ColdBox 6.0.0 is a major release for the ColdBox HMVC platform. It has some dramatic new features as we keep pushing for more modern and sustainable approaches to web development. We break down the major areas of development below and you can also find the full release notes per library at the end.

Engine Support

It is also yet another source code reduction due to the dropping of support for the following CFML Engines:

• Adobe ColdFusion 11

• Lucee 4.5

The info-graphic above shows you the supported engines the 6.x platform will support.

Asynchronous Programming

We have done a tremendous amount of work to expose all the async and parallel programming constructs in ColdBox to the entire framework so developers can leverage them. There is just so much we have done on this release for concurrency, task scheduling, and parallel programming to include in one page. So visit our Async Programming section to start delving into what we are lovingly calling cbFutures!

ColdBox Executors & Tasks

Thanks to our new futures approach, all major internal libraries (WireBox, CacheBox, LogBox, MVC) will leverage them for different tasks that require asynchronicity and scheduling. You will see a noticeble difference especially in the following areas:

• Cache Reaping: All cache reaping is now done via a scheduled task running on specific frequencies

• File Appenders: It uses an async schedule to stream log data to files instead of blocking operations for sending logs. It will use a logging in-memory queue to stream the log data to the file. So you can potentially send 10000 log events and eventually they will be streamed to disk.

What are ColdBox Futures?

A ColdBox future is used for async/parallel programming where you can register a task or multiple tasks that will execute in a non-blocking approach and trigger dependent computations which could also be asynchronous. This Future object can then be used to monitor the execution of the task and create rich completion/combining pipelines upon the results of such tasks. You can still use a get() blocking operation, but that is an over simplistic approach to async programming because you are ultimately blocking to get the result.

ColdBox futures are backed by Java's CompletableFuture API, so the majority of things will apply as well; even Java developers will feel at home. It will allow you to create rich pipelines for creating multiple Futures, chaining, composing and combining results.

// Parallel Executions
async().all(
    () => hyper.post( "/somewhere" ),
    () => hyper.post( "/somewhereElse" ),
    () => hyper.post( "/another" )
).then( (results)=> logResults( results ) );
​
// Race Conditions, let the fastest dns resolve
var dnsServer = async().any( 
    () => dns1.resolve(),
    () => dns2.resolve()
).get();
​
// Process an incoming order
async().newFuture( () => orderService.getOrder() )
    .then( (order) => enrichOrder( order ) )
    .then( (order) => performPayment( order ) )
    .thenAsync( 
        (order) => dispatchOrder( order ), 
        async().getExecutor( "cpuIntensive" )
     )
    .then( (order) => sendConfirmation( order ) );
​
// Combine Futures
var bmi = async().newFuture( () => weightService.getWeight( rc.person ) )
    .thenCombine(
        async().newFuture( () => heightService.getHeight( rc.person ) ),
        ( weight, height ) => {
            var heightInMeters = arguments.height/100;
            return arguments.weight / (heightInMeters * heightInMeters );
        }
    )
    .get();
​
// Compose Futures with exceptions
async()
    .newFuture( () => userService.getOrFail( rc.id ) )
    .thenCompose( ( user ) => creditService.getCreditRating( user ) )
    .then( (creditRating) => event.getResponse().setData( creditRating ) )
    .onException( (ex) => event.getResponse().setError( true ).setMessages( ex.toString() ) );

This new approach to creating async pipelines and parallel processing, will further create extensibility and robustness in your ColdBox applications.

RestHandler & ColdBox Response

After many years of adding a base handler and a response object to our application templates, we finally have integrated them into the core so developers can have even more support when building RESTFul services. This new rest handler will provide you with tons of utilities and approaches to make all of your RESTFul services:

• Uniform

• Consistent

• A consistent and extensible response object

• Error handling

• Invalid Route handling

• Much more

Base Class

New base class coldbox.system.RestHandler which you can inherit from or use our new restHandler annotation. This will give you access to our enhanced API utilities and the native response object via the request context's getResponse() method.

component extends="coldbox.system.RestHandler"{
​
  function index( event, rc, prc ){
    event.getResponse()
      .setData( "Hello from restful Land" );
  }
}
​
component resthandler{
​
  function index( event, rc, prc ){
    event.getResponse()
      .setData( "Hello from restful Land" );
  }
​
}

You can now build all of your api’s using the native response object like the rest templates, but now from the core directly. This Rest Handler gives you the following actions out of the box:

AroundHandler in Detail

The aroundHandler() provided in the RestHandler will intercept all rest calls in order to provide consistency and uniformity to all your actions. It will try/catch for major known exceptions, time your requests, add extra output on development and much more. Here are a list of the features available to you:

• Exception Handling

  • Automatic trapping of the following exceptions: InvalidCredentials, ValidationException, EntityNotFound, RecordNotFound

  • Automatic trapping of other exceptions

  • Logging automatically the exception with extra restful metadata

  • If in a development environment it will respond with much more information necessary for debugging both in the response object and headers

• Development Responses

  • If you are in a development environment it will set the following headers for you:

    • x-current-route

    • x-current-routed-url

    • x-current-routed-namespace

    • x-current-event

• Global Headers

  • The following headers are sent in each request

    • x-response-time : The time the request took in CF

    • x-cached-response : If the request is cached via event caching

The aroundHandler() is also smart in detecting the following outputs from a handler:

• Handler return results

• Setting a view or layout to render

• Explicit renderData() calls

RequestContext Additions

• getResponse()

  • Will get you the current prc.response object, if the object doesn’t exist, it will create it and set it for you

  • The core response object can be found here: coldbox.system.web.context.Response

Extending The RestHandler

If you would like to extend or modify the behavior of the core RestHandler then you will have to create your own base handler that inherits from it. Then all of your concrete handlers will inherit from your very own handler.

// BaseHandler
component extends="coldbox.system.Resthandler"{
​
  // Modify it here
​
}
​
// Then make your own handlers extend from it
component extends="BaseHandler"{
​
}

Extending The Response Object

The response object can be found here: coldbox.system.web.context.Response and the rest handler constructs it by calling the request context’s getResponse() method. The method verifies if there is a prc.response object and if it exists it returns it, else it creates a new one. So if you would like to use your very own, then just make sure that before the request you place your own response object in the prc scope.

Here is a simple example using a preProcess() interceptor in your config/Coldbox.cfc:

config/Coldbox.cfc
function preProcess( event, interceptData, rc, prc ){
  prc.response = wirebox.getInstance( "MyResponseObject" );
}

That’s it. Once that response object is in the prc scope, ColdBox will utilize it. Just make sure that your custom Response object satisfies the methods in the core one.

ColdBox Renderer Becomes a Singleton

The entire rendering mechanisms have changed in ColdBox 6 and we now support a singleton based approach to view rendering. It still allows for variable safety, but the way renderings in ColdBox 6 are done are orders of magnitude faster than pre ColdBox 6 days. If you are using applications like ContentBox or Preside CMS or applications with tons of renderView() calls, your applications will fly now!

LogBox Config Path Init

If you are using LogBox in standalone mode, you can now construct it by passing the path to your LogBox configuration file or no path at all and we will construct LogBox with our new default config file to stream logs to the console.

application.logbox = new LogBox();
​
application.logbox = new LogBox( "config.MyLogBox" );

AnnounceInterception(), processState() Deprecated

These methods have been deprecated in favor of our new announce() method. We have also deprecated the argument interceptData in favor of just data.

announce( state, data );
processState( state, data );

Release Notes

The full release notes per library can be found below. Just click on the library tab and explore their release notes: