Moodle 4.2 developer update

This page highlights the important changes that are coming in Moodle 4.2 for developers.

External API

The external_api class, and all related classes have been moved from lib/externallib.php to namespaced classes within the core_external subsystem.

Delayed deprecation

The old class locations have been aliased for backwards compatibility and will emit a deprecation notice in a future release. Please remember to add require_once($CFG->dirroot . '/lib/externallib.php'); to your external service classes to make the aliases work.

If you are writing a Moodle plugin which has a single codebase shared with older versions of Moodle, you should continue to use the old API locations at this time.

Important now about requiring lib/externallib.php

If you are making use of the delayed deprecation, please note that you must call the following in the class file of your method definitions:

mod/example/classes/external/get_example.php

<?php

namespace mod_example\external;

require_once($CFG->dirroot . '/lib/externallib.php');

class get_example {
    // ...
}

You must not include the legacy lib/externallib.php file anywhere else.

You must also use either the @runTestsInSeparateProcesses or the @runInSeparateProcess annotations in any unit test related to the external API methods.

The following parts of the external API have been moved to the core_external subsystem.

Renamed External API classes

Old class name	New class name
external_api	core_external\external_api
external_description	core_external\external_description
external_files	core_external\files
external_format_value	core_external\external_format_value
external_function_parameters	core_external\external_function_parameters
external_multiple_structure	core_external\external_multiple_structure
external_settings	core_external\external_settings
external_single_structure	core_external\external_single_structure
external_util	core_external\util
external_value	core_external\external_value
external_warnings	core_external\external_warnings
restricted_context_exception	core_external\restricted_context_exception

Renamed External API functions

Old function name	New function name
external_format_string()	core_external\util::format_string()
external_format_text()	core_external\util::format_text()
external_create_service_token()	core_external\util::generate_token()
external_generate_token()	core_external\util::generate_token()
external_generate_token_for_current_user()	core_external\util::generate_token_for_current_user()
external_log_token_request()	core_external\util::log_token_request()

Validation of $required parameter

The $required parameter in \core_external\external_description is now being validated. This is in order to prevent accidentally passing incorrect parameters to the external_description's and its subclasses' constructors.

An example of incorrect behaviour

'contentformat' => new external_format_value('content', 'Content format'),

In this example, the field description has been accidentally passed for the $required parameter in external_format_value's constructor. A debugging notice will be shown about the value Content format as an invalid value for the $required parameter.

An example of correct behaviour

'contentformat' => new external_format_value('content', VALUE_REQUIRED, 'Content format'),

The value for the $required parameter must either be set to either one of the VALUE_DEFAULT, VALUE_REQUIRED, or VALUE_OPTIONAL constants.

Quiz activity

At the moment, this is just a placeholder to say that there are significant changes in the Quiz activity (mod_quiz) in Moodle 4.2. A lot of the quiz code is being updated to modern Moodle coding standards while we add features in Epic MDL-74607. Therefore, if you have made customisations to the core quiz code, you will have work to do, and if you have made quiz sub-plugins (reports or access rules) you may have a small amount of work to do.

I will write a more coherent summary once the changes are complete, but mod/quiz/upgrade.txt lists all the changes so far.

Developer tip - handling changes to base class names, while supporting multiple Moodle versions

Thanks to Luca Bösch for working this out. If you want a single version of your plugin to support multiple version of Moodle without developer debug warnings, you can do it like this:

Work-around to support multiple base class names

// This work-around is required until Moodle 4.2 is the lowest version we support.
if (class_exists('quiz_default_report')) {
    class_alias('quiz_default_report', 'quiz_archive_parent_class_alias');
} else {
    class_alias('mod_quiz\local\reports\report_base', 'quiz_archive_parent_class_alias');
}

class quiz_archive_report extends quiz_archive_parent_class_alias {
    // Contents of your class unchanged.
}

There is a slightly messier real example of updating a quiz access rule sub-plugin here: https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-quizaccess_honestycheck/commit/a2f38f6587ff57ebef7b56191c216e2ffe309e87.

Font Awesome 6

The Font Awesome third-party library has been upgraded from 4.7 to 6.3.0 in MDL-76989. The syntax has slightly changed. The free version included in Moodle only supports the solid and regular styles:

Version 4's syntax

<i class="fa fa-star"></i>
<i class="fa fa-star-o"></i>

Version 6's syntax

<i class="fa-regular fa-star"></i>
<i class="fa-solid fa-star"></i>

Font Awesome 6 is backwards compatible (because a shim has been included too), so the old syntax still works.

In the SCSS/CSS files some changes needs to be done to display the icons properly:

• The attribute content: $fa-var-xxx needs to be converted to content: fa-content($fa-var-xxx)
• The regular style is used by default. When the solid styled icon needs to be used, the following must be added: @extend .fa-solid. There are other ways to achieve the same. More information can be found in this page.
• @include fa-icons() is not required anymore (when it's used, the icons are not displayed properly).

More information about the changes between 4 and 6, including any icons which have been renamed, can be found in https://fontawesome.com/docs/web/setup/upgrade/upgrade-from-v4