Release 4.2.0

OpenFastTrace 4.2.0, released 2025-06-22

Code name: Markdown code blocks

Summary

In this release we changed the behavior of the Markdown importer so that if we are inside a code block, no OFT specification items are found. This is a corner case, but we think that this behavior is what users would expect (#480).

We also added a whole section about understanding and fixing broken links between specification items to the user guide.

The new token oft:on|off allows switching off OFT parsing for certain text passages in Markdown and RST documents.

The Central Repository changed its deployment mechanism. We adapted the project accordingly.

Finally, we updated test dependencies and Maven plugins.

Features

• #437: Upgrade build and test dependencies on top of 4.1.0
• #480: Ignore specification items inside Markdown code blocks

Documentation

• #427: Removed old CHANGELOG.md file and merged missing parts into release history.
• #431: Documented "unwanted coverage" in user guide.
• #449: Fix parsing past the end of a "needs" paragraph.
• #440: Added Tag importer support for TOML files.
• #442: Added support for JavaScript file extensions .cjs, .mjs and .ejs

Refactoring

• #452: Migrated Deployment to the new "Central Repository" mechanism
• #454: Fixed deployment to Maven Central

4.1.0: Third-party plugins

OpenFastTrace 4.1.0, released 2024-08-11

Code name: Third-party plugins

Summary

This release adds support for loading third-party plugins from external JAR files. See the documentation for details:

• Installation
• Plugin developer guide

The release also adds command line option --log-level that allows configuring the log level. Possible values are OFF, SEVERE, WARNING, INFO, CONFIG, FINE, FINER, FINEST, ALL. The default log level is WARNING.

The release also adds support for using Gherkin feature files with OFT, thanks to @sophokles73 for his contribution!

Features

• #413: Added support for third-party plugins
• #425: Add support for reading Tags from Gherkin feature files (@sophokles73)

4.0.2: Fix usability of HTML report

This release updates the HTML report so that jumping to anchored tags does no longer hide the target section under the navbar. Thanks to @RobertZickler for fixing this!

The release also fixes some inconsistencies in the documentation and in error messages reported by @RobertZickler:

• OFT now reports the exact name for unexpected parameters instead of removing dashes and converting it to lower case.
• The user guide now also lists aspec as possible option for --output-format
• The user guide now shows the correct option --report-verbosity instead of --verbosity-level
• The user guide example command line for generating an Aspec tracing report fixes a typo in the reporter name aspac instead of aspec

Bugfixes

• #420: Fix jumping in HTML reports (@RobertZickler)
• #419: Fixed inconsistencies in documentation and error messages (reported by @RobertZickler)

Release 4.0.1: Allow numbers after dots in specification item names

This release allows using specification item names with dots . followed by numbers, e.g. req~SR.AB.1.1.1~1. We also updated the relevant section in the user guide. Thanks to @RobertZickler for reporting this!

Bugfixes

• #417: Allow numbers after dots in specification item names (reported by @RobertZickler)

4.0.0: RST Importer

Good news for our 🐍 Python friends: in this release we derived a parser for Restructured Text (RST) from our existing Markdown parser.

The Markdown parser in the process now accepts specification item titles underlined with either "=" (H1) or "-" (H2).

Also, the Markdown parser now ignores whitespace in Needs and Tags entries and correctly parses Tags at the start of a requirement item.

The test coverage for the Markdown importer is now at 100%, and we were able to remove tests that were done with mocks in favor or more robust low-level integration tests.

We also improved detection of requirement forwarding markup:

currentArtifactType-->forwaredTo:originalArtifactType~name~revision

This now works directly after:

1. Markdown title
2. "Needs" section
3. "Depends" section
4. "Covers" section
5. "Tags" section

Breaking Changes

Java 17

We dropped support for Java 11 for a couple of reasons:

1. Oracle JDK does not support version 11 anymore
2. AdoptJDK will likely end support for version 11 in September 2024
3. Most machines now come preinstalled with 17 or later
4. Java 17 has a couple of features that allow for cleaner, safer and more readable code

Removed Deprecated Elektrobit-proprietary Specification Item ID Format

Support for the previously deprecated Elektrobit-proprietary specification item ID format

req:name, v1

has now been removed from the Markdown format. Please migrate to OFT's native format:

req~name~1

Features

• #378: Added an RST importer
• #412: Added automatic release for Maven Central and GitHub

3.8.0: Importer Improvements

Summary

In this release we derived a parser for Restructured Text (RST) from our existing Markdown parser.

The Markdown parser in the process now accepts specification item titles underlined with either "=" (H1) or "-" (H2).

Also, the Markdown parser now ignores whitespace in Needs and Tags entries and correctly parses Tags at the start of a requirement item.

The test coverage for the Markdown importer is now at 100%, and we were able to remove tests that were done with mocks in favor or more robust low-level integration tests.

The HTML report now allows expanding all details sections with command line option --details-section-display expand.

Now you can also specify a revision for coverage tags instead of the default revision 0, e.g. [impl~~42->req~example_name~17].

Features

• #378: Added an RST importer
• #377: Allow expanding the details sections in the HTML report
• #379: Allow specifying a revision for coverage tags
• #394: Import coverage tags from .yml files in addition to .yaml

Bugfixes

• #366: Allow all unicode characters in names of specification ID names (thanks to @sebastianohl for the bug report!)
• #373: Ignore spaces after items in "Needs:" and "Tags:" lists (thanks to @sambishop for his contribution!)
• #378: Merged integration test coverage with unit test coverage for representative overall figure
• #303: Escape special characters in HTML report to avoid broken HTML when a specification item contains text like <section>
• #391: Fixed reading files with invalid encoding (thanks to @ayankuma for the bug report!)

Refactoring

• #222: Fixed Java compiler warnings

3.7.1: Bugfixes on top of 3.7.0

This release fixes a couple of little bugs:

• Logo transparency

Bugfixes

• #359: Fixed transparency in the "O" of the OFT logo
• #356: Fixed warning in CI build

Refactoring

• #256: Refactored unit tests to avoid lenient mocks where possible

3.7.0: Improved console report and Typescript support

OpenFastTrace 3.7.0, released 2023-01-04

Code name: Improved console report and Typescript support

Summary

In this release we added support for JavaScript (.js) and TypeScript files (.ts) to the TagImporter.

The plain text report (aka "console report") got an overhaul to improve readability. We added optional color and font formatting output.
We also reworked how the tracing results are presented in order to make the report more intuitive.

The new change log now has one file per version to make maintaining and reading it easier.

Features

• #338: Improved console report
• #351: Added support for importing tags from Terraform files, thanks to g-psantos!

Bugfixes

• #308: Fixed running unit tests under macOS, Jacoco code coverage and integration tests
• #344: Added JavaScript (js.) and TypeScript files (.ts) to the TagImporter

Refactoring

• #299: Added XML namespace support to SpecObject importer
• #336: Added provides tags to module-info.java files required by the service loader
• #340: Added builds for macOS and Windows
• #341: Renamed develop branch to main and deleted master
• #342: Switched change log format to Project Keeper standard
• #344: Added support for Java 18

3.6.0: Support C# and Robot Framework

[3.6.0] - 2022-08-21

Added

• Added support for C# files with postfix .cs #326 / PR #327
• Added support for Robot Framework with postfix .robot #302 / PR #332
• Upload self-tracing report to GitHub Action result #246 / PR #333
• Added module-info.java files to support Java modules #334

Refactoring

• Fixed static code analysis warnings in unit tests PR #329
• Upgrade test and build dependencies PR #330
• Removed license headers from sources and license-maven-plugin PR #331

Version 3.5.0: Use readable names for imported tags with needed coverage

[3.5.0] - 2022-03-17

Updated

• Use readable names for imported tags with needed coverage #315 / PR #316

Added

• Added help command that prints CLI usage instructions PR #317

Documentation

• Added info about reportsettings and reportToPath to user guide PR #305, thanks to jonathanvijayakumar for his contribution!