Language

• Added the unsafe_op_in_unsafe_fn lint, which checks whether the unsafe code in an unsafe fn is wrapped in a unsafe block. This lint is allowed by default, and may become a warning or hard error in a future edition.
• You can now cast mutable references to arrays to a pointer of the same type as the element.

Compiler

• Upgraded the default LLVM to LLVM 12.

Added tier 3* support for the following targets.

• s390x-unknown-linux-musl
• riscv32gc-unknown-linux-musl & riscv64gc-unknown-linux-musl
• powerpc-unknown-openbsd

* Refer to Rust's platform support page for more information on Rust's tiered platform support.

Libraries

• OsString now implements Extend and FromIterator.
• cmp::Reverse now has #[repr(transparent)] representation.
• Arc<impl Error> now implements error::Error.
• All integer division and remainder operations are now const.

Stabilised APIs

• Arguments::as_str
• char::MAX
• char::REPLACEMENT_CHARACTER
• char::UNICODE_VERSION
• char::decode_utf16
• char::from_digit
• char::from_u32_unchecked
• char::from_u32
• slice::partition_point
• str::rsplit_once
• str::split_once

The following previously stable APIs are now const.

• char::len_utf8
• char::len_utf16
• char::to_ascii_uppercase
• char::to_ascii_lowercase
• char::eq_ignore_ascii_case
• u8::to_ascii_uppercase
• u8::to_ascii_lowercase
• u8::eq_ignore_ascii_case

Rustdoc

• Rustdoc lints are now treated as a tool lint, meaning that lints are now prefixed with rustdoc:: (e.g. #[warn(rustdoc::broken_intra_doc_links)]). Using the old style is still allowed, and will become a warning in a future release.
• Rustdoc now supports argument files.
• Rustdoc now generates smart punctuation for documentation.
• You can now use "task lists" in Rustdoc Markdown. E.g.

  - [x] Complete
  - [ ] Todo
  

Misc

• You can now pass multiple filters to tests. E.g. cargo test -- foo bar will run all tests that match foo and bar.
• Rustup now distributes PDB symbols for the std library on Windows, allowing you to see std symbols when debugging.

Internal Only

These changes provide no direct user facing benefits, but represent significant improvements to the internals and overall performance of rustc and related tools.

• Check the result cache before the DepGraph when ensuring queries
• Try fast_reject::simplify_type in coherence before doing full check
• Only store a LocalDefId in some HIR nodes
• Store HIR attributes in a side table

Compatibility Notes

• Cargo build scripts are now forbidden from setting RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP.
• Removed support for the x86_64-rumprun-netbsd target.
• Deprecated the x86_64-sun-solaris target in favor of x86_64-pc-solaris.
• Rustdoc now only accepts ,, , and \t as delimiters for specifying languages in code blocks.
• Rustc now catches more cases of pub_use_of_private_extern_crate
• Changes in how proc macros handle whitespace may lead to panics when used with older proc-macro-hack versions. A cargo update should be sufficient to fix this in all cases.
• Turn #[derive] into a regular macro attribute