Laravel 4.2
The full change list for this release by running the
php artisan changes command from a 4.2
installation, or by viewing
the change file on Github. These notes only
cover the major enhancements and changes for the
release.
Note: During the 4.2 release cycle, many small bug fixes and enhancements were incorporated into the various Laravel 4.1 point releases. So, be sure to check the change list for Laravel 4.1 as well!
PHP 5.4 Requirement
Laravel 4.2 requires PHP 5.4 or greater. This upgraded PHP requirement allows us to use new PHP features such as traits to provide more expressive interfaces for tools like Laravel Cashier. PHP 5.4 also brings significant speed and performance improvements over PHP 5.3.
Laravel Forge
Laravel Forge, a new web based application, provides a simple way to create and manage PHP servers on the cloud of your choice, including Linode, DigitalOcean, Rackspace, and Amazon EC2. Supporting automated Nginx configuration, SSH key access, Cron job automation, server monitoring via NewRelic & Papertrail, "Push To Deploy", Laravel queue worker configuration, and more, Forge provides the simplest and most affordable way to launch all of your Laravel applications.
The default Laravel 4.2 installation's
app/config/database.php configuration file
is now configured for Forge usage by default, allowing
for more convenient deployment of fresh applications
onto the platform.
More information about Laravel Forge can be found on the official Forge website.
Laravel Homestead
Laravel Homestead is an official Vagrant environment for
developing robust Laravel and PHP applications. The vast
majority of the boxes' provisioning needs are handled
before the box is packaged for distribution, allowing
the box to boot extremely quickly. Homestead includes
Nginx 1.6, PHP 5.6, MySQL, Postgres, Redis, Memcached,
Beanstalk, Node, Gulp, Grunt, & Bower. Homestead
includes a simple Homestead.yaml
configuration file for managing multiple Laravel
applications on a single box.
The default Laravel 4.2 installation now includes an
app/config/local/database.php configuration
file that is configured to use the Homestead database
out of the box, making Laravel initial installation and
configuration more convenient.
The official documentation has also been updated to include Homestead documentation.
Laravel Cashier
Laravel Cashier is a simple, expressive library for managing subscription billing with Stripe. With the introduction of Laravel 4.2, we are including Cashier documentation along with the main Laravel documentation, though installation of the component itself is still optional. This release of Cashier brings numerous bug fixes, multi-currency support, and compatibility with the latest Stripe API.
Daemon Queue Workers
The Artisan queue:work command now supports
a --daemon option to start a worker in
"daemon mode", meaning the worker will
continue to process jobs without ever re-booting the
framework. This results in a significant reduction in
CPU usage at the cost of a slightly more complex
application deployment process.
More information about daemon queue workers can be found in the queue documentation.
Mail API Drivers
Laravel 4.2 introduces new Mailgun and Mandrill API
drivers for the Mail functions. For many
applications, this provides a faster and more reliable
method of sending e-mails than the SMTP options. The new
drivers utilize the Guzzle 4 HTTP library.
Soft Deleting Traits
A much cleaner architecture for "soft deletes" and other "global scopes" has been introduced via PHP 5.4 traits. This new architecture allows for the easier construction of similar global traits, and a cleaner separation of concerns within the framework itself.
More information on the new
SoftDeletingTrait may be found in the Eloquent
documentation.
Convenient Auth & Remindable Traits
The default Laravel 4.2 installation now uses simple
traits for including the needed properties for the
authentication and password reminder user interfaces.
This provides a much cleaner default User
model file out of the box.
"Simple Paginate"
A new simplePaginate method was added to the
query and Eloquent builder which allows for more
efficient queries when using simple "Next" and
"Previous" links in your pagination view.
Migration Confirmation
In production, destructive migration operations will now
ask for confirmation. Commands may be forced to run
without any prompts using the --force
command.
Laravel 4.1
Full Change List
The full change list for this release by running the
php artisan changes command from a 4.1
installation, or by viewing
the change file on Github. These notes only
cover the major enhancements and changes for the
release.
New SSH Component
An entirely new SSH component has been
introduced with this release. This feature allows you to
easily SSH into remote servers and run commands. To
learn more, consult the SSH
component documentation.
The new php artisan tail command utilizes
the new SSH component. For more information, consult the
tail command
documentation.
Boris In Tinker
The php artisan tinker command now utilizes
the Boris
REPL if your system supports it. The
readline and pcntl PHP
extensions must be installed to use this feature. If you
do not have these extensions, the shell from 4.0 will be
used.
Eloquent Improvements
A new hasManyThrough relationship has been
added to Eloquent. To learn how to use it, consult the
Eloquent
documentation.
A new whereHas method has also been
introduced to allow retrieving
models based on relationship constraints.
Database Read / Write Connections
Automatic handling of separate read / write connections is now available throughout the database layer, including the query builder and Eloquent. For more information, consult the documentation.
Queue Priority
Queue priorities are now supported by passing a
comma-delimited list to the queue:listen
command.
Failed Queue Job Handling
The queue facilities now include automatic handling of
failed jobs when using the new --tries
switch on queue:listen. More information on
handling failed jobs can be found in the queue
documentation.
Cache Tags
Cache "sections" have been superseded by "tags". Cache tags allow you to assign multiple "tags" to a cache item, and flush all items assigned to a single tag. More information on using cache tags may be found in the cache documentation.
Flexible Password Reminders
The password reminder engine has been changed to provide greater developer flexibility when validating passwords, flashing status messages to the session, etc. For more information on using the enhanced password reminder engine, consult the documentation.
Improved Routing Engine
Laravel 4.1 features a totally re-written routing layer. The API is the same; however, registering routes is a full 100% faster compared to 4.0. The entire engine has been greatly simplified, and the dependency on Symfony Routing has been minimized to the compiling of route expressions.
Improved Session Engine
With this release, we're also introducing an entirely new session engine. Similar to the routing improvements, the new session layer is leaner and faster. We are no longer using Symfony's (and therefore PHP's) session handling facilities, and are using a custom solution that is simpler and easier to maintain.
Doctrine DBAL
If you are using the renameColumn function
in your migrations, you will need to add the
doctrine/dbal dependency to your
composer.json file. This package is no
longer included in Laravel by default.