From the original release notes: > With `-Xcontext-receivers` enabled, the compiler will produce...

# language-evolution

[David Kubecka]

From the original release notes:

With -Xcontext-receivers enabled, the compiler will produce pre-release binaries that cannot be used in production code

What does this mean exactly? I couldn't easily find any info about "pre-release binaries". How does the mechanism work?

[ephemient]

the kotlin compiler emits metadata along with the compiled classes in a library. it's necessary for handling kotlin semantics from other libraries (non-java things like top-level functions and typealiases)

[ephemient]

if a library is built with context receivers, it will be flagged as "prerelease" in its metadata. on the consumer side, the kotlin compiler will reject using classes with "prerelease" metadata unless it is also being run in "prerelease" mode

[ephemient]

https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/master/libraries/stdlib/jvm/runtime/kotlin/Metadata.kt#L71

[David Kubecka]

Thanks!