Api changes between v0.8 and v0.10

When editing this page please be as detailed as possible. Examples are encouraged!

Changed

• Streams Interface

  • Readable, Writable, Duplex, and Transform base classes added.
  • Readable streams use a read() method instead of emitting 'data' events right away.
  • Adding a 'data' event handler, or calling pause() or resume() will switch into "old mode".
    • This means that data event handlers won't ever miss the first chunk if they're not added right away, and pause() is no longer merely advisory.
  • If you don't consume the data, then streams will sit in a paused state forever, and the end event will never happen.

• The uv_after_work_cb signature has changed to take a second integer argument indicating status. For backwards compatibility, explicitly cast the 4th argument to uv_queue_work. Example

• process.nextTick happens at the end of the current tick, immediately after the current stack unwinds. If you are currently using recursive nextTick calls, use setImmediate instead.

• -p --print command line switch implies -e --eval

• net: sockets created with net.createServer() no longer emit a connect event. The socket is already connected, by the time the connectionListener callback is called, so this was considered superfluous

• url: Parsed objects always have all properties, but unused ones are set to null. Example:

  // v0.8
  > url.parse('http://foo')
  { protocol: 'http:',
    slashes: true,
    host: 'foo',
    hostname: 'foo',
    href: 'http://foo/',
    pathname: '/',
    path: '/' }
  
  // 0.10
  > url.parse('http://foo')
  { protocol: 'http:',
    slashes: true,
    auth: null,
    host: 'foo',
    port: null,
    hostname: 'foo',
    hash: null,
    search: null,
    query: null,
    pathname: '/',
    path: '/',
    href: 'http://foo/' }

• Domain-added properties on error objects are camelCase instead of snake_case

• path.resolve and path.join throw a TypeError on non-string input

• dgram.Socket#bind() is always asynchronous now. If you have code that looks like this:

  var s = dgram.createSocket('udp4');
  s.bind(1234);
  s.addMembership('224.0.0.114');

  You have to change it to this:

  var s = dgram.createSocket('udp4');
  s.bind(1234, function() {
    s.addMembership('224.0.0.114');
  });

• The EventEmitter constructor initializes various properties now. It still works fine as an OOP inheritance parent, but you have to do inheritance properly. The Broken-Style JS inheritance pattern will not work when extending the EventEmitter class. This inheritance style was never supported, but prior to 0.10, it did not actually break.

  // Broken-Style Inheritance, which has never been safe or wise
  // but is shown on many broken tutorials around the web.
  function Child() {}
  Child.prototype = new Parent(); // <-- NEVER EVER DO THIS!!
  // If you see anyone doing this in any javascript library ever,
  // post a bug telling them that it is a huge terrible mistake!
  // Inheriting from a class should not call that class's ctor
  // on the prototype shared with EVERY instance of the child class!
  
  // Correct-Style Inheritance
  function Child() {
    Parent.call(this);
  }
  Child.prototype = Object.create(Parent.prototype, {
    constructor: {
      value: Child,
      enumerable: false,
      writable: true,
      configurable: true
    }
  });
  // "Gee that's a lot of lines! I wish there was a helper method!"
  // There is.  Do this:
  util.inherits(Child, Parent);

• https now does peer verification by default. This means that if you try to access an SSL endpoint which has a Certificate Authority that is not in the default CA list, you will get an error where you did not before. You can set rejectUnauthorized to false to get the old behavior.

• Native addons can now receive the complete module object, allowing them to override exports with a custom object or function (i.e. the "substack pattern"). Simply adding a second argument to your Init() function gives you the module object: void Init(Handle<Object> exports, Handle<Object> module);. The addons examples now mix both classic and exports-overriding patterns (additionally the examples are now available in a GitHub repo).

  Classic

  Handle<Value> Booya(const Arguments& args) {
    HandleScope scope;
    return scope.Close(String::New("hello world"));
  }
  void Init(Handle<Object> exports) {
    exports->Set(String::NewSymbol("booya"), FunctionTemplate::New(Booya)->GetFunction());
  }
  NODE_MODULE(addon, Init)

  console.log(require('./build/Release/addon').booya())

  Single-function on exports

  Handle<Value> Booya(const Arguments& args) {
    HandleScope scope;
    return scope.Close(String::New("hello world"));
  }
  void Init(Handle<Object> exports, Handle<Object> module) {
    module->Set(String::NewSymbol("exports"), FunctionTemplate::New(Booya)->GetFunction());
  }
  NODE_MODULE(addon, Init)

  console.log(require('./build/Release/addon')())

Added

• Streams - Added base classes for Readable, Writable, Duplex, and Transform
• Streaming interfaces for Crypto API
• process: add getgroups(), setgroups(), initgroups()
• crypto: getHashes() getCiphers()
• http: add response.headersSent property
• events: 'removeListener' event
• setImmediate() and clearImmediate() functions
• string_decoder: the decoder.end() function was added