Version 4 is an almost total rewrite of the previous glorious version 3 that has been around since 2013. In these many years multiple features have been added and many bugs have been fixed, making v3 extremely stable and reliable. It is currently used in production by almost 30 international research projects focusing on archaeology and cultural heritage.
Yet, since nothing is forever, it is time to start a gradual migration towards version 4, which is the right path towards the future. At present, a great deal of work has been done in porting all the features of v3 to the new one and we are almost done!
What’s new in V4
New DB engines
A very important new feature of v4 is the support for other database engines other than sqlite. Currently MySQL (and thus MariaDB and PerconaDB) and PostgreSQL are supported. This comes at some cost: possible bugs and a stricter adherence to Standard SQL.
Safer API
Version 4 makes exclusive use of the ShortSQL language to query the database. Since ShortSQL permits very granular validation of the input data, allowing high flexibility and query power, the v4 API reaches a high degree of security. In the first stable release of v4, API v1, deprecated since 2022-01-14, will be removed. API versioning will also be removed and the API will follow the main versioning pattern.
Total rewrite with minimal API change
The whole PHP code has been rewritten trying not to change the main API, debugging and improving the current functionalities. Namespaces, strongly typed PHP code and widespread use of inline documentation will help collaboration and further development. The update of all dependencies, both PHP and JS, also improves security.
TODO list
Before releasing v4, some more testing and bug-fixing is required. Also, the multiplication of the available database engines makes testing and debugging much more complex and time-consuming. Also, some web applications already available that make wide use of the API v1 must be migrated in order to fully comply with the newest version.
So, stay tuned and help testing and bug detection! Read the docs and file an issue if something is not working as expected!