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PE 594: Removing dead batteries from stdlib (#1061) 

Signed-off-by: Christian Heimes <christian@python.org>
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PEP: 594
Title: Removing dead batteries from the standard library
Author: Christian Heimes <christian@python.org>
Status: Active
Type: Process
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 20-May-2019
Post-History:
Abstract
========
This PEP proposed a list of standard library modules to be removed from the
standard library. The modules are mostly historic data formats and APIs that
have been superseded a long time ago, e.g. Mac OS 9 and Commodore.
Rationale
=========
Back in the early days of Python, the interpreter came with a large set of
useful modules. This was often refrained to as "batteries included"
philosophy and was one of the corner stones to Python's success story.
Users didn't have to figure out how to download and install separate
packages in order to write a simple web server or parse email.
Times have changed. The introduction of the cheese shop (PyPI), setuptools,
and later pip, it became simple and straight forward to download and install
packages. Nowadays Python has a rich and vibrant ecosystem of third party
packages. It's pretty much standard to either install packages from PyPI or
use one of the many Python or Linux distributions.
On the other hand, Python's standard library is piling up cruft, unnecessary
duplication of functionality, and dispensable features. This is undesirable
for several reasons.
* Any additional module increases the maintenance cost for the Python core
development team. The team has limited resources, reduced maintenance cost
frees development time for other improvements.
* Modules in the standard library are generally favored and seen as the
de-facto solution for a problem. A majority of users only pick 3rd party
modules to replace a stdlib module, when they have a compelling reason, e.g.
lxml instead of `xml`. The removal of an unmaintained stdlib module
increases the chances of a community contributed module to become widely
used.
* A lean and mean standard library benefits platforms with limited resources
like devices with just a few hundred kilobyte of storage (e.g. BBC
Micro:bit). Python on mobile platforms like BeeWare or WebAssembly
(e.g. pyodide) also benefit from reduced download size.
The modules in the PEP have been selected for deprecation because their
removal is either least controversial or most beneficial. For example
least controversial are 30 years old multimedia formats like ``sunau``
audio format, which was used on SPARC and NeXT workstations in the late
1980ties. The ``crypt`` module has fundamental flaws that are better solved
outside the standard library.
This PEP also designates some modules as not scheduled for removal. Some
modules have been deprecated for several releases or seem unnecessary at
first glance. However it is beneficial to keep the modules in the standard
library, mostly for environments where installing a package from PyPI is not
an option. This can be cooperate environments or class rooms where external
code is not permitted without legal approval.
* The usage of FTP is declining, but some files are still provided over
the FTP protocol or hosters offer FTP to upload content. Therefore
``ftplib`` is going to stay.
* The ``optparse`` and ``getopt`` module are widely used. They are mature
modules with very low maintenance overhead.
* According to David Beazley [5]_ the ``wave`` module is easy to teach to
kids and can make crazy sounds. Making a computer generate crazy sounds is
powerful and highly motivating exercise for a 9yo aspiring developer. It's
a fun battery to keep.
Deprecation schedule
====================
3.8
---
This PEP targets Python 3.8. Version 3.8.0 final is scheduled to be released
a few months before Python 2.7 will reach its end of lifetime. We expect that
Python 3.8 will be targeted by users that migrate to Python 3 in 2019 and
2020. To reduce churn and to allow a smooth transition from Python 2,
Python 3.8 will neither raise `DeprecationWarning` nor remove any
modules that have been scheduled for removal. Instead deprecated modules will
just be *documented* as deprecated. Optionally modules may emit a
`PendingDeprecationWarning`.
All deprecated modules will also undergo a feature freeze. No additional
features should be added. Bug should still be fixed.
3.9
---
Starting with Python 3.9, deprecated modules will start issuing
`DeprecationWarning`.
3.10
----
In 3.10 all deprecated modules will be removed from the CPython repository
together with tests, documentation, and autoconf rules.
PEP acceptance process
======================
3.8.0b1 is scheduled to be release shortly after the PEP is officially
submitted. Since it's improbable that the PEP will pass all stages of the
PEP process in time, I propose a two step acceptance process that is
analogous Python's two release deprecation process.
The first *provisionally accepted* phase targets Python 3.8.0b1. In the first
phase no code is changes or removed. Modules are only documented as
deprecated.
The final decision, which modules will be removed and how the removed code
is preserved, can be delayed for another year.
Deprecated modules
==================
The modules are grouped as data encoding, multimedia, network, OS interface,
and misc modules. The majority of modules are for old data formats or
old APIs. Some others are rarely useful and have better replacements on
PyPI, e.g. Pillow for image processing or NumPy-based projects to deal with
audio processing.
.. csv-table:: Table 1: Proposed modules deprecations
:header: "Module", "Deprecated in", "To be removed", "Replacement"
aifc,3.8,3.10,\-
asynchat,3.8,3.10,asyncio
asyncore,3.8,3.10,asyncio
audioop,3.8,3.10,\-
binhex,3.8,3.10,\-
cgi,3.8,3.10,\-
cgitb,3.8,3.10,\-
chunk,3.8,3.10,\-
colorsys,**3.8?**,**3.10?**,\-
crypt,3.8,3.10,\-
fileinput,3.8,3.10,argparse
formatter,3.4,3.10,\-
fpectl,**3.7**,**3.7**,\-
getopt,**3.2**,**keep**,"argparse, optparse"
imghdr,3.8,3.10,\-
imp,**3.4**,3.10,importlib
lib2to3,\-,**keep**,
macpath,**3.7**,**3.8**,\-
msilib,3.8,3.10,\-
nntplib,3.8,3.10,\-
nis,3.8,3.10,\-
optparse,\-,**keep**,argparse
ossaudiodev,3.8,3.10,\-
pipes,3.8,3.10,subprocess
smtpd,**3.7**,3.10,aiosmtpd
sndhdr,3.8,3.10,\-
spwd,3.8,3.10,\-
sunau,3.8,3.10,\-
uu,3.8,3.10,\-
wave,\-,**keep**,
xdrlib,3.8,3.10,\-
Data encoding modules
---------------------
binhex
~~~~~~
The `binhex <https://docs.python.org/3/library/binhex.html>`_ module encodes
and decodes Apple Macintosh binhex4 data. It was originally developed for
TSR-80. In the 1980s and early 1990s it was used on classic Mac OS 9 to
encode binary email attachments.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
uu
~~
The `uu <https://docs.python.org/3/library/uu.html>`_ module provides
uuencode format, an old binary encoding format for email from 1980. The uu
format has been replaced by MIME. The uu codec is provided by the binascii
module.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
xdrlib
~~~~~~
The `xdrlib <https://docs.python.org/3/library/xdrlib.html>`_ module supports
the Sun External Data Representation Standard. XDR is an old binary
serialization format from 1987. These days it's rarely used outside
specialized domains like NFS.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
Multimedia modules
------------------
aifc
~~~~
The `aifc <https://docs.python.org/3/library/aifc.html>`_ module provides
support for reading and writing AIFF and AIFF-C files. The Audio Interchange
File Format is an old audio format from 1988 based on Amiga IFF. It was most
commonly used on the Apple Macintosh. These days only few specialized
application use AIFF.
Module type
pure Python (depends on `audioop`_ C extension)
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
audioop
~~~~~~~
The `audioop <https://docs.python.org/3/library/audioop.html>`_ module
contains helper functions to manipulate raw audio data and adaptive
differential pulse-code modulated audio data. The module is implemented in
C without any additional dependencies. The `aifc`_, `sunau`_, and `wave`_
module depend on `audioop`_ for some operations.
Module type
C extension
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
colorsys
~~~~~~~~
The `colorsys <https://docs.python.org/3/library/colorsys.html>`_ module
defines color conversion functions between RGB, YIQ, HSL, and HSV coordinate
systems. The Pillow library provides much faster conversation between
color systems.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
`Pillow <https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/>`_,
`colorspacious <https://pypi.org/project/colorspacious/>`_
chunk
~~~~~
The `chunk <https://docs.python.org/3/library/chunk.html>`_ module provides
support for reading and writing Electronic Arts' Interchange File Format.
IFF is an old audio file format originally introduced for Commodore and
Amiga. The format is no longer relevant.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
imghdr
~~~~~~
The `imghdr <https://docs.python.org/3/library/imghdr.html>`_ module is a
simple tool to guess the image file format from the first 32 bytes
of a file or buffer. It supports only a limited amount of formats and
neither returns resolution nor color depth.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
*n/a*
ossaudiodev
~~~~~~~~~~~
The `ossaudiodev <https://docs.python.org/3/library/ossaudiodev.html>`_
module provides support for Open Sound System, an interface to sound
playback and capture devices. OSS was initially free software, but later
support for newer sound devices and improvements were proprietary. Linux
community abandoned OSS in favor of ALSA [1]_. Some operation systems like
OpenBSD and NetBSD provide an incomplete [2]_ emulation of OSS.
Module type
C extension
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
sndhdr
~~~~~~
The `sndhdr <https://docs.python.org/3/library/sndhdr.html>`_ module is
similar to the `imghdr`_ module but for audio formats. It guesses file
format, channels, frame rate, and sample widths from the first 512 bytes of
a file or buffer. The module only supports AU, AIFF, HCOM, VOC, WAV, and
other ancient formats.
Module type
pure Python (depends on `audioop`_ C extension for some operations)
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
*n/a*
sunau
~~~~~
The `sunau <https://docs.python.org/3/library/sunhdr.html>`_ module provides
support for Sun AU sound format. It's yet another old, obsolete file format.
Module type
pure Python (depends on `audioop`_ C extension for some operations)
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
Networking modules
------------------
asynchat
~~~~~~~~
The `asynchat <https://docs.python.org/3/library/asynchat.html>`_ module
is build on top of `asyncore`_ and has been deprecated since Python 3.6.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.6
Removed in
3.10
Substitute
asyncio
asyncore
~~~~~~~~
The `asyncore <https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncore.html>`_ module was
the first module for asynchronous socket service clients and servers. It
has been replaced by asyncio and is deprecated since Python 3.6.
The ``asyncore`` module is also used in stdlib tests. The tests for
``ftplib``, ``logging``, ``smptd``, ``smtplib``, and ``ssl`` are partly
based on ``asyncore``. These tests must be updated to use asyncio or
threading.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.6
Removed in
3.10
Substitute
asyncio
cgi
~~~
The `cgi <https://docs.python.org/3/library/cgi.html>`_ module is a support
module for Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. CGI is deemed as
inefficient because every incoming request is handled in a new process. PEP
206 considers the module as *designed poorly and are now near-impossible
to fix*.
Several people proposed to either keep the cgi module for features like
`cgi.parse_qs()` or move `cgi.escape()` to a different module. The
functions `cgi.parse_qs` and `cgi.parse_qsl` have been
deprecated for a while and are actually aliases for
`urllib.parse.parse_qs` and `urllib.parse.parse_qsl`. The
function `cgi.quote` has been deprecated in favor of `html.quote`
with secure default values.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
cgitb
~~~~~
The `cgitb <https://docs.python.org/3/library/cgitb.html>`_ module is a
helper for the cgi module for configurable tracebacks.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
smtpd
~~~~~
The `smtpd <https://docs.python.org/3/library/smtpd.html>`_ module provides
a simple implementation of a SMTP mail server. The module documentation
recommends ``aiosmtpd``.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
**3.7**
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
aiosmtpd
nntplib
~~~~~~~
The `nntplib <https://docs.python.org/3/library/nntplib.html>`_ module
implements the client side of the Network News Transfer Protocol (nntp). News
groups used to be a dominant platform for online discussions. Over the last
two decades, news has been slowly but steadily replaced with mailing lists
and web-based discussion platforms.
The ``nntplib`` tests have been the cause of additional work in the recent
past. Python only contains client side of NNTP. The test cases depend on
external news server. These servers were unstable in the past.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
Operating system interface
--------------------------
crypt
~~~~~
The `crypt <https://docs.python.org/3/library/crypt.html>`_ module implements
password hashing based on ``crypt(3)`` function from ``libcrypt`` or
``libxcrypt`` on Unix-like platform. The algorithms are mostly old, of poor
quality and insecure. Users are discouraged to use them.
* The module is not available on Windows. Cross-platform application need
an alternative implementation any way.
* Only DES encryption is guarenteed to be available. DES has an extremely
limited key space of 2**56.
* MD5, salted SHA256, salted SHA512, and Blowfish are optional extension.
SSHA256 and SSHA512 are glibc extensions. Blowfish (bcrypt) is the only
algorithm that is still secure. However it's in glibc and therefore not
commonly available on Linux.
* Depending on the platform, the ``crypt`` module is not thread safe. Only
implementations with ``crypt_r(3)`` are thread safe.
Module type
C extension + Python module
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
`bcrypt <https://pypi.org/project/bcrypt/>`_,
`passlib <https://pypi.org/project/passlib/>`_,
`argon2cffi <https://pypi.org/project/argon2-cffi/>`_,
hashlib module (PBKDF2, scrypt)
macpath
~~~~~~~
The `macpath <https://docs.python.org/3/library/macpath.html>`_ module
provides Mac OS 9 implementation of os.path routines. Mac OS 9 is no longer
supported
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.7
Removed in
3.8
Substitute
**none**
nis
~~~
The `nis <https://docs.python.org/3/library/nis.html>`_ module provides
NIS/YP support. Network Information Service / Yellow Pages is an old and
deprecated directory service protocol developed by Sun Microsystems. It's
designed successor NIS+ from 1992 never took off. For a long time, libc's
Name Service Switch, LDAP, and Kerberos/GSSAPI are considered a more powerful
and more secure replacement of NIS.
Module type
C extension
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
spwd
~~~~
The `spwd <https://docs.python.org/3/library/spwd.html>`_ module provides
direct access to Unix shadow password database using non-standard APIs.
In general it's a bad idea to use the spwd. The spwd circumvents system
security policies, it does not use the PAM stack, and is
only compatible with local user accounts.
Module type
C extension
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
Misc modules
------------
fileinput
~~~~~~~~~
The `fileinput <https://docs.python.org/3/library/fileinput.html>`_ module
implements a helpers to iterate over a list of files from ``sys.argv``. The
module predates the optparser and argparser module. The same functionality
can be implemented with the argparser module.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
argparse
formatter
~~~~~~~~~
The `formatter <https://docs.python.org/3/library/formatter.html>`_ module
is an old text formatting module which has been deprecated since Python 3.4.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.4
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
*n/a*
imp
~~~
The `imp <https://docs.python.org/3/library/imp.html>`_ module is the
predecessor of the
`importlib <https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.html>`_ module. Most
functions have been deprecated since Python 3.3 and the module since
Python 3.4.
Module type
C extension
Deprecated in
3.4
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
importlib
msilib
~~~~~~
The `msilib <https://docs.python.org/3/library/msilib.html>`_ package is a
Windows-only package. It supports the creation of Microsoft Installers (MSI).
The package also exposes additional APIs to create cabinet files (CAB). The
module is used to facilitate distutils to create MSI installers with
``bdist_msi`` command. In the past it was used to create CPython's official
Windows installer, too.
Microsoft is slowly moving away from MSI in favor of Windows 10 Apps (AppX)
as new deployment model [3]_.
Module type
C extension + Python code
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
**none**
pipes
~~~~~
The `pipes <https://docs.python.org/3/library/pipes.html>`_ module provides
helpers to pipe the input of one command into the output of another command.
The module is built on top of ``os.popen``. Users are encouraged to use
the subprocess module instead.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
subprocess module
Removed modules
===============
fpectl
------
The `fpectl <https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/fpectl.html>`_ module was
never built by default, its usage was discouraged and considered dangerous.
It also required a configure flag that caused an ABI incompatibility. The
module was removed in 3.7 by Nathaniel J. Smith in
`bpo-29137 <https://bugs.python.org/issue29137>`_.
Module type
C extension + CAPI
Deprecated in
3.7
Removed in
3.7
Substitute
**none**
Modules to keep
===============
Some modules were originally proposed for deprecation.
lib2to3
-------
The `lib2to3 <https://docs.python.org/3/library/2to3.html>`_ package provides
the ``2to3`` command to transpile Python 2 code to Python 3 code.
The package is useful for other tasks besides porting code from Python 2 to
3. For example `black`_ uses it for code reformatting.
Module type
pure Python
getopt
------
The `getopt <https://docs.python.org/3/library/getopt.html>`_ module mimics
C's getopt() option parser. Although users are encouraged to use argparse
instead, the getopt module is still widely used.
Module type
pure Python
optparse
--------
The `optparse <https://docs.python.org/3/library/optparse.html>`_ module is
the predecessor of the argparse module. Although it has been deprecated for
many years, it's still widely used.
Module type
pure Python
Deprecated in
3.2
Substitute
argparse
wave
~~~~
The `wave <https://docs.python.org/3/library/wave.html>`_ module provides
support for the WAV sound format. The module uses one simple function
from the `audioop`_ module to perform byte swapping between little and big
endian formats. Before 24 bit WAV support was added, byte swap used to be
implemented with the ``array`` module. To remove ``wave``'s dependency on the
``audioop``, the byte swap function could be either be moved to another
module (e.g. ``operator``) or the ``array`` module could gain support for
24 bit (3 byte) arrays.
Module type
pure Python (depends on *byteswap* from `audioop`_ C extension)
Deprecated in
3.8
To be removed in
3.10
Substitute
*n/a*
Future maintenance of removed modules
=====================================
The main goal of the PEP is to reduce the burden and workload on the Python
core developer team. Therefore removed modules will not be maintained by
the core team as separate PyPI packages. However the removed code, tests and
documentation may be moved into a new git repository, so community members
have a place from which they can pick up and fork code.
A first draft of a `legacylib <https://github.com/tiran/legacylib>`_
repository is available on my private Github account.
It's my hope that some of the deprecated modules will be picked up and
adopted by users that actually care about them. For example ``colorsys`` and
``imghdr`` are useful modules, but have limited feature set. A fork of
``imghdr`` can add new features and support for more image formats, without
being constrained by Python's release cycle.
Most of the modules are in pure Python and can be easily packaged. Some
depend on a simple C module, e.g. `audioop`_ and `crypt`_. Since `audioop`_
does not depend on any external libraries, it can be shipped in as binary
wheels with some effort. Other C modules can be replaced with ctypes or cffi.
For example I created `legacycrypt <https://github.com/tiran/legacycrypt>`_
with ``_crypt`` extension reimplemented with a few lines of ctypes code.
Discussions
===========
* Elana Hashman and Nick Coghlan suggested to keep the *getopt* module.
* Berker Peksag proposed to deprecate and removed *msilib*.
* Brett Cannon recommended to delay active deprecation warnings and removal
of modules like *imp* until Python 3.10. Version 3.8 will be released
shortly before Python 2 reaches end of lifetime. A delay reduced churn for
users that migrate from Python 2 to 3.8.
* Brett also came up with the idea to keep lib2to3. The package is useful
for other purposes, e.g. `black <https://pypi.org/project/black/>`_ uses
it to reformat Python code.
* At one point, distutils was mentioned in the same sentence as this PEP.
To avoid lengthy discussion and delay of the PEP, I decided against dealing
with distutils. Deprecation of the distutils package will be handled by
another PEP.
* Multiple people (Gregory P. Smith, David Beazley, Nick Coghlan, ...)
convinced me to keep the `wave`_ module. [4]_
* Gregory P. Smith proposed to deprecate `nntplib`_. [4]_
References
==========
.. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_System#Free,_proprietary,_free
.. [2] https://man.openbsd.org/ossaudio
.. [3] https://blogs.msmvps.com/installsite/blog/2015/05/03/the-future-of-windows-installer-msi-in-the-light-of-windows-10-and-the-universal-windows-platform/
.. [4] https://twitter.com/ChristianHeimes/status/1130257799475335169
.. [5] https://twitter.com/dabeaz/status/1130278844479545351
Copyright
=========
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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