We've moved off GitHub, so we don't store releases here any more.

Please see https://fennel-lang.org/setup for a link to the latest version or https://fennel-lang.org/ for a list of all the versions.

There is a raw list of all the files published at https://fennel-lang.org/downloads

0.5.0 / 2020-08-08

• Fix a bug where lambdas with no body would return true instead of nil.
• Fix a bug where global mangling would break when used with an environment.
• Fix a bug where globals tracking would lose track of allowed list.
• Fix a bug where top-level expressions in include would get skipped.
• The Fennel compiler is now self-hosted and written entirely in Fennel!

0.4.2 / 2020-07-11

• Fix a bug where multiple include calls would splice locals incorrectly
• Support varargs in hashfn with $... (#298)
• Add with-open macro for auto-closing file handles (#295)
• Add --native-module and --native-library to --compile-binary command
• Make autogensym symbols omit "#" when appending unique suffix
• Fix a bug where autogensyms (using #) couldn't be used as multisyms (#294)
• Add fennel.searchModule function to module API
• Fix a bug causing include to ignore compiler options
• Fix a bug causing the repl to fail when $HOME env var was not set

Changes since 0.4.0

• Experimental --compile-binary command (#281)
• Support shebang in all contexts, not just dofile.
• Pinpoint source in compile errors even when loading from a string
• Fix a bug where included modules could get included twice (#278)
• Fix a 0.4.0 bug where macros can't expand to string/boolean/number primitives (#279)
• Fix a bug in macros returning forms of a different length from their input (#276)

Installation

You can download the standalone fennel CLI launcher (requires Lua), or a pre-built archive containing the launcher, fennel.lua itself in library form, as well as the other built-in libraries and all development assets below.

Changes since 0.3.2

• Add import-macros for more flexible macro module loading (#269)
• Ensure deterministic compiler output (#257)
• Add bit-wise operators rshift, lshift, bor, band, bnot, and bxor
• Friendlier compiler/parse error messages with suggestions
• Omit compiler internal stack traces by default unless FENNEL_DEBUG=trace
• Add support for __fennelview metamethod for custom serialization
• Fix a bug where dofile would report the wrong filename
• Fix bug causing failing include of Lua modules that lack a trailing newline (#234)
• Introduce pick-values and pick-args macros (as limit-*: #246, as pick-*: #256)
• Add new macroexpand helper to expand macro forms during compilation (#258)
• Add macrodebug utility macro for printing expanded macro forms in REPL (#258)

Installation note

As of 0.4.0, fennel CLI executable is self-contained and built with make fennel.

You can download a prebuilt release below to get going without make.

• Fix a bug where include could not be nested without invalid Lua output; embed via
  package.preload to avoid repetition and referential equality issues (#214)
• Fix a bug where globals checking would mistakenly flag locals (#213)
• Fix a bug that would cause incorrect filenames in error messages (#208)
• Fix a bug causing else to emit twice in some contexts (#212)
• Dissallow naming a local the same as global in some contexts

• Look for init file for repl in XDG config dirs as well as ~/.fennelrc (#193)
• Add support for --load FILE argument to command-line launcher (#193)
• Fix each to work with raw iterator values (#201)
• Optionally check for unused locals with --check-unused-locals
• Make repl completion descend into nested table fields (#192)
• Fix repl completer to correctly handle symbol mangling (#195)

This release introduces docstrings as well as several new features to
the macro system and some breaking changes; the most significant being
the new unquote syntax and the requirement of auto-gensym for
identifiers in backtick.

• Fix a bug where errors would show incorrect line numbers
• Add support for docstrings and doc for displaying them in repl
• Support :detect-cycles? false in fennelview to turn off "#<table 1>" output
• Disallow non-gensym identifiers in backtick/macros
• Support x# syntax for auto-gensym inside backtick
• Fix a bug in lambda arity checks when using destructuring
• Support :one-line output in fennelview
• Add include special form to selectively inline modules in compiled output
• Add --require-as-include to inline required modules in compiled output
• Add --eval argument to command-line launcher
• Add environment variable FENNEL_PATH to path
• Fix a few bugs in match
• Remove undocumented support for single-quoted strings
• Add support for guard clauses with ? in pattern matching
• Support completion in repl when readline.lua is available
• Add --globals and --globals-only options to launcher script
• Remove luaexpr and luastatement for a single lua special
• Improve code generation for if expressions in many situations
• Alias # special with length
• Replace @ (unquote) with ,; comma is no longer whitespace
• Disallow ~ in symbols other than ~=
• Add hashfn and # reader macro for shorthand functions like #(+ $1 $2)
• Allow hashfn arguments to be used in multisyms
• Add macro to make defining a single macro easier
• Add (comment) special which emits a Lua comment in the generated source
• Allow lua-style method calls like (foo:bar baz); disallow : in symbols

The second minor release introduces backtick, making macro authoring
much more streamlined. Macros may now be defined in the same file, and
pattern matching is added.

• Prevent creation of bindings that collide with special forms and macros
• Make parens around steps optional in arrow macros for single-arg calls
• Allow macros to be defined inline with macros
• Add --add-package-path and --add-fennel-path to launcher script
• Add -?> and -?>> macros
• Add support for quoting with backtick and unquoting with @ (later changed to ,)
• Support key/value tables when destructuring
• Add match macro for pattern matching
• Add optional GNU readline support for repl
• Fix a bug where runtime errors were not reported by launcher correctly
• Allow repl to recover gracefully from parse errors

This release contains a few small bug fixes.

• Fix luarocks packaging so repl includes fennelview
• Fix bug in the repl where locals-saving would fail for certain input
• Fix launcher to write errors to stderr, not stdout