# 1.0.0-Beta8

BoxLang Betas are released weekly. This is our eigth beta marker and we are excited to report that we are 100% tag compatible with Adobe/Lucee and 99% BIF compatible. We can estimate that in the next 2 betas we will be 100% compatible with both Adobe/Lucee CFML engines when running BoxLang in compatibility mode.

{% hint style="danger" %}
Please note that this is our core competency definition. You can see our lists here:

* BIFS: <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SVr9NTYU51n9VyPrKVUjfF3EeEkEnkZOkrNmj1TE120/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0&fvid=1144231850>
* Tags/Components\
  <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XkCQ8CPXslQWGCr8LHaQcDHZOMiwxST2nzX63_CSzvI/edit?gid=0#gid=0>
  {% endhint %}

## New Features

### [BL-394](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-394) contractPath() BIF

This allows you to get a relative path or mapping path from a fully expanded path in your system. This is useful, to understand where a full absolute path comes from:

```java
expandedPath = expandPath( "/brad" );  // /absolute/path/to/brad
contractPath( expandedPath ); // /brad
```

### [BL-395](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-395) Add loop times=n

We have added a new construct for looping by using the keyword `times` in your `loop` statements:

```groovy
loop times=5 {
    result &= "*";
}
```

You can also use `times` and the `index`

```groovy
loop times=5 index="i" {
    result &= i;
}
```

Or the `item` alias can be used as well as the `index`

```groovy
loop times=5 item="i" {
    result &= i;
}
```

### [BL-396](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-396) Implement GetBaseTagList() and getBaseTagData()

These two methods are to bring us closer to finalizing the creation of custom templating language constructs.

* `getBaseTagList( [caller] )` : Gets a comma-delimited list of uppercase ancestor tag names, as a string. The first list element is the current tag. If the current tag is nested, the next element is the parent tag. If the function is called for a top-level tag, it returns an empty string.
* `getBaseTagData( tagName, [level=1] )` : Used within a custom tag. Finds calling (ancestor) tag by name and accesses its data.

### [BL-397](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-397) Improve parser error messages for unpopped parser modes

For code like

```
<--- I never end
```

or

```
foo = "trumcated...
```

instead of our default “unpopped modes”, detect what specific mode is on the stack (comment\_mode, quotesMode, etc), find the start token (comment\_start, OPEN\_QUOTE, etc) and report the line number that the unclosed construct started, which could be hundreds of lines from the end of the file when parsing finally stopped.

### [BL-408](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-408) Transaction events

The BoxLang JDBC Transactions framework is now complete and incredibly robust. More than the other CFML engines or even Spring-based transaction demarcations. It is fully documented here:\
<https://boxlang.ortusbooks.com/boxlang-framework/transactions>

We have also added several events that you can listen to during the transaction processes:

* `onTransactionBegin`
* `onTransactionEnd`
* `onTransactionCommit`
* `onTransactionRollback`
* `onTransactionSetSavepoint`
* `onTransactionAcquire*`
* `onTransactionRelease*`

Note that all these events (with the exception of `onTransactionAcquire` and `onTransactionRelease`) have the potential to be acting upon a no-op transaction, with a null `connection` parameter since no connection was ever obtained.

## Improvements

[BL-402](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-402) Allow for circular references in structs and arrays

[BL-406](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-406) Java 21 update to URL creation as new URL is deprecated

[BL-407](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-407) add getMimeType method in FileSystemUtil to make it easier to get mime types of remote files ( e.g. PDF creation )

## Bugs

[BL-398](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-398) \<bx:loop query="query"> doesn't iterate over each item in the query, stays on the first item

[BL-404](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-404) session scope can be null in onSessionEnd, causing errors

## Tasks

[BL-372](https://ortussolutions.atlassian.net/browse/BL-372) Create tests for all valid and invalid dot and array access expressions


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