## DRAFT RELEASE NOTES - Introduction to Go 1.8

Go 1.8 is not yet released. These are work-in-progress release notes. Go 1.8 is expected to be released in February 2017.

The latest Go release, version 1.8, arrives six months after Go 1.7. Most of its changes are in the implementation of the toolchain, runtime, and libraries. There are two minor changes to the language specification. As always, the release maintains the Go 1 promise of compatibility. We expect almost all Go programs to continue to compile and run as before.

The release adds support for 32-bit MIPS, updates the compiler back end to generate more efficient code, reduces GC pauses by eliminating stop-the-world stack rescanning, adds HTTP/2 Push support, adds HTTP graceful shutdown, adds more context support, enables profiling mutexes, and simplifies sorting slices.

## Changes to the language

When explicitly converting a value from one struct type to another, as of Go 1.8 the tags are ignored. Thus two structs that differ only in their tags may be converted from one to the other:

    func example() {
    	type T1 struct {
    		X int `json:"foo"`
    	}
    	type T2 struct {
    		X int `json:"bar"`
    	}
    	var v1 T1
    	var v2 T2
    	v1 = T1(v2) // now legal
    }

The language specification now only requires that implementations support up to 16-bit exponents in floating-point constants. This does not affect either the “`gc`” or `gccgo` compilers, both of which still support 32-bit exponents.

## Ports

Go now supports 32-bit MIPS on Linux for both big-endian (`linux/mips`) and little-endian machines (`linux/mipsle`) that implement the MIPS32r1 instruction set with FPU or kernel FPU emulation. Note that many common MIPS-based routers lack an FPU and have firmware that doesn't enable kernel FPU emulation; Go won't run on such machines.

On DragonFly BSD, Go now requires DragonFly 4.4.4 or later.

On OpenBSD, Go now requires OpenBSD 5.9 or later.

The Plan 9 port's networking support is now much more complete and matches the behavior of Unix and Windows with respect to deadlines and cancelation.

Go 1.8 now only supports OS X 10.8 or later. This is likely the last Go release to support 10.8. Compiling Go or running binaries on older OS X versions is untested.

Go 1.8 will be the last release to support Linux on ARMv5E and ARMv6 processors: Go 1.9 will likely require the ARMv6K (as found in the Raspberry Pi 1) or later. To identify whether a Linux system is ARMv6K or later, run “`go` `tool` `dist` `-check-armv6k`” (to facilitate testing, it is also possible to just copy the `dist` command to the system without installing a full copy of Go 1.8) and if the program terminates with output "ARMv6K supported." then the system implements ARMv6K or later. Go on non-Linux ARM systems already requires ARMv6K or later.

### Known Issues

There are some instabilities on FreeBSD and NetBSD that are known but not understood. These can lead to program crashes in rare cases. See issue 15658 and issue 16511. Any help in solving these issues would be appreciated.

## Tools

### Assembler

For 64-bit x86 systems, the following instructions have been added: `VBROADCASTSD`, `BROADCASTSS`, `MOVDDUP`, `MOVSHDUP`, `MOVSLDUP`, `VMOVDDUP`, `VMOVSHDUP`, and `VMOVSLDUP`.

For 64-bit PPC systems, the common vector scalar instructions have been added: `LXS`, `LXSDX`, `LXSI`, `LXSIWAX`, `LXSIWZX`, `LXV`, `LXVD2X`, `LXVDSX`, `LXVW4X`, `MFVSR`, `MFVSRD`, `MFVSRWZ`, `MTVSR`, `MTVSRD`, `MTVSRWA`, `MTVSRWZ`, `STXS`, `STXSDX`, `STXSI`, `STXSIWX`, `STXV`, `STXVD2X`, `STXVW4X`, `XSCV`, `XSCVDPSP`, `XSCVDPSPN`, `XSCVDPSXDS`, `XSCVDPSXWS`, `XSCVDPUXDS`, `XSCVDPUXWS`, `XSCVSPDP`, `XSCVSPDPN`, `XSCVSXDDP`, `XSCVSXDSP`, `XSCVUXDDP`, `XSCVUXDSP`, `XSCVX`, `XSCVXP`, `XVCV`, `XVCVDPSP`, `XVCVDPSXDS`, `XVCVDPSXWS`, `XVCVDPUXDS`, `XVCVDPUXWS`, `XVCVSPDP`, `XVCVSPSXDS`, `XVCVSPSXWS`, `XVCVSPUXDS`, `XVCVSPUXWS`, `XVCVSXDDP`, `XVCVSXDSP`, `XVCVSXWDP`, `XVCVSXWSP`, `XVCVUXDDP`, `XVCVUXDSP`, `XVCVUXWDP`, `XVCVUXWSP`, `XVCVX`, `XVCVXP`, `XXLAND`, `XXLANDC`, `XXLANDQ`, `XXLEQV`, `XXLNAND`, `XXLNOR`, `XXLOR`, `XXLORC`, `XXLORQ`, `XXLXOR`, `XXMRG`, `XXMRGHW`, `XXMRGLW`, `XXPERM`, `XXPERMDI`, `XXSEL`, `XXSI`, `XXSLDWI`, `XXSPLT`, and `XXSPLTW`.

### Yacc

The `yacc` tool (previously available by running “`go` `tool` `yacc`”) has been removed. As of Go 1.7 it was no longer used by the Go compiler. It has moved to the “tools” repository and is now available at `golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goyacc`.

### Fix

The `fix` tool has a new “`context`” fix to change imports from “`golang.org/x/net/context`” to “`context`”.

### Pprof

The `pprof` tool can now profile TLS servers and skip certificate validation by using the “`https+insecure`” URL scheme.

The callgrind output now has instruction-level granularity.

### Trace

The `trace` tool has a new `-pprof` flag for producing pprof-compatible blocking and latency profiles from an execution trace.

Garbage collection events are now shown more clearly in the execution trace viewer. Garbage collection activity is shown on its own row and GC helper goroutines are annotated with their roles.

### Vet

Vet is stricter in some ways and looser where it previously caused false positives.

Vet now checks for copying an array of locks, duplicate JSON and XML struct field tags, non-space-separated struct tags, deferred calls to HTTP `Response.Body.Close` before checking errors, and indexed arguments in `Printf`. It also improves existing checks.

### Compiler Toolchain

Go 1.7 introduced a new compiler back end for 64-bit x86 systems. In Go 1.8, that back end has been developed further and is now used for all architectures.

The new back end, based on static single assignment form (SSA), generates more compact, more efficient code and provides a better platform for optimizations such as bounds check elimination. The new back end reduces the CPU time required by our benchmark programs by 20-30% on 32-bit ARM systems. For 64-bit x86 systems, which already used the SSA back end in Go 1.7, the gains are a more modest 0-10%. Other architectures will likely see improvements closer to the 32-bit ARM numbers.

The temporary `-ssa=0` compiler flag introduced in Go 1.7 to disable the new back end has been removed in Go 1.8.

In addition to enabling the new compiler back end for all systems, Go 1.8 also introduces a new compiler front end. The new compiler front end should not be noticeable to users but is the foundation for future performance work.

The compiler and linker have been optimized and run faster in this release than in Go 1.7, although they are still slower than we would like and will continue to be optimized in future releases. Compared to the previous release, Go 1.8 is about 15% faster.

### Cgo

The Go tool now remembers the value of the `CGO_ENABLED` environment variable set during `make.bash` and applies it to all future compilations by default to fix issue #12808. When doing native compilation, it is rarely necessary to explicitly set the `CGO_ENABLED` environment variable as `make.bash` will detect the correct setting automatically. The main reason to explicitly set the `CGO_ENABLED` environment variable is when your environment supports cgo, but you explicitly do not want cgo support, in which case, set `CGO_ENABLED=0` during `make.bash` or `all.bash`.

The environment variable `PKG_CONFIG` may now be used to set the program to run to handle `#cgo` `pkg-config` directives. The default is `pkg-config`, the program always used by earlier releases. This is intended to make it easier to cross-compile cgo code.

The cgo tool now supports a `-srcdir` option, which is used by the go command.

If cgo code calls `C.malloc`, and `malloc` returns `NULL`, the program will now crash with an out of memory error. `C.malloc` will never return `nil`. Unlike most C functions, `C.malloc` may not be used in a two-result form returning an errno value.

If cgo is used to call a C function passing a pointer to a C union, and if the C union can contain any pointer values, and if cgo pointer checking is enabled (as it is by default), the union value is now checked for Go pointers.

### Gccgo

Due to the alignment of Go's semiannual release schedule with GCC's annual release schedule, GCC release 6 contains the Go 1.6.1 version of gccgo. We expect that the next release, GCC 7, will contain the Go 1.8 version of gccgo.

### Default GOPATH

The `GOPATH` environment variable now has a default value if it is unset. It defaults to `$HOME/go` on Unix and `%USERPROFILE%/go` on Windows.

### Go get

The “`go` `get`” command now always respects HTTP proxy environment variables, regardless of whether the `-insecure` flag is used. In previous releases, the `-insecure` flag had the side effect of not using proxies.

### Go bug

The new “`go` `bug`” command starts a bug report on GitHub, prefilled with information about the current system.

### Go doc

The “`go` `doc`” command now groups constants and variables with their type, following the behavior of `godoc`.

In order to improve the readability of `doc`'s output, each summary of the first-level items is guaranteed to occupy a single line.

Documentation for a specific method in an interface definition can now be requested, as in “`go` `doc` `net.Conn.SetDeadline`”.

### Plugins

Go now supports a “`plugin`” build mode for generating plugins written in Go, and a new `plugin` package for loading such plugins at run time. Plugin support is only currently available on Linux.

## Runtime

### Argument Liveness

The garbage collector no longer considers arguments live throughout the entirety of a function. For more information, and for how to force a variable to remain live, see the `runtime.KeepAlive` function added in Go 1.7.

Updating: Code that sets a finalizer on an allocated object may need to add calls to `runtime.KeepAlive` in functions or methods using that object. Read the `KeepAlive` documentation and its example for more details.

### Concurrent Map Misuse

In Go 1.6, the runtime added lightweight, best-effort detection of concurrent misuse of maps. This release improves that detector with support for detecting programs that concurrently write to and iterate over a map.

As always, if one goroutine is writing to a map, no other goroutine should be reading (which includes iterating) or writing the map concurrently. If the runtime detects this condition, it prints a diagnosis and crashes the program. The best way to find out more about the problem is to run the program under the race detector, which will more reliably identify the race and give more detail.

### MemStats Documentation

The `runtime.MemStats` type has been more thoroughly documented.

## Performance

As always, the changes are so general and varied that precise statements about performance are difficult to make. Most programs should run a bit faster, due to speedups in the garbage collector and optimizations in the standard library.

There have been optimizations to implementations in the `bytes`, `crypto/aes`, `crypto/cipher`, `crypto/elliptic`, `crypto/sha256`, `crypto/sha512`, `encoding/asn1`, `encoding/csv`, `encoding/hex`, `encoding/json`, `hash/crc32`, `image/color`, `image/draw`, `math`, `math/big`, `reflect`, `regexp`, `runtime`, `strconv`, `strings`, `syscall`, `text/template`, and `unicode/utf8` packages.

### Garbage Collector

Garbage collection pauses should be significantly shorter than they were in Go 1.7, usually under 100 microseconds and often as low as 10 microseconds. See the document on eliminating stop-the-world stack re-scanning for details. More work remains for Go 1.9.

### Defer

The overhead of deferred function calls has been reduced by about half.

### Cgo

The overhead of calls from Go into C has been reduced by about half.

## Standard library

### Examples

Examples have been added to the documentation across many packages.

### Sort

The sort package now includes a convenience function `Slice` to sort a slice given a less function. In many cases this means that writing a new sorter type is not necessary.

Also new are `SliceStable` and `SliceIsSorted`.

### HTTP/2 Push

The net/http package now includes a mechanism to send HTTP/2 server pushes from a `Handler`. Similar to the existing `Flusher` and `Hijacker` interfaces, an HTTP/2 `ResponseWriter` now implements the new `Pusher` interface.

### HTTP Server Graceful Shutdown

The HTTP Server now has support for graceful shutdown using the new `Server.Shutdown` method and abrupt shutdown using the new `Server.Close` method.

### More Context Support

Continuing Go 1.7's adoption of `context.Context` into the standard library, Go 1.8 adds more context support to existing packages:

- The new `Server.Shutdown` takes a context argument.
- There have been significant additions to the database/sql package with context support.
- All nine of the new `Lookup` methods on the new `net.Resolver` now take a context.

### Mutex Contention Profiling

The runtime and tools now support profiling contended mutexes.

Most users will want to use the new `-mutexprofile` flag with “`go` `test`”, and then use pprof on the resultant file.

Lower-level support is also available via the new `MutexProfile` and `SetMutexProfileFraction`.

A known limitation for Go 1.8 is that the profile only reports contention for `sync.Mutex`, not `sync.RWMutex`.

### Minor changes to the library

As always, there are various minor changes and updates to the library, made with the Go 1 promise of compatibility in mind. The following sections list the user visible changes and additions. Optimizations and minor bug fixes are not listed.

archive/tar

  The tar implementation corrects many bugs in corner cases of the file format. The `Reader` is now able to process tar files in the PAX format with entries larger than 8GB. The `Writer` no longer produces invalid tar files in some situations involving long pathnames.

compress/flate

  There have been some minor fixes to the encoder to improve the compression ratio in certain situations. As a result, the exact encoded output of `DEFLATE` may be different from Go 1.7. Since `DEFLATE` is the underlying compression of gzip, png, zlib, and zip, those formats may have changed outputs.

  The encoder, when operating in `NoCompression` mode, now produces a consistent output that is not dependent on the size of the slices passed to the `Write` method.

  The decoder, upon encountering an error, now returns any buffered data it had uncompressed along with the error.

compress/gzip

  The `Writer` now encodes a zero `MTIME` field when the `Header.ModTime` field is the zero value. In previous releases of Go, the `Writer` would encode a nonsensical value. Similarly, the `Reader` now reports a zero encoded `MTIME` field as a zero `Header.ModTime`.

context

  The `DeadlineExceeded` error now implements `net.Error` and reports true for both the `Timeout` and `Temporary` methods.

crypto/tls

  The new method `Conn.CloseWrite` allows TLS connections to be half closed.

  The new method `Config.Clone` clones a TLS configuration.

  The new `Config.GetConfigForClient` callback allows selecting a configuration for a client dynamically, based on the client's `ClientHelloInfo`. The `ClientHelloInfo` struct now has new fields `Conn`, `SignatureSchemes` (using the new type `SignatureScheme`), `SupportedProtos`, and `SupportedVersions`.

  The new `Config.GetClientCertificate` callback allows selecting a client certificate based on the server's TLS `CertificateRequest` message, represented by the new `CertificateRequestInfo`.

  The new `Config.KeyLogWriter` allows debugging TLS connections in WireShark and similar tools.

  The new `Config.VerifyPeerCertificate` callback allows additional validation of a peer's presented certificate.

  The `crypto/tls` package now implements basic countermeasures against CBC padding oracles. There should be no explicit secret-dependent timings, but it does not attempt to normalize memory accesses to prevent cache timing leaks.

  The `crypto/tls` package now supports X25519 and ChaCha20-Poly1305. ChaCha20-Poly1305 is now prioritized unless hardware support for AES-GCM is present.

  AES-128-CBC cipher suites with SHA-256 are also now supported.

crypto/x509

  `SystemCertPool` is now implemented on Windows.

  PSS signatures are now supported.

  `UnknownAuthorityError` now has a `Cert` field, reporting the untrusted certificate.

  Certificate validation is more permissive in a few cases and stricter in a few other cases.

  Root certificates will now also be looked for at `/etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem` on Linux, to support RHEL and CentOS.

database/sql

  The package now supports `context.Context`. There are new methods ending in `Context` such as `DB.QueryContext` and `DB.PrepareContext` that take context arguments. Using the new `Context` methods ensures that connections are closed and returned to the connection pool when the request is done; enables canceling in-progress queries should the driver support that; and allows the database pool to cancel waiting for the next available connection.

  The `IsolationLevel` can now be set when starting a transaction by setting the isolation level on the `Context` then passing that `Context` to `DB.BeginContext`. An error will be returned if an isolation level is selected that the driver does not support. A read-only attribute may also be set on the transaction with `ReadOnlyContext`.

  Queries now expose the SQL column type information for drivers that support it. Rows can return `ColumnTypes` which can include SQL type information, column type lengths, and the Go type.

  A `Rows` can now represent multiple result sets. After `Rows.Next` returns false, `Rows.NextResultSet` may be called to advance to the next result set. The existing `Rows` should continue to be used after it advances to the next result set.

  `NamedArg` may be used as query arguments. The new function `Named` helps create a `NamedArg` more succinctly.

  If a driver supports the new `Pinger` interface, the `DB.Ping` and `DB.PingContext` methods will use that interface to check whether a database connection is still valid.

  The new `Context` query methods work for all drivers, but `Context` cancelation is not responsive unless the driver has been updated to use them. The other features require driver support in `database/sql/driver`. Driver authors should review the new interfaces. Users of existing driver should review the driver documentation to see what it supports and any system specific documentation on each feature.

debug/pe

  The package has been extended and is now used by the Go linker to read `gcc`-generated object files. The new `File.StringTable` and `Section.Relocs` fields provide access to the COFF string table and COFF relocations. The new `File.COFFSymbols` allows low-level access to the COFF symbol table.

encoding/base64

  The new `Encoding.Strict` method returns an `Encoding` that causes the decoder to return an error when the trailing padding bits are not zero.

encoding/binary

  `Read` and `Write` now support booleans.

encoding/json

  `UnmarshalTypeError` now includes the struct and field name.

  A nil `Marshaler` now marshals as a JSON `null` value.

  A `RawMessage` value now marshals the same as its pointer type.

  `Marshal` encodes floating-point numbers using the same format as in ES6, preferring decimal (not exponential) notation for a wider range of values. In particular, all floating-point integers up to 264 format the same as the equivalent `int64` representation.

  In previous versions of Go, unmarshaling a JSON `null` into an `Unmarshaler` was considered a no-op; now the `Unmarshaler`'s `UnmarshalJSON` method is called with the JSON literal `null` and can define the semantics of that case.

encoding/pem

  `Decode` is now strict about the format of the ending line.

encoding/xml

  `Unmarshal` now has wildcard support for collecting all attributes using the new `",any,attr"` struct tag.

expvar

  The new methods `Int.Value`, `String.Value`, `Float.Value`, and `Func.Value` report the current value of an exported variable.

  The new function `Handler` returns the package's HTTP handler, to enable installing it in non-standard locations.

fmt

  `Scanf`, `Fscanf`, and `Sscanf` now handle spaces differently and more consistently than previous releases. See the scanning documentation for details.

go/doc

  The new `IsPredeclared` function reports whether a string is a predeclared identifier.

go/types

  The new function `Default` returns the default "typed" type for an "untyped" type.

  The alignment of `complex64` now matches the Go compiler.

html/template

  The package now validates the `"type"` attribute on a `<script>` tag.

image/png

  `Decode` (and `DecodeConfig`) now supports True Color and grayscale transparency.

  `Encoder` is now faster and creates smaller output when encoding paletted images.

math/big

  The new method `Int.Sqrt` calculates ⌊√x⌋.

  The new method `Float.Scan` is a support routine for `fmt.Scanner`.

  `Int.ModInverse` now supports negative numbers.

math/rand

  The new `Rand.Uint64` method returns `uint64` values. The new `Source64` interface describes sources capable of generating such values directly; otherwise the `Rand.Uint64` method constructs a `uint64` from two calls to `Source`'s `Int63` method.

mime

  `ParseMediaType` now preserves unnecessary backslash escapes as literals, in order to support MSIE. When MSIE sends a full file path (in “intranet mode”), it does not escape backslashes: “`C:\dev\go\foo.txt`”, not “`C:\\dev\\go\\foo.txt`”. If we see an unnecessary backslash escape, we now assume it is from MSIE and intended as a literal backslash. No known MIME generators emit unnecessary backslash escapes for simple token characters like numbers and letters.

mime/quotedprintable

  The `Reader`'s parsing has been relaxed in two ways to accept more input seen in the wild. First, it accepts an equals sign (`=`) not followed by two hex digits as a literal equal sign. Second, it silently ignores a trailing equals sign at the end of an encoded input.

net

  The `Conn` documentation has been updated to clarify expectations of an interface implementation. Updates in the `net/http` packages depend on implementations obeying the documentation.

  Updating: implementations of the `Conn` interface should verify they implement the documented semantics. The golang.org/x/net/nettest package will exercise a `Conn` and validate it behaves properly.

  The new method `UnixListener.SetUnlinkOnClose` sets whether the underlying socket file should be removed from the file system when the listener is closed.

  The new `Buffers` type permits writing to the network more efficiently from multiple discontiguous buffers in memory. On certain machines, for certain types of connections, this is optimized into an OS-specific batch write operation (such as `writev`).

  The new `Resolver` looks up names and numbers and supports `context.Context`. The `Dialer` now has an optional `Resolver` field.

  `Interfaces` is now supported on Solaris.

  The Go DNS resolver now supports `resolv.conf`'s “`rotate`” and “`option` `ndots:0`” options. The “`ndots`” option is now respected in the same way as `libresolve`.

net/http

  Server changes:

  - The server now supports graceful shutdown support, mentioned above.
  - The `Server` adds configuration options `ReadHeaderTimeout` and `IdleTimeout` and documents `WriteTimeout`.
  - `FileServer` and `ServeContent` now support HTTP `If-Match` conditional requests, in addition to the previous `If-None-Match` support for ETags properly formatted according to RFC 7232, section 2.3.

  There are several additions to what a server's `Handler` can do:

  - The `Context` returned by `Request.Context` is canceled if the underlying `net.Conn` closes. For instance, if the user closes their browser in the middle of a slow request, the `Handler` can now detect that the user is gone. This complements the existing `CloseNotifier` support. This functionality requires that the underlying `net.Conn` implements recently clarified interface documentation.
  - To serve trailers produced after the header has already been written, see the new `TrailerPrefix` mechanism.
  - A `Handler` can now abort a response by panicking with the error `ErrAbortHandler`.
  - A `Write` of zero bytes to a `ResponseWriter` is now defined as a way to test whether a `ResponseWriter` has been hijacked: if so, the `Write` returns `ErrHijacked` without printing an error to the server's error log.

  Client & Transport changes:

  - The `Client` now copies most request headers on redirect. See the documentation on the `Client` type for details.
  - The `Transport` now supports international domain names. Consequently, so do Get and other helpers.
  - The `Client` now supports 301, 307, and 308 redirects. For example, `Client.Post` now follows 301 redirects, converting them to `GET` requests without bodies, like it did for 302 and 303 redirect responses previously. The `Client` now also follows 307 and 308 redirects, preserving the original request method and body, if any. If the redirect requires resending the request body, the request must have the new `Request.GetBody` field defined. `NewRequest` sets `Request.GetBody` automatically for common body types.
  - The `Transport` now rejects requests for URLs with ports containing non-digit characters.
  - The `Transport` will now retry non-idempotent requests if no bytes were written before a network failure and the request has no body.
  - The new `Transport.ProxyConnectHeader` allows configuration of header values to send to a proxy during a `CONNECT` request.
  - The `DefaultTransport.Dialer` now enables `DualStack` ("Happy Eyeballs") support, allowing the use of IPv4 as a backup if it looks like IPv6 might be failing.
  - The `Transport` no longer reads a byte of a non-nil `Request.Body` when the `Request.ContentLength` is zero to determine whether the `ContentLength` is actually zero or just undefined. To explicitly signal that a body has zero length, either set it to `nil`, or set it to the new value `NoBody`. The new `NoBody` value is intended for use by `Request` constructor functions; it is used by `NewRequest`.

net/http/httptrace

  There is now support for tracing a client request's TLS handshakes with the new `ClientTrace.TLSHandshakeStart` and `ClientTrace.TLSHandshakeDone`.

net/http/httputil

  The `ReverseProxy` has a new optional hook, `ModifyResponse`, for modifying the response from the back end before proxying it to the client.

net/mail

  Empty quoted strings are once again allowed in the name part of an address. That is, Go 1.4 and earlier accepted `""` `<gopher@example.com>`, but Go 1.5 introduced a bug that rejected this address. The address is recognized again.

  The `Header.Date` method has always provided a way to parse the `Date:` header. A new function `ParseDate` allows parsing dates found in other header lines, such as the `Resent-Date:` header.

net/smtp

  If an implementation of the `Auth.Start` method returns an empty `toServer` value, the package no longer sends trailing whitespace in the SMTP `AUTH` command, which some servers rejected.

net/url

  The new functions `PathEscape` and `PathUnescape` are similar to the query escaping and unescaping functions but for path elements.

  The new methods `URL.Hostname` and `URL.Port` return the hostname and port fields of a URL, correctly handling the case where the port may not be present.

  The existing method `URL.ResolveReference` now properly handles paths with escaped bytes without losing the escaping.

  The `URL` type now implements `encoding.BinaryMarshaler` and `encoding.BinaryUnmarshaler`, making it possible to process URLs in gob data.

  Following RFC 3986, `Parse` now rejects URLs like `this_that:other/thing` instead of interpreting them as relative paths (`this_that` is not a valid scheme). To force interpretation as a relative path, such URLs should be prefixed with “`./`”. The `URL.String` method now inserts this prefix as needed.

os

  The new function `Executable` returns the path name of the running executable.

  An attempt to call a method on an `os.File` that has already been closed will now return the new error value `os.ErrClosed`. Previously it returned a system-specific error such as `syscall.EBADF`.

  On Unix systems, `os.Rename` will now return an error when used to rename a directory to an existing empty directory. Previously it would fail when renaming to a non-empty directory but succeed when renaming to an empty directory. This makes the behavior on Unix correspond to that of other systems.

  On Windows, long absolute paths are now transparently converted to extended-length paths (paths that start with “`\\?\`”). This permits the package to work with files whose path names are longer than 260 characters.

  On Windows, `os.IsExist` will now return `true` for the system error `ERROR_DIR_NOT_EMPTY`. This roughly corresponds to the existing handling of the Unix error `ENOTEMPTY`.

  On Plan 9, files that are not served by `#M` will now have `ModeDevice` set in the value returned by `FileInfo.Mode`.

path/filepath

  A number of bugs and corner cases on Windows were fixed: `Abs` now calls `Clean` as documented, `Glob` now matches “`\\?\c:\*`”, `EvalSymlinks` now correctly handles “`C:.`”, and `Clean` now properly handles a leading “`..`” in the path.

reflect

  The new function `Swapper` was added to support `sort.Slice`.

strconv

  The `Unquote` function now strips carriage returns (`\r`) in backquoted raw strings, following the Go language semantics.

syscall

  The `Getpagesize` now returns the system's size, rather than a constant value. Previously it always returned 4KB.

  The signature of `Utimes` has changed on Solaris to match all the other Unix systems' signature. Portable code should continue to use `os.Chtimes` instead.

  The `X__cmsg_data` field has been removed from `Cmsghdr`.

text/template

  `Template.Execute` can now take a `reflect.Value` as its data argument, and `FuncMap` functions can also accept and return `reflect.Value`.

time

  The new function `Until` complements the analogous `Since` function.

  `ParseDuration` now accepts long fractional parts.

  `Parse` now rejects dates before the start of a month, such as June 0; it already rejected dates beyond the end of the month, such as June 31 and July 32.

  The `tzdata` database has been updated to version 2016i for systems that don't already have a local time zone database.

testing

  The new method `T.Name` (and `B.Name`) returns the name of the current test or benchmark.

  The new function `CoverMode` reports the test coverage mode.

  Tests and benchmarks are now marked as failed if the race detector is enabled and a data race occurs during execution. Previously, individual test cases would appear to pass, and only the overall execution of the test binary would fail.

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  `SimpleFold` now returns its argument unchanged if the provided input was an invalid rune. Previously, the implementation failed with an index bounds check panic.