What's Changed

LFE 2.2.2 brings OTP 28/29 compatibility, new Clojure-inspired functions in clj, a compiler fix for non-standard output paths, and proper DESTDIR/PREFIX separation in the Makefile.

OTP 28+ compatibility (lfe -eval crash fix)

OTP 28 changed the user_drv noshell API to require an input key (#517, #518). Running lfe -eval '...' on OTP 28+ crashed with {badkey, input}.

lfe_init now dispatches across three OTP generations using integer comparison instead of string comparison of the release number:

• OTP 28+: user_drv:start(#{initial_shell => noshell, input => cooked})
• OTP 26–27: user_drv:start(#{initial_shell => noshell}) (unchanged)
• OTP < 26: user:start() (legacy API)

A new Common Test suite (test/lfe_init_SUITE.lfe) verifies -eval behaviour across OTP versions.

New clj functions: println, printf, assoc, update, and friends

Two groups of Clojure-inspired additions to the clj module (#519, #520):

I/O macros — println and printf:

• (clj:println "hello" "world") → prints space-separated args with a trailing newline, returns 'ok
• (clj:printf "~s is ~w" "answer" 42) → formatted output using Erlang format specifiers, no automatic newline

Associative structure functions — assoc, assoc-in, update, update-in:

• Work polymorphically across proplists, dicts, maps, and plain lists (1-based index)
• assoc-in creates intermediate proplists for missing keys along the path
• update / update-in apply a function to the current value at a key or key path

All new functions include full man-page documentation (lfe_clj(3)) and comprehensive tests.

Compiler: create output directories automatically

The compiler now ensures the output directory exists before writing .beam files (#508). This fixes compilation failures when integrating LFE into Mix projects where the target path (e.g. _build/prod/lib/lfe/ebin) hasn't been created yet. Uses filelib:ensure_dir/1 on OTP 25+ with a recursive fallback for older releases.

Makefile: proper DESTDIR / PREFIX separation

Corrected the DESTDIR / PREFIX semantics to follow packaging conventions (#513):

• DESTDIR (default /) is the staging root for packaged installs — e.g. make DESTDIR="$(pwd)/image/" install
• PREFIX (default /usr/local) is the logical install prefix
• mandb now runs only when installing to the real system root (DESTDIR=/)
• Replaced which with the more portable command -v

Other changes

• REPL banner URLs updated to https://lfe.io/use and https://github.com/lfe/lfe
• CI matrix extended to cover OTP 28 and 29 (builds and installs)
• Fixed lfe_init_SUITE ERL_LIBS to resolve the compiled lfe app from the active rebar3 profile instead of assuming the default profile (#522)

PRs

• Makefile: split DESTDIR and PREFIX by @xgqt in #513
• Ensure directory exists before writing the beam file by @diasbruno in #508
• Fix OTP 28 user_drv {badkey, input} crash by @oubiwann in #518
• Add clj:println and clj:printf by @oubiwann in #519
• Add clj:assoc, assoc-in, update, update-in by @oubiwann in #520
• Fix lfe_init_SUITE ERL_LIBS resolution by @oubiwann in #522

New Contributors

• @xgqt made their first contribution in #513

Full Changelog

v2.2.1...v2.2.2

What's Changed

LFE 2.2.1 is a maintenance release with a significant scanner fix, a comprehensive overhaul of the examples directory, CI/CD modernisation, and improved packaging for hex.pm.

Scanner: Elixir module name syntax

The #Esymbol reader syntax for referencing Elixir modules (e.g. #Esune → Elixir.sune) was missing from the scanner. This has been added, restoring the ability to call Elixir modules directly from LFE.

Also includes minor whitespace and comment cleanups in lfe_scan.erl.

Examples overhaul

All 22 examples have been reviewed and updated #505, #506:

• Renamed files to follow Lisp conventions (hyphens instead of underscores): ets_demo → ets-demo, lfe_eval → lfe-eval, mnesia_demo → mnesia-demo, ping_pong → ping-pong
• Fixed deprecated Erlang API calls, BIF conflicts, and formatting issues across examples
• Refactored lfe-eval to resolve BIF shadowing and modernise the code
• Added a new Common Test suite (test/examples_SUITE.lfe) covering compilation and runtime correctness for all examples

Build & packaging

• Added a rebar3 maintainer profile with rebar3_hex for publishing to hex.pm (replaces the old hex-publish target)
• Added a publish alias in rebar.config for rebar3 as maintainer publish
• make clean now removes stale .beam files from test/, preventing cross-branch test failures
• make tests runs clean first to avoid stale bytecode issues
• DESTDIR / PREFIX handling improved so make install follows common conventions for configurable destination directories — thanks to @diasbruno

Compiler & Emacs mode

• Fixed lfec option parsing: lfe_io:read_string returns a list of forms, so parse-opts now appends (++) instead of cons-ing
• lfe-mode.el: added is-record, is-struct, record, record-index, record-field, record-update, struct, struct-field, and struct-update to font-lock built-in lists

CI/CD

• Migrated all GitHub Actions jobs from ubuntu-latest / ubuntu-20.04 to ubuntu-24.04
• Consolidated the four separate build/install jobs (older + newer) into two, covering OTP 22–27 (builds) and 22–28 (installs)
• Removed OTP 19 which can no longer run on current GitHub-hosted images
• Cleaned up job naming for clearer CI/CD results

New Contributors

• @diasbruno made their first contribution with configurable make install destination directories

Full Changelog

v2.2.0...v2.2.1

PRs

• Add detection for Mix projects to start LFE REPL in project context by @monkeyjunglejuice in #499

New Contributors

• @monkeyjunglejuice made their first contribution in #499

Full Changelog

• 2.1.5...v2.2.0

What's Changed

• 2.1.4...v2.1.5

PRs

• Fix tests execution when using recent rebar3 by @delitrem in #491

New Contributors

• @delitrem made their first contribution in #491

What's Changed

• fix: add build patch for macos by @chenrui333 in #487

New Contributors

• @chenrui333 made their first contribution in #487

Full Changelog: 2.1.3...v2.1.4

What's Changed

The biggest change for this release is the new implementations of lc/list-comp and bc/binary-comp for the LFE REPL, which had previously been removed from the REPL for re-working. Additionally:

• Enhancement/476/pub banner funs by @oubiwann in #477
• Makefile: add safe CFLAGS and LDFLAGS by @xgqt in #479
• Cleanup/460/better-publishing by @oubiwann in #482
• Bring the latest 'develop' changes into 'master' in preparation for the 2.1.3 release by @oubiwann in #486

New Contributors

• @xgqt made their first contribution in #479

Full Changelog

2.1.2...v2.1.3

What's Changed

• Fix broken link to lfe_docs.txt by @m-doughty in #467
• Fix expansion for comparison macros for 3 or more arguments by @yastanotheruser in #470
• Merging to master for 2.1.2 release by @oubiwann in #475

New Contributors

• @m-doughty made their first contribution in #467
• @yastanotheruser made their first contribution in #470

Full Changelog: v2.1.1...v2.1.2

What's Changed

• Remove duplicate entries from EBINS by @oubiwann in #411
• Quickfix: Commented out rebar3_lfe plugin by @oubiwann in #462

Full Changelog: 2.1.0...2.1.1

What's Changed

v2.0.1...v2.1.0

• Bug fixes for map-handling in older versions of Erlang.
• Fixes for maps (mref, etc.) in guards.
• Fixes for strings in binary patterns.

v2.0...v2.0.1