Deprecations

• The class String has been renamed to CakeText. This resolves some conflicts around HHVM compatibility as well as possibly PHP7+. There is a String class provided as well for compatibility reasons.
• Validation::notEmpty() has been renamed to Validation::notBlank(). This aims to avoid confusion around the PHP notEmpty() function and that the validation rule accepts 0 as valid input.
• SessionComponent::setFlash() has been deprecated. You should use FlashComponent instead.
• SessionHelper::flash() has been deprecated. You should use FlashHelper instead.

Backported Features From 3.0

• Plugin shells that share a name with their plugin can now be called without the plugin prefix. For example Console/cake MyPlugin.my_plugin can now be called with Console/cake my_plugin.
• Configure::consume() has been added to read and delete from Configure in a single step.
• CakeSession::consume() has been added to read and delete from session in a single step.
• New setting level is now available in TreeBehavior. You can use it to specify field name in which the depth of tree nodes will be stored.
• New method TreeBehavior::getLevel() has been added which fetches depth of a node.
• SessionComponent::consume() has been added to read and delete from session in a single step.
• SessionHelper::consume() has been added to read and delete from session in a single step.

Other Improvements

• SQL datasources will now cast '' and null into '' when columns are not nullable and rows are being created or updated.
• Argument $renew has been added to CakeSession::clear() to allow emptying the session without forcing a new id and renewing the session. It defaults to true.
• CakeEmail will now use the ‘default’ config set when creating instances that do not specify a configuration set to use. For example $email = new CakeEmail(); will now use the ‘default’ config set.
• ControllerTestCase::testAction() now supports an array as URL.

If there are no major issues reported in the next 3-4 weeks, a stable release of 2.7.0 will be released.

As always, a huge thanks to all the community members that helped make this release happen by reporting issues, writing documentation and sending pull requests.

Download a packaged release on github.