What’s New in Python

Release 3.12.0

A. M. Kuchling

October 07, 2023

Python Software Foundation
Email: [email protected]

Contents

1 Summary – Release highlights 3

2 New Features 4
2.1 PEP 695: Type Parameter Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 PEP 701: Syntactic formalization of f-strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 PEP 684: A Per-Interpreter GIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 PEP 669: Low impact monitoring for CPython . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5 PEP 688: Making the buffer protocol accessible in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.6 PEP 709: Comprehension inlining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.7 Improved Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 New Features Related to Type Hints 8

3.1 PEP 692: Using TypedDict for more precise **kwargs typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 PEP 698: Override Decorator for Static Typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

4 Other Language Changes 9

5 New Modules 10

6 Improved Modules 10
6.1 array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2 asyncio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.3 calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.4 csv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.5 dis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.6 fractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.7 importlib.resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.8 inspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.9 itertools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.10 math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.11 os . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.12 os.path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.13 pathlib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.14 pdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.15 random . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.16 shutil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.17 sqlite3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.18 statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1
 6.19 sys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.20 tempfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.21 threading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.22 tkinter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.23 tokenize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.24 types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.25 typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.26 unicodedata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.27 unittest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.28 uuid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

7 Optimizations 16

8 CPython bytecode changes 17

9 Demos and Tools 17

10 Deprecated 17
10.1 Pending Removal in Python 3.13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
10.2 Pending Removal in Python 3.14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
10.3 Pending Removal in Future Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

11 Removed 22
11.1 asynchat and asyncore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
11.2 configparser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
11.3 distutils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
11.4 ensurepip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
11.5 enum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.6 ftplib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.7 gzip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.8 hashlib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.9 importlib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.10imp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11.11io . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11.12locale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11.13sqlite3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11.14ssl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11.15unittest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11.16webbrowser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11.17xml.etree.ElementTree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11.18zipimport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11.19Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

12 Porting to Python 3.12 27

12.1 Changes in the Python API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

13 Build Changes 28

14 C API Changes 29
14.1 New Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
14.2 Porting to Python 3.12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
14.3 Deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
14.4 Removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Index 37

Editor Adam Turner

2
This article explains the new features in Python 3.12, compared to 3.11. Python 3.12 was released on October 2,
2023. For full details, see the changelog.
See also:
PEP 693 – Python 3.12 Release Schedule

1 Summary – Release highlights

Python 3.12 is the latest stable release of the Python programming language, with a mix of changes to the language
and the standard library. The library changes focus on cleaning up deprecated APIs, usability, and correctness. Of
note, the distutils package has been removed from the standard library. Filesystem support in os and pathlib
has seen a number of improvements, and several modules have better performance.
The language changes focus on usability, as f-strings have had many limitations removed and ‘Did you mean …’
suggestions continue to improve. The new type parameter syntax and type statement improve ergonomics for using
generic types and type aliases with static type checkers.
This article doesn’t attempt to provide a complete specification of all new features, but instead gives a convenient
overview. For full details, you should refer to the documentation, such as the Library Reference and Language
Reference. If you want to understand the complete implementation and design rationale for a change, refer to the
PEP for a particular new feature; but note that PEPs usually are not kept up-to-date once a feature has been fully
implemented.

New syntax features:

• PEP 695, type parameter syntax and the type statement
New grammar features:
• PEP 701, f-strings in the grammar
Interpreter improvements:
• PEP 684, a unique per-interpreter GIL
• PEP 669, low impact monitoring
• Improved ‘Did you mean …’ suggestions for NameError, ImportError, and SyntaxError exceptions
Python data model improvements:
• PEP 688, using the buffer protocol from Python
Significant improvements in the standard library:
• The pathlib.Path class now supports subclassing
• The os module received several improvements for Windows support
• A command-line interface has been added to the sqlite3 module
• isinstance() checks against runtime-checkable protocols enjoy a speed up of between two
and 20 times
• The asyncio package has had a number of performance improvements, with some benchmarks showing a
75% speed up.
• A command-line interface has been added to the uuid module
• Due to the changes in PEP 701, producing tokens via the tokenize module is up to 64% faster.
Security improvements:
• Replace the builtin hashlib implementations of SHA1, SHA3, SHA2-384, SHA2-512, and MD5 with
formally verified code from the HACL* project. These builtin implementations remain as fallbacks that are
only used when OpenSSL does not provide them.

3
C API improvements:
• PEP 697, unstable C API tier
• PEP 683, immortal objects
CPython implementation improvements:
• PEP 709, comprehension inlining
• CPython support for the Linux perf profiler
• Implement stack overflow protection on supported platforms
New typing features:
• PEP 692, using TypedDict to annotate **kwargs
• PEP 698, typing.override() decorator
Important deprecations, removals or restrictions:
• PEP 623: Remove wstr from Unicode objects in Python’s C API, reducing the size of every str object by
at least 8 bytes.
• PEP 632: Remove the distutils package. See the migration guide for advice replacing the APIs it pro-
vided. The third-party Setuptools package continues to provide distutils, if you still require it in Python
3.12 and beyond.
• gh-95299: Do not pre-install setuptools in virtual environments created with venv. This means that
distutils, setuptools, pkg_resources, and easy_install will no longer available by default;
to access these run pip install setuptools in the activated virtual environment.
• The asynchat, asyncore, and imp modules have been removed, along with several unittest.
TestCase method aliases.

2 New Features

2.1 PEP 695: Type Parameter Syntax

Generic classes and functions under PEP 484 were declared using a verbose syntax that left the scope of type pa-
rameters unclear and required explicit declarations of variance.
PEP 695 introduces a new, more compact and explicit way to create generic classes and functions:

def max[T](args: Iterable[T]) -> T:

...

class list[T]:
def __getitem__(self, index: int, /) -> T:
...

def append(self, element: T) -> None:

...

In addition, the PEP introduces a new way to declare type aliases using the type statement, which creates an instance
of TypeAliasType:

type Point = tuple[float, float]

Type aliases can also be generic:

type Point[T] = tuple[T, T]

4
The new syntax allows declaring TypeVarTuple and ParamSpec parameters, as well as TypeVar parameters
with bounds or constraints:
type IntFunc[**P] = Callable[P, int] # ParamSpec
type LabeledTuple[*Ts] = tuple[str, *Ts] # TypeVarTuple
type HashableSequence[T: Hashable] = Sequence[T] # TypeVar with bound
type IntOrStrSequence[T: (int, str)] = Sequence[T] # TypeVar with constraints

The value of type aliases and the bound and constraints of type variables created through this syntax are evaluated
only on demand (see lazy evaluation). This means type aliases are able to refer to other types defined later in the file.
Type parameters declared through a type parameter list are visible within the scope of the declaration and any nested
scopes, but not in the outer scope. For example, they can be used in the type annotations for the methods of a
generic class or in the class body. However, they cannot be used in the module scope after the class is defined. See
type-params for a detailed description of the runtime semantics of type parameters.
In order to support these scoping semantics, a new kind of scope is introduced, the annotation scope. Annotation
scopes behave for the most part like function scopes, but interact differently with enclosing class scopes. In Python
3.13, annotations will also be evaluated in annotation scopes.
See PEP 695 for more details.
(PEP written by Eric Traut. Implementation by Jelle Zijlstra, Eric Traut, and others in gh-103764.)

2.2 PEP 701: Syntactic formalization of f-strings

PEP 701 lifts some restrictions on the usage of f-strings. Expression components inside f-strings can now be any
valid Python expression, including strings reusing the same quote as the containing f-string, multi-line expressions,
comments, backslashes, and unicode escape sequences. Let’s cover these in detail:
• Quote reuse: in Python 3.11, reusing the same quotes as the enclosing f-string raises a SyntaxError, forcing
the user to either use other available quotes (like using double quotes or triple quotes if the f-string uses single
quotes). In Python 3.12, you can now do things like this:
>>> songs = ['Take me back to Eden', 'Alkaline', 'Ascensionism']
>>> f"This is the playlist: {", ".join(songs)}"
'This is the playlist: Take me back to Eden, Alkaline, Ascensionism'

Note that before this change there was no explicit limit in how f-strings can be nested, but the fact that string
quotes cannot be reused inside the expression component of f-strings made it impossible to nest f-strings
arbitrarily. In fact, this is the most nested f-string that could be written:
>>> f"""{f'''{f'{f"{1+1}"}'}'''}"""
'2'

As now f-strings can contain any valid Python expression inside expression components, it is now possible to
nest f-strings arbitrarily:
>>> f"{f"{f"{f"{f"{f"{1+1}"}"}"}"}"}"
'2'

• Multi-line expressions and comments: In Python 3.11, f-string expressions must be defined in a single line,
even if the expression within the f-string could normally span multiple lines (like literal lists being defined over
multiple lines), making them harder to read. In Python 3.12 you can now define f-strings spanning multiple
lines, and add inline comments:
>>> f"This is the playlist: {", ".join([
... 'Take me back to Eden', # My, my, those eyes like fire
... 'Alkaline', # Not acid nor alkaline
... 'Ascensionism' # Take to the broken skies at last
... ])}"
'This is the playlist: Take me back to Eden, Alkaline, Ascensionism'

5
 • Backslashes and unicode characters: before Python 3.12 f-string expressions couldn’t contain any \ charac-
ter. This also affected unicode escape sequences (such as \N{snowman}) as these contain the \N part that
previously could not be part of expression components of f-strings. Now, you can define expressions like this:

>>> print(f"This is the playlist: {"\n".join(songs)}")

This is the playlist: Take me back to Eden
Alkaline
Ascensionism
>>> print(f"This is the playlist: {"\N{BLACK HEART SUIT}".join(songs)}")
This is the playlist: Take me back to Eden♥Alkaline♥Ascensionism

See PEP 701 for more details.

As a positive side-effect of how this feature has been implemented (by parsing f-strings with the PEG parser), now
error messages for f-strings are more precise and include the exact location of the error. For example, in Python 3.11,
the following f-string raises a SyntaxError:

>>> my_string = f"{x z y}" + f"{1 + 1}"

File "<stdin>", line 1
(x z y)
^^^
SyntaxError: f-string: invalid syntax. Perhaps you forgot a comma?

but the error message doesn’t include the exact location of the error within the line and also has the expression
artificially surrounded by parentheses. In Python 3.12, as f-strings are parsed with the PEG parser, error messages
can be more precise and show the entire line:

>>> my_string = f"{x z y}" + f"{1 + 1}"

File "<stdin>", line 1
my_string = f"{x z y}" + f"{1 + 1}"
^^^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Perhaps you forgot a comma?

(Contributed by Pablo Galindo, Batuhan Taskaya, Lysandros Nikolaou, Cristián Maureira-Fredes and Marta Gómez
in gh-102856. PEP written by Pablo Galindo, Batuhan Taskaya, Lysandros Nikolaou and Marta Gómez).

2.3 PEP 684: A Per-Interpreter GIL

PEP 684 introduces a per-interpreter GIL, so that sub-interpreters may now be created with a unique GIL per
interpreter. This allows Python programs to take full advantage of multiple CPU cores. This is currently only available
through the C-API, though a Python API is anticipated for 3.13.
Use the new Py_NewInterpreterFromConfig() function to create an interpreter with its own GIL:

PyInterpreterConfig config = {
.check_multi_interp_extensions = 1,
.gil = PyInterpreterConfig_OWN_GIL,
};
PyThreadState *tstate = NULL;
PyStatus status = Py_NewInterpreterFromConfig(&tstate, &config);
if (PyStatus_Exception(status)) {
return -1;
}
/* The new interpreter is now active in the current thread. */

For further examples how to use the C-API for sub-interpreters with a per-interpreter GIL, see Mod-
ules/_xxsubinterpretersmodule.c.
(Contributed by Eric Snow in gh-104210, etc.)

6
2.4 PEP 669: Low impact monitoring for CPython

PEP 669 defines a new API for profilers, debuggers, and other tools to monitor events in CPython. It covers a
wide range of events, including calls, returns, lines, exceptions, jumps, and more. This means that you only pay for
what you use, providing support for near-zero overhead debuggers and coverage tools. See sys.monitoring for
details.
(Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-103082.)

2.5 PEP 688: Making the buffer protocol accessible in Python

PEP 688 introduces a way to use the buffer protocol from Python code. Classes that implement the __buffer__()
method are now usable as buffer types.
The new collections.abc.Buffer ABC provides a standard way to represent buffer objects, for example
in type annotations. The new inspect.BufferFlags enum represents the flags that can be used to customize
buffer creation. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-102500.)

2.6 PEP 709: Comprehension inlining

Dictionary, list, and set comprehensions are now inlined, rather than creating a new single-use function object for
each execution of the comprehension. This speeds up execution of a comprehension by up to two times. See PEP
709 for further details.
Comprehension iteration variables remain isolated and don’t overwrite a variable of the same name in the outer scope,
nor are they visible after the comprehension. Inlining does result in a few visible behavior changes:
• There is no longer a separate frame for the comprehension in tracebacks, and tracing/profiling no longer shows
the comprehension as a function call.
• The symtable module will no longer produce child symbol tables for each comprehension; instead, the
comprehension’s locals will be included in the parent function’s symbol table.
• Calling locals() inside a comprehension now includes variables from outside the comprehension, and no
longer includes the synthetic .0 variable for the comprehension “argument”.
• A comprehension iterating directly over locals() (e.g. [k for k in locals()]) may see “Run-
timeError: dictionary changed size during iteration” when run under tracing (e.g. code coverage measure-
ment). This is the same behavior already seen in e.g. for k in locals():. To avoid the error, first
create a list of keys to iterate over: keys = list(locals()); [k for k in keys].
(Contributed by Carl Meyer and Vladimir Matveev in PEP 709.)

2.7 Improved Error Messages

• Modules from the standard library are now potentially suggested as part of the error messages displayed by the
interpreter when a NameError is raised to the top level. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-98254.)

>>> sys.version_info
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'sys' is not defined. Did you forget to import 'sys'?

• Improve the error suggestion for NameError exceptions for instances. Now if a NameError is raised in a
method and the instance has an attribute that’s exactly equal to the name in the exception, the suggestion will
include self.<NAME> instead of the closest match in the method scope. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in
gh-99139.)

7
 >>> class A:
... def __init__(self):
... self.blech = 1
...
... def foo(self):
... somethin = blech
...
>>> A().foo()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1
somethin = blech
^^^^^
NameError: name 'blech' is not defined. Did you mean: 'self.blech'?

• Improve the SyntaxError error message when the user types import x from y instead of from y
import x. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-98931.)

>>> import a.y.z from b.y.z

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1
import a.y.z from b.y.z
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Did you mean to use 'from ... import ...' instead?

• ImportError exceptions raised from failed from <module> import <name> statements now in-
clude suggestions for the value of <name> based on the available names in <module>. (Contributed by
Pablo Galindo in gh-91058.)

>>> from collections import chainmap

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'chainmap' from 'collections'. Did you mean:
,→'ChainMap'?

3 New Features Related to Type Hints

This section covers major changes affecting type hints and the typing module.

3.1 PEP 692: Using TypedDict for more precise **kwargs typing

Typing **kwargs in a function signature as introduced by PEP 484 allowed for valid annotations only in cases
where all of the **kwargs were of the same type.
PEP 692 specifies a more precise way of typing **kwargs by relying on typed dictionaries:

from typing import TypedDict, Unpack

class Movie(TypedDict):
name: str
year: int

def foo(**kwargs: Unpack[Movie]): ...

See PEP 692 for more details.

(Contributed by Franek Magiera in gh-103629.)

8
3.2 PEP 698: Override Decorator for Static Typing

A new decorator typing.override() has been added to the typing module. It indicates to type checkers
that the method is intended to override a method in a superclass. This allows type checkers to catch mistakes where
a method that is intended to override something in a base class does not in fact do so.
Example:

from typing import override

class Base:
def get_color(self) -> str:
return "blue"

class GoodChild(Base):
@override # ok: overrides Base.get_color
def get_color(self) -> str:
return "yellow"

class BadChild(Base):
@override # type checker error: does not override Base.get_color
def get_colour(self) -> str:
return "red"

See PEP 698 for more details.

(Contributed by Steven Troxler in gh-101561.)

4 Other Language Changes

• The parser now raises SyntaxError when parsing source code containing null bytes. (Contributed by Pablo
Galindo in gh-96670.)
• A backslash-character pair that is not a valid escape sequence now generates a SyntaxWarning, instead of
DeprecationWarning. For example, re.compile("\d+\.\d+") now emits a SyntaxWarning
("\d" is an invalid escape sequence, use raw strings for regular expression: re.compile(r"\d+\.\
d+")). In a future Python version, SyntaxError will eventually be raised, instead of SyntaxWarning.
(Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-98401.)
• Octal escapes with value larger than 0o377 (ex: "\477"), deprecated in Python 3.11, now produce a
SyntaxWarning, instead of DeprecationWarning. In a future Python version they will be eventually
a SyntaxError. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-98401.)
• Variables used in the target part of comprehensions that are not stored to can now be used in assignment
expressions (:=). For example, in [(b := 1) for a, b.prop in some_iter], the assignment to
b is now allowed. Note that assigning to variables stored to in the target part of comprehensions (like a) is still
disallowed, as per PEP 572. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-100581.)
• Exceptions raised in a class or type’s __set_name__ method are no longer wrapped by a RuntimeError.
Context information is added to the exception as a PEP 678 note. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-77757.)
• When a try-except* construct handles the entire ExceptionGroup and raises one other exception,
that exception is no longer wrapped in an ExceptionGroup. Also changed in version 3.11.4. (Contributed
by Irit Katriel in gh-103590.)
• The Garbage Collector now runs only on the eval breaker mechanism of the Python bytecode evaluation loop
instead of object allocations. The GC can also run when PyErr_CheckSignals() is called so C extensions
that need to run for a long time without executing any Python code also have a chance to execute the GC
periodically. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-97922.)
• All builtin and extension callables expecting boolean parameters now accept arguments of any type instead of
just bool and int. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-60203.)

9
 • memoryview now supports the half-float type (the “e” format code). (Contributed by Donghee Na and
Antoine Pitrou in gh-90751.)
• slice objects are now hashable, allowing them to be used as dict keys and set items. (Contributed by Will
Bradshaw, Furkan Onder, and Raymond Hettinger in gh-101264.)
• sum() now uses Neumaier summation to improve accuracy and commutativity when summing floats or mixed
ints and floats. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-100425.)
• ast.parse() now raises SyntaxError instead of ValueError when parsing source code containing
null bytes. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-96670.)
• The extraction methods in tarfile, and shutil.unpack_archive(), have a new a filter argument
that allows limiting tar features than may be surprising or dangerous, such as creating files outside the desti-
nation directory. See tarfile extraction filters for details. In Python 3.14, the default will switch to 'data'.
(Contributed by Petr Viktorin in PEP 706.)
• types.MappingProxyType instances are now hashable if the underlying mapping is hashable. (Con-
tributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-87995.)
• Add support for the perf profiler through the new environment variable PYTHONPERFSUPPORT and
command-line option -X perf, as well as the new sys.activate_stack_trampoline(), sys.
deactivate_stack_trampoline(), and sys.is_stack_trampoline_active() functions.
(Design by Pablo Galindo. Contributed by Pablo Galindo and Christian Heimes with contributions from Gre-
gory P. Smith [Google] and Mark Shannon in gh-96123.)

5 New Modules

• None.

6 Improved Modules

6.1 array

• The array.array class now supports subscripting, making it a generic type. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra
in gh-98658.)

6.2 asyncio

• The performance of writing to sockets in asyncio has been significantly improved. asyncio now avoids
unnecessary copying when writing to sockets and uses sendmsg() if the platform supports it. (Contributed
by Kumar Aditya in gh-91166.)
• Add asyncio.eager_task_factory() and asyncio.create_eager_task_factory()
functions to allow opting an event loop in to eager task execution, making some use-cases 2x to 5x faster.
(Contributed by Jacob Bower & Itamar Oren in gh-102853, gh-104140, and gh-104138)
• On Linux, asyncio uses asyncio.PidfdChildWatcher by default if os.pidfd_open() is avail-
able and functional instead of asyncio.ThreadedChildWatcher. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in
gh-98024.)
• The event loop now uses the best available child watcher for each platform (asyncio.
PidfdChildWatcher if supported and asyncio.ThreadedChildWatcher otherwise), so
manually configuring a child watcher is not recommended. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-94597.)
• Add loop_factory parameter to asyncio.run() to allow specifying a custom event loop factory. (Con-
tributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-99388.)

10
 • Add C implementation of asyncio.current_task() for 4x-6x speedup. (Contributed by Itamar Oren
and Pranav Thulasiram Bhat in gh-100344.)
• asyncio.iscoroutine() now returns False for generators as asyncio does not support legacy
generator-based coroutines. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-102748.)
• asyncio.wait() and asyncio.as_completed() now accepts generators yielding tasks. (Con-
tributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-78530.)

6.3 calendar

• Add enums calendar.Month and calendar.Day defining months of the year and days of the week.
(Contributed by Prince Roshan in gh-103636.)

6.4 csv

• Add csv.QUOTE_NOTNULL and csv.QUOTE_STRINGS flags to provide finer grained control of None
and empty strings by csv.writer objects.

6.5 dis

• Pseudo instruction opcodes (which are used by the compiler but do not appear in executable bytecode) are now
exposed in the dis module. HAVE_ARGUMENT is still relevant to real opcodes, but it is not useful for pseudo
instructions. Use the new dis.hasarg collection instead. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-94216.)
• Add the dis.hasexc collection to signify instructions that set an exception handler. (Contributed by Irit
Katriel in gh-94216.)

6.6 fractions

• Objects of type fractions.Fraction now support float-style formatting. (Contributed by Mark Dick-
inson in gh-100161.)

6.7 importlib.resources

• importlib.resources.as_file() now supports resource directories. (Contributed by Jason R.

Coombs in gh-97930.)

6.8 inspect

• Add inspect.markcoroutinefunction() to mark sync functions that return a coroutine for use with
inspect.iscoroutinefunction(). (Contributed Carlton Gibson in gh-99247.)
• Add inspect.getasyncgenstate() and inspect.getasyncgenlocals() for determining
the current state of asynchronous generators. (Contributed by Thomas Krennwallner in gh-79940.)
• The performance of inspect.getattr_static() has been considerably improved. Most calls to the
function should be at least 2x faster than they were in Python 3.11, and some may be 6x faster or more.
(Contributed by Alex Waygood in gh-103193.)

11
6.9 itertools

• Add itertools.batched() for collecting into even-sized tuples where the last batch may be shorter than
the rest. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-98363.)

6.10 math

• Add math.sumprod() for computing a sum of products. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-
100485.)
• Extend math.nextafter() to include a steps argument for moving up or down multiple steps at a time.
(By Matthias Goergens, Mark Dickinson, and Raymond Hettinger in gh-94906.)

6.11 os

• Add os.PIDFD_NONBLOCK to open a file descriptor for a process with os.pidfd_open() in non-
blocking mode. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-93312.)
• os.DirEntry now includes an os.DirEntry.is_junction() method to check if the entry is a
junction. (Contributed by Charles Machalow in gh-99547.)
• Add os.listdrives(), os.listvolumes() and os.listmounts() functions on Windows for
enumerating drives, volumes and mount points. (Contributed by Steve Dower in gh-102519.)
• os.stat() and os.lstat() are now more accurate on Windows. The st_birthtime field will now
be filled with the creation time of the file, and st_ctime is deprecated but still contains the creation time
(but in the future will return the last metadata change, for consistency with other platforms). st_dev may
be up to 64 bits and st_ino up to 128 bits depending on your file system, and st_rdev is always set to
zero rather than incorrect values. Both functions may be significantly faster on newer releases of Windows.
(Contributed by Steve Dower in gh-99726.)

6.12 os.path

• Add os.path.isjunction() to check if a given path is a junction. (Contributed by Charles Machalow

in gh-99547.)
• Add os.path.splitroot() to split a path into a triad (drive, root, tail). (Contributed by
Barney Gale in gh-101000.)

6.13 pathlib

• Add support for subclassing pathlib.PurePath and pathlib.Path, plus their Posix- and Windows-
specific variants. Subclasses may override the pathlib.PurePath.with_segments() method to pass
information between path instances.
• Add pathlib.Path.walk() for walking the directory trees and generating all file or directory names
within them, similar to os.walk(). (Contributed by Stanislav Zmiev in gh-90385.)
• Add walk_up optional parameter to pathlib.PurePath.relative_to() to allow the insertion of
.. entries in the result; this behavior is more consistent with os.path.relpath(). (Contributed by
Domenico Ragusa in gh-84538.)
• Add pathlib.Path.is_junction() as a proxy to os.path.isjunction(). (Contributed by
Charles Machalow in gh-99547.)
• Add case_sensitive optional parameter to pathlib.Path.glob(), pathlib.Path.rglob() and
pathlib.PurePath.match() for matching the path’s case sensitivity, allowing for more precise control
over the matching process.

12
6.14 pdb

• Add convenience variables to hold values temporarily for debug session and provide quick access to values like
the current frame or the return value. (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-103693.)

6.15 random

• Add random.binomialvariate(). (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-81620.)

• Add a default of lambd=1.0 to random.expovariate(). (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-
100234.)

6.16 shutil

• shutil.make_archive() now passes the root_dir argument to custom archivers which support it. In
this case it no longer temporarily changes the current working directory of the process to root_dir to perform
archiving. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-74696.)
• shutil.rmtree() now accepts a new argument onexc which is an error handler like onerror but which
expects an exception instance rather than a (typ, val, tb) triplet. onerror is deprecated and will be removed in
Python 3.14. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102828.)
• shutil.which() now consults the PATHEXT environment variable to find matches within PATH on Win-
dows even when the given cmd includes a directory component. (Contributed by Charles Machalow in gh-
103179.)
shutil.which() will call NeedCurrentDirectoryForExePathW when querying for executables
on Windows to determine if the current working directory should be prepended to the search path. (Contributed
by Charles Machalow in gh-103179.)
shutil.which() will return a path matching the cmd with a component from PATHEXT prior to a direct
match elsewhere in the search path on Windows. (Contributed by Charles Machalow in gh-103179.)

6.17 sqlite3

• Add a command-line interface. (Contributed by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-77617.)

• Add the sqlite3.Connection.autocommit attribute to sqlite3.Connection and the autocom-
mit parameter to sqlite3.connect() to control PEP 249-compliant transaction handling. (Contributed
by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-83638.)
• Add entrypoint keyword-only parameter to sqlite3.Connection.load_extension(), for overrid-
ing the SQLite extension entry point. (Contributed by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-103015.)
• Add sqlite3.Connection.getconfig() and sqlite3.Connection.setconfig() to
sqlite3.Connection to make configuration changes to a database connection. (Contributed by Erlend
E. Aasland in gh-103489.)

13
6.18 statistics

• Extend statistics.correlation() to include as a ranked method for computing the Spearman

correlation of ranked data. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-95861.)

6.19 sys

• Add the sys.monitoring namespace to expose the new PEP 669 monitoring API. (Contributed by Mark
Shannon in gh-103082.)
• Add sys.activate_stack_trampoline() and sys.deactivate_stack_trampoline()
for activating and deactivating stack profiler trampolines, and sys.
is_stack_trampoline_active() for querying if stack profiler trampolines are active. (Contributed
by Pablo Galindo and Christian Heimes with contributions from Gregory P. Smith [Google] and Mark
Shannon in gh-96123.)
• Add sys.last_exc which holds the last unhandled exception that was raised (for post-mortem debugging
use cases). Deprecate the three fields that have the same information in its legacy form: sys.last_type,
sys.last_value and sys.last_traceback. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102778.)
• sys._current_exceptions() now returns a mapping from thread-id to an exception instance, rather
than to a (typ, exc, tb) tuple. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-103176.)
• sys.setrecursionlimit() and sys.getrecursionlimit(). The recursion limit now applies
only to Python code. Builtin functions do not use the recursion limit, but are protected by a different mechanism
that prevents recursion from causing a virtual machine crash.

6.20 tempfile

• The tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile function has a new optional parameter delete_on_close (Con-

tributed by Evgeny Zorin in gh-58451.)
• tempfile.mkdtemp() now always returns an absolute path, even if the argument provided to the dir
parameter is a relative path.

6.21 threading

• Add threading.settrace_all_threads() and threading.

setprofile_all_threads() that allow to set tracing and profiling functions in all running threads in
addition to the calling one. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-93503.)

6.22 tkinter

• tkinter.Canvas.coords() now flattens its arguments. It now accepts not only coordinates as separate
arguments (x1, y1, x2, y2, ...) and a sequence of coordinates ([x1, y1, x2, y2, ...]),
but also coordinates grouped in pairs ((x1, y1), (x2, y2), ... and [(x1, y1), (x2, y2),
...]), like create_*() methods. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-94473.)

14
6.23 tokenize

• The tokenize module includes the changes introduced in PEP 701. (Contributed by Marta Gómez Macías
and Pablo Galindo in gh-102856.) See Porting to Python 3.12 for more information on the changes to the
tokenize module.

6.24 types

• Add types.get_original_bases() to allow for further introspection of user-defined-generics when

subclassed. (Contributed by James Hilton-Balfe and Alex Waygood in gh-101827.)

6.25 typing

• isinstance() checks against runtime-checkable protocols now use inspect.

getattr_static() rather than hasattr() to lookup whether attributes exist. This means that
descriptors and __getattr__() methods are no longer unexpectedly evaluated during isinstance()
checks against runtime-checkable protocols. However, it may also mean that some objects which used to be
considered instances of a runtime-checkable protocol may no longer be considered instances of that protocol
on Python 3.12+, and vice versa. Most users are unlikely to be affected by this change. (Contributed by Alex
Waygood in gh-102433.)
• The members of a runtime-checkable protocol are now considered “frozen” at runtime as soon as the class has
been created. Monkey-patching attributes onto a runtime-checkable protocol will still work, but will have no
impact on isinstance() checks comparing objects to the protocol. For example:

>>> from typing import Protocol, runtime_checkable

>>> @runtime_checkable
... class HasX(Protocol):
... x = 1
...
>>> class Foo: ...
...
>>> f = Foo()
>>> isinstance(f, HasX)
False
>>> f.x = 1
>>> isinstance(f, HasX)
True
>>> HasX.y = 2
>>> isinstance(f, HasX) # unchanged, even though HasX now also has a "y"␣
,→attribute

True

This change was made in order to speed up isinstance() checks against runtime-checkable protocols.
• The performance profile of isinstance() checks against runtime-checkable protocols has
changed significantly. Most isinstance() checks against protocols with only a few members should be at
least 2x faster than in 3.11, and some may be 20x faster or more. However, isinstance() checks against
protocols with fourteen or more members may be slower than in Python 3.11. (Contributed by Alex Waygood
in gh-74690 and gh-103193.)
• All typing.TypedDict and typing.NamedTuple classes now have the __orig_bases__ at-
tribute. (Contributed by Adrian Garcia Badaracco in gh-103699.)
• Add frozen_default parameter to typing.dataclass_transform(). (Contributed by Erik De
Bonte in gh-99957.)

15
6.26 unicodedata

• The Unicode database has been updated to version 15.0.0. (Contributed by Benjamin Peterson in gh-96734).

6.27 unittest

Add a --durations command line option, showing the N slowest test cases:

python3 -m unittest --durations=3 lib.tests.test_threading

.....
Slowest test durations
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.210s test_timeout (Lib.test.test_threading.BarrierTests)
1.003s test_default_timeout (Lib.test.test_threading.BarrierTests)
0.518s test_timeout (Lib.test.test_threading.EventTests)

(0.000 durations hidden. Use -v to show these durations.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 158 tests in 9.869s

OK (skipped=3)

(Contributed by Giampaolo Rodola in gh-48330)

6.28 uuid

• Add a command-line interface. (Contributed by Adam Chhina in gh-88597.)

7 Optimizations

• Remove wstr and wstr_length members from Unicode objects. It reduces object size by 8 or 16 bytes
on 64bit platform. (PEP 623) (Contributed by Inada Naoki in gh-92536.)
• Add experimental support for using the BOLT binary optimizer in the build process, which improves perfor-
mance by 1-5%. (Contributed by Kevin Modzelewski in gh-90536 and tuned by Donghee Na in gh-101525)
• Speed up the regular expression substitution (functions re.sub() and re.subn() and corresponding re.
Pattern methods) for replacement strings containing group references by 2–3 times. (Contributed by Serhiy
Storchaka in gh-91524.)
• Speed up asyncio.Task creation by deferring expensive string formatting. (Contributed by Itamar Oren
in gh-103793.)
• The tokenize.tokenize() and tokenize.generate_tokens() functions are up to 64% faster
as a side effect of the changes required to cover PEP 701 in the tokenize module. (Contributed by Marta
Gómez Macías and Pablo Galindo in gh-102856.)
• Speed up super() method calls and attribute loads via the new LOAD_SUPER_ATTR instruction. (Con-
tributed by Carl Meyer and Vladimir Matveev in gh-103497.)

16
8 CPython bytecode changes

• Remove the LOAD_METHOD instruction. It has been merged into LOAD_ATTR. LOAD_ATTR will now be-
have like the old LOAD_METHOD instruction if the low bit of its oparg is set. (Contributed by Ken Jin in
gh-93429.)
• Remove the JUMP_IF_FALSE_OR_POP and JUMP_IF_TRUE_OR_POP instructions. (Contributed by
Irit Katriel in gh-102859.)
• Remove the PRECALL instruction. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-92925.)
• Add the BINARY_SLICE and STORE_SLICE instructions. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-94163.)
• Add the CALL_INTRINSIC_1 instructions. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-99005.)
• Add the CALL_INTRINSIC_2 instruction. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-101799.)
• Add the CLEANUP_THROW instruction. (Contributed by Brandt Bucher in gh-90997.)
• Add the END_SEND instruction. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-103082.)
• Add the LOAD_FAST_AND_CLEAR instruction as part of the implementation of PEP 709. (Contributed by
Carl Meyer in gh-101441.)
• Add the LOAD_FAST_CHECK instruction. (Contributed by Dennis Sweeney in gh-93143.)
• Add the LOAD_FROM_DICT_OR_DEREF, LOAD_FROM_DICT_OR_GLOBALS, and LOAD_LOCALS op-
codes as part of the implementation of PEP 695. Remove the LOAD_CLASSDEREF opcode, which can
be replaced with LOAD_LOCALS plus LOAD_FROM_DICT_OR_DEREF. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in
gh-103764.)
• Add the LOAD_SUPER_ATTR instruction. (Contributed by Carl Meyer and Vladimir Matveev in gh-103497.)
• Add the RETURN_CONST instruction. (Contributed by Wenyang Wang in gh-101632.)

9 Demos and Tools

• Remove the Tools/demo/ directory which contained old demo scripts. A copy can be found in the old-
demos project. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-97681.)
• Remove outdated example scripts of the Tools/scripts/ directory. A copy can be found in the old-demos
project. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-97669.)

10 Deprecated

• argparse: The type, choices, and metavar parameters of argparse.BooleanOptionalAction are

deprecated and will be removed in 3.14. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-92248.)
• ast: The following ast features have been deprecated in documentation since Python 3.8, now cause a
DeprecationWarning to be emitted at runtime when they are accessed or used, and will be removed in
Python 3.14:
– ast.Num
– ast.Str
– ast.Bytes
– ast.NameConstant
– ast.Ellipsis
Use ast.Constant instead. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-90953.)

17
• asyncio:
– The child watcher classes asyncio.MultiLoopChildWatcher, asyncio.
FastChildWatcher, asyncio.AbstractChildWatcher and asyncio.
SafeChildWatcher are deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.14. (Contributed by
Kumar Aditya in gh-94597.)
– asyncio.set_child_watcher(), asyncio.get_child_watcher(),
asyncio.AbstractEventLoopPolicy.set_child_watcher() and asyncio.
AbstractEventLoopPolicy.get_child_watcher() are deprecated and will be removed
in Python 3.14. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-94597.)
– The get_event_loop() method of the default event loop policy now emits a
DeprecationWarning if there is no current event loop set and it decides to create one. (Contributed
by Serhiy Storchaka and Guido van Rossum in gh-100160.)
• calendar: calendar.January and calendar.February constants are deprecated and replaced
by calendar.JANUARY and calendar.FEBRUARY. (Contributed by Prince Roshan in gh-103636.)
• collections.abc: Deprecated collections.abc.ByteString. Prefer Sequence or
collections.abc.Buffer. For use in typing, prefer a union, like bytes | bytearray, or
collections.abc.Buffer. (Contributed by Shantanu Jain in gh-91896.)
• datetime: datetime.datetime’s utcnow() and utcfromtimestamp() are deprecated and will
be removed in a future version. Instead, use timezone-aware objects to represent datetimes in UTC: respec-
tively, call now() and fromtimestamp() with the tz parameter set to datetime.UTC. (Contributed by
Paul Ganssle in gh-103857.)
• email: Deprecate the isdst parameter in email.utils.localtime(). (Contributed by Alan Williams
in gh-72346.)
• importlib.abc: Deprecated the following classes, scheduled for removal in Python 3.14:
– importlib.abc.ResourceReader
– importlib.abc.Traversable
– importlib.abc.TraversableResources
Use importlib.resources.abc classes instead:
– importlib.resources.abc.Traversable
– importlib.resources.abc.TraversableResources
(Contributed by Jason R. Coombs and Hugo van Kemenade in gh-93963.)
• itertools: Deprecate the support for copy, deepcopy, and pickle operations, which is undocumented,
inefficient, historically buggy, and inconsistent. This will be removed in 3.14 for a significant reduction in code
volume and maintenance burden. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-101588.)
• multiprocessing: In Python 3.14, the default multiprocessing start method will change to a safer
one on Linux, BSDs, and other non-macOS POSIX platforms where 'fork' is currently the default (gh-
84559). Adding a runtime warning about this was deemed too disruptive as the majority of code is not expected
to care. Use the get_context() or set_start_method() APIs to explicitly specify when your code
requires 'fork'. See contexts and start methods.
• pkgutil: pkgutil.find_loader() and pkgutil.get_loader() are deprecated and will be
removed in Python 3.14; use importlib.util.find_spec() instead. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev
in gh-97850.)
• pty: The module has two undocumented master_open() and slave_open() functions that have been
deprecated since Python 2 but only gained a proper DeprecationWarning in 3.12. Remove them in 3.14.
(Contributed by Soumendra Ganguly and Gregory P. Smith in gh-85984.)
• os:

18
 – The st_ctime fields return by os.stat() and os.lstat() on Windows are deprecated. In a
future release, they will contain the last metadata change time, consistent with other platforms. For now,
they still contain the creation time, which is also available in the new st_birthtime field. (Con-
tributed by Steve Dower in gh-99726.)
– On POSIX platforms, os.fork() can now raise a DeprecationWarning when it can detect being
called from a multithreaded process. There has always been a fundamental incompatibility with the
POSIX platform when doing so. Even if such code appeared to work. We added the warning to to raise
awareness as issues encounted by code doing this are becoming more frequent. See the os.fork()
documentation for more details along with this discussion on fork being incompatible with threads for
why we’re now surfacing this longstanding platform compatibility problem to developers.
When this warning appears due to usage of multiprocessing or concurrent.futures the fix is to
use a different multiprocessing start method such as "spawn" or "forkserver".
• shutil: The onerror argument of shutil.rmtree() is deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.14.
Use onexc instead. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102828.)
• sqlite3:
– default adapters and converters are now deprecated. Instead, use the sqlite3-adapter-converter-recipes
and tailor them to your needs. (Contributed by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-90016.)
– In execute(), DeprecationWarning is now emitted when named placeholders are used together
with parameters supplied as a sequence instead of as a dict. Starting from Python 3.14, using named
placeholders with parameters supplied as a sequence will raise a ProgrammingError. (Contributed
by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-101698.)
• sys: The sys.last_type, sys.last_value and sys.last_traceback fields are deprecated.
Use sys.last_exc instead. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102778.)
• tarfile: Extracting tar archives without specifying filter is deprecated until Python 3.14, when 'data'
filter will become the default. See tarfile-extraction-filter for details.
• typing:
– typing.Hashable and typing.Sized aliases for collections.abc.Hashable and
collections.abc.Sized. (gh-94309.)
– typing.ByteString, deprecated since Python 3.9, now causes a DeprecationWarning to be
emitted when it is used. (Contributed by Alex Waygood in gh-91896.)
• xml.etree.ElementTree: The module now emits DeprecationWarning when testing the truth
value of an xml.etree.ElementTree.Element. Before, the Python implementation emitted
FutureWarning, and the C implementation emitted nothing. (Contributed by Jacob Walls in gh-83122.)
• The 3-arg signatures (type, value, traceback) of coroutine throw(), generator throw() and
async generator throw() are deprecated and may be removed in a future version of Python. Use
the single-arg versions of these functions instead. (Contributed by Ofey Chan in gh-89874.)
• DeprecationWarning is now raised when __package__ on a module differs from __spec__.
parent (previously it was ImportWarning). (Contributed by Brett Cannon in gh-65961.)
• Setting __package__ or __cached__ on a module is deprecated, and will cease to be set or taken into
consideration by the import system in Python 3.14. (Contributed by Brett Cannon in gh-65961.)
• The bitwise inversion operator (~) on bool is deprecated. It will throw an error in Python 3.14. Use not for
logical negation of bools instead. In the rare case that you really need the bitwise inversion of the underlying
int, convert to int explicitly: ~int(x). (Contributed by Tim Hoffmann in gh-103487.)
• Accessing co_lnotab on code objects was deprecated in Python 3.10 via PEP 626, but it only got a proper
DeprecationWarning in 3.12, therefore it will be removed in 3.14. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in
gh-101866.)

19
10.1 Pending Removal in Python 3.13

The following modules and APIs have been deprecated in earlier Python releases, and will be removed in Python
3.13.
Modules (see PEP 594):
• aifc
• audioop
• cgi
• cgitb
• chunk
• crypt
• imghdr
• mailcap
• msilib
• nis
• nntplib
• ossaudiodev
• pipes
• sndhdr
• spwd
• sunau
• telnetlib
• uu
• xdrlib
Other modules:
• lib2to3, and the 2to3 program (gh-84540)
APIs:
• configparser.LegacyInterpolation (gh-90765)
• locale.getdefaultlocale() (gh-90817)
• turtle.RawTurtle.settiltangle() (gh-50096)
• unittest.findTestCases() (gh-50096)
• unittest.getTestCaseNames() (gh-50096)
• unittest.makeSuite() (gh-50096)
• unittest.TestProgram.usageExit() (gh-67048)
• webbrowser.MacOSX (gh-86421)
• classmethod descriptor chaining (gh-89519)

20
10.2 Pending Removal in Python 3.14

The following APIs have been deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.14.
• argparse: The type, choices, and metavar parameters of argparse.BooleanOptionalAction
• ast:
– ast.Num
– ast.Str
– ast.Bytes
– ast.NameConstant
– ast.Ellipsis
• asyncio:
– asyncio.MultiLoopChildWatcher
– asyncio.FastChildWatcher
– asyncio.AbstractChildWatcher
– asyncio.SafeChildWatcher
– asyncio.set_child_watcher()
– asyncio.get_child_watcher(),
– asyncio.AbstractEventLoopPolicy.set_child_watcher()
– asyncio.AbstractEventLoopPolicy.get_child_watcher()
• collections.abc: collections.abc.ByteString.
• email: the isdst parameter in email.utils.localtime().
• importlib.abc:
– importlib.abc.ResourceReader
– importlib.abc.Traversable
– importlib.abc.TraversableResources
• itertools: Support for copy, deepcopy, and pickle operations.
• pkgutil:
– pkgutil.find_loader()
– pkgutil.get_loader().
• pty:
– pty.master_open()
– pty.slave_open()
• shutil: The onerror argument of shutil.rmtree()
• typing: typing.ByteString
• xml.etree.ElementTree: Testing the truth value of an xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.
• The __package__ and __cached__ attributes on module objects.
• The co_lnotab attribute of code objects.

21
10.3 Pending Removal in Future Versions

The following APIs were deprecated in earlier Python versions and will be removed, although there is currently no
date scheduled for their removal.
• array’s 'u' format code (gh-57281)
• typing.Text (gh-92332)
• Currently Python accepts numeric literals immediately followed by keywords, for example 0in x, 1or x,
0if 1else 2. It allows confusing and ambiguous expressions like [0x1for x in y] (which can be
interpreted as [0x1 for x in y] or [0x1f or x in y]). A syntax warning is raised if the numeric
literal is immediately followed by one of keywords and, else, for, if, in, is and or. In a future release
it will be changed to a syntax error. (gh-87999)

11 Removed

11.1 asynchat and asyncore

• These two modules have been removed according to the schedule in PEP 594, having been deprecated in
Python 3.6. Use asyncio instead. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-96580.)

11.2 configparser

• Several names deprecated in the configparser way back in 3.2 have been removed per gh-89336:
– configparser.ParsingError no longer has a filename attribute or argument. Use the
source attribute and argument instead.
– configparser no longer has a SafeConfigParser class. Use the shorter ConfigParser
name instead.
– configparser.ConfigParser no longer has a readfp method. Use read_file() instead.

11.3 distutils

• Remove the distutils package. It was deprecated in Python 3.10 by PEP 632 “Deprecate distutils mod-
ule”. For projects still using distutils and cannot be updated to something else, the setuptools project
can be installed: it still provides distutils. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-92584.)

11.4 ensurepip

• Remove the bundled setuptools wheel from ensurepip, and stop installing setuptools in environments cre-
ated by venv.
pip (>= 22.1) does not require setuptools to be installed in the environment. setuptools-based (and
distutils-based) packages can still be used with pip install, since pip will provide setuptools
in the build environment it uses for building a package.
easy_install, pkg_resources, setuptools and distutils are no longer provided by default in
environments created with venv or bootstrapped with ensurepip, since they are part of the setuptools
package. For projects relying on these at runtime, the setuptools project should be declared as a depen-
dency and installed separately (typically, using pip).
(Contributed by Pradyun Gedam in gh-95299.)

22
11.5 enum

• Remove enum’s EnumMeta.__getattr__, which is no longer needed for enum attribute access. (Con-
tributed by Ethan Furman in gh-95083.)

11.6 ftplib

• Remove ftplib’s FTP_TLS.ssl_version class attribute: use the context parameter instead. (Con-
tributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94172.)

11.7 gzip

• Remove the filename attribute of gzip’s gzip.GzipFile, deprecated since Python 2.6, use the name
attribute instead. In write mode, the filename attribute added '.gz' file extension if it was not present.
(Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94196.)

11.8 hashlib

• Remove the pure Python implementation of hashlib’s hashlib.pbkdf2_hmac(), deprecated in

Python 3.10. Python 3.10 and newer requires OpenSSL 1.1.1 (PEP 644): this OpenSSL version provides
a C implementation of pbkdf2_hmac() which is faster. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94199.)

11.9 importlib

• Many previously deprecated cleanups in importlib have now been completed:

– References to, and support for module_repr() has been removed. (Contributed by Barry Warsaw in
gh-97850.)
– importlib.util.set_package, importlib.util.set_loader and importlib.
util.module_for_loader have all been removed. (Contributed by Brett Cannon and Nikita
Sobolev in gh-65961 and gh-97850.)
– Support for find_loader() and find_module() APIs have been removed. (Contributed by
Barry Warsaw in gh-98040.)
– importlib.abc.Finder, pkgutil.ImpImporter, and pkgutil.ImpLoader have been
removed. (Contributed by Barry Warsaw in gh-98040.)

11.10 imp

• The imp module has been removed. (Contributed by Barry Warsaw in gh-98040.)
To migrate, consult the following correspondence table:

23
 imp importlib
imp. Insert None into sys.path_importer_cache
NullImporter
imp. importlib.util.cache_from_source()
cache_from_source()
imp. importlib.util.find_spec()
find_module()
imp. importlib.util.MAGIC_NUMBER
get_magic()
imp. importlib.machinery.SOURCE_SUFFIXES, importlib.
get_suffixes()
machinery.EXTENSION_SUFFIXES, and importlib.
machinery.BYTECODE_SUFFIXES
imp. sys.implementation.cache_tag
get_tag()
imp. importlib.import_module()
load_module()
imp. types.ModuleType(name)
new_module(name)
imp. importlib.reload()
reload()
imp. importlib.util.source_from_cache()
source_from_cache()
imp. See below
load_source()

Replace imp.load_source() with:

import importlib.util
import importlib.machinery

def load_source(modname, filename):

loader = importlib.machinery.SourceFileLoader(modname, filename)
spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(modname, filename,␣
,→loader=loader)

module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
# The module is always executed and not cached in sys.modules.
# Uncomment the following line to cache the module.
# sys.modules[module.__name__] = module
loader.exec_module(module)
return module

• Remove imp functions and attributes with no replacements:

– Undocumented functions:
∗ imp.init_builtin()
∗ imp.load_compiled()
∗ imp.load_dynamic()
∗ imp.load_package()
– imp.lock_held(), imp.acquire_lock(), imp.release_lock(): the locking scheme
has changed in Python 3.3 to per-module locks.
– imp.find_module() constants: SEARCH_ERROR, PY_SOURCE, PY_COMPILED,
C_EXTENSION, PY_RESOURCE, PKG_DIRECTORY, C_BUILTIN, PY_FROZEN,
PY_CODERESOURCE, IMP_HOOK.

24
11.11 io

• Remove io’s io.OpenWrapper and _pyio.OpenWrapper, deprecated in Python 3.10: just use
open() instead. The open() (io.open()) function is a built-in function. Since Python 3.10, _pyio.
open() is also a static method. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94169.)

11.12 locale

• Remove locale’s locale.format() function, deprecated in Python 3.7: use locale.

format_string() instead. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94226.)
• smtpd: The module has been removed according to the schedule in PEP 594, having been deprecated in
Python 3.4.7 and 3.5.4. Use aiosmtpd PyPI module or any other asyncio-based server instead. (Contributed
by Oleg Iarygin in gh-93243.)

11.13 sqlite3

• The following undocumented sqlite3 features, deprecated in Python 3.10, are now removed:
– sqlite3.enable_shared_cache()
– sqlite3.OptimizedUnicode
If a shared cache must be used, open the database in URI mode using the cache=shared query parameter.
The sqlite3.OptimizedUnicode text factory has been an alias for str since Python 3.3. Code that
previously set the text factory to OptimizedUnicode can either use str explicitly, or rely on the default
value which is also str.
(Contributed by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-92548.)

11.14 ssl

• Remove ssl’s ssl.RAND_pseudo_bytes() function, deprecated in Python 3.6: use os.urandom()

or ssl.RAND_bytes() instead. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94199.)
• Remove the ssl.match_hostname() function. It was deprecated in Python 3.7. OpenSSL performs
hostname matching since Python 3.7, Python no longer uses the ssl.match_hostname() function. (Con-
tributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94199.)
• Remove the ssl.wrap_socket() function, deprecated in Python 3.7: instead, create a ssl.
SSLContext object and call its ssl.SSLContext.wrap_socket method. Any package that still
uses ssl.wrap_socket() is broken and insecure. The function neither sends a SNI TLS extension nor
validates server hostname. Code is subject to CWE-295: Improper Certificate Validation. (Contributed by
Victor Stinner in gh-94199.)

11.15 unittest

• Remove many long-deprecated unittest features:

– A number of TestCase method aliases:

25
 Deprecated alias Method Name Deprecated in
failUnless assertTrue() 3.1
failIf assertFalse() 3.1
failUnlessEqual assertEqual() 3.1
failIfEqual assertNotEqual() 3.1
failUnlessAlmostEqual assertAlmostEqual() 3.1
failIfAlmostEqual assertNotAlmostEqual() 3.1
failUnlessRaises assertRaises() 3.1
assert_ assertTrue() 3.2
assertEquals assertEqual() 3.2
assertNotEquals assertNotEqual() 3.2
assertAlmostEquals assertAlmostEqual() 3.2
assertNotAlmostEquals assertNotAlmostEqual() 3.2
assertRegexpMatches assertRegex() 3.2
assertRaisesRegexp assertRaisesRegex() 3.2
assertNotRegexpMatches assertNotRegex() 3.5

You can use https://github.com/isidentical/teyit to automatically modernise your unit tests.

– Undocumented and broken TestCase method assertDictContainsSubset (deprecated in
Python 3.2).
– Undocumented TestLoader.loadTestsFromModule parameter use_load_tests (deprecated and
ignored since Python 3.2).
– An alias of the TextTestResult class: _TextTestResult (deprecated in Python 3.2).
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-89325.)

11.16 webbrowser

• Remove support for obsolete browsers from webbrowser. The removed browsers include: Grail, Mosaic,
Netscape, Galeon, Skipstone, Iceape, Firebird, and Firefox versions 35 and below (gh-102871).

11.17 xml.etree.ElementTree

• Remove the ElementTree.Element.copy() method of the pure Python implementation, depre-

cated in Python 3.10, use the copy.copy() function instead. The C implementation of xml.etree.
ElementTree has no copy() method, only a __copy__() method. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
gh-94383.)

11.18 zipimport

• Remove zipimport’s find_loader() and find_module() methods, deprecated in Python 3.10:

use the find_spec() method instead. See PEP 451 for the rationale. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
gh-94379.)

26
11.19 Others

• Remove the suspicious rule from the documentation Makefile and Doc/tools/rstlint.py,
both in favor of sphinx-lint. (Contributed by Julien Palard in gh-98179.)
• Remove the keyfile and certfile parameters from the ftplib, imaplib, poplib and smtplib modules,
and the key_file, cert_file and check_hostname parameters from the http.client module, all deprecated
since Python 3.6. Use the context parameter (ssl_context in imaplib) instead. (Contributed by Victor Stinner
in gh-94172.)

12 Porting to Python 3.12

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

12.1 Changes in the Python API

• More strict rules are now applied for numerical group references and group names in regular expressions. Only
sequence of ASCII digits is now accepted as a numerical reference. The group name in bytes patterns and
replacement strings can now only contain ASCII letters and digits and underscore. (Contributed by Serhiy
Storchaka in gh-91760.)
• Remove randrange() functionality deprecated since Python 3.10. Formerly, randrange(10.0) loss-
lessly converted to randrange(10). Now, it raises a TypeError. Also, the exception raised for non-
integer values such as randrange(10.5) or randrange('10') has been changed from ValueError
to TypeError. This also prevents bugs where randrange(1e25) would silently select from a larger range
than randrange(10**25). (Originally suggested by Serhiy Storchaka gh-86388.)
• argparse.ArgumentParser changed encoding and error handler for reading arguments from
file (e.g. fromfile_prefix_chars option) from default text encoding (e.g. locale.
getpreferredencoding(False)) to filesystem encoding and error handler. Argument files should
be encoded in UTF-8 instead of ANSI Codepage on Windows.
• Remove the asyncore-based smtpd module deprecated in Python 3.4.7 and 3.5.4. A recommended re-
placement is the asyncio-based aiosmtpd PyPI module.
• shlex.split(): Passing None for s argument now raises an exception, rather than reading sys.stdin.
The feature was deprecated in Python 3.9. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-94352.)
• The os module no longer accepts bytes-like paths, like bytearray and memoryview types: only the exact
bytes type is accepted for bytes strings. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-98393.)
• syslog.openlog() and syslog.closelog() now fail if used in subinterpreters. syslog.
syslog() may still be used in subinterpreters, but now only if syslog.openlog() has already been
called in the main interpreter. These new restrictions do not apply to the main interpreter, so only a very
small set of users might be affected. This change helps with interpreter isolation. Furthermore, syslog is a
wrapper around process-global resources, which are best managed from the main interpreter. (Contributed by
Donghee Na in gh-99127.)
• The undocumented locking behavior of cached_property() is removed, because it locked across all
instances of the class, leading to high lock contention. This means that a cached property getter function could
now run more than once for a single instance, if two threads race. For most simple cached properties (e.g.
those that are idempotent and simply calculate a value based on other attributes of the instance) this will be
fine. If synchronization is needed, implement locking within the cached property getter function or around
multi-threaded access points.
• sys._current_exceptions() now returns a mapping from thread-id to an exception instance, rather
than to a (typ, exc, tb) tuple. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-103176.)
• When extracting tar files using tarfile or shutil.unpack_archive(), pass the filter argument to
limit features that may be surprising or dangerous. See tarfile-extraction-filter for details.

27
 • The output of the tokenize.tokenize() and tokenize.generate_tokens() functions is now
changed due to the changes introduced in PEP 701. This means that STRING tokens are not emitted any
more for f-strings and the tokens described in PEP 701 are now produced instead: FSTRING_START,
FSTRING_MIDDLE and FSTRING_END are now emitted for f-string “string” parts in addition to the ap-
propriate tokens for the tokenization in the expression components. For example for the f-string f"start
{1+1} end" the old version of the tokenizer emitted:

1,0-1,18: STRING 'f"start {1+1} end"'

while the new version emits:

1,0-1,2: FSTRING_START 'f"'

1,2-1,8: FSTRING_MIDDLE 'start '
1,8-1,9: OP '{'
1,9-1,10: NUMBER '1'
1,10-1,11: OP '+'
1,11-1,12: NUMBER '1'
1,12-1,13: OP '}'
1,13-1,17: FSTRING_MIDDLE ' end'
1,17-1,18: FSTRING_END '"'

Additionally, there may be some minor behavioral changes as a consequence of the changes required to support
PEP 701. Some of these changes include:
– The type attribute of the tokens emitted when tokenizing some invalid Python characters such as ! has
changed from ERRORTOKEN to OP.
– Incomplete single-line strings now also raise tokenize.TokenError as incomplete multiline strings
do.
– Some incomplete or invalid Python code now raises tokenize.TokenError instead of returning
arbitrary ERRORTOKEN tokens when tokenizing it.
– Mixing tabs and spaces as indentation in the same file is not supported anymore and will raise a
TabError.

13 Build Changes

• Python no longer uses setup.py to build shared C extension modules. Build parameters like headers and
libraries are detected in configure script. Extensions are built by Makefile. Most extensions use
pkg-config and fall back to manual detection. (Contributed by Christian Heimes in gh-93939.)
• va_start() with two parameters, like va_start(args, format), is now required to build Python.
va_start() is no longer called with a single parameter. (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-93207.)
• CPython now uses the ThinLTO option as the default link time optimization policy if the Clang compiler
accepts the flag. (Contributed by Donghee Na in gh-89536.)
• Add COMPILEALL_OPTS variable in Makefile to override compileall options (default: -j0) in
make install. Also merged the 3 compileall commands into a single command to build .pyc files
for all optimization levels (0, 1, 2) at once. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-99289.)
• Add platform triplets for 64-bit LoongArch:
– loongarch64-linux-gnusf
– loongarch64-linux-gnuf32
– loongarch64-linux-gnu
(Contributed by Zhang Na in gh-90656.)
• PYTHON_FOR_REGEN now require Python 3.10 or newer.

28
 • Autoconf 2.71 and aclocal 1.16.4 is now required to regenerate !configure. (Contributed by Christian
Heimes in gh-89886.)
• Windows builds and macOS installers from python.org now use OpenSSL 3.0.

14 C API Changes

14.1 New Features

• PEP 697: Introduce the Unstable C API tier, intended for low-level tools like debuggers and JIT compilers.
This API may change in each minor release of CPython without deprecation warnings. Its contents are marked
by the PyUnstable_ prefix in names.
Code object constructors:
– PyUnstable_Code_New() (renamed from PyCode_New)
– PyUnstable_Code_NewWithPosOnlyArgs() (renamed from
PyCode_NewWithPosOnlyArgs)
Extra storage for code objects (PEP 523):
– PyUnstable_Eval_RequestCodeExtraIndex() (renamed from
_PyEval_RequestCodeExtraIndex)
– PyUnstable_Code_GetExtra() (renamed from _PyCode_GetExtra)
– PyUnstable_Code_SetExtra() (renamed from _PyCode_SetExtra)
The original names will continue to be available until the respective API changes.
(Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-101101.)
• PEP 697: Add an API for extending types whose instance memory layout is opaque:
– PyType_Spec.basicsize can be zero or negative to specify inheriting or extending the base class
size.
– PyObject_GetTypeData() and PyType_GetTypeDataSize() added to allow access to
subclass-specific instance data.
– Py_TPFLAGS_ITEMS_AT_END and PyObject_GetItemData() added to allow safely extend-
ing certain variable-sized types, including PyType_Type.
– Py_RELATIVE_OFFSET added to allow defining members in terms of a subclass-specific struct.
(Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-103509.)
• Add the new limited C API function PyType_FromMetaclass(), which generalizes the existing
PyType_FromModuleAndSpec() using an additional metaclass argument. (Contributed by Wenzel
Jakob in gh-93012.)
• API for creating objects that can be called using the vectorcall protocol was added to the Limited API:
– Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_VECTORCALL
– PyVectorcall_NARGS()
– PyVectorcall_Call()
– vectorcallfunc
The Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_VECTORCALL flag is now removed from a class when the class’s __call__()
method is reassigned. This makes vectorcall safe to use with mutable types (i.e. heap types without the im-
mutable flag, Py_TPFLAGS_IMMUTABLETYPE). Mutable types that do not override tp_call now inherit
the Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_VECTORCALL flag. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-93274.)

29
 The Py_TPFLAGS_MANAGED_DICT and Py_TPFLAGS_MANAGED_WEAKREF flags have been added.
This allows extensions classes to support object __dict__ and weakrefs with less bookkeeping, using less
memory and with faster access.
• API for performing calls using the vectorcall protocol was added to the Limited API:
– PyObject_Vectorcall()
– PyObject_VectorcallMethod()
– PY_VECTORCALL_ARGUMENTS_OFFSET
This means that both the incoming and outgoing ends of the vector call protocol are now available in the
Limited API. (Contributed by Wenzel Jakob in gh-98586.)
• Add two new public functions, PyEval_SetProfileAllThreads() and
PyEval_SetTraceAllThreads(), that allow to set tracing and profiling functions in all running
threads in addition to the calling one. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-93503.)
• Add new function PyFunction_SetVectorcall() to the C API which sets the vectorcall field of a
given PyFunctionObject. (Contributed by Andrew Frost in gh-92257.)
• The C API now permits registering callbacks via PyDict_AddWatcher(), PyDict_Watch() and re-
lated APIs to be called whenever a dictionary is modified. This is intended for use by optimizing interpreters,
JIT compilers, or debuggers. (Contributed by Carl Meyer in gh-91052.)
• Add PyType_AddWatcher() and PyType_Watch() API to register callbacks to receive notification
on changes to a type. (Contributed by Carl Meyer in gh-91051.)
• Add PyCode_AddWatcher() and PyCode_ClearWatcher() APIs to register callbacks to receive
notification on creation and destruction of code objects. (Contributed by Itamar Oren in gh-91054.)
• Add PyFrame_GetVar() and PyFrame_GetVarString() functions to get a frame variable by its
name. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-91248.)
• Add PyErr_GetRaisedException() and PyErr_SetRaisedException() for saving and
restoring the current exception. These functions return and accept a single exception object, rather than the
triple arguments of the now-deprecated PyErr_Fetch() and PyErr_Restore(). This is less error
prone and a bit more efficient. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-101578.)
• Add _PyErr_ChainExceptions1, which takes an exception instance, to replace the legacy-API
_PyErr_ChainExceptions, which is now deprecated. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-101578.)
• Add PyException_GetArgs() and PyException_SetArgs() as convenience functions for re-
trieving and modifying the args passed to the exception’s constructor. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in
gh-101578.)
• Add PyErr_DisplayException(), which takes an exception instance, to replace the legacy-api
PyErr_Display(). (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102755).
• PEP 683: Introduce Immortal Objects, which allows objects to bypass reference counts, and related changes
to the C-API:
– _Py_IMMORTAL_REFCNT: The reference count that defines an object as immortal.
– _Py_IsImmortal Checks if an object has the immortal reference count.
– PyObject_HEAD_INIT This will now initialize reference count to _Py_IMMORTAL_REFCNT
when used with Py_BUILD_CORE.
– SSTATE_INTERNED_IMMORTAL An identifier for interned unicode objects that are immortal.
– SSTATE_INTERNED_IMMORTAL_STATIC An identifier for interned unicode objects that are
immortal and static
– sys.getunicodeinternedsize This returns the total number of unicode objects that have
been interned. This is now needed for refleak.py to correctly track reference counts and allo-
cated blocks
(Contributed by Eddie Elizondo in gh-84436.)

30
 • PEP 684: Add the new Py_NewInterpreterFromConfig() function and
PyInterpreterConfig, which may be used to create sub-interpreters with their own GILs. (See
PEP 684: A Per-Interpreter GIL for more info.) (Contributed by Eric Snow in gh-104110.)
• In the limited C API version 3.12, Py_INCREF() and Py_DECREF() functions are now implemented as
opaque function calls to hide implementation details. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-105387.)

14.2 Porting to Python 3.12

• Legacy Unicode APIs based on Py_UNICODE* representation has been removed. Please migrate to APIs
based on UTF-8 or wchar_t*.
• Argument parsing functions like PyArg_ParseTuple() doesn’t support Py_UNICODE* based format
(e.g. u, Z) anymore. Please migrate to other formats for Unicode like s, z, es, and U.
• tp_weaklist for all static builtin types is always NULL. This is an internal-only field on PyTypeObject
but we’re pointing out the change in case someone happens to be accessing the field directly anyway.
To avoid breakage, consider using the existing public C-API instead, or, if necessary, the (internal-only)
_PyObject_GET_WEAKREFS_LISTPTR() macro.
• This internal-only PyTypeObject.tp_subclasses may now not be a valid object pointer. Its type was
changed to void* to reflect this. We mention this in case someone happens to be accessing the internal-only
field directly.
To get a list of subclasses, call the Python method __subclasses__() (using
PyObject_CallMethod(), for example).
• Add support of more formatting options (left aligning, octals, uppercase hexadecimals, intmax_t,
ptrdiff_t, wchar_t C strings, variable width and precision) in PyUnicode_FromFormat() and
PyUnicode_FromFormatV(). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-98836.)
• An unrecognized format character in PyUnicode_FromFormat() and
PyUnicode_FromFormatV() now sets a SystemError. In previous versions it caused all the
rest of the format string to be copied as-is to the result string, and any extra arguments discarded. (Contributed
by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-95781.)
• Fix wrong sign placement in PyUnicode_FromFormat() and PyUnicode_FromFormatV(). (Con-
tributed by Philip Georgi in gh-95504.)
• Extension classes wanting to add a __dict__ or weak reference slot should use
Py_TPFLAGS_MANAGED_DICT and Py_TPFLAGS_MANAGED_WEAKREF instead of
tp_dictoffset and tp_weaklistoffset, respectively. The use of tp_dictoffset and
tp_weaklistoffset is still supported, but does not fully support multiple inheritance (gh-95589),
and performance may be worse. Classes declaring Py_TPFLAGS_MANAGED_DICT should call
_PyObject_VisitManagedDict() and _PyObject_ClearManagedDict() to traverse
and clear their instance’s dictionaries. To clear weakrefs, call PyObject_ClearWeakRefs(), as before.
• The PyUnicode_FSDecoder() function no longer accepts bytes-like paths, like bytearray and
memoryview types: only the exact bytes type is accepted for bytes strings. (Contributed by Victor Stinner
in gh-98393.)
• The Py_CLEAR, Py_SETREF and Py_XSETREF macros now only evaluate their arguments once. If an
argument has side effects, these side effects are no longer duplicated. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-
98724.)
• The interpreter’s error indicator is now always normalized. This means that PyErr_SetObject(),
PyErr_SetString() and the other functions that set the error indicator now normalize the exception
before storing it. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-101578.)
• _Py_RefTotal is no longer authoritative and only kept around for ABI compatibility. Note that it is an
internal global and only available on debug builds. If you happen to be using it then you’ll need to start using
_Py_GetGlobalRefTotal().
• The following functions now select an appropriate metaclass for the newly created type:

31
 – PyType_FromSpec()
– PyType_FromSpecWithBases()
– PyType_FromModuleAndSpec()
Creating classes whose metaclass overrides tp_new is deprecated, and in Python 3.14+ it will be disallowed.
Note that these functions ignore tp_new of the metaclass, possibly allowing incomplete initialization.
Note that PyType_FromMetaclass() (added in Python 3.12) already disallows creating classes whose
metaclass overrides tp_new (__new__() in Python).
Since tp_new overrides almost everything PyType_From* functions do, the two are incompatible with
each other. The existing behavior – ignoring the metaclass for several steps of type creation – is unsafe in
general, since (meta)classes assume that tp_new was called. There is no simple general workaround. One of
the following may work for you:
– If you control the metaclass, avoid using tp_new in it:
∗ If initialization can be skipped, it can be done in tp_init instead.
∗ If the metaclass doesn’t need to be instantiated from Python, set its tp_new to NULL us-
ing the Py_TPFLAGS_DISALLOW_INSTANTIATION flag. This makes it acceptable for
PyType_From* functions.
– Avoid PyType_From* functions: if you don’t need C-specific features (slots or setting the instance
size), create types by calling the metaclass.
– If you know the tp_new can be skipped safely, filter the deprecation warning out using warnings.
catch_warnings() from Python.
• PyOS_InputHook and PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer are no longer called in subinterpreters.
This is because clients generally rely on process-wide global state (since these callbacks have no way of recov-
ering extension module state).
This also avoids situations where extensions may find themselves running in a subinterpreter that they don’t
support (or haven’t yet been loaded in). See gh-104668 for more info.
• PyLongObject has had its internals changed for better performance. Although the internals of
PyLongObject are private, they are used by some extension modules. The internal fields should no longer
be accessed directly, instead the API functions beginning PyLong_... should be used instead. Two new
unstable API functions are provided for efficient access to the value of PyLongObjects which fit into a
single machine word:
– PyUnstable_Long_IsCompact()
– PyUnstable_Long_CompactValue()
• Custom allocators, set via PyMem_SetAllocator(), are now required to be thread-safe, regardless of
memory domain. Allocators that don’t have their own state, including “hooks”, are not affected. If your
custom allocator is not already thread-safe and you need guidance then please create a new GitHub issue and
CC @ericsnowcurrently.

14.3 Deprecated

• In accordance with PEP 699, the ma_version_tag field in PyDictObject is deprecated for extension
modules. Accessing this field will generate a compiler warning at compile time. This field will be removed in
Python 3.14. (Contributed by Ramvikrams and Kumar Aditya in gh-101193. PEP by Ken Jin.)
• Deprecate global configuration variable:
– Py_DebugFlag: use PyConfig.parser_debug
– Py_VerboseFlag: use PyConfig.verbose
– Py_QuietFlag: use PyConfig.quiet
– Py_InteractiveFlag: use PyConfig.interactive

32
 – Py_InspectFlag: use PyConfig.inspect
– Py_OptimizeFlag: use PyConfig.optimization_level
– Py_NoSiteFlag: use PyConfig.site_import
– Py_BytesWarningFlag: use PyConfig.bytes_warning
– Py_FrozenFlag: use PyConfig.pathconfig_warnings
– Py_IgnoreEnvironmentFlag: use PyConfig.use_environment
– Py_DontWriteBytecodeFlag: use PyConfig.write_bytecode
– Py_NoUserSiteDirectory: use PyConfig.user_site_directory
– Py_UnbufferedStdioFlag: use PyConfig.buffered_stdio
– Py_HashRandomizationFlag: use PyConfig.use_hash_seed and PyConfig.
hash_seed
– Py_IsolatedFlag: use PyConfig.isolated
– Py_LegacyWindowsFSEncodingFlag: use PyPreConfig.
legacy_windows_fs_encoding
– Py_LegacyWindowsStdioFlag: use PyConfig.legacy_windows_stdio
– Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding: use PyConfig.filesystem_encoding
– Py_HasFileSystemDefaultEncoding: use PyConfig.filesystem_encoding
– Py_FileSystemDefaultEncodeErrors: use PyConfig.filesystem_errors
– Py_UTF8Mode: use PyPreConfig.utf8_mode (see Py_PreInitialize())
The Py_InitializeFromConfig() API should be used with PyConfig instead. (Contributed by
Victor Stinner in gh-77782.)
• Creating immutable types with mutable bases is deprecated and will be disabled in Python 3.14. (gh-
95388)
• The structmember.h header is deprecated, though it continues to be available and there are no plans to
remove it.
Its contents are now available just by including Python.h, with a Py prefix added if it was missing:
– PyMemberDef, PyMember_GetOne() and PyMember_SetOne()
– Type macros like Py_T_INT, Py_T_DOUBLE, etc. (previously T_INT, T_DOUBLE, etc.)
– The flags Py_READONLY (previously READONLY) and Py_AUDIT_READ (previously all uppercase)
Several items are not exposed from Python.h:
– T_OBJECT (use Py_T_OBJECT_EX)
– T_NONE (previously undocumented, and pretty quirky)
– The macro WRITE_RESTRICTED which does nothing.
– The macros RESTRICTED and READ_RESTRICTED, equivalents of Py_AUDIT_READ.
– In some configurations, <stddef.h> is not included from Python.h. It should be included manually
when using offsetof().
The deprecated header continues to provide its original contents under the original names. Your old code can
stay unchanged, unless the extra include and non-namespaced macros bother you greatly.
(Contributed in gh-47146 by Petr Viktorin, based on earlier work by Alexander Belopolsky and Matthias
Braun.)
• PyErr_Fetch() and PyErr_Restore() are deprecated. Use PyErr_GetRaisedException()
and PyErr_SetRaisedException() instead. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-101578.)

33
 • PyErr_Display() is deprecated. Use PyErr_DisplayException() instead. (Contributed by Irit
Katriel in gh-102755).
• _PyErr_ChainExceptions is deprecated. Use _PyErr_ChainExceptions1 instead. (Con-
tributed by Irit Katriel in gh-102192.)
• Using PyType_FromSpec(), PyType_FromSpecWithBases() or
PyType_FromModuleAndSpec() to create a class whose metaclass overrides tp_new is depre-
cated. Call the metaclass instead.

Pending Removal in Python 3.14

• The ma_version_tag field in PyDictObject for extension modules (PEP 699; gh-101193).
• Global configuration variables:
– Py_DebugFlag: use PyConfig.parser_debug
– Py_VerboseFlag: use PyConfig.verbose
– Py_QuietFlag: use PyConfig.quiet
– Py_InteractiveFlag: use PyConfig.interactive
– Py_InspectFlag: use PyConfig.inspect
– Py_OptimizeFlag: use PyConfig.optimization_level
– Py_NoSiteFlag: use PyConfig.site_import
– Py_BytesWarningFlag: use PyConfig.bytes_warning
– Py_FrozenFlag: use PyConfig.pathconfig_warnings
– Py_IgnoreEnvironmentFlag: use PyConfig.use_environment
– Py_DontWriteBytecodeFlag: use PyConfig.write_bytecode
– Py_NoUserSiteDirectory: use PyConfig.user_site_directory
– Py_UnbufferedStdioFlag: use PyConfig.buffered_stdio
– Py_HashRandomizationFlag: use PyConfig.use_hash_seed and PyConfig.
hash_seed
– Py_IsolatedFlag: use PyConfig.isolated
– Py_LegacyWindowsFSEncodingFlag: use PyPreConfig.
legacy_windows_fs_encoding
– Py_LegacyWindowsStdioFlag: use PyConfig.legacy_windows_stdio
– Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding: use PyConfig.filesystem_encoding
– Py_HasFileSystemDefaultEncoding: use PyConfig.filesystem_encoding
– Py_FileSystemDefaultEncodeErrors: use PyConfig.filesystem_errors
– Py_UTF8Mode: use PyPreConfig.utf8_mode (see Py_PreInitialize())
The Py_InitializeFromConfig() API should be used with PyConfig instead.
• Creating immutable types with mutable bases (gh-95388).

34
Pending Removal in Python 3.15

• PyImport_ImportModuleNoBlock(): use PyImport_ImportModule()

• Py_UNICODE_WIDE type: use wchar_t
• Py_UNICODE type: use wchar_t
• Python initialization functions:
– PySys_ResetWarnOptions(): clear sys.warnoptions and warnings.filters
– Py_GetExecPrefix(): get sys.exec_prefix
– Py_GetPath(): get sys.path
– Py_GetPrefix(): get sys.prefix
– Py_GetProgramFullPath(): get sys.executable
– Py_GetProgramName(): get sys.executable
– Py_GetPythonHome(): get PyConfig.home or the PYTHONHOME environment variable

Pending Removal in Future Versions

The following APIs are deprecated and will be removed, although there is currently no date scheduled for their
removal.
• Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_FINALIZE: unneeded since Python 3.8
• PyErr_Fetch(): use PyErr_GetRaisedException()
• PyErr_NormalizeException(): use PyErr_GetRaisedException()
• PyErr_Restore(): use PyErr_SetRaisedException()
• PyModule_GetFilename(): use PyModule_GetFilenameObject()
• PyOS_AfterFork(): use PyOS_AfterFork_Child()
• PySlice_GetIndicesEx(): use PySlice_Unpack() and PySlice_AdjustIndices()
• PyUnicode_AsDecodedObject(): use PyCodec_Decode()
• PyUnicode_AsDecodedUnicode(): use PyCodec_Decode()
• PyUnicode_AsEncodedObject(): use PyCodec_Encode()
• PyUnicode_AsEncodedUnicode(): use PyCodec_Encode()
• PyUnicode_READY(): unneeded since Python 3.12
• PyErr_Display(): use PyErr_DisplayException()
• _PyErr_ChainExceptions(): use _PyErr_ChainExceptions1
• PyBytesObject.ob_shash member: call PyObject_Hash() instead
• PyDictObject.ma_version_tag member
• Thread Local Storage (TLS) API:
– PyThread_create_key(): use PyThread_tss_alloc()
– PyThread_delete_key(): use PyThread_tss_free()
– PyThread_set_key_value(): use PyThread_tss_set()
– PyThread_get_key_value(): use PyThread_tss_get()
– PyThread_delete_key_value(): use PyThread_tss_delete()
– PyThread_ReInitTLS(): unneeded since Python 3.7

35
14.4 Removed

• Remove the token.h header file. There was never any public tokenizer C API. The token.h header file
was only designed to be used by Python internals. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-92651.)
• Legacy Unicode APIs have been removed. See PEP 623 for detail.
– PyUnicode_WCHAR_KIND
– PyUnicode_AS_UNICODE()
– PyUnicode_AsUnicode()
– PyUnicode_AsUnicodeAndSize()
– PyUnicode_AS_DATA()
– PyUnicode_FromUnicode()
– PyUnicode_GET_SIZE()
– PyUnicode_GetSize()
– PyUnicode_GET_DATA_SIZE()
• Remove the PyUnicode_InternImmortal() function macro. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-
85858.)
• Remove Jython compatibility hacks from several stdlib modules and tests. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev
in gh-99482.)
• Remove _use_broken_old_ctypes_structure_semantics_ flag from ctypes module. (Con-
tributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-99285.)

36
Index
E
environment variable
PYTHONHOME, 35
PYTHONPERFSUPPORT, 10

P
Python Enhancement Proposals
PEP 249, 13
PEP 451, 26
PEP 484, 4, 8
PEP 523, 29
PEP 554, 6
PEP 572, 9
PEP 594, 20, 22, 25
PEP 617, 6
PEP 623, 4, 16, 36
PEP 626, 19
PEP 632, 4, 22
PEP 644, 23
PEP 669, 7
PEP 678, 9
PEP 683, 30
PEP 684, 6, 31
PEP 688, 7
PEP 692, 8
PEP 693, 3
PEP 695, 4, 5, 17
PEP 697, 29
PEP 698, 9
PEP 699, 32, 34
PEP 701, 5, 6, 15, 16, 28
PEP 706, 10
PEP 709, 7, 17
PYTHONHOME, 35
PYTHONPERFSUPPORT, 10

37