cpython/Doc/whatsnew/3.7.rst

****************************
  What's New In Python 3.7
****************************

:Release: |release|
:Date: |today|

.. Rules for maintenance:

   * Anyone can add text to this document.  Do not spend very much time
   on the wording of your changes, because your text will probably
   get rewritten to some degree.

   * The maintainer will go through Misc/NEWS periodically and add
   changes; it's therefore more important to add your changes to
   Misc/NEWS than to this file.

   * This is not a complete list of every single change; completeness
   is the purpose of Misc/NEWS.  Some changes I consider too small
   or esoteric to include.  If such a change is added to the text,
   I'll just remove it.  (This is another reason you shouldn't spend
   too much time on writing your addition.)

   * If you want to draw your new text to the attention of the
   maintainer, add 'XXX' to the beginning of the paragraph or
   section.

   * It's OK to just add a fragmentary note about a change.  For
   example: "XXX Describe the transmogrify() function added to the
   socket module."  The maintainer will research the change and
   write the necessary text.

   * You can comment out your additions if you like, but it's not
   necessary (especially when a final release is some months away).

   * Credit the author of a patch or bugfix.   Just the name is
   sufficient; the e-mail address isn't necessary.

   * It's helpful to add the bug/patch number as a comment:

   XXX Describe the transmogrify() function added to the socket
   module.
   (Contributed by P.Y. Developer in :issue:`12345`.)

   This saves the maintainer the effort of going through the Mercurial log
   when researching a change.

This article explains the new features in Python 3.7, compared to 3.6.

For full details, see the :ref:`changelog <changelog>`.

.. note::

   Prerelease users should be aware that this document is currently in draft
   form. It will be updated substantially as Python 3.7 moves towards release,
   so it's worth checking back even after reading earlier versions.


Summary -- Release highlights
=============================

.. This section singles out the most important changes in Python 3.7.
   Brevity is key.


.. PEP-sized items next.



New Features
============



Other Language Changes
======================

* More than 255 arguments can now be passed to a function, and a function can
  now have more than 255 parameters. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
  :issue:`12844` and :issue:`18896`.)

* :meth:`bytes.fromhex` and :meth:`bytearray.fromhex` now ignore all ASCII
  whitespace, not only spaces. (Contributed by Robert Xiao in :issue:`28927`.)

* :exc:`ImportError` now displays module name and module ``__file__`` path when
  ``from ... import ...`` fails. (Contributed by Matthias Bussonnier in :issue:`29546`.)

* Circular imports involving absolute imports with binding a submodule to
  a name are now supported.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`30024`.)

* ``object.__format__(x, '')`` is now equivalent to ``str(x)`` rather than
  ``format(str(self), '')``.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`28974`.)


New Modules
===========

* None yet.


Improved Modules
================

cgi
---

:func:`~cgi.parse_multipart` returns the same results as
:class:`~FieldStorage` : for non-file fields, the value associated to a key
is a list of strings, not bytes.
(Contributed by Pierre Quentel in :issue:`29979`.)

binascii
--------

The :func:`~binascii.b2a_uu` function now accepts an optional *backtick*
keyword argument.  When it's true, zeros are represented by ``'`'``
instead of spaces.  (Contributed by Xiang Zhang in :issue:`30103`.)

contextlib
----------

:func:`contextlib.asynccontextmanager` has been added. (Contributed by
Jelle Zijlstra in :issue:`29679`.)

distutils
---------

README.rst is now included in the list of distutils standard READMEs and
therefore included in source distributions.
(Contributed by Ryan Gonzalez in :issue:`11913`.)

http.server
-----------

:class:`~http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler` supports the HTTP
If-Modified-Since header. The server returns the 304 response status if the
target file was not modified after the time specified in the header.
(Contributed by Pierre Quentel in :issue:`29654`.)

Add the parameter ``directory`` to the :class:`~http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler`
and the ``--directory`` to the command line of the module :mod:`~http.server`.
With this parameter, the server serves the specified directory, by default it uses the current working directory.
(Contributed by Stéphane Wirtel and Julien Palard in :issue:`28707`.)

locale
------

Added another argument *monetary* in :meth:`format_string` of :mod:`locale`.
If *monetary* is true, the conversion uses monetary thousands separator and
grouping strings. (Contributed by Garvit in :issue:`10379`.)

math
----

New :func:`~math.remainder` function, implementing the IEEE 754-style remainder
operation. (Contributed by Mark Dickinson in :issue:`29962`.)

os
--

Added support for :class:`bytes` paths in :func:`~os.fwalk`. (Contributed by
Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`28682`.)

Added support for :ref:`file descriptors <path_fd>` in :func:`~os.scandir`
on Unix.  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`25996`.)

New function :func:`os.register_at_fork` allows registering Python callbacks
to be executed on a process fork.  (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou in
:issue:`16500`.)

unittest.mock
-------------

The :const:`~unittest.mock.sentinel` attributes now preserve their identity
when they are :mod:`copied <copy>` or :mod:`pickled <pickle>`. (Contributed by
Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`20804`.)

xmlrpc.server
-------------

:meth:`register_function` of :class:`xmlrpc.server.SimpleXMLRPCDispatcher` and
its subclasses can be used as a decorator. (Contributed by Xiang Zhang in
:issue:`7769`.)

urllib.parse
------------

:func:`urllib.parse.quote` has been updated to from RFC 2396 to RFC 3986,
adding `~` to the set of characters that is never quoted by default.
(Contributed by Christian Theune and Ratnadeep Debnath in :issue:`16285`.)

uu
--

Function :func:`~uu.encode` now accepts an optional *backtick*
keyword argument.  When it's true, zeros are represented by ``'`'``
instead of spaces.  (Contributed by Xiang Zhang in :issue:`30103`.)


Optimizations
=============

* Added two new opcodes: ``LOAD_METHOD`` and ``CALL_METHOD`` to avoid
  instantiation of bound method objects for method calls, which results
  in method calls being faster up to 20%. (Contributed by Yury Selivanov and
  INADA Naoki in :issue:`26110`.)

* Searching some unlucky Unicode characters (like Ukrainian capital "Є")
  in a string was to 25 times slower than searching other characters.
  Now it is slower only by 3 times in worst case.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`24821`.)

* Fast implementation from standard C library is now used for functions
  :func:`~math.tgamma`, :func:`~math.lgamma`, :func:`~math.erf` and
  :func:`~math.erfc` in the :mod:`math` module. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in :issue:`26121`.)

* The :func:`os.fwalk` function has been sped up by 2 times.  This was done
  using the :func:`os.scandir` function.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`25996`.)

* Optimized case-insensitive matching and searching of :mod:`regular
  expressions <re>`.  Searching some patterns can now be up to 20 times faster.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`30285`.)


Build and C API Changes
=======================

* A full copy of libffi is no longer bundled for use when building the
  :mod:`_ctypes <ctypes>` module on non-OSX UNIX platforms.  An installed copy
  of libffi is now required when building ``_ctypes`` on such platforms.
  Contributed by Zachary Ware in :issue:`27979`.

* The fields :c:member:`name` and :c:member:`doc` of structures
  :c:type:`PyMemberDef`, :c:type:`PyGetSetDef`,
  :c:type:`PyStructSequence_Field`, :c:type:`PyStructSequence_Desc`,
  and :c:type:`wrapperbase` are now of type ``const char *`` rather of
  ``char *``.  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`28761`.)

* The result of :c:func:`PyUnicode_AsUTF8AndSize` and :c:func:`PyUnicode_AsUTF8`
  is now of type ``const char *`` rather of ``char *``. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in :issue:`28769`.)

* Added functions :c:func:`PySlice_Unpack` and :c:func:`PySlice_AdjustIndices`.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`27867`.)

* :c:func:`PyOS_AfterFork` is deprecated in favour of the new functions
  :c:func:`PyOS_BeforeFork`, :c:func:`PyOS_AfterFork_Parent` and
  :c:func:`PyOS_AfterFork_Child`.  (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou in
  :issue:`16500`.)


Deprecated
==========

- Function :c:func:`PySlice_GetIndicesEx` is deprecated and replaced with
  a macro if ``Py_LIMITED_API`` is not set or set to the value between
  ``0x03050400`` and ``0x03060000`` (not including) or ``0x03060100`` or
  higher.  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`27867`.)

- Deprecated :meth:`format` from :mod:`locale`, use the :meth:`format_string`
  instead. (Contributed by Garvit in :issue:`10379`.)

- Methods
  :meth:`MetaPathFinder.find_module() <importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder.find_module>`
  (replaced by
  :meth:`MetaPathFinder.find_spec() <importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder.find_spec>`
  ) and
  :meth:`PathEntryFinder.find_loader() <importlib.abc.PathEntryFinder.find_loader>`
  (replaced by
  :meth:`PathEntryFinder.find_spec() <importlib.abc.PathEntryFinder.find_spec>`)
  both deprecated in Python 3.4 now emit :exc:`DeprecationWarning`. (Contributed
  by Matthias Bussonnier in :issue:`29576`)

- Using non-integer value for selecting a plural form in :mod:`gettext` is
  now deprecated.  It never correctly worked. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka
  in :issue:`28692`.)

- The :mod:`macpath` is now deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.8.


Changes in the C API
--------------------

- The type of results of :c:func:`PyThread_start_new_thread` and
  :c:func:`PyThread_get_thread_ident`, and the *id* parameter of
  :c:func:`PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc` changed from :c:type:`long` to
  :c:type:`unsigned long`.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`6532`.)


Removed
=======

API and Feature Removals
------------------------

* Unknown escapes consisting of ``'\'`` and an ASCII letter in replacement
  templates for :func:`re.sub` were deprecated in Python 3.5, and will now
  cause an error.

* Removed support of the *exclude* argument in :meth:`tarfile.TarFile.add`.
  It was deprecated in Python 2.7 and 3.2.  Use the *filter* argument instead.

* The ``splitunc()`` function in the :mod:`ntpath` module was deprecated in
  Python 3.1, and has now been removed.  Use the :func:`~os.path.splitdrive`
  function instead.

* Functions :func:`bool`, :func:`float`, :func:`list` and :func:`tuple` no
  longer take keyword arguments.  The first argument of :func:`int` can now
  be passes only as positional argument.

* Removed previously deprecated in Python 2.4 classes ``Plist``, ``Dict`` and
  ``_InternalDict`` in the :mod:`plistlib` module.  Dict values in the result
  of functions :func:`~plistlib.readPlist` and
  :func:`~plistlib.readPlistFromBytes` are now normal dicts.  You no longer
  can use attribute access to access items of these dictionaries.


Porting to Python 3.7
=====================

This section lists previously described changes and other bugfixes
that may require changes to your code.


Changes in the Python API
-------------------------

* A format string argument for :meth:`string.Formatter.format`
  is now :ref:`positional-only <positional-only_parameter>`.
  Passing it as a keyword argument was deprecated in Python 3.5. (Contributed
  by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`29193`.)

* Attributes :attr:`~http.cookies.Morsel.key`,
  :attr:`~http.cookies.Morsel.value` and
  :attr:`~http.cookies.Morsel.coded_value` of class
  :class:`http.cookies.Morsel` are now read-only.
  Assigning to them was deprecated in Python 3.5.
  Use the :meth:`~http.cookies.Morsel.set` method for setting them.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`29192`.)

* ``Module``, ``FunctionDef``, ``AsyncFunctionDef``, and
  ``ClassDef`` AST nodes now have a new ``docstring`` field.
  The first statement in their body is not considered as a docstring
  anymore.  ``co_firstlineno`` and ``co_lnotab`` of code object for class
  and module are affected by this change. (Contributed by INADA Naoki and
  Eugene Toder in :issue:`29463`.)

* The *mode* argument of :func:`os.makedirs` no longer affects the file
  permission bits of newly-created intermediate-level directories.
  To set their file permission bits you can set the umask before invoking
  ``makedirs()``.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`19930`.)


CPython bytecode changes
------------------------

* Added two new opcodes: :opcode:`LOAD_METHOD` and :opcode:`CALL_METHOD`.
  (Contributed by Yury Selivanov and INADA Naoki in :issue:`26110`.)