SDK 0.7.1

New features and capabilities

The most significant new features and capabilities include the following updates for DFX commands:

• An update to the dfx canister sign command enables you to sign request_status messages for update calls.

  If you are using dfx canister sign to call a method that generates an update message, the command also signs a corresponding request_status message and appends it to the message.json file as signed_request_status. After you send the message using the dfx canister send command, you can check the request_status of the call by running the following command:

  dfx canister send message.json --status

  This change is particularly useful if you are using the dfx canister sign and dfx canister send commands to call the ledger or governance canister to make a transaction or stake tokens as a two-step process.

• There are new deposit_cycles and uninstall_code management canister methods that are also exposed as dfx canister subcommands.

  The two new commands are dfx canister deposit-cycles and dfx canister uninstall-code. For example, you can now send cycles from your cycles wallet to a specific canister by running a command similar to the following:

  dfx canister deposit-cycles 125000000000 hello_world

  You can uninstall code for a deployed WASM module by running a command similar to the following:

  dfx canister uninstall-code hello_world

• A new --no-artificial-delay option enables you to reduce the time it takes for the local Internet Computer to start.

  This change adds the --no-artificial-delay flag to dfx start and dfx replica commands. By default, the local Internet Computer replica that is installed with the SDK has an artificial consensus delay to simulate the delay users might see in a networked environment. With this new flag, you can skip the built-in delay when you start the local Internet Computer by running either the dfx start --no-artificial-delay or dfx replica --no-artificial-delay command.

  For example, you can start the local Internet Computer without a delay by running the following command:

  dfx start -no-artificial-delay

  If you use this option, however, you might an increase in the CPU used by the local Internet Computer replica.

Breaking change

The SDK version 0.7.1 introduces a change to the default principal used when you run dfx canister call commands. Depending on the version of the SDK that you were previously using, this change might require changes to your program code or to the way you call methods in deployed canisters.

• The cycles wallet canister identifier is not longer used as the message caller by default.

  In some previous versions of the SDK, the dfx canister call command would use the cycles wallet canister identifier as the message caller to perform queries and update calls by default.

  The --no-wallet command-line option was introduced to allow you to bypass the cycles wallet canister identifier and perform query and update calls using the currently-selected identity.

  However, using the cycles wallet canister identifier to execute dfx canister call commands resulted in each call being treated as an inter-canister call and the calls would take longer than necessary to resolve.

  With this release, dfx canister call commands no longer use the cycles wallet canister identifier to execute query and update calls by default. If you want to execute a query or update call using the cycles wallet, you can run a command similar to the following:

  dfx canister --wallet=cycles-wallet-id call canister method

DFX

feat: sign request_status for update call

When using dfx canister sign to generate a update message, a corresponding
request_status message is also signed and append to the json as signed_request_status.
Then after sending the update message, the user can check the request_status using
dfx canister send message.json --status.

fix: wallet will not proxy dfx canister call by default

Previously, dfx canister call would proxy queries and update calls via the wallet canister by default.
(There was the --no-wallet flag to bypass the proxy and perform the calls as the selected identity.)
However, this behavior had drawbacks, namely each dfx canister call was an inter-canister call
by default and calls would take a while to resolve. This fix makes it so that dfx canister call no longer
proxies via the wallet by default. To proxy calls via the wallet, you can do
dfx canister --wallet=<wallet-id> call.

feat: add --no-artificial-delay to dfx replica and start

This change adds the --no-artificial-delay flag to dfx start and dfx replica.
The replica shipped with dfx has always had an artificial consensus delay (introduced to simulate
a delay users might see in a networked environment.) With this new flag, that delay can
be lessened. However, you might see increased CPU utilization by the replica process.

feat: add deposit cycles and uninstall code

This change introduces the deposit_cycles and uninstall_code management canister
methods as dedicated dfx canister subcommands.

fix: allow consistent use of canisters ids in canister command

This change updates the dfx commands so that they will accept either a canister name
(sourced from your local project) or a valid canister id.