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Ortus Solutions today announces the general availability of TestBox 7.2, the biggest TestBox release in years. Built on the new bx-playwright 1.0 module, BoxLang specs can now drive a real browser, assert with web-first matchers that wait until they pass, and keep the screenshots, traces and videos of every failure. Around it, TestBox gains spec retries, a Run Failed option, a rebuilt set of HTML reporters with Ask AI on every failure, and a new Agent reporter that lets AI agents read a test run at minimal token cost.

A validation spec usually checks several fields at once: name is set, email looks right, total is positive, status is one of an allowed list. Written as separate it() assertions, TestBox stops at the first failure and you fix it, rerun, and find out about the second failure. Five fields, potentially five rounds of that.

The first four posts covered the headline features. This finale covers everything else in the release: eight new matchers, five new $assert methods, a class-level @skip, and a handful of fixes and behavior changes you should know about before you upgrade.

Almost every application eventually tests a nested piece of data: an API response, a JSON config file, a serialized object, module metadata. The data is a struct that contains an array that contains structs that contain more structs, and the thing you actually care about is one value buried at the bottom.

This post has two halves. First we look at BoxLang's Data Navigator, the language feature that makes nested data pleasant to work with. Then we look at the six TestBox 7.1 expectations built on top of it. If you have never used dataNavigate(), start at the top. If you already know it, skip to The six expectations.

Before exploring the 14 range matchers, let’s take a closer look at the BoxLang Range itself. Ranges go well beyond the familiar .. syntax, providing a powerful and flexible foundation for working with sequences and boundaries. Understanding how ranges work makes the matcher API much easier to use and reason about. If you are coming from a CFML background, then this will be brand new to you as ranges have never existed until Boxlang.

If you have ever tested that two collections contain "the same stuff, order doesn't matter," you already know the workaround: sort both arrays, compare them element by element, and hope nobody adds a duplicate. It works, but it isn't what you meant to write. You meant "these are the same set."

TestBox 7.1.0 is here, and it is the largest single expansion of our assertion and expectation library since TestBox was born.

TestBox 7.x series continues our mission to be the best testing framework for BoxLang and CFML. This release is focused heavily on BoxLang CLI runner enhancements, real-time streaming test execution via SSE, a powerful dry run capability, the brand-new TestBox RUN web IDE, and significant quality-of-life improvements for developers working in both BoxLang and CFML environments.

We are so excited to announce the first release of the CommandBox VSCode extension. This extension is thanks to the great work of (Kamasamak) and will integrate CommandBox into VS Code.

You are expected to have CommandBox installed on your system.

Just click on the VS Code extensions tab and search for commandbox, install, refresh, play!

Gavin and Eric host this weeks episode.They talk Adobe CF Summit East 2020 announcing dates and prices, as well as Adobe’s ColdFusion Specialist Certification Post Conference Workshop and Ortus Solution’s Pre Conference Workshop. They also mentioned CFCamp will not be moved to May / June as planned and you won’t believe the reason why. ITB 2020 Call for Speakers is closed, with 138 submissions from the community plus all of the Ortus content as well, we’re still deciding on sessions. They talked about CF Summit 2019 Vegas releasing more videos from the sessions on YouTube. The playlist has 19 videos already. In case you missed Rakshith’s Webinar this week on CF2020 you can catch our views on it, and the link to the recording. They talk about Gavin and Michael Born’s plan for a new Live Coding Series this Wednesday. They discuss more information on CF Summit East 2020 and the workshops. They discuss selection for workshops and call for speakers for Into the Box 2020 in Houston in May including a special announcement, ITB 2020 will be 2 days of workshops plus 2 days of conference, so 4 days total, the Super Early Bird tickets are now available. They also discuss some other conferences you should consider attending.

They spotlight a lot of great blog posts, tweets, videos and podcasts, too many to list, so listen to the show. They show off our ForgeBox module of the Week, Eric Peterson’s ‘str’ utilities and this week’s VS Code extensions, Cloak by John Papa for hiding your .env variables when screen sharing etc.

We finish the podcast thank our Patreon supporters