django1/docs/releases/1.2.txt

.. _releases-1.2:

============================================
Django 1.2 release notes — UNDER DEVELOPMENT
============================================

This page documents release notes for the as-yet-unreleased Django 1.2.  As such
it is tentative and subject to change.  It provides up-to-date information for
those who are following trunk.

Django 1.2 includes a number of nifty `new features`_, lots of bug
fixes, and an easy upgrade path from Django 1.1.

.. _new features: `What's new in Django 1.2`_

.. _backwards-incompatible-changes-1.2:

Backwards-incompatible changes in 1.2
=====================================

CSRF Protection
---------------

There have been large changes to the way that CSRF protection works, detailed in
:ref:`the CSRF documentaton <ref-contrib-csrf>`.  The following are the major
changes that developers must be aware of:

 * ``CsrfResponseMiddleware`` and ``CsrfMiddleware`` have been deprecated, and
   will be removed completely in Django 1.4, in favor of a template tag that
   should be inserted into forms.

 * All contrib apps use a ``csrf_protect`` decorator to protect the view.  This
   requires the use of the csrf_token template tag in the template, so if you
   have used custom templates for contrib views, you MUST READ THE :ref:`UPGRADE
   INSTRUCTIONS <ref-csrf-upgrading-notes>` to fix those templates.

 * ``CsrfViewMiddleware`` is included in :setting:`MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES` by
   default. This turns on CSRF protection by default, so that views that accept
   POST requests need to be written to work with the middleware.  Instructions
   on how to do this are found in the CSRF docs.

 * All of the CSRF has moved from contrib to core (with backwards compatible
   imports in the old locations, which are deprecated).

LazyObject
----------

``LazyObject`` is an undocumented utility class used for lazily wrapping other
objects of unknown type.  In Django 1.1 and earlier, it handled introspection in
a non-standard way, depending on wrapped objects implementing a public method
``get_all_members()``. Since this could easily lead to name clashes, it has been
changed to use the standard method, involving ``__members__`` and ``__dir__()``.
If you used ``LazyObject`` in your own code, and implemented the
``get_all_members()`` method for wrapped objects, you need to make the following
changes:

 * If your class does not have special requirements for introspection (i.e. you
   have not implemented ``__getattr__()`` or other methods that allow for
   attributes not discoverable by normal mechanisms), you can simply remove the
   ``get_all_members()`` method.  The default implementation on ``LazyObject``
   will do the right thing.

 * If you have more complex requirements for introspection, first rename the
   ``get_all_members()`` method to ``__dir__()``.  This is the standard method,
   from Python 2.6 onwards, for supporting introspection.  If you are require
   support for Python < 2.6, add the following code to the class::

       __members__ = property(lambda self: self.__dir__())

.. _deprecated-features-1.2:

Features deprecated in 1.2
==========================

CSRF response rewriting middleware
----------------------------------

``CsrfResponseMiddleware``, the middleware that automatically inserted CSRF
tokens into POST forms in outgoing pages, has been deprecated in favor of a
template tag method (see above), and will be removed completely in Django
1.4. ``CsrfMiddleware``, which includes the functionality of
``CsrfResponseMiddleware`` and ``CsrfViewMiddleware`` has likewise been
deprecated.

Also, the CSRF module has moved from contrib to core, and the old imports are
deprecated, as described in the :ref:`upgrading notes <ref-csrf-upgrading-notes>`.

``SMTPConnection``
------------------

This class has been deprecated in favor of the new generic e-mail backends.

What's new in Django 1.2
========================

CSRF support
------------

Django now has much improved protection against :ref:`Cross-Site
Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks<ref-contrib-csrf>`. This type of attack
occurs when a malicious Web site contains a link, a form button or
some javascript that is intended to perform some action on your Web
site, using the credentials of a logged-in user who visits the
malicious site in their browser. A related type of attack, 'login
CSRF', where an attacking site tricks a user's browser into logging
into a site with someone else's credentials, is also covered.

E-mail Backends
---------------

You can now :ref:`configure the way that Django sends e-mail
<topic-email-backends>`. Instead of using SMTP to send all e-mail, you
can now choose a configurable e-mail backend to send messages. If your
hosting provider uses a sandbox or some other non-SMTP technique for
sending mail, you can now construct an e-mail backend that will allow
Django's standard :ref:`mail sending methods<topics-email>` to use
those facilities.

This also makes it easier to debug mail sending - Django ships with
backend implementations that allow you to send e-mail to a
:ref:`file<topic-email-file-backend>`, to the
:ref:`console<topic-email-console-backend>`, or to
:ref:`memory<topic-email-memory-backend>` - you can even configure all
e-mail to be :ref:`thrown away<topic-email-dummy-backend>`.