Ruby on Rails 4.1 Release Notes

1. Upgrading to Rails 4.1

If you're upgrading an existing application, it's a great idea to have good test coverage before going in. You should also first upgrade to Rails 4.0 in case you haven't and make sure your application still runs as expected before attempting an update to Rails 4.1. A list of things to watch out for when upgrading is available in the Upgrading Ruby on Rails guide.

2. Major Features

2.1. Spring Application Preloader

Spring is a Rails application preloader. It speeds up development by keeping your application running in the background so you don't need to boot it every time you run a test, rake task or migration.

New Rails 4.1 applications will ship with "springified" binstubs. This means that bin/rails and bin/rake will automatically take advantage of preloaded spring environments.

Running rake tasks:

$ bin/rake test:models

Running a Rails command:

$ bin/rails console

Spring introspection:

$ bin/spring status
Spring is running:

 1182 spring server | my_app | started 29 mins ago
 3656 spring app    | my_app | started 23 secs ago | test mode
 3746 spring app    | my_app | started 10 secs ago | development mode

Have a look at the Spring README to see all available features.

See the Upgrading Ruby on Rails guide on how to migrate existing applications to use this feature.

2.2. config/secrets.yml

Rails 4.1 generates a new secrets.yml file in the config folder. By default, this file contains the application's secret_key_base, but it could also be used to store other secrets such as access keys for external APIs.

The secrets added to this file are accessible via Rails.application.secrets. For example, with the following config/secrets.yml:

development:
  secret_key_base: 3b7cd727ee24e8444053437c36cc66c3
  some_api_key: SOMEKEY

Rails.application.secrets.some_api_key returns SOMEKEY in the development environment.

See the Upgrading Ruby on Rails guide on how to migrate existing applications to use this feature.

2.3. Action Pack Variants

We often want to render different HTML/JSON/XML templates for phones, tablets, and desktop browsers. Variants make it easy.

The request variant is a specialization of the request format, like :tablet, :phone, or :desktop.

You can set the variant in a before_action:

request.variant = :tablet if request.user_agent =~ /iPad/

Respond to variants in the action just like you respond to formats:

respond_to do |format|
  format.html do |html|
    html.tablet # renders app/views/projects/show.html+tablet.erb
    html.phone { extra_setup; render ... }
  end
end

Provide separate templates for each format and variant:

app/views/projects/show.html.erb
app/views/projects/show.html+tablet.erb
app/views/projects/show.html+phone.erb

You can also simplify the variants definition using the inline syntax:

respond_to do |format|
  format.js         { render "trash" }
  format.html.phone { redirect_to progress_path }
  format.html.none  { render "trash" }
end

2.4. Action Mailer Previews

Action Mailer previews provide a way to see how emails look by visiting a special URL that renders them.

You implement a preview class whose methods return the mail object you'd like to check:

class NotifierPreview < ActionMailer::Preview
  def welcome
    Notifier.welcome(User.first)
  end
end

The preview is available in http://localhost:3000/rails/mailers/notifier/welcome, and a list of them in http://localhost:3000/rails/mailers.

By default, these preview classes live in test/mailers/previews. This can be configured using the preview_path option.

See its documentation for a detailed write up.

2.5. Active Record enums

Declare an enum attribute where the values map to integers in the database, but can be queried by name.

class Conversation < ActiveRecord::Base
  enum status: [ :active, :archived ]
end

conversation.archived!
conversation.active? # => false
conversation.status  # => "archived"

Conversation.archived # => Relation for all archived Conversations

Conversation.statuses # => { "active" => 0, "archived" => 1 }

See its documentation for a detailed write up.

2.6. Message Verifiers

Message verifiers can be used to generate and verify signed messages. This can be useful to safely transport sensitive data like remember-me tokens and friends.

The method Rails.application.message_verifier returns a new message verifier that signs messages with a key derived from secret_key_base and the given message verifier name:

signed_token = Rails.application.message_verifier(:remember_me).generate(token)
Rails.application.message_verifier(:remember_me).verify(signed_token) # => token

Rails.application.message_verifier(:remember_me).verify(tampered_token)
# raises ActiveSupport::MessageVerifier::InvalidSignature

2.7. Module#concerning

A natural, low-ceremony way to separate responsibilities within a class:

class Todo < ActiveRecord::Base
  concerning :EventTracking do
    included do
      has_many :events
    end

    def latest_event
      # ...
    end

    private
      def some_internal_method
        # ...
      end
  end
end

This example is equivalent to defining a EventTracking module inline, extending it with ActiveSupport::Concern, then mixing it in to the Todo class.

See its documentation for a detailed write up and the intended use cases.

2.8. CSRF protection from remote <script> tags

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection now covers GET requests with JavaScript responses, too. That prevents a third-party site from referencing your JavaScript URL and attempting to run it to extract sensitive data.

This means any of your tests that hit .js URLs will now fail CSRF protection unless they use xhr. Upgrade your tests to be explicit about expecting XmlHttpRequests. Instead of post :create, format: :js, switch to the explicit xhr :post, :create, format: :js.

3. Railties

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

3.1. Removals

• Removed update:application_controller rake task.

• Removed deprecated Rails.application.railties.engines.

• Removed deprecated threadsafe! from Rails Config.

• Removed deprecated ActiveRecord::Generators::ActiveModel#update_attributes in favor of ActiveRecord::Generators::ActiveModel#update.

• Removed deprecated config.whiny_nils option.

• Removed deprecated rake tasks for running tests: rake test:uncommitted and rake test:recent.

3.2. Notable changes

• The Spring application preloader is now installed by default for new applications. It uses the development group of the Gemfile, so will not be installed in production. (Pull Request)

• BACKTRACE environment variable to show unfiltered backtraces for test failures. (Commit)

• Exposed MiddlewareStack#unshift to environment configuration. (Pull Request)

• Added Application#message_verifier method to return a message verifier. (Pull Request)

• The test_help.rb file which is required by the default generated test helper will automatically keep your test database up-to-date with db/schema.rb (or db/structure.sql). It raises an error if reloading the schema does not resolve all pending migrations. Opt out with config.active_record.maintain_test_schema = false. (Pull Request)

• Introduce Rails.gem_version as a convenience method to return Gem::Version.new(Rails.version), suggesting a more reliable way to perform version comparison. (Pull Request)

4. Action Pack

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

4.1. Removals

• Removed deprecated Rails application fallback for integration testing, set ActionDispatch.test_app instead.

• Removed deprecated page_cache_extension config.

• Removed deprecated ActionController::RecordIdentifier, use ActionView::RecordIdentifier instead.

• Removed deprecated constants from Action Controller:

4.2. Notable changes

• protect_from_forgery also prevents cross-origin <script> tags. Update your tests to use xhr :get, :foo, format: :js instead of get :foo, format: :js. (Pull Request)

• #url_for takes a hash with options inside an array. (Pull Request)

• Added session#fetch method fetch behaves similarly to Hash#fetch, with the exception that the returned value is always saved into the session. (Pull Request)

• Separated Action View completely from Action Pack. (Pull Request)

• Log which keys were affected by deep munge. (Pull Request)

• New config option config.action_dispatch.perform_deep_munge to opt out of params "deep munging" that was used to address security vulnerability CVE-2013-0155. (Pull Request)

• New config option config.action_dispatch.cookies_serializer for specifying a serializer for the signed and encrypted cookie jars. (Pull Requests 1, 2 / More Details)

• Added render :plain, render :html and render :body. (Pull Request / More Details)

5. Action Mailer

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

5.1. Notable changes

• Added mailer previews feature based on 37 Signals mail_view gem. (Commit)

• Instrument the generation of Action Mailer messages. The time it takes to generate a message is written to the log. (Pull Request)

6. Active Record

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

6.1. Removals

• Removed deprecated nil-passing to the following SchemaCache methods: primary_keys, tables, columns and columns_hash.

• Removed deprecated block filter from ActiveRecord::Migrator#migrate.

• Removed deprecated String constructor from ActiveRecord::Migrator.

• Removed deprecated scope use without passing a callable object.

• Removed deprecated transaction_joinable= in favor of begin_transaction with a :joinable option.

• Removed deprecated decrement_open_transactions.

• Removed deprecated increment_open_transactions.

• Removed deprecated PostgreSQLAdapter#outside_transaction? method. You can use #transaction_open? instead.

• Removed deprecated ActiveRecord::Fixtures.find_table_name in favor of ActiveRecord::Fixtures.default_fixture_model_name.

• Removed deprecated columns_for_remove from SchemaStatements.

• Removed deprecated SchemaStatements#distinct.

• Moved deprecated ActiveRecord::TestCase into the Rails test suite. The class is no longer public and is only used for internal Rails tests.

• Removed support for deprecated option :restrict for :dependent in associations.

• Removed support for deprecated :delete_sql, :insert_sql, :finder_sql and :counter_sql options in associations.

• Removed deprecated method type_cast_code from Column.

• Removed deprecated ActiveRecord::Base#connection method. Make sure to access it via the class.

• Removed deprecation warning for auto_explain_threshold_in_seconds.

• Removed deprecated :distinct option from Relation#count.

• Removed deprecated methods partial_updates, partial_updates? and partial_updates=.

• Removed deprecated method scoped.

• Removed deprecated method default_scopes?.

• Remove implicit join references that were deprecated in 4.0.

• Removed activerecord-deprecated_finders as a dependency. Please see the gem README for more info.

• Removed usage of implicit_readonly. Please use readonly method explicitly to mark records as readonly. (Pull Request)

6.2. Deprecations

• Deprecated quoted_locking_column method, which isn't used anywhere.

• Deprecated ConnectionAdapters::SchemaStatements#distinct, as it is no longer used by internals. (Pull Request)

• Deprecated rake db:test:* tasks as the test database is now automatically maintained. See railties release notes. (Pull Request)

• Deprecate unused ActiveRecord::Base.symbolized_base_class and ActiveRecord::Base.symbolized_sti_name without replacement. Commit

6.3. Notable changes

• Default scopes are no longer overridden by chained conditions.

Before this change when you defined a default_scope in a model it was overridden by chained conditions in the same field. Now it is merged like any other scope. More Details.

• Added ActiveRecord::Base.to_param for convenient "pretty" URLs derived from a model's attribute or method. (Pull Request)

• Added ActiveRecord::Base.no_touching, which allows ignoring touch on models. (Pull Request)

• Unify boolean type casting for MysqlAdapter and Mysql2Adapter. type_cast will return 1 for true and 0 for false. (Pull Request)

• .unscope now removes conditions specified in default_scope. (Commit)

• Added ActiveRecord::QueryMethods#rewhere which will overwrite an existing, named where condition. (Commit)

• Extended ActiveRecord::Base#cache_key to take an optional list of timestamp attributes of which the highest will be used. (Commit)

• Added ActiveRecord::Base#enum for declaring enum attributes where the values map to integers in the database, but can be queried by name. (Commit)

• Type cast JSON values on write, so that the value is consistent with reading from the database. (Pull Request)

• Type cast hstore values on write, so that the value is consistent with reading from the database. (Commit)

• Make next_migration_number accessible for third party generators. (Pull Request)

• Calling update_attributes will now throw an ArgumentError whenever it gets a nil argument. More specifically, it will throw an error if the argument that it gets passed does not respond to stringify_keys. (Pull Request)

• CollectionAssociation#first/#last (e.g. has_many) use a LIMITed query to fetch results rather than loading the entire collection. (Pull Request)

• inspect on Active Record model classes does not initiate a new connection. This means that calling inspect, when the database is missing, will no longer raise an exception. (Pull Request)

• Removed column restrictions for count, let the database raise if the SQL is invalid. (Pull Request)

• Rails now automatically detects inverse associations. If you do not set the :inverse_of option on the association, then Active Record will guess the inverse association based on heuristics. (Pull Request)

• Handle aliased attributes in ActiveRecord::Relation. When using symbol keys, ActiveRecord will now translate aliased attribute names to the actual column name used in the database. (Pull Request)

• The ERB in fixture files is no longer evaluated in the context of the main object. Helper methods used by multiple fixtures should be defined on modules included in ActiveRecord::FixtureSet.context_class. (Pull Request)

• Don't create or drop the test database if RAILS_ENV is specified explicitly. (Pull Request)

• Relation no longer has mutator methods like #map! and #delete_if. Convert to an Array by calling #to_a before using these methods. (Pull Request)

• find_in_batches, find_each, Result#each and Enumerable#index_by now return an Enumerator that can calculate its size. (Pull Request)

• scope, enum and Associations now raise on "dangerous" name conflicts. (Pull Request, Pull Request)

• second through fifth methods act like the first finder. (Pull Request)

• Make touch fire the after_commit and after_rollback callbacks. (Pull Request)

• Enable partial indexes for sqlite >= 3.8.0. (Pull Request)

• Make change_column_null revertible. (Commit)

• Added a flag to disable schema dump after migration. This is set to false by default in the production environment for new applications. (Pull Request)

7. Active Model

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

7.1. Deprecations

• Deprecate Validator#setup. This should be done manually now in the validator's constructor. (Commit)

7.2. Notable changes

• Added new API methods reset_changes and changes_applied to ActiveModel::Dirty that control changes state.

• Ability to specify multiple contexts when defining a validation. (Pull Request)

• attribute_changed? now accepts a hash to check if the attribute was changed :from and/or :to a given value. (Pull Request)

8. Active Support

Please refer to the Changelog for detailed changes.

8.1. Removals

• Removed MultiJSON dependency. As a result, ActiveSupport::JSON.decode no longer accepts an options hash for MultiJSON. (Pull Request / More Details)

• Removed support for the encode_json hook used for encoding custom objects into JSON. This feature has been extracted into the activesupport-json_encoder gem. (Related Pull Request / More Details)

• Removed deprecated ActiveSupport::JSON::Variable with no replacement.

• Removed deprecated String#encoding_aware? core extensions (core_ext/string/encoding).

• Removed deprecated Module#local_constant_names in favor of Module#local_constants.

• Removed deprecated DateTime.local_offset in favor of DateTime.civil_from_format.

• Removed deprecated Logger core extensions (core_ext/logger.rb).

• Removed deprecated Time#time_with_datetime_fallback, Time#utc_time and Time#local_time in favor of Time#utc and Time#local.

• Removed deprecated Hash#diff with no replacement.

• Removed deprecated Date#to_time_in_current_zone in favor of Date#in_time_zone.

• Removed deprecated Proc#bind with no replacement.

• Removed deprecated Array#uniq_by and Array#uniq_by!, use native Array#uniq and Array#uniq! instead.

• Removed deprecated ActiveSupport::BasicObject, use ActiveSupport::ProxyObject instead.

• Removed deprecated BufferedLogger, use ActiveSupport::Logger instead.

• Removed deprecated assert_present and assert_blank methods, use assert object.blank? and assert object.present? instead.

• Remove deprecated #filter method for filter objects, use the corresponding method instead (e.g. #before for a before filter).

• Removed 'cow' => 'kine' irregular inflection from default inflections. (Commit)

8.2. Deprecations

• Deprecated Numeric#{ago,until,since,from_now}, the user is expected to explicitly convert the value into an AS::Duration, i.e. 5.ago => 5.seconds.ago (Pull Request)

• Deprecated the require path active_support/core_ext/object/to_json. Require active_support/core_ext/object/json instead. (Pull Request)

• Deprecated ActiveSupport::JSON::Encoding::CircularReferenceError. This feature has been extracted into the activesupport-json_encoder gem. (Pull Request / More Details)

• Deprecated ActiveSupport.encode_big_decimal_as_string option. This feature has been extracted into the activesupport-json_encoder gem. (Pull Request / More Details)

• Deprecate custom BigDecimal serialization. (Pull Request)

8.3. Notable changes

• ActiveSupport's JSON encoder has been rewritten to take advantage of the JSON gem rather than doing custom encoding in pure-Ruby. (Pull Request / More Details)

• Improved compatibility with the JSON gem. (Pull Request / More Details)

• Added ActiveSupport::Testing::TimeHelpers#travel and #travel_to. These methods change current time to the given time or duration by stubbing Time.now and Date.today.

• Added ActiveSupport::Testing::TimeHelpers#travel_back. This method returns the current time to the original state, by removing the stubs added by travel and travel_to. (Pull Request)

• Added Numeric#in_milliseconds, like 1.hour.in_milliseconds, so we can feed them to JavaScript functions like getTime(). (Commit)

• Added Date#middle_of_day, DateTime#middle_of_day and Time#middle_of_day methods. Also added midday, noon, at_midday, at_noon and at_middle_of_day as aliases. (Pull Request)

• Added Date#all_week/month/quarter/year for generating date ranges. (Pull Request)

• Added Time.zone.yesterday and Time.zone.tomorrow. (Pull Request)

• Added String#remove(pattern) as a short-hand for the common pattern of String#gsub(pattern,''). (Commit)

• Added Hash#compact and Hash#compact! for removing items with nil value from hash. (Pull Request)

• blank? and present? commit to return singletons. (Commit)

• Default the new I18n.enforce_available_locales config to true, meaning I18n will make sure that all locales passed to it must be declared in the available_locales list. (Pull Request)

• Introduce Module#concerning: a natural, low-ceremony way to separate responsibilities within a class. (Commit)

• Added Object#presence_in to simplify adding values to a permitted list. (Commit)

9. Credits

See the full list of contributors to Rails for the many people who spent many hours making Rails, the stable and robust framework it is. Kudos to all of them.