Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) — Python-Future documentation

# Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

## Who is this for?

1. People with existing or new Python 3 codebases who wish to provide ongoing Python 2.7 support easily and with little maintenance burden.

2. People who wish to ease and accelerate migration of their Python 2 codebases to Python 3.3+, module by module, without giving up Python 2 compatibility.

## Why upgrade to Python 3?

> “Python 2 is the next COBOL.”

> —Alex Gaynor, at PyCon AU 2013

Python 2.7 is the end of the Python 2 line. (See PEP 404.) The language and standard libraries are improving only in Python 3.x.

Python 3.x is a better language and better set of standard libraries than Python 2.x in many ways. Python 3.x is cleaner, less warty, and easier to learn than Python 2. It has better memory efficiency, easier Unicode handling, and powerful new features like the asyncio module.

## Porting philosophy

### Why write Python 3-style code?

Here are some quotes:

- “Django’s developers have found that attempting to write Python 3 code that’s compatible with Python 2 is much more rewarding than the opposite.” from the Django docs.

- “Thanks to Python 3 being more strict about things than Python 2 (e.g., bytes vs. strings), the source translation [from Python 3 to 2] can be easier and more straightforward than from Python 2 to 3. Plus it gives you more direct experience developing in Python 3 which, since it is the future of Python, is a good thing long-term.” from the official guide “Porting Python 2 Code to Python 3” by Brett Cannon.

- “Developer energy should be reserved for addressing real technical difficulties associated with the Python 3 transition (like distinguishing their 8-bit text strings from their binary data). They shouldn’t be punished with additional code changes …” from PEP 414 by Armin Ronacher and Nick Coghlan.

### Can’t I just roll my own Py2/3 compatibility layer?

Yes, but using `python-future` will probably be easier and lead to cleaner code with fewer bugs.

Consider this quote:

> “Duplication of effort is wasteful, and replacing the various home-grown approaches with a standard feature usually ends up making things more readable, and interoperable as well.”

> —Guido van Rossum (blog post)

`future` also includes various Py2/3 compatibility tools in `future.utils` picked from large projects (including IPython, Django, Jinja2, Pandas), which should reduce the burden on every project to roll its own py3k compatibility wrapper module.

### What inspired this project?

In our Python training courses, we at Python Charmers faced a dilemma: teach people Python 3, which was future-proof but not as useful to them today because of weaker 3rd-party package support, or teach people Python 2, which was more useful today but would require them to change their code and unlearn various habits soon. We searched for ways to avoid polluting the world with more deprecated code, but didn’t find a good way.

Also, in attempting to help with porting packages such as scikit-learn to Python 3, I (Ed) was dissatisfied with how much code cruft was necessary to introduce to support Python 2 and 3 from a single codebase (the preferred porting option). Since backward-compatibility with Python 2 may be necessary for at least the next 5 years, one of the promised benefits of Python 3 – cleaner code with fewer of Python 2’s warts – was difficult to realize before in practice in a single codebase that supported both platforms.

The goal is to accelerate the uptake of Python 3 and help the strong Python community to remain united around a single version of the language.

## Maturity

### How well has it been tested?

`future` is used by thousands of projects and has been downloaded over 1.7 billion times. Some projects like Sage have used it to port 800,000+ lines of Python 2 code to Python 2/3.

Currently `python-future` has over 1000 unit tests. Many of these are straight from the Python 3.3 and 3.4 test suites.

In general, the `future` package itself is in good shape, whereas the `futurize` script for automatic porting is imperfect; chances are it will require some manual cleanup afterwards. The `past` package also needs to be expanded.

### Is the API stable?

Yes; `future` is mature. We’ll make very few changes from here, trying not to break anything which was documented and used to work.

## Relationship between python-future and other compatibility tools

### How does this relate to `2to3`?

`2to3` is a powerful and flexible tool that can produce different styles of Python 3 code. It is, however, primarily designed for one-way porting efforts, for projects that can leave behind Python 2 support.

The example at the top of the 2to3 docs demonstrates this. After transformation by `2to3`, `example.py` looks like this:

    def greet(name):
        print("Hello, {0}!".format(name))
    print("What's your name?")
    name = input()
    greet(name)

This is Python 3 code that, although syntactically valid on Python 2, is semantically incorrect. On Python 2, it raises an exception for most inputs; worse, it allows arbitrary code execution by the user for specially crafted inputs because of the `eval()` executed by Python 2’s `input()` function.

This is not an isolated example; almost every output of `2to3` will need modification to provide backward compatibility with Python 2. As an alternative, the `python-future` project provides a script called `futurize` that is based on `lib2to3` but will produce code that is compatible with both platforms (Py2 and Py3).

### Can I maintain a Python 2 codebase and use 2to3 to automatically convert to Python 3 in the setup script?

This was originally the approach recommended by Python’s core developers, but it has some large drawbacks:

1. First, your actual working codebase will be stuck with Python 2’s warts and smaller feature set for as long as you need to retain Python 2 compatibility. This may be at least 5 years for many projects, possibly much longer.

2. Second, this approach carries the significant disadvantage that you cannot apply patches submitted by Python 3 users against the auto-generated Python 3 code. (See this talk by Jacob Kaplan-Moss.)

### What is the relationship between `future` and `six`?

`python-future` is a higher-level compatibility layer than `six` that includes more backported functionality from Python 3, more forward-ported functionality from Python 2, and supports cleaner code, but requires more modern Python versions to run.

`python-future` and `six` share the same goal of making it possible to write a single-source codebase that works on both Python 2 and Python 3. `python-future` has the further goal of allowing standard Py3 code to run with almost no modification on both Py3 and Py2. `future` provides a more complete set of support for Python 3’s features, including backports of Python 3 builtins such as the `bytes` object (which is very different to Python 2’s `str` object) and several standard library modules.

`python-future` supports only Python 2.7+ and Python 3.4+, whereas `six` supports all versions of Python from 2.4 onwards. (See Which versions of Python does python-future support?.) If you must support older Python versions, `six` will be essential for you. However, beware that maintaining single-source compatibility with older Python versions is ugly and not fun.

If you can drop support for older Python versions, `python-future` leverages some important features introduced into Python 2.7, such as import hooks, and a comprehensive and well-tested set of backported functionality, to allow you to write more idiomatic, maintainable code with fewer compatibility hacks.

### What is the relationship between `python-future` and `python-modernize`?

`python-future` contains, in addition to the `future` compatibility package, a `futurize` script that is similar to `python-modernize.py` in intent and design. Both are based heavily on `2to3`.

Whereas `python-modernize` converts Py2 code into a common subset of Python 2 and 3, with `six` as a run-time dependency, `futurize` converts either Py2 or Py3 code into (almost) standard Python 3 code, with `future` as a run-time dependency.

Because `future` provides more backported Py3 behaviours from `six`, the code resulting from `futurize` is more likely to work identically on both Py3 and Py2 with less additional manual porting effort.

## Platform and version support

### Which versions of Python does `python-future` support?

Python 2.6 and 3.3+ only. Python 2.7 and Python 3.4+ are preferred.

You may be able to use Python 2.6 but writing Py2/3 compatible code is not as easy. Python 2.7 introduced many important forward-compatibility features (such as import hooks, `b'...'` literals and `__future__` definitions) that greatly reduce the maintenance burden for single-source Py2/3 compatible code. `future` leverages these features and aims to close the remaining gap between Python 3 and 2.7.

#### Do you support Pypy?

Yes, except for the standard library import hooks (currently). Feedback and pull requests are welcome!

#### Do you support IronPython and/or Jython?

Not sure. This would be nice…

## Support

### Is there a mailing list?

There was a python-porting mailing list, but it’s now dead.

## Contributing

### Can I help?

Yes please :) We welcome bug reports, additional tests, pull requests, and stories of either success or failure with using it.

However, please note that the project is not very actively maintained. It should be considered done, like Python 2.

### Where is the repo?

https://github.com/PythonCharmers/python-future.