Deprecated and removed features

Features listed in this section should no longer be used, because they are considered obsolete and may get removed in a future release

Features listed on this page should no longer be used because they have been deprecated and may get removed in a future release, or have been removed already and are thus no longer available.

Deprecated features are still available for backward compatibility, but you should update your applications to prepare for upgrades of ArangoDB that may remove the features. There are usually alternatives to replace the old features with.

This page only lists significant obsolete features but not minor API changes. See the Release notes of the respective versions for detailed information about breaking changes before upgrading.

  • VelocyStream protocol: ArangoDB’s own bi-directional asynchronous binary protocol VelocyStream (VST) is deprecated in v3.11 and removed in v3.12.0. Use JSON or VelocyPack over the HTTP(S) protocol instead.

  • Little-endian on-disk key format for the RocksDB storage engine:

    The little-endian on-disk key format for the RocksDB storage engine is deprecated and support will be removed in v3.12. Parallel index creation and the --use-experimental-dump arangodump option are only available in v3.11 for deployments that use the big-endian format, which is the default since v3.4.

    Only deployments that were set up with the RocksDB storage engine using ArangoDB v3.2 or v3.3 and that have been upgraded since then are affected.

  • Pregel features: The following features have been deprecated or removed from Pregel in v3.11:

    • The experimental Custom Pregel feature, also known as programmable Pregel algorithms (PPA), has been removed.

    • The built-in DMID Pregel algorithm has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

    • The async option for Pregel jobs has been removed.

    • The useMemoryMaps option for Pregel jobs to use memory-mapped files as a backing storage for large datasets has been removed.

  • Cloud Migration Tool: The arangosync-migration tool to move from on-premises to the cloud is not available anymore.

  • Leader/Follower Deployment Mode: The Leader/Follower deployment mode is deprecated and already removed from documentation. Active Failover and OneShard databases in clusters are better alternatives.

  • Skiplist and hash indexes: Skiplist and hash indexes have been deprecated in 3.9 and will be removed in a future version of ArangoDB. Currently, they are an alias for a persistent index.

  • Bundled NPM modules: The bundled NPM modules aqb, chai, dedent, error-stack-parser, graphql-sync, highlight.js, i (inflect), iconv-lite, joi, js-yaml, lodash, minimatch, qs, semver, sinon, and timezone have been deprecated in 3.9 and will be removed in a future version of ArangoDB. If you want to use NPM modules in your Foxx service, please refer to the Foxx guide.

  • Batch Requests API: The batch request REST API is deprecated and will be removed in a future version. Instead of using this API, please use the HTTP interface for documents that can insert, update, replace or remove arrays of documents.

  • PUT method in Cursor API: The HTTP endpoint PUT /_api/cursor/<cursor-id> in the Cursor REST API is deprecated and will be removed in a future version. Please use the drop-in replacement POST /_api/cursor/<cursor-id> instead. The POST endpoint is functionally equivalent to the PUT endpoint, but does not violate idempotency requirements prescribed by the HTTP specification .

  • Fulltext indexes: The fulltext index type is deprecated from version 3.10 onwards. It is recommended to use ArangoSearch for advanced full-text search capabilities.

  • Simple Queries: Idiomatic interface in arangosh to perform trivial queries. They are superseded by AQL queries, which can also be run in arangosh. AQL is a language on its own and way more powerful than Simple Queries could ever be. In fact, the (still supported) Simple Queries are translated internally to AQL, then the AQL query is optimized and run against the database in recent versions, because of better performance and reduced maintenance complexity.

  • Accessing collections by ID instead of by name: Accessing collections by their internal ID instead of accessing them by name is deprecated and highly discouraged. This functionality may be removed in future versions of ArangoDB.

  • Old metrics REST API: The old metrics API under /_admin/metrics is deprecated and replaced by a new one under /_admin/metrics/v2 from version 3.8.0 on. This step was necessary because the old API did not follow quite a few Prometheus guidelines for metrics.

  • Statistics REST API: The endpoints /_admin/statistics and /_admin/statistics-description are deprecated in favor of the new metrics API under /_admin/metrics/v2. The metrics API provides a lot more information than the statistics API, so it is much more useful.

  • Database target version REST API: The GET /_admin/database/target-version endpoint is deprecated in favor of the more general version API with the endpoint GET /_api/version. The endpoint may be removed in a future version of ArangoDB.

  • Replication logger-follow REST API: The endpoint /_api/replication/logger-follow is deprecated since 3.4.0 and may be removed in a future version. Client applications should use the REST API endpoint /_api/wal/tail instead, which is available since ArangoDB 3.3.

  • Loading and unloading of collections: The JavaScript functions for explicitly loading and unloading collections, db.<collection-name>.load() and db.<collection-name>.unload() and their REST API endpoints PUT /_api/collection/<collection-name>/load and PUT /_api/collection/<collection-name>/unload are deprecated in 3.8. There should be no need to explicitly load or unload a collection with the RocksDB storage engine. The load/unload functionality was useful only with the MMFiles storage engine, which is not available anymore since 3.7.

  • Actions: Snippets of JavaScript code on the server-side for minimal custom endpoints. Since the Foxx revamp in 3.0, it became really easy to write Foxx Microservices, which allow you to define custom endpoints even with complex business logic.

    From v3.5.0 on, the system collections _routing and _modules are not created anymore when the _system database is first created (blank new data folder). They are not actively removed, they remain on upgrade or backup restoration from previous versions.

  • Outdated AQL functions: The following AQL functions are deprecated and their usage is discouraged:

    • IS_IN_POLYGON
    • NEAR
    • WITHIN
    • WITHIN_RECTANGLE

    See Geo functions for substitutes.

  • bfs option in AQL graph traversal: Using the bfs attribute inside traversal options is deprecated since v3.8.0. The preferred way to start a breadth-first traversal is by using the new order attribute, and setting it to a value of bfs.

  • overwrite option: The overwrite option for insert operations (either single document operations or AQL INSERT operations) is deprecated in favor of the overwriteMode option, which provides more flexibility.

  • minReplicationFactor collection option: The minReplicationFactor option for collections has been renamed to writeConcern. If minReplicationFactor is specified and no writeConcern is set, the minReplicationFactor value will still be picked up and used as writeConcern value. However, this compatibility mode will be removed eventually, so changing applications from using minReplicationFactor to writeConcern is advised.

  • Outdated startup options

    The following arangod startup options are deprecated and will be removed in a future version:

    • --database.old-system-collections (no need to use it anymore)
    • --server.jwt-secret (use --server.jwt-secret-keyfile)
    • --arangosearch.threads / --arangosearch.threads-limit (use the following options instead):
      • --arangosearch.commit-threads
      • --arangosearch.commit-threads-idle
      • --arangosearch.consolidation-threads
      • --arangosearch.consolidation-threads-idle
    • --rocksdb.exclusive-writes (was intended only as a stopgap measure to make porting applications from MMFiles to RocksDB easier)
    • --http.allow-method-override: this option allows incoming HTTP POST request to override the actual HTTP method used by setting one of the special HTTP headers x-http-method, x-method-override or x-http-method-override. This was originally intended for very restricted callers, which only supported HTTP GET and HTTP POST, but seems very unnecessary nowadays. The functionality will be removed in ArangoDB 3.12.
    • --http.hide-product-header: whether or not to hide the Server: ArangoDB header in all responses served by arangod. The functionality will be removed in ArangoDB 3.12.
    • --network.protocol: network protocol to use for cluster-internal communication. The protocol will be auto-decided from version 3.9 onwards.
    • --query.allow-collections-in-expressions: allow full collections to be used in AQL expressions. This option defaults to false from version 3.9 onwards and will be removed in a future version. It is only useful to enable it when migrating from older versions.

    The following options are deprecated for arangorestore:

    • --default-number-of-shards (use --number-of-shards instead)
    • --default-replication-factor (use --replication-factor instead)

    The following options are deprecated for arangodump:

    • --envelope: setting this option to true previously wrapped every dumped document into a {data, type} envelope. This was useful for the MMFiles storage engine, where dumps could also include document removals. With the RocksDB storage engine, the envelope only caused overhead and increased the size of the dumps. The default value of --envelope was changed to false in ArangoDB 3.9 already, so by default all arangodump invocations since then create non-envelope dumps.
    • --tick-start: setting this option allowed to restrict the dumped data to some time range with the MMFiles storage engine. It has no effect for the RocksDB storage engine.
    • --tick-end: setting this option allowed to restrict the dumped data to some time range with the MMFiles storage engine. It has no effect for the RocksDB storage engine.

    The following startup options are deprecated in arangod and all client tools:

    • --log (use --log.level instead)
    • --log.use-local-time (use --log.time-format instead)
    • --log.use-microtime (use --log.time-format instead)
    • --log.performance (use --log.level instead)

  • Obsoleted startup options: Any startup options marked as obsolete can be removed in any future version of ArangoDB, so their usage is highly discouraged. Their functionality is already removed, but they still exist to prevent unknown startup option errors.

  • arangoimp executable: ArangoDB release packages install an executable named arangoimp as an alias for the arangoimport executable. This is done to provide compatibility with older releases, in which arangoimport did not yet exist and was named arangoimp. The renaming was actually carried out in the codebase in December 2017. Using the arangoimp executable is deprecated, and it is always favorable to use arangoimport instead. While the arangoimport executable will remain, the arangoimp alias will be removed in a future version of ArangoDB.

  • HTTP and JavaScript traversal APIs: The HTTP traversal API is deprecated since version 3.4.0. The JavaScript traversal module @arangodb/graph/traversal is also deprecated since then. The preferred way to traverse graphs is via AQL.

  • JavaScript-based AQL graph functions: The following JavaScript-based AQL graph functions are deprecated:

    • arangodb::GRAPH_EDGES
    • arangodb::GRAPH_VERTICES
    • arangodb::GRAPH_NEIGHBORS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_COMMON_NEIGHBORS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_COMMON_PROPERTIES
    • arangodb::GRAPH_PATHS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_SHORTEST_PATH
    • arangodb::GRAPH_DISTANCE_TO
    • arangodb::GRAPH_ABSOLUTE_ECCENTRICITY
    • arangodb::GRAPH_ECCENTRICITY
    • arangodb::GRAPH_ABSOLUTE_CLOSENESS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_CLOSENESS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_ABSOLUTE_BETWEENNESS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_BETWEENNESS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_RADIUS
    • arangodb::GRAPH_DIAMETER

    These functions will be removed in ArangoDB 3.12.

  • Specialized index creation methods in JavaScript API: The following JavaScript methods for creating indexes from the ArangoShell (arangosh) or from within Foxx are deprecated:

    • collection.ensureHashIndex(...)
    • collection.ensureUniqueConstraint(...)
    • collection.ensureSkiplist(...)
    • collection.ensureUniqueSkiplist(...)
    • collection.ensureFulltextIndex(...)
    • collection.ensureGeoIndex(...)
    • collection.ensureGeoConstraint(...)

    Instead of using these methods, you should use the generic collection.ensureIndex(...) method, which provides a superset of all the deprecated methods. Also see Creating an index.