What's new in F# 4.6

F# 4.6 adds multiple improvements to the F# language.

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F# 4.6 is available in all .NET Core distributions and Visual Studio tooling. Get started with F# to learn more.

Anonymous records

Anonymous records are a new kind of F# type introduced in F# 4.6. They are simple aggregates of named values that don't need to be declared before use. You can declare them as either structs or reference types. They're reference types by default.

open System

let getCircleStats radius =
    let d = radius * 2.0
    let a = Math.PI * (radius ** 2.0)
    let c = 2.0 * Math.PI * radius

    {| Diameter = d; Area = a; Circumference = c |}

let r = 2.0
let stats = getCircleStats r
printfn "Circle with radius: %f has diameter %f, area %f, and circumference %f"
    r stats.Diameter stats.Area stats.Circumference

They can also be declared as structs for when you want to group value types and are operating in performance-sensitive scenarios:

open System

let getCircleStats radius =
    let d = radius * 2.0
    let a = Math.PI * (radius ** 2.0)
    let c = 2.0 * Math.PI * radius

    struct {| Diameter = d; Area = a; Circumference = c |}

let r = 2.0
let stats = getCircleStats r
printfn "Circle with radius: %f has diameter %f, area %f, and circumference %f"
    r stats.Diameter stats.Area stats.Circumference

They're quite powerful and can be used in numerous scenarios. Learn more at Anonymous records.

ValueOption functions

The ValueOption type added in F# 4.5 now has "module-bound function parity" with the Option type. Some of the more commonly-used examples are as follows:

// Multiply a value option by 2 if it has  value
let xOpt = ValueSome 99
let result = xOpt |> ValueOption.map (fun v -> v * 2)

// Reverse a string if it exists
let strOpt = ValueSome "Mirror image"
let reverse (str: string) =
    match str with
    | null
    | "" -> ValueNone
    | s ->
        str.ToCharArray()
        |> Array.rev
        |> string
        |> ValueSome

let reversedString = strOpt |> ValueOption.bind reverse

This allows for ValueOption to be used just like Option in scenarios where having a value type improves performance.