What's new in Python 3.14
*************************

Editors:
   Adam Turner and Hugo van Kemenade

This article explains the new features in Python 3.14, compared to
3.13. Python 3.14 was released on 7 October 2025. For full details,
see the changelog.

See also: **PEP 745** -- Python 3.14 release schedule


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

Python 3.14 is the latest stable release of the Python programming
language, with a mix of changes to the language, the implementation,
and the standard library. The biggest changes include template string
literals, deferred evaluation of annotations, and support for
subinterpreters in the standard library.

The library changes include significantly improved capabilities for
introspection in asyncio, support for Zstandard via a new
"compression.zstd" module, syntax highlighting in the REPL, as well as
the usual deprecations and removals, and improvements in user-
friendliness and correctness.

This article doesn't attempt to provide a complete specification of
all new features, but instead gives a convenient overview. For full
details refer to the documentation, such as the Library Reference and
Language Reference. 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. See Porting to Python 3.14 for
guidance on upgrading from earlier versions of Python.

======================================================================

Interpreter improvements:

* **PEP 649** and **PEP 749**: Deferred evaluation of annotations

* **PEP 734**: Multiple interpreters in the standard library

* **PEP 750**: Template strings

* **PEP 758**: Allow except and except* expressions without brackets

* **PEP 765**: Control flow in finally blocks

* **PEP 768**: Safe external debugger interface for CPython

* A new type of interpreter

* Free-threaded mode improvements

* Improved error messages

* Incremental garbage collection

Significant improvements in the standard library:

* **PEP 784**: Zstandard support in the standard library

* Asyncio introspection capabilities

* Concurrent safe warnings control

* Syntax highlighting in the default interactive shell, and color
  output in several standard library CLIs

C API improvements:

* **PEP 741**: Python configuration C API

Platform support:

* **PEP 776**: Emscripten is now an officially supported platform, at
  **tier 3**.

Release changes:

* **PEP 779**: Free-threaded Python is officially supported

* **PEP 761**: PGP signatures have been discontinued for official
  releases

* Windows and macOS binary releases now support the experimental just-
  in-time compiler

* Binary releases for Android are now provided


New features
============


**PEP 649** & **PEP 749**: Deferred evaluation of annotations
-------------------------------------------------------------

The *annotations* on functions, classes, and modules are no longer
evaluated eagerly. Instead, annotations are stored in special-purpose
*annotate functions* and evaluated only when necessary (except if
"from __future__ import annotations" is used).

This change is designed to improve performance and usability of
annotations in Python in most circumstances. The runtime cost for
defining annotations is minimized, but it remains possible to
introspect annotations at runtime. It is no longer necessary to
enclose annotations in strings if they contain forward references.

The new "annotationlib" module provides tools for inspecting deferred
annotations. Annotations may be evaluated in the "VALUE" format (which
evaluates annotations to runtime values, similar to the behavior in
earlier Python versions), the "FORWARDREF" format (which replaces
undefined names with special markers), and the "STRING" format (which
returns annotations as strings).

This example shows how these formats behave:

   >>> from annotationlib import get_annotations, Format
   >>> def func(arg: Undefined):
   ...     pass
   >>> get_annotations(func, format=Format.VALUE)
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     ...
   NameError: name 'Undefined' is not defined
   >>> get_annotations(func, format=Format.FORWARDREF)
   {'arg': ForwardRef('Undefined', owner=<function func at 0x...>)}
   >>> get_annotations(func, format=Format.STRING)
   {'arg': 'Undefined'}

The porting section contains guidance on changes that may be needed
due to these changes, though in the majority of cases, code will
continue working as-is.

(Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in **PEP 749** and gh-119180; **PEP
649** was written by Larry Hastings.)

See also:

  **PEP 649**
     Deferred Evaluation Of Annotations Using Descriptors

  **PEP 749**
     Implementing PEP 649


**PEP 734**: Multiple interpreters in the standard library
----------------------------------------------------------

The CPython runtime supports running multiple copies of Python in the
same process simultaneously and has done so for over 20 years. Each of
these separate copies is called an 'interpreter'. However, the feature
had been available only through the C-API.

That limitation is removed in Python 3.14, with the new
"concurrent.interpreters" module.

There are at least two notable reasons why using multiple interpreters
has significant benefits:

* they support a new (to Python), human-friendly concurrency model

* true multi-core parallelism

For some use cases, concurrency in software improves efficiency and
can simplify design, at a high level. At the same time, implementing
and maintaining all but the simplest concurrency is often a struggle
for the human brain. That especially applies to plain threads (for
example, "threading"), where all memory is shared between all threads.

With multiple isolated interpreters, you can take advantage of a class
of concurrency models, like Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP)
or the actor model, that have found success in other programming
languages, like Smalltalk, Erlang, Haskell, and Go. Think of multiple
interpreters as threads but with opt-in sharing.

Regarding multi-core parallelism: as of Python 3.12, interpreters are
now sufficiently isolated from one another to be used in parallel (see
**PEP 684**). This unlocks a variety of CPU-intensive use cases for
Python that were limited by the *GIL*.

Using multiple interpreters is similar in many ways to
"multiprocessing", in that they both provide isolated logical
"processes" that can run in parallel, with no sharing by default.
However, when using multiple interpreters, an application will use
fewer system resources and will operate more efficiently (since it
stays within the same process). Think of multiple interpreters as
having the isolation of processes with the efficiency of threads.

While the feature has been around for decades, multiple interpreters
have not been used widely, due to low awareness and the lack of a
standard library module. Consequently, they currently have several
notable limitations, which are expected to improve significantly now
that the feature is going mainstream.

Current limitations:

* starting each interpreter has not been optimized yet

* each interpreter uses more memory than necessary (work continues on
  extensive internal sharing between interpreters)

* there aren't many options *yet* for truly sharing objects or other
  data between interpreters (other than "memoryview")

* many third-party extension modules on PyPI are not yet compatible
  with multiple interpreters (all standard library extension modules
  *are* compatible)

* the approach to writing applications that use multiple isolated
  interpreters is mostly unfamiliar to Python users, for now

The impact of these limitations will depend on future CPython
improvements, how interpreters are used, and what the community solves
through PyPI packages. Depending on the use case, the limitations may
not have much impact, so try it out!

Furthermore, future CPython releases will reduce or eliminate overhead
and provide utilities that are less appropriate on PyPI. In the
meantime, most of the limitations can also be addressed through
extension modules, meaning PyPI packages can fill any gap for 3.14,
and even back to 3.12 where interpreters were finally properly
isolated and stopped sharing the *GIL*. Likewise, libraries on PyPI
are expected to emerge for high-level abstractions on top of
interpreters.

Regarding extension modules, work is in progress to update some PyPI
projects, as well as tools like Cython, pybind11, nanobind, and PyO3.
The steps for isolating an extension module are found at Isolating
Extension Modules. Isolating a module has a lot of overlap with what
is required to support free-threading, so the ongoing work in the
community in that area will help accelerate support for multiple
interpreters.

Also added in 3.14: concurrent.futures.InterpreterPoolExecutor.

(Contributed by Eric Snow in gh-134939.)

See also: **PEP 734**


**PEP 750**: Template string literals
-------------------------------------

Template strings are a new mechanism for custom string processing.
They share the familiar syntax of f-strings but, unlike f-strings,
return an object representing the static and interpolated parts of the
string, instead of a simple "str".

To write a t-string, use a "'t'" prefix instead of an "'f'":

   >>> variety = 'Stilton'
   >>> template = t'Try some {variety} cheese!'
   >>> type(template)
   <class 'string.templatelib.Template'>

"Template" objects provide access to the static and interpolated (in
curly braces) parts of a string *before* they are combined. Iterate
over "Template" instances to access their parts in order:

   >>> list(template)
   ['Try some ', Interpolation('Stilton', 'variety', None, ''), ' cheese!']

It's easy to write (or call) code to process "Template" instances. For
example, here's a function that renders static parts lowercase and
"Interpolation" instances uppercase:

   from string.templatelib import Interpolation

   def lower_upper(template):
       """Render static parts lowercase and interpolations uppercase."""
       parts = []
       for part in template:
           if isinstance(part, Interpolation):
               parts.append(str(part.value).upper())
           else:
               parts.append(part.lower())
       return ''.join(parts)

   name = 'Wenslydale'
   template = t'Mister {name}'
   assert lower_upper(template) == 'mister WENSLYDALE'

Because "Template" instances distinguish between static strings and
interpolations at runtime, they can be useful for sanitising user
input. Writing a "html()" function that escapes user input in HTML is
an exercise left to the reader! Template processing code can provide
improved flexibility. For instance, a more advanced "html()" function
could accept a "dict" of HTML attributes directly in the template:

   attributes = {'src': 'limburger.jpg', 'alt': 'lovely cheese'}
   template = t'<img {attributes}>'
   assert html(template) == '<img src="limburger.jpg" alt="lovely cheese" />'

Of course, template processing code does not need to return a string-
like result. An even *more* advanced "html()" could return a custom
type representing a DOM-like structure.

With t-strings in place, developers can write systems that sanitise
SQL, make safe shell operations, improve logging, tackle modern ideas
in web development (HTML, CSS, and so on), and implement lightweight
custom business DSLs.

(Contributed by Jim Baker, Guido van Rossum, Paul Everitt, Koudai
Aono, Lysandros Nikolaou, Dave Peck, Adam Turner, Jelle Zijlstra,
Bénédikt Tran, and Pablo Galindo Salgado in gh-132661.)

See also: **PEP 750**.


**PEP 768**: Safe external debugger interface
---------------------------------------------

Python 3.14 introduces a zero-overhead debugging interface that allows
debuggers and profilers to safely attach to running Python processes
without stopping or restarting them. This is a significant enhancement
to Python's debugging capabilities, meaning that unsafe alternatives
are no longer required.

The new interface provides safe execution points for attaching
debugger code without modifying the interpreter's normal execution
path or adding any overhead at runtime. Due to this, tools can now
inspect and interact with Python applications in real-time, which is a
crucial capability for high-availability systems and production
environments.

For convenience, this interface is implemented in the
"sys.remote_exec()" function. For example:

   import sys
   from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile

   with NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w', suffix='.py', delete=False) as f:
       script_path = f.name
       f.write(f'import my_debugger; my_debugger.connect({os.getpid()})')

   # Execute in process with PID 1234
   print('Behold! An offering:')
   sys.remote_exec(1234, script_path)

This function allows sending Python code to be executed in a target
process at the next safe execution point. However, tool authors can
also implement the protocol directly as described in the PEP, which
details the underlying mechanisms used to safely attach to running
processes.

The debugging interface has been carefully designed with security in
mind and includes several mechanisms to control access:

* A "PYTHON_DISABLE_REMOTE_DEBUG" environment variable.

* A "-X disable-remote-debug" command-line option.

* A "--without-remote-debug" configure flag to completely disable the
  feature at build time.

(Contributed by Pablo Galindo Salgado, Matt Wozniski, and Ivona
Stojanovic in gh-131591.)

See also: **PEP 768**.


A new type of interpreter
-------------------------

A new type of interpreter has been added to CPython. It uses tail
calls between small C functions that implement individual Python
opcodes, rather than one large C "case" statement. For certain newer
compilers, this interpreter provides significantly better performance.
Preliminary benchmarks suggest a geometric mean of 3-5% faster on the
standard "pyperformance" benchmark suite, depending on platform and
architecture. The baseline is Python 3.14 built with Clang 19, without
this new interpreter.

This interpreter currently only works with Clang 19 and newer on
x86-64 and AArch64 architectures. However, a future release of GCC is
expected to support this as well.

This feature is opt-in for now. Enabling profile-guided optimization
is highly recommendeded when using the new interpreter as it is the
only configuration that has been tested and validated for improved
performance. For further information, see "--with-tail-call-interp".

Note:

  This is not to be confused with tail call optimization of Python
  functions, which is currently not implemented in CPython.This new
  interpreter type is an internal implementation detail of the CPython
  interpreter.  It doesn't change the visible behavior of Python
  programs at all.  It can improve their performance, but doesn't
  change anything else.

(Contributed by Ken Jin in gh-128563, with ideas on how to implement
this in CPython by Mark Shannon, Garrett Gu, Haoran Xu, and Josh
Haberman.)


Free-threaded mode improvements
-------------------------------

CPython's free-threaded mode (**PEP 703**), initially added in 3.13,
has been significantly improved in Python 3.14. The implementation
described in PEP 703 has been finished, including C API changes, and
temporary workarounds in the interpreter were replaced with more
permanent solutions. The specializing adaptive interpreter (**PEP
659**) is now enabled in free-threaded mode, which along with many
other optimizations greatly improves its performance. The performance
penalty on single-threaded code in free-threaded mode is now roughly
5-10%, depending on the platform and C compiler used.

From Python 3.14, when compiling extension modules for the free-
threaded build of CPython on Windows, the preprocessor variable
"Py_GIL_DISABLED" now needs to be specified by the build backend, as
it will no longer be determined automatically by the C compiler. For a
running interpreter, the setting that was used at compile time can be
found using "sysconfig.get_config_var()".

The new "-X context_aware_warnings" flag controls if concurrent safe
warnings control is enabled. The flag defaults to true for the free-
threaded build and false for the GIL-enabled build.

A new "thread_inherit_context" flag has been added, which if enabled
means that threads created with "threading.Thread" start with a copy
of the "Context()" of the caller of "start()".  Most significantly,
this makes the warning filtering context established by
"catch_warnings" be "inherited" by threads (or asyncio tasks) started
within that context.  It also affects other modules that use context
variables, such as the "decimal" context manager. This flag defaults
to true for the free-threaded build and false for the GIL-enabled
build.

(Contributed by Sam Gross, Matt Page, Neil Schemenauer, Thomas
Wouters, Donghee Na, Kirill Podoprigora, Ken Jin, Itamar Oren, Brett
Simmers, Dino Viehland, Nathan Goldbaum, Ralf Gommers, Lysandros
Nikolaou, Kumar Aditya, Edgar Margffoy, and many others. Some of these
contributors are employed by Meta, which has continued to provide
significant engineering resources to support this project.)


Improved error messages
-----------------------

* The interpreter now provides helpful suggestions when it detects
  typos in Python keywords. When a word that closely resembles a
  Python keyword is encountered, the interpreter will suggest the
  correct keyword in the error message. This feature helps programmers
  quickly identify and fix common typing mistakes. For example:

     >>> whille True:
     ...     pass
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<stdin>", line 1
         whille True:
         ^^^^^^
     SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Did you mean 'while'?

  While the feature focuses on the most common cases, some variations
  of misspellings may still result in regular syntax errors.
  (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-132449.)

* "elif" statements that follow an "else" block now have a specific
  error message. (Contributed by Steele Farnsworth in gh-129902.)

     >>> if who == "me":
     ...     print("It's me!")
     ... else:
     ...     print("It's not me!")
     ... elif who is None:
     ...     print("Who is it?")
     File "<stdin>", line 5
       elif who is None:
       ^^^^
     SyntaxError: 'elif' block follows an 'else' block

* If a statement is passed to the Conditional expressions after
  "else", or one of "pass", "break", or "continue" is passed before
  "if", then the error message highlights where the "expression" is
  required. (Contributed by Sergey Miryanov in gh-129515.)

     >>> x = 1 if True else pass
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<string>", line 1
         x = 1 if True else pass
                            ^^^^
     SyntaxError: expected expression after 'else', but statement is given

     >>> x = continue if True else break
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<string>", line 1
         x = continue if True else break
             ^^^^^^^^
     SyntaxError: expected expression before 'if', but statement is given

* When incorrectly closed strings are detected, the error message
  suggests that the string may be intended to be part of the string.
  (Contributed by Pablo Galindo in gh-88535.)

     >>> "The interesting object "The important object" is very important"
     Traceback (most recent call last):
     SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Is this intended to be part of the string?

* When strings have incompatible prefixes, the error now shows which
  prefixes are incompatible. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in
  gh-133197.)

     >>> ub'abc'
       File "<python-input-0>", line 1
         ub'abc'
         ^^
     SyntaxError: 'u' and 'b' prefixes are incompatible

* Improved error messages when using "as" with incompatible targets
  in:

  * Imports: "import ... as ..."

  * From imports: "from ... import ... as ..."

  * Except handlers: "except ... as ..."

  * Pattern-match cases: "case ... as ..."

  (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-123539, gh-123562, and
  gh-123440.)

* Improved error message when trying to add an instance of an
  unhashable type to a "dict" or "set". (Contributed by CF Bolz-
  Tereick and Victor Stinner in gh-132828.)

     >>> s = set()
     >>> s.add({'pages': 12, 'grade': 'A'})
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<python-input-1>", line 1, in <module>
         s.add({'pages': 12, 'grade': 'A'})
         ~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     TypeError: cannot use 'dict' as a set element (unhashable type: 'dict')
     >>> d = {}
     >>> l = [1, 2, 3]
     >>> d[l] = 12
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<python-input-4>", line 1, in <module>
         d[l] = 12
         ~^^^
     TypeError: cannot use 'list' as a dict key (unhashable type: 'list')

* Improved error message when an object supporting the synchronous
  context manager protocol is entered using "async with" instead of
  "with", and vice versa for the asynchronous context manager
  protocol. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-128398.)


**PEP 784**: Zstandard support in the standard library
------------------------------------------------------

The new "compression" package contains modules "compression.lzma",
"compression.bz2", "compression.gzip" and "compression.zlib" which re-
export the "lzma", "bz2", "gzip" and "zlib" modules respectively. The
new import names under "compression" are the preferred names for
importing these compression modules from Python 3.14. However, the
existing modules names have not been deprecated. Any deprecation or
removal of the existing compression modules will occur no sooner than
five years after the release of 3.14.

The new "compression.zstd" module provides compression and
decompression APIs for the Zstandard format via bindings to Meta's
zstd library. Zstandard is a widely adopted, highly efficient, and
fast compression format. In addition to the APIs introduced in
"compression.zstd", support for reading and writing Zstandard
compressed archives has been added to the "tarfile", "zipfile", and
"shutil" modules.

Here's an example of using the new module to compress some data:

   from compression import zstd
   import math

   data = str(math.pi).encode() * 20
   compressed = zstd.compress(data)
   ratio = len(compressed) / len(data)
   print(f"Achieved compression ratio of {ratio}")

As can be seen, the API is similar to the APIs of the "lzma" and "bz2"
modules.

(Contributed by Emma Harper Smith, Adam Turner, Gregory P. Smith,
Tomas Roun, Victor Stinner, and Rogdham in gh-132983.)

See also: **PEP 784**.


Asyncio introspection capabilities
----------------------------------

Added a new command-line interface to inspect running Python processes
using asynchronous tasks, available via "python -m asyncio ps PID" or
"python -m asyncio pstree PID".

The "ps" subcommand inspects the given process ID (PID) and displays
information about currently running asyncio tasks. It outputs a task
table: a flat listing of all tasks, their names, their coroutine
stacks, and which tasks are awaiting them.

The "pstree" subcommand fetches the same information, but instead
renders a visual async call tree, showing coroutine relationships in a
hierarchical format. This command is particularly useful for debugging
long-running or stuck asynchronous programs. It can help developers
quickly identify where a program is blocked, what tasks are pending,
and how coroutines are chained together.

For example given this code:

   import asyncio

   async def play_track(track):
       await asyncio.sleep(5)
       print(f'🎵 Finished: {track}')

   async def play_album(name, tracks):
       async with asyncio.TaskGroup() as tg:
           for track in tracks:
               tg.create_task(play_track(track), name=track)

   async def main():
       async with asyncio.TaskGroup() as tg:
           tg.create_task(
             play_album('Sundowning', ['TNDNBTG', 'Levitate']),
             name='Sundowning')
           tg.create_task(
             play_album('TMBTE', ['DYWTYLM', 'Aqua Regia']),
             name='TMBTE')

   if __name__ == '__main__':
       asyncio.run(main())

Executing the new tool on the running process will yield a table like
this:

   python -m asyncio ps 12345

   tid        task id              task name            coroutine stack                                    awaiter chain                                      awaiter name    awaiter id
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1935500    0x7fc930c18050       Task-1               TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> main                                                                       0x0
   1935500    0x7fc930c18230       Sundowning           TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> main    Task-1          0x7fc930c18050
   1935500    0x7fc93173fa50       TMBTE                TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> main    Task-1          0x7fc930c18050
   1935500    0x7fc93173fdf0       TNDNBTG              sleep -> play                                      TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   Sundowning      0x7fc930c18230
   1935500    0x7fc930d32510       Levitate             sleep -> play                                      TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   Sundowning      0x7fc930c18230
   1935500    0x7fc930d32890       DYWTYLM              sleep -> play                                      TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   TMBTE           0x7fc93173fa50
   1935500    0x7fc93161ec30       Aqua Regia           sleep -> play                                      TaskGroup._aexit -> TaskGroup.__aexit__ -> album   TMBTE           0x7fc93173fa50

or a tree like this:

   python -m asyncio pstree 12345

   └── (T) Task-1
       └──  main example.py:13
           └──  TaskGroup.__aexit__ Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:72
               └──  TaskGroup._aexit Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:121
                   ├── (T) Sundowning
                   │   └──  album example.py:8
                   │       └──  TaskGroup.__aexit__ Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:72
                   │           └──  TaskGroup._aexit Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:121
                   │               ├── (T) TNDNBTG
                   │               │   └──  play example.py:4
                   │               │       └──  sleep Lib/asyncio/tasks.py:702
                   │               └── (T) Levitate
                   │                   └──  play example.py:4
                   │                       └──  sleep Lib/asyncio/tasks.py:702
                   └── (T) TMBTE
                       └──  album example.py:8
                           └──  TaskGroup.__aexit__ Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:72
                               └──  TaskGroup._aexit Lib/asyncio/taskgroups.py:121
                                   ├── (T) DYWTYLM
                                   │   └──  play example.py:4
                                   │       └──  sleep Lib/asyncio/tasks.py:702
                                   └── (T) Aqua Regia
                                       └──  play example.py:4
                                           └──  sleep Lib/asyncio/tasks.py:702

If a cycle is detected in the async await graph (which could indicate
a programming issue), the tool raises an error and lists the cycle
paths that prevent tree construction:

   python -m asyncio pstree 12345

   ERROR: await-graph contains cycles - cannot print a tree!

   cycle: Task-2 → Task-3 → Task-2

(Contributed by Pablo Galindo, Łukasz Langa, Yury Selivanov, and Marta
Gomez Macias in gh-91048.)


Concurrent safe warnings control
--------------------------------

The "warnings.catch_warnings" context manager will now optionally use
a context variable for warning filters. This is enabled by setting the
"context_aware_warnings" flag, either with the "-X" command-line
option or an environment variable. This gives predictable warnings
control when using "catch_warnings" combined with multiple threads or
asynchronous tasks. The flag defaults to true for the free-threaded
build and false for the GIL-enabled build.

(Contributed by Neil Schemenauer and Kumar Aditya in gh-130010.)


Other language changes
======================

* All Windows code pages are now supported as 'cpXXX' codecs on
  Windows. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-123803.)

* Implement mixed-mode arithmetic rules combining real and complex
  numbers as specified by the C standard since C99. (Contributed by
  Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-69639.)

* More syntax errors are now detected regardless of optimisation and
  the "-O" command-line option. This includes writes to "__debug__",
  incorrect use of "await", and asynchronous comprehensions outside
  asynchronous functions. For example, "python -O -c 'assert
  (__debug__ := 1)'" or "python -O -c 'assert await 1'" now produce
  "SyntaxError"s. (Contributed by Irit Katriel and Jelle Zijlstra in
  gh-122245 & gh-121637.)

* When subclassing a pure C type, the C slots for the new type are no
  longer replaced with a wrapped version on class creation if they are
  not explicitly overridden in the subclass. (Contributed by Tomasz
  Pytel in gh-132284.)


Built-ins
---------

* The "bytes.fromhex()" and "bytearray.fromhex()" methods now accept
  ASCII "bytes" and *bytes-like objects*. (Contributed by Daniel Pope
  in gh-129349.)

* Add class methods "float.from_number()" and "complex.from_number()"
  to convert a number to "float" or "complex" type correspondingly.
  They raise a "TypeError" if the argument is not a real number.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-84978.)

* Support underscore and comma as thousands separators in the
  fractional part for floating-point presentation types of the new-
  style string formatting (with "format()" or f-strings). (Contributed
  by Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-87790.)

* The "int()" function no longer delegates to "__trunc__()". Classes
  that want to support conversion to "int()" must implement either
  "__int__()" or "__index__()". (Contributed by Mark Dickinson in
  gh-119743.)

* The "map()" function now has an optional keyword-only *strict* flag
  like "zip()" to check that all the iterables are of equal length.
  (Contributed by Wannes Boeykens in gh-119793.)

* The "memoryview" type now supports subscription, making it a
  *generic type*. (Contributed by Brian Schubert in gh-126012.)

* Using "NotImplemented" in a boolean context will now raise a
  "TypeError". This has raised a "DeprecationWarning" since Python
  3.9. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-118767.)

* Three-argument "pow()" now tries calling "__rpow__()" if necessary.
  Previously it was only called in two-argument "pow()" and the binary
  power operator. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-130104.)

* "super" objects are now "copyable" and "pickleable". (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-125767.)


Command line and environment
----------------------------

* The import time flag can now track modules that are already loaded
  ('cached'), via the new "-X importtime=2". When such a module is
  imported, the "self" and "cumulative" times are replaced by the
  string "cached".

  Values above "2" for "-X importtime" are now reserved for future
  use.

  (Contributed by Noah Kim and Adam Turner in gh-118655.)

* The command-line option "-c" now automatically dedents its code
  argument before execution. The auto-dedentation behavior mirrors
  "textwrap.dedent()". (Contributed by Jon Crall and Steven Sun in
  gh-103998.)

* "-J" is no longer a reserved flag for Jython, and now has no special
  meaning. (Contributed by Adam Turner in gh-133336.)


PEP 758: Allow "except" and "except*" expressions without brackets
------------------------------------------------------------------

The "except" and "except*" expressions now allow brackets to be
omitted when there are multiple exception types and the "as" clause is
not used. For example:

   try:
       connect_to_server()
   except TimeoutError, ConnectionRefusedError:
       print('The network has ceased to be!')

(Contributed by Pablo Galindo and Brett Cannon in **PEP 758** and
gh-131831.)


PEP 765: Control flow in "finally" blocks
-----------------------------------------

The compiler now emits a "SyntaxWarning" when a "return", "break", or
"continue" statement have the effect of leaving a "finally" block.
This change is specified in **PEP 765**.

In situations where this change is inconvenient (such as those where
the warnings are redundant due to code linting), the warning filter
can be used to turn off all syntax warnings by adding
"ignore::SyntaxWarning" as a filter. This can be specified in
combination with a filter that converts other warnings to errors (for
example, passing "-Werror -Wignore::SyntaxWarning" as CLI options, or
setting "PYTHONWARNINGS=error,ignore::SyntaxWarning").

Note that applying such a filter at runtime using the "warnings"
module will only suppress the warning in code that is compiled *after*
the filter is adjusted. Code that is compiled prior to the filter
adjustment (for example, when a module is imported) will still emit
the syntax warning.

(Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-130080.)


Incremental garbage collection
------------------------------

The cycle garbage collector is now incremental. This means that
maximum pause times are reduced by an order of magnitude or more for
larger heaps.

There are now only two generations: young and old. When "gc.collect()"
is not called directly, the GC is invoked a little less frequently.
When invoked, it collects the young generation and an increment of the
old generation, instead of collecting one or more generations.

The behavior of "gc.collect()" changes slightly:

* "gc.collect(1)": Performs an increment of garbage collection, rather
  than collecting generation 1.

* Other calls to "gc.collect()" are unchanged.

(Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-108362.)


Default interactive shell
-------------------------

* The default *interactive* shell now highlights Python syntax. The
  feature is enabled by default, save if "PYTHON_BASIC_REPL" or any
  other environment variable that disables colour is set. See
  Controlling color for details.

  The default color theme for syntax highlighting strives for good
  contrast and exclusively uses the 4-bit VGA standard ANSI color
  codes for maximum compatibility. The theme can be customized using
  an experimental API "_colorize.set_theme()". This can be called
  interactively or in the "PYTHONSTARTUP" script. Note that this
  function has no stability guarantees, and may change or be removed.

  (Contributed by Łukasz Langa in gh-131507.)

* The default *interactive* shell now supports import auto-completion.
  This means that typing "import co" and pressing "<Tab>" will suggest
  modules starting with "co". Similarly, typing "from concurrent
  import i" will suggest submodules of "concurrent" starting with "i".
  Note that autocompletion of module attributes is not currently
  supported. (Contributed by Tomas Roun in gh-69605.)


New modules
===========

* "annotationlib": For introspecting *annotations*. See PEP 749 for
  more details. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-119180.)

* "compression" (including "compression.zstd"): A package for
  compression-related modules, including a new module to support the
  Zstandard compression format. See PEP 784 for more details.
  (Contributed by Emma Harper Smith, Adam Turner, Gregory P. Smith,
  Tomas Roun, Victor Stinner, and Rogdham in gh-132983.)

* "concurrent.interpreters": Support for multiple interpreters in the
  standard library. See PEP 734 for more details. (Contributed by Eric
  Snow in gh-134939.)

* "string.templatelib": Support for template string literals
  (t-strings). See PEP 750 for more details. (Contributed by Jim
  Baker, Guido van Rossum, Paul Everitt, Koudai Aono, Lysandros
  Nikolaou, Dave Peck, Adam Turner, Jelle Zijlstra, Bénédikt Tran, and
  Pablo Galindo Salgado in gh-132661.)


Improved modules
================


argparse
--------

* The default value of the program name for "argparse.ArgumentParser"
  now reflects the way the Python interpreter was instructed to find
  the "__main__" module code. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka and
  Alyssa Coghlan in gh-66436.)

* Introduced the optional *suggest_on_error* parameter to
  "argparse.ArgumentParser", enabling suggestions for argument choices
  and subparser names if mistyped by the user. (Contributed by
  Savannah Ostrowski in gh-124456.)

* Enable color for help text, which can be disabled with the optional
  *color* parameter to "argparse.ArgumentParser". This can also be
  controlled by environment variables. (Contributed by Hugo van
  Kemenade in gh-130645.)


ast
---

* Add "compare()", a function for comparing two ASTs. (Contributed by
  Batuhan Taskaya and Jeremy Hylton in gh-60191.)

* Add support for "copy.replace()" for AST nodes. (Contributed by
  Bénédikt Tran in gh-121141.)

* Docstrings are now removed from an optimized AST in optimization
  level 2. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-123958.)

* The "repr()" output for AST nodes now includes more information.
  (Contributed by Tomas Roun in gh-116022.)

* When called with an AST as input, the "parse()" function now always
  verifies that the root node type is appropriate. (Contributed by
  Irit Katriel in gh-130139.)

* Add new options to the command-line interface: "--feature-version",
  "--optimize", and "--show-empty". (Contributed by Semyon Moroz in
  gh-133367.)


asyncio
-------

* The function and methods named "create_task()" now take an arbitrary
  list of keyword arguments. All keyword arguments are passed to the
  "Task" constructor or the custom task factory. (See
  "set_task_factory()" for details.) The "name" and "context" keyword
  arguments are no longer special; the name should now be set using
  the "name" keyword argument of the factory, and "context" may be
  "None".

  This affects the following function and methods:
  "asyncio.create_task()", "asyncio.loop.create_task()",
  "asyncio.TaskGroup.create_task()".

  (Contributed by Thomas Grainger in gh-128307.)

* There are two new utility functions for introspecting and printing a
  program's call graph: "capture_call_graph()" and
  "print_call_graph()". See Asyncio introspection capabilities for
  more details. (Contributed by Yury Selivanov, Pablo Galindo Salgado,
  and Łukasz Langa in gh-91048.)


calendar
--------

* By default, today's date is highlighted in color in "calendar"'s
  command-line text output. This can be controlled by environment
  variables. (Contributed by Hugo van Kemenade in gh-128317.)


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

* Add a new executor class, "InterpreterPoolExecutor", which exposes
  multiple Python interpreters in the same process ('subinterpreters')
  to Python code. This uses a pool of independent Python interpreters
  to execute calls asynchronously.

  This is separate from the new "interpreters" module introduced by
  PEP 734. (Contributed by Eric Snow in gh-124548.)

* On Unix platforms other than macOS, 'forkserver' is now the default
  start method for "ProcessPoolExecutor" (replacing 'fork'). This
  change does not affect Windows or macOS, where 'spawn' remains the
  default start method.

  If the threading incompatible *fork* method is required, you must
  explicitly request it by supplying a multiprocessing context
  *mp_context* to "ProcessPoolExecutor".

  See forkserver restrictions for information and differences with the
  *fork* method and how this change may affect existing code with
  mutable global shared variables and/or shared objects that can not
  be automatically "pickled".

  (Contributed by Gregory P. Smith in gh-84559.)

* Add two new methods to "ProcessPoolExecutor", "terminate_workers()"
  and "kill_workers()", as ways to terminate or kill all living worker
  processes in the given pool. (Contributed by Charles Machalow in
  gh-130849.)

* Add the optional *buffersize* parameter to "Executor.map" to limit
  the number of submitted tasks whose results have not yet been
  yielded. If the buffer is full, iteration over the *iterables*
  pauses until a result is yielded from the buffer. (Contributed by
  Enzo Bonnal and Josh Rosenberg in gh-74028.)


configparser
------------

* "configparser" will no longer write config files it cannot read, to
  improve security. Attempting to "write()" keys containing delimiters
  or beginning with the section header pattern will raise an
  "InvalidWriteError". (Contributed by Jacob Lincoln in gh-129270.)


contextvars
-----------

* Support the *context manager* protocol for "Token" objects.
  (Contributed by Andrew Svetlov in gh-129889.)


ctypes
------

* The layout of bit fields in "Structure" and "Union" objects is now a
  closer match to platform defaults (GCC/Clang or MSVC). In
  particular, fields no longer overlap. (Contributed by Matthias
  Görgens in gh-97702.)

* The "Structure._layout_" class attribute can now be set to help
  match a non-default ABI. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-97702.)

* The class of "Structure"/"Union" field descriptors is now available
  as "CField", and has new attributes to aid debugging and
  introspection. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-128715.)

* On Windows, the "COMError" exception is now public. (Contributed by
  Jun Komoda in gh-126686.)

* On Windows, the "CopyComPointer()" function is now public.
  (Contributed by Jun Komoda in gh-127275.)

* Add "memoryview_at()", a function to create a "memoryview" object
  that refers to the supplied pointer and length. This works like
  "ctypes.string_at()" except it avoids a buffer copy, and is
  typically useful when implementing pure Python callback functions
  that are passed dynamically-sized buffers. (Contributed by Rian
  Hunter in gh-112018.)

* Complex types, "c_float_complex", "c_double_complex", and
  "c_longdouble_complex", are now available if both the compiler and
  the "libffi" library support complex C types. (Contributed by Sergey
  B Kirpichev in gh-61103.)

* Add "ctypes.util.dllist()" for listing the shared libraries loaded
  by the current process. (Contributed by Brian Ward in gh-119349.)

* Move "ctypes.POINTER()" types cache from a global internal cache
  ("_pointer_type_cache") to the "_CData.__pointer_type__" attribute
  of the corresponding "ctypes" types. This will stop the cache from
  growing without limits in some situations. (Contributed by Sergey
  Miryanov in gh-100926.)

* The "py_object" type now supports subscription, making it a *generic
  type*. (Contributed by Brian Schubert in gh-132168.)

* "ctypes" now supports *free-threading builds*. (Contributed by Kumar
  Aditya and Peter Bierma in gh-127945.)


curses
------

* Add the "assume_default_colors()" function, a refinement of the
  "use_default_colors()" function which allows changing the color pair
  "0". (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-133139.)


datetime
--------

* Add the "strptime()" method to the "datetime.date" and
  "datetime.time" classes. (Contributed by Wannes Boeykens in
  gh-41431.)


decimal
-------

* Add "Decimal.from_number()" as an alternative constructor for
  "Decimal". (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-121798.)

* Expose "IEEEContext()" to support creation of contexts corresponding
  to the IEEE 754 (2008) decimal interchange formats. (Contributed by
  Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-53032.)


difflib
-------

* Comparison pages with highlighted changes generated by the
  "HtmlDiff" class now support 'dark mode'. (Contributed by Jiahao Li
  in gh-129939.)


dis
---

* Add support for rendering full source location information of
  "instructions", rather than only the line number. This feature is
  added to the following interfaces via the *show_positions* keyword
  argument:

  * "dis.Bytecode"

  * "dis.dis()"

  * "dis.distb()"

  * "dis.disassemble()"

  This feature is also exposed via "dis --show-positions".
  (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-123165.)

* Add the "dis --specialized" command-line option to show specialized
  bytecode. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-127413.)


errno
-----

* Add the "EHWPOISON" error code constant. (Contributed by James Roy
  in gh-126585.)


faulthandler
------------

* Add support for printing the C stack trace on systems that support
  it via the new "dump_c_stack()" function or via the *c_stack*
  argument in "faulthandler.enable()". (Contributed by Peter Bierma in
  gh-127604.)


fnmatch
-------

* Add "filterfalse()", a function to reject names matching a given
  pattern. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-74598.)


fractions
---------

* A "Fraction" object may now be constructed from any object with the
  "as_integer_ratio()" method. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
  gh-82017.)

* Add "Fraction.from_number()" as an alternative constructor for
  "Fraction". (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-121797.)


functools
---------

* Add the "Placeholder" sentinel. This may be used with the
  "partial()" or "partialmethod()" functions to reserve a place for
  positional arguments in the returned partial object. (Contributed by
  Dominykas Grigonis in gh-119127.)

* Allow the *initial* parameter of "reduce()" to be passed as a
  keyword argument. (Contributed by Sayandip Dutta in gh-125916.)


getopt
------

* Add support for options with optional arguments. (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-126374.)

* Add support for returning intermixed options and non-option
  arguments in order. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-126390.)


getpass
-------

* Support keyboard feedback in the "getpass()" function via the
  keyword-only optional argument *echo_char*. Placeholder characters
  are rendered whenever a character is entered, and removed when a
  character is deleted. (Contributed by Semyon Moroz in gh-77065.)


graphlib
--------

* Allow "TopologicalSorter.prepare()" to be called more than once as
  long as sorting has not started. (Contributed by Daniel Pope in
  gh-130914.)


heapq
-----

* The "heapq" module has improved support for working with max-heaps,
  via the following new functions:

  * "heapify_max()"

  * "heappush_max()"

  * "heappop_max()"

  * "heapreplace_max()"

  * "heappushpop_max()"


hmac
----

* Add a built-in implementation for HMAC (**RFC 2104**) using formally
  verified code from the HACL* project. This implementation is used as
  a fallback when the OpenSSL implementation of HMAC is not available.
  (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-99108.)


http
----

* Directory lists and error pages generated by the "http.server"
  module allow the browser to apply its default dark mode.
  (Contributed by Yorik Hansen in gh-123430.)

* The "http.server" module now supports serving over HTTPS using the
  "http.server.HTTPSServer" class. This functionality is exposed by
  the command-line interface ("python -m http.server") through the
  following options:

  * "--tls-cert <path>": Path to the TLS certificate file.

  * "--tls-key <path>": Optional path to the private key file.

  * "--tls-password-file <path>": Optional path to the password file
    for the private key.

  (Contributed by Semyon Moroz in gh-85162.)


imaplib
-------

* Add "IMAP4.idle()", implementing the IMAP4 "IDLE" command as defined
  in **RFC 2177**. (Contributed by Forest in gh-55454.)


inspect
-------

* "signature()" takes a new argument *annotation_format* to control
  the "annotationlib.Format" used for representing annotations.
  (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-101552.)

* "Signature.format()" takes a new argument *unquote_annotations*. If
  true, string *annotations* are displayed without surrounding quotes.
  (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-101552.)

* Add function "ispackage()" to determine whether an object is a
  *package* or not. (Contributed by Zhikang Yan in gh-125634.)


io
--

* Reading text from a non-blocking stream with "read" may now raise a
  "BlockingIOError" if the operation cannot immediately return bytes.
  (Contributed by Giovanni Siragusa in gh-109523.)

* Add the "Reader" and "Writer" protocols as simpler alternatives to
  the pseudo-protocols "typing.IO", "typing.TextIO", and
  "typing.BinaryIO". (Contributed by Sebastian Rittau in gh-127648.)


json
----

* Add exception notes for JSON serialization errors that allow
  identifying the source of the error. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in gh-122163.)

* Allow using the "json" module as a script using the "-m" switch:
  **python -m json**. This is now preferred to **python -m
  json.tool**, which is *soft deprecated*. See the JSON command-line
  interface documentation. (Contributed by Trey Hunner in gh-122873.)

* By default, the output of the JSON command-line interface is
  highlighted in color. This can be controlled by environment
  variables. (Contributed by Tomas Roun in gh-131952.)


linecache
---------

* "getline()" can now retrieve source code for frozen modules.
  (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-131638.)


logging.handlers
----------------

* "QueueListener" objects now support the *context manager* protocol.
  (Contributed by Charles Machalow in gh-132106.)

* "QueueListener.start" now raises a "RuntimeError" if the listener is
  already started. (Contributed by Charles Machalow in gh-132106.)


math
----

* Added more detailed error messages for domain errors in the module.
  (Contributed by Charlie Zhao and Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-101410.)


mimetypes
---------

* Add a public command-line for the module, invoked via **python -m
  mimetypes**. (Contributed by Oleg Iarygin and Hugo van Kemenade in
  gh-93096.)

* Add several new MIME types based on RFCs and common usage:

  -[ Microsoft and **RFC 8081** MIME types for fonts ]-

  * Embedded OpenType: "application/vnd.ms-fontobject"

  * OpenType Layout (OTF) "font/otf"

  * TrueType: "font/ttf"

  * WOFF 1.0 "font/woff"

  * WOFF 2.0 "font/woff2"

  -[ **RFC 9559** MIME types for Matroska audiovisual data container
  structures ]-

  * audio with no video: "audio/matroska" (".mka")

  * video: "video/matroska" (".mkv")

  * stereoscopic video: "video/matroska-3d" (".mk3d")

  -[ Images with RFCs ]-

  * **RFC 1494**: CCITT Group 3 (".g3")

  * **RFC 3362**: Real-time Facsimile, T.38 (".t38")

  * **RFC 3745**: JPEG 2000 (".jp2"), extension (".jpx") and compound
    (".jpm")

  * **RFC 3950**: Tag Image File Format Fax eXtended, TIFF-FX (".tfx")

  * **RFC 4047**: Flexible Image Transport System (".fits")

  * **RFC 7903**: Enhanced Metafile (".emf") and Windows Metafile
    (".wmf")

  -[ Other MIME type additions and changes ]-

  * **RFC 2361**: Change type for ".avi" to "video/vnd.avi" and for
    ".wav" to "audio/vnd.wave"

  * **RFC 4337**: Add MPEG-4 "audio/mp4" (".m4a")

  * **RFC 5334**: Add Ogg media (".oga", ".ogg" and ".ogx")

  * **RFC 6713**: Add gzip "application/gzip" (".gz")

  * **RFC 9639**: Add FLAC "audio/flac" (".flac")

  * **RFC 9512** "application/yaml" MIME type for YAML files (".yaml"
    and ".yml")

  * Add 7z "application/x-7z-compressed" (".7z")

  * Add Android Package "application/vnd.android.package-archive"
    (".apk") when not strict

  * Add deb "application/x-debian-package" (".deb")

  * Add glTF binary "model/gltf-binary" (".glb")

  * Add glTF JSON/ASCII "model/gltf+json" (".gltf")

  * Add M4V "video/x-m4v" (".m4v")

  * Add PHP "application/x-httpd-php" (".php")

  * Add RAR "application/vnd.rar" (".rar")

  * Add RPM "application/x-rpm" (".rpm")

  * Add STL "model/stl" (".stl")

  * Add Windows Media Video "video/x-ms-wmv" (".wmv")

  * De facto: Add WebM "audio/webm" (".weba")

  * ECMA-376: Add ".docx", ".pptx" and ".xlsx" types

  * OASIS: Add OpenDocument ".odg", ".odp", ".ods" and ".odt" types

  * W3C: Add EPUB "application/epub+zip" (".epub")

  (Contributed by Sahil Prajapati and Hugo van Kemenade in gh-84852,
  by Sasha "Nelie" Chernykh and Hugo van Kemenade in gh-132056, and by
  Hugo van Kemenade in gh-89416, gh-85957, and gh-129965.)


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

* On Unix platforms other than macOS, 'forkserver' is now the default
  start method (replacing 'fork'). This change does not affect Windows
  or macOS, where 'spawn' remains the default start method.

  If the threading incompatible *fork* method is required, you must
  explicitly request it via a context from "get_context()" (preferred)
  or change the default via "set_start_method()".

  See forkserver restrictions for information and differences with the
  *fork* method and how this change may affect existing code with
  mutable global shared variables and/or shared objects that can not
  be automatically "pickled".

  (Contributed by Gregory P. Smith in gh-84559.)

* "multiprocessing"'s "'forkserver'" start method now authenticates
  its control socket to avoid solely relying on filesystem permissions
  to restrict what other processes could cause the forkserver to spawn
  workers and run code. (Contributed by Gregory P. Smith for
  gh-97514.)

* The multiprocessing proxy objects for *list* and *dict* types gain
  previously overlooked missing methods:

     * "clear()" and "copy()" for proxies of "list"

     * "fromkeys()", "reversed(d)", "d | {}", "{} | d", "d |= {'b':
       2}" for proxies of "dict"

  (Contributed by Roy Hyunjin Han for gh-103134.)

* Add support for shared "set" objects via "SyncManager.set()". The
  "set()" in "Manager()" method is now available. (Contributed by
  Mingyu Park in gh-129949.)

* Add the "interrupt()" to "multiprocessing.Process" objects, which
  terminates the child process by sending "SIGINT". This enables
  "finally" clauses to print a stack trace for the terminated process.
  (Contributed by Artem Pulkin in gh-131913.)


operator
--------

* Add "is_none()" and "is_not_none()" as a pair of functions, such
  that "operator.is_none(obj)" is equivalent to "obj is None" and
  "operator.is_not_none(obj)" is equivalent to "obj is not None".
  (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger and Nico Mexis in gh-115808.)


os
--

* Add the "reload_environ()" function to update "os.environ" and
  "os.environb" with changes to the environment made by "os.putenv()",
  by "os.unsetenv()", or made outside Python in the same process.
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-120057.)

* Add the "SCHED_DEADLINE" and "SCHED_NORMAL" constants to the "os"
  module. (Contributed by James Roy in gh-127688.)

* Add the "readinto()" function to read into a buffer object from a
  file descriptor. (Contributed by Cody Maloney in gh-129205.)


os.path
-------

* The *strict* parameter to "realpath()" accepts a new value,
  "ALLOW_MISSING". If used, errors other than "FileNotFoundError" will
  be re-raised; the resulting path can be missing but it will be free
  of symlinks. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin for **CVE 2025-4517**.)


pathlib
-------

* Add methods to "pathlib.Path" to recursively copy or move files and
  directories:

  * "copy()" copies a file or directory tree to a destination.

  * "copy_into()" copies *into* a destination directory.

  * "move()" moves a file or directory tree to a destination.

  * "move_into()" moves *into* a destination directory.

  (Contributed by Barney Gale in gh-73991.)

* Add the "info" attribute, which stores an object implementing the
  new "pathlib.types.PathInfo" protocol. The object supports querying
  the file type and internally caching "stat()" results. Path objects
  generated by "iterdir()" are initialized with file type information
  gleaned from scanning the parent directory. (Contributed by Barney
  Gale in gh-125413.)


pdb
---

* The "pdb" module now supports remote attaching to a running Python
  process using a new "-p PID" command-line option:

     python -m pdb -p 1234

  This will connect to the Python process with the given PID and allow
  you to debug it interactively. Notice that due to how the Python
  interpreter works attaching to a remote process that is blocked in a
  system call or waiting for I/O will only work once the next bytecode
  instruction is executed or when the process receives a signal.

  This feature uses PEP 768 and the new "sys.remote_exec()" function
  to attach to the remote process and send the PDB commands to it.

  (Contributed by Matt Wozniski and Pablo Galindo in gh-131591.)

* Hardcoded breakpoints ("breakpoint()" and "set_trace()") now reuse
  the most recent "Pdb" instance that calls "set_trace()", instead of
  creating a new one each time. As a result, all the instance specific
  data like "display" and "commands" are preserved across hardcoded
  breakpoints. (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-121450.)

* Add a new argument *mode* to "pdb.Pdb". Disable the "restart"
  command when "pdb" is in "inline" mode. (Contributed by Tian Gao in
  gh-123757.)

* A confirmation prompt will be shown when the user tries to quit
  "pdb" in "inline" mode. "y", "Y", "<Enter>" or "EOF" will confirm
  the quit and call "sys.exit()", instead of raising "bdb.BdbQuit".
  (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-124704.)

* Inline breakpoints like "breakpoint()" or "pdb.set_trace()" will
  always stop the program at calling frame, ignoring the "skip"
  pattern (if any). (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-130493.)

* "<tab>" at the beginning of the line in "pdb" multi-line input will
  fill in a 4-space indentation now, instead of inserting a "\t"
  character. (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-130471.)

* Auto-indent is introduced in "pdb" multi-line input. It will either
  keep the indentation of the last line or insert a 4-space
  indentation when it detects a new code block. (Contributed by Tian
  Gao in gh-133350.)

* "$_asynctask" is added to access the current asyncio task if
  applicable. (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-124367.)

* "pdb.set_trace_async()" is added to support debugging asyncio
  coroutines. "await" statements are supported with this function.
  (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-132576.)

* Source code displayed in "pdb" will be syntax-highlighted. This
  feature can be controlled using the same methods as the default
  *interactive* shell, in addition to the newly added "colorize"
  argument of "pdb.Pdb". (Contributed by Tian Gao and Łukasz Langa in
  gh-133355.)


pickle
------

* Set the default protocol version on the "pickle" module to 5. For
  more details, see pickle protocols.

* Add exception notes for pickle serialization errors that allow
  identifying the source of the error. (Contributed by Serhiy
  Storchaka in gh-122213.)


platform
--------

* Add "invalidate_caches()", a function to invalidate cached results
  in the "platform" module. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in
  gh-122549.)


pydoc
-----

* *Annotations* in help output are now usually displayed in a format
  closer to that in the original source. (Contributed by Jelle
  Zijlstra in gh-101552.)


re
--

* Support "\z" as a synonym for "\Z" in "regular expressions". It is
  interpreted unambiguously in many other regular expression engines,
  unlike "\Z", which has subtly different behavior. (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-133306.)

* "\B" in "regular expression" now matches the empty input string,
  meaning that it is now always the opposite of "\b". (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-124130.)


socket
------

* Improve and fix support for Bluetooth sockets.

  * Fix support of Bluetooth sockets on NetBSD and DragonFly BSD.
    (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-132429.)

  * Fix support for "BTPROTO_HCI" on FreeBSD. (Contributed by Victor
    Stinner in gh-111178.)

  * Add support for "BTPROTO_SCO" on FreeBSD. (Contributed by Serhiy
    Storchaka in gh-85302.)

  * Add support for *cid* and *bdaddr_type* in the address for
    "BTPROTO_L2CAP" on FreeBSD. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
    gh-132429.)

  * Add support for *channel* in the address for "BTPROTO_HCI" on
    Linux. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-70145.)

  * Accept an integer as the address for "BTPROTO_HCI" on Linux.
    (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-132099.)

  * Return *cid* in "getsockname()" for "BTPROTO_L2CAP". (Contributed
    by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-132429.)

  * Add many new constants. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in
    gh-132734.)


ssl
---

* Indicate through the "HAS_PHA" Boolean whether the "ssl" module
  supports TLSv1.3 post-handshake client authentication (PHA).
  (Contributed by Will Childs-Klein in gh-128036.)


struct
------

* Support the float complex and double complex C types in the "struct"
  module (formatting characters "'F'" and "'D'" respectively).
  (Contributed by Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-121249.)


symtable
--------

* Expose the following "Symbol" methods:

  * "is_comp_cell()"

  * "is_comp_iter()"

  * "is_free_class()"

  (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-120029.)


sys
---

* The previously undocumented special function "sys.getobjects()",
  which only exists in specialized builds of Python, may now return
  objects from other interpreters than the one it's called in.
  (Contributed by Eric Snow in gh-125286.)

* Add "sys._is_immortal()" for determining if an object is *immortal*.
  (Contributed by Peter Bierma in gh-128509.)

* On FreeBSD, "sys.platform" no longer contains the major version
  number. It is always "'freebsd'", instead of "'freebsd13'" or
  "'freebsd14'". (Contributed by Michael Osipov in gh-129393.)

* Raise "DeprecationWarning" for "sys._clear_type_cache()". This
  function was deprecated in Python 3.13 but it didn't raise a runtime
  warning.

* Add "sys.remote_exec()" to implement the new external debugger
  interface. See PEP 768 for details. (Contributed by Pablo Galindo
  Salgado, Matt Wozniski, and Ivona Stojanovic in gh-131591.)

* Add the "sys._jit" namespace, containing utilities for introspecting
  just-in-time compilation. (Contributed by Brandt Bucher in
  gh-133231.)


sys.monitoring
--------------

* Add two new monitoring events, "BRANCH_LEFT" and "BRANCH_RIGHT".
  These replace and deprecate the "BRANCH" event. (Contributed by Mark
  Shannon in gh-122548.)


sysconfig
---------

* Add "ABIFLAGS" key to "get_config_vars()" on Windows. (Contributed
  by Xuehai Pan in gh-131799.)


tarfile
-------

* "data_filter()" now normalizes symbolic link targets in order to
  avoid path traversal attacks. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in
  gh-127987 and **CVE 2025-4138**.)

* "extractall()" now skips fixing up directory attributes when a
  directory was removed or replaced by another kind of file.
  (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-127987 and **CVE 2024-12718**.)

* "extract()" and "extractall()" now (re-)apply the extraction filter
  when substituting a link (hard or symbolic) with a copy of another
  archive member, and when fixing up directory attributes. The former
  raises a new exception, "LinkFallbackError". (Contributed by Petr
  Viktorin for **CVE 2025-4330** and **CVE 2024-12718**.)

* "extract()" and "extractall()" no longer extract rejected members
  when "errorlevel()" is zero. (Contributed by Matt Prodani and Petr
  Viktorin in gh-112887 and **CVE 2025-4435**.)


threading
---------

* "threading.Thread.start()" now sets the operating system thread name
  to "threading.Thread.name". (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  gh-59705.)


tkinter
-------

* Make "tkinter" widget methods "after()" and "after_idle()" accept
  keyword arguments. (Contributed by Zhikang Yan in gh-126899.)

* Add ability to specify a name for "tkinter.OptionMenu" and
  "tkinter.ttk.OptionMenu". (Contributed by Zhikang Yan in gh-130482.)


turtle
------

* Add context managers for "turtle.fill()", "turtle.poly()", and
  "turtle.no_animation()". (Contributed by Marie Roald and Yngve
  Mardal Moe in gh-126350.)


types
-----

* "types.UnionType" is now an alias for "typing.Union". See below for
  more details. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-105499.)


typing
------

* The "types.UnionType" and "typing.Union" types are now aliases for
  each other, meaning that both old-style unions (created with
  "Union[int, str]") and new-style unions ("int | str") now create
  instances of the same runtime type. This unifies the behavior
  between the two syntaxes, but leads to some differences in behavior
  that may affect users who introspect types at runtime:

  * Both syntaxes for creating a union now produce the same string
    representation in "repr()". For example, "repr(Union[int, str])"
    is now ""int | str"" instead of ""typing.Union[int, str]"".

  * Unions created using the old syntax are no longer cached.
    Previously, running "Union[int, str]" multiple times would return
    the same object ("Union[int, str] is Union[int, str]" would be
    "True"), but now it will return two different objects. Use "==" to
    compare unions for equality, not "is". New-style unions have never
    been cached this way. This change could increase memory usage for
    some programs that use a large number of unions created by
    subscripting "typing.Union". However, several factors offset this
    cost: unions used in annotations are no longer evaluated by
    default in Python 3.14 because of **PEP 649**; an instance of
    "types.UnionType" is itself much smaller than the object returned
    by "Union[]" was on prior Python versions; and removing the cache
    also saves some space. It is therefore unlikely that this change
    will cause a significant increase in memory usage for most users.

  * Previously, old-style unions were implemented using the private
    class "typing._UnionGenericAlias". This class is no longer needed
    for the implementation, but it has been retained for backward
    compatibility, with removal scheduled for Python 3.17. Users
    should use documented introspection helpers like "get_origin()"
    and "typing.get_args()" instead of relying on private
    implementation details.

  * It is now possible to use "typing.Union" itself in "isinstance()"
    checks. For example, "isinstance(int | str, typing.Union)" will
    return "True"; previously this raised "TypeError".

  * The "__args__" attribute of "typing.Union" objects is no longer
    writable.

  * It is no longer possible to set any attributes on "Union" objects.
    This only ever worked for dunder attributes on previous versions,
    was never documented to work, and was subtly broken in many cases.

  (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-105499.)

* "TypeAliasType" now supports star unpacking.


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

* The Unicode database has been updated to Unicode 16.0.0.


unittest
--------

* "unittest" output is now colored by default. This can be controlled
  by environment variables. (Contributed by Hugo van Kemenade in
  gh-127221.)

* unittest discovery supports *namespace package* as start directory
  again. It was removed in Python 3.11. (Contributed by Jacob Walls in
  gh-80958.)

* A number of new methods were added in the "TestCase" class that
  provide more specialized tests.

  * "assertHasAttr()" and "assertNotHasAttr()" check whether the
    object has a particular attribute.

  * "assertIsSubclass()" and "assertNotIsSubclass()" check whether the
    object is a subclass of a particular class, or of one of a tuple
    of classes.

  * "assertStartsWith()", "assertNotStartsWith()", "assertEndsWith()"
    and "assertNotEndsWith()" check whether the Unicode or byte string
    starts or ends with particular strings.

  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-71339.)


urllib
------

* Upgrade HTTP digest authentication algorithm for "urllib.request" by
  supporting SHA-256 digest authentication as specified in **RFC
  7616**. (Contributed by Calvin Bui in gh-128193.)

* Improve ergonomics and standards compliance when parsing and
  emitting "file:" URLs.

  In "url2pathname()":

  * Accept a complete URL when the new *require_scheme* argument is
    set to true.

  * Discard URL authority if it matches the local hostname.

  * Discard URL authority if it resolves to a local IP address when
    the new *resolve_host* argument is set to true.

  * Discard URL query and fragment components.

  * Raise "URLError" if a URL authority isn't local, except on Windows
    where we return a UNC path as before.

  In "pathname2url()":

  * Return a complete URL when the new *add_scheme* argument is set to
    true.

  * Include an empty URL authority when a path begins with a slash.
    For example, the path "/etc/hosts" is converted to the URL
    "///etc/hosts".

  On Windows, drive letters are no longer converted to uppercase, and
  ":" characters not following a drive letter no longer cause an
  "OSError" exception to be raised.

  (Contributed by Barney Gale in gh-125866.)


uuid
----

* Add support for UUID versions 6, 7, and 8 via "uuid6()", "uuid7()",
  and "uuid8()" respectively, as specified in **RFC 9562**.
  (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in gh-89083.)

* "NIL" and "MAX" are now available to represent the Nil and Max UUID
  formats as defined by **RFC 9562**. (Contributed by Nick Pope in
  gh-128427.)

* Allow generating multiple UUIDs simultaneously on the command-line
  via "python -m uuid --count". (Contributed by Simon Legner in
  gh-131236.)


webbrowser
----------

* Names in the "BROWSER" environment variable can now refer to already
  registered browsers for the "webbrowser" module, instead of always
  generating a new browser command.

  This makes it possible to set "BROWSER" to the value of one of the
  supported browsers on macOS.


zipfile
-------

* Added "ZipInfo._for_archive", a method to resolve suitable defaults
  for a "ZipInfo" object as used by "ZipFile.writestr". (Contributed
  by Bénédikt Tran in gh-123424.)

* "ZipFile.writestr()" now respects the "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH"
  environment variable in order to better support reproducible builds.
  (Contributed by Jiahao Li in gh-91279.)


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

* The import time for several standard library modules has been
  improved, including "annotationlib", "ast", "asyncio", "base64",
  "cmd", "csv", "gettext", "importlib.util", "locale", "mimetypes",
  "optparse", "pickle", "pprint", "pstats", "shlex", "socket",
  "string", "subprocess", "threading", "tomllib", "types", and
  "zipfile".

  (Contributed by Adam Turner, Bénédikt Tran, Chris Markiewicz, Eli
  Schwartz, Hugo van Kemenade, Jelle Zijlstra, and others in
  gh-118761.)

* The interpreter now avoids some reference count modifications
  internally when it's safe to do so. This can lead to different
  values being returned from "sys.getrefcount()" and "Py_REFCNT()"
  compared to previous versions of Python. See below for details.


asyncio
-------

* Standard benchmark results have improved by 10-20% following the
  implementation of a new per-thread doubly linked list for "native
  tasks", also reducing memory usage. This enables external
  introspection tools such as python -m asyncio pstree to introspect
  the call graph of asyncio tasks running in all threads. (Contributed
  by Kumar Aditya in gh-107803.)

* The module now has first class support for *free-threading builds*.
  This enables parallel execution of multiple event loops across
  different threads, scaling linearly with the number of threads.
  (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-128002.)


base64
------

* "b16decode()" is now up to six times faster. (Contributed by
  Bénédikt Tran, Chris Markiewicz, and Adam Turner in gh-118761.)


bdb
---

* The basic debugger now has a "sys.monitoring"-based backend, which
  can be selected via the passing "'monitoring'" to the "Bdb" class's
  new *backend* parameter. (Contributed by Tian Gao in gh-124533.)


difflib
-------

* The "IS_LINE_JUNK()" function is now up to twice as fast.
  (Contributed by Adam Turner and Semyon Moroz in gh-130167.)


gc
--

* The new incremental garbage collector means that maximum pause times
  are reduced by an order of magnitude or more for larger heaps.

  Because of this optimization, the meaning of the results of
  "get_threshold()" and "set_threshold()" have changed, along with
  "get_count()" and "get_stats()".

  * For backwards compatibility, "get_threshold()" continues to return
    a three-item tuple. The first value is the threshold for young
    collections, as before; the second value determines the rate at
    which the old collection is scanned (the default is 10, and higher
    values mean that the old collection is scanned more slowly). The
    third value is now meaningless and is always zero.

  * "set_threshold()" now ignores any items after the second.

  * "get_count()" and "get_stats()" continue to return the same format
    of results. The only difference is that instead of the results
    referring to the young, aging and old generations, the results
    refer to the young generation and the aging and collecting spaces
    of the old generation.

  In summary, code that attempted to manipulate the behavior of the
  cycle GC may not work exactly as intended, but it is very unlikely
  to be harmful. All other code will work just fine.

  (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-108362.)


io
--

* Opening and reading files now executes fewer system calls. Reading a
  small operating system cached file in full is up to 15% faster.
  (Contributed by Cody Maloney and Victor Stinner in gh-120754 and
  gh-90102.)


pathlib
-------

* "Path.read_bytes" now uses unbuffered mode to open files, which is
  between 9% and 17% faster to read in full. (Contributed by Cody
  Maloney in gh-120754.)


pdb
---

* "pdb" now supports two backends, based on either "sys.settrace()" or
  "sys.monitoring". Using the pdb CLI or "breakpoint()" will always
  use the "sys.monitoring" backend. Explicitly instantiating "pdb.Pdb"
  and its derived classes will use the "sys.settrace()" backend by
  default, which is configurable. (Contributed by Tian Gao in
  gh-124533.)


textwrap
--------

* Optimize the "dedent()" function, improving performance by an
  average of 2.4x, with larger improvements for bigger inputs, and fix
  a bug with incomplete normalization of blank lines with whitespace
  characters other than space and tab.


uuid
----

* "uuid3()" and "uuid5()" are now both roughly 40% faster for 16-byte
  names and 20% faster for 1024-byte names. Performance for longer
  names remains unchanged. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in
  gh-128150.)

* "uuid4()" is now c. 30% faster. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in
  gh-128150.)


zlib
----

* On Windows, zlib-ng is now used as the implementation of the "zlib"
  module in the default binaries. There are no known incompatibilities
  between "zlib-ng" and the previously-used "zlib" implementation.
  This should result in better performance at all compression levels.

  It is worth noting that "zlib.Z_BEST_SPEED" ("1") may result in
  significantly less compression than the previous implementation,
  whilst also significantly reducing the time taken to compress.

  (Contributed by Steve Dower in gh-91349.)


Removed
=======


argparse
--------

* Remove the *type*, *choices*, and *metavar* parameters of
  "BooleanOptionalAction". These have been deprecated since Python
  3.12. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-118805.)

* Calling "add_argument_group()" on an argument group now raises a
  "ValueError". Similarly, "add_argument_group()" or
  "add_mutually_exclusive_group()" on a mutually exclusive group now
  both raise "ValueError"s. This 'nesting' was never supported, often
  failed to work correctly, and was unintentionally exposed through
  inheritance. This functionality has been deprecated since Python
  3.11. (Contributed by Savannah Ostrowski in gh-127186.)


ast
---

* Remove the following classes, which have been deprecated aliases of
  "Constant" since Python 3.8 and have emitted deprecation warnings
  since Python 3.12:

  * "Bytes"

  * "Ellipsis"

  * "NameConstant"

  * "Num"

  * "Str"

  As a consequence of these removals, user-defined "visit_Num",
  "visit_Str", "visit_Bytes", "visit_NameConstant" and
  "visit_Ellipsis" methods on custom "NodeVisitor" subclasses will no
  longer be called when the "NodeVisitor" subclass is visiting an AST.
  Define a "visit_Constant" method instead.

  (Contributed by Alex Waygood in gh-119562.)

* Remove the following deprecated properties on "ast.Constant", which
  were present for compatibility with the now-removed AST classes:

  * "Constant.n"

  * "Constant.s"

  Use "Constant.value" instead. (Contributed by Alex Waygood in
  gh-119562.)


asyncio
-------

* Remove the following classes, methods, and functions, which have
  been deprecated since Python 3.12:

  * "AbstractChildWatcher"

  * "FastChildWatcher"

  * "MultiLoopChildWatcher"

  * "PidfdChildWatcher"

  * "SafeChildWatcher"

  * "ThreadedChildWatcher"

  * "AbstractEventLoopPolicy.get_child_watcher()"

  * "AbstractEventLoopPolicy.set_child_watcher()"

  * "get_child_watcher()"

  * "set_child_watcher()"

  (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-120804.)

* "asyncio.get_event_loop()" now raises a "RuntimeError" if there is
  no current event loop, and no longer implicitly creates an event
  loop.

  (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-126353.)

  There's a few patterns that use "asyncio.get_event_loop()", most of
  them can be replaced with "asyncio.run()".

  If you're running an async function, simply use "asyncio.run()".

  Before:

     async def main():
         ...


     loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
     try:
         loop.run_until_complete(main())
     finally:
         loop.close()

  After:

     async def main():
         ...

     asyncio.run(main())

  If you need to start something, for example, a server listening on a
  socket and then run forever, use "asyncio.run()" and an
  "asyncio.Event".

  Before:

     def start_server(loop): ...

     loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
     try:
         start_server(loop)
         loop.run_forever()
     finally:
         loop.close()

  After:

     def start_server(loop): ...

     async def main():
         start_server(asyncio.get_running_loop())
         await asyncio.Event().wait()

     asyncio.run(main())

  If you need to run something in an event loop, then run some
  blocking code around it, use "asyncio.Runner".

  Before:

     async def operation_one(): ...
     def blocking_code(): ...
     async def operation_two(): ...

     loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
     try:
         loop.run_until_complete(operation_one())
         blocking_code()
         loop.run_until_complete(operation_two())
     finally:
         loop.close()

  After:

     async def operation_one(): ...
     def blocking_code(): ...
     async def operation_two(): ...

     with asyncio.Runner() as runner:
         runner.run(operation_one())
         blocking_code()
         runner.run(operation_two())


email
-----

* Remove "email.utils.localtime()"'s *isdst* parameter, which was
  deprecated in and has been ignored since Python 3.12. (Contributed
  by Hugo van Kemenade in gh-118798.)


importlib.abc
-------------

* Remove deprecated "importlib.abc" classes:

  * "ResourceReader" (use "TraversableResources")

  * "Traversable" (use "Traversable")

  * "TraversableResources" (use "TraversableResources")

  (Contributed by Jason R. Coombs and Hugo van Kemenade in gh-93963.)


itertools
---------

* Remove support for copy, deepcopy, and pickle operations from
  "itertools" iterators. These have emitted a "DeprecationWarning"
  since Python 3.12. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger in gh-101588.)


pathlib
-------

* Remove support for passing additional keyword arguments to "Path".
  In previous versions, any such arguments are ignored. (Contributed
  by Barney Gale in gh-74033.)

* Remove support for passing additional positional arguments to
  "PurePath.relative_to()" and "is_relative_to()". In previous
  versions, any such arguments are joined onto *other*. (Contributed
  by Barney Gale in gh-78707.)


pkgutil
-------

* Remove the "get_loader()" and "find_loader()" functions, which have
  been deprecated since Python 3.12. (Contributed by Bénédikt Tran in
  gh-97850.)


pty
---

* Remove the "master_open()" and "slave_open()" functions, which have
  been deprecated since Python 3.12. Use "pty.openpty()" instead.
  (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-118824.)


sqlite3
-------

* Remove "version" and "version_info" from the "sqlite3" module; use
  "sqlite_version" and "sqlite_version_info" for the actual version
  number of the runtime SQLite library. (Contributed by Hugo van
  Kemenade in gh-118924.)

* Using a sequence of parameters with named placeholders now raises a
  "ProgrammingError", having been deprecated since Python 3.12.
  (Contributed by Erlend E. Aasland in gh-118928 and gh-101693.)


urllib
------

* Remove the "Quoter" class from "urllib.parse", which has been
  deprecated since Python 3.11. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in
  gh-118827.)

* Remove the "URLopener" and "FancyURLopener" classes from
  "urllib.request", which have been deprecated since Python 3.3.

  "myopener.open()" can be replaced with "urlopen()".
  "myopener.retrieve()" can be replaced with "urlretrieve()".
  Customisations to the opener classes can be replaced by passing
  customized handlers to "build_opener()". (Contributed by Barney Gale
  in gh-84850.)


Deprecated
==========


New deprecations
----------------

* Passing a complex number as the *real* or *imag* argument in the
  "complex()" constructor is now deprecated; complex numbers should
  only be passed as a single positional argument. (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-109218.)

* "argparse":

  * Passing the undocumented keyword argument *prefix_chars* to the
    "add_argument_group()" method is now deprecated. (Contributed by
    Savannah Ostrowski in gh-125563.)

  * Deprecated the "argparse.FileType" type converter. Anything
    relating to resource management should be handled downstream,
    after the arguments have been parsed. (Contributed by Serhiy
    Storchaka in gh-58032.)

* "asyncio":

  * The "asyncio.iscoroutinefunction()" is now deprecated and will be
    removed in Python 3.16; use "inspect.iscoroutinefunction()"
    instead. (Contributed by Jiahao Li and Kumar Aditya in gh-122875.)

  * The "asyncio" policy system is deprecated and will be removed in
    Python 3.16. In particular, the following classes and functions
    are deprecated:

    * "asyncio.AbstractEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.DefaultEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.WindowsSelectorEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.WindowsProactorEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.get_event_loop_policy()"

    * "asyncio.set_event_loop_policy()"

    Users should use "asyncio.run()" or "asyncio.Runner" with the
    *loop_factory* argument to use the desired event loop
    implementation.

    For example, to use "asyncio.SelectorEventLoop" on Windows:

       import asyncio

       async def main():
           ...

       asyncio.run(main(), loop_factory=asyncio.SelectorEventLoop)

    (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-127949.)

* "codecs": The "codecs.open()" function is now deprecated, and will
  be removed in a future version of Python. Use "open()" instead.
  (Contributed by Inada Naoki in gh-133036.)

* "ctypes":

  * On non-Windows platforms, setting "Structure._pack_" to use a
    MSVC-compatible default memory layout is now deprecated in favor
    of setting "Structure._layout_" to "'ms'", and will be removed in
    Python 3.19. (Contributed by Petr Viktorin in gh-131747.)

  * Calling "ctypes.POINTER()" on a string is now deprecated. Use
    incomplete types for self-referential structures. Also, the
    internal "ctypes._pointer_type_cache" is deprecated. See
    "ctypes.POINTER()" for updated implementation details.
    (Contributed by Sergey Myrianov in gh-100926.)

* "functools": Calling the Python implementation of
  "functools.reduce()" with *function* or *sequence* as keyword
  arguments is now deprecated; the parameters will be made positional-
  only in Python 3.16. (Contributed by Kirill Podoprigora in
  gh-121676.)

* "logging": Support for custom logging handlers with the *strm*
  argument is now deprecated and scheduled for removal in Python 3.16.
  Define handlers with the *stream* argument instead. (Contributed by
  Mariusz Felisiak in gh-115032.)

* "mimetypes": Valid extensions are either empty or must start with
  '.' for "mimetypes.MimeTypes.add_type()". Undotted extensions are
  deprecated and will raise a "ValueError" in Python 3.16.
  (Contributed by Hugo van Kemenade in gh-75223.)

* "nturl2path": This module is now deprecated. Call
  "urllib.request.url2pathname()" and "pathname2url()" instead.
  (Contributed by Barney Gale in gh-125866.)

* "os": The "os.popen()" and "os.spawn*" functions are now *soft
  deprecated*. They should no longer be used to write new code. The
  "subprocess" module is recommended instead. (Contributed by Victor
  Stinner in gh-120743.)

* "pathlib": "pathlib.PurePath.as_uri()" is now deprecated and
  scheduled for removal in Python 3.19. Use "pathlib.Path.as_uri()"
  instead. (Contributed by Barney Gale in gh-123599.)

* "pdb": The undocumented "pdb.Pdb.curframe_locals" attribute is now a
  deprecated read-only property, which will be removed in a future
  version of Python. The low overhead dynamic frame locals access
  added in Python 3.13 by **PEP 667** means the frame locals cache
  reference previously stored in this attribute is no longer needed.
  Derived debuggers should access "pdb.Pdb.curframe.f_locals" directly
  in Python 3.13 and later versions. (Contributed by Tian Gao in
  gh-124369 and gh-125951.)

* "symtable": Deprecate "symtable.Class.get_methods()" due to the lack
  of interest, scheduled for removal in Python 3.16. (Contributed by
  Bénédikt Tran in gh-119698.)

* "tkinter": The "tkinter.Variable" methods "trace_variable()",
  "trace_vdelete()" and "trace_vinfo()" are now deprecated. Use
  "trace_add()", "trace_remove()" and "trace_info()" instead.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-120220.)

* "urllib.parse": Accepting objects with false values (like "0" and
  "[]") except empty strings, bytes-like objects and "None" in
  "parse_qsl()" and "parse_qs()" is now deprecated. (Contributed by
  Serhiy Storchaka in gh-116897.)


Pending removal in Python 3.15
------------------------------

* The import system:

  * Setting "__cached__" on a module while failing to set
    "__spec__.cached" is deprecated. In Python 3.15, "__cached__" will
    cease to be set or take into consideration by the import system or
    standard library. (gh-97879)

  * Setting "__package__" on a module while failing to set
    "__spec__.parent" is deprecated. In Python 3.15, "__package__"
    will cease to be set or take into consideration by the import
    system or standard library. (gh-97879)

* "ctypes":

  * The undocumented "ctypes.SetPointerType()" function has been
    deprecated since Python 3.13.

* "http.server":

  * The obsolete and rarely used "CGIHTTPRequestHandler" has been
    deprecated since Python 3.13. No direct replacement exists.
    *Anything* is better than CGI to interface a web server with a
    request handler.

  * The "--cgi" flag to the **python -m http.server** command-line
    interface has been deprecated since Python 3.13.

* "importlib":

  * "load_module()" method: use "exec_module()" instead.

* "locale":

  * The "getdefaultlocale()" function has been deprecated since Python
    3.11. Its removal was originally planned for Python 3.13
    (gh-90817), but has been postponed to Python 3.15. Use
    "getlocale()", "setlocale()", and "getencoding()" instead.
    (Contributed by Hugo van Kemenade in gh-111187.)

* "pathlib":

  * "PurePath.is_reserved()" has been deprecated since Python 3.13.
    Use "os.path.isreserved()" to detect reserved paths on Windows.

* "platform":

  * "java_ver()" has been deprecated since Python 3.13. This function
    is only useful for Jython support, has a confusing API, and is
    largely untested.

* "sysconfig":

  * The *check_home* argument of "sysconfig.is_python_build()" has
    been deprecated since Python 3.12.

* "threading":

  * "RLock()" will take no arguments in Python 3.15. Passing any
    arguments has been deprecated since Python 3.14, as the  Python
    version does not permit any arguments, but the C version allows
    any number of positional or keyword arguments, ignoring every
    argument.

* "types":

  * "types.CodeType": Accessing "co_lnotab" was deprecated in **PEP
    626** since 3.10 and was planned to be removed in 3.12, but it
    only got a proper "DeprecationWarning" in 3.12. May be removed in
    3.15. (Contributed by Nikita Sobolev in gh-101866.)

* "typing":

  * The undocumented keyword argument syntax for creating "NamedTuple"
    classes (for example, "Point = NamedTuple("Point", x=int, y=int)")
    has been deprecated since Python 3.13. Use the class-based syntax
    or the functional syntax instead.

  * When using the functional syntax of "TypedDict"s, failing to pass
    a value to the *fields* parameter ("TD = TypedDict("TD")") or
    passing "None" ("TD = TypedDict("TD", None)") has been deprecated
    since Python 3.13. Use "class TD(TypedDict): pass" or "TD =
    TypedDict("TD", {})" to create a TypedDict with zero field.

  * The "typing.no_type_check_decorator()" decorator function has been
    deprecated since Python 3.13. After eight years in the "typing"
    module, it has yet to be supported by any major type checker.

* "wave":

  * The "getmark()", "setmark()", and "getmarkers()" methods of the
    "Wave_read" and "Wave_write" classes have been deprecated since
    Python 3.13.

* "zipimport":

  * "load_module()" has been deprecated since Python 3.10. Use
    "exec_module()" instead. (Contributed by Jiahao Li in gh-125746.)


Pending removal in Python 3.16
------------------------------

* The import system:

  * Setting "__loader__" on a module while failing to set
    "__spec__.loader" is deprecated. In Python 3.16, "__loader__" will
    cease to be set or taken into consideration by the import system
    or the standard library.

* "array":

  * The "'u'" format code ("wchar_t") has been deprecated in
    documentation since Python 3.3 and at runtime since Python 3.13.
    Use the "'w'" format code ("Py_UCS4") for Unicode characters
    instead.

* "asyncio":

  * "asyncio.iscoroutinefunction()" is deprecated and will be removed
    in Python 3.16; use "inspect.iscoroutinefunction()" instead.
    (Contributed by Jiahao Li and Kumar Aditya in gh-122875.)

  * "asyncio" policy system is deprecated and will be removed in
    Python 3.16. In particular, the following classes and functions
    are deprecated:

    * "asyncio.AbstractEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.DefaultEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.WindowsSelectorEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.WindowsProactorEventLoopPolicy"

    * "asyncio.get_event_loop_policy()"

    * "asyncio.set_event_loop_policy()"

    Users should use "asyncio.run()" or "asyncio.Runner" with
    *loop_factory* to use the desired event loop implementation.

    For example, to use "asyncio.SelectorEventLoop" on Windows:

       import asyncio

       async def main():
           ...

       asyncio.run(main(), loop_factory=asyncio.SelectorEventLoop)

    (Contributed by Kumar Aditya in gh-127949.)

* "builtins":

  * Bitwise inversion on boolean types, "~True" or "~False" has been
    deprecated since Python 3.12, as it produces surprising and
    unintuitive results ("-2" and "-1"). Use "not x" instead for the
    logical negation of a Boolean. In the rare case that you need the
    bitwise inversion of the underlying integer, convert to "int"
    explicitly ("~int(x)").

* "functools":

  * Calling the Python implementation of "functools.reduce()" with
    *function* or *sequence* as keyword arguments has been deprecated
    since Python 3.14.

* "logging":

  Support for custom logging handlers with the *strm* argument is
  deprecated and scheduled for removal in Python 3.16. Define handlers
  with the *stream* argument instead. (Contributed by Mariusz Felisiak
  in gh-115032.)

* "mimetypes":

  * Valid extensions start with a '.' or are empty for
    "mimetypes.MimeTypes.add_type()". Undotted extensions are
    deprecated and will raise a "ValueError" in Python 3.16.
    (Contributed by Hugo van Kemenade in gh-75223.)

* "shutil":

  * The "ExecError" exception has been deprecated since Python 3.14.
    It has not been used by any function in "shutil" since Python 3.4,
    and is now an alias of "RuntimeError".

* "symtable":

  * The "Class.get_methods" method has been deprecated since Python
    3.14.

* "sys":

  * The "_enablelegacywindowsfsencoding()" function has been
    deprecated since Python 3.13. Use the
    "PYTHONLEGACYWINDOWSFSENCODING" environment variable instead.

* "sysconfig":

  * The "sysconfig.expand_makefile_vars()" function has been
    deprecated since Python 3.14. Use the "vars" argument of
    "sysconfig.get_paths()" instead.

* "tarfile":

  * The undocumented and unused "TarFile.tarfile" attribute has been
    deprecated since Python 3.13.


Pending removal in Python 3.17
------------------------------

* "collections.abc":

  * "collections.abc.ByteString" is scheduled for removal in Python
    3.17.

    Use "isinstance(obj, collections.abc.Buffer)" to test if "obj"
    implements the buffer protocol at runtime. For use in type
    annotations, either use "Buffer" or a union that explicitly
    specifies the types your code supports (e.g., "bytes | bytearray |
    memoryview").

    "ByteString" was originally intended to be an abstract class that
    would serve as a supertype of both "bytes" and "bytearray".
    However, since the ABC never had any methods, knowing that an
    object was an instance of "ByteString" never actually told you
    anything useful about the object. Other common buffer types such
    as "memoryview" were also never understood as subtypes of
    "ByteString" (either at runtime or by static type checkers).

    See **PEP 688** for more details. (Contributed by Shantanu Jain in
    gh-91896.)

* "typing":

  * Before Python 3.14, old-style unions were implemented using the
    private class "typing._UnionGenericAlias". This class is no longer
    needed for the implementation, but it has been retained for
    backward compatibility, with removal scheduled for Python 3.17.
    Users should use documented introspection helpers like
    "typing.get_origin()" and "typing.get_args()" instead of relying
    on private implementation details.

  * "typing.ByteString", deprecated since Python 3.9, is scheduled for
    removal in Python 3.17.

    Use "isinstance(obj, collections.abc.Buffer)" to test if "obj"
    implements the buffer protocol at runtime. For use in type
    annotations, either use "Buffer" or a union that explicitly
    specifies the types your code supports (e.g., "bytes | bytearray |
    memoryview").

    "ByteString" was originally intended to be an abstract class that
    would serve as a supertype of both "bytes" and "bytearray".
    However, since the ABC never had any methods, knowing that an
    object was an instance of "ByteString" never actually told you
    anything useful about the object. Other common buffer types such
    as "memoryview" were also never understood as subtypes of
    "ByteString" (either at runtime or by static type checkers).

    See **PEP 688** for more details. (Contributed by Shantanu Jain in
    gh-91896.)


Pending removal in Python 3.18
------------------------------

* "decimal":

  * The non-standard and undocumented "Decimal" format specifier
    "'N'", which is only supported in the "decimal" module's C
    implementation, has been deprecated since Python 3.13.
    (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-89902.)


Pending removal in Python 3.19
------------------------------

* "ctypes":

  * Implicitly switching to the MSVC-compatible struct layout by
    setting "_pack_" but not "_layout_" on non-Windows platforms.


Pending removal in future versions
----------------------------------

The following APIs will be removed in the future, although there is
currently no date scheduled for their removal.

* "argparse":

  * Nesting argument groups and nesting mutually exclusive groups are
    deprecated.

  * Passing the undocumented keyword argument *prefix_chars* to
    "add_argument_group()" is now deprecated.

  * The "argparse.FileType" type converter is deprecated.

* "builtins":

  * Generators: "throw(type, exc, tb)" and "athrow(type, exc, tb)"
    signature is deprecated: use "throw(exc)" and "athrow(exc)"
    instead, the single argument signature.

  * 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)

  * Support for "__index__()" and "__int__()" method returning non-int
    type: these methods will be required to return an instance of a
    strict subclass of "int".

  * Support for "__float__()" method returning a strict subclass of
    "float": these methods will be required to return an instance of
    "float".

  * Support for "__complex__()" method returning a strict subclass of
    "complex": these methods will be required to return an instance of
    "complex".

  * Delegation of "int()" to "__trunc__()" method.

  * Passing a complex number as the *real* or *imag* argument in the
    "complex()" constructor is now deprecated; it should only be
    passed as a single positional argument. (Contributed by Serhiy
    Storchaka in gh-109218.)

* "calendar": "calendar.January" and "calendar.February" constants are
  deprecated and replaced by "calendar.JANUARY" and
  "calendar.FEBRUARY". (Contributed by Prince Roshan in gh-103636.)

* "codecs": use "open()" instead of "codecs.open()". (gh-133038)

* "codeobject.co_lnotab": use the "codeobject.co_lines()" method
  instead.

* "datetime":

  * "utcnow()": use "datetime.datetime.now(tz=datetime.UTC)".

  * "utcfromtimestamp()": use
    "datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=datetime.UTC)".

* "gettext": Plural value must be an integer.

* "importlib":

  * "cache_from_source()" *debug_override* parameter is deprecated:
    use the *optimization* parameter instead.

* "importlib.metadata":

  * "EntryPoints" tuple interface.

  * Implicit "None" on return values.

* "logging": the "warn()" method has been deprecated since Python 3.3,
  use "warning()" instead.

* "mailbox": Use of StringIO input and text mode is deprecated, use
  BytesIO and binary mode instead.

* "os": Calling "os.register_at_fork()" in multi-threaded process.

* "pydoc.ErrorDuringImport": A tuple value for *exc_info* parameter is
  deprecated, use an exception instance.

* "re": 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.)

* "sre_compile", "sre_constants" and "sre_parse" modules.

* "shutil": "rmtree()"'s *onerror* parameter is deprecated in Python
  3.12; use the *onexc* parameter instead.

* "ssl" options and protocols:

  * "ssl.SSLContext" without protocol argument is deprecated.

  * "ssl.SSLContext": "set_npn_protocols()" and
    "selected_npn_protocol()" are deprecated: use ALPN instead.

  * "ssl.OP_NO_SSL*" options

  * "ssl.OP_NO_TLS*" options

  * "ssl.PROTOCOL_SSLv3"

  * "ssl.PROTOCOL_TLS"

  * "ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1"

  * "ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1_1"

  * "ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1_2"

  * "ssl.TLSVersion.SSLv3"

  * "ssl.TLSVersion.TLSv1"

  * "ssl.TLSVersion.TLSv1_1"

* "threading" methods:

  * "threading.Condition.notifyAll()": use "notify_all()".

  * "threading.Event.isSet()": use "is_set()".

  * "threading.Thread.isDaemon()", "threading.Thread.setDaemon()": use
    "threading.Thread.daemon" attribute.

  * "threading.Thread.getName()", "threading.Thread.setName()": use
    "threading.Thread.name" attribute.

  * "threading.currentThread()": use "threading.current_thread()".

  * "threading.activeCount()": use "threading.active_count()".

* "typing.Text" (gh-92332).

* The internal class "typing._UnionGenericAlias" is no longer used to
  implement "typing.Union". To preserve compatibility with users using
  this private class, a compatibility shim will be provided until at
  least Python 3.17. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-105499.)

* "unittest.IsolatedAsyncioTestCase": it is deprecated to return a
  value that is not "None" from a test case.

* "urllib.parse" deprecated functions: "urlparse()" instead

  * "splitattr()"

  * "splithost()"

  * "splitnport()"

  * "splitpasswd()"

  * "splitport()"

  * "splitquery()"

  * "splittag()"

  * "splittype()"

  * "splituser()"

  * "splitvalue()"

  * "to_bytes()"

* "wsgiref": "SimpleHandler.stdout.write()" should not do partial
  writes.

* "xml.etree.ElementTree": Testing the truth value of an "Element" is
  deprecated. In a future release it will always return "True". Prefer
  explicit "len(elem)" or "elem is not None" tests instead.

* "sys._clear_type_cache()" is deprecated: use
  "sys._clear_internal_caches()" instead.


CPython bytecode changes
========================

* Replaced the opcode "BINARY_SUBSCR" by the "BINARY_OP" opcode with
  the "NB_SUBSCR" oparg. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-100239.)

* Add the "BUILD_INTERPOLATION" and "BUILD_TEMPLATE" opcodes to
  construct new "Interpolation" and "Template" instances,
  respectively. (Contributed by Lysandros Nikolaou and others in
  gh-132661; see also PEP 750: Template strings).

* Remove the "BUILD_CONST_KEY_MAP" opcode. Use "BUILD_MAP" instead.
  (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-122160.)

* Replace the "LOAD_ASSERTION_ERROR" opcode with
  "LOAD_COMMON_CONSTANT" and add support for loading
  "NotImplementedError".

* Add the "LOAD_FAST_BORROW" and "LOAD_FAST_BORROW_LOAD_FAST_BORROW"
  opcodes to reduce reference counting overhead when the interpreter
  can prove that the reference in the frame outlives the reference
  loaded onto the stack. (Contributed by Matt Page in gh-130704.)

* Add the "LOAD_SMALL_INT" opcode, which pushes a small integer equal
  to the "oparg" to the stack. The "RETURN_CONST" opcode is removed as
  it is no longer used. (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-125837.)

* Add the new "LOAD_SPECIAL" instruction. Generate code for "with" and
  "async with" statements using the new instruction. Removed the
  "BEFORE_WITH" and "BEFORE_ASYNC_WITH" instructions. (Contributed by
  Mark Shannon in gh-120507.)

* Add the "POP_ITER" opcode to support 'virtual' iterators.
  (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-132554.)


Pseudo-instructions
-------------------

* Add the "ANNOTATIONS_PLACEHOLDER" pseudo instruction to support
  partially executed module-level annotations with deferred evaluation
  of annotations. (Contributed by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-130907.)

* Add the "BINARY_OP_EXTEND" pseudo instruction, which executes a pair
  of functions (guard and specialization functions) accessed from the
  inline cache. (Contributed by Irit Katriel in gh-100239.)

* Add three specializations for "CALL_KW"; "CALL_KW_PY" for calls to
  Python functions, "CALL_KW_BOUND_METHOD" for calls to bound methods,
  and "CALL_KW_NON_PY" for all other calls. (Contributed by Mark
  Shannon in gh-118093.)

* Add the "JUMP_IF_TRUE" and "JUMP_IF_FALSE" pseudo instructions,
  conditional jumps which do not impact the stack. Replaced by the
  sequence "COPY 1", "TO_BOOL", "POP_JUMP_IF_TRUE/FALSE". (Contributed
  by Irit Katriel in gh-124285.)

* Add the "LOAD_CONST_MORTAL" pseudo instruction. (Contributed by Mark
  Shannon in gh-128685.)

* Add the "LOAD_CONST_IMMORTAL" pseudo instruction, which does the
  same as "LOAD_CONST", but is more efficient for immortal objects.
  (Contributed by Mark Shannon in gh-125837.)

* Add the "NOT_TAKEN" pseudo instruction, used by "sys.monitoring" to
  record branch events (such as "BRANCH_LEFT"). (Contributed by Mark
  Shannon in gh-122548.)


C API changes
=============


Python configuration C API
--------------------------

Add a PyInitConfig C API to configure the Python initialization
without relying on C structures and the ability to make ABI-compatible
changes in the future.

Complete the **PEP 587** PyConfig C API by adding
"PyInitConfig_AddModule()" which can be used to add a built-in
extension module; a feature previously referred to as the "inittab".

Add "PyConfig_Get()" and "PyConfig_Set()" functions to get and set the
current runtime configuration.

**PEP 587** 'Python Initialization Configuration' unified all the ways
to configure Python's initialization. This PEP also unifies the
configuration of Python's preinitialization and initialization in a
single API. Moreover, this PEP only provides a single choice to embed
Python, instead of having two 'Python' and 'Isolated' choices (PEP
587), to further simplify the API.

The lower level PEP 587 PyConfig API remains available for use cases
with an intentionally higher level of coupling to CPython
implementation details (such as emulating the full functionality of
CPython's CLI, including its configuration mechanisms).

(Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-107954.)

See also: **PEP 741** and **PEP 587**


New features in the C API
-------------------------

* Add "Py_PACK_VERSION()" and "Py_PACK_FULL_VERSION()", two new macros
  for bit-packing Python version numbers. This is useful for
  comparisons with "Py_Version" or "PY_VERSION_HEX". (Contributed by
  Petr Viktorin in gh-128629.)

* Add "PyBytes_Join(sep, iterable)" function, similar to
  "sep.join(iterable)" in Python. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in
  gh-121645.)

* Add functions to manipulate the configuration of the current runtime
  Python interpreter (PEP 741: Python configuration C API):

  * "PyConfig_Get()"

  * "PyConfig_GetInt()"

  * "PyConfig_Set()"

  * "PyConfig_Names()"

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-107954.)

* Add functions to configure Python initialization (PEP 741: Python
  configuration C API):

  * "Py_InitializeFromInitConfig()"

  * "PyInitConfig_AddModule()"

  * "PyInitConfig_Create()"

  * "PyInitConfig_Free()"

  * "PyInitConfig_FreeStrList()"

  * "PyInitConfig_GetError()"

  * "PyInitConfig_GetExitCode()"

  * "PyInitConfig_GetInt()"

  * "PyInitConfig_GetStr()"

  * "PyInitConfig_GetStrList()"

  * "PyInitConfig_HasOption()"

  * "PyInitConfig_SetInt()"

  * "PyInitConfig_SetStr()"

  * "PyInitConfig_SetStrList()"

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-107954.)

* Add "Py_fopen()" function to open a file. This works similarly to
  the standard C "fopen()" function, instead accepting a Python object
  for the *path* parameter and setting an exception on error. The
  corresponding new "Py_fclose()" function should be used to close a
  file. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-127350.)

* Add "Py_HashBuffer()" to compute and return the hash value of a
  buffer. (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou and Victor Stinner in
  gh-122854.)

* Add "PyImport_ImportModuleAttr()" and
  "PyImport_ImportModuleAttrString()" helper functions to import a
  module and get an attribute of the module. (Contributed by Victor
  Stinner in gh-128911.)

* Add "PyIter_NextItem()" to replace "PyIter_Next()", which has an
  ambiguous return value. (Contributed by Irit Katriel and Erlend
  Aasland in gh-105201.)

* Add "PyLong_GetSign()" function to get the sign of "int" objects.
  (Contributed by Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-116560.)

* Add "PyLong_IsPositive()", "PyLong_IsNegative()" and
  "PyLong_IsZero()" for checking if "PyLongObject" is positive,
  negative, or zero, respectively. (Contributed by James Roy and
  Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-126061.)

* Add new functions to convert C "<stdint.h>" numbers to/from Python
  "int" objects:

  * "PyLong_AsInt32()"

  * "PyLong_AsInt64()"

  * "PyLong_AsUInt32()"

  * "PyLong_AsUInt64()"

  * "PyLong_FromInt32()"

  * "PyLong_FromInt64()"

  * "PyLong_FromUInt32()"

  * "PyLong_FromUInt64()"

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-120389.)

* Add a new import and export API for Python "int" objects (**PEP
  757**):

  * "PyLong_GetNativeLayout()"

  * "PyLong_Export()"

  * "PyLong_FreeExport()"

  * "PyLongWriter_Create()"

  * "PyLongWriter_Finish()"

  * "PyLongWriter_Discard()"

  (Contributed by Sergey B Kirpichev and Victor Stinner in gh-102471.)

* Add "PyMonitoring_FireBranchLeftEvent()" and
  "PyMonitoring_FireBranchRightEvent()" for generating "BRANCH_LEFT"
  and "BRANCH_RIGHT" events, respectively. (Contributed by Mark
  Shannon in gh-122548.)

* Add "PyType_Freeze()" function to make a type immutable.
  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-121654.)

* Add "PyType_GetBaseByToken()" and "Py_tp_token" slot for easier
  superclass identification, which attempts to resolve the type
  checking issue mentioned in **PEP 630**. (Contributed in gh-124153.)

* Add a new "PyUnicode_Equal()" function to test if two strings are
  equal. The function is also added to the Limited C API. (Contributed
  by Victor Stinner in gh-124502.)

* Add a new "PyUnicodeWriter" API to create a Python "str" object,
  with the following functions:

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_Create()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_DecodeUTF8Stateful()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_Discard()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_Finish()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_Format()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteASCII()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteRepr()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteUCS4()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteUTF8()"

  * "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteWideChar()"

  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-119182.)

* The "k" and "K" formats in "PyArg_ParseTuple()" and similar
  functions now use "__index__()" if available, like all other integer
  formats. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-112068.)

* Add support for a new "p" format unit in "Py_BuildValue()" that
  produces a Python "bool" object from a C integer. (Contributed by
  Pablo Galindo in bpo-45325.)

* Add "PyUnstable_IsImmortal()" for determining if an object is
  *immortal*, for debugging purposes. (Contributed by Peter Bierma in
  gh-128509.)

* Add "PyUnstable_Object_EnableDeferredRefcount()" for enabling
  deferred reference counting, as outlined in **PEP 703**.

* Add "PyUnstable_Object_IsUniquelyReferenced()" as a replacement for
  "Py_REFCNT(op) == 1" on *free threaded* builds. (Contributed by
  Peter Bierma in gh-133140.)

* Add "PyUnstable_Object_IsUniqueReferencedTemporary()" to determine
  if an object is a unique temporary object on the interpreter's
  operand stack. This can be used in some cases as a replacement for
  checking if "Py_REFCNT()" is "1" for Python objects passed as
  arguments to C API functions. (Contributed by Sam Gross in
  gh-133164.)


Limited C API changes
---------------------

* In the limited C API version 3.14 and newer, "Py_TYPE()" and
  "Py_REFCNT()" are now implemented as an opaque function call to hide
  implementation details. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-120600
  and gh-124127.)

* Remove the "PySequence_Fast_GET_SIZE", "PySequence_Fast_GET_ITEM",
  and "PySequence_Fast_ITEMS" macros from the limited C API, since
  they have always been broken in the limited C API. (Contributed by
  Victor Stinner in gh-91417.)


Removed C APIs
--------------

* Creating "immutable types" with mutable bases was deprecated in
  Python 3.12, and now raises a "TypeError". (Contributed by Nikita
  Sobolev in gh-119775.)

* Remove "PyDictObject.ma_version_tag" member, which was deprecated in
  Python 3.12. Use the "PyDict_AddWatcher()" API instead. (Contributed
  by Sam Gross in gh-124296.)

* Remove the private "_Py_InitializeMain()" function. It was a
  *provisional API* added to Python 3.8 by **PEP 587**. (Contributed
  by Victor Stinner in gh-129033.)

* Remove the undocumented APIs "Py_C_RECURSION_LIMIT" and
  "PyThreadState.c_recursion_remaining". These were added in 3.13 and
  have been removed without deprecation. Use "Py_EnterRecursiveCall()"
  to guard against runaway recursion in C code. (Removed by Petr
  Viktorin in gh-133079, see also gh-130396.)


Deprecated C APIs
-----------------

* The "Py_HUGE_VAL" macro is now *soft deprecated*. Use "Py_INFINITY"
  instead. (Contributed by Sergey B Kirpichev in gh-120026.)

* The "Py_IS_NAN", "Py_IS_INFINITY", and "Py_IS_FINITE" macros are now
  *soft deprecated*. Use "isnan", "isinf" and "isfinite" instead,
  available from "math.h" since C99. (Contributed by Sergey B
  Kirpichev in gh-119613.)

* Non-tuple sequences are now deprecated as argument for the "(items)"
  format unit in "PyArg_ParseTuple()" and other argument parsing
  functions if *items* contains format units which store a borrowed
  buffer or a *borrowed reference*. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka
  in gh-50333.)

* The "_PyMonitoring_FireBranchEvent" function is now deprecated and
  should be replaced with calls to
  "PyMonitoring_FireBranchLeftEvent()" and
  "PyMonitoring_FireBranchRightEvent()".

* The previously undocumented function "PySequence_In()" is now *soft
  deprecated*. Use "PySequence_Contains()" instead. (Contributed by
  Yuki Kobayashi in gh-127896.)


Pending removal in Python 3.15
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The "PyImport_ImportModuleNoBlock()": Use "PyImport_ImportModule()"
  instead.

* "PyWeakref_GetObject()" and "PyWeakref_GET_OBJECT()": Use
  "PyWeakref_GetRef()" instead. The pythoncapi-compat project can be
  used to get "PyWeakref_GetRef()" on Python 3.12 and older.

* "Py_UNICODE" type and the "Py_UNICODE_WIDE" macro: Use "wchar_t"
  instead.

* "PyUnicode_AsDecodedObject()": Use "PyCodec_Decode()" instead.

* "PyUnicode_AsDecodedUnicode()": Use "PyCodec_Decode()" instead; Note
  that some codecs (for example, "base64") may return a type other
  than "str", such as "bytes".

* "PyUnicode_AsEncodedObject()": Use "PyCodec_Encode()" instead.

* "PyUnicode_AsEncodedUnicode()": Use "PyCodec_Encode()" instead; Note
  that some codecs (for example, "base64") may return a type other
  than "bytes", such as "str".

* Python initialization functions, deprecated in Python 3.13:

  * "Py_GetPath()": Use "PyConfig_Get("module_search_paths")"
    ("sys.path") instead.

  * "Py_GetPrefix()": Use "PyConfig_Get("base_prefix")"
    ("sys.base_prefix") instead. Use "PyConfig_Get("prefix")"
    ("sys.prefix") if virtual environments need to be handled.

  * "Py_GetExecPrefix()": Use "PyConfig_Get("base_exec_prefix")"
    ("sys.base_exec_prefix") instead. Use
    "PyConfig_Get("exec_prefix")" ("sys.exec_prefix") if virtual
    environments need to be handled.

  * "Py_GetProgramFullPath()": Use "PyConfig_Get("executable")"
    ("sys.executable") instead.

  * "Py_GetProgramName()": Use "PyConfig_Get("executable")"
    ("sys.executable") instead.

  * "Py_GetPythonHome()": Use "PyConfig_Get("home")" or the
    "PYTHONHOME" environment variable instead.

  The pythoncapi-compat project can be used to get "PyConfig_Get()" on
  Python 3.13 and older.

* Functions to configure Python's initialization, deprecated in Python
  3.11:

  * "PySys_SetArgvEx()": Set "PyConfig.argv" instead.

  * "PySys_SetArgv()": Set "PyConfig.argv" instead.

  * "Py_SetProgramName()": Set "PyConfig.program_name" instead.

  * "Py_SetPythonHome()": Set "PyConfig.home" instead.

  * "PySys_ResetWarnOptions()": Clear "sys.warnoptions" and
    "warnings.filters" instead.

  The "Py_InitializeFromConfig()" API should be used with "PyConfig"
  instead.

* Global configuration variables:

  * "Py_DebugFlag": Use "PyConfig.parser_debug" or
    "PyConfig_Get("parser_debug")" instead.

  * "Py_VerboseFlag": Use "PyConfig.verbose" or
    "PyConfig_Get("verbose")" instead.

  * "Py_QuietFlag": Use "PyConfig.quiet" or "PyConfig_Get("quiet")"
    instead.

  * "Py_InteractiveFlag": Use "PyConfig.interactive" or
    "PyConfig_Get("interactive")" instead.

  * "Py_InspectFlag": Use "PyConfig.inspect" or
    "PyConfig_Get("inspect")" instead.

  * "Py_OptimizeFlag": Use "PyConfig.optimization_level" or
    "PyConfig_Get("optimization_level")" instead.

  * "Py_NoSiteFlag": Use "PyConfig.site_import" or
    "PyConfig_Get("site_import")" instead.

  * "Py_BytesWarningFlag": Use "PyConfig.bytes_warning" or
    "PyConfig_Get("bytes_warning")" instead.

  * "Py_FrozenFlag": Use "PyConfig.pathconfig_warnings" or
    "PyConfig_Get("pathconfig_warnings")" instead.

  * "Py_IgnoreEnvironmentFlag": Use "PyConfig.use_environment" or
    "PyConfig_Get("use_environment")" instead.

  * "Py_DontWriteBytecodeFlag": Use "PyConfig.write_bytecode" or
    "PyConfig_Get("write_bytecode")" instead.

  * "Py_NoUserSiteDirectory": Use "PyConfig.user_site_directory" or
    "PyConfig_Get("user_site_directory")" instead.

  * "Py_UnbufferedStdioFlag": Use "PyConfig.buffered_stdio" or
    "PyConfig_Get("buffered_stdio")" instead.

  * "Py_HashRandomizationFlag": Use "PyConfig.use_hash_seed" and
    "PyConfig.hash_seed" or "PyConfig_Get("hash_seed")" instead.

  * "Py_IsolatedFlag": Use "PyConfig.isolated" or
    "PyConfig_Get("isolated")" instead.

  * "Py_LegacyWindowsFSEncodingFlag": Use
    "PyPreConfig.legacy_windows_fs_encoding" or
    "PyConfig_Get("legacy_windows_fs_encoding")" instead.

  * "Py_LegacyWindowsStdioFlag": Use "PyConfig.legacy_windows_stdio"
    or "PyConfig_Get("legacy_windows_stdio")" instead.

  * "Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding", "Py_HasFileSystemDefaultEncoding":
    Use "PyConfig.filesystem_encoding" or
    "PyConfig_Get("filesystem_encoding")" instead.

  * "Py_FileSystemDefaultEncodeErrors": Use
    "PyConfig.filesystem_errors" or
    "PyConfig_Get("filesystem_errors")" instead.

  * "Py_UTF8Mode": Use "PyPreConfig.utf8_mode" or
    "PyConfig_Get("utf8_mode")" instead. (see "Py_PreInitialize()")

  The "Py_InitializeFromConfig()" API should be used with "PyConfig"
  to set these options. Or "PyConfig_Get()" can be used to get these
  options at runtime.


Pending removal in Python 3.16
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The bundled copy of "libmpdec".


Pending removal in Python 3.18
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The following private functions are deprecated and planned for
  removal in Python 3.18:

  * "_PyBytes_Join()": use "PyBytes_Join()".

  * "_PyDict_GetItemStringWithError()": use
    "PyDict_GetItemStringRef()".

  * "_PyDict_Pop()": use "PyDict_Pop()".

  * "_PyLong_Sign()": use "PyLong_GetSign()".

  * "_PyLong_FromDigits()" and "_PyLong_New()": use
    "PyLongWriter_Create()".

  * "_PyThreadState_UncheckedGet()": use
    "PyThreadState_GetUnchecked()".

  * "_PyUnicode_AsString()": use "PyUnicode_AsUTF8()".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Init()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_Init(&writer)" with "writer =
    PyUnicodeWriter_Create(0)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Finish()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_Finish(&writer)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_Finish(writer)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Dealloc()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_Dealloc(&writer)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_Discard(writer)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar(&writer, ch)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar(writer, ch)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr(&writer, str)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr(writer, str)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring(&writer, str, start, end)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring(writer, str, start, end)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteASCIIString()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteASCIIString(&writer, str)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteASCII(writer, str)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteLatin1String()": replace
    "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteLatin1String(&writer, str)" with
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteUTF8(writer, str)".

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Prepare()": (no replacement).

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_PrepareKind()": (no replacement).

  * "_Py_HashPointer()": use "Py_HashPointer()".

  * "_Py_fopen_obj()": use "Py_fopen()".

  The pythoncapi-compat project can be used to get these new public
  functions on Python 3.13 and older. (Contributed by Victor Stinner
  in gh-128863.)


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()" instead.

* "PyErr_NormalizeException()": Use "PyErr_GetRaisedException()"
  instead.

* "PyErr_Restore()": Use "PyErr_SetRaisedException()" instead.

* "PyModule_GetFilename()": Use "PyModule_GetFilenameObject()"
  instead.

* "PyOS_AfterFork()": Use "PyOS_AfterFork_Child()" instead.

* "PySlice_GetIndicesEx()": Use "PySlice_Unpack()" and
  "PySlice_AdjustIndices()" instead.

* "PyUnicode_READY()": Unneeded since Python 3.12

* "PyErr_Display()": Use "PyErr_DisplayException()" instead.

* "_PyErr_ChainExceptions()": Use "_PyErr_ChainExceptions1()" instead.

* "PyBytesObject.ob_shash" member: call "PyObject_Hash()" instead.

* Thread Local Storage (TLS) API:

  * "PyThread_create_key()": Use "PyThread_tss_alloc()" instead.

  * "PyThread_delete_key()": Use "PyThread_tss_free()" instead.

  * "PyThread_set_key_value()": Use "PyThread_tss_set()" instead.

  * "PyThread_get_key_value()": Use "PyThread_tss_get()" instead.

  * "PyThread_delete_key_value()": Use "PyThread_tss_delete()"
    instead.

  * "PyThread_ReInitTLS()": Unneeded since Python 3.7.


Build changes
=============

* **PEP 776**: Emscripten is now an officially supported platform at
  **tier 3**. As a part of this effort, more than 25 bugs in
  Emscripten libc were fixed. Emscripten now includes support for
  "ctypes", "termios", and "fcntl", as well as experimental support
  for the new default interactive shell. (Contributed by R. Hood
  Chatham in gh-127146, gh-127683, and gh-136931.)

* Official Android binary releases are now provided on python.org.

* GNU Autoconf 2.72 is now required to generate "configure".
  (Contributed by Erlend Aasland in gh-115765.)

* "wasm32-unknown-emscripten" is now a **PEP 11** tier 3 platform.
  (Contributed by R. Hood Chatham in gh-127146, gh-127683, and
  gh-136931.)

* "#pragma"-based linking with "python3*.lib" can now be switched off
  with Py_NO_LINK_LIB. (Contributed by Jean-Christophe Fillion-Robin
  in gh-82909.)

* CPython now enables a set of recommended compiler options by default
  for improved security. Use the "--disable-safety" "configure" option
  to disable them, or the "--enable-slower-safety" option for a larger
  set of compiler options, albeit with a performance cost.

* The "WITH_FREELISTS" macro and "--without-freelists" "configure"
  option have been removed.

* The new "configure" option "--with-tail-call-interp" may be used to
  enable the experimental tail call interpreter. See A new type of
  interpreter for further details.

* To disable the new remote debugging support, use the "--without-
  remote-debug" "configure" option. This may be useful for security
  reasons.

* iOS and macOS apps can now be configured to redirect "stdout" and
  "stderr" content to the system log. (Contributed by Russell Keith-
  Magee in gh-127592.)

* The iOS testbed is now able to stream test output while the test is
  running. The testbed can also be used to run the test suite of
  projects other than CPython itself. (Contributed by Russell Keith-
  Magee in gh-127592.)


"build-details.json"
--------------------

Installations of Python now contain a new file, "build-details.json".
This is a static JSON document containing build details for CPython,
to allow for introspection without needing to run code. This is
helpful for use-cases such as Python launchers, cross-compilation, and
so on.

"build-details.json" must be installed in the platform-independent
standard library directory. This corresponds to the 'stdlib'
"sysconfig" installation path, which can be found by running
"sysconfig.get_path('stdlib')".

See also:

  **PEP 739** -- "build-details.json" 1.0 -- a static description file
  for Python build details


Discontinuation of PGP signatures
---------------------------------

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) signatures will not be provided for releases
of Python 3.14 or future versions. To verify CPython artifacts, users
must use Sigstore verification materials. Releases have been signed
using Sigstore since Python 3.11.

This change in release process was specified in **PEP 761**.


Free-threaded Python is officially supported
--------------------------------------------

The free-threaded build of Python is now supported and no longer
experimental. This is the start of phase II where free-threaded Python
is officially supported but still optional.

The free-threading team are confident that the project is on the right
path, and appreciate the continued dedication from everyone working to
make free-threading ready for broader adoption across the Python
community.

With these recommendations and the acceptance of this PEP, the Python
developer community should broadly advertise that free-threading is a
supported Python build option now and into the future, and that it
will not be removed without a proper deprecation schedule.

Any decision to transition to phase III, with free-threading as the
default or sole build of Python is still undecided, and dependent on
many factors both within CPython itself and the community. This
decision is for the future.

See also:

  **PEP 779**

  PEP 779's acceptance


Binary releases for the experimental just-in-time compiler
----------------------------------------------------------

The official macOS and Windows release binaries now include an
*experimental* just-in-time (JIT) compiler. Although it is **not**
recommended for production use, it can be tested by setting
"PYTHON_JIT=1" as an environment variable. Downstream source builds
and redistributors can use the "--enable-experimental-jit=yes-off"
configuration option for similar behavior.

The JIT is at an early stage and still in active development. As such,
the typical performance impact of enabling it can range from 10%
slower to 20% faster, depending on workload. To aid in testing and
evaluation, a set of introspection functions has been provided in the
"sys._jit" namespace. "sys._jit.is_available()" can be used to
determine if the current executable supports JIT compilation, while
"sys._jit.is_enabled()" can be used to tell if JIT compilation has
been enabled for the current process.

Currently, the most significant missing functionality is that native
debuggers and profilers like "gdb" and "perf" are unable to unwind
through JIT frames (Python debuggers and profilers, like "pdb" or
"profile", continue to work without modification). Free-threaded
builds do not support JIT compilation.

Please report any bugs or major performance regressions that you
encounter!

See also: **PEP 744**


Porting to Python 3.14
======================

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


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

* On Unix platforms other than macOS, *forkserver* is now the default
  start method for "multiprocessing" and "ProcessPoolExecutor",
  instead of *fork*.

  See (1) and (2) for details.

  If you encounter "NameError"s or pickling errors coming out of
  "multiprocessing" or "concurrent.futures", see the forkserver
  restrictions.

  This change does not affect Windows or macOS, where 'spawn' remains
  the default start method.

* "functools.partial" is now a method descriptor. Wrap it in
  "staticmethod()" if you want to preserve the old behavior.
  (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka and Dominykas Grigonis in
  gh-121027.)

* The garbage collector is now incremental, which means that the
  behavior of "gc.collect()" changes slightly:

  * "gc.collect(1)": Performs an increment of garbage collection,
    rather than collecting generation 1.

  * Other calls to "gc.collect()" are unchanged.

* The "locale.nl_langinfo()" function now temporarily sets the
  "LC_CTYPE" locale in some cases. This temporary change affects other
  threads. (Contributed by Serhiy Storchaka in gh-69998.)

* "types.UnionType" is now an alias for "typing.Union", causing
  changes in some behaviors. See above for more details. (Contributed
  by Jelle Zijlstra in gh-105499.)

* The runtime behavior of annotations has changed in various ways; see
  above for details. While most code that interacts with annotations
  should continue to work, some undocumented details may behave
  differently.

* As part of making the "mimetypes" CLI public, it now exits with "1"
  on failure instead of "0" and "2" on incorrect command-line
  parameters instead of "1". Error messages are now printed to stderr.

* The "\B" pattern in regular expression now matches the empty string
  when given as the entire pattern, which may cause behavioural
  changes.

* On FreeBSD, "sys.platform" no longer contains the major version
  number.


Changes in annotations (**PEP 649** and **PEP 749**)
----------------------------------------------------

This section contains guidance on changes that may be needed to
annotations or Python code that interacts with or introspects
annotations, due to the changes related to deferred evaluation of
annotations.

In the majority of cases, working code from older versions of Python
will not require any changes.


Implications for annotated code
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you define annotations in your code (for example, for use with a
static type checker), then this change probably does not affect you:
you can keep writing annotations the same way you did with previous
versions of Python.

You will likely be able to remove quoted strings in annotations, which
are frequently used for forward references. Similarly, if you use
"from __future__ import annotations" to avoid having to write strings
in annotations, you may well be able to remove that import once you
support only Python 3.14 and newer. However, if you rely on third-
party libraries that read annotations, those libraries may need
changes to support unquoted annotations before they work as expected.


Implications for readers of "__annotations__"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If your code reads the "__annotations__" attribute on objects, you may
want to make changes in order to support code that relies on deferred
evaluation of annotations. For example, you may want to use
"annotationlib.get_annotations()" with the "FORWARDREF" format, as the
"dataclasses" module now does.

The external typing_extensions package provides partial backports of
some of the functionality of the "annotationlib" module, such as the
"Format" enum and the "get_annotations()" function. These can be used
to write cross-version code that takes advantage of the new behavior
in Python 3.14.


Related changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The changes in Python 3.14 are designed to rework how
"__annotations__" works at runtime while minimizing breakage to code
that contains annotations in source code and to code that reads
"__annotations__". However, if you rely on undocumented details of the
annotation behavior or on private functions in the standard library,
there are many ways in which your code may not work in Python 3.14. To
safeguard your code against future changes, only use the documented
functionality of the "annotationlib" module.

In particular, do not read annotations directly from the namespace
dictionary attribute of type objects. Use
"annotationlib.get_annotate_from_class_namespace()" during class
construction and "annotationlib.get_annotations()" afterwards.

In previous releases, it was sometimes possible to access class
annotations from an instance of an annotated class. This behavior was
undocumented and accidental, and will no longer work in Python 3.14.


"from __future__ import annotations"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Python 3.7, **PEP 563** introduced the "from __future__ import
annotations" future statement, which turns all annotations into
strings.

However, this statement is now deprecated and it is expected to be
removed in a future version of Python. This removal will not happen
until after Python 3.13 reaches its end of life in 2029, being the
last version of Python without support for deferred evaluation of
annotations.

In Python 3.14, the behavior of code using "from __future__ import
annotations" is unchanged.


Changes in the C API
--------------------

* "Py_Finalize()" now deletes all interned strings. This is backwards
  incompatible to any C extension that holds onto an interned string
  after a call to "Py_Finalize()" and is then reused after a call to
  "Py_Initialize()".  Any issues arising from this behavior will
  normally result in crashes during the execution of the subsequent
  call to "Py_Initialize()" from accessing uninitialized memory. To
  fix, use an address sanitizer to identify any use-after-free coming
  from an interned string and deallocate it during module shutdown.
  (Contributed by Eddie Elizondo in gh-113601.)

* The Unicode Exception Objects C API now raises a "TypeError" if its
  exception argument is not a "UnicodeError" object. (Contributed by
  Bénédikt Tran in gh-127691.)

* The interpreter internally avoids some reference count modifications
  when loading objects onto the operands stack by *borrowing*
  references when possible. This can lead to smaller reference count
  values compared to previous Python versions. C API extensions that
  checked "Py_REFCNT()" of "1" to determine if an function argument is
  not referenced by any other code should instead use
  "PyUnstable_Object_IsUniqueReferencedTemporary()" as a safer
  replacement.

* Private functions promoted to public C APIs:

  * "_PyBytes_Join()": "PyBytes_Join()"

  * "_PyLong_IsNegative()": "PyLong_IsNegative()"

  * "_PyLong_IsPositive()": "PyLong_IsPositive()"

  * "_PyLong_IsZero()": "PyLong_IsZero()"

  * "_PyLong_Sign()": "PyLong_GetSign()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Dealloc()": "PyUnicodeWriter_Discard()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Finish()": "PyUnicodeWriter_Finish()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Init()": use "PyUnicodeWriter_Create()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_Prepare()": (no replacement)

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_PrepareKind()": (no replacement)

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar()": "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteChar()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr()": "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteStr()"

  * "_PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring()":
    "PyUnicodeWriter_WriteSubstring()"

  * "_PyUnicode_EQ()": "PyUnicode_Equal()"

  * "_PyUnicode_Equal()": "PyUnicode_Equal()"

  * "_Py_GetConfig()": "PyConfig_Get()" and "PyConfig_GetInt()"

  * "_Py_HashBytes()": "Py_HashBuffer()"

  * "_Py_fopen_obj()": "Py_fopen()"

  * "PyMutex_IsLocked()" : "PyMutex_IsLocked()"

  The pythoncapi-compat project can be used to get most of these new
  functions on Python 3.13 and older.


Notable changes in 3.14.1
=========================

* Add "PyUnstable_ThreadState_SetStackProtection()" and
  "PyUnstable_ThreadState_ResetStackProtection()" functions to set the
  stack protection base address and stack protection size of a Python
  thread state. (Contributed by Victor Stinner in gh-139653.)
