cpython/Doc/whatsnew/3.6.rst

441 lines
15 KiB
ReStructuredText

****************************
What's New In Python 3.6
****************************
: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 3.6, compared to 3.5.
For full details, see the :source:`Misc/NEWS` file.
.. note::
Prerelease users should be aware that this document is currently in draft
form. It will be updated substantially as Python 3.6 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 3.6.
Brevity is key.
* PEP 498: :ref:`Formatted string literals <whatsnew-fstrings>`
.. PEP-sized items next.
.. _pep-4XX:
.. PEP 4XX: Virtual Environments
.. =============================
.. (Implemented by Foo Bar.)
.. .. seealso::
:pep:`4XX` - Python Virtual Environments
PEP written by Carl Meyer
New Features
============
.. _whatsnew-fstrings:
PEP 498: Formatted string literals
----------------------------------
Formatted string literals are a new kind of string literal, prefixed
with ``'f'``. They are similar to the format strings accepted by
:meth:`str.format`. They contain replacement fields surrounded by
curly braces. The replacement fields are expressions, which are
evaluated at run time, and then formatted using the :func:`format` protocol.
>>> name = "Fred"
>>> f"He said his name is {name}."
'He said his name is Fred.'
See :pep:`498` and the main documentation at :ref:`f-strings`.
PYTHONMALLOC environment variable
---------------------------------
The new :envvar:`PYTHONMALLOC` environment variable allows to set the Python
memory allocators and/or install debug hooks.
It is now possible to install debug hooks on Python memory allocators on Python
compiled in release mode using ``PYTHONMALLOC=debug``. Effects of debug hooks:
* Newly allocated memory is filled with the byte ``0xCB``
* Freed memory is filled with the byte ``0xDB``
* Detect violations of Python memory allocator API. For example,
:c:func:`PyObject_Free` called on a memory block allocated by
:c:func:`PyMem_Malloc`.
* Detect write before the start of the buffer (buffer underflow)
* Detect write after the end of the buffer (buffer overflow)
* Check that the :term:`GIL <global interpreter lock>` is held when allocator
functions of the :c:data:`PYMEM_DOMAIN_OBJ` domain (ex:
:c:func:`PyObject_Malloc`) are called
See the :c:func:`PyMem_SetupDebugHooks` function for debug hooks on Python
memory allocators.
It is now also possible to force the usage of the :c:func:`malloc` allocator of
the C library for all Python memory allocations using ``PYTHONMALLOC=malloc``.
It helps to use external memory debuggers like Valgrind on a Python compiled in
release mode.
On error, the debug hooks on Python memory allocators now use the
:mod:`tracemalloc` module to get the traceback where a memory block was
allocated.
Example of fatal error on buffer overflow using
``python3.6 -X tracemalloc=5`` (store 5 frames in traces)::
Debug memory block at address p=0x7fbcd41666f8: API 'o'
4 bytes originally requested
The 7 pad bytes at p-7 are FORBIDDENBYTE, as expected.
The 8 pad bytes at tail=0x7fbcd41666fc are not all FORBIDDENBYTE (0xfb):
at tail+0: 0x02 *** OUCH
at tail+1: 0xfb
at tail+2: 0xfb
at tail+3: 0xfb
at tail+4: 0xfb
at tail+5: 0xfb
at tail+6: 0xfb
at tail+7: 0xfb
The block was made by call #1233329 to debug malloc/realloc.
Data at p: 1a 2b 30 00
Memory block allocated at (most recent call first):
File "test/test_bytes.py", line 323
File "unittest/case.py", line 600
File "unittest/case.py", line 648
File "unittest/suite.py", line 122
File "unittest/suite.py", line 84
Fatal Python error: bad trailing pad byte
Current thread 0x00007fbcdbd32700 (most recent call first):
File "test/test_bytes.py", line 323 in test_hex
File "unittest/case.py", line 600 in run
File "unittest/case.py", line 648 in __call__
File "unittest/suite.py", line 122 in run
File "unittest/suite.py", line 84 in __call__
File "unittest/suite.py", line 122 in run
File "unittest/suite.py", line 84 in __call__
...
(Contributed by Victor Stinner in :issue:`26516` and :issue:`26564`.)
Other Language Changes
======================
* None yet.
New Modules
===========
* None yet.
Improved Modules
================
datetime
--------
The :meth:`datetime.strftime() <datetime.datetime.strftime>` and
:meth:`date.strftime() <datetime.date.strftime>` methods now support ISO 8601 date
directives ``%G``, ``%u`` and ``%V``.
(Contributed by Ashley Anderson in :issue:`12006`.)
os
--
A new :meth:`~os.scandir.close` method allows explicitly closing a
:func:`~os.scandir` iterator. The :func:`~os.scandir` iterator now
supports the :term:`context manager` protocol. If a :func:`scandir`
iterator is neither exhausted nor explicitly closed a :exc:`ResourceWarning`
will be emitted in its destructor.
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`25994`.)
pickle
------
Objects that need calling ``__new__`` with keyword arguments can now be pickled
using :ref:`pickle protocols <pickle-protocols>` older than protocol version 4.
Protocol version 4 already supports this case. (Contributed by Serhiy
Storchaka in :issue:`24164`.)
rlcompleter
-----------
Private and special attribute names now are omitted unless the prefix starts
with underscores. A space or a colon is added after some completed keywords.
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in :issue:`25011` and :issue:`25209`.)
Names of most attributes listed by :func:`dir` are now completed.
Previously, names of properties and slots which were not yet created on
an instance were excluded. (Contributed by Martin Panter in :issue:`25590`.)
telnetlib
---------
:class:`~telnetlib.Telnet` is now a context manager (contributed by
Stéphane Wirtel in :issue:`25485`).
unittest.mock
-------------
The :class:`~unittest.mock.Mock` class has the following improvements:
* Two new methods, :meth:`Mock.assert_called()
<unittest.mock.Mock.assert_called>` and :meth:`Mock.assert_called_once()
<unittest.mock.Mock.assert_called_once>` to check if the mock object
was called.
(Contributed by Amit Saha in :issue:`26323`.)
urllib.robotparser
------------------
:class:`~urllib.robotparser.RobotFileParser` now supports the ``Crawl-delay`` and
``Request-rate`` extensions.
(Contributed by Nikolay Bogoychev in :issue:`16099`.)
zipfile
-------
A new :meth:`ZipInfo.from_file() <zipfile.ZipInfo.from_file>` class method
allows making a :class:`~zipfile.ZipInfo` instance from a filesystem file.
A new :meth:`ZipInfo.is_dir() <zipfile.ZipInfo.is_dir>` method can be used
to check if the :class:`~zipfile.ZipInfo` instance represents a directory.
(Contributed by Thomas Kluyver in :issue:`26039`.)
zlib
----
The :func:`~zlib.compress` function now accepts keyword arguments.
(Contributed by Aviv Palivoda in :issue:`26243`.)
Optimizations
=============
* The ASCII decoder is now up to 60 times as fast for error handlers
``surrogateescape``, ``ignore`` and ``replace`` (Contributed
by Victor Stinner in :issue:`24870`).
* The ASCII and the Latin1 encoders are now up to 3 times as fast for the
error handler ``surrogateescape`` (Contributed by Victor Stinner in :issue:`25227`).
* The UTF-8 encoder is now up to 75 times as fast for error handlers
``ignore``, ``replace``, ``surrogateescape``, ``surrogatepass`` (Contributed
by Victor Stinner in :issue:`25267`).
* The UTF-8 decoder is now up to 15 times as fast for error handlers
``ignore``, ``replace`` and ``surrogateescape`` (Contributed
by Victor Stinner in :issue:`25301`).
* ``bytes % args`` is now up to 2 times faster. (Contributed by Victor Stinner
in :issue:`25349`).
* ``bytearray % args`` is now between 2.5 and 5 times faster. (Contributed by
Victor Stinner in :issue:`25399`).
* Optimize :meth:`bytes.fromhex` and :meth:`bytearray.fromhex`: they are now
between 2x and 3.5x faster. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in :issue:`25401`).
Build and C API Changes
=======================
* New :c:func:`Py_FinalizeEx` API which indicates if flushing buffered data
failed (:issue:`5319`).
Deprecated
==========
New Keywords
------------
``async`` and ``await`` are not recommended to be used as variable, class,
function or module names. Introduced by :pep:`492` in Python 3.5, they will
become proper keywords in Python 3.7.
Deprecated Python modules, functions and methods
------------------------------------------------
* :meth:`importlib.machinery.SourceFileLoader` and
:meth:`importlib.machinery.SourcelessFileLoader` are now deprecated. They
were the only remaining implementations of
:meth:`importlib.abc.Loader.load_module` in :mod:`importlib` that had not
been deprecated in previous versions of Python in favour of
:meth:`importlib.abc.Loader.exec_module`.
Deprecated functions and types of the C API
-------------------------------------------
* None yet.
Deprecated features
-------------------
* The ``pyvenv`` script has been deprecated in favour of ``python3 -m venv``.
This prevents confusion as to what Python interpreter ``pyvenv`` is
connected to and thus what Python interpreter will be used by the virtual
environment. (Contributed by Brett Cannon in :issue:`25154`.)
* When performing a relative import, falling back on ``__name__`` and
``__path__`` from the calling module when ``__spec__`` or
``__package__`` are not defined now raises an :exc:`ImportWarning`.
(Contributed by Rose Ames in :issue:`25791`.)
Deprecated Python behavior
--------------------------
* Raising the :exc:`StopIteration` exception inside a generator will now generate a
:exc:`DeprecationWarning`, and will trigger a :exc:`RuntimeError` in Python 3.7.
See :ref:`whatsnew-pep-479` for details.
Removed
=======
API and Feature Removals
------------------------
* ``inspect.getmoduleinfo()`` was removed (was deprecated since CPython 3.3).
:func:`inspect.getmodulename` should be used for obtaining the module
name for a given path.
* ``traceback.Ignore`` class and ``traceback.usage``, ``traceback.modname``,
``traceback.fullmodname``, ``traceback.find_lines_from_code``,
``traceback.find_lines``, ``traceback.find_strings``,
``traceback.find_executable_lines`` methods were removed from the
:mod:`traceback` module. They were undocumented methods deprecated since
Python 3.2 and equivalent functionality is available from private methods.
Porting to Python 3.6
=====================
This section lists previously described changes and other bugfixes
that may require changes to your code.
Changes in the Python API
-------------------------
* The format of the ``co_lnotab`` attribute of code objects changed to support
negative line number delta. By default, Python does not emit bytecode with
negative line number delta. Functions using ``frame.f_lineno``,
``PyFrame_GetLineNumber()`` or ``PyCode_Addr2Line()`` are not affected.
Functions decoding directly ``co_lnotab`` should be updated to use a signed
8-bit integer type for the line number delta, but it's only required to
support applications using negative line number delta. See
``Objects/lnotab_notes.txt`` for the ``co_lnotab`` format and how to decode
it, and see the :pep:`511` for the rationale.
* The functions in the :mod:`compileall` module now return booleans instead
of ``1`` or ``0`` to represent success or failure, respectively. Thanks to
booleans being a subclass of integers, this should only be an issue if you
were doing identity checks for ``1`` or ``0``. See :issue:`25768`.
* Reading the :attr:`~urllib.parse.SplitResult.port` attribute of
:func:`urllib.parse.urlsplit` and :func:`~urllib.parse.urlparse` results
now raises :exc:`ValueError` for out-of-range values, rather than
returning :const:`None`. See :issue:`20059`.
* The :mod:`imp` module now raises a :exc:`DeprecationWarning` instead of
:exc:`PendingDeprecationWarning`.
* The following modules have had missing APIs added to their :attr:`__all__`
attributes to match the documented APIs: :mod:`calendar`, :mod:`csv`,
:mod:`enum`, :mod:`fileinput`, :mod:`ftplib`, :mod:`logging`,
:mod:`optparse`, :mod:`tarfile`, :mod:`threading` and
:mod:`wave`. This means they will export new symbols when ``import *``
is used. See :issue:`23883`.
* When performing a relative import, if ``__package__`` does not compare equal
to ``__spec__.parent`` then :exc:`ImportWarning` is raised.
(Contributed by Brett Cannon in :issue:`25791`.)
* When a relative import is performed and no parent package is known, then
:exc:`ImportError` will be raised. Previously, :exc:`SystemError` could be
raised. (Contributed by Brett Cannon in :issue:`18018`.)
* Servers based on the :mod:`socketserver` module, including those
defined in :mod:`http.server`, :mod:`xmlrpc.server` and
:mod:`wsgiref.simple_server`, now only catch exceptions derived
from :exc:`Exception`. Therefore if a request handler raises
an exception like :exc:`SystemExit` or :exc:`KeyboardInterrupt`,
:meth:`~socketserver.BaseServer.handle_error` is no longer called, and
the exception will stop a single-threaded server. (Contributed by
Martin Panter in :issue:`23430`.)
Changes in the C API
--------------------
* :c:func:`Py_Exit` (and the main interpreter) now override the exit status
with 120 if flushing buffered data failed. See :issue:`5319`.