UNC Network path support

This has been pretty big for Windows users who access files on their servers over a UNC network path like \\server-name\foo\bar. You can now cd into paths starting with \\, perform file operations like cat against those paths, etc. Note backslashes need escaped in the CommandBox shell.

CommandBox> cd \\\\server-name/share
CommandBox> cd \\\\192.168.123.105/share

This was pretty straightforward since Java already supports this, but I had to change a lot of core path handling to make sure the correct slashes were preserved. This needs a fair amount of testing to make sure we nailed it down for good. If your network share requires permissions, you'll need to have saved those in Windows Explorer already or execute a "net use" OS command from the shell.

Task Runner Improvements

When running a task from the CLI, the user will be automatically prompted if they don't supply all the required args. This is just like commands work now.

CommandBox> task run myTask
Please enter required field "Foo": _

We also fixed several bugs with passing positional parameters and flag to task runners.

# positional
CommandBox> task run taskFileName targetName value1 value2 true
# named
CommandBox> task run taskFile=taskFileName target=targetName :param1=value1 :param2=value2 :param3=true
# Use a Flag
CommandBox> task run taskFileName targetName value1 value2 --:param3
CommandBox> task run taskFile=taskFileName target=targetName :param1=value1 :param2=value2 --:param3

"package link" and "package unlink" for module development

This has been a long time coming, but if you want to work on a CommandBox module now, you don't have to keep copying files over to your CommandBox installation just to test. Instead, just run this from the root of your module's repo:

CommandBox> package link

This will symlink (works on Windows and *nix) your module into the core CLI's modules folder and reload the shell so you can immediately start testing. When you're done, just run package unlink. If you'd like to use this same feature, but to link a ColdBox module's repo over to a test application so you can test it without making a copy, you can pass in the path to the remote modules folder you'd like to link to.

CommandBox> package link /path/to/test/app/modules

This is a little easier than using your OS's native symlink commands and can be used in recipes that will work across operating systems!

Everything Else (mostly)

The rest of the changes don't really need a dedicated section but they're worth mentioning, so I've put them in this tidy list :) If you'd like the ticket numbers, you can get them out of this full list of tickets in JIRA: https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=11000&version=20400

• box install returns failing exit code if a package install fails. This helps builds fail correctly if things go wrong

• When prompted to type in something like a missing parameter, your answer is no longer added to the command history

• The --debug flag works correctly when starting a server from your OS shell like $> box server start --debug

• box.json dependencies are stored with forward slashes so Mac and Windows devs stop fighting over which file to commit

• config set no longer prints out the value to avoid leaking secrets in build script output.

• Updating a package now uninstalls the previous version first to ensure a fresh start since the new version may have removed files.

• If you're setting CommandBox behind an AJP proxy, we exposed the flag and ports for that as first class citizens of server.json.

• Visual markers for private packages in the forgebox search command.

• The package init command creates a valid slug for private packages in the @user/slug format.

• Command parameters defaults work on all the aliases for a command now.

• New --local flag to server list to show all servers that have been started in the current working directory

• If for some reason you want to supply some ad-hoc JVM args to the actual CLI process, you can create a new environment var called BOX_JAVA_PROPS="foo=bar;brad=wood"

• You can now touch files in a non-existent directory and it will create the directory instead of erroring.

• Viewing a ForgeBox package via package show with a markdown based description, now has basic formatting in the CLI

• The default URL rewrite file doesn't try to rewrite requests to /favicon.ico even when it doesn't exist.

• Our CF11 servers no longer have secure profile enabled. That was causing issues due to some of the settings like returning 200 on error. If you were making use of that default, please use CFConfig to set what you need.

• At John Farrar's request, several URLs in output messages have had space put before and after them so capable shells will auto-link them correctly.

• Improved the Java networking error messages on server start if the host name wasn't correct in your host file and you were letting CommandBox pick a random port for you.

• Prevented unnecessary saves to box.json when installing to keep file updated dates from being touched.

• Added friendly check for Java 9 since it's not supported yet and the error that displayed made zero sense.

• Commands like forgebox show and forgebox list now can provide their data in JSON format. ex: forgebox show coldbox --json

Bug

• [COMMANDBOX-579] - --debug flag is eaten when running CommandBox from native OS

• [COMMANDBOX-640] - Ensure clean install/update of packages

• [COMMANDBOX-681] - Touching file in nonexistent directory errors instead of creating directory

• [COMMANDBOX-682] - CommandDSL that errors out doesn't reset CWD

• [COMMANDBOX-684] - positional task args don't work

• [COMMANDBOX-686] - cp command doesn't work for folders

• [COMMANDBOX-689] - CommandBox Modules customInterceptionPoints can't accept an array

• [COMMANDBOX-690] - CommandBox has no `processState` method on the InterceptorService

• [COMMANDBOX-691] - Flags aren't passed correctly to task runners

• [COMMANDBOX-701] - CFML functions don't handle incoming JSON with pound signs

New Feature

• [COMMANDBOX-653] - Expose Runwar AJP listener settings

• [COMMANDBOX-663] - Update server list and server info to be able to show all the servers on a particular directory

• [COMMANDBOX-668] - New package link and package unlink commands

• [COMMANDBOX-680] - Add ad-hoc JVM props via an environment variable

Improvement

• [COMMANDBOX-178] - Don't store text entered to "ask()" command in history

• [COMMANDBOX-565] - Handle minor version updating a bit better

• [COMMANDBOX-607] - Always store dependency install paths with forward slashes

• [COMMANDBOX-609] - Have a setting to not show secrets when printing out the config

• [COMMANDBOX-624] - Support UNC file paths on Windows

• [COMMANDBOX-639] - JSON format for forgebox endpoints

• [COMMANDBOX-659] - Ask user for required params to task runners

• [COMMANDBOX-660] - Visually show if a package is private when listing or showing

• [COMMANDBOX-661] - make package init create correct slug for private package

• [COMMANDBOX-662] - Make default command parms work on aliases

• [COMMANDBOX-670] - Box install failures to produce non-zero exit codes so build fails instead of continuing installation.

• [COMMANDBOX-683] - Provide ANSI formatting for markdown package descriptions

• [COMMANDBOX-685] - box.json template isn't proper JSON

• [COMMANDBOX-687] - Remove background color from CommandBox ASCII art

• [COMMANDBOX-688] - Default rewrite rules to ignore favicon.ico

• [COMMANDBOX-694] - Disable Secure Profile on CFEngine WARs

• [COMMANDBOX-696] - Leave space around URLs so some consoles will be clickable

• [COMMANDBOX-697] - Improve performance of package install ignores

• [COMMANDBOX-700] - Improve error message in ServerService.getRandomPort()

• [COMMANDBOX-707] - Prevent unnecessary writes to box.json file when installing dependencies

• [COMMANDBOX-708] - Improve formatting when asking for required param that has no hint

• [COMMANDBOX-712] - Add Java 9 check to CommandBox until its supported

CLI Shell

We upgraded to a new version of the underlying library that handles the CLI interactions which brought a number of nice things.

• The cls command now clears background colors that used to be left on the screen

• Tab completion works better when two folders with different case were in the same directory

• When developing commands, default text can be placed in the buffer when asking the user for input.

• Fixed some instances where undesired spaces would get added when hitting tab completion

We also made the following improvements to the CLI shell environment

• You don't need to escape an equals sign that's part of a quoted parameter value

• Removed extra line break when piping the output of the "run" command

• Fixed some regressions when piping text to the box binary

• Added better BOM detection when tailing files

• cp command will create destination directories

• Windows paths that start with \ or / will be treated as absolute (like DOS works)

• All OS's will expand ~ to the current user's home directory

Tail Command

The tail command used to only take a file as input, but now you can pipe raw text in as well.

CommandBox> forgebox search | tail lines=50

When tailing a file, you can specify the --follow flag and any new text added to the file will live stream to your console until you press Ctrl-C to stop. This is perfect for tailing application logs while your code is running to see new entries.

CommandBox> tail myFile.log --follow
CommandBox> system-log | tail --follow

The server log command also has a new --follow flag added to it which will live stream a running server's console log to the shell until you press Ctrl-C to stop it.

CommandBox> server log --follow

Package Management

The artifact storage location is now customizable thanks to Chris Schmitz, allowing you to store your artifacts on another drive, or even a network share so your coworkers can all use the same "local" copies.

CommandBox> config set artifactsDirectory=/path/to/artifacts

CommandBox will always re-download snapshot versions of packages to make sure you get a fresh version.

CommandBox> install myPackage@1.2.3-snapshot

When you try to install a package and CommandBox is offline, instead of giving up, we'll now look in your local artifacts cache for a satisfying version. If we find a package that works in your artifacts, we'll install it instead.

Server Starting

We added a few new ways to start up a server. You can use the --debug flag when starting a server to see additional information and the foreground process also waits for the server to start before finishing. Now when starting in debug mode this output will stream to the console as it becomes available instead of showing up all at the end. This is great to troubleshoot errors that are happening on server start as well as finding the slow parts of the startup sequence.

CommandBox> server start --debug

By default, your servers fire up in a new process that runs independently from the CLI. There is now a new flag called --console that will start the server up in the foreground and stream the console output to the CLI for you to watch. The start command will not end and will keep streaming the console output until you press Ctrl-C to stop it. You can also use --debug alongside the console flag for even more information.

CommandBox> server start --console
CommandBox> server start --console --debug

Server Welcome Files

If you have an app that uses a default welcome file other than index.cfm, you can control that now.

CommandBox> server set web.welcomeFiles="go.cfm,main.cfm,index.cfm,index.html"

Better SES URLs

This is one that you take for granted if you've always used Adobe ColdFusion, but for any CF server not running on Adobe's custom version of Tomcat, you can't use SES URLs in a subfolder like this without adding custom mappings to your web.xml:

site.com/myFolder/index.cfm/home/login

We've added just a dash of servlet fairy dust that now makes this possible. Note, if you want to hide the index.cfm with URL rewrites, you'll need a custom rewrite config for it to work in a subfolder.

Server Configuration

All server engines and versions have been standardized to install into the same reliable directory structure to make it easier for you to script config file replacements.

• For Adobe CF WARs, the xml config files are located in the WAR here: /WEB-INF/cfusion/lib/neo.*.xml

• For the Lucee server context, the xml config file is located in the WAR here: /WEB-INF/lucee-server/context/lucee-server.xml

• For the Lucee web context, the xml config file is located in the WAR here: /WEB-INF/lucee-web/lucee-web.xml.cfm

To find the folder where your WEB-INF lives (as well as lots of other information about your server) you can use the server info command to get useful properties about a starting or started server.

# Find the "home" directory for a server (where the WEB-INF lives)
CommandBox> server info property=serverHomeDirectory

# Find the out log file
CommandBox> server info property=consoleLogPath

# Get all possible values as JSON
CommandBox> server info --JSON

Combining these allows you to do some nice one-liners like scripting out the copying of config settings when the server starts up. Hint: Use an onServerInstall or onServerStart package script!

CommandBox> cp neo-datasource.xml '`server info property=serverHomeDirectory`/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib/neo-datasource.xml'

Read more about this here:

https://commandbox.ortusbooks.com/content/v/development/embedded_server/copy-configs.html

Custom Server Home

Until now you've had to live with the special directory that CommandBox uses to install your servers into. Now you can get full control over where the server goes which is perfect for creating a folder "seeded" with config files that you want the server to use when it first starts. This trick (with some clever Git ignores) will also allow you to commit changes to your config files back to the repo while ignoring the rest of the engine.

• Customize Lucee's server context folder with the serverConfigDir setting

• Customize Lucee's web context folder with the webConfigDir setting

• Customize where the entire WAR explodes to for any server with the serverHomeDirectory setting

This is very powerful since it gives you full control over the server deployment. Server installs have also been changed to NOT overwrite existing files when they unzip, so any config files you place in the server home prior to starting the server will be left in place and used by the server when it starts up. This means you can have datasources, mappings, and more start out-of-the-box for your site on a fresh install.

Read more about this here.

https://commandbox.ortusbooks.com/content/v/development/embedded_server/custom-server-home.html

A Few Changes

There were a few small changes in the "undocumented" core of CommandBox that got rearranged to make more sense. There's a small chance you may have been relying on one of them, so take note:

• The serverHome property that comes back from server info has been renamed to serverHomeDirectory.

• The webConfigDir property used to point to the server home, but this was incorrect. The property will now be blank unless specified. Use serverHomeDirectory instead.

• The default Lucee server used to have a non-standard folder structure, but now matches the WAR folders of all other servers

• The web context in Lucee servers used to be in a folder named after a random hash which was kind of silly (and impossible to find). It's now always under /WEB-INF/lucee-web

• All "internal" Lucee servers used to share a single server context (and settings). All servers are now separate. Use the serverConfigDir setting to point more than one server at a single server context or use one of the new options for copying configs.

• The core CLI server context now has a default password of "commandbox" set. This would apply if you wanted to use the tag from .cfm files executed via the shell or a custom command.

• Several new properties were added to the server info data for your convenience. Check them out by starting a server and running server info --JSON.

Release Notes

Bug

• [COMMANDBOX-236] - `box reload` doesn't clear background colors from buffer on Windows

• [COMMANDBOX-248] - tab completion doesn't always work on paths

• [COMMANDBOX-500] - CommandBox timeout is shorter than runwar timeout when starting Adobe servers

• [COMMANDBOX-505] - BOM interferes with commandbox.properties

• [COMMANDBOX-507] - Staring server with defautlPort in box.json, adds optional keys back in.

• [COMMANDBOX-509] - Ignore equals in a quoted parameter

• [COMMANDBOX-522] - Improve error message when endpoint fails installing server

• [COMMANDBOX-526] - Use hostname for "coldbox reinit"

• [COMMANDBOX-533] - Error starting CommandBox in some instances

• [COMMANDBOX-539] - "run" expressions contain line break on Linux

• [COMMANDBOX-542] - Regression in piping input from OS console

• [COMMANDBOX-543] - Piping a file of commands with a BOM into box fails

• [COMMANDBOX-544] - package set doesn't always set what you expect

• [COMMANDBOX-545] - The `commandbox-home` when used in symbolic link mode fails on mac

New Feature

• [COMMANDBOX-234] - ability for server start to deploy web-inf locally instead of server location

• [COMMANDBOX-473] - Control list of welcome files

• [COMMANDBOX-479] - Make artifacts path customizable

• [COMMANDBOX-503] - Allow tail command to follow a log file

• [COMMANDBOX-504] - Allow raw text to be piped into the tail command

• [COMMANDBOX-506] - Add startTimeout parameter to control how long to wait for server to start

• [COMMANDBOX-508] - Console flag to server start

• [COMMANDBOX-523] - new preServerStart interceptor

• [COMMANDBOX-534] - Add --follow flag to "server log" to tail it and follow

• [COMMANDBOX-535] - cp command create directories if necessary when copying file

• [COMMANDBOX-536] - If Forgebox is down, use artifacts cache on installs

• [COMMANDBOX-538] - Allow programmatic access to server info

• [COMMANDBOX-546] - Allow custom server home dir

Improvement

• [COMMANDBOX-153] - Support for double wildcard servlet mappings

• [COMMANDBOX-222] - Set default password Lucee CLI context

• [COMMANDBOX-439] - absolute paths on Windows don't follow the same rules as DOS

• [COMMANDBOX-456] - If forgebox is down, 'internal' server won't start

• [COMMANDBOX-498] - Upgrade engine to Lucee 4.5.4.017

• [COMMANDBOX-499] - improve contentbox-widget package installation conventions

• [COMMANDBOX-501] - Stream server start log when debug is true

• [COMMANDBOX-510] - Improve JSON parsing when piping complex values to cfml command

• [COMMANDBOX-511] - Allow webConfigDir, serverConfigDir & webXML to be relative

• [COMMANDBOX-514] - Improve rewrites to not fire on SES URLs in a subdir

• [COMMANDBOX-515] - server forget does not stop server if running

• [COMMANDBOX-518] - libdirs aren't relative when starting a server

• [COMMANDBOX-519] - Libdirs aren't used for non-internal servers.

• [COMMANDBOX-520] - Improve output of server info and server list commands

• [COMMANDBOX-521] - Stop loading java agent for Lucee 5

• [COMMANDBOX-524] - Improve starting internal server when not specifying buildID

• [COMMANDBOX-528] - Improve server start intercepors

• [COMMANDBOX-529] - Standardize server home directories

• [COMMANDBOX-530] - Upgrade to JLine 2.15-snapshot

• [COMMANDBOX-531] - Allow default text to be put in buffer for ask() function

• [COMMANDBOX-532] - Don't cache snapshots

• [COMMANDBOX-537] - Remove .git folder when cloning a Git repo

• [COMMANDBOX-540] - Support ~ as a shortcut for the user home directory like bash.

• [COMMANDBOX-547] - Improve tab completion for server/package/config set commands

• [COMMANDBOX-549] - Spruce up the opening ASCII art

• [COMMANDBOX-550] - Pass JVM args through to background server process

• [COMMANDBOX-551] - Fix working directory of xxxInstall package scripts

In this section you will find the release notes for the 3.x version of CommandBox.

• - Nov 2017

• - Aug 2017

• - Jul 2017

• - Mar 2017

• - Jan 2017

• - Nov 2016

• - Oct 2016

• - Jul 2016

• - Jul 2016

• - Feb 2016

• - Feb 2016

Server Enhancements

The embedded CommandBox server have seen a number of nice enhancements to make it easier for you to use CommandBox for super easy local development.

Fusion Reactor Module

The more people begin to use CommandBox for local development, the more interested they became in being able to run on their dev servers to help trouble shoot their code. That's why we created a module. It's not part of the core, but can be installed in a single command and will attach FusionReactor's server monitor to every server you start. You'll need to have a to use it.

Web Aliases

CommandBox allows you to create web aliases for the web server that are similar to virtual directories. The alias path is relative to the web root, but can point to any folder on the hard drive. Aliases can be used for static or CFM files. To configure aliases for your server, create an object under web called alises. The keys are the web-accessible virtual paths and the corresponding values are the relative or absolute path to the folder the alias points to.

Here's what your server.json might look like.

Here's how to create aliases from the server set command:

Custom Error Pages

You can customize the error page that CommandBox servers return. You can have a setting for each status code including a default error page to be used if no other setting applies. Create an errorPages object inside the web object in your server.json where each key is the status code integer or the word default and the value is a relative (to the web root) path to be loaded for that status code. This is what you server.json might look like:

You can set error pages via the server set command like this:

Custom tray menu items

You can customize these tray menus and add your own option for your convenience. To add a menu contribution to an individual server, add the following to your server.json:

Tray menu makeover

We've updated to a new library that creates the tray icon for your running servers and the menu that appears when you right click. In addition to better support for some Linux distros, we've added some nice new icons to the menus.

Pre/Post package scripts

Before any package script is run, CommandBox will look for another package script with the same name, but prefixed with pre. After any package script is run, CommandBox will look for another package script with the same name, but prefixed with Post. So if you have a package that contains 3 package scripts: foo, preFoo, and postFoo, they will run in this order.

1. preFoo

2. foo

3. postFoo

This works for built-in package script names as well as as doc package scripts. It also works on any level. In the example above, if you created a 4th package script called prePreFoo, it would run prior to preFoo.

Better ForgeBox Login management

If you use more than one ForgeBox login, perhaps a personal one and a company one, it can be a pain to keep logging in. It's also hard to remember the last user you logged in with. We've introduced two new commands to help with this. Run this to tell you who you are logged in as:

Run this to switch between users that you've previously logged in with:

onRelease interceptor/package script

We've added a new "onRelease" interceptor and package script to help with the workflow of publishing packages. Here's a run down of the three key points when bumping a package version.

• preVersion - Announced before the new version is set using the bump command

• postVersion - Announced after the new version using the bump command but before the Git repo is tagged.

• onRelease - Announced after a new version is set using the bump command and after the Git repo is tagged.

Here is a typical package script work flow for working with a package that's hosted on GitHub and published to ForgeBox:

Then when you want to publish a new version of your package, commit your changes to Git and run the following commands:

Those two commands, in combination with your package scripts, would accomplish the following:

1. Run the package's test suite (a failure will abort the process)

2. Increase the minor version of the page

3. Tag the Git repo

4. Change the package's location property in box.json to point to the new tag

5. Commit the tag and new box.json

6. Publish the package to ForgeBox

7. Push the new box.json and Git tag

onInstall interceptor/package script

Announced while a package is being installed, after the package endpoint and installation directory has been resolved but before the actual installation occurs. This allows you to override things like the installation directory based on package type. Any values updated in the interceptData struct will override what the install command uses.

CLI Engine Update

The Lucee version that the CLI runs on has been updated to be 4.5.3.020 which is also now the default engine to be used when you use the "server start" command and don't specify a cfengine. If you still want to start a web server on Lucee 4.5.2.018, then simply to this:

Release Notes

There are tons of little bug fixes in this version that you can view in our release notes.

Bug

New Feature

Improvement

Improve OS binary execution

You've been able to from the CommandBox interactive shell for a while now which is great for adding native CLI calls to your recipes.

The biggest problem with this though was that no output shows on the screen until the OS command is completely finished and if your OS command blocks for interactivity or just never ends, the CommandBox shell will just "hang" with no output. All that is a thing of the past now. The standard input and output of the OS process is now bound to the standard input and output of your CommandBox shell. That means that you see output as soon as the binary outputs it and if it stops to ask you for input, you can provide it. This opens up a world of possibilities.

• You can ping an address and watch the output stream as the packets return.

• You can do a Git commit and interact with the VI window that appears to capture your commit message.

• You can actually open a bash/DOS shell right inside of CommandBox and then "exit" back to box when you're done.

• Run native commands that collect input from you to continue like a sudo password.

This has been tested and works pretty well on Mac and Windows. Note, we've seen some issues on Linux where output is streamed, but input is not captured.

New interceptor points

• - Always fires before attempting to forget a server whether or not the forgetting is actually successful

• - Fires after a successful server forget. If the forget fails, this will not fire.

Allow spaces in user home directory

This was supported in CommandBox 3.4.0, but we had a regression in 3.5.0 that caused issues for users who have a space in their path to CommandBox's home dir. This has been fixed along with some related issues with the FusionReactor module. Make sure you have the latest Fusion Reactor module once you upgrade to CommandBox 3.6.0.

New Lucee version

The core version of Lucee that the CLI runs on has been updated to 4.5.5.006. Please note this means the default version of Lucee that starts up for your server when you don't specify otherwise will change. If you have settings like datasources and such that you want to keep, make sure you lock in your exact version of Lucee or check into our new CFConfig project for exporting/importing your server settings.

Incorrect exit code from "testbox run"

The testbox run command would return an exit code of 0 when your tests had in fact failed. This has been fixed so you can trust a proper exit code from the process when running your tests inside a Jenkins or Travis CI build.

Global default for HTTP port in config settings

Previously, you couldn't set a global default HTTP port for all your servers. This was on purpose since it didn't really make sense since one one server can use a port at a time. Now, with the introduction of Chris Schmitz's host updater module, you can more easily run each server on a dedicated host name which is added to your host file for you and bound to a unique port. This allows you to run all your local servers on port 80 which is great for cleaning up your local dev. As such, we've added the ability to set the global HTTP port now in your config setting's server defaults.

Release Notes

Here's the full release notes for the 3.6.0 release.

Bug

Improvement

What's New

• Task Runners - Run ad-hoc builds from the CLI written in CFML

• Manage System Packages - update, list, and uninstall system modules

• File Globbing - Use place holders like **.cfc for file operations to affect more than one file at a time.

• Command Aliases - Alias your favorite commands for easy access in the future

• Global Command Parameter Defaults - Set common parameters to have a given value at a global level

• System Settings - Utilize environment variables to make your package and servers more dynamic

• Testbox Run - Improved, minimalist output to the "testbox run" command

• TestBox Watchers - Watch a directory for file changes and run your unit tests

• Customize REST Servlets - Customize or disable the REST servlet paths on Lucee and Adobe servers

• Custom Java Versions - Start your CF servers with any version of Java you want

• Property files - New commands and helper libs for dealing with property files

• Basic Authentication - Enable basic security on your servers with unlimited users

• Custom URL to Open - Customize the browser URL that opens when you start a server

• Disable Tray Icon - Turn off the system tray icon for your servers entirely

• Show Proxy IP - Servers pass through the original user IP through proxies

• Jar Endpoint - Install 3rd party jars into your projects

Release Notes

Bug

New Feature

Task

Improvement

Bug Fixes

This release fixes an issue where Adobe CF servers will not start if you're machine is offline and also fixes a bug where the previous version of CommandBox didn't correctly remove old versions of jar files on upgrade.

Enhancements

Git tags when bumping a package command can have a custom prefix now. Tab completion options are also alphabetized. Ctrl-C is also handled better on Unix and actually works in Windows! Also, the timestamp on your sever.json file won't be updated unless the contents of the file actually changed.

Release Notes

Here is the full list of everything that changed in the CommandBox 3.4.0 release.

Bug

• [] - Adobe Servers won't start offline

• [] - start serverConfigFile=myServer.json doesn't load json settings

• [] - Adobe web.xml Flex config path is wrong after first engine start

• [] - Error checking whether server is running

• [] - cflib-coldbox endpoint creates invalid CFML for Adobe

• [] - write history before command finishes

• [] - Coldbox create interceptor doesn't create test with proper CFC mapping

• [] - war path not stored in server.json as relative path

• [] - CFML upgrades don't delete removed files

• [] - Forgetting a named server deletes the 'default' server.json too

New Feature

Improvement

Offline Server Starts

One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got from the CommandBox 3.1 release was that it requires an Internet connection to start a server. Since you can specify the version of the server you want to start, including semver ranges like 5.x, this required a trip to ForgeBox to check and see what the best version match was since it might have changed since the last time you started the server.

Now, if you provide an exact CF engine version number (meaning you give us a major, minor, AND patch version) CommandBox will skip phoning home to ForgeBox and will just continue with that version.

Remember that the version "5" de-sugars to "5.x.x" so you need to have all three numbers even if they're "0"

Failsafe Server Starts

We even went a step further. Sometimes ForgeBox may be down for maintenance or due to an outage and it was preventing people from being able to start their servers. If ForgeBox can't be reached for some reason while starting the server, we'll try again by comparing the version range you provided with the CF Engines already cached in your local artifacts cache. If we can find a version that satisfies what you asked for, we'll use it to start the server. That means you might not be getting the latest version of the engine from ForgeBox, but at least your server will start with that is has downloaded already.

Unpublish Packages

Unpublishing a package should be something you rarely need to do since once a package is published, someone else may be depending it for their app to run. However, we now have an unpublish command you can run from the CLI to remove a specific version of a package, or the entire package itself from ForgeBox.

New Server Updates

We've also included the latest versions of Adobe ColdFusion 10, 11, and 2016 on ForgeBox. This is something we can update separately from our CommandBox releases, but they came at the same time so I bundled the announcements together :) Here are the latest Adobe versions available:

• Adobe CF 10.0.20+299202

• Adobe CF 11.0.09+299201

• Adobe CF 2016.0.02+299200

Bug Fixes

We also fixed a few bugs too. For example, targeting a Git tag stopped working in version 3.1 due to a library update, plus CommandBox's proxy settings weren't being used for all HTTP requests.

Release Notes

Here's the full list of everything in version 3.2.0 of CommandBox. Click on the ticket numbers for more details in JIRA.

Bugs

New Features

Tasks

Improvements

Bug

• [] - Relative SSL certFile or keyFile path in server.json isn't expanded

• [] - propertyfile set errors if file doesn't exist

New Feature

• [] - Allow relative property file paths in task runners

Improvement

• [] - Allow custom tray contributions to have relative image path

• [] - Improve coldbox create app --wizard

• [] - Always run onServerInstall

• [] - add getInstance() to base interceptor class

• [] - Improve handling of loading a bad modules

• [] - Command to normalize line endings for a batch of files

• [] - Improve package parsing regex for private packages

Multi-Server

Now CommandBox will not only start up Lucee 4 servers with a single command, but you can start up Adobe ColdFusion, Railo, and even Luce 5 servers all at the same time. Now it's easier than ever to test your code across multiple platforms. CommandBox's embedded server makes for a fast and easy development machine too regardless of what CF engine you need.

ForgeBox 2.0 API

We'v released a brand new site with a new UI, fresh features, and a shiny new API. CommandBox 3.1.1 is now powered by the new ForgeBox site and API which includes features like having more than one version for a package.

Semantic Versioning support

Create user from CLI

Publish packages from the CLI

You no longer need to visit the ForgeBox web site to publish new or updated packages to ForgeBox. This is all available from the CLI once you've logged in. This means you can even automate the process of publishing to cut down on the number of manual steps it takes you to update your projects and share those changes with the community.

Interceptor-based CLI scripts

You can now run commands of your choosing automatically when certain events in the CLI happen (like publishing a package, or starting a server). You can also create ad-hoc collections of commands to run whenever you want to help automate things like building your projects or publishing to ForgeBox.

Have Fun

Release Notes

Bug

New Feature

Task

Improvement

Config Settings

CommandBox now has a JSON file of settings that can be used to configure any kind of behavior we want. We're still working on implementing features that actually use the settings, but the first will be the ability to set up a proxy server for your corporate network. Config settings give us a place to store ad-hoc settings like this as well as an API for retrieving them. What's great is the settings JSON file can store ANY information, including complex structs and arrays so feel free to use it for your own purposes as well. You can interact with config settings like so:

config set name=mySetting
config set modules.myModule.mySetting=foo
config set myArraySetting[1]="value"
config set setting1=value1 setting2=value2 setting3=value3
config show settingName

Read More

Modules

This is perhaps the most radical thing we've done in CommandBox to date and it is huge. We've introduced modules (just like ColdBox) into the actual CLI itself. A module is a unit of code re-use that allows you to take a folder of code that follows a few simple conventions and drop it into a module-aware application for instant extension. This means that we've broken out all the internal commands into system modules for organization. What's more, you can write your own CommandBox modules that hook into the internal workings with interceptors, register their own custom commands, or help manage settings or servers. Modules can be placed on ForgeBox and installed by your friends in seconds to extend the core of CommandBox. The benefits here can't be understated. Check out the docs and go through the quick, easy steps to create your first CommandBox module.

Not only can modules have settings, but you can also override a module's default settings easily with config settings that follow a simple convention. For example, if a module named "foo" has a setting named "bar", you don't need to edit the module's code to change the setting. Simply run this command:

config set modules.foo.bar=value

Read More

Interceptors

CommandBox interceptors, like modules, work the same way that ColdBox interceptors do. They give you hooks that you can register to listen to events broadcast by the CommandBox core, or custom events of your own design that you announce. These are very powerful for being able to extend and modify how the core CLI works to build upon it. Interceptors are bundled inside modules so they install quickly and easily. Distribute them on ForgeBox as well. I've already created a simple example module that uses the onCLIStart interceptor to modify the ASCII art banner that appears when you start CommandBox.

Here's some of the core interception points:

• onCLIStart

• onCLIExit

• preCommand

• postCommand

• onServerStart

• onServerStop

• onException

• preInstall

• postInstall

Now you can write modules that check for upgrades on CommandBox startup, manipulate the output of commands, log exceptions, customize server startup, or audit what package you install the most!

Read More

Standardized Command Packaging

We've had the ability for custom commands for a while, but they were limited and didn't easily allow you to include additional CFC files with your commands. Now with the addition of modules, your custom commands can be package in a module right alongside settings, interceptors, or services. We also simplified the creation of custom commands so things like extending our BaseCommand class is optional thanks to WireBox's virtual inheritance. We hate boilerplate as much as you do!

There are already some cool custom commands popping up on ForgeBox. Check out this community addition for making http calls from the command line similar to curl.

install commandbox-http-command

Read More

Server.json

This feature has been a long-time coming. There are a lot of options you can set when starting a server, and portability has been hard for people wanting to distribute an app that needs to start with custom JVM args, rewrites, or a specific port. Now all server startup options can be set in your web root in a server.json file which will be used automatically the next time you run "start". You interact with these settings the same as package or config settings.

server set web.http.port=8080
server show web.http.port
server start

Read More

Shortcut for Native OS Binaries

We've had the "run" command for a while now that allows you to run native binaries from the interactive shell, or from a CommandBox recipe. The output is returned which allows you to create mashups that pipe the output of OS commands directly into CommandBox commands. We took this a step further and borrowed from other CLIs out there so now the parser allows you to call native OS binaries by simply prefixing an exclamation mark (!) in front of the binary name. Now only are OS commands run in the current working directory, they are also executed via the shell for that machine which makes non-binaries and aliases like "ll" function.

!myApp.exe
!git pull
!dir

Read More

Shortcut for CFML Functions via REPL

This is a really neat feature that allows you to actually run CFML functions straight from the CommandBox CLI as commands. Just prefix the function name with a hash sign (#) and then type the function name with no parenthesis. Any parameters to the function can be passed (or piped) into the command like normal named or positional CLI command parameters.

#now
> {ts '2016-01-19 16:14:23'}
#hash mypass
> A029D0DF84EB5549C641E04A9EF389E5
#reverse abc
> cba

This really gets cool when you start piping the output of commands together to string together mixtures of CommandBox commands and CFML functions for fancy one-liners. Here's some string manipulation. The first one does some list manipulation. The second one outputs the lowercase package name.

#listGetAt www.foo.com 2 . | #ucase | #reverse
> OOF
package show name | #lcase
> my package

But wait, there's more! You can even use struct and array functions. Their output is returned as JSON and automatically deserialized as input to the next command. Keep in mind that piped data gets passed in as the FIRST parameter to the next command. This outputs a nice list of all the top-level dependencies in your package.

package list --JSON | #structFind dependencies | #structKeyList
> coldbox,docbox,testbox,cbmessagebox

Read More

Expressions in Command Parameters

Parameter values passed into a CommandBox command don't have to be static. Any part of the parameter which is enclosed in backticks (`) will be evaluated as a CommandBox expression. That means that the enclosed text will be first executed as though it were a separate command and the output will be substituted in its place.

echo "Your CommandBox version is `ver` and this app is called '`package show name`'!!"
> Your CommandBox version is 3.0.0 and this app is called 'Brad's cool app'!

You can really go crazy with these mashups by combining CFML functions too. This example sets a property in a package's box.json that's equal to a nicely formatted date:

package set createdDate=`#now | #dateformat mm/dd/yyyy`
> Set createdDate = 1/19/2016

Read More

Command DSL

We've really focused on doing CommandBox development now with the possibilities opened up with the addition of modules. One pain point of extending CommandBox was calling other commands since parameters needed to be escaped. We created a nice method-chaining DSL to help execute any other command from inside of your custom commands.

command( 'cp' )
    .params( path='/my/path', newPath='/my/new/path' )
    .run();

You can even nest the DSL to pipe output between commands:

command( "echo" )
    .params( "hello#chr( 10 )#world" )
    .pipe( 
        command( "grep" )
        .params( "lo" )
    )
    .run();

Read More

New WireBox Injection DSLs

In line with the previous item, we've made it yet easier to write custom modules that extend the functionality of CommandBox by adding new WireBox injection DSLs. Everything inside of CommandBox is created and autowired by WireBox. You can now ask WireBox to inject core services, module settings, or config settings.

property name='shell'  inject='commandbox';
property name='ModuleService'   inject='ModuleService';
property name='MyService' inject='MyService@MyModule';
property name='mySetting' inject='commandbox:moduleSettings:moduleName:mySetting';
property name='myConfigSetting' inject='commandbox:ConfigSettings:myConfigSetting'

Read More

Release Notes

Bug

• [COMMANDBOX-144] - Starting a server by short name doesn't work

• [COMMANDBOX-285] - Tag REPL seems to be unavailable

• [COMMANDBOX-300] - REPL output cannot be piped

• [COMMANDBOX-305] - url rewriterules in commandbox incorrect

• [COMMANDBOX-310] - Brew fomulas SHA1 mismatch

• [COMMANDBOX-317] - Starting server from OS shell doesn't always work

• [COMMANDBOX-321] - Restarting server saves openBrowser as false in server.json

• [COMMANDBOX-324] - Can't clear JSON properties with dash in the name

• [COMMANDBOX-326] - Coldbox create view commands break if name includes package

• [COMMANDBOX-333] - CommandBox TestBox array of runners does not run

New Feature

• [COMMANDBOX-52] - Provide a more programmatic way to run commands/tasks like a method

• [COMMANDBOX-111] - Allow native binary execution with exclamation mark

• [COMMANDBOX-266] - Add server.json to default server settings

• [COMMANDBOX-291] - Global CommandBox setting file

• [COMMANDBOX-294] - Disable sendfile in runwar server

• [COMMANDBOX-296] - Refactor JSON handling out of package commands for reuse

• [COMMANDBOX-302] - Allow # as a REPL shortcut to run CFML tags or functions

• [COMMANDBOX-303] - Allow expressions in command parameters

• [COMMANDBOX-306] - Add option to server start for enabling/disabling directory browsing module

• [COMMANDBOX-312] - Allow commands to be piped in to box

• [COMMANDBOX-313] - Override module settings with config settings on module load

• [COMMANDBOX-314] - WireBox injection DSLs for module config and settings

• [COMMANDBOX-319] - Handle struct of environment variables in server.json

• [COMMANDBOX-320] - Add additional helper reference to the Executor

Task

• [COMMANDBOX-301] - Remove bleeding edge builds from production Debian repo.

Improvement

• [COMMANDBOX-121] - Standardize command packaging

• [COMMANDBOX-205] - HTTP Calls don't work behind company proxy

• [COMMANDBOX-226] - Use virtual inheritance for commands

• [COMMANDBOX-250] - Allow ad-hoc JVM args when starting server

• [COMMANDBOX-251] - Add modularity

• [COMMANDBOX-252] - Add event-listener model to CommandBox

• [COMMANDBOX-284] - Improve error handling in CFLib endpoint

• [COMMANDBOX-286] - Alias Execute as exec

• [COMMANDBOX-287] - Return better details from progressable downloader

• [COMMANDBOX-288] - Run command uses same environment as box executable when it was first started

• [COMMANDBOX-289] - Improve error handling in HTTP endpoint

• [COMMANDBOX-290] - Update to latest version of WireBox

• [COMMANDBOX-292] - bump command reset minor and patch

• [COMMANDBOX-297] - bump runwar version to 3.3.0

• [COMMANDBOX-298] - Enhance server rewrites for file/dir detection

• [COMMANDBOX-307] - Refactor core commands to be modules

• [COMMANDBOX-308] - Move application templates into the coldbox-commands module

• [COMMANDBOX-309] - Move scaffolding templates into respective modules

• [COMMANDBOX-311] - Improve error handling in commands

• [COMMANDBOX-315] - Shortcut to cd into directory after mkdir command

• [COMMANDBOX-322] - Run command doesn't run in the same CWD as CommandBox

• [COMMANDBOX-323] - Allow run command to run any OS command from the shell

• [COMMANDBOX-325] - Allow ConfigService to use nested setting keys

• [COMMANDBOX-327] - Improve parsing of run and ! command

• [COMMANDBOX-328] - Allow user to set custom shell with config setting

• [COMMANDBOX-330] - warn user if package has invalid JSON file

• [COMMANDBOX-331] - Bump JRE version to 1.8.0_72

• [COMMANDBOX-332] - Embedded server doesn't sent proper headers for SVGZ files

• [COMMANDBOX-334] - Support ContentBox installation paths

Properties weren't being read correctly from the server.json file. If you have been using server.json, please double check the format of the file here in our docs:

http://commandbox.ortusbooks.com/content/embedded_server/serverjson.html

This fix will make this functionality work as expected:

server set web.http.port=8000
server start

Upgrading

If you already have 3.0.0 then this fix only affects the CFML bits and is very easy for you to install. Simply run this command:

upgrade

If you're still on CommandBox 2.x, check out our 3.0.0 release announcement to see the cool new stuff.