What's New In Python 3.9
************************

Release:
   3.9.0a5

Date:
   April 28, 2020

This article explains the new features in Python 3.9, compared to 3.8.

For full details, see the changelog.

Note:

  Prerelease users should be aware that this document is currently in
  draft form. It will be updated substantially as Python 3.9 moves
  towards release, so it's worth checking back even after reading
  earlier versions.


Summary -- Release highlights
=============================


You should check for DeprecationWarning in your code
====================================================

When Python 2.7 was still supported, many functions were kept for
backward compatibility with Python 2.7. With the end of Python 2.7
support, these backward compatibility layers have been removed, or
will be removed soon. Most of them emitted a "DeprecationWarning"
warning for several years. For example, using "collections.Mapping"
instead of "collections.abc.Mapping" emits a "DeprecationWarning"
since Python 3.3, released in 2012.

Test your application with the "-W" "default" command-line option to
see "DeprecationWarning" and "PendingDeprecationWarning", or even with
"-W" "error" to treat them as errors. Warnings Filter can be used to
ignore warnings from third-party code.

It has been decided to keep a few backward compatibility layers for
one last release, to give more time to Python projects maintainers to
organize the removal of the Python 2 support and add support for
Python 3.9.

Aliases to Abstract Base Classes in the "collections" module, like
"collections.Mapping" alias to "collections.abc.Mapping", are kept for
one last release for backward compatibility. They will be removed from
Python 3.10.

More generally, try to run your tests in the Python Development Mode
which helps to prepare your code to make it compatible with the next
Python version.


New Features
============


Dictionary Merge & Update Operators
-----------------------------------

Merge ("|") and update ("|=") operators have been added to the built-
in "dict" class.  See **PEP 584** for a full description. (Contributed
by Brandt Bucher in bpo-36144.)


PEP 616: New removeprefix() and removesuffix() string methods
-------------------------------------------------------------

"str.removeprefix(prefix)" and "str.removesuffix(suffix)" have been
added to easily remove an unneeded prefix or a suffix from a string.
Corresponding "bytes", "bytearray", and "collections.UserString"
methods have also been added. See **PEP 616** for a full description.
(Contributed by Dennis Sweeney in bpo-18939.)


PEP 585: Builtin Generic Types
------------------------------

In type annotations you can now use built-in collection types such as
"list" and "dict" as generic types instead of importing the
corresponding capitalized types (e.g. "List" or "Dict") from "typing".
Some other types in the standard library are also now generic, for
example "queue.Queue".

Example:

   def greet_all(names: list[str]) -> None:
       for name in names:
           print("Hello", name)

See **PEP 585** for more details.  (Contributed by Guido van Rossum,
Ethan Smith, and Batuhan Taşkaya in bpo-39481.)


PEP 617: New Parser
-------------------

Python 3.9 uses a new parser, based on PEG instead of LL(1).  The new
parser's performance is roughly comparable to that of the old parser,
but the PEG formalism is more flexible than LL(1) when it comes to
designing new language features.  We'll start using this flexibility
in Python 3.10 and later.

The "ast" module uses the new parser and produces the same AST as the
old parser.

In Python 3.10, the old parser will be deleted and so will all
functionality that depends on it (primarily the "parser" module, which
has long been deprecated).  In Python 3.9 *only*, you can switch back
to the LL(1) parser using a command line switch ("-X oldparser") or an
environment variable ("PYTHONOLDPARSER=1").

See **PEP 617** for more details.  (Contributed by Guido van Rossum,
Pablo Galindo and Lysandros Nikolau in bpo-40334.)


Other Language Changes
======================

* "__import__()" now raises "ImportError" instead of "ValueError",
  which used to occur when a relative import went past its top-level
  package. (Contributed by Ngalim Siregar in bpo-37444.)

* Python now gets the absolute path of the script filename specified
  on the command line (ex: "python3 script.py"): the "__file__"
  attribute of the "__main__" module became an absolute path, rather
  than a relative path. These paths now remain valid after the current
  directory is changed by "os.chdir()". As a side effect, the
  traceback also displays the absolute path for "__main__" module
  frames in this case. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-20443.)

* In the Python Development Mode and in debug build, the *encoding*
  and *errors* arguments are now checked for string encoding and
  decoding operations. Examples: "open()", "str.encode()" and
  "bytes.decode()".

  By default, for best performance, the *errors* argument is only
  checked at the first encoding/decoding error and the *encoding*
  argument is sometimes ignored for empty strings. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-37388.)

* """.replace("", s, n)" now returns "s" instead of an empty string
  for all non-zero "n".  It is now consistent with """.replace("",
  s)". There are similar changes for "bytes" and "bytearray" objects.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28029.)

* Any valid expression can now be used as a *decorator*.  Previously,
  the grammar was much more restrictive.  See **PEP 614** for details.
  (Contributed by Brandt Bucher in bpo-39702.)

* Improved help for the "typing" module. Docstrings are now shown for
  all special forms and special generic aliases (like "Union" and
  "List"). Using "help()" with generic alias like "List[int]" will
  show the help for the correspondent concrete type ("list" in this
  case). (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-40257.)


New Modules
===========

* None yet.


Improved Modules
================


ast
---

Added the *indent* option to "dump()" which allows it to produce a
multiline indented output. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
bpo-37995.)

Added "ast.unparse()" as a function in the "ast" module that can be
used to unparse an "ast.AST" object and produce a string with code
that would produce an equivalent "ast.AST" object when parsed.
(Contributed by Pablo Galindo and Batuhan Taskaya in bpo-38870.)

Added docstrings to AST nodes that contains the ASDL signature used to
construct that node. (Contributed by Batuhan Taskaya in bpo-39638.)


asyncio
-------

Due to significant security concerns, the *reuse_address* parameter of
"asyncio.loop.create_datagram_endpoint()" is no longer supported. This
is because of the behavior of the socket option "SO_REUSEADDR" in UDP.
For more details, see the documentation for
"loop.create_datagram_endpoint()". (Contributed by Kyle Stanley,
Antoine Pitrou, and Yury Selivanov in bpo-37228.)

Added a new *coroutine* "shutdown_default_executor()" that schedules a
shutdown for the default executor that waits on the
"ThreadPoolExecutor" to finish closing. Also, "asyncio.run()" has been
updated to use the new *coroutine*. (Contributed by Kyle Stanley in
bpo-34037.)

Added "asyncio.PidfdChildWatcher", a Linux-specific child watcher
implementation that polls process file descriptors. (bpo-38692)


concurrent.futures
------------------

Added a new *cancel_futures* parameter to
"concurrent.futures.Executor.shutdown()" that cancels all pending
futures which have not started running, instead of waiting for them to
complete before shutting down the executor. (Contributed by Kyle
Stanley in bpo-39349.)

Removed daemon threads from "ThreadPoolExecutor" and
"ProcessPoolExecutor". This improves compatibility with
subinterpreters and predictability in their shutdown processes.
(Contributed by Kyle Stanley in bpo-39812.)

Workers in "ProcessPoolExecutor" are now spawned on demand, only when
there are no available idle workers to reuse. This optimizes startup
overhead and reduces the amount of lost CPU time to idle workers.
(Contributed by Kyle Stanley in bpo-39207.)


curses
------

Add "curses.get_escdelay()", "curses.set_escdelay()",
"curses.get_tabsize()", and "curses.set_tabsize()" functions.
(Contributed by Anthony Sottile in bpo-38312.)


fcntl
-----

Added constants "F_OFD_GETLK", "F_OFD_SETLK" and "F_OFD_SETLKW".
(Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-38602.)


ftplib
------

"FTP" and "FTP_TLS" now raise a "ValueError" if the given timeout for
their constructor is zero to prevent the creation of a non-blocking
socket. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39259.)


functools
---------

Add the "functools.TopologicalSorter" class to offer functionality to
perform topological sorting of graphs. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo,
Tim Peters and Larry Hastings in bpo-17005.)


gc
--

When the garbage collector makes a collection in which some objects
resurrect (they are reachable from outside the isolated cycles after
the finalizers have been executed), do not block the collection of all
objects that are still unreachable. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo and
Tim Peters in bpo-38379.)

Added a new function "gc.is_finalized()" to check if an object has
been finalized by the garbage collector. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo
in bpo-39322.)


http
----

HTTP status codes "103 EARLY_HINTS", "418 IM_A_TEAPOT" and "425
TOO_EARLY" are added to "http.HTTPStatus". (Contributed by Dong-hee Na
in bpo-39509 and Ross Rhodes in bpo-39507.)


imaplib
-------

"IMAP4" and "IMAP4_SSL" now have an optional *timeout* parameter for
their constructors. Also, the "open()" method now has an optional
*timeout* parameter with this change. The overridden methods of
"IMAP4_SSL" and "IMAP4_stream" were applied to this change.
(Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-38615.)

"imaplib.IMAP4.unselect()" is added. "imaplib.IMAP4.unselect()" frees
server's resources associated with the selected mailbox and returns
the server to the authenticated state. This command performs the same
actions as "imaplib.IMAP4.close()", except that no messages are
permanently removed from the currently selected mailbox. (Contributed
by Dong-hee Na in bpo-40375.)


importlib
---------

To improve consistency with import statements,
"importlib.util.resolve_name()" now raises "ImportError" instead of
"ValueError" for invalid relative import attempts. (Contributed by
Ngalim Siregar in bpo-37444.)


inspect
-------

"inspect.BoundArguments.arguments" is changed from "OrderedDict" to
regular dict.  (Contributed by Inada Naoki in bpo-36350 and
bpo-39775.)


ipaddress
---------

"ipaddress" now supports IPv6 Scoped Addresses (IPv6 address with
suffix "%<scope_id>").

Scoped IPv6 addresses can be parsed using "ipaddress.IPv6Address". If
present, scope zone ID is available through the "scope_id" attribute.
(Contributed by Oleksandr Pavliuk in bpo-34788.)


math
----

Expanded the "math.gcd()" function to handle multiple arguments.
Formerly, it only supported two arguments. (Contributed by Serhiy
Storchaka in bpo-39648.)

Add "math.lcm()": return the least common multiple of specified
arguments. (Contributed by Mark Dickinson, Ananthakrishnan and Serhiy
Storchaka in bpo-39479 and bpo-39648.)

Add "math.nextafter()": return the next floating-point value after *x*
towards *y*. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39288.)

Add "math.ulp()": return the value of the least significant bit of a
float. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39310.)


nntplib
-------

"NNTP" and "NNTP_SSL" now raise a "ValueError" if the given timeout
for their constructor is zero to prevent the creation of a non-
blocking socket. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39259.)


multiprocessing
---------------

The "multiprocessing.SimpleQueue" class has a new "close()" method to
explicitly close the queue. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
bpo-30966.)


os
--

Added "CLD_KILLED" and "CLD_STOPPED" for "si_code". (Contributed by
Dong-hee Na in bpo-38493.)

Exposed the Linux-specific "os.pidfd_open()" (bpo-38692) and
"os.P_PIDFD" (bpo-38713) for process management with file descriptors.

The "os.unsetenv()" function is now also available on Windows.
(Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39413.)

The "os.putenv()" and "os.unsetenv()" functions are now always
available. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39395.)

Add "os.waitstatus_to_exitcode()" function: convert a wait status to
an exit code. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-40094.)


pathlib
-------

Added "pathlib.Path.readlink()" which acts similarly to
"os.readlink()". (Contributed by Girts Folkmanis in bpo-30618)


poplib
------

"POP3" and "POP3_SSL" now raise a "ValueError" if the given timeout
for their constructor is zero to prevent the creation of a non-
blocking socket. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39259.)


pprint
------

"pprint" can now pretty-print "types.SimpleNamespace". (Contributed by
Carl Bordum Hansen in bpo-37376.)


pydoc
-----

The documentation string is now shown not only for class, function,
method etc, but for any object that has its own "__doc__" attribute.
(Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-40257.)


random
------

Add a new "random.Random.randbytes" method: generate random bytes.
(Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-40286.)


signal
------

Exposed the Linux-specific "signal.pidfd_send_signal()" for sending to
signals to a process using a file descriptor instead of a pid.
(bpo-38712)


smtplib
-------

"SMTP" and "SMTP_SSL" now raise a "ValueError" if the given timeout
for their constructor is zero to prevent the creation of a non-
blocking socket. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39259.)

"LMTP" constructor  now has an optional *timeout* parameter.
(Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39329.)


socket
------

The "socket" module now exports the "CAN_RAW_JOIN_FILTERS" constant on
Linux 4.1 and greater. (Contributed by Stefan Tatschner and Zackery
Spytz in bpo-25780.)


sys
---

Add a new "sys.platlibdir" attribute: name of the platform-specific
library directory. It is used to build the path of platform-specific
dynamic libraries and the path of the standard library. It is equal to
""lib"" on most platforms.  On Fedora and SuSE, it is equal to
""lib64"" on 64-bit platforms. (Contributed by Jan Matějek, Matěj
Cepl, Charalampos Stratakis and Victor Stinner in bpo-1294959.)


typing
------

**PEP 593** introduced an "typing.Annotated" type to decorate existing
types with context-specific metadata and new "include_extras"
parameter to "typing.get_type_hints()" to access the metadata at
runtime. (Contributed by Till Varoquaux and Konstantin Kashin.)


unicodedata
-----------

The Unicode database has been updated to version 13.0.0. (bpo-39926).


venv
----

The activation scripts provided by "venv" now all specify their prompt
customization consistently by always using the value specified by
"__VENV_PROMPT__". Previously some scripts unconditionally used
"__VENV_PROMPT__", others only if it happened to be set (which was the
default case), and one used "__VENV_NAME__" instead. (Contributed by
Brett Cannon in bpo-37663.)


xml
---

White space characters within attributes are now preserved when
serializing "xml.etree.ElementTree" to XML file. EOLNs are no longer
normalized to "n". This is the result of discussion about how to
interpret section 2.11 of XML spec. (Contributed by Mefistotelis in
bpo-39011.)


Optimizations
=============

* Optimized the idiom for assignment a temporary variable in
  comprehensions. Now "for y in [expr]" in comprehensions is as fast
  as a simple assignment "y = expr".  For example:

     sums = [s for s in [0] for x in data for s in [s + x]]

  Unlike to the ":=" operator this idiom does not leak a variable to
  the outer scope.

  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-32856.)

* Optimize signal handling in multithreaded applications. If a thread
  different than the main thread gets a signal, the bytecode
  evaluation loop is no longer interrupted at each bytecode
  instruction to check for pending signals which cannot be handled.
  Only the main thread of the main interpreter can handle signals.

  Previously, the bytecode evaluation loop was interrupted at each
  instruction until the main thread handles signals. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-40010.)

* Optimize the "subprocess" module on FreeBSD using "closefrom()".
  (Contributed by Ed Maste, Conrad Meyer, Kyle Evans, Kubilay Kocak
  and Victor Stinner in bpo-38061.)


Build and C API Changes
=======================

* New "PyThreadState_GetInterpreter()" and "PyInterpreterState_Get()"
  functions to get the interpreter. New "PyThreadState_GetFrame()"
  function to get the current frame of a Python thread state. New
  "PyThreadState_GetID()" function: get the unique identifier of a
  Python thread state. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39947.)

* Add "--with-platlibdir" option to the "configure" script: name of
  the platform-specific library directory, stored in the new
  "sys.platlibdir" attribute. See "sys.platlibdir" attribute for more
  information. (Contributed by Jan Matějek, Matěj Cepl, Charalampos
  Stratakis and Victor Stinner in bpo-1294959.)

* Add a new public "PyObject_CallNoArgs()" function to the C API,
  which calls a callable Python object without any arguments. It is
  the most efficient way to call a callable Python object without any
  argument. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-37194.)

* The global variable "PyStructSequence_UnnamedField" is now a
  constant and refers to a constant string. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in bpo-38650.)

* Exclude "PyFPE_START_PROTECT()" and "PyFPE_END_PROTECT()" macros of
  "pyfpe.h" from "Py_LIMITED_API" (stable API). (Contributed by Victor
  Stinner in bpo-38835.)

* Remove "PyMethod_ClearFreeList()" and "PyCFunction_ClearFreeList()"
  functions: the free lists of bound method objects have been removed.
  (Contributed by Inada Naoki and Victor Stinner in bpo-37340.)

* Remove "PyUnicode_ClearFreeList()" function: the Unicode free list
  has been removed in Python 3.3. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  bpo-38896.)

* The "tp_print" slot of PyTypeObject has been removed. It was used
  for printing objects to files in Python 2.7 and before. Since Python
  3.0, it has been ignored and unused. (Contributed by Jeroen Demeyer
  in bpo-36974.)

* On non-Windows platforms, the "setenv()" and "unsetenv()" functions
  are now required to build Python. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  bpo-39395.)

* The "COUNT_ALLOCS" special build macro has been removed.
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39489.)

* Changes in the limited C API (if "Py_LIMITED_API" macro is defined):

  * Provide "Py_EnterRecursiveCall()" and "Py_LeaveRecursiveCall()" as
    regular functions for the limited API. Previously, there were
    defined as macros, but these macros didn't compile with the
    limited C API which cannot access "PyThreadState.recursion_depth"
    field (the structure is opaque in the limited C API).

  * Exclude the following functions from the limited C API:

    * "_Py_CheckRecursionLimit"

    * "_Py_NewReference()"

    * "_Py_ForgetReference()"

    * "_PyTraceMalloc_NewReference()"

    * "_Py_GetRefTotal()"

    * The trashcan mechanism which never worked in the limited C API.

    * "PyTrash_UNWIND_LEVEL"

    * "Py_TRASHCAN_BEGIN_CONDITION"

    * "Py_TRASHCAN_BEGIN"

    * "Py_TRASHCAN_END"

    * "Py_TRASHCAN_SAFE_BEGIN"

    * "Py_TRASHCAN_SAFE_END"

  * The following static inline functions or macros become regular
    "opaque" function to hide implementation details:

    * "_Py_NewReference()"

    * "PyObject_INIT()" and "PyObject_INIT_VAR()"  become aliases to
      "PyObject_Init()" and "PyObject_InitVar()" in the limited C API,
      but are overriden with static inline function otherwise. Thanks
      to that, it was possible to exclude "_Py_NewReference()" from
      the limited C API.

  * Move following functions and definitions to the internal C API:

    * "_PyDebug_PrintTotalRefs()"

    * "_Py_PrintReferences()"

    * "_Py_PrintReferenceAddresses()"

    * "_Py_tracemalloc_config"

    * "_Py_AddToAllObjects()" (specific to "Py_TRACE_REFS" build)

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-38644 and bpo-39542.)

* "PyInterpreterState.eval_frame" (**PEP 523**) now requires a new
  mandatory *tstate* parameter ("PyThreadState*"). (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-38500.)

* Extension modules: "m_traverse", "m_clear" and "m_free" functions of
  "PyModuleDef" are no longer called if the module state was requested
  but is not allocated yet. This is the case immediately after the
  module is created and before the module is executed ("Py_mod_exec"
  function). More precisely, these functions are not called if
  "m_size" is greater than 0 and the module state (as returned by
  "PyModule_GetState()") is "NULL".

  Extension modules without module state ("m_size <= 0") are not
  affected.

* If "Py_AddPendingCall()" is called in a subinterpreter, the function
  is now scheduled to be called from the subinterpreter, rather than
  being called from the main interpreter. Each subinterpreter now has
  its own list of scheduled calls. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  bpo-39984.)

* Remove "_PyRuntime.getframe" hook and remove
  "_PyThreadState_GetFrame" macro which was an alias to
  "_PyRuntime.getframe". They were only exposed by the internal C API.
  Remove also "PyThreadFrameGetter" type. (Contributed by Victor
  Stinner in bpo-39946.)

* The "PyModule_AddType()" function is added to help adding a type to
  a module. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-40024.)

* The Windows registry is no longer used to initialize "sys.path" when
  the "-E" option is used. This is significant when embedding Python
  on Windows. (Contributed by Zackery Spytz in bpo-8901.)

* Add the functions "PyObject_GC_IsTracked()" and
  "PyObject_GC_IsFinalized()" to the public API to allow to query if
  Python objects are being currently tracked or have been already
  finalized by the garbage collector respectively. (Contributed by
  Pablo Galindo in bpo-40241.)


Deprecated
==========

* The distutils "bdist_msi" command is now deprecated, use
  "bdist_wheel" (wheel packages) instead. (Contributed by Hugo van
  Kemenade in bpo-39586.)

* Currently "math.factorial()" accepts "float" instances with non-
  negative integer values (like "5.0").  It raises a "ValueError" for
  non-integral and negative floats.  It is now deprecated.  In future
  Python versions it will raise a "TypeError" for all floats.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-37315.)

* The "parser" module is deprecated and will be removed in future
  versions of Python. For the majority of use cases, users can
  leverage the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) generation and compilation
  stage, using the "ast" module.

* Using "NotImplemented" in a boolean context has been deprecated, as
  it is almost exclusively the result of incorrect rich comparator
  implementations. It will be made a "TypeError" in a future version
  of Python. (Contributed by Josh Rosenberg in bpo-35712.)

* The "random" module currently accepts any hashable type as a
  possible seed value.  Unfortunately, some of those types are not
  guaranteed to have a deterministic hash value.  After Python 3.9,
  the module will restrict its seeds to "None", "int", "float", "str",
  "bytes", and "bytearray".

* Opening the "GzipFile" file for writing without specifying the
  *mode* argument is deprecated.  In future Python versions it will
  always be opened for reading by default.  Specify the *mode*
  argument for opening it for writing and silencing a warning.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-28286.)

* Deprecated the "split()" method of "_tkinter.TkappType" in favour of
  the "splitlist()" method which has more consistent and predicable
  behavior. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-38371.)

* The explicit passing of coroutine objects to "asyncio.wait()" has
  been deprecated and will be removed in version 3.11. (Contributed by
  Yury Selivanov and Kyle Stanley in bpo-34790.)

* binhex4 and hexbin4 standards are now deprecated. The :*binhex*
  module and the following "binascii" functions are now deprecated:

  * "b2a_hqx()", "a2b_hqx()"

  * "rlecode_hqx()", "rledecode_hqx()"

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39353.)

* "ast" classes "slice", "Index" and "ExtSlice" are considered
  deprecated and will be removed in future Python versions.  "value"
  itself should be used instead of "Index(value)".  "Tuple(slices,
  Load())" should be used instead of "ExtSlice(slices)". (Contributed
  by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-32892.)

* "ast" classes "Suite", "Param", "AugLoad" and "AugStore" are
  considered deprecated and will be removed in future Python versions.
  They were not generated by the parser and not accepted by the code
  generator in Python 3. (Contributed by Batuhan Taskaya in bpo-39639
  and bpo-39969 and Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-39988.)

* The "PyEval_InitThreads()" and "PyEval_ThreadsInitialized()"
  functions are now deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.11.
  Calling "PyEval_InitThreads()" now does nothing. The *GIL* is
  initialized by "Py_Initialize()" since Python 3.7. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-39877.)

* Passing "None" as the first argument to the "shlex.split()" function
  has been deprecated.  (Contributed by Zackery Spytz in bpo-33262.)


Removed
=======

* The erroneous version at "unittest.mock.__version__" has been
  removed.

* "nntplib.NNTP": "xpath()" and "xgtitle()" methods have been removed.
  These methods are deprecated since Python 3.3. Generally, these
  extensions are not supported or not enabled by NNTP server
  administrators. For "xgtitle()", please use
  "nntplib.NNTP.descriptions()" or "nntplib.NNTP.description()"
  instead. (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-39366.)

* "array.array": "tostring()" and "fromstring()" methods have been
  removed. They were aliases to "tobytes()" and "frombytes()",
  deprecated since Python 3.2. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  bpo-38916.)

* The undocumented "sys.callstats()" function has been removed. Since
  Python 3.7, it was deprecated and always returned "None". It
  required a special build option "CALL_PROFILE" which was already
  removed in Python 3.7. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-37414.)

* The "sys.getcheckinterval()" and "sys.setcheckinterval()" functions
  have been removed. They were deprecated since Python 3.2. Use
  "sys.getswitchinterval()" and "sys.setswitchinterval()" instead.
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-37392.)

* The C function "PyImport_Cleanup()" has been removed. It was
  documented as: "Empty the module table.  For internal use only."
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-36710.)

* "_dummy_thread" and "dummy_threading" modules have been removed.
  These modules were deprecated since Python 3.7 which requires
  threading support. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-37312.)

* "aifc.openfp()" alias to "aifc.open()", "sunau.openfp()" alias to
  "sunau.open()", and "wave.openfp()" alias to "wave.open()" have been
  removed. They were deprecated since Python 3.7. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-37320.)

* The "isAlive()" method of "threading.Thread" has been removed. It
  was deprecated since Python 3.8. Use "is_alive()" instead.
  (Contributed by Dong-hee Na in bpo-37804.)

* Methods "getchildren()" and "getiterator()" of classes "ElementTree"
  and "Element" in the "ElementTree" module have been removed.  They
  were deprecated in Python 3.2. Use "iter(x)" or "list(x)" instead of
  "x.getchildren()" and "x.iter()" or "list(x.iter())" instead of
  "x.getiterator()". The "xml.etree.cElementTree" module has been
  removed, use the "xml.etree.ElementTree" module instead. Since
  Python 3.3 the "xml.etree.cElementTree" module has been deprecated,
  the "xml.etree.ElementTree" module uses a fast implementation
  whenever available. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in bpo-36543.)

* The old "plistlib" API has been removed, it was deprecated since
  Python 3.4. Use the "load()", "loads()", "dump()", and "dumps()"
  functions. Additionally, the *use_builtin_types* parameter was
  removed, standard "bytes" objects are always used instead.
  (Contributed by Jon Janzen in bpo-36409.)

* The C function "PyThreadState_DeleteCurrent()" has been removed. It
  was not documented. (Contributed by Joannah Nanjekye in bpo-37878.)

* The C function "PyGen_NeedsFinalizing" has been removed. It was not
  documented, tested, or used anywhere within CPython after the
  implementation of **PEP 442**. Patch by Joannah Nanjekye.
  (Contributed by Joannah Nanjekye in bpo-15088)

* "base64.encodestring()" and "base64.decodestring()", aliases
  deprecated since Python 3.1, have been removed: use
  "base64.encodebytes()" and "base64.decodebytes()" instead.
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39351.)

* "fractions.gcd()" function has been removed, it was deprecated since
  Python 3.5 (bpo-22486): use "math.gcd()" instead. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-39350.)

* The *buffering* parameter of "bz2.BZ2File" has been removed. Since
  Python 3.0, it was ignored and using it emitted a
  "DeprecationWarning". Pass an open file object to control how the
  file is opened. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39357.)

* The *encoding* parameter of "json.loads()" has been removed. As of
  Python 3.1, it was deprecated and ignored; using it has emitted a
  "DeprecationWarning" since Python 3.8. (Contributed by Inada Naoki
  in bpo-39377)

* "with (await asyncio.lock):" and "with (yield from asyncio.lock):"
  statements are not longer supported, use "async with lock" instead.
  The same is correct for "asyncio.Condition" and "asyncio.Semaphore".
  (Contributed by Andrew Svetlov in bpo-34793.)

* The "sys.getcounts()" function, the "-X showalloccount" command line
  option and the "show_alloc_count" field of the C structure
  "PyConfig" have been removed. They required a special Python build
  by defining "COUNT_ALLOCS" macro. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  bpo-39489.)

* The "_field_types" attribute of the "typing.NamedTuple" class has
  been removed.  It was deprecated deprecated since Python 3.8.  Use
  the "__annotations__" attribute instead. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in bpo-40182.)

* The "symtable.SymbolTable.has_exec()" method has been removed. It
  was deprecated since 2006, and only returning "False" when it's
  called. (Contributed by Batuhan Taskaya in bpo-40208)


Porting to Python 3.9
=====================

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


Changes in the Python API
-------------------------

* "__import__()" and "importlib.util.resolve_name()" now raise
  "ImportError" where it previously raised "ValueError". Callers
  catching the specific exception type and supporting both Python 3.9
  and earlier versions will need to catch both using "except
  (ImportError, ValueError):".

* The "venv" activation scripts no longer special-case when
  "__VENV_PROMPT__" is set to """".

* The "select.epoll.unregister()" method no longer ignores the "EBADF"
  error. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in bpo-39239.)

* The *compresslevel* parameter of "bz2.BZ2File" became keyword-only,
  since the *buffering* parameter has been removed. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in bpo-39357.)

* Simplified AST for subscription. Simple indices will be represented
  by their value, extended slices will be represented as tuples.
  "Index(value)" will return a "value" itself, "ExtSlice(slices)" will
  return "Tuple(slices, Load())". (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
  bpo-34822.)

* The "importlib" module now ignores the "PYTHONCASEOK" environment
  variable when the "-E" or "-I" command line options are being used.

* The *encoding* parameter has been added to the classes "ftplib.FTP"
  and "ftplib.FTP_TLS" as a keyword-only parameter, and the default
  encoding is changed from Latin-1 to UTF-8 to follow **RFC 2640**.

* "inspect.getdoc()" no longer returns docstring inherited from the
  type of the object or from parent class if it is a class if it is
  not defined in the object itself. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka
  in bpo-40257.)

* "asyncio.loop.shutdown_default_executor()" has been added to
  "AbstractEventLoop", meaning alternative event loops that inherit
  from it should have this method defined. (Contributed by Kyle
  Stanley in bpo-34037.)

* The constant values of future flags in the "__future__" module is
  updated in order to prevent collision with compiler flags.
  Previously "PyCF_ALLOW_TOP_LEVEL_AWAIT" was clashing with
  "CO_FUTURE_DIVISION". (Contributed by Batuhan Taskaya in bpo-39562)


CPython bytecode changes
------------------------

* The "LOAD_ASSERTION_ERROR" opcode was added for handling the
  "assert" statement. Previously, the assert statement would not work
  correctly if the "AssertionError" exception was being shadowed.
  (Contributed by Zackery Spytz in bpo-34880.)
