ACF/Lucee Migration Guide

Migrating to BoxLang ORM from Adobe ColdFusion and Lucee

BoxLang ORM is designed to be compatible with existing CFML ORM code, but there are some differences and considerations when migrating from Adobe ColdFusion (ACF) or Lucee.

Configuration Differences

There are several ORM settings which have been renamed OR the default value changed in bx-orm. You will need to either rename these in your configuration, or install bx-compat-cfml to provide compatibility with the old settings names.

Renamed Settings

Setting name (ACF/Lucee)	Setting name (BoxLang)
skipCFCWithError	ignoreParseErrors
cfcLocation	entityPaths

Both of these settings are supported in bx-compat-cfml for compatibility with existing code, but you should update your configuration to use the new names to avoid confusion and ensure future compatibility.

Changed Defaults

Setting	Lucee Default	ACF Default	BoxLang Default
ignoreParseErrors (formerly skipCFCWithError)	true	true	false
autoManageSession	true	true	false
flushAtRequestEnd	true	true	false
proxyLazyLoading	true	true	false

Again, each of these settings are reverted to the ACF/Lucee defaults in bx-compat-cfml.

Built-in Function Differences

Most of the built-in functions (BIFs) from other CFML engines are functionally identical in BoxLang. A few notable exceptions:

EntityLoadByPK()

In ACF/Lucee, this BIF returns an array of entities by default, and you must pass a unique=true argument to return a single entity. In BoxLang, a single entity is returned by default, and the unique argument is not supported. To return an array of entities in BoxLang, use the entityLoad BIF instead.

// Lucee/ACF returns an array
var myAuto = entityLoadByPK( "Automobile", "1HGCM82633A123456" ).first();
// BoxLang returns a single item
var myAuto = entityLoadByPK( "Automobile", "1HGCM82633A123456" );

EntityNew()

In ACF, a third argument ignoreExtras is implemented which allows you to ignore struct keys that do not match properties on the entity. In Lucee, this argument is called ignoreNotExisting but is not properly implemented and is always true. In BoxLang, this argument is not supported and any extra keys will cause an error. To achieve similar functionality in BoxLang, you can filter the struct of values before passing it to EntityNew to remove any keys that do not match properties on the entity.

ACF, Lucee, and BoxLang will all error if you attempt to set a property that does not exist on the entity:

var entityProps = { nonExistentKey: "Blue" };
var myNewEntity = entityNew( "Automobile", entityProps );

ACF does allow ignoring keys that do not match an entity property:

var entityProps = { nonExistentKey: "Blue" };
var myNewEntity = entityNew( "Automobile", entityProps, true );