Upgrading to ColdBox 7

The official ColdBox 7 upgrade guide

The major compatibility issues will be covered, as well as how to upgrade to this release from previous ColdBox versions smoothly. You can also check out the What's New guide to give you a full overview of the changes.

ColdFusion 2016 Support Dropped

ColdFusion 2016 support has been dropped. Adobe doesn't support them anymore, so neither do we.

HTML Helper addAsset() Changes

The addAsset() now leverages the following settings for determining the convention locations for JavaScript and CSS assets:

Setting	Default Value
htmlhelper_js_path	/includes/js
htmlhelper_css_path	/includes/css

So if you want to change the location of your JavaScript and CSS, you can create these settings in your ColdBox.cfc

settings = {
    htmlhelper_js_path : "/assets/js",
    htmlhelper_css_path : "assets/css"
}

Integration Testing Defaults

In ColdBox 7, the this.unloadColdBox setting is false by default. In ColdBox 6 this was true by default. So make sure you update this setting if you want ColdBox to be unloaded on each Test Bundle iteration.

Hierarchical Injectors

All modules have their own injector now if you use the this.moduleInjector = true setting. Meaning the concept of a global injector no longer exists. Therefore, there are some edge cases where certain types of code will not work in ColdBox 7.

Testing Injector Creations

If you are creating your own WireBox injector in your tests and using integration testing, you will have Injector collisions.

myInjector = new coldbox.system.ioc.Injector()

This actually affects EVERY version of ColdBox because the default behavior of instantiating an Injector like the code above is to put the Injector in application scope: application.wirebox. This means that the REAL injector in an integration test lives in application.wirebox will be overridden. To avoid this collision, disable scope registration:

myInjector = new coldbox.system.ioc.Injector( {
    scopeRegistration : { enabled : false }
} )

Custom Wirebox DSLs

For those of you with custom wirebox DSLs, you'll need to update your DSL to match the new process() method signature:

/**
 * Process an incoming DSL definition and produce an object with it
 *
 * @definition   The injection dsl definition structure to process. Keys: name, dsl
 * @targetObject The target object we are building the DSL dependency for. If empty, means we are just requesting building
 * @targetID     The target ID we are building this dependency for
 *
 * @return coldbox.system.ioc.dsl.IDSLBuilder
 */
function process( required definition, targetObject, targetID );

Removals

AnnounceInterception

The announceInterception() method has been deprecated since ColdBox 6.0.0. You will need to refactor any uses of announceInterception() to use announce() instead.

routes.cfm

The routes.cfm approach is now removed in ColdBox 7. You will need to migrate to the Router.cfc approach in your application and/or modules.

setUniqueURLs()

This setting was in charge of converting NON-SES Urls into SES URLs. However, it was extremely error-prone and sometimes produced invalid URLs. This is now completely removed and if the user wants to do this feature, they can use CommandBox or Nginx, or Apache rewrites.

jsonQueryFormat Removed

The jsonQueryFormat argument for rendering data is now removed. We default to an array of structs format for queries as it is the only format that makes sense.

Deprecations

There is a performance penalty to use any deprecated methods now, since they emit warnings to the logs.

renderView(), renderLayout(), renderExternalView()

These methods have been deprecated since version 6. Please use the shorthand versions

• view()

• layout()

• externalView()

Utility Environment Methods

The core utility methods on env and Java variables have been deprecated from the utility object and moved to the Env delegate. Here are the methods deprecated:

• getSystemSetting()

• getSystemProperty()

• getEnv()

So if you had code like this:

// Deprecated
new coldbox.system.core.util.Util().getSystemSetting()

That will work, but it is deprecated now. You will have to move it to the delegate:

new coldbox.system.core.delegates.Env().getSystemSetting()

If you were using them in your integration or unit tests, then you can use our shorthand methods:

getEnv().getSystemSetting()
getEnv().getSystemProperty()
getEnv().getEnv()

BeanPopulator Deprecated

The object BeanPopulator has been deprecated in favor of ObjectPopulator.