-lang/crater/
+
+### Strict provenance APIs stabilized
+
+Pointers (this includes values of reference type) in Rust have two components.
+
+* The pointer's "address" says where in memory the pointer is currently pointing.
+* The pointer's "provenance" says where and when the pointer is allowed to access memory.
+
+In 1.84, a number of standard library functions are stabilized to permit
+explicitly manipulating the address and provenance parts of pointers, avoiding
+integer-to-pointer casts to side-step the inherent ambiguity of that operation.
+This benefits compiler optimizations, and it is pretty much a requirement for
+using tools like [Miri](https://github.com/rust-lang/miri) and architectures
+like [CHERI](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/) that aim
+to detect and diagnose pointer misuse.
+
+We recommend that code generally be written against the strict provenance APIs
+when it needs to manipulate pointers. Rust code that doesn't cast integers to
+pointers is already staying within the bounds of strict provenance, though the
+usage of these APIs can make the programmer's intent clearer to tooling.
+
+See the [documentation](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/std/ptr/index.html#strict-provenance)
+for more details on these APIs. For more background, [RFC 3559](https://rust-lang.github.io/rfcs/3559-rust-has-provenance.html)
+lays out the rationale for having provenance.
+
+### Stabilized APIs
+
+TODO, relnotes still in-progress for this section
+
+### Other changes
+
+Check out everything that changed in [Rust](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/releases/tag/1.84.0), [Cargo](https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#cargo-184-2025-01-09), and [Clippy](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#rust-184).
+
+## Contributors to 1.84.0
+
+Many people came together to create Rust 1.84.0. We couldn't have done it without all of you. [Thanks!](https://thanks.rust-lang.org/rust/1.84.0/)