What's New in 5.0

We haven't been doing a great job of keeping this up-to-date, but it does still hit the major highlights.

Name Changes

• The executable is now named premake5
• The default project script is now premake5.lua; premake4.lua remains as a fallback.

Flags and Actions

• --interactive (open an interactive command prompt)
• vs2012, vs2013, vs2015, vs2019 (Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019)

Major Features

• Custom Rules (still experimental)
• Makefile Projects
• Modules
• Per-Configuration File Lists
• Per-File Configurations
• Per-Project Configurations
• Platforms
• Removes
• System Scripts
• Tokens
• HTTP support

New or Modified Globals

• _MAIN_SCRIPT
• _MAIN_SCRIPT_DIR
• _PREMAKE_DIR

New or Modified API calls

• architecture (new)
• buildaction (new values)
• buildcommands (new)
• builddependencies (new)
• buildlog (new)
• buildmessage (new)
• buildoutputs (new)
• characterset (new)
• callingconvention (new)
• cleancommands (new)
• cleanextensions (new)
• clr (new, replaces flags Managed and Unsafe)
• configfile (new)
• configmap (new)
• configuration (retired)
• configurations (modified)
• copylocal (new)
• debugcommand (new)
• debugconnectcommands (new)
• debugextendedprotocol (new)
• debugport (new)
• debugremotehost (new)
• debugsearchpaths (new)
• debugstartupcommands (new)
• dependson (new)
• disablewarnings (new)
• dotnetframework (new)
• editandcontinue (new, replaces flag NoEditAndContinue)
• editorintegration (new)
• enablewarnings (new)
• endian (new)
• entrypoint (new)
• exceptionhandling (new)
• external (new)
• externalanglebrackets (new)
• externalincludedirs (new)
• externalwarnings (new)
• externalproject (new)
• externalrule (new)
• fatalwarnings (new)
• fileextension (new)
• filename (new)
• filter (new)
• flags (new values)
• floatingpoint (new, replaces flags FloatFast and FloatStrict)
• forceincludes (new)
• forceusings (new)
• fpu (new)
• gccprefix (new)
• group (new)
• icon (new)
• inlining (new)
• kind (Makefile, None)
• linkbuildoutputs (new)
• links
• language (new values)
• locale (new)
• makesettings (new)
• namespace (new)
• nativewchar (new, replaces flag NativeWChar)
• newaction (modified)
• nuget (new)
• objdir (modified)
• optimize (new, replaces flags OptimizeSize and OptimizeSpeed)
• pic (new)
• platforms (modified)
• postbuildmessage (new)
• prebuildmessage (new)
• prelinkmessage (new)
• project (modified)
• propertydefinition (new)
• rebuildcommands (new)
• rtti (new, replaces flag NoRTTI)
• rule (new)
• rules (new)
• runtime (new)
• solution (name changed)
• startproject (new)
• strictaliasing (new)
• sysincludedirs (new)
• syslibdirs (new)
• system (new)
• toolset (new)
• toolsversion (new)
• undefines (new)
• vectorextensions (new, replaces flags EnableSSE and EnableSSE2)
• warnings (new, replaces flags ExtraWarnings and NoWarnings)
• workspace (new)

New or Modified Lua library calls

• includeexternal (new)

• require (modified)

• debug.prompt (new)

• http.download (new)

• http.get (new)

• os.chmod (new)

• os.islink (new)

• os.realpath (new)

• os.uuid (can now generated deterministic name-based UUIDs)

• path.getabsolute (new "relative to" argument)

• string.hash (new)

Deprecated Values and Functions

• buildrule
• flags:
  • Component
  • EnableSSE, EnableSSE2: use vectorextensions instead
  • ExtraWarnings, NoWarnings: use warnings instead
  • FloatFast, FloatStrict: use floatingpoint instead
  • Managed, Unsafe: use clr instead
  • NativeWChar: use nativewchar instead
  • NoEditAndContinue: use editandcontinue instead
  • NoRTTI: use rtti instead.
  • OptimizeSize, OptimizeSpeed: use optimize instead