Version 7 adds PostgreSQL, Native UUID and PHP 8.5

The Dotkernel Headless Platform has seen new releases for both API and Admin. The Admin codebase has received an overall facelift, as well as updates to retain compatibility with API v7. The release for Dotkernel API v7 has several added features, as well as a few that are removed.

New features are:

• Support for UUID v7 using the native UUID data type.
• Support for PostgreSQL.
• Support for PHP 8.5 for API and 8.4 for Admin.
• Support for database table prefix (string prepended to the name of every table in a database).
• Improved database configuration.
• The replacement of the binary data type for id (index) columns, in favor of uuid.

And these are the features that have been removed:

• Evolution pattern: Support for Method Deprecation.
• Support for MySQL, primarily because it doesn’t support UUID as a data type.

Support for UUID v7

The most important change in v7 is the introduction of support for native UUID. We use the package ramsey/uuid to generate the uuid and then store it in the database. In this way we have full control over the UUID version in use. This solution means you don’t depend on extensions or a particular version of the database.

To ensure you have support for the UUID data type, you must use PostgreSQL or MariaDB v10.7 or later.

This also brings along a less-impactful change that still deserves mentioning: the table columns named uuid have been renamed to id.

Database Configuration

Based on new scenarios in our own projects, we decided to clarify the instructions regarding multiple database connections. With this update, these aspects should become more obvious:

• Which database connection is the default.
• How to switch to another database connection.