Dear OCaml users,

The release of OCaml version 4.14.2 is imminent.

OCaml 4.14.2 is a new update to the stable 4.14 branch of OCaml. This new r= elease backports many safe bug fixes from the OCaml 5 branch and fixes a ha= ndful of compatibility issues of OCaml 4.14.1 with newer operating system v= ersions.

A full list of bug fixes is available below.

In order to ensure that the future release works as expected, we are planni= ng to test a release candidate during the upcoming week

(the packages might take some hours to propagate on the opam repositor= y).

If you find any bugs, please report them here on https://github.com/ocaml/o= caml/issues.

Happy hacking,
Florian Angeletti for the OCaml team.

Installation Instructions

------------------------------

The base compiler can be installed as an opam switch with the following com= mands on opam 2.1:

opam update
opam switch create 4.14.2~rc1

The source code for the release candidate is available on

- GitHub: https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/archive/4.14.2-rc1.tar.gz
- Inria archives : https://caml.inria.fr/pub/distrib/ocaml-4.14/ocaml-4.14.=
2~rc1.tar.gz

Fine-Tuned Compiler Configuration

-----------------------------------------------

If you want to tweak the configuration of the compiler, you can switch to t= he option variant with:

    opam update
    opam switch create <switch_name> ocaml-variants.4.= 14.2~rc1+options <option_list>

where <option_list> is a space-separated list of ocaml-option-* packa= ges. For instance, for a flambda and no-flat-float-array switch:

    opam switch create 4.14.2~rc1+flambda+nffa ocaml= -variants.4.14.2~rc1+options ocaml-option-flambda ocaml-option-no-flat-= float-array

All available options can be listed with opam search ocaml-option.

Changes Since OCaml 4.14.1

-----------------------------------------

### Runtime System:

- #11764(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11764), #12577(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12577): Add prototypes to old-style C funct= ion definitions
     and declarations.
    (Antonin D=E9cimo, review by Xavier Leroy and Nick Barne= s)

- #11763(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11763), #11759(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11759), #11861(https://github.com/ocaml/oca= ml/issues/11861), #12509(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12509), #125= 77(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12577): Use strict prototypes on primitives.
    (Antonin D=E9cimo, review by Xavier Leroy, David Allsopp= , S=E9bastien
     Hinderer and Nick Barnes)

* (*breaking change*) #10723(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/1= 0723): Do not use `-flat-namespace` linking for macOS.
    (Carlo Cabrera, review by Damien Doligez)

- #11332(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11332), [#12702](http= s://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12702): Make sure `Bool_val(v)` has type = `bool` in C++
    (Xavier Leroy, report by ygrek, review by Gabriel Schere= r)

### Build System:

- #11590(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11590): Allow install= ing to a destination path containing spaces
    (=C9lie Brami, review by S=E9bastien Hinderer and David = Allsopp)

- #12372(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12372): Pass option `= -no-execute-only` to the linker for OpenBSD >=3D 7.3
    so that code sections remain readable, as needed for clo= sure marshaling.
    (Xavier Leroy and Anil Madhavapeddy, review by Anil Madh= avapeddy and
    S=E9bastien Hinderer)

- #12903(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12903): Disable contr= ol flow integrity on OpenBSD >=3D 7.4 to avoid
    illegal instruction errors on certain CPUs.
    (Michael Hendricks, review by Miod Vallat)

### Bug fixes:

- #12061(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12061), #12063(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12063): Don't add inconsistent equalities w= hen computing
    high-level error messages for functor applications and i= nclusions.
    (Florian Angeletti, review by Gabriel Scherer)

- #12878(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12878): Fix incorrect= treatment of injectivity for private recursive types.
    (Jeremy Yallop, review by Gabriel Scherer and Jacques Ga= rrigue)

- #12971(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12971), [#12974](http= s://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12974): Fix an uncaught Ctype. Escape exc= eption on some
    invalid programs forming recursive types.
    (Gabriel Scherer, review by Florian Angeletti, report by= Neven Villani)

- #12264(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12264), #12289(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12289): Fix `compact_allocate` to avoid a p= athological case
    that causes very slow compaction.
    (Damien Doligez, report by Arseniy Alekseyev, review by = Sadiq Jaffer)

- #12513(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12513), #12518(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12518): Automatically enable emulated `fma`= for Visual Studio 2019+
    to allow configuration with either pre-Haswell/pre-Piled= river CPUs or running
    in VirtualBox. Restores parity with the other Windows po= rts, which don't
    require explicit `--enable-imprecise-c99-float-ops`.
    (David Allsopp, report by Jonah Beckford and Kate Deplai= x, review by
     S=E9bastien Hinderer)

- #11633(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11633), [#11636](http= s://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/11636): Bug fix in `caml_unregister_frame= table`
    (Fr=E9d=E9ric Recoules, review by Gabriel Scherer)

- #12636(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12636), #12646(https:= //github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12646): More prudent reinitialisation of I/= O mutexes after a fork()
    (Xavier Leroy, report by Zach Baylin, review by Enguerra= nd Decorne)

* (*breaking change*) #10845(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/1= 0845) Emit frametable size on AMD64 BSD (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD) systems<= br>     (emitted for Linux in [#8805](https://github.com/ocaml/o= caml/issues/8805))
    (Hannes Mehnert, review by Nicol=E1s Ojeda B=E4r)

- #12958(https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/issues/12958): Fix `tail-mod= ulo-cons` compilation of `try-with`, `&&`, and `||`
    expressions.
    (Gabriel Scherer and Nicol=E1s Ojeda B=E4r, report by Sy= lvain Boilard, review by
    Gabriel Scherer)