Migration Guide - 3.0

This guide is intended to help with upgrading from version 2.x ("github.com/newrelic/go-agent") to version 3.x ("github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic"). This information can also be found on our documentation website.

List of all changes
Checklist for upgrading

All Changes

Dropped support for Go versions < 1.7

The minimum required Go version to run the New Relic Go Agent is now 1.7.

Package names

The agent has been placed in a new /v3 directory, leaving the top level directory with the now deprecated v2 agent. More specifically:

The newrelic package has moved from "github.com/newrelic/go-agent" to "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic". This makes named imports unnecessary.
The underscore in the _integrations directory is removed. Thus the "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/_integrations/nrlogrus" import path becomes "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/integrations/nrlogrus". Some of the integration packages have had other changes as well:
- _integrations/nrawssdk/v1 moves to v3/integrations/nrawssdk-v1
- _integrations/nrawssdk/v2 moves to v3/integrations/nrawssdk-v2
- _integrations/nrgin/v1 moves to v3/integrations/nrgin
- _integrations/nrgorilla/v1 moves to v3/integrations/nrgorilla
- _integrations/nrlogxi/v1 moves to v3/integrations/nrlogxi
- _integrations/nrecho moves to v3/integrations/nrecho-v3 and a new v3/integrations/nrecho-v4 has been added to support Echo version 4.

Transaction Name Changes

Transaction names created by WrapHandle, WrapHandleFunc, nrecho-v3, nrecho-v4, nrgorilla, and nrgin now include the HTTP method. For example, the following code:

http.HandleFunc(newrelic.WrapHandleFunc(app, "/users", usersHandler))

now creates a metric called WebTransaction/Go/GET /users instead of WebTransaction/Go/users.

As a result of this change, you may need to update your alerts and dashboards.

Go modules

We have added go module support. The top level "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic" package now has a go.mod file. Separate go.mod files are also included with each integration in the integrations directory.

Configuration

NewConfig was removed and the NewApplication signature has changed to:

func NewApplication(opts ...ConfigOption) (*Application, error)

New ConfigOption functions are provided to modify the Config. Here's what your Application creation will look like:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    newrelic.ConfigAppName("My Application"),
    newrelic.ConfigLicense(os.Getenv("NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY")),
)

A complete list of ConfigOptions can be found in the Go Docs.

Config.TransactionTracer

The location of two Config fields have been moved. The Config.TransactionTracer.SegmentThreshold field has moved to Config.TransactionTracer.Segments.Threshold and the Config.TransactionTracer.StackTraceThreshold field has moved to to Config.TransactionTracer.Segments.StackTraceThreshold.

Remove API error return values

The following method signatures have changed to no longer return an error; instead the error is logged to the agent logs.

func (txn *Transaction) End() {...}
func (txn *Transaction) Ignore() {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetName(name string) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) NoticeError(err error) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) AddAttribute(key string, value interface{}) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetWebRequestHTTP(r *http.Request) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetWebRequest(r *WebRequest) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) AcceptDistributedTracePayload(t TransportType, payload interface{}) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) BrowserTimingHeader() *BrowserTimingHeader {...}
func (s *Segment) End() {...}
func (s *DatastoreSegment) End() {...}
func (s *ExternalSegment) End() {...}
func (s *MessageProducerSegment) End() {...}
func (app *Application) RecordCustomEvent(eventType string, params map[string]interface{}) {...}
func (app *Application) RecordCustomMetric(name string, value float64) {...}

`Application.StartTransaction` signature change

The signature of Application.StartTransaction has changed to no longer take a http.ResponseWriter or *http.Request. The new signature just takes a string for the transaction name:

func (app *Application) StartTransaction(name string) *Transaction

If you previously had code that used all three parameters, such as:

var writer http.ResponseWriter
var req *http.Request
txn := h.App.StartTransaction("server-txn", writer, req)

After the upgrade, it should look like this:

var writer http.ResponseWriter
var req *http.Request
txn := h.App.StartTransaction("server-txn")
writer = txn.SetWebResponse(writer)
txn.SetWebRequestHTTP(req)

Application and Transaction

Application and Transaction have changed from interfaces to structs. All methods on these types have pointer receivers. Methods on these types are now nil-safe. References to these types in your code will need a pointer added. See the checklist for examples.

Renamed attributes

Two attributes have been renamed. The old names will still be reported, but are deprecated and will be removed entirely in a future release.

Old (deprecated) attribute	New attribute
`httpResponseCode`	`http.statusCode`
`request.headers.User-Agent`	`request.headers.userAgent`

Since in v3.0 both the deprecated and the new attribute are being reported, if you have configured your application to ignore one or both of these attributes, such as with Config.Attributes.Exclude, you will now need to specify both the deprecated and the new attribute name in your configuration.

RecordPanics configuration option

This version introduces a new configuration option, Config.ErrorCollector.RecordPanics. This configuration controls whether or not a deferred Transaction.End will attempt to recover panics, record them as errors, and then re-panic them. By default, this is set to false. Previous versions of the agent always recovered panics, i.e. a default of true.

New config option for getting data from environment variables

Along with the new format for configuring an application, there is now an option to populate the configuration from environment variables. The full list of environment variables that are considered are included in the Go Docs. The new configuration function is used as follows:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(newrelic.ConfigFromEnvironment())

`Transaction` no longer implements `http.ResponseWriter`.

As mentioned above, the Application.StartTransaction no longer takes a http.ResponseWriter or http.Request; instead, after you start the transaction, you can set the ResponseWriter by calling Transaction.SetWebResponse:

txn := h.App.StartTransaction("server-txn")
writer = txn.SetWebResponse(writer)

The Transaction.SetWebResponse method now returns a replacement http.ResponseWriter that implements the combination of http.CloseNotifier, http.Flusher, http.Hijacker, and io.ReaderFrom implemented by the input http.ResponseWriter.

The `WebRequest` type has changed from an interface to a struct

WebRequest has changed from an interface to a struct, which can be created via code like this:

webReq := newrelic.WebRequest{
	Header:    hdrs,
	URL:       url,
	Method:    method,
	Transport: newrelic.TransportHTTP,
}

The Transaction.SetWebRequest method takes one of these structs.

`SetWebRequestHTTP` method added

In addition to the Transaction.SetWebRequest method discussed in the section above, we have added a method Transaction.SetWebRequestHTTP that takes an *http.Request and sets the appropriate fields.

As described in the earlier section, this can be used in your code as part of the signature change of Application.StartTransaction:

var writer http.ResponseWriter
var req *http.Request
txn := h.App.StartTransaction("server-txn")
writer = txn.SetWebResponse(writer)
txn.SetWebRequestHTTP(req)

`NewRoundTripper`

The transaction parameter to NewRoundTripper has been removed. The function signature is now:

func NewRoundTripper(t http.RoundTripper) http.RoundTripper

NewRoundTripper will look for a transaction in the request's context using FromContext.

Distributed Trace methods

When manually creating or accepting Distributed Tracing payloads, the method signatures have changed.

This Transaction.InsertDistributedTraceHeaders method will insert the Distributed Tracing headers into the http.Header object passed as a parameter:

func (txn *Transaction) InsertDistributedTraceHeaders(hdrs http.Header)

This Transaction.AcceptDistributedTraceHeaders method takes a TransportType and an http.Header object that contains Distributed Tracing header(s) and links this transaction to other transactions specified in the headers:

func (txn *Transaction) AcceptDistributedTraceHeaders(t TransportType, hdrs http.Header)

Additionally, the DistributedTracePayload struct is no longer needed and has been removed from the agent's API. Instead, distributed tracing information is passed around as key/value pairs in the http.Header object.

Several functions marked as deprecated

The functions StartSegmentNow and StartSegment have been marked as deprecated. The preferred new method of starting a segment have moved to Transaction.StartSegmentNow and Transaction.StartSegment respectively.

// DEPRECATED:
startTime := newrelic.StartSegmentNow(txn)
// and
sgmt := newrelic.StartSegment(txn, "segment1")

// NEW, PREFERRED WAY:
startTime := txn.StartSegmentNow()
// and
sgmt := txn.StartSegment("segment1")

Additionally the functions NewLogger and NewDebugLogger have been marked as deprecated. The preferred new method of configuring agent logging is using the ConfigInfoLogger and ConfigDebugLogger ConfigOptions respectively.

// DEPRECATED:
app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    func(cfg *newrelic.Config) {
        cfg.Logger = newrelic.NewLogger(os.Stdout)
    }
)

// or

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    func(cfg *newrelic.Config) {
        cfg.Logger = newrelic.NewDebugLogger(os.Stdout)
    }
)

// NEW, PREFERRED WAY:
app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    newrelic.ConfigInfoLogger(os.Stdout),
)

// or

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    newrelic.ConfigDebugLogger(os.Stdout),
)

Removed optional interfaces from error

The interfaces ErrorAttributer, ErrorClasser, StackTracer are no longer exported. Thus, if you have any code checking to ensure that your custom type fulfills these interfaces, that code will no longer work. Example:

// This will no longer compile.
type MyErrorType struct{}
var _ newrelic.ErrorAttributer = MyErrorType{}

Changed Distributed Tracing Constant

DistributedTracePayloadHeader has been changed to DistributedTraceNewRelicHeader.

`TransportType`

TransportType type is changed from a struct to a string.

Checklist for upgrading

Ensure your Go version is at least 1.7 (older versions are no longer supported).
Update imports. The v3.x agent now lives at "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic" and no longer requires a named import.

From:
```
import newrelic "github.com/newrelic/go-agent"
```
To:
```
import "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic"
```
Additionally, if you are using any integrations, they too have moved. Each has its own version which matches the version of the 3rd party package it supports.

From:
```
import "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/_integrations/nrlogrus"
```
To:
```
import "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/integrations/nrlogrus"
```

Update how you configure your application. The NewApplication function now accepts ConfigOptions a list of which can be found here. If a ConfigOption is not available for your setting, create one yourself!

From:

cfg := newrelic.NewConfig("appName", "__license__")
cfg.CrossApplicationTracer.Enabled = false
cfg.CustomInsightsEvents.Enabled = false
cfg.ErrorCollector.IgnoreStatusCodes = []int{404, 418}
cfg.DatastoreTracer.SlowQuery.Threshold = 3
cfg.DistributedTracer.Enabled = true
cfg.TransactionTracer.Threshold.Duration = 2
cfg.TransactionTracer.Threshold.IsApdexFailing = false
app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(cfg)

To:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    newrelic.ConfigAppName("appName"),
    newrelic.ConfigLicense("__license__"),
    func(cfg *newrelic.Config) {
        cfg.CrossApplicationTracer.Enabled = false
        cfg.CustomInsightsEvents.Enabled = false
        cfg.ErrorCollector.IgnoreStatusCodes = []int{404, 418}
        cfg.DatastoreTracer.SlowQuery.Threshold = 3
        cfg.DistributedTracer.Enabled = true
        cfg.TransactionTracer.Threshold.Duration = 2
        cfg.TransactionTracer.Threshold.IsApdexFailing = false
    },
)

You can use ConfigFromEnvironment to provide configuration from environment variables:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(newrelic.ConfigFromEnvironment())

Update the Transaction Tracer configuration. Change the fields for the two changed configuration options.

Old Config Field	New Config Field
`Config.TransactionTracer.SegmentThreshold`	`Config.TransactionTracer.Segments.Threshold`
`Config.TransactionTracer.StackTraceThreshold`	`Config.TransactionTracer.Segments.StackTraceThreshold`

If you choose, set the Config.ErrorCollector.RecordPanics configuration option. This is a new configuration option that controls whether or not a deferred Transaction.End will attempt to recover panics, record them as errors, and then re-panic them. Previously, the agent acted as though this option was set to true; with the new configuration it defaults to false. If you wish to maintain the old agent behavior with regards to panics, be sure to set this to true.

Update code to use the new Application.StartTransaction signature.

From:

txn := app.StartTransaction("name", nil, nil)

// or

// writer is an http.ResponseWriter
// req is an *http.Request
txn := app.StartTransaction("name", writer, req)
txn.WriteHeader(500)

To, respectively:

txn := app.StartTransaction("name")

// or

// writer is an http.ResponseWriter
// req is an *http.Request
txn:= app.StartTransaction("name")
writer = txn.SetWebResponse(writer)
txn.SetWebRequestHTTP(req)
writer.WriteHeader(500)

Notice too that the Transaction no longer fulfills the http.ResponseWriter interface. Instead, the writer returned from Transaction.SetWebResponse should be used.

Update code to no longer expect an error returned from these updated methods. Instead, check the agent logs for errors by using one of the ConfigLogger, ConfigInfoLogger, or ConfigDebugLogger configuration options.

func (txn *Transaction) End() {...}
func (txn *Transaction) Ignore() {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetName(name string) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) NoticeError(err error) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) AddAttribute(key string, value interface{}) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetWebRequestHTTP(r *http.Request) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) SetWebRequest(r *WebRequest) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) AcceptDistributedTracePayload(t TransportType, payload interface{}) {...}
func (txn *Transaction) BrowserTimingHeader() *BrowserTimingHeader {...}
func (s *Segment) End() {...}
func (s *DatastoreSegment) End() {...}
func (s *ExternalSegment) End() {...}
func (s *MessageProducerSegment) End() {...}
func (app *Application) RecordCustomEvent(eventType string, params map[string]interface{}) {...}
func (app *Application) RecordCustomMetric(name string, value float64) {...}

Update uses of Application and Transaction to be pointers, instead of direct references.

From:

func doSomething(txn newrelic.Transaction) {...}
func instrumentSomething(app newrelic.Application, h http.Handler, name string) {...}

To:

func doSomething(txn *newrelic.Transaction) {...}
func instrumentSomething(app *newrelic.Application, h http.Handler,  name string) {...}

If you are using a WebRequest type, it has changed from an interface to a struct. You can use it as follows:

wr := newrelic.WebRequest{
    Header:    r.Header,
    URL:       r.URL,
    Method:    r.Method,
    Transport: newrelic.TransportHTTP,
}
txn.SetWebRequest(wr)

Remove the Transaction parameter from the NewRoundTripper, and instead ensure that the transaction is available via the request's context, using RequestWithTransactionContext.

From:

client := &http.Client{}
client.Transport = newrelic.NewRoundTripper(txn, client.Transport)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://example.com", nil)
client.Do(req)

To:

client := &http.Client{}
client.Transport = newrelic.NewRoundTripper(client.Transport)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://example.com", nil)
req = newrelic.RequestWithTransactionContext(req, txn)
client.Do(req)

Update any usage of Distributed Tracing accept/create functions. The method for creating a distributed trace payload has changed to Transaction.InsertDistributedTraceHeaders. Instead of returning a payload, it now accepts an http.Header and inserts the header(s) directly into it.

From:
```
hdrs := http.Header{}
payload := txn.CreateDistributedTracePayload()
hdrs.Set(newrelic.DistributedTracePayloadHeader, payload.Text())
```
To:
```
hdrs := http.Header{}
txn.InsertDistributedTraceHeaders(hdrs)
```
Similarly, the method for accepting distributed trace payloads has changed to Transaction.AcceptDistributedTraceHeaders. Instead of taking an interface representing the payload value, it now accepts an http.Header representing both the keys and values.

From:
```
hdrs := request.Headers()
payload := hdrs.Get(newrelic.DistributedTracePayloadHeader)
txn.AcceptDistributedTracePayload(newrelic.TransportKafka, payload)
```
To:
```
hdrs := request.Headers()
txn.AcceptDistributedTraceHeaders(newrelic.TransportKafka, hdrs)
```
Additionally, the DistributedTracePayload struct is no longer needed and has been removed from the agent's API. Instead, distributed tracing information is passed around as key/value pairs in the http.Header object. You should remove all references to DistributedTracePayload in your code.
Change newrelic.DistributedTracePayloadHeader to newrelic.DistributedTraceNewRelicHeader.

If you have configured your application to ignore either attribute described here, you will now need to specify both the deprecated and the new attribute name in your configuration.

Configuration options where these codes might be used:

Config.TransactionEvents.Attributes
Config.ErrorCollector.Attributes
Config.TransactionTracer.Attributes
Config.TransactionTrace.Segments.Attributes
Config.BrowserMonitoring.Attributes
Config.SpanEvents.Attributes
Config.Attributes

From old configuration example:

config.ErrorCollector.Attributes.Exclude = []string{
    "httpResponseCode",
    "request.headers.User-Agent",
}
// or
config.ErrorCollector.Attributes.Exclude = []string{
    newrelic.AttributeResponseCode,
    newrelic.AttributeRequestUserAgent,
}

To:

config.ErrorCollector.Attributes.Exclude = []string{
    "http.statusCode",
    "httpResponseCode",
    "request.headers.userAgent",
    "request.headers.User-Agent",
}
// or
config.ErrorCollector.Attributes.Exclude = []string{
    newrelic.AttributeResponseCode,
    newrelic.AttributeResponseCodeDeprecated,
    newrelic.AttributeRequestUserAgent,
    newrelic.AttributeRequestUserAgentDeprecated,
}

Update alerts and dashboards with new transaction names:

Transaction names created by WrapHandle, WrapHandleFunc, nrecho-v3, nrecho-v4, nrgorilla, and nrgin now include the HTTP method. Thus the transaction name WebTransaction/Go/users becomes WebTransaction/Go/GET /users.
Not required for upgrade, but recommended: update your usages of the now deprecated StartSegment and StartSegmentNow to use the methods on the transaction: Transaction.StartSegment and Transaction.StartSegmentNow respectively. This step is optional but highly recommended.

From:
```
startTime := newrelic.StartSegmentNow(txn)
// and
sgmt := newrelic.StartSegment(txn, "segment1")
```
To:
```
startTime := txn.StartSegmentNow()
// and
sgmt := txn.StartSegment("segment1")
```

Not required for upgrade, but recommended: update your usages of the now deprecated NewLogger and NewDebugLogger. Instead use the new ConfigOptions ConfigInfoLogger and ConfigDebugLogger respectively.

From:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    func(cfg *newrelic.Config) {
        cfg.Logger = newrelic.NewLogger(os.Stdout)
    }
)

// or

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    func(cfg *newrelic.Config) {
        cfg.Logger = newrelic.NewDebugLogger(os.Stdout)
    }
)

To:

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    newrelic.ConfigInfoLogger(os.Stdout),
)

// or

app, err := newrelic.NewApplication(
    ...
    newrelic.ConfigDebugLogger(os.Stdout),
)

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Migration Guide - 3.0

All Changes

Dropped support for Go versions < 1.7

Package names

Transaction Name Changes

Go modules

Configuration

Config.TransactionTracer

Remove API error return values

`Application.StartTransaction` signature change

Application and Transaction

Renamed attributes

RecordPanics configuration option

New config option for getting data from environment variables

`Transaction` no longer implements `http.ResponseWriter`.

The `WebRequest` type has changed from an interface to a struct

`SetWebRequestHTTP` method added

`NewRoundTripper`

Distributed Trace methods

Several functions marked as deprecated

Removed optional interfaces from error

Changed Distributed Tracing Constant

`TransportType`

Checklist for upgrading

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Migration Guide - 3.0

All Changes

Dropped support for Go versions < 1.7

Package names

Transaction Name Changes

Go modules

Configuration

Config.TransactionTracer

Remove API error return values

Application.StartTransaction signature change

Application and Transaction

Renamed attributes

RecordPanics configuration option

New config option for getting data from environment variables

Transaction no longer implements http.ResponseWriter.

The WebRequest type has changed from an interface to a struct

SetWebRequestHTTP method added

NewRoundTripper

Distributed Trace methods

Several functions marked as deprecated

Removed optional interfaces from error

Changed Distributed Tracing Constant

TransportType

Checklist for upgrading

`Application.StartTransaction` signature change

`Transaction` no longer implements `http.ResponseWriter`.

The `WebRequest` type has changed from an interface to a struct

`SetWebRequestHTTP` method added

`NewRoundTripper`

`TransportType`