*   Update session to have indifferent access across multiple requests

        session[:deep][:hash] = "Magic"

        session[:deep][:hash] == "Magic"
        session[:deep]["hash"] == "Magic"

    *Tom Prats*

*   Add application/gzip as a default mime type.

    *Mehmet Emin İNAÇ*

*   Add request encoding and response parsing to integration tests.

    What previously was:

    ```ruby
    require 'test_helper'

    class ApiTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
      test 'creates articles' do
        assert_difference -> { Article.count } do
          post articles_path(format: :json),
            params: { article: { title: 'Ahoy!' } }.to_json,
            headers: { 'Content-Type' => 'application/json' }
        end

        assert_equal({ 'id' => Article.last.id, 'title' => 'Ahoy!' }, JSON.parse(response.body))
      end
    end
    ```

    Can now be written as:

    ```ruby
    require 'test_helper'

    class ApiTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
      test 'creates articles' do
        assert_difference -> { Article.count } do
          post articles_path, params: { article: { title: 'Ahoy!' } }, as: :json
        end

        assert_equal({ 'id' => Article.last.id, 'title' => 'Ahoy!' }, response.parsed_body)
      end
    end
    ```
    
    Passing `as: :json` to integration test request helpers will set the format,
    content type and encode the parameters as JSON.
    
    Then on the response side, `parsed_body` will parse the body according to the
    content type the response has.
    
    Currently JSON is the only supported MIME type. Add your own with
    `ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest.register_encoder`.

    *Kasper Timm Hansen*

*   Add image/svg+xml as a default mime type.

    *DHH*

## Rails 5.0.0.beta2 (February 01, 2016) ##

*   Add `-g` and `-c` options to `bin/rails routes`. These options return the url `name`, `verb` and
    `path` field that match the pattern or match a specific controller.

    Deprecate `CONTROLLER` env variable in `bin/rails routes`.

    See #18902.

    *Anton Davydov* & *Vipul A M*

*   Response etags to always be weak: Prefixes 'W/' to value returned by
   `ActionDispatch::Http::Cache::Response#etag=`, such that etags set in
   `fresh_when` and `stale?` are weak.

    Fixes #17556.

    *Abhishek Yadav*

*   Provide the name of HTTP Status code in assertions.

    *Sean Collins*

*   More explicit error message when running `rake routes`. `CONTROLLER` argument
    can now be supplied in different ways:
    `Rails::WelcomeController`, `Rails::Welcome`, `rails/welcome`.

    Fixes #22918.

    *Edouard Chin*

*   Allow `ActionController::Parameters` instances as an argument to URL
    helper methods. An `ArgumentError` will be raised if the passed parameters
    are not secure.

    Fixes #22832.

    *Prathamesh Sonpatki*

*   Add option for per-form CSRF tokens.

    *Greg Ose & Ben Toews*

*   Add tests and documentation for `ActionController::Renderers::use_renderers`.

    *Benjamin Fleischer*

*   Fix `ActionController::Parameters#convert_parameters_to_hashes` to return filtered
    or unfiltered values based on from where it is called, `to_h` or `to_unsafe_h`
    respectively.

    Fixes #22841.

    *Prathamesh Sonpatki*

*   Add `ActionController::Parameters#include?`

    *Justin Coyne*

## Rails 5.0.0.beta1 (December 18, 2015) ##

*   Deprecate `redirect_to :back` in favor of `redirect_back`, which accepts a
    required `fallback_location` argument, thus eliminating the possibility of a
    `RedirectBackError`.

    *Derek Prior*

*   Add `redirect_back` method to `ActionController::Redirecting` to provide a
    way to safely redirect to the `HTTP_REFERER` if it is present, falling back
    to a provided redirect otherwise.

    *Derek Prior*

*   `ActionController::TestCase` will be moved to it's own gem in Rails 5.1

    With the speed improvements made to `ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest` we no
    longer need to keep two separate code bases for testing controllers. In
    Rails 5.1 `ActionController::TestCase` will be deprecated and moved into a
    gem outside of Rails source.

    This is a documentation deprecation so that going forward so new tests will use
    `ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest` instead of `ActionController::TestCase`.

    *Eileen M. Uchitelle*

*   Add a `response_format` option to `ActionDispatch::DebugExceptions`
    to configure the format of the response when errors occur in
    development mode.

    If `response_format` is `:default` the debug info will be rendered
    in an HTML page. In the other hand, if the provided value is `:api`
    the debug info will be rendered in the original response format.

    *Jorge Bejar*

*   Change the `protect_from_forgery` prepend default to `false`.

    Per this comment
    https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/18334#issuecomment-69234050 we want
    `protect_from_forgery` to default to `prepend: false`.

    `protect_from_forgery` will now be inserted into the callback chain at the
    point it is called in your application. This is useful for cases where you
    want to `protect_from_forgery` after you perform required authentication
    callbacks or other callbacks that are required to run after forgery protection.

    If you want `protect_from_forgery` callbacks to always run first, regardless of
    position they are called in your application then you can add `prepend: true`
    to your `protect_from_forgery` call.

    Example:

    ```ruby
    protect_from_forgery prepend: true
    ```

    *Eileen M. Uchitelle*

*   In url_for, never append a question mark to the URL when the query string
    is empty anyway.  (It used to do that when called like `url_for(controller:
    'x', action: 'y', q: {})`.)

    *Paul Grayson*

*   Catch invalid UTF-8 querystring values and respond with BadRequest

    Check querystring params for invalid UTF-8 characters, and raise an
    ActionController::BadRequest error if present. Previously these strings
    would typically trigger errors further down the stack.

    *Grey Baker*

*   Parse RSS/ATOM responses as XML, not HTML.

    *Alexander Kaupanin*

*   Show helpful message in `BadRequest` exceptions due to invalid path
    parameter encodings.

    Fixes #21923.

    *Agis Anastasopoulos*

*   Add the ability of returning arbitrary headers to `ActionDispatch::Static`.

    Now ActionDispatch::Static can accept HTTP headers so that developers
    will have control of returning arbitrary headers like
    'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' when a response is delivered. They can be
    configured with `#config`:

    Example:

        config.public_file_server.headers = {
          "Cache-Control"               => "public, max-age=60",
          "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" => "http://rubyonrails.org"
        }

    *Yuki Nishijima*

*   Allow multiple `root` routes in same scope level. Example:

    Example:

        root 'blog#show', constraints: ->(req) { Hostname.blog_site?(req.host) }
        root 'landing#show'

    *Rafael Sales*

*   Fix regression in mounted engine named routes generation for app deployed to
    a subdirectory. `relative_url_root` was prepended to the path twice (e.g.
    "/subdir/subdir/engine_path" instead of "/subdir/engine_path")

    Fixes #20920. Fixes #21459.

    *Matthew Erhard*

*   `ActionDispatch::Response#new` no longer applies default headers. If you want
    default headers applied to the response object, then call
    `ActionDispatch::Response.create`. This change only impacts people who are
    directly constructing an `ActionDispatch::Response` object.

*   Accessing mime types via constants like `Mime::HTML` is deprecated. Please
    change code like this:

        Mime::HTML

    To this:

        Mime[:html]

    This change is so that Rails will not manage a list of constants, and fixes
    an issue where if a type isn't registered you could possibly get the wrong
    object.

    `Mime[:html]` is available in older versions of Rails, too, so you can
    safely change libraries and plugins and maintain compatibility with
    multiple versions of Rails.

*   `url_for` does not modify its arguments when generating polymorphic URLs.

    *Bernerd Schaefer*

*   Make it easier to opt in to `config.force_ssl` and `config.ssl_options` by
    making them less dangerous to try and easier to disable.

    SSL redirect:
      * Move `:host` and `:port` options within `redirect: { … }`. Deprecate.
      * Introduce `:status` and `:body` to customize the redirect response.
        The 301 permanent default makes it difficult to test the redirect and
        back out of it since browsers remember the 301. Test with a 302 or 307
        instead, then switch to 301 once you're confident that all is well.

    HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS):
      * Shorter max-age. Shorten the default max-age from 1 year to 180 days,
        the low end for https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ grading and greater
        than the 18-week minimum to qualify for browser preload lists.
      * Disabling HSTS. Setting `hsts: false` now sets `hsts { expires: 0 }`
        instead of omitting the header. Omitting does nothing to disable HSTS
        since browsers hang on to your previous settings until they expire.
        Sending `{ hsts: { expires: 0 }}` flushes out old browser settings and
        actually disables HSTS:
          http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6797#section-6.1.1
      * HSTS Preload. Introduce `preload: true` to set the `preload` flag,
        indicating that your site may be included in browser preload lists,
        including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE11, and Edge. Submit your site:
          https://hstspreload.appspot.com

    *Jeremy Daer*

*   Update `ActionController::TestSession#fetch` to behave more like
    `ActionDispatch::Request::Session#fetch` when using non-string keys.

    *Jeremy Friesen*

*   Using strings or symbols for middleware class names is deprecated. Convert
    things like this:

      middleware.use "Foo::Bar"

    to this:

      middleware.use Foo::Bar

*   `ActionController::TestSession` now accepts a default value as well as
    a block for generating a default value based off the key provided.

    This fixes calls to `session#fetch` in `ApplicationController` instances that
    take more two arguments or a block from raising `ArgumentError: wrong
    number of arguments (2 for 1)` when performing controller tests.

    *Matthew Gerrior*

*   Fix `ActionController::Parameters#fetch` overwriting `KeyError` returned by
    default block.

    *Jonas Schuber Erlandsson*, *Roque Pinel*

*   `ActionController::Parameters` no longer inherits from
    `HashWithIndifferentAccess`

    Inheriting from `HashWithIndifferentAccess` allowed users to call any
    enumerable methods on `Parameters` object, resulting in a risk of losing the
    `permitted?` status or even getting back a pure `Hash` object instead of
    a `Parameters` object with proper sanitization.

    By not inheriting from `HashWithIndifferentAccess`, we are able to make
    sure that all methods that are defined in `Parameters` object will return
    a proper `Parameters` object with a correct `permitted?` flag.

    *Prem Sichanugrist*

*   Replaced `ActiveSupport::Concurrency::Latch` with `Concurrent::CountDownLatch`
    from the concurrent-ruby gem.

    *Jerry D'Antonio*

*   Add ability to filter parameters based on parent keys.

        # matches {credit_card: {code: "xxxx"}}
        # doesn't match {file: { code: "xxxx"}}
        config.filter_parameters += [ "credit_card.code" ]

    See #13897.

    *Guillaume Malette*

*   Deprecate passing first parameter as `Hash` and default status code for `head` method.

    *Mehmet Emin İNAÇ*

*   Adds`Rack::Utils::ParameterTypeError` and `Rack::Utils::InvalidParameterError`
    to the rescue_responses hash in `ExceptionWrapper` (Rack recommends
    integrators serve 400s for both of these).

    *Grey Baker*

*   Add support for API only apps.
    `ActionController::API` is added as a replacement of
    `ActionController::Base` for this kind of applications.

    *Santiago Pastorino*, *Jorge Bejar*

*   Remove `assigns` and `assert_template`. Both methods have been extracted
    into a gem at https://github.com/rails/rails-controller-testing.

    See #18950.

    *Alan Guo Xiang Tan*

*   `FileHandler` and `Static` middleware initializers accept `index` argument
    to configure the directory index file name. Defaults to `index` (as in
    `index.html`).

    See #20017.

    *Eliot Sykes*

*   Deprecate `:nothing` option for `render` method.

    *Mehmet Emin İNAÇ*

*   Fix `rake routes` not showing the right format when
    nesting multiple routes.

    See #18373.

    *Ravil Bayramgalin*

*   Add ability to override default form builder for a controller.

        class AdminController < ApplicationController
          default_form_builder AdminFormBuilder
        end

    *Kevin McPhillips*

*   For actions with no corresponding templates, render `head :no_content`
    instead of raising an error. This allows for slimmer API controller
    methods that simply work, without needing further instructions.

    See #19036.

    *Stephen Bussey*

*   Provide friendlier access to request variants.

        request.variant = :phone
        request.variant.phone?  # true
        request.variant.tablet? # false

        request.variant = [:phone, :tablet]
        request.variant.phone?                  # true
        request.variant.desktop?                # false
        request.variant.any?(:phone, :desktop)  # true
        request.variant.any?(:desktop, :watch)  # false

    *George Claghorn*

*   Fix regression where a gzip file response would have a Content-type,
    even when it was a 304 status code.

    See #19271.

    *Kohei Suzuki*

*   Fix handling of empty `X_FORWARDED_HOST` header in `raw_host_with_port`.

    Previously, an empty `X_FORWARDED_HOST` header would cause
    `Actiondispatch::Http:URL.raw_host_with_port` to return `nil`, causing
    `Actiondispatch::Http:URL.host` to raise a `NoMethodError`.

    *Adam Forsyth*

*   Allow `Bearer` as token-keyword in `Authorization-Header`.

    Additionally to `Token`, the keyword `Bearer` is acceptable as a keyword
    for the auth-token. The `Bearer` keyword is described in the original
    OAuth RFC and used in libraries like Angular-JWT.

    See #19094.

    *Peter Schröder*

*   Drop request class from `RouteSet` constructor.

    If you would like to use a custom request class, please subclass and implement
    the `request_class` method.

    *tenderlove@ruby-lang.org*

*   Fallback to `ENV['RAILS_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT']` in `url_for`.

    Fixed an issue where the `RAILS_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT` environment variable is not
    prepended to the path when `url_for` is called. If `SCRIPT_NAME` (used by Rack)
    is set, it takes precedence.

    Fixes #5122.

    *Yasyf Mohamedali*

*   Partitioning of routes is now done when the routes are being drawn. This
    helps to decrease the time spent filtering the routes during the first request.

    *Guo Xiang Tan*

*   Fix regression in functional tests. Responses should have default headers
    assigned.

    See #18423.

    *Jeremy Kemper*, *Yves Senn*

*   Deprecate `AbstractController#skip_action_callback` in favor of individual skip_callback methods
    (which can be made to raise an error if no callback was removed).

    *Iain Beeston*

*   Alias the `ActionDispatch::Request#uuid` method to `ActionDispatch::Request#request_id`.
    Due to implementation, `config.log_tags = [:request_id]` also works in substitute
    for `config.log_tags = [:uuid]`.

    *David Ilizarov*

*   Change filter on /rails/info/routes to use an actual path regexp from rails
    and not approximate javascript version. Oniguruma supports much more
    extensive list of features than javascript regexp engine.

    Fixes #18402.

    *Ravil Bayramgalin*

*   Non-string authenticity tokens do not raise NoMethodError when decoding
    the masked token.

    *Ville Lautanala*

*   Add `http_cache_forever` to Action Controller, so we can cache a response
    that never gets expired.

    *arthurnn*

*   `ActionController#translate` supports symbols as shortcuts.
    When a shortcut is given it also performs the lookup without the action
    name.

    *Max Melentiev*

*   Expand `ActionController::ConditionalGet#fresh_when` and `stale?` to also
    accept a collection of records as the first argument, so that the
    following code can be written in a shorter form.

        # Before
        def index
          @articles = Article.all
          fresh_when(etag: @articles, last_modified: @articles.maximum(:updated_at))
        end

        # After
        def index
          @articles = Article.all
          fresh_when(@articles)
        end

    *claudiob*

*   Explicitly ignored wildcard verbs when searching for HEAD routes before fallback

    Fixes an issue where a mounted rack app at root would intercept the HEAD
    request causing an incorrect behavior during the fall back to GET requests.

    Example:

        draw do
            get '/home' => 'test#index'
            mount rack_app, at: '/'
        end
        head '/home'
        assert_response :success

    In this case, a HEAD request runs through the routes the first time and fails
    to match anything. Then, it runs through the list with the fallback and matches
    `get '/home'`. The original behavior would match the rack app in the first pass.

    *Terence Sun*

*   Migrating xhr methods to keyword arguments syntax
    in `ActionController::TestCase` and `ActionDispatch::Integration`

    Old syntax:

        xhr :get, :create, params: { id: 1 }

    New syntax example:

        get :create, params: { id: 1 }, xhr: true

    *Kir Shatrov*

*   Migrating to keyword arguments syntax in `ActionController::TestCase` and
    `ActionDispatch::Integration` HTTP request methods.

    Example:

        post :create, params: { y: x }, session: { a: 'b' }
        get :view, params: { id: 1 }
        get :view, params: { id: 1 }, format: :json

    *Kir Shatrov*

*   Preserve default url options when generating URLs.

    Fixes an issue that would cause `default_url_options` to be lost when
    generating URLs with fewer positional arguments than parameters in the
    route definition.

    *Tekin Suleyman*

*   Deprecate `*_via_redirect` integration test methods.

    Use `follow_redirect!` manually after the request call for the same behavior.

    *Aditya Kapoor*

*   Add `ActionController::Renderer` to render arbitrary templates
    outside controller actions.

    Its functionality is accessible through class methods `render` and
    `renderer` of `ActionController::Base`.

    *Ravil Bayramgalin*

*   Support `:assigns` option when rendering with controllers/mailers.

    *Ravil Bayramgalin*

*   Default headers, removed in controller actions, are no longer reapplied on
    the test response.

    *Jonas Baumann*

*   Deprecate all `*_filter` callbacks in favor of `*_action` callbacks.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Allow you to pass `prepend: false` to `protect_from_forgery` to have the
    verification callback appended instead of prepended to the chain.
    This allows you to let the verification step depend on prior callbacks.

    Example:

        class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
          before_action :authenticate
          protect_from_forgery prepend: false, unless: -> { @authenticated_by.oauth? }

          private
            def authenticate
              if oauth_request?
                # authenticate with oauth
                @authenticated_by = 'oauth'.inquiry
              else
                # authenticate with cookies
                @authenticated_by = 'cookie'.inquiry
              end
            end
        end

    *Josef Šimánek*

*   Remove `ActionController::HideActions`.

    *Ravil Bayramgalin*

*   Remove `respond_to`/`respond_with` placeholder methods, this functionality
    has been extracted to the `responders` gem.

    *Carlos Antonio da Silva*

*   Remove deprecated assertion files.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated usage of string keys in URL helpers.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated `only_path` option on `*_path` helpers.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated `NamedRouteCollection#helpers`.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated support to define routes with `:to` option that doesn't contain `#`.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated `ActionDispatch::Response#to_ary`.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated `ActionDispatch::Request#deep_munge`.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated `ActionDispatch::Http::Parameters#symbolized_path_parameters`.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Remove deprecated option `use_route` in controller tests.

    *Rafael Mendonça França*

*   Ensure `append_info_to_payload` is called even if an exception is raised.

    Fixes an issue where when an exception is raised in the request the additional
    payload data is not available.

    See #14903.

    *Dieter Komendera*, *Margus Pärt*

*   Correctly rely on the response's status code to handle calls to `head`.

    *Robin Dupret*

*   Using `head` method returns empty response_body instead
    of returning a single space " ".

    The old behavior was added as a workaround for a bug in an early
    version of Safari, where the HTTP headers are not returned correctly
    if the response body has a 0-length. This is been fixed since and
    the workaround is no longer necessary.

    Fixes #18253.

    *Prathamesh Sonpatki*

*   Fix how polymorphic routes works with objects that implement `to_model`.

    *Travis Grathwell*

*   Stop converting empty arrays in `params` to `nil`.

    This behavior was introduced in response to CVE-2012-2660, CVE-2012-2694
    and CVE-2013-0155

    ActiveRecord now issues a safe query when passing an empty array into
    a where clause, so there is no longer a need to defend against this type
    of input (any nils are still stripped from the array).

    *Chris Sinjakli*

*   Fixed usage of optional scopes in url helpers.

    *Alex Robbin*

*   Fixed handling of positional url helper arguments when `format: false`.

    Fixes #17819.

    *Andrew White*, *Tatiana Soukiassian*

Please check [4-2-stable](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/4-2-stable/actionpack/CHANGELOG.md) for previous changes.