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 =head2 VERSION 5.90094
27 =head3 Multipart form POST with character set headers
29 When we did the UTF8 work, we punted on Form POSTs when the POST envelope was
30 multipart and each part had complex headers such as content-types, character
31 sets and so forth. In those cases instead of returning a possibly incorrect
32 value, we returned an object describing the part so that you could figure it
33 out manually. This turned out to be a bad workaround as people did not expect
34 to find that object. So we changed this to try much harder to get a correct
35 value. We still return an object if we fail but we try much harder now. If
36 you used to check for the object you might find that code is no longer needed
37 (although checking for it should not hurt or break anything either).
39 =head2 VERSION 5.90091
41 =head3 'case_sensitive' configuration
43 At one point in time we allowed you to set a 'case_sensitive' configuraion value so
44 that you could find actions by their private names using mixed case. We highly
45 discourage that. If you are using this 'feature' you should be on notice that we
46 plan to remove the code around it in the near future.
48 =head2 VERSION 5.90090+
50 =head3 Type constraints on Args and CaptureArgs.
52 You may now use a type constraint (using L<Moose>, L<MooseX::Types> or preferably
53 L<Type::Tiny> in your Args or CaptureArgs action attributes. This can be used
54 to restrict the value of the Arg. For example:
56 sub myaction :Local Args(Int) { ... }
58 Would match '.../myaction/5' but not '.../myaction/string'.
60 When an action (or action chain) has Args (or CaptureArgs) that declare type constraints
61 your arguments to $c->uri_for(...) must match those constraints.
63 See L<Catalyst::RouteMatching> for more.
65 =head3 Move CatalystX::InjectComponent into core
67 L<Catalyst::Utils> has a new method 'inject_component' which works the same as the method of
68 the same name in L<CatalystX::InjectComponent>.
70 =head3 inject_components
72 New configuration key allows you to inject components directly into your application without
73 any subclasses. For example:
76 inject_components => {
77 'Controller::Err' => { from_component => 'Local::Controller::Errors' },
78 'Model::Zoo' => { from_component => 'Local::Model::Foo' },
79 'Model::Foo' => { from_component => 'Local::Model::Foo', roles => ['TestRole'] },
81 'Controller::Err' => { a => 100, b=>200, namespace=>'error' },
82 'Model::Zoo' => { a => 2 },
83 'Model::Foo' => { a => 100 },
86 Injected components are useful to reduce the ammount of nearly empty boilerplate classes
87 you might have, particularly when first starting an application.
89 =head3 Component setup changes.
91 Previously you could not depend on an application scoped component doing setup_components
92 since components were setup 'in order'. Now all components are first registered and then
93 setup, so you can now reliably use any component doing setup_components.
95 =head2 VERSION 5.90080+
97 The biggest change in this release is that UTF8 encoding is now enabled by
98 default. So you no longer need any plugins (such as L<Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding>)
99 which you can just no go ahead and remove. You also don't need to set
100 the encoding configuration (__PACKAGE__->config(encoding=>'UTF-8')) anymore
101 as well (although its presence hurts nothing).
103 If this change causes you trouble, you can disable it:
105 __PACKAGE__->config(encoding=>undef);
107 For further information, please see L<Catalyst::UTF8>
109 But please report bugs. You will find that a number of common Views have been
110 updated for this release (such as L<Catalyst::View::TT>). In all cases that the
111 author is aware of these updates were to fix test cases only. You shouldn't
112 need to update unless you are installing fresh and want tests to pass.
114 L<Catalyst::Plugin::Compress> was updated to be compatible with this release.
115 You will need to upgrade if you are using this plugin. L<Catalyst::Upgrading>
118 A small change is that the configuration setting C<using_frontend_proxy>
119 was not doing the right thing if you started your application with C<psgi_app>
120 and did not apply the default middleware. This setting is now honored in
121 all the ways an application may be started. This could cause trouble if you
122 are using the configuration value and also adding the proxy middleware
123 manually with a custom application startup. The solution is that you only
124 need the configuration value set, or the middleware manually added (not both).
126 =head2 VERSION 5.90060+
128 =head3 Catalyst::Log object autoflush on by default
130 Starting in 5.90065, the Catalyst::Log object has 'autoflush' which is on
131 by default. This causes all messages to be written to the log immediately
132 instead of at the end of startup and then at the end of each request. In
133 order to access the old behavior, you must now call:
135 $c->log->autoflush(0);
137 =head3 Deprecate Catalyst::Utils::ensure_class_loaded
139 Going forward we recommend you use L<Module::Runtime>. In fact we will
140 be converting all uses of L<Class::Load> to L<Module::Runtime>. We will
141 also convert L<Catalyst::Utils\ensure_class_loaded> to be based on
142 L<Module::Runtime> to allow some time for you to update code, however at
143 some future point this method will be removed so you should stop
146 =head3 Support passing Body filehandles directly to your Plack server.
148 We changed the way we return body content (from response) to whatever
149 Plack handler you are using (Starman, FastCGI, etc.) We no longer
150 always use the streaming interface for the cases when the body is a
151 simple scalar, object or filehandle like. In those cases we now just
152 pass the simple response on to the plack handler. This might lead to
153 some minor differences in how streaming is handled. For example, you
154 might notice that streaming starts properly supporting chunked encoding when
155 on a server that supports that, or that previously missing headers
156 (possible content-length) might appear suddenly correct. Also, if you
157 are using middleware like L<Plack::Middleware::XSendfile> and are using
158 a filehandle that sets a readable path, your server might now correctly
159 handle the file (rather than as before where Catalyst would stream it
160 very likely very slowly).
162 In other words, some things might be meaninglessly different and some
163 things that were broken codewise but worked because of Catalyst being
164 incorrect might suddenly be really broken. The behavior is now more
165 correct in that Catalyst plays better with features that Plack offers
166 but if you are making heavy use of the streaming interface there could
167 be some differences so you should test carefully (this is probably not
168 the vast majority of people). In particular if you are developing
169 using one server but deploying using a different one, differences in
170 what those server do with streaming should be noted.
172 Please see note below about changes to filehandle support and existing
173 Plack middleware to aid in backwards compatibility.
175 =head3 Distinguish between body null versus undef.
177 We also now more carefully distingush the different between a body set
178 to '' and a body that is undef. This might lead to situations where
179 again you'll get a content-length were you didn't get one before or
180 where a supporting server will start chunking output. If this is an
181 issue you can apply the middleware L<Plack::Middleware::BufferedStreaming>
182 or report specific problems to the dev team.
184 =head3 More Catalyst Middleware
186 We have started migrating code in Catalyst to equivilent Plack
187 Middleware when such exists and is correct to do so. For example we now use
188 L<Plack::Middleware::ContentLength> to determine content length of a response
189 when none is provided. This replaces similar code inlined with L<Catalyst>
190 The main advantages to doing this is 1) more similar Catalyst core that is
191 focused on the Catalyst special sauce, 2) Middleware is more broadly shared
192 so we benefit from better collaboration with developers outside Catalyst, 3)
193 In the future you'll be able to change or trim the middleware stack to get
194 additional performance when you don't need all the checks and constraints.
196 =head3 Deprecate Filehandle like objects that do read but not getline
198 We also deprecated setting the response body to an object that does 'read'
199 but not 'getline'. If you are using a custom IO-Handle like object for
200 response you should verify that 'getline' is supported in your interface.
201 Unless we here this case is a major issue for people, we will be removing support
202 in a near future release of Catalyst. When the code encounters this it
203 will issue a warning. You also may run into this issue with L<MogileFS::Client>
204 which does read but not getline. For now we will just warn when encountering
205 such an object and fallback to the previous behavior (where L<Catalyst::Engine>
206 itself unrolls the filehandle and performs blocking streams). However
207 this backwards compatibility will be removed in an upcoming release so you should either
208 rewrite your custom filehandle objects to support getline or start using the
209 middleware that adapts read for getline L<Plack::Middleware::AdaptFilehandleRead>.
211 =head3 Response->headers become read-only after finalizing
213 Once the response headers are finalized, trying to change them is not allowed
214 (in the past you could change them and this would lead to unexpected results).
216 =head3 Officially deprecate L<Catalyst::Engine::PSGI>
218 L<Catalyst::Engine::PSGI> is also officially no longer supported. We will
219 no long run test cases against this and can remove backwards compatibility code for it
220 as deemed necessary for the evolution of the platform. You should simply
221 discontinue use of this engine, as L<Catalyst> has been PSGI at the core for
224 =head3 Officially deprecate finding the PSGI $env anyplace other than Request
226 A few early releases of Cataplack had the PSGI $env in L<Catalyst::Engine>.
227 Code has been maintained here for backwards compatibility reasons. This is no
228 longer supported and will be removed in upcoming release, so you should update
229 your code and / or upgrade to a newer version of L<Catalyst>
231 =head3 Deprecate setting Response->body after using write/write_fh
233 Setting $c->res->body to a filehandle after using $c->res->write or
234 $c->res->write_fh is no longer considered allowed, since we can't send
235 the filehandle to the underlying Plack handler. For now we will continue
236 to support setting body to a simple value since this is possible, but at
237 some future release a choice to use streaming indicates that you will do
238 so for the rest of the request.
241 =head2 VERSION 5.90053
243 We are now clarifying the behavior of log, plugins and configuration during
244 the setup phase. Since Plugins might require a log during setup, setup_log
245 must run BEFORE setup_plugins. This has the unfortunate side effect that
246 anyone using the popular ConfigLoader plugin will not be able to supply
247 configuration to custom logs since the configuration is not yet finalized
248 when setup_log is run (when using ConfigLoader, which is a plugin and is
249 not loaded until later.)
251 As a workaround, you can supply custom log configuration directly into
258 my_custom_log_info => { %custom_args },
263 If you wish to configure the custom logger differently based on ENV, you can
272 Catalyst::Utils::merge_hashes(
273 +{ my_custom_log_info => { %base_custom_args } },
274 +{ do __PACKAGE__->path_to( $ENV{WHICH_CONF}."_conf.pl") },
280 Or create a standalone Configuration class that does the right thing.
282 Basically if you want to configure a logger via Catalyst global configuration
283 you can't use ConfigLoader because it will always be loaded too late to be of
284 any use. Patches and workaround options welcomed!
286 =head2 VERSION 5.9XXXX 'cataplack'
288 The Catalyst::Engine sub-classes have all been removed and deprecated,
289 to be replaced with Plack handlers.
291 Plack is an implementation of the L<PSGI> specification, which is
292 a standard interface between web servers and application frameworks.
294 This should be no different for developers, and you should not have to
295 migrate your applications unless you are using a custom engine already.
297 This change benefits Catalyst significantly by reducing the amount of
298 code inside the framework, and means that the framework gets upstream
299 bug fixes in L<Plack>, and automatically gains support for any web server
300 which a L<PSGI> compliant handler is written for.
302 It also allows you more flexibility with your application, and allows
303 the use of cross web framework 'middleware'.
305 Developers are recommended to read L<Catalyst::Upgrading> for notes about
306 upgrading, especially if you are using an unusual deployment method.
308 Documentation for how to take advantage of L<PSGI> can be found in
309 L<Catalyst::PSGI>, and information about deploying your application
310 has been moved to L<Catalyst::Manual::Deployment>.
312 =head3 Updated modules:
314 A number of modules have been updated to pass their tests or not
315 produce deprecation warnings with the latest version of Catalyst.
316 It is recommended that you upgrade any of these that you are using
317 after installing this version of Catalyst.
319 These extensions are:
323 =item L<Catalyst::Engine::HTTP::Prefork>
325 This is now deprecated, see L<Catalyst::Upgrading>.
327 =item L<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst>
329 Has been updated to not produce deprecation warnings, upgrade recommended.
331 =item Catalyst::ActionRole::ACL
333 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
334 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
336 =item Catalyst::Plugin::Session::Store::DBIC
338 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
339 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
341 =item Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication
343 Has been updated to fix failing tests (although older versions still
344 function perfectly with this version of Catalyst).
348 =head1 PREVIOUS VERSIONS
350 =head2 VERSION 5.8XXXX 'catamoose'
354 Please see L<Catalyst::Upgrading> for a full description of how changes in the
355 framework may affect your application.
357 Below is a brief list of features which have been deprecated in this release:
361 =item ::[MVC]:: style naming scheme has been deprecated and will warn
363 =item NEXT is deprecated for all applications and components, use MRO::Compat
365 =item Dispatcher methods which are an implementation detail made private, public versions now warn.
367 =item MyApp->plugin method is deprecated, use L<Catalyst::Model::Adaptor> instead.
369 =item __PACKAGE__->mk_accessors() is supported for backwards compatibility only, use Moose attributes instead in new code.
371 =item Use of Catalyst::Base now warns
381 =item Fix forwarding to Catalyst::Action objects.
383 =item Add the dispatch_type method
389 The development server restarter has been improved to be compatible with
390 immutable Moose classes, and also to optionally use
391 L<B::Hooks::OP::Check::StashChange> to handle more complex application layouts
394 =head3 $c->uri_for_action method.
396 Give a private path to the Catalyst action you want to create a URI for.
400 Log levels have been made additive.
402 =head3 L<Catalyst::Test>
406 =item Change to use L<Sub::Exporter>.
408 =item Support mocking multiple virtual hosts
410 =item New methods like action_ok and action_redirect to write more compact tests
414 =head3 Catalyst::Response
420 New print method which prints @data to the output stream, separated by $,.
421 This lets you pass the response object to functions that want to write to an
426 Added code method as an alias for C<< $res->status >>
430 =head3 Consequences of the Moose back end
436 Components are fully compatible with Moose, and all Moose features, such as
437 method modifiers, attributes, roles, BUILD and BUILDARGS methods are fully
438 supported and may be used in components and applications.
442 Many reusable extensions which would previously have been plugins or base
443 classes are better implemented as Moose roles.
447 L<MooseX::MethodAttributes::Role::AttrContainer::Inheritable> is used to contain action
448 attributes. This means that attributes are represented in the MOP, and
449 decouples action creation from attributes.
453 There is a reasonable API in Catalyst::Controller for working with
454 and registering actions, allowing a controller sub-class to replace
455 subroutine attributes for action declarations with an alternate
460 Refactored capturing of $app from L<Catalyst::Controller> into
461 L<Catalyst::Component::ApplicationAttribute> for easier reuse in other
466 Your application class is forced to become immutable at the end of compilation.
476 Don't ignore SIGCHLD while handling requests with the development server, so that
477 system() and other ways of creating child processes work as expected.
481 Fixes for FastCGI when used with IIS 6.0
485 Fix a bug in uri_for which could cause it to generate paths with multiple
490 Fix a bug in Catalyst::Stats, stopping garbage being inserted into
491 the stats if a user calls begin => but no end