3 Catalyst::Delta - Overview of changes between versions of Catalyst
7 This is an overview of the user-visible changes to Catalyst between major
10 =head2 VERSION 5.90097
12 =head3 Defined how $c->uri_for adds a URI fragment.
14 We now have a specification for creating URIs with fragments (or HTML anchors).
15 Previously you could do this as a side effect of how we create URIs but this
16 side effect behavior was never documented or tested, and was broken when we
17 introduced default UTF-8 encoding. When creating URIs with fragments please
18 follow the new, supported specification:
20 $c->uri_for($action_or_path, \@captures_or_args, @args, \$query, \$fragment);
22 This will be a breaking change for some codebases, we recommend testing if
23 you are creating URLs with fragments.
25 B<NOTE> If you are using the alternative:
27 $c->uri_for('/foo/bar#baz')
29 construction, we do not attempt to encode this and it will make a URL with a
32 =head2 VERSION 5.90094
34 =head3 Multipart form POST with character set headers
36 When we did the UTF8 work, we punted on Form POSTs when the POST envelope was
37 multipart and each part had complex headers such as content-types, character
38 sets and so forth. In those cases instead of returning a possibly incorrect
39 value, we returned an object describing the part so that you could figure it
40 out manually. This turned out to be a bad workaround as people did not expect
41 to find that object. So we changed this to try much harder to get a correct
42 value. We still return an object if we fail but we try much harder now. If
43 you used to check for the object you might find that code is no longer needed
44 (although checking for it should not hurt or break anything either).
46 =head2 VERSION 5.90091
48 =head3 'case_sensitive' configuration
50 At one point in time we allowed you to set a 'case_sensitive' configuraion value so
51 that you could find actions by their private names using mixed case. We highly
52 discourage that. If you are using this 'feature' you should be on notice that we
53 plan to remove the code around it in the near future.
55 =head2 VERSION 5.90090+
57 =head3 Type constraints on Args and CaptureArgs.
59 You may now use a type constraint (using L<Moose>, L<MooseX::Types> or preferably
60 L<Type::Tiny> in your Args or CaptureArgs action attributes. This can be used
61 to restrict the value of the Arg. For example:
63 sub myaction :Local Args(Int) { ... }
65 Would match '.../myaction/5' but not '.../myaction/string'.
67 When an action (or action chain) has Args (or CaptureArgs) that declare type constraints
68 your arguments to $c->uri_for(...) must match those constraints.
70 See L<Catalyst::RouteMatching> for more.
72 =head3 Move CatalystX::InjectComponent into core
74 L<Catalyst::Utils> has a new method 'inject_component' which works the same as the method of
75 the same name in L<CatalystX::InjectComponent>.
77 =head3 inject_components
79 New configuration key allows you to inject components directly into your application without
80 any subclasses. For example:
83 inject_components => {
84 'Controller::Err' => { from_component => 'Local::Controller::Errors' },
85 'Model::Zoo' => { from_component => 'Local::Model::Foo' },
86 'Model::Foo' => { from_component => 'Local::Model::Foo', roles => ['TestRole'] },
88 'Controller::Err' => { a => 100, b=>200, namespace=>'error' },
89 'Model::Zoo' => { a => 2 },
90 'Model::Foo' => { a => 100 },
93 Injected components are useful to reduce the ammount of nearly empty boilerplate classes
94 you might have, particularly when first starting an application.
96 =head3 Component setup changes.
98 Previously you could not depend on an application scoped component doing setup_components
99 since components were setup 'in order'. Now all components are first registered and then
100 setup, so you can now reliably use any component doing setup_components.
102 =head2 VERSION 5.90080+
104 The biggest change in this release is that UTF8 encoding is now enabled by
105 default. So you no longer need any plugins (such as L<Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding>)
106 which you can just no go ahead and remove. You also don't need to set
107 the encoding configuration (__PACKAGE__->config(encoding=>'UTF-8')) anymore
108 as well (although its presence hurts nothing).
110 If this change causes you trouble, you can disable it:
112 __PACKAGE__->config(encoding=>undef);
114 For further information, please see L<Catalyst::UTF8>
116 But please report bugs. You will find that a number of common Views have been
117 updated for this release (such as L<Catalyst::View::TT>). In all cases that the
118 author is aware of these updates were to fix test cases only. You shouldn't
119 need to update unless you are installing fresh and want tests to pass.
121 L<Catalyst::Plugin::Compress> was updated to be compatible with this release.
122 You will need to upgrade if you are using this plugin. L<Catalyst::Upgrading>
125 A small change is that the configuration setting C<using_frontend_proxy>
126 was not doing the right thing if you started your application with C<psgi_app>
127 and did not apply the default middleware. This setting is now honored in
128 all the ways an application may be started. This could cause trouble if you
129 are using the configuration value and also adding the proxy middleware
130 manually with a custom application startup. The solution is that you only
131 need the configuration value set, or the middleware manually added (not both).
133 =head2 VERSION 5.90060+
135 =head3 Catalyst::Log object autoflush on by default
137 Starting in 5.90065, the Catalyst::Log object has 'autoflush' which is on
138 by default. This causes all messages to be written to the log immediately
139 instead of at the end of startup and then at the end of each request. In
140 order to access the old behavior, you must now call:
142 $c->log->autoflush(0);
144 =head3 Deprecate Catalyst::Utils::ensure_class_loaded
146 Going forward we recommend you use L<Module::Runtime>. In fact we will
147 be converting all uses of L<Class::Load> to L<Module::Runtime>. We will
148 also convert L<Catalyst::Utils\ensure_class_loaded> to be based on
149 L<Module::Runtime> to allow some time for you to update code, however at
150 some future point this method will be removed so you should stop
153 =head3 Support passing Body filehandles directly to your Plack server.
155 We changed the way we return body content (from response) to whatever
156 Plack handler you are using (Starman, FastCGI, etc.) We no longer
157 always use the streaming interface for the cases when the body is a
158 simple scalar, object or filehandle like. In those cases we now just
159 pass the simple response on to the plack handler. This might lead to
160 some minor differences in how streaming is handled. For example, you
161 might notice that streaming starts properly supporting chunked encoding when
162 on a server that supports that, or that previously missing headers
163 (possible content-length) might appear suddenly correct. Also, if you
164 are using middleware like L<Plack::Middleware::XSendfile> and are using
165 a filehandle that sets a readable path, your server might now correctly
166 handle the file (rather than as before where Catalyst would stream it
167 very likely very slowly).
169 In other words, some things might be meaninglessly different and some
170 things that were broken codewise but worked because of Catalyst being
171 incorrect might suddenly be really broken. The behavior is now more
172 correct in that Catalyst plays better with features that Plack offers
173 but if you are making heavy use of the streaming interface there could
174 be some differences so you should test carefully (this is probably not
175 the vast majority of people). In particular if you are developing
176 using one server but deploying using a different one, differences in
177 what those server do with streaming should be noted.
179 Please see note below about changes to filehandle support and existing
180 Plack middleware to aid in backwards compatibility.
182 =head3 Distinguish between body null versus undef.
184 We also now more carefully distingush the different between a body set
185 to '' and a body that is undef. This might lead to situations where
186 again you'll get a content-length were you didn't get one before or
187 where a supporting server will start chunking output. If this is an
188 issue you can apply the middleware L<Plack::Middleware::BufferedStreaming>
189 or report specific problems to the dev team.
191 =head3 More Catalyst Middleware
193 We have started migrating code in Catalyst to equivilent Plack
194 Middleware when such exists and is correct to do so. For example we now use
195 L<Plack::Middleware::ContentLength> to determine content length of a response
196 when none is provided. This replaces similar code inlined with L<Catalyst>
197 The main advantages to doing this is 1) more similar Catalyst core that is
198 focused on the Catalyst special sauce, 2) Middleware is more broadly shared
199 so we benefit from better collaboration with developers outside Catalyst, 3)
200 In the future you'll be able to change or trim the middleware stack to get
201 additional performance when you don't need all the checks and constraints.
203 =head3 Deprecate Filehandle like objects that do read but not getline
205 We also deprecated setting the response body to an object that does 'read'
206 but not 'getline'. If you are using a custom IO-Handle like object for
207 response you should verify that 'getline' is supported in your interface.
208 Unless we here this case is a major issue for people, we will be removing support
209 in a near future release of Catalyst. When the code encounters this it
210 will issue a warning. You also may run into this issue with L<MogileFS::Client>
211 which does read but not getline. For now we will just warn when encountering
212 such an object and fallback to the previous behavior (where L<Catalyst::Engine>
213 itself unrolls the filehandle and performs blocking streams). However
214 this backwards compatibility will be removed in an upcoming release so you should either
215 rewrite your custom filehandle objects to support getline or start using the
216 middleware that adapts read for getline L<Plack::Middleware::AdaptFilehandleRead>.
218 =head3 Response->headers become read-only after finalizing
220 Once the response headers are finalized, trying to change them is not allowed
221 (in the past you could change them and this would lead to unexpected results).
223 =head3 Officially deprecate L<Catalyst::Engine::PSGI>
225 L<Catalyst::Engine::PSGI> is also officially no longer supported. We will
226 no long run test cases against this and can remove backwards compatibility code for it
227 as deemed necessary for the evolution of the platform. You should simply
228 discontinue use of this engine, as L<Catalyst> has been PSGI at the core for
231 =head3 Officially deprecate finding the PSGI $env anyplace other than Request
233 A few early releases of Cataplack had the PSGI $env in L<Catalyst::Engine>.
234 Code has been maintained here for backwards compatibility reasons. This is no
235 longer supported and will be removed in upcoming release, so you should update
236 your code and / or upgrade to a newer version of L<Catalyst>
238 =head3 Deprecate setting Response->body after using write/write_fh
240 Setting $c->res->body to a filehandle after using $c->res->write or
241 $c->res->write_fh is no longer considered allowed, since we can't send
242 the filehandle to the underlying Plack handler. For now we will continue
243 to support setting body to a simple value since this is possible, but at
244 some future release a choice to use streaming indicates that you will do
245 so for the rest of the request.
248 =head2 VERSION 5.90053
250 We are now clarifying the behavior of log, plugins and configuration during
251 the setup phase. Since Plugins might require a log during setup, setup_log
252 must run BEFORE setup_plugins. This has the unfortunate side effect that
253 anyone using the popular ConfigLoader plugin will not be able to supply
254 configuration to custom logs since the configuration is not yet finalized
255 when setup_log is run (when using ConfigLoader, which is a plugin and is
256 not loaded until later.)
258 As a workaround, you can supply custom log configuration directly into
265 my_custom_log_info => { %custom_args },
270 If you wish to configure the custom logger differently based on ENV, you can
279 Catalyst::Utils::merge_hashes(
280 +{ my_custom_log_info => { %base_custom_args } },
281 +{ do __PACKAGE__->path_to( $ENV{WHICH_CONF}."_conf.pl") },
287 Or create a standalone Configuration class that does the right thing.
289 Basically if you want to configure a logger via Catalyst global configuration
290 you can't use ConfigLoader because it will always be loaded too late to be of
291 any use. Patches and workaround options welcomed!
293 =head2 VERSION 5.9XXXX 'cataplack'
295 The Catalyst::Engine sub-classes have all been removed and deprecated,
296 to be replaced with Plack handlers.
298 Plack is an implementation of the L<PSGI> specification, which is
299 a standard interface between web servers and application frameworks.
301 This should be no different for developers, and you should not have to
302 migrate your applications unless you are using a custom engine already.
304 This change benefits Catalyst significantly by reducing the amount of
305 code inside the framework, and means that the framework gets upstream
306 bug fixes in L<Plack>, and automatically gains support for any web server
307 which a L<PSGI> compliant handler is written for.
309 It also allows you more flexibility with your application, and allows
310 the use of cross web framework 'middleware'.
312 Developers are recommended to read L<Catalyst::Upgrading> for notes about
313 upgrading, especially if you are using an unusual deployment method.
315 Documentation for how to take advantage of L<PSGI> can be found in
316 L<Catalyst::PSGI>, and information about deploying your application
317 has been moved to L<Catalyst::Manual::Deployment>.
319 =head3 Updated modules:
321 A number of modules have been updated to pass their tests or not
322 produce deprecation warnings with the latest version of Catalyst.
323 It is recommended that you upgrade any of these that you are using
324 after installing this version of Catalyst.
326 These extensions are:
330 =item L<Catalyst::Engine::HTTP::Prefork>
332 This is now deprecated, see L<Catalyst::Upgrading>.
334 =item L<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst>
336 Has been updated to not produce deprecation warnings, upgrade recommended.
338 =item Catalyst::ActionRole::ACL
340 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
341 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
343 =item Catalyst::Plugin::Session::Store::DBIC
345 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
346 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
348 =item Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication
350 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
351 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
355 =head1 PREVIOUS VERSIONS
357 =head2 VERSION 5.8XXXX 'catamoose'
361 Please see L<Catalyst::Upgrading> for a full description of how changes in the
362 framework may affect your application.
364 Below is a brief list of features which have been deprecated in this release:
368 =item ::[MVC]:: style naming scheme has been deprecated and will warn
370 =item NEXT is deprecated for all applications and components, use MRO::Compat
372 =item Dispatcher methods which are an implementation detail made private, public versions now warn.
374 =item MyApp->plugin method is deprecated, use L<Catalyst::Model::Adaptor> instead.
376 =item __PACKAGE__->mk_accessors() is supported for backwards compatibility only, use Moose attributes instead in new code.
378 =item Use of Catalyst::Base now warns
388 =item Fix forwarding to Catalyst::Action objects.
390 =item Add the dispatch_type method
396 The development server restarter has been improved to be compatible with
397 immutable Moose classes, and also to optionally use
398 L<B::Hooks::OP::Check::StashChange> to handle more complex application layouts
401 =head3 $c->uri_for_action method.
403 Give a private path to the Catalyst action you want to create a URI for.
407 Log levels have been made additive.
409 =head3 L<Catalyst::Test>
413 =item Change to use L<Sub::Exporter>.
415 =item Support mocking multiple virtual hosts
417 =item New methods like action_ok and action_redirect to write more compact tests
421 =head3 Catalyst::Response
427 New print method which prints @data to the output stream, separated by $,.
428 This lets you pass the response object to functions that want to write to an
433 Added code method as an alias for C<< $res->status >>
437 =head3 Consequences of the Moose back end
443 Components are fully compatible with Moose, and all Moose features, such as
444 method modifiers, attributes, roles, BUILD and BUILDARGS methods are fully
445 supported and may be used in components and applications.
449 Many reusable extensions which would previously have been plugins or base
450 classes are better implemented as Moose roles.
454 L<MooseX::MethodAttributes::Role::AttrContainer::Inheritable> is used to contain action
455 attributes. This means that attributes are represented in the MOP, and
456 decouples action creation from attributes.
460 There is a reasonable API in Catalyst::Controller for working with
461 and registering actions, allowing a controller sub-class to replace
462 subroutine attributes for action declarations with an alternate
467 Refactored capturing of $app from L<Catalyst::Controller> into
468 L<Catalyst::Component::ApplicationAttribute> for easier reuse in other
473 Your application class is forced to become immutable at the end of compilation.
483 Don't ignore SIGCHLD while handling requests with the development server, so that
484 system() and other ways of creating child processes work as expected.
488 Fixes for FastCGI when used with IIS 6.0
492 Fix a bug in uri_for which could cause it to generate paths with multiple
497 Fix a bug in Catalyst::Stats, stopping garbage being inserted into
498 the stats if a user calls begin => but no end