Revision history for the Workflow Perl Distribution

2.09 2025-11-23 maintenance release, update not required

• Deprecation notice of use of XML configuration files, issue #125 and deprecation notices implementation by @ehuelsmann via PR #256.

  • YAML configuration files are now the preferred format for configuration of Workflow instances. The XML implementation was based on XML::Simple, which itself has been discouraged for use for several years. The distribution still supports XML configuration files, but this support will be removed in a future unscheduled major release.

• Improvements to test suite, PR #275 by @ehuelsmann. This is a follow up on release 2.08, since we spotted the issue in the tests running as part of the CI pipeline on GitHub

2.08 2025-11-12 bug fix release, update not required

Fixed

• Issue: #271 reported by @andk. Fixed via PR: #272 by @ehuelsmann This issue was discovered by the CPAN smoke testers, the report can be found on CPAN Testers

2.07 2025-11-08 bug fix release, update not required

Fixed

• Issue: #266 discovered by Erik Huelsmann. A regression introduced with 2.X releases. Fixed via PR: #267 also by Erik Huelsmann

2.06 2025-08-12 bug fix release, update not required

Fixed

• Autorun triggered upon workflow creation invoking non-existent method, PR #258
• Observers not notified of events triggered by autorun initial actions, issue #259
• Remove duplicated POD section from YAML config module, PR #255
• Missing 'autorun' value in 'completed' event, issue #257
• Clarified documentation and release notes on event changes between 1.62 and 2.x, issue #257

2.05 2025-02-01 bug fix release, update not required

Fixed

• Workflow::Persister::DBI::ExtraData fails to return the extra data retrieved, PR #251
• Logger reports 'CODE(0x...)' instead of actual error message, PR #252
• Documentation of incompatibilities no longer observed (removed), issue: #248
• Example web application not compatible with 2.0, issue: #243
• Example web application throwing errors, isse: #244
• Removed dead link from CONTRIBUTORS section
• Links updated to reflect the new repository location, issue: #242

2.04 2025-01-29 Feature and bug fix release, update not required

Added

• Allow $context parameter in create_workflow and fetch_workflow to be an unblessed hash (loosens requirement for it to me a Workflow::Context instance)

Fixed

• Conditions with a test attribute (i.e. without a name attribute), declared 'inline' in the workflow->state->action definition
• Conditions provided as examples in eg/ should have been ported to 2.0
• Broken URLs in documentation

2.03 2025-01-24 Bug fix release, update recommended

Fixed

• Instances of Workflow::Condition::IsFalse interpreted as true return values under $Workflow::Condition::STRICT_BOOLEANS = 0

2.02 2025-01-11 Major release, update recommended

Added

• Support for configurable history classes other than Workflow::History
• Support for configuration of observers through a separate configuration file; i.e. independently of Workflow configuration
• Added new observer events startup, finalize, run
• Add new accessor methods last_action_executed, get_all_actions to Workflow object
• Support for configuration of content of the first history item of a workflow through Workflow (instead of through the persister)
• New persister Workflow::Persister::DBI::ExtraData to load data from a database when loading a workflow instance

Changed

• Clarification that Workflow::Validator and Workflow::Condition define interfaces, not classes
• Conditions return Workflow::Condition::IsTrue/Workflow::Condition::IsFalse on success/ failure instead of throwing a condition error
• Workflow::Persister->fetch_history returns constructor arguments instead of Workflow::History objects, moving the responsibility of instantiating history instances to the factory
• Logging library changed from Log::Log4perl to Log::Any; to get logging, install a Log::Any::Adapter
• Moved add_observer and notify_observers from private to public API of Workflow
• $wf->context->param( $key => undef ) removes $key from the context instead of setting it to undef
• Autorunning now loops through executed actions instead of recursing; preventing stack overflows on very large execution chains
• Workflow no longer calls {commit,rollback}_transaction; the factory has assumed this responsibility as it's the factory which is in charge of serializing workflows
• Workflow::Action->execute must return a scalar value or undef (no references)
• Renamed observer event execute to completed, changed arguments for state change and completed observer events to be a hash (not positional arguments).

Removed

• Workflow::Persister->fetch_extra_workflow_data replaced by Workflow::Persister::DBI::ExtraData
• Removed condition_error in light of the changed return value of conditions
• Removed Workflow::Validator->_init since the private function does not need to be part of the specified public interface
• Removed Workflow::Condition::CheckReturn and Workflow::Condition::GreedyOR
• Removed empty modules Workflow::Condition::Nested and Workflow::Action::Mailer
• Support for SPOPS - Workflow::Persister::SPOPS - has been removed from the Workflow dist; it has been moved to the Workflow-Persister-SPOPS dist for those who still need it. Reason for removal is that it does not seem to be actively supported and the latest release (0.87; released in 2004) has failed its cpantesters tests on every released Perl version since 5.11.1

Fixed

• Workaround for Perls between 5.18 and 5.39.2 clobbering %SIG in Safe->reval() which is used internally by Workflow::Condition::Evaluate

2.02-TRIAL 2024-07-13 TRIAL release, update not required

• Separation of the following classes into separate files, for proper meta-data indexing:
  • Workflow::Condition::Result
  • Workflow::Condition::IsTrue
  • Workflow::Condition::IsFalse

2.01-TRIAL 2024-05-17 TRIAL release, update not required

• See above for changes for version 2.0
• Specified requirement for functioning DBD::Mock

2.00-TRIAL 2024-05-13 TRIAL release, update not required

• See above for changes 2.0

1.62 2023-02-11 bug fix/maintenance release, update recommended

• Minor correction to documentation via PR #208 from @ehuelsmann

• Improvement to the overall codebase by localizing $EVAL_ERROR in conjunction with eval structures, via PR #211 from @ehuelsmann

1.61 2022-10-01 bug fix release, update recommended

• We have removed some code, which was no longer used, which was causing some grievance see PR #203 from by Oliver Welter (@oliwell)

1.60 2022-03-02 bug fix release, update recommended

• We have discovered a minor regression, founded in our eager to implement more clean code. This has been addressed via PR #195 by Erik Huelsmann (@ehuelsmann).

  It was followed up by PR #196 by Oliver Welter (@oliwell).

  We are now setting the bar a bit lower for the 1.x releases in regard to best practices and code quality and focus on improving the code for 2.x, so we do not experience any more regressions.

1.59 2022-02-02 bug fix release, update required

• Unfortunately we discovered a minor mishap, where a dependency was referenced without being properly declared as a dependency, which could result in inability for the distribution to work in a clean environment. This has now been addressed via PR #190

We are sorry about any inconvenience this might have caused

1.58 2022-02-02 Maintenance release, update not required

• Addressed violations of Perl::Critic policies:

  • Subroutines::ProhibitExplicitReturnUndef
  • ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitMixedBooleanOperators

  Adjustments to Perl::Critic resourcefile (t/perlcriticrc), this somewhat addresses issue #43, there is more work to be done in this area, this will be adressed eventually

  By Jonas Brømsø (@jonasbn)

• Requirement for Perl 5.14 has been made more explicit, see also PR #185 by Erik Huelsmann (@ehuelsmann)

• Delay of instantation, prevents additional loggings attempts, this makes logging less noisy when running tests. Via PR #174 from Erik Huelsmann (@ehuelsmann)

1.57 2021-10-17 Bug fix release, update recommended

• PR #170 by @ehuelsmann addresses an issue where Workflow tries to log during the execution of use statements, at which time it's highly unlikely that the logger has already been initialized, resulting in warnings being printed on the console

• PR #171 by @ehuelsmann adds initialization of context parameters passed at instantiation; currently, parameters need to be added explicitly and individually after instantiation

• PR #173 by @ehuelsmann addresses issue #172, fixing failure to automatically run actions from the INITIAL state

1.56 2021-07-28 Bug fix release, update recommended

• PR #139 by @ehuelsmann addresses an issue introduced in 1.55, where action configurations would contain unnecessary information

• Elimination of global state, with improved abstraction the complexity could be removed via PR #140 by @ehuelsmann

• PR #141 improves test suite, following up on PR #131 by @ehuelsmann

• PR #132 by @ehuelsmann follows up on issue #129 by improving documentation on group property of Workflow::Action

• Elimination of warning about undefined value, which surfaced with release 1.55, adressed with PR #135 by @ehuelsmann

• PR #131 by @ehuelsmann documents the importance of overriding init for processing of parameters and not using new

• PR #130 bu @ehuelsmann addresses issue #129, respects encapsulation by adhering to the API

• Improves some error and log messages via PR #128 by @ehuelsmann

1.55 2021-07-09 Minor feature release, update not required

• PR #119 by @ehuelsmann adds capability of configuring custom workflow classes addressing issue #107

• Simplified logging handing in code base via PR #108 by @ehuelsmann. Investigation into possible performance issue described in #89 determined penalty to be insignificant

• Workflow::State->get_conditions() now returns all conditions, fixed via PR #122 by @ehuelsmann addressing issue #121, This fix actually implements, what is documented, but if you rely on previously undocumented behaviour, you might need to evaluate this fix

• Issue with broken support action attribute specified in the state config has been addressed via PR #123 by @ehuelsmann described in issue #113

• A warning emitted from the test suite has been addressed via PR #115 by @ehuelsmann

• A timing issue observed with the Travis CI setup have been addressed in PR #112 by @ehuelsmann

1.54 2021-04-25 Minor feature release, update not required

• The existing private API: Workflow->_get_action() has been made public as: get_action() via PR #56 by @ehuelsmann addressing issue #54, a private version is still available as _get_action() ensuring backwards compatibility. The change should improve and ease implementations where actions are consumed

• The existing methods: fields(), optional_fields() and required_fields have all been made public PR #57 by @ehuelsmann addressing issue #55 these methods provide information a UI or other consumer of the workflow could use for user interaction as for issue #54 and PR: #56 mentioned above

• The implementation of caching for evaluation of nested has been revisted and improved via PR #90 by @ehuelsmann

• A minor issue has been corrected in the documentation was corrected via PR #111 by @ehuelsmann, it seems some design ideas had snuck into the documentation a long time ago, without ever being implemented

1.53 2021-04-09 Minor feature release, update not required

• This release changes logging granularity: instead of using the Log::Log4perl root logger for all logging output, use the instance class for logging in object methods as recommended in the Log4perl documentation. This change allows logging from workflow to be suppressed in your application by changing the logging level for the Workflow category by setting log4perl.category.Workflow = OFF in your logging configuration. Please note that if you created classes derived from Workflow, the logger will use those class names as categories. To suppress output entirely, those categories need their own logging configuration. NOTE This change adds a log() accessor to the "Workflow::Base" class. If you implement your own log() accessor or method, please take care to make it return a valid logger instance before calling SUPER::new() so the logger is immediately available for logging. Please see PR: #69 by @ehuelsmann

• PR #101 by @jonasbn, changing confusing logging statements regarding observers having been added when none specified

• Added test cases covering Workflow::Exception #102 by @jonasbn

1.52 2021-02-11 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Addressed bug/issue #95 via PR #96 by @ehuelsmann, the issue was introduced with PR #85 by @ehuelsmann included in release 1.51

• Improvements to Dist::Zilla config, only ExtUtils::MakeMaker supported via Dist::Zilla now. Module::Build support having been removed. See the article by Neil Bowers (NEILB) on the topic. Thanks to Karen Etheridge (ETHER) for information and link to the above-mentioned article (issue #93, resolved via PR #98 by @jonasbn)

• Documentation in INSTALL file updated, the information was somewhat scarce and outdated (issue #92, resolved via PR #99 by @jonasbn)

• Some URLs fixed via PR #97, thanks to Michiel W. Beijen (@mbeijen) for the contribution

• More unit-tests added via PR #94, continued work on issue #36 by @jonasbn improving test coverage

1.51 2021-01-31 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Addressed bug/issue #10 of failing observers test, ref PR #61. Documentation also updated accordingly via PR #66

• PR #86 reverts fix to issue #10 introduced in release 1.49

• PR #85 addressing bug with use of database fields in persister

• Adressed bug/issue #72 (reopened) and #73 via PR #74

• Improved test coverage, addressing issue #36 (not closed), ref PRs:

  • #80
  • #81
  • #91

• Cleaned POD formatting, PR #83

• Removed SVN/CVS legacy tags and adjusted shebang lines, PR #82

• Change log converted from plain text to Markdown, PR #76

• Added missing contributor Mohammad S Anwar to ACKNOWLEDGEMENT section, contribtution was included in release 1.49

• #70, corrections to documentation on persisters

• #71 added a missing point to the change log for release 1.50

• PR #65, converting two older text files to Markdown. Documentation rewrite is being considered and improvements and additions will be made in this area in the future

• PR #67 converting tabs to spaces

1.50 2021-01-25 Bug fix release, update not required

• Removal of unused dependency: Log::Dispatch, PR #64

• Perl::Critic annotations addressed, enabled a few Perl::Critic tests, PR #58 and #59

• Cleared out VSCode configuration file from distribution

• Removed obsolete notes directory containing older coverage reports, now covered by Coveralls.io, PR #63

• Removed obsolete prototypes directory containing minor examples for code constructs, PR #62

• Addressed reports of failling tests from CPAN-testers for release 1.49, test suite now supports being run without PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC, PR #53, addressing issue #52

• Implementation of workaround for issue #10 with the failing observers, this is expected to be readdressed, as the observer implementation will be revisited, PR #60

• Stop requiring a DSN to be configured when the DBI handle is sourced from elsewhere; instead, require a driver attribute to be specified, PR #51

1.49 2021-01-12 Minor feature release, update not required

• Addressed an issue with return values from Workflow::Condition::GreedyOR's evaluate_condition, PR #50 from Erik Huelsmann

• Fixed a bug in condition caching described in issue #9, PR #27 from Erik Huelsmann

• Cleaned up some TODO items, PR #41, all TODO items migrated to issues

• Fixed a bug in Workflow::Condition::LazyAND with wrongful return values, PR #40 from Erik Huelsmann

• Fixed a bug in Workflow::Validator::InEnumeratedType with wrongful naming, PR #39 from Erik Huelsmann

• Updated Dist::Zilla configuration and added LICENSE file to repository based on generated from Dist::Zilla build, this should be automated like the README generation at some point

• Improved internal handling for quoting in internal SQL statements, PR #30 from Erik Huelsmann

• Improved the SQL used for database creation by adding referentiel integrity, PR #29 from Erik Huelsmann

• Improved loading of external of a few dependencies, improving error handling, PR #31 from Erik Huelsmann

• Addressed a bug in initialization and improved the ability to handle a database handle, PR #32 from Erik Huelsmann

• Additions to test suite, WIP on better scoped condition caching, PR #26 from Erik Huelsmann

• Minor feature addition addressing issue #5 with condition caching, PR #25 from Erik Huelsmann

  Condition caching can be disabled by setting:

  $Workflow::Condition::CACHE_RESULTS = 0; # false
  

  The default is 1, indicating true,

• Improvements to test suite, moved from time to counter, speeding up the test, PR #24 from Erik Huelsmann

• Documentation updates, PR #23 from Erik Huelsmann

• Addressing issue #21 fixing broken URLs, PR #22 from Erik Huelsmann

• Fix to POD errors reported by CPANTS, ref: PR #20 from Mohammad S Anwar

1.48 2019-09-05 Bug fix release, update not required

• Eliminated warning emitted from test run. Issue #14 reported by Petr Pisar

1.47 2019-09-05 Bug fix release, update not required

• Accidently included cartons local directory in the distribution tar-ball. Issue #17 reported by Tina Müller (tinita)

1.46 2019-05-28 Bug fix release, update not required

• Patch from Oliver Welter, addressing issue with greedy join handling error message, ref: PR #16

1.45 2017-06-29 Maintenance release, update not required

• Addressing issue #13, moved Data::UUID from recommendations to prerequisites/requirements section

1.44 2017-06-28 Maintenance release, update recommended

• Yet another PR from Oliver Welter providing improvements to exception handling in relation to condition validation

• Exchanged use of: Dist::Zilla::Plugin::GitHub::Meta for Dist::Zilla::Plugin::GithubMeta to specify a proper homepage attribute

1.43 2017-06-02 Maintenance release, update recommended

• PR from Oliver Welter providing improvements to logging in relation to condition validation, ref: PR #11

• Exchanged CJM´s: Dist::Zilla::Plugin::VersionFromModule

  For Dave Rolskys: Dist::Zilla::Plugin::VersionFromMainModule

  There are some deprecation notices from Dist::Zilla making tests fail see XDG's PR

1.42 2015-09-06 Maintenance release, update not required

• Release migrated from Module::Build to Dist::Zilla

• All version numbers aligned, so traceability to distribution is more transparent, this is a best practice and since we hold a lot of modules it makes sense to do this

1.41 2014-08-15 Maintenance release, update not required

• Fixed POD issue with encoding, so we now support UTF-8 for authors names

• Minor POD fix by dtikhonov to POD introduced in 1.40, ref: PR #3

• Adjusted permissions on some files, which were executable for no apparent reason

1.40 2014-06-01 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Update recommended due to bug fix by dtikhonov in observer handling

• Merged pull request from dtikhonov holding a bug fix in observer handling and a feature enabling attribute validation for actions, see the POD added to Workflow::Action, ref: PR #2

• Cleaned up the Build.PL file

• Repository migrated from SourceForge, Subversion to git (Github)

1.39 2013-08-02 Maintenance release, update not required

• Fixed up Changes file as part of my Questhub quest adhering to the standard described in: CPAN::Changes::Spec

1.38 2013-07-07 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Patch to minor bug where Workflow history did not set proper timezone in Workflow::Persister::DBI, ref: RT:85380

• Added information on issue with Perl 5.8.8 in the INCOMPATIBILITIES section

• Updated ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section

• Corrected some minor POD issues

1.37 2013-07-03 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Added patch from Heiko Schlittermann fixing an issue with serialization of context (was evaluated as release 1.35_1), ref: RT:64940

1.36 2013-07-02 Bug fix release, update recommended

• Update recommended if you use release 1.35

• Applied minor patch from Oliver Welter following up on the custom workflow patch in release 1.35

1.35 2012-11-08 Maintenance release, update not required

• Applied patches from Scott Hardin implementing lazy evaluation of conditions

• Applied patch from Oliver Welter implementing support for multiple factories, ref: RT:18159

• Added patch from Oliver Welter implementing the feature of creating custom workflow classes, in addition a patch to silence some warning emitted during test from Workflow::Validator

• Added patch from Scott Hardin implementing nested conditions

• Added patch from Steven van der Vegt implementing autorun for the INITIAL state, ref: RT:52841

• Added patch from Steven van der Vegt, improving the reporting on validation exceptions, ref: RT:52862

• Eliminated README and migrated information into the main POD and introduced INSTALL file for the installation relevant information. README is now generated from the main POD by Build.PL

1.34 2010-08-06 Bug fix release, update not required

• Implemented work-around for RT:53909

  The issue demonstrated here, which can be observed in perl versions newer than 5.10.0 seems to be related to RT:70171:

  RT:53909 is based on blead perl, in which also a fix has now been implemented, but we still have issues with a lot of perl releases currently out there, see tests of release 1.33_1

  So this work-around seems to fix the issue, since I can no longer replicate the error. The problem seem to be the clearing of a package scoped variable, the array @observations in t/SomeObserver.pm

• Fixed example application, it was relying on a test module in a broken way, a path processed using a regex was not reliable

1.33 2010-01-30 Bug fix release, update not required

• Patch from Ivan Paponov, bug in relation to action groups and use of default. Bumping up version of Workflow::Factory to 1.19 and Workflow::State to 1.15

• Patches from Alejandro Imass

  • Changed @FIELDS to @PROPS in Action.pm and InputField.pm for mk_accesors as FIELDS was very confusing with regard to action input fields.

  • Formalized Workflow::Action::new() as a public method with corresponding pod example.

  • Optional class property for Workflow::Action::InputField. Previously, public method new() made little sense if InputField always instantiates from Workflow::Action::InputField. Now fields can derive from custom class.

  • Updated pod to reflect the new formal abillity to add extra properties for actions and input fields.

  • With the ability to derive custom properties for classes and fields there is little need IMHO to define InputField "type" any further, but leave it implementation dependent. The rationale is that validators intrinsically define this. Updating pod accordingly.

• Patches from Thomas Erskine

  • Added 3 new accessors to Workflow::Factory:

    • get_persister_for_workflow_type
    • get_persisters
    • get_validators

  • Added check for existing context so context is not overwritten if existing, fixing a bug. Version bumped up to 1.19

  • Fixing bug in Workflow::Persister::File, adding context parameters to serialization. Version bumped up to 1.11

  • Added return of empty list for accessor, in Workflow::Action. Version bumped up to 1.10

• Patches from Danny Sadinoff to following classes

  • Workflow::Config, bumped up to version 1.13

  • Workflow::Persister, bumped up to version 1.10

  • Workflow::Factory, bumped up to version 1.19

  • Adding ability to control initial state name via workflow config

  • Adding ability to control initial history record details via Persister subclass code

• Addressing a bug reported by Sergei Vyshenski, related to a possible API breakage. Please refer to t/add_config_bug.t, which demonstrates the presence of the bug in 1.32 and it's absence in 0.31. Workflow::Factory bumped up to version: 1.19

• Applied patch from Andrew O'Brien implementing dynamic loading of config files RT:18265. Bumped up version for Workflow::Factory to 1.19

1.32 2009-01-26 Bug fix release, update not required

• Bumped up version for Workflow::State to 1.14 considering patches from action_group and test_condition patches from Ivan Paponov implementing support for a group tag on actions

• Addressing RT:40750

  Removed VERSION file, this has now been obsoleted

  We are now resolving the version number for the distribution from Workflow.pm the main module, this mean a jump from 0.31 to 1.32, but it does mean that an installation can be traced back to a given distribution

• Patch to implement proper dynamic names for conditions with a 'test' attribute, ref RT:38024

• Added List::MoreUtils to requirements, we use this for test, I have moved the test related modules to the build_requires section in Build.PL, so List::MoreUtils is not mistaken for an application level requirement

• Refactored two tests, to use List::MoreUtils all method (asserting presence of numerous actions)

• Fixed minor bug in error message in: Workflow::State, reported by Robert Stockdale, RT:38023

• We introduce a more fine grained control of the auto commit feature, implemented by Jim Brandt

• We introduce typed condition, implemented by Jim Brandt. Typed conditions makes it possible for different workflows to hold unique methods for workflow steps even with names colliding.

  Example workflow foo and bar can have a condition baz, but baz are two different implementations in foo and bar respectively

• time_zone parameter can now be passer around for use by the Workflow DateTime objects internally

0.31 2007-09-26 Bug fix release, update not required

• Fixed failing tests in t/persister_dbi.t, this has only observed twice and does not seem to be consistent. This is related to execution time for the test suite and the use of now, using the debugger would demonstrate this

  Resolves: RT:29037

• Cleaned TODO file a bit

• Added Data::Dumper requirement to Build.PL

0.30 2007-09-25 Bug fix release, update not required

• Added patch from Jim Brandt improving handling of date formats for real, the merge into 0.29 (see below) was not completed

  The patch also addresses RT:29037

  which is related to a report on a failing test

0.29 2007-09-24 Maintenance release, update not required

• Added new test file: t/persister.t for Workflow::Persister

• Updated t/confition.t for better coverage

• Updated t/action.t for better coverage

• Updated t/validator.t for better coverage

• Updated Workflow::Action::Mailer (stub now can be tested, this might however prove to be a bad idea)

• Added new test file: t/action_mailer.t for Workflow::Action::Mailer

• Updated t/action_null.t for better coverage

• Added some more tests t/Config.t

0.28 2007-07-06 Maintenance release, update not required

• Removed TODO.txt, the files contents have long gone been merged into the TODO file

• Added a new file to the doc/ directory named developing.txt. This is a collection of documentation notes on maintaining and developing the Worksflow distribution

• Renamed Action::Mailer to Workflow::Action::Mailer, this however still looks like a stub that was never finished

• Added more POD to:

  • Workflow

  • Workflow::Action::InputField

  • Workflow::Action::Mailer

  • Workflow::Condition

  • Workflow::Condition::HasUser

  • Workflow::Config::XML

  • Workflow::Factory

  • Workflow::History

  • Workflow::Persister

  • Workflow::Persister::DBI

  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::ExtraData

  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::AutoGeneratedId

  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::SequenceId

  • Workflow::Persister::RandomId

  • Workflow::Persister::File

  • Workflow::Persister::SPOPS

  • Workflow::State

  • Workflow::Validator::HasRequiredField

    We now have a POD coverage of 100%, this does however not say anything about the quality of the spelling or POD. All POD will however be revisited at some point

    Please remember to document changes and additions

• Implemented conditional tests in t/00_load.t for SPOPS and UUID. These are conditional in their own tests, so this should of course be reflected in t/00_load.t

  This should address the report on a failing test

• Added missing version number to Workflow::Persister (1.09), the PAUSE indexer complained over degrading version number, investigating consequences

  No apparent consequences

0.27 2007-07-03 Bug fix release, update not required (see note below)

• Update not required unless you are using 0.26 or 0.25

• Fixed bug in cached condition handling (0.26 reintroduced the original race condition that was solved using the condition cache in 0.25). Condition cache is now cleared on state change and when calling get_available_action_names()

• Updated some tests, nothing serious we are just on the way to better test coverage and documentation

• Added more POD to:

  • Workflow::Action
  • Workflow::Exception
  • Workflow::Persister::RandomId.pm
  • Workflow::Persister::UUID.pm
  • Workflow::Validator::MatchesDateFormat
  • Workflow::Validator::InEnumeratedType

• Added more tests of Workflow::Validator::MatchesDateFormat to t/validator_matches_date_format.t

• Added more tests of Workflow::Validator::InEnumeratedType to t/validator_in_enumerated_type.t

• Small fix to a test on an empty array. Empty arrays evaluate to false t/config.t, cleaned some code in Workflow::Config and Workflow::Config::Perl nothing significant

• Hard coded version numbers to all modules in t/ Subversion uses different scheme so we no longer use automatically updated version numbers, added version 0.01 where no version was present

• Hard coded version numbers to all modules in eg/

  Subversion uses different scheme so we no longer use automatically updated version numbers, added version 0.01 where no version was present

• Eliminated warning in Workflow::Factory, in check for FACTORY parameter

• Added t/00_load.t, de facto usage syntax test catches compilation errors etc.

• Applied patch from Jim Brandt to Workflow::Config::XML, the patch helps to catch bad XML

  Updated version to 1.05

• Hard coded latest versions from CPAN to all modules, Subversion uses different scheme so we no longer use automatically updated version number.

  • Action::Mailer 1.01
  • Workflow 1.32
  • Workflow::Action 1.09
  • Workflow::Action::InputField 1.09
  • Workflow::Action::Null 1.03
  • Workflow::Base 1.08
  • Workflow::Condition 1.07
  • Workflow::Condition::Evaluate 1.02
  • Workflow::Condition::HasUser 1.05
  • Workflow::Config 1.11
  • Workflow::Config::Perl 1.02
  • Workflow::Config::XML 1.04
  • Workflow::Context 1.05
  • Workflow::Exception 1.08
  • Workflow::Factory 1.18
  • Workflow::History 1.09
  • Workflow::Persister 1.09
  • Workflow::Persister::DBI 1.19
  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::AutoGeneratedId 1.06
  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::ExtraData 1.05
  • Workflow::Persister::DBI::SequenceId 1.05
  • Workflow::Persister::File 1.10
  • Workflow::Persister::RandomId 1.03
  • Workflow::Persister::SPOPS 1.07
  • Workflow::Persister::UUID 1.03
  • Workflow::State 1.13
  • Workflow::Validator 1.05
  • Workflow::Validator::HasRequiredField 1.04
  • Workflow::Validator::InEnumeratedType 1.04
  • Workflow::Validator::MatchesDateFormat 1.06

• Fixed a problem in t/workflow.t which rely on DBI. DBI is not necessarily present, since this is not a requirement (DBD::Mock is), so I have made the test conditional as to whether DBI is installed as for some of the other tests.

  This should address the 'N/A' status of the test report

• Updated MANIFEST

• Added t/03_pod-coverage.t, de facto POD coverage test, set the environment variable TEST_POD to enable the test

  Currently we have BAD POD coverage so the test fails.

• Added t/02_pod.t, de facto POD syntax test, set the environment variable TEST_POD to enable the test

0.26 2007-03-07 Bug fix release, update not required, see note below

• Update not required unless you are using 0.25

• Fixed bug in cached condition handling. The condition cache is now cleared before checking conditions so that the condition results are not taken from the cache when entering the same state again

• Fixed small bug in the error message when autorunning is enabled but more than one action is available (now displays the names of these actions correctly)

0.25 2006-12-14 Feature release, update not required

• Applied patch from Alexander Klink via #23736. Introduces caching of the result of a condition's evaluate()

0.24 2006-12-14 Feature release, update not required

• Applied patch from Alexander Klink via #23925. Introduces may_stop property for autorunning workflow

  This is why this patch introduces the "may_stop" property for a state, which means that Workflow won't complain if the state is autorun and no or too many activities are present.

0.23 2006-09-12 Feature release, update not required

• Applied patch from Michael Bell via #21100. Fixes problem with handling of 0 and empty strings as parameters

• Applied patch from Michael Bell via #21101. Fixes problem with deletion of parameters

• Applied yet another patch from Michael Bell via #21099. The patch fixes some misinforming POD

• Applied patch from Alexander Klink via #21422. The patch implement more powerful observers

0.22 2006-08-18 Feature release, update not required

• Applied patch from Michael Bell via #20871, this patch also contains the patch mentioned below.

• Applied patch to Workflow::Action from Michael Bell, fixing two bugs

• Changed POD format to accomodate for Pod::Coverage, where B<> is not recognised, but =head<1..3> and =item is

  So subs are now marked with head3 instead of B<>, I am of the opinion that titles should be marked as titles and B<> (bold) should be used to emphasize important information in the POD.

0.21 2006-07-07 Bug fix release, update not required

• Fixed bug reported by Martin Bartosch, Workflow::Context's merge method did not work properly, applied patch from Martin

• Updated t/context.t to test the above fix, this got the coverage from 53.3 percent to 93.3

0.20 2006-07-07 Bug fix release, update not required

• Fixed bug reported by Martin Bartosch, Workflow::Factory's add_config_from_file now takes an array ref as stated in the POD.

• Updated t/factory.t to test the above fix, just using the scenarios from the SYNOPSIS. This fix did however not contribute to the coverage of Workflow::Factory, we lost 0.3 percent along the way going from 88.7 to 88.4

• Fixed two POD errors in Workflow::Config

0.19 2006-07-07 Bug fix release, update not required

• The 0.18 release contained a broken Makefile.PL, thanks to Randal Schwartz for sending me the feedback to get this addressed immediately.

0.18 2006-07-07 Maintenance release, update not required

• New maintainer, JONASBN has taken over maintenance of Workflow

• Added maintainer information to Workflow.pm

• Added new TODO file

• Added a handful of tests to t/config.t and added dependency on Test::Exception

• Somewhat applied patch from Chris Brown, the use of Perl as configuration was broken, in my attempt to implement tests prior to applying Chris Browns patch I accidently fixed the same problems it addressed.

  Coverage of Workflow::Config::Perl has gone from 0 to 89.0 with this release

• Added new files (for test):

  • t/workflow.perl
  • t/workflow_action.perl
  • t/workflow_condition.perl
  • t/workflow_errorprone.perl
  • t/workflow_validator.perl

• Added POD to Workflow::Config::Perl on parse method

• Added CVS id keywords and author information to README

• Added CVS id keywords and author information to .txt files in doc

0.17 2005-11-30

lib/Workflow/Persister/DBI.pm:

• fix dumb typo that resulted in PostgreSQL getting a random-ID generator instead of a sequence-ID generator, thanks to Michael Graham for pointing it out

0.16 2005-11-29

• META.yml

  • RT:12360: Added 'no_index' section so demo modules don't get indexed; thanks to Adam Kennedy for report and fix.

• lib/Workflow.pm:

  • RT:14413: Added workflow object to Workflow::State->get_autorun_action_name() call; thanks to Jonas Nielsen for report and fix.

• lib/Workflow/Factory.pm:

  • RT:12361: Add documentation about return values/exceptions from add_config() and add_config_from_file(); thanks to Adam Kennedy for report.

• lib/Workflow/Persister/DBI.pm:

  • POTENTIAL BACKWARD INCOMPATIBILITY:

  • Change 'user' field in history table to 'workflow_user' so we don't collide with PostgreSQL reserved word. (It's probably reserved elsewhere too...) If you have existing workflow tables you'll want to ALTER them to the new fieldname or look at the next changeitem to customize the field names.

  • Make the workflow and history fields settable by subclassing the persister -- just define 'get_workflow_fields()' and 'get_history_fields()' and return the names you want in the order specified in the docs. Thanks to Michael Graham for the nudge.

  • Be sure to pass in the database handle to the pre_fetch ID generator in create_workflow() (related to RT:15622)

  • RT:15622: While we didn't apply this patch we did cleanup some of the similar code....

  • Apply patch from Frank Rothhaupt to work with Oracle sequences.

• lib/Workflow/Persister/DBI/SequenceId.pm:

  • Throw proper exception if we cannot execute the sequence SQL.

0.15 2004-10-17

• CPAN/Install notes:

  • You should now be able to reference the Workflow module via CPAN with 'install Workflow' and such. Thanks to Michael Schwern (RT bug #8011) and the PAUSE indexing server for the reports.

  Also thanks to Michael Roberts for releasing the 'Workflow' namespace to this module. If you're interested in workflows I strongly encourage you to check out his wftk (Workflow Toolkit) project along with the Perl interface when it's released.

• Build.PL/Makefile.PL:

  • Add Class::Factory as dependency. Thanks to Michael Schwern for the pointer via RT:8010) -- during my presentation to pgh.pm on the Workflow module no less! (I added a reference to the presentation in README and Workflow.pm)

  • Add Class::Observable as dependency for new functionality.

• eg/ticket/ticket.pl:

  • Ensure we actually delete the SQLite database file if it exists.

• t/TestUtil.pm:

  • Always store the logfile from testing in the 't/' directory.

• Workflow:

  • Workflows are now observable. Big thanks to Tom Moertel tmoertel@cpan.org for the suggestion. See WORKFLOWS ARE OBSERVABLE in docs.

  • In previous versions most properties were read-only but it wasn't enforced. Now it is.

• Workflow::Factory:

  • Add the ability to register observers from the 'workflow' configuration and add them to workflows created from fetch_workflow() and create_workflow(). Configuration information available in Workflow.pm.

0.10 2004-10-12

• Workflow

  • POTENTIAL BACKWARD INCOMPATIBILITY

    • Since we've now got 'resulting_state' in a state's action that is dependent on the action results of the previous action being run (see Workflow::State change), we cannot set the 'new' workflow state before executing the action.

    • One result: you shouldn't set the 'state' property of any created Workflow::History objects -- we'll modify the state of any history objects with an empty state before saving them (see changes for Workflow::Factory)

    • Another result: the value of '$wf->state' inside your Action now refers to the EXISTING state of the workflow not the SOON TO BE state. Earlier versions had the SOON TO BE state set into the workflow before executing the action to make things less confusing. Now that it's changed any code you have using the state of the workflow (such as in our example 'Trouble Ticket' application in eg/ticket/) will give a different value than the previous Workflow version.

    • This behavior seems more consistent, but comments/suggestions are welcome.

  • In 'execute_action()' -- once we're done executing the main action, check to see if our new state is an autorun state, and if so run it.

• Workflow::Action::Null

  • New class: use if you want to move the workflow from one state to another without actually doing anything.

• Workflow::Condition::Evaluate

  • New class: allow inline conditions expressed as Perl code in the 'test' attribution of 'condition'; has access to the values in the current workflow context in a Safe compartment.

• Workflow::Factory

  • In save_workflow(), call 'set_new_state()' with the workflow state on all unsaved Workflow::History objects before saving them.

• Workflow::State

  • Add 'autorun' property and 'get_autorun_action_name()' to retrieve the single valid action name available from an autorun state.

  • The 'resulting_state' property of an action within a state can now be multivalued, which means the next state depends on the return value of the action that's executed. For instance, we might have:

     <state name="create user">
         <action name="create">
           <resulting_state return="admin"    state="assign as admin" />
           <resulting_state return="helpdesk" state="assign as helpdesk" />
           <resulting_state return="*"        state="assign as luser" />
         </action>
        ....
  

  • So if the action 'create' returns 'admin', the new state will be 'assign as admin'; on 'helpdesk' it will be 'assign as helpdesk', and all other values will go to state 'assign as luser'.

  • Existing behavior (actions returning nothing for a single 'resulting_state') is unchanged.

0.05 2004-09-30

• Workflow::Persister::DBI

  • Trying to fetch a workflow with a non-existent ID didn't work properly, returning an empty workflow object (which blew up when you tried to call a method on it) instead of undef (as documented). Thanks to Martin Winkler mw@arsnavigandi.de for pointing the problem out.

0.04 2004-09-12

• eg (example application):

  • Add CGI interface ('ticket.cgi') to example application, and move most of the logic into App::Web, which is now a full object instead of a bunch of class methods. Both the standalone web server ('ticket_web.pl') and the CGI script use the same logic, templates, template processing, etc.

• Workflow::Config

  • Move Perl/XML configuration parsers to separate classes and make this class a factory.

  • Add class method 'parse_all_files()' to allow you to pass in a list of mixed-type files (some XML, some Perl) and have them be parsed properly.

  • Add documentation about implementing your own configuration reader

• Workflow::Config::Perl

  • New class: code moved from Workflow::Config for perl-only parsing

• Workflow::Config::XML

  • New class: code moved from Workflow::Config for XML-only parsing

• Workflow::Factory

  • Invoke class method in Workflow::Config to deal with potentially different types of configuration (e.g., mixing and matching 'xml' and 'perl' files).

• Workflow::Persister::DBI::AutoGeneratedId:

  • Fix typo bug spotted by Martin Winkler (winkler-martin@web.de)

0.03 2004-05-24

• Applied modified patches from Jim Smith (jgsmith@tamu.edu) to do the following:

  • Allow you to read in the XML/Perl configuration file from somewhere else and pass it to Workflow::Config as a scalar reference.

  • You can subclass Workflow::Factory and still use 'FACTORY' to import the factory of the class you want and 'instance()' to do the same.

• Added docs for these new features, and added tests for at least the factory subclassing feature.

0.02 2004-05-22

• Updates to test scripts and files they require from CPAN tester report -- thanks Barbie!

0.01 2004-05-13

• First CPAN release -- everything is new!