Deprecation: Custom Resource Cleanups (CHEF-5)¶
We are continuously improving and streamlining the way custom resources work in Chef, to make it easier for cookbook authors and Chef developers to build resources.
This page documents many deprecations over the course of many Chef releases.
Nil Properties¶
In current versions of Chef, nil was often used to mean that a property had no good default, and needed to be set by the user. However, it is often to useful to set a property to nil, meaning that it’s not set and should be ignored. In Chef 13, it is an error to set default: nil on a property if that property doesn’t allow nil as a valid value.
Remediation¶
If it is valid for the property to be set to nil, then update the property to include that.
property :my_nillable_property, [ String, nil ], default: nil
Otherwise, remove the default: nil statement from the property.
Invalid Defaults¶
Current versions of Chef emit a warning when a property’s default value is not valid. This is often because the type of the default value doesn’t match the specification of the property. For example:
property :my_property, [ String ], default: []
sets the type of the property to be a String, but then sets the default to be an Array. In Chef 13, this will be an error.
Remediation¶
Ensure that the default value of a property is correct.
Property Getters¶
When writing a resource in Chef 12, calling some_property nil behaves as a getter, returning the value of some_property. In Chef 13, this will change to set some_property to nil.
Remediation¶
Simply write some_property when retrieving the value of some_property.
Specifying both “default” and “name_property” on a resource¶
Current versions of Chef emit a warning if the property declaration has both default and name_property set. In Chef 13, that will become an error. For example:
property :my_property, [ String ], default: [], name_property: true
Remediation¶
A property can either have a default, or it can be a “name” property (meaning that it will take the value of the resource’s name if not otherwise specified), but not both.
Overriding provides?¶
Some providers override the provides? method, used to check whether they are a valid provider on the current platform. In Chef 13, this will cause an error if the provider does not also register themselves with the provides call.
Example¶
def provides?
true
end
Remediation¶
provides :my_provider
def provides?
true
end
Don’t use the updated method¶
The updated=(true_or_false) method is deprecated and will be removed from Chef 13. This method never performed its intended job, as notifications from the
resource would not fire, and in general its use has always been buggy. The Chef Client notification code checks updated_by_last_action? instead, so setting that is recommended as a substitute. See the updated_by_last_action documentation for more information.
Note
Setting updated_by_last_action is almost always unnecessary, and correct use of use_inline_resources (which is the default in Chef 13 and above) makes the updated_by_last_action setting redundant. Simply deleting this code is very likely to be the correct course of action in nearly all cases.
Example¶
action :foo do
updated = true
end
Remediation¶
action :foo do
new_resource.updated_by_last_action true
end
Don’t use the dsl_name method¶
The dsl_name method is deprecated and will be removed from Chef 13. It has been replaced by resource_name.
Example¶
my_resource = MyResource.dsl_name
Remediation¶
my_resource = MyResource.resource_name
Don’t use the provider_base method¶
The Resource.provider_base allows the developer to specify an alternative module to load providers from, rather than Chef::Provider. It is deprecated and will be removed in Chef 13. Instead, the provider should call provides to register itself, or the resource should call provider to specify the provider to use.