Ballerina Language Specifications and Proposals
Released Specifications
The below are the most stable versions of the lanuguage specification, which are in sync with the Ballerina releases.
Note: The
ChangeLogsection of the specification identifies the changes that have occurred in each version of the specification.
| Version | Release Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2021R1 | 2021-06-02 | First release of 2021. This is the basis for Ballerina Swan Lake Beta1. |
| 2020R1 | 2020-03-20 | First release of 2020. This is the basis for jBallerina 1.2.0. |
| 2019R3 | 2019-09-07 | Stable release used as the basis for jBallerina 1.0.0 implementation. Mostly a cleanup from 2019R2 |
| 2019R2 | 2019-07-01 | Major revised edition of the language |
| 2019R1 | 2019-05-01 | First release with new versioning scheme with significant revisions |
Current Snapshot
For a snapshot of the current language specification including all changes, see the main language specification.
Previous Drafts
For previous draft language specifications of a Ballerina release, see the draft language specification.
Specification Versioning Convention
From the start of 2019, Ballerina specifications are versioned chronologically using the convention 20XYRn, where XY is the 2-digit year (e.g., 19), R stands for “Release”, and n is the release number for that year. Prior to 2019, a semver versioning scheme was used. However, that approach was abandoned when the language specification reached 0.980.
Proposals for Improvements/Enhancements
For the proposals for improving Ballerina, see the work in progress proposals.
Ballerina Platform Specifications
| Specification | Latest Released Version | Current Snapshot |
|---|---|---|
| Code to Cloud | 2021R1 | Snapshot |
| Configurable | 2021R1 | Snapshot |
| Language Extensions - Deprecation | 2021R1 | Snapshot |
| Package | 2021R1 | Snapshot |
| Test Framework | 2021R1 | Snapshot |
About Ballerina Specifications
As a platform designed to have multiple implementations, Ballerina semantics are defined by a series of specifications and not by the implementation. Currently, we have only one implementation (i.e., jBallerina, which compiles Ballerina to Java bytecodes). Others will follow, including a compiler which generates native binaries using LLVM.
The Ballerina platform is specified by a collection of specifications starting with the Ballerina Language Specification. Other specifications (which are yet to be moved to the specification repository or, in some cases, yet to be written) will cover the standard library, built-in language extensions such as security, immutability & deprecation, module and project management, testing, documentation, compiler extensions for cloud, and Ballerina Central.
All Ballerina specifications are maintained in the ballerina-spec GitHub repository. Designing is also done via clearly-identified issues in this repository. Contributors are encouraged to participate via existing issues or by creating new issues.
