Upgrading your grails app from a previous version to the new world of Grails 2.X Tips on how to prepare, what to do, and gotchas that may pop up. Presented on 7/22/13 at Gr8ConfUS in Minneapolis, MN

1. UPGRADING FROM
GRAILS 1.X TO 2.X
STORIES AND LESSONS LEARNED
WillBuck,webdeveloper,virtuwell
Twitter(@wbucksoft) Github(willbuck) Email(wbucksoft@gmail.com)

2. A LITTLE ABOUT ME
(WillBuck)

3. OBLIGATORY COMPANY SHOUTOUT

4. MINNESOTA NATIVE

5. DISNEY WORLD JUNKIE

6. PRO(?)-AM TRAMPOLINE DODGEBALLER

7. GRAILS GUY

8. SHARING TODAY:
Case Study: 1.3.7 -> 2.1.0

9. A LITTLE ABOUT WHAT WE DID
8 In-House Plugins (some dependenton others)
3 Core Applications (one consumer-facing, two internal)
LOTS of testingoverhaul

10. CHIME IN!
Manyof you have done this, share your knowledge

11. BRIEF INTRO: WHY ARE
WE DOING THIS AGAIN?

12. GRAILS 2.X
(Wellduh)

13. What's newinGrails 2.0 and above

14. TESTABILITY
This would be aprimaryreason to upgrade.
Grails 2 introduced a*lot*of excellenttestingsupport, including...
In memoryGORM (makingunittestingcriteriaQueries
possible)
Better Console Output
Cleaner testreports
Annotation based mockingmakes code more straight-forward
(imho)

15. SUPPORT
Since much of the communityis movingforward with Grails 2, it
willbe easier to:
GetStackOverflow questions answered
Getanew feature in aplugin
Find talented developers familiar with your technology
Etc.

16. AND MORE!
Groovy1.8 support(or 2.0 in Grails 2.2+)
ORM improvements and more options (mongoDBfor
example)
Better defaultscaffolding(jQueryand HTML5)
Easier date parsing
Multiple DataSources Support
Etc etc etc (read the docs, yo!)

17. PREPARING TO UPGRADE:
BRING THE RIGHT TOOLS

18. DIRECTORY DIFF TOOL
Kaleidoscope -http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/
BeyondCompare -http://www.scootersoftware.com/

19. GVM
Lets you jump between versions with ease
gvm install grails [version]
http://gvmtool.net/

20. SOURCE CONTROL
Know how to hop around and make incrementalprogress!
Git, Mercurial, maybe SVN

21. UNIT TESTS

22. HOW TO BEGIN

23. START FRESH

24. SIDE BY SIDE
vs
IN-PLACE
Generates new-style metafiles w/proper dependencies
Testboth simultaneously
Commithistorywillbe cleaner -single commitof merge back!

25. grails upgrade
IS DEAD TO YOU!

26. GET THE TESTS PASSING FIRST

27. NOTE: THAT WILL TAKE AWHILE

28. FIRE IT UP!

29. MERGING BACK

30. THE CODE
WHAT 2 WATCH 4

31. COMMON ONES
Can largelybe found in grails documentation
Upgrading fromprevious versions of Grails

32. HSQL -> H2
Changes in DataSource.groovy
dataSource{
driverClassName="org.h2.Driver"
username="sa"
password=""
}

33. COMMAND OBJECT @VALIDATEABLE
@Validateable
classSearchCommand{
}
Note- seehttp://jira.grails.org/browse/GRAILS-9162

34. LOTS OF LITTLE THINGS

35. The redirect() method now uses the grails.serverURL config
setting

36. Public methods in controllers willnow be treated as actions. If
you don'twantthis, make them protected or private.

37. ConfigurationHolder.config-> grailsApplication.config

38. TESTING - A NEW WORLD ORDER

39. INHERITANCE -> ANNOTATIONS
//Grails1.xway
classmyControllerTestsextendsGrailsUnitTestCase{
}

40. INHERITANCE -> ANNOTATIONS
@TestFor(MyController)
@Mock([MyDomain])
classmyControllerTests{
voidtestSomething(){
//NoneedtomockDomain()anymore,justsaveaway!
MyDomaintestInstance=newMyDomain(property:'value').save()
defresult=controller.get()
assertresult==testInstance
}
}

41. OR CHECK OUT SOME GREAT PLUGINS!
//Grails2.xway
@TestFor(MyController)
@Build([MyDomain,MyOtherDomain])//Build-test-datapluginisgreat!
classmyControllerSpecextendsSpecification{
//BeSpock-tastic
void"testSomething"(){
given:"Adomaininstancetoretrieve"
MyDomaintestInstance=MyDomain.build(name:'Will.i.am')
when:"AcallisissuedtoController.get"
defresult=controller.get()
then:"Wegettheexpecteddomaininstance"
result==testInstance
}
}

42. COMING SOON!
Grails 2.3 -Spock byDefault!
NewinGrails 2.3

43. YOU MAY FIND SURPRISES...

44. Note: if you do have test-pollution...
Ted Naleid's Blog onFinding Test Pollution

45. TOUGHER / LESS DOCUMENTED GOTCHAS

46. PLUGIN DEPENDENCY DEFINITION

47. APPLICATION.PROPERTIES - >
BUILDCONFIG.GROOVY

48. APPLICATION.PROPERTIES (BEFORE)
#GrailsMetadatafile
#SunMar2515:53:36CDT2012
app.grails.version=1.3.7
app.name=patient-application
app.servlet.version=2.4
plugins.build-test-data=1.1.0
plugins.code-coverage=1.1.7
plugins.codenarc=0.5
plugins.database-migration=1.0
plugins.functional-test=1.2.7
plugins.greenmail=1.2.1
plugins.hibernate=1.3.7
plugins.jms=1.2
plugins.jmx=0.7
plugins.joda-time=1.2
plugins.jquery=1.4.1.1
plugins.mail=0.9
plugins.spock=0.5-groovy-1.7
plugins.spring-security-core=1.1
plugins.tomcat=1.3.7
plugins.ui-performance=1.2.2

49. BUILDCONFIG.GROOVY (AFTER)
plugins{
build":tomcat:$grailsVersion"
compile":mail:1.0"
compile":greenmail:1.3.2"
compile":build-test-data:2.0.3"
compile":codenarc:0.17"
compile(":functional-test:2.0.RC1")
compile":jms:1.2"
compile":jmx:0.7.2"
compile":joda-time:1.4"
compile":spring-security-core:1.2.7.3"
compile":ui-performance:1.2.2"
runtime":database-migration:1.1"
runtime":hibernate:$grailsVersion"
runtime":quartz:0.4.2"
test":spock:0.6"
}

50. APPLICATION.PROPERTIES (AFTER)
#GrailsMetadatafile
#MonMar1813:56:54CDT2013
app.grails.version=2.1.0
app.name=patient-application
app.servlet.version=2.4

51. RESOURCES PLUGIN

52. Bydefault, JS, CSS, images etc are now managed bythe
resources plugin.
<r:layoutResources>
<r:require modules="jquery-ui, blueprint">

53. This can mean a*lot*of restructuringto your front-end file
management.

54. STRUCTURED PROPERTIES

55. UNDERSCORES IN DOMAIN VARIABLES
//ingrails-app/domain/my-package
classSomeDomain{
//Alegitimateusecase
StringtelephoneNumber
StringtelephoneNumber_areaCode
StringtelephoneNumber_prefix
StringtelephoneNumber_lineNumber
//Accidentaloopsies,butwon'tkillthings
Stringname
Stringname_sourceId
//NOWwe'retalkingtrouble
DatedateOfBirth
StringdateOfBirth_sourceId
}

56. Discoveringthe shadowycorners...

57. TRY DIGGING DEEPER...

58. AND DEEPER.....

59. BUT EVENTUALLY...
in 1.3.7...
the same???

60. FIX IT AND LET IT GO

61. TAKEAWAY POINTS

62. TAKE YOUR TIME

63. Tryto keep new feature developmentto aminimum

64. Do aback-merge allatonce, rightbefore finishing. Communicate
with your team!

65. Take alook for existingdocs on how upgrade problems were
solved...

66. ... butknow thatsome problems willbe unique to your codebase.

67. Don'tfear the source, love the source.

68. If allelse fails, ask the communityif you getstuck!

69. RESOURCES:
(FYI there was
no part2)
Grails Docs: Upgrading FromPrevious Versions
O`ReillyOpenFeedback Publishing: Programming Grails
Ted Naleids Blog - Upgrading toGrails 2 Unit Testing
Rob Fletchers Blog - Grails 2 UpgradePart 1
TechnipelagoBlog - Grails 1.3.7 to2.0.1 upgradeexperiences

70. SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Zan Thrash
Zach Legein
Zach Lendon
Colin Harrington
SenthilKumaran
Team @ virtuwell
and Mywife, Virginia

71. THANKS FOR LISTENING!
Anyquestions?
Givemefeedback! http://tinyurl.com/gr8wbuck13
Myinfo(again) Twitter(@wbucksoft) Github(willbuck) Email(wbucksoft@gmail.com)