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Removed and Backward Incompatibility

Developer Note

Since this version of Joomla has not been released yet, this page can change anytime.

All the deprecated features than have now been removed and any backward incompatibilities. There should be an explanation of how to mitigate the removals / changes.

Removal of the CMSObject Class Usage​

The CMSObject (JObject) contains various functions in one single class which made sense at the time it was introduced in Joomla 1.7. PHP has evolved and many use cases are now built into the core language or are replaced and not anymore up to date. Therefore the class got deprecated in 4.0 and will be removed in an upcoming major release (currently 7.0). Over time, the maintainers removed the usage in core and with the following chapters are the last traces removed, which couldn't be done in a backwards compatible way.

getItem returns a stdClass Instead of CMSObject​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/42961
  • File: libraries/src/MVC/Model/AdminModel.php
  • Description: The AdminModel class does return a stdClass object in the getItem function instead of a CMSObject. This means that all the deprecated functions of CMSObject are not available anymore. Mainly the set and get function should be replaced accordingly as documented in the CMSObject class or the respective traits. For example you can use
// Old:
$article = $app->bootComponent('content')->getMVCFactory()->createModel('Article', 'Administrator')->getItem(1);
echo $article->get('title');

// New:
$article = $app->bootComponent('content')->getMVCFactory()->createModel('Article', 'Administrator')->getItem(1);
echo $article->title;

Removed CMSObject Usage in Core​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/43795
  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44655
  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44945
  • Description: The CMSObject class has been problematic for a long time, because it allows to circumvent the visibility setting of object properties. The CMSObject class will be removed in Joomla 7.0, but with Joomla 6.0 it is removed everywhere in the core code. The following code is affected:
    • Smart Search (finder) plugins now use \stdClass objects to store the state.
    • The following models now return \stdClass objects instead of CMSObject:
      • Joomla\Component\Installer\Administrator\Model\UpdatesiteModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Installer\Administrator\Model\UpdatesitesModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Languages\Administrator\Model\LanguageModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Mails\Administrator\Model\TemplateModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Menu\Administrator\Model\MenuModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Menus\Administrator\Model\MenutypesModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Messages\Administrator\Model\ConfigModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Modules\Administrator\Model\ModuleModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Plugins\Administrator\Model\PluginModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Scheduler\Administrator\Model\TaskModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Scheduler\Administrator\Model\TasksModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Templates\Administrator\Model\StyleModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Users\Administrator\Model\GroupModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Workflow\Administrator\Model\TransitionModel
      • \Joomla\CMS\Component\Contact\Model\FormModel
      • \Joomla\CMS\Component\Content\Model\FormModel
      • \Joomla\Component\Tags\Site\Model\TagModel
    • The code of the installer component is using \stdClass objects now.
    • \Joomla\CMS\Access\Rules::getAllowed() now returns a stdClass
    • \Joomla\CMS\MVC\Controller\ApiController uses a Registry object for the model state.
    • \Joomla\CMS\User\UserHelper::getProfile() returns a stdClass object now.
    • The save/delete events when a media file is uploaded or a folder is created/deleted are sending now an object of type stdClass and not anymore CMSObject.

CMS\Input Object Switched to Framework Input Object​

  • PR's:
  • Description: The CMS Input namespace \Joomla\CMS\Input has been removed. The CMS core code has switched the code to the Framework Input library with the namespace \Joomla\Input, which is very much a drop-in replacement. This is especially of relevance if you are using the MVC classes, which now use the framework class. Make sure that your code imports the correct class.

UTC Used Instead of GMT​

Removed Legacy B/C Code in \Joomla\CMS\Date\Date Class​

View Classes No Longer Have a Database Reference​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/42962
  • Description: In Joomla 3 some views had a reference to the global database instance to check if a date is a special null date (0000-00-00 00:00:00). Since Joomla 4 all these dates are real null values and the database check is not used anymore. If there are some old template overrides in place with these checks, they can be removed.
// Old:
if ($this->item->created !== $this->db->getNullDate()) {
	echo $this->item->created;
}

// New:
if ($this->item->created !== null) {
	echo $this->item->created;
}

None-Namespaced Indexer File Removed​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44646
  • Folder: administrator/components/com_finder/helpers/indexer
  • Description: The files in /administrator/components/com_finder/helpers/indexer were containing the none namespaced classes and are left only for legacy include code. They are empty as class alias do exist for them already. The include code in extensions can be removed and the namespaced classes should be used as they are autoloaded. For example you can use
// Old:
require_once JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR . '/components/com_finder/helpers/indexer/helper.php';
FinderIndexerHelper::getFinderPluginId();

// New:
Joomla\Component\Finder\Administrator\Helper\FinderHelper::getFinderPluginId();

$app Variable is Removed in plugins​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44647
  • Folder: plugins
  • Description: The $app variable is left in some plugins for layout overrides of the plugins/tmpl folder and is not used anymore in the plugin class itself and the respective layouts. The getApplication function should be used instead
// Old:
$app = $this->app;

// New:
$app = $this->getApplication();

JCOMPAT_UNICODE_PROPERTIES Constant Removed in FormRule Class​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44662
  • File: libraries/src/Form/FormRule.php
  • Description: The FormRule class has a deprecated JCOMPAT_UNICODE_PROPERTIES constant which is not used anymore and got removed without a replacement. If the constant is still be used in an extension, copy the code from the FormRule class to your extension.

createThumbs Function Removed from the image Class​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44663
  • File: libraries/src/Image/Image.php
  • Description: The createThumbs function in the Image class got removed as the function createThumbnails should be used instead. For example you can use
// Old:
$image = new Image($path);
$image->createThumbs('50x50');

// New:
$image = new Image($path);
$image->createThumbnails('50x50');

Mod_breadcrumbs setSeparator​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44605/
  • File: modules/mod_breadcrumbs/src/Helper/BreadcrumbsHelper.php
  • Description: setSeparator to set the breadcrumbs separator for the breadcrumbs display has not been used since 4.0 and is removed without replacement

$clientId Attribute Removed in Form Models cleanCache Function​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44637
  • Description: The cleanCache function doesn't use the $clientId attribute anymore since 4.0. This pr removes the leftovers in various models which do extend the BaseDatabaseModel cleanCache function. If you extend one of these models and do overwrite the cleanCache function, remove the $clientId attribute.

Removed isCli Function in Application Classes​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44611
  • Files: libraries/src/Application/CMSApplicationInterface.php
  • Description: The deprecated isCli got removed from the application classes. It was introduced as transient flag which was deprecated right from the beginning and should never be used anyway. If an extension was still using it, then adapt the code as described below
// Old:
if ($app->isCli()) {
    // Do your stuff
}

// New:
if ($app instanceof \Joomla\CMS\Application\ConsoleApplication) {
    // Do your stuff
}

Removed LegacyErrorHandlingTrait from CategoryNode and Changelog Class​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/43777
  • Files: libraries/src/Categories/CategoryNode.php, libraries/src/Changelog/Changelog.php
  • Description: The CategoryNode class and the Changelog class both contained the LegacyErrorHandlingTrait, but both didn't use it. Since the trait is deprecated, it has been removed from these two classes in 6.0 without replacement.

Legacy and Outdated Static Assets Removed or Moved​

CMS Filesystem Package Moved to the Backward Compatibility Plugin​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44240
  • Folder: libraries/src/Filesystem
  • Description: The Filesystem package of the CMS (\Joomla\CMS\Filesystem) has been deprecated for a long time. For Joomla 6.0 it has been moved to the compat plugin and will finally be completely removed in 7.0. Please use the framework Filesystem package (\Joomla\Filesystem). The packages can be used nearly interchangeably, with the exception of File::exists() and Folder::exists(). Please use is_file() and is_dir() directly.

voku/portable-utf8 Composer Library Removed​

The voku/portable-utf8 package seems to be abandoned and is also not used in Joomla itself. If you need UTF8-compatible string functions from PHP, have a look at the joomla/string package.

TYPO3/phar-stream-wrapper Removed​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45256
  • Description: The TYPO3/phar-stream-wrapper dependency fixes a security issue in PHP 7, which has been fixed in PHP 8.0. This means that this package isn't necessary at all in Joomla and can be removed entirely.

buildVotingQuery Function in QueryHelper Removed​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45389
  • File: components/com_content/src/Helper/QueryHelper.php
  • Description: The buildVotingQuery is not used in core. If the extension needs that functionality, copy it from the 5.3 branch.

tfa Property Removed from Login View​

BufferStreamHandler No Longer Automatically Registers the Stream​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45402
  • File: libraries/src/Utility/BufferStreamHandler.php
  • Description: The BufferStreamHandler does not auto register the stream anymore. An extension should do it now by itself by calling BufferStreamHandler::stream_register();.

Table Objects Now Instantiated Directly Instead of via Table::getInstance()​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/44090
  • Description: Table objects in the core code have been instantiated with Table::getInstance() in the past. Starting with Joomla 6.0, you should use the explicit table class directly instead. After this change it is not possible to override the table class by calling Table::addIncludePath() anymore. At the same time it simplifies code handling a lot and especially allows IDEs to properly understand the code properly.
// Old:
$table = Table::getInstance('content');

// New:
$table = new \Joomla\CMS\Table\Content($db);

WebApplication No Longer Has $item_associations Property​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45425
  • File: libraries/src/Application/WebApplication.php
  • Description: The $item_associations was added to the WebApplication class for improved PHP 8.2 compatibility and is not used at all.

dispatchEvent Proxy Functions Removed in View and Model​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45431
  • Files:
    • libraries/src/MVC/Model/BaseDatabaseModel.php
    • libraries/src/MVC/View/AbstractView.php
  • Description: The dispatchEvent proxy functions are removed in the BaseDatabaseModel and AbstractView classes. The getDispatcher function therefore requires now a dispatcher injected, which is the default when the component is booted through the application.
// Old in extending class from the BaseDatabaseModel or AbstractView classes:
$this->dispatchEvent($event);

// New:
$this->getDispatcher()->dispatch($event->getName(), $event);

getLogContentTypeParams Method Removed from of ActionlogsHelper​

  • PR: https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45434
  • File: administrator/components/com_actionlogs/src/Helper/ActionlogsHelper.php
  • Description: The getLogContentTypeParams function in the the ActionlogsHelper class got removed as the one in the model should be used:
// Old:
ActionlogsHelper::getLogContentTypeParams('context');

// New:
Factory::getApplication()->bootComponent('actionlogs')->getMVCFactory()
    ->createModel('ActionlogConfig', 'Administrator')->getLogContentTypeParams('context');