Microsoft makes F# 4.6 and F# tools for Visual Studio 2019 generally available

Last week, Microsoft announced the general availability of F# 4.6 and F# tools for Visual Studio 2019. This release comes with a new record type called Anonymous Records and also few updates in the F# Core library.

F# 4.6 and F# tools for Visual Studio 2019

For the updates and development of new features in F# 4.6, the team followed an open RFC process. Writing named record types in F# was not really easy in previous versions and to address exactly that a new type is introduced called Anonymous Records. These F# record types do not have any explicit name and can be declared in an ad-hoc fashion.

Updates in F# Core library

In the F# Core library, updates are made to the 'ValueOption' type. With this release, a new attribute is added called DebuggerDisplay that helps in debugging. The IsNone, IsSome, None, Some, op_Implicit, and ToString members are added. In addition to these updates, there is now a 'ValueOption' module, which has the same functions the Option module has.

F# tools for Visual Studio 2019

A lot of focus has been put on improving the performance of F# tools for Visual Studio, especially for larger solutions. Previously, F# compiler and tools struggled when used for larger solutions and caused a lot of memory and CPU usage. To address this problem the team has done few updates in the F# parser, reduced the cache sizes, significantly reduced the allocations when processing format strings, and more.

This release also comes with a new feature that intelligently idents pasted code based on where your cursor is. You can use this feature by turning on Smart Indent via Tools > Options > Text Editor > F# > Tabs > Smart this will be on automatically.

Read the entire list of updates in F# 4.6 and F# tools for Visual Studio 2019 on Microsoft’s blog.

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