Improvements I think we should include in Lift-4.0 #2044

andreak · 2025-11-25T22:13:17Z

Improved Lift session comet handling with additional options for comet creation and initialization functions.
Updated to Servlet 6.1, jakarta-mail-2.1.5
Ported last remaining javax => jakarta
Removed javamail (and Mailer)
Removed jbcrypt (and BCrypt)
Removed persistence_api (not used)
Updated dependencies to newer Jakarta and Apache versions and replaced deprecated methods.
Refactored liftContextRelativePath() to a function returning a List[String] for the Lift-path. This provides more flexibility when interacting with other frameworks.

The breaking change here is LiftRules.liftContextRelativePath(), but I think this is important in order to make Lift highly configurable and able to interoperate with other frameworks. We use this to set tenantId for multitenant config while running as root-webapp.

We've been running these suggested changes in production for several months now (based on the 3.5-branch) without any issues.

…met creation and initialization functions. * Updated dependencies to newer Jakarta and Apache versions and replaced deprecated methods. * Refactored liftContextRelativePath() to a function returning a List[String] for the Lift-path. This provides more flexibility when interacting with other frameworks.

andreak · 2025-11-25T22:26:13Z

@farmdawgnation Do my suggested changes look sane?
MailerSpec is failing, I have no idea why.

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR modernizes Lift for version 4.0 by upgrading to Servlet 6.1 and Jakarta EE, refactoring the Lift path handling from a single string to a dynamic list of path segments, and enhancing comet actor creation with initialization functions. The changes have been tested in production for several months.

Key Changes

Upgraded servlet API to 6.1 and migrated remaining javax.* imports to jakarta.*
Refactored LiftRules.liftContextRelativePath from String to () => List[String] for multi-tenant support (breaking change)
Enhanced comet actor API with optional initialization and factory functions

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 19 out of 19 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
web/webkit/src/test/scala-2.13/net/liftweb/http/LiftSessionSpec.scala	Updated test calls to use new comet creation signature with identity init function
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/provider/servlet/HTTPRequestServlet.scala	Updated import from servlet5 to servlet6 for file upload
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/provider/encoder/CookieEncoder.scala	Replaced deprecated `length()` check with `nonEmpty` for StringBuilder
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/js/LiftJavaScript.scala	Updated PageJs pattern matching to use new List-based path structure
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/SecurityRules.scala	Updated CSP violation handler pattern to match new List-based path structure
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/S.scala	Added two new comet creation methods with init function and factory function support
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/Req.scala	Updated standardRequest_? check to use new List-based path (contains bug)
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftSession.scala	Enhanced comet creation with init and factory functions (contains bug in init path)
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftServlet.scala	Updated path length checks and pattern matching for List-based paths
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftRules.scala	Changed liftContextRelativePath to function returning List[String], added pageJsFunc
web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftMerge.scala	Refactored page JS URL generation to use new path structure
web/testkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/mocks/*.scala	Removed deprecated method, added servlet 6.1 method stubs, added override keywords
project/Dependencies.scala	Updated to servlet 6.1, jakarta.mail 2.1.5, and various other dependency updates
core/util/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/util/Mailer.scala	Migrated from javax.mail to jakarta.mail and javax.activation to jakarta.activation
core/util/src/test/scala/net/liftweb/util/MailerSpec.scala	Updated imports from javax.mail to jakarta.mail
core/util/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/util/SecurityHelpers.scala	Reorganized imports (no functional change)
core/util/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/util/Schedule.scala	Changed buildExecutor return type from ThreadPoolExecutor to ExecutorService

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web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/Req.scala

web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftSession.scala

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-26T13:41:44Z

I don't have this part of the build in CI/CD yet, but there are compile failures for Scala 3:

[error] -- [E171] Type Error: /Users/matt/code/lift/framework/web/webkit/src/test/scala-3/net/liftweb/http/LiftSessionSpec.scala:74:49 
[error] 74 |        session.findOrCreateComet[TestCometActor](Full(cometName), NodeSeq.Empty, Map.empty).map { comet =>
[error]    |        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[error]    |missing argument for parameter cometInitFunc of method findOrCreateComet in class LiftSession: (cometName: net.liftweb.common.Box[String], cometHtml: scala.xml.NodeSeq,
[error]    |  cometAttributes: Map[String, String], cometInitFunc:
[error]    |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor =>
[error]    |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor)
[error]    |  (implicit cometManifest:
[error]    |    Manifest[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]):
[error]    |    net.liftweb.common.Box[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]
[error] -- [E171] Type Error: /Users/matt/code/lift/framework/web/webkit/src/test/scala-3/net/liftweb/http/LiftSessionSpec.scala:97:49 
[error] 97 |        session.findOrCreateComet[TestCometActor](Full(cometName), NodeSeq.Empty, Map.empty).map { comet =>
[error]    |        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[error]    |missing argument for parameter cometInitFunc of method findOrCreateComet in class LiftSession: (cometName: net.liftweb.common.Box[String], cometHtml: scala.xml.NodeSeq,
[error]    |  cometAttributes: Map[String, String], cometInitFunc:
[error]    |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor =>
[error]    |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor)
[error]    |  (implicit cometManifest:
[error]    |    Manifest[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]):
[error]    |    net.liftweb.common.Box[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]
[error] -- [E171] Type Error: /Users/matt/code/lift/framework/web/webkit/src/test/scala-3/net/liftweb/http/LiftSessionSpec.scala:100:49 
[error] 100 |        session.findOrCreateComet[TestCometActor](Empty, NodeSeq.Empty, Map.empty).map { comet =>
[error]     |        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[error]     |missing argument for parameter cometInitFunc of method findOrCreateComet in class LiftSession: (cometName: net.liftweb.common.Box[String], cometHtml: scala.xml.NodeSeq,
[error]     |  cometAttributes: Map[String, String], cometInitFunc:
[error]     |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor =>
[error]     |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor)
[error]     |  (implicit cometManifest:
[error]     |    Manifest[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]):
[error]     |    net.liftweb.common.Box[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.TestCometActor]
[error] -- [E171] Type Error: /Users/matt/code/lift/framework/web/webkit/src/test/scala-3/net/liftweb/http/LiftSessionSpec.scala:113:79 
[error] 113 |        val result = session.findOrCreateComet[ExplodesInConstructorCometActor](Empty, NodeSeq.Empty, Map.empty)
[error]     |                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[error]     |missing argument for parameter cometInitFunc of method findOrCreateComet in class LiftSession: (cometName: net.liftweb.common.Box[String], cometHtml: scala.xml.NodeSeq,
[error]     |  cometAttributes: Map[String, String], cometInitFunc:
[error]     |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.ExplodesInConstructorCometActor =>
[error]     |  net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.ExplodesInConstructorCometActor)
[error]     |  (implicit cometManifest:
[error]     |    Manifest[net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.ExplodesInConstructorCometActor])
[error]     |    :
[error]     |    net.liftweb.common.Box[
[error]     |      net.liftweb.http.LiftSessionSpec.ExplodesInConstructorCometActor]

Will need to investigate those before merge here.

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-26T13:43:20Z

Sorry, didn't answer your original question here which is I think the goal of these changes make sense to me. We just need to investigate some of the copilot comments and compile issues. :)

andreak · 2025-11-26T13:50:59Z

@farmdawgnation Excellent, then it makes sense to fix these issues. If nobody was interested in having this it wouldn't make sense to put more effort into it.

I'll have a look at the copilot issues. How do I build with Scala3?

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-26T15:22:22Z

I'll have a look at the copilot issues. How do I build with Scala3?

If you check it out locally, you should be able to start the sbt interactive console, then ++3.3.7 and run compile/test/etc.

andreak · 2025-11-26T15:32:40Z

Yes, I did that but it resulted in insanely many more errors:

[error]     |value must_== is not a member of net.liftweb.common.Box[net.liftweb.util.CssSelector]
[error] -- [E008] Not Found Error: /home/andreak/dev/framework/core/util/src/test/scala/net/liftweb/util/CssSelectorSpec.scala:130:51 
[error] 130 |      CssSelectorParser.parse("frog='dog food' *") must_==
[error]     |      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

...
...

[error] 427 errors found
[error] (lift-util / Test / compileIncremental) Compilation failed
[error] (lift-testkit / Test / compileIncremental) Compilation failed
[error] (lift-common / Test / compileIncremental) Compilation failed
[error] (lift-webkit / Test / compileIncremental) Compilation failed
[error] (lift-actor / Test / compileIncremental) Compilation failed
[error] Total time: 10 s, completed Nov 26, 2025, 4:30:54 PM

So I figured I must be doing something wrong...

andreak · 2025-11-26T15:33:49Z

@farmdawgnation I'm using Intellij IDEA and have built the code successfully there, but it builds for 2.13. Any idea how to make IDEA build for 3.3.7?

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-26T15:51:29Z

Tests aren't compiling yet for anything except webkit. That's why it's not in CI yet. That's my next project.

I don't use IDEA so, unfortunately, not. :(

andreak · 2025-11-26T15:58:34Z

Ah, I see. So if I make the webkit-tests compile with Scala-3 we're good?
I suggested removing:

jbcrypt (BCrypt)
javamail (Mailer)

on the mailing-list, so we agree on that then we don't have to fix the failing tests in MailerSpec.

* Removed Mailer and BCrypt

andreak · 2025-11-26T16:15:48Z

This PR also removes

jbcrypt (BCrypt)
javamail (Mailer)

andreak · 2025-11-28T12:54:54Z

@farmdawgnation Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help getting this PR merged. If all good, please "squash and merge" at your convenience.

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-28T13:35:30Z

@andreak It's the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US so I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. Going to try this morning but I'm herding tiny humans as well. :)

farmdawgnation · 2025-11-28T13:41:00Z

✅ Tests are passing in 2.13
✅ Main sources all building Scala 3
✅ Webkit tests pass in Scala 3.

I think we're good here.

andreak · 2025-11-28T13:46:23Z

🎸 !

andreak requested a review from farmdawgnation November 25, 2025 22:15

andreak marked this pull request as draft November 25, 2025 22:43

Removed unused persistence_api dep

f4524a3

farmdawgnation requested a review from Copilot November 26, 2025 13:32

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of farmdawgnation November 26, 2025 13:32 View session

Copilot finished reviewing on behalf of farmdawgnation November 26, 2025 13:36

Copilot AI reviewed Nov 26, 2025

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web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/Req.scala Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

web/webkit/src/main/scala/net/liftweb/http/LiftSession.scala Show resolved Hide resolved

Fixed issue caught by copilot

f1a0f2c

andreak added 2 commits November 26, 2025 17:07

* Keep old signature for findOrCreateComet

26bdad9

* Removed Mailer and BCrypt

Reverted changes now that we have the old createComet signature

2661598

andreak marked this pull request as ready for review November 26, 2025 19:30

farmdawgnation merged commit 56953ba into lift-4.0 Nov 28, 2025
3 checks passed

farmdawgnation deleted the ajk/add-more-flexibility-to-lift-path-and-comet-creation branch November 28, 2025 13:42

Improvements I think we should include in Lift-4.0 #2044

Improvements I think we should include in Lift-4.0 #2044

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