1.12.0

Upcoming release

BoxLang 1.12.0 is an upcoming language-focused release. It adds modern destructuring patterns, literal and function-call spread syntax, and the new inclusive .. range operator. It also tightens parser behavior, improves compiler coverage, and expands runtime support across both BoxPilers.

🚀 Major Highlights

🧩 Struct and Array Destructuring

BoxLang now supports destructuring for both structs and arrays.

user = { name: "Luis", role: "admin", meta: { team: "core" } }
({ name, meta: { team } } = user)

numbers = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
[ first, ...middle, last ] = numbers

Highlights:

• Struct destructuring with shorthand and explicit renaming

• Array destructuring with positional bindings

• Nested destructuring patterns

• Default values

• Rest capture

• Scoped assignment targets when explicitly named

• Middle-rest support for arrays

🌟 Spread Syntax

BoxLang now supports spread syntax in literals and function calls.

args = [ 1, 2, 3 ]
result = add( ...args )

base = { retries: 2 }
config = { host, ...base, debug: true }

merged = [ 0, ...left, ...right ]

Highlights:

• Function-call spread for arrays and structs

• Array literal spread

• Unordered and ordered struct literal spread

• Multi-source merging with declaration-order precedence

• Struct shorthand keys like { host, port }

🔢 Inclusive Range Operator

BoxLang now supports the inclusive .. range operator.

1..5   // [1,2,3,4,5]
5..1   // [5,4,3,2,1]
a..b   // endpoints resolved at runtime

This gives BoxLang a compact way to generate ascending or descending integer ranges.

✨ New Features

Destructuring declarations and assignments

Struct destructuring supports:

• shorthand bindings

• explicit renaming

• nested patterns

• missing-key defaults

• rest capture for remaining keys

• scoped targets in direct assignments

Array destructuring supports:

• positional bindings

• nested patterns

• rest bindings

• middle-rest extraction

• predictable short-array behavior

• defaults for missing or null values

Spread in function arguments

Function-call spread is supported in both BoxLang and CFML grammars.

Arrays expand as positional arguments. Structs expand as named arguments.

This works with:

• built-in functions

• member methods

• closures

• lambdas

• returned function expressions

Literal spread and shorthand keys

Spread syntax is now supported in these literal forms:

• Array literals like [ 1, ...values, 4 ]

• Unordered struct literals like { ...defaults, debug: true }

• Ordered struct literals like [ ...defaults, retries: 5 ]

Struct literals also support shorthand keys.

fooBar = "value"
result = { fooBar }

Ambiguous spread-only bracket literals

Spread-only bracket literals are resolved at runtime:

• array sources resolve to arrays

• struct sources resolve to ordered structs

• mixed source types are rejected

Spread-only bracket literal resolution is an experimental edge case. Use explicit keyed members when you want to force ordered-struct syntax.

🛠️ Improvements

Parser and compiler support

These features now flow through the full language stack:

• Grammar updates

• Parser control improvements

• Clearer parse errors for unparenthesized struct destructuring assignments

• AST coverage for destructuring, spread, and range behavior

• Java boxpiler support

• ASM boxpiler support

• Pretty printing and visitor support for the new nodes

Runtime helpers

New runtime helpers back the feature set:

• Object destructuring runtime support

• Array destructuring runtime support

• Literal spread utilities

• Inclusive range operator runtime behavior

More stable test runs

Test execution now isolates user.home and HOME so local ~/.boxlang state does not affect results.

✅ Compatibility Notes

• Non-declaration struct destructuring assignments must be wrapped in parentheses.

• Struct shorthand requires valid identifier keys.

• Quoted, spaced, or numeric keys must use explicit renaming.

• Scoped destructuring targets are not allowed in var, final, or static destructuring declarations.

• Struct literal merge precedence is last write wins.

• Spreading arrays into structs uses 1-based numeric keys.

📚 Documentation

See the new language pages for full syntax and examples:

• Destructuring

• Spread Syntax

• Operators

• Arrays

• Structures