Script Breaking Changes in Recent Versions

This page contains a list of all changes made in recent updates that will almost certainly break existing scripts. Please read this list carefully when upgrading if you have not been keeping up with developments in the beta versions. If any of these issues affect you then you will need to modify your scripts.

15th January, 2010 - v3.3.4.0

Some of the following features are deprecated. Deprecated features are no longer documented but continue to work. Deprecated features will be removed after version 3.3.4.0. It is strongly recommended that scripts relying on deprecated features be updated to work with the new behavior. Some features have already been removed and will be noted as such.

AutoIt:

• The raw reading mode for FileOpen() has been removed.
• InetGet("abort"), @InetGetActive and @InetGetBytesRead have been removed. The following list shows the new functions used to access the old behavior:
  • InetGet("abort") - Calling the new InetClose() function with a handle returned from InetGet() will abort a download.
  • @InetGetActive - Calling the new InetGetInfo() function with no parameters returns a count of active downloads.
  • @InetGetBytesRead - Calling the new InetGetInfo() function with a handle returned from InetGet()will return the bytes read (and more) for a download.
• AdlibEnable() and AdlibDisable() have been removed. See the new functions AdlibRegister() and AdlibUnRegister().
• OnAutoItStart() has been removed. See the new pre-processor statement #OnAutoItStartRegister.
• OnAutoItExit() has been removed. See the new functions OnAutoItExitRegister() and OnAutoItExitUnregister().

18th Dec, 2009 - v3.3.2.0

Some of the following features are deprecated. Deprecated features are no longer documented but continue to work. Deprecated features will be removed after version 3.3.2.0. It is strongly recommended that scripts relying on deprecated features be updated to work with the new behavior. Some features have already been removed and will be noted as such.

AutoIt:

• ShellExecute() and ShellExecuteWait() no longer use the "open" verb by default. See the remarks section for those functions for more details.
• The return value of InetGet() has changed. It is important to read and understand the changes because it is possible to leak resources if InetGet() is used incorrectly.
• InetGet("abort"), @InetGetActive and @InetGetBytesRead are now deprecated. The following list shows the new functions used to access the old behavior:
  • InetGet("abort") - Calling the new InetClose() function with a handle returned from InetGet() will abort a download.
  • @InetGetActive - Calling the new InetGetInfo() function with no parameters returns a count of active downloads.
  • @InetGetBytesRead - Calling the new InetGetInfo() function with a handle returned from InetGet()will return the bytes read (and more) for a download.
• The FtpBinaryMode option set with AutoItSetOption() has been removed. Now InetGet() takes a flag to specify the transfer mode.
• The URLDownloadToFile() alias for InetGet() has been removed.
• AdlibEnable() and AdlibDisable() are deprecated. See the new functions AdlibRegister() and AdlibUnRegister().
• OnAutoItStart() is deprecated. See the new pre-processor statement #OnAutoItStartRegister.
• OnAutoItExit() is deprecated. See the new functions OnAutoItExitRegister() and OnAutoItExitUnregister().
• The AutoItSetOption() option OnExitFunc has been removed. See the new functions OnAutoItExitRegister() and OnAutoItExitUnregister().
• GUICreate() with $WS_EX_MDICHILD has been fixed to be relative to client area as documented.
• ProcessWait() now returns a PID instead of 1 on success.
• WinWait(), WinWaitActive(), WinActivate(), WinActive() and WinMove() now return an HWND instead of 1 on success.
• The macro @YDAY now uses the range 001 - 366 instead of 1 - 366. This makes the macro more consistent with other languages (like C/C++) and more consistent with all other date related macros which return strings with leading 0s to pad the length.
• RegEnumKey() and RegEnumVal() now return an empty string instead of an error message.

UDFs:

• The last optional parameter for _StringBetween() has been removed.
• _StringAddThousandsSep() has been removed. There are too many opinions on what this function should do and too many revisions of this function have been made.
• _SQLite_SaveMode() has been renamed to _SQLite_SafeMode().

24th December, 2008 - v3.3.0.0

AutoIt:

• Windows 9x and Windows NT 4.0 Operating System support has been removed. Use v3.2.12.1 of AutoIt if you really need this.
• @ProcessorArch changed to @OSArch as it was misleading.
• RegRead() and RegWrite() no longer use hex strings for REG_BINARY types - native binary datatypes are enforced.

AutoItX:

• The native version of the DLL now exclusively uses Unicode strings (LPWSTR and LPCWTSR). If you really need ANSI strings then continue to use v3.2.12.1. The easiest workaround though is to use a "wrapper" function to simply convert between Unicode and ANSI. A limited selection of functions (WinWait... and Send) have an ANSI version but it is not intended to add ANSI versions for any others unless there is a large demand.

UDFs:

• N/A

16th May, 2008 - v3.2.12.0

AutoIt:

• RunAsSet() has been removed. Use the new RunAs() and RunAsWait() functions instead. They have been enhanced with slightly better security (It is still not recommended to store important passwords in your scripts) and more functionality.
• The option RunErrorsFatal has been removed. Run(), RunWait(), ShellExecute() and ShellExecuteWait() now all set @error when they fail to run the application. AutoIt will no longer throw a fatal error when an application fails to run.
• StdoutRead(), StderrRead() and ConsoleRead() have undergone significant changes. They no longer block, they return immediately. The parameters have changed as well. It's no longer possible to read count parameters. The peek parameter has moved to the second parameter. The third parameter now specifies you want the data to be returned in binary format (default is text). The macro @extended now holds the number of bytes/characters read.
• StdinWrite(), ConsoleWrite() and ConsoleWriteError() will now behave differently when given binary data. The binary data is written as-is instead of converting it to a string. Also, the return value from these functions is the number of bytes written instead of a generic value of 1.
• Removed: ColorMode option ( Opt() ).
• Fixed: Random(Min,Max,1). Previously this would never actually return Max, so if Max was artificially incremented by one the script will now need to be changed.

UDFs:

(Please see this forum thread for more details and help with these changes.)

• GUIConstants.au3 is identical to GUIConstantsEx.au3. This means that many scripts using advanced GUI functionality will need to use additional #include statements to include files containing constants that were previously and erroneously included.
• GUIDefaultConstants.au3 no longer exists. You must now #include the corresponding individual constants file for the control type you need. For example, ListBoxConstants.au3, ComboConstants.au3, EditConstants.au3, etc.
• _ArrayCreate() documentation has been removed. The function is still present but may be removed at a later time. Scripts should be updated to use the array initialization syntax built into AutoIt.

25th November, 2007 - v3.2.10.0

AutoIt

• DllCall(): short_ptr, long_ptr, int_ptr types deprecated. Use short*, long* and int* respectively.

UDFs

• _GUICtrlXXXYYY() have been renamed _GUICtrlXXX_YYY() without any functional changes see UDF renaming.