What’s New In Python 3.7¶
| Release: | 3.7.0a1 |
|---|---|
| Date: | September 26, 2017 |
This article explains the new features in Python 3.7, compared to 3.6.
For full details, see the 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¶
New Features¶
PEP 538: Legacy C Locale Coercion¶
An ongoing challenge within the Python 3 series has been determining a sensible default strategy for handling the “7-bit ASCII” text encoding assumption currently implied by the use of the default C locale on non-Windows platforms.
PEP 538 updates the default interpreter command line interface to automatically coerce that locale to an available UTF-8 based locale as described in the documentation of the
new PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE environment variable. Automatically setting LC_CTYPE this way means that both the core interpreter
and locale-aware C extensions (such as readline) will assume the use of UTF-8 as
the default text encoding, rather than ASCII.
The platform support definition in PEP 11 has also been updated to limit full text handling support to suitably configured non-ASCII based locales.
As part of this change, the default error handler for stdin and stdout is now surrogateescape (rather than strict) when using any of the defined coercion target locales (currently C.UTF-8,
C.utf8, and UTF-8). The default error handler for stderr continues to be backslashreplace, regardless of locale.
Locale coercion is silent by default, but to assist in debugging potentially locale related integration problems, explicit warnings (emitted directly on stderr can be requested by setting PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE=warn. This setting
will also cause the Python runtime to emit a warning if the legacy C locale remains active when the core interpreter is initialized.
See also
- PEP 538 – Coercing the legacy C locale to a UTF-8 based locale
- PEP written and implemented by Nick Coghlan.
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 bpo-12844 and bpo-18896.)
bytes.fromhex()andbytearray.fromhex()now ignore all ASCII whitespace, not only spaces. (Contributed by Robert Xiao in bpo-28927.)ImportErrornow displays module name and module__file__path whenfrom ... import ...fails. (Contributed by Matthias Bussonnier in bpo-29546.)- Circular imports involving absolute imports with binding a submodule to a name are now supported. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-30024.)
object.__format__(x, '')is now equivalent tostr(x)rather thanformat(str(self), ''). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28974.)
New Modules¶
- None yet.
Improved Modules¶
argparse¶
The parse_intermixed_args() supports letting the user intermix
options and positional arguments on the command line, as is possible in many unix commands. It supports most but not all argparse features. (Contributed by paul.j3 in bpo-14191.)
binascii¶
The 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 bpo-30103.)
calendar¶
The class HTMLCalendar has new class attributes which ease the customisation of the CSS classes in the produced
HTML calendar. (Contributed by Oz Tiram in bpo-30095.)
cgi¶
parse_multipart() returns the same results as FieldStorage : for non-file fields, the value associated
to a key is a list of strings, not bytes. (Contributed by Pierre Quentel in bpo-29979.)
contextlib¶
contextlib.asynccontextmanager() has been added. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in
bpo-29679.)
dis¶
The dis() function now is able to disassemble nested code objects (the code of comprehensions, generator expressions and nested functions,
and the code used for building nested classes). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-11822.)
distutils¶
README.rst is now included in the list of distutils standard READMEs and therefore included in source distributions. (Contributed by Ryan Gonzalez in bpo-11913.)
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 bpo-29654.)
Add the parameter directory to the SimpleHTTPRequestHandler and the --directory to the command line of the module 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 bpo-28707.)
locale¶
Added another argument monetary in format_string() of locale. If monetary is true, the conversion uses monetary thousands separator and grouping strings. (Contributed by Garvit in bpo-10379.)
math¶
New remainder() function, implementing the IEEE 754-style remainder operation. (Contributed by Mark Dickinson in bpo-29962.)
os¶
Added support for bytes paths in fwalk().
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28682.)
Added support for file descriptors in scandir() on Unix.
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-25996.)
New function os.register_at_fork() allows registering Python callbacks to be executed on a process fork. (Contributed
by Antoine Pitrou in bpo-16500.)
pdb¶
set_trace() now takes an optional header keyword-only argument. If given, this is printed to the console just before
debugging begins.
string¶
string.Template now lets you to optionally modify the regular expression pattern for braced placeholders and non-braced
placeholders separately. (Contributed by Barry Warsaw in bpo-1198569.)
unittest.mock¶
The sentinel attributes now preserve their identity when they are copied or pickled.
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-20804.)
xmlrpc.server¶
register_function() of xmlrpc.server.SimpleXMLRPCDispatcher and its subclasses can be used as a decorator. (Contributed by Xiang Zhang in bpo-7769.)
unicodedata¶
The internal unicodedata database has been upgraded to use Unicode 10.
(Contributed by Benjamin Peterson.)
urllib.parse¶
urllib.parse.quote() has been updated 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 bpo-16285.)
uu¶
Function encode() now accepts an optional backtick keyword argument. When it’s true, zeros are represented by '`' instead of spaces. (Contributed by Xiang Zhang in bpo-30103.)
zipapp¶
Function zipapp.create_archive() now accepts an optional filter argument, to allow the user to select which files should be included in the archive.
Optimizations¶
- Added two new opcodes:
LOAD_METHODandCALL_METHODto 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 bpo-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 bpo-24821.)
- Fast implementation from standard C library is now used for functions
erf()anderfc()in themathmodule. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-26121.) - The
os.fwalk()function has been sped up by 2 times. This was done using theos.scandir()function. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-25996.) - Optimized case-insensitive matching and searching of
regular expressions. Searching some patterns can now be up to 20 times faster. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-30285.) selectors.EpollSelector.modify(),selectors.PollSelector.modify()andselectors.DevpollSelector.modify()may be around 10% faster under heavy loads. (Contributed by Giampaolo Rodola’ in bpo-30014)
Build and C API Changes¶
- A full copy of libffi is no longer bundled for use when building the
_ctypesmodule on non-OSX UNIX platforms. An installed copy of libffi is now required when building_ctypeson such platforms. Contributed by Zachary Ware in bpo-27979. - The fields
nameanddocof structuresPyMemberDef,PyGetSetDef,PyStructSequence_Field,PyStructSequence_Desc, andwrapperbaseare now of typeconst char *rather ofchar *. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28761.) - The result of
PyUnicode_AsUTF8AndSize()andPyUnicode_AsUTF8()is now of typeconst char *rather ofchar *. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28769.) - Added functions
PySlice_Unpack()andPySlice_AdjustIndices(). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-27867.) PyOS_AfterFork()is deprecated in favour of the new functionsPyOS_BeforeFork(),PyOS_AfterFork_Parent()andPyOS_AfterFork_Child(). (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou in bpo-16500.)- The Windows build process no longer depends on Subversion to pull in external sources, a Python script is used to download zipfiles from GitHub instead. If Python 3.6 is not found on the system (via
py -3.6), NuGet is used to download a copy of 32-bit Python for this purpose. (Contributed by Zachary Ware in bpo-30450.) - Support for building
--without-threadsis removed. (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou in bpo-31370.).
Other CPython Implementation Changes¶
- Trace hooks may now opt out of receiving
lineevents from the interpreter by setting the newf_trace_linesattribute toFalseon the frame being traced. (Contributed by Nick Coghlan in bpo-31344.) - Trace hooks may now opt in to receiving
opcodeevents from the interpreter by setting the newf_trace_opcodesattribute toTrueon the frame being traced. (Contributed by Nick Coghlan in bpo-31344.)
Deprecated¶
- Function
PySlice_GetIndicesEx()is deprecated and replaced with a macro ifPy_LIMITED_APIis not set or set to the value between0x03050400and0x03060000(not including) or0x03060100or higher. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-27867.) - Deprecated
format()fromlocale, use theformat_string()instead. (Contributed by Garvit in bpo-10379.) - Methods
MetaPathFinder.find_module()(replaced byMetaPathFinder.find_spec()) andPathEntryFinder.find_loader()(replaced byPathEntryFinder.find_spec()) both deprecated in Python 3.4 now emitDeprecationWarning. (Contributed by Matthias Bussonnier in bpo-29576) - Using non-integer value for selecting a plural form in
gettextis now deprecated. It never correctly worked. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28692.) - The
macpathis now deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.8.
Changes in the C API¶
- The type of results of
PyThread_start_new_thread()andPyThread_get_thread_ident(), and the id parameter ofPyThreadState_SetAsyncExc()changed fromlongtounsigned long. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-6532.) PyUnicode_AsWideCharString()now raises aValueErrorif the second argument is NULL and thewchar_t*string contains null characters. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-30708.)
Windows Only¶
- The python launcher, (py.exe), can accept 32 & 64 bit specifiers without having to specify a minor version as well. So
py -3-32andpy -3-64become valid as well aspy -3.7-32, also the -m-64 and -m.n-64 forms are now accepted to force 64 bit python even if 32 bit would have otherwise been used. If the specified version is not available py.exe will error exit. (Contributed by Steve Barnes in bpo-30291.) - The launcher can be run as “py -0” to produce a list of the installed pythons, with default marked with an asterix. Running “py -0p” will include the paths. If py is run with a version specifier that cannot be matched it will also print the short form list of available specifiers. (Contributed by Steve Barnes in bpo-30362.)
Removed¶
API and Feature Removals¶
- Unknown escapes consisting of
'\'and an ASCII letter in replacement templates forre.sub()were deprecated in Python 3.5, and will now cause an error. - Removed support of the exclude argument in
tarfile.TarFile.add(). It was deprecated in Python 2.7 and 3.2. Use the filter argument instead. - The
splitunc()function in thentpathmodule was deprecated in Python 3.1, and has now been removed. Use thesplitdrive()function instead. collections.namedtuple()no longer supports the verbose parameter or_sourceattribute which showed the generated source code for the named tuple class. This was part of an optimization designed to speed-up class creation. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra with further improvements by INADA Naoki, Serhiy Storchaka, and Raymond Hettinger in bpo-28638.)- Functions
bool(),float(),list()andtuple()no longer take keyword arguments. The first argument ofint()can now be passed only as positional argument. - Removed previously deprecated in Python 2.4 classes
Plist,Dictand_InternalDictin theplistlibmodule. Dict values in the result of functionsreadPlist()andreadPlistFromBytes()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¶
pkgutil.walk_packages()now raises ValueError if path is a string. Previously an empty list was returned. (Contributed by Sanyam Khurana in bpo-24744.)- A format string argument for
string.Formatter.format()is now positional-only. Passing it as a keyword argument was deprecated in Python 3.5. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-29193.) - Attributes
key,valueandcoded_valueof classhttp.cookies.Morselare now read-only. Assigning to them was deprecated in Python 3.5. Use theset()method for setting them. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-29192.) Module,FunctionDef,AsyncFunctionDef, andClassDefAST nodes now have a newdocstringfield. The first statement in their body is not considered as a docstring anymore.co_firstlinenoandco_lnotabof code object for class and module are affected by this change. (Contributed by INADA Naoki and Eugene Toder in bpo-29463.)- The mode argument of
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 invokingmakedirs(). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-19930.) - The
struct.Struct.formattype is nowstrinstead ofbytes. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-21071.) - Due to internal changes in
socketyou won’t be able tosocket.fromshare()a socketshare()-ed in older Python versions. reprfordatetime.timedeltahas changed to include keyword arguments in the output. (Contributed by Utkarsh Upadhyay in bpo-30302.)
CPython bytecode changes¶
- Added two new opcodes:
LOAD_METHODandCALL_METHOD. (Contributed by Yury Selivanov and INADA Naoki in bpo-26110.)