121 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
121 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
=============
|
|
API stability
|
|
=============
|
|
|
|
:doc:`The release of Django 1.0 </releases/1.0>` comes with a promise of API
|
|
stability and forwards-compatibility. In a nutshell, this means that code you
|
|
develop against a 1.X version of Django will continue to work with future
|
|
1.X releases. You may need to make minor changes when upgrading the version of
|
|
Django your project uses: see the "Backwards incompatible changes" section of
|
|
the :doc:`release note </releases/index>` for the version or versions to which
|
|
you are upgrading.
|
|
|
|
What "stable" means
|
|
===================
|
|
|
|
In this context, stable means:
|
|
|
|
- All the public APIs (everything in this documentation) will not be moved
|
|
or renamed without providing backwards-compatible aliases.
|
|
|
|
- If new features are added to these APIs -- which is quite possible --
|
|
they will not break or change the meaning of existing methods. In other
|
|
words, "stable" does not (necessarily) mean "complete."
|
|
|
|
- If, for some reason, an API declared stable must be removed or replaced, it
|
|
will be declared deprecated but will remain in the API for at least two
|
|
minor version releases. Warnings will be issued when the deprecated method
|
|
is called.
|
|
|
|
See :ref:`official-releases` for more details on how Django's version
|
|
numbering scheme works, and how features will be deprecated.
|
|
|
|
- We'll only break backwards compatibility of these APIs if a bug or
|
|
security hole makes it completely unavoidable.
|
|
|
|
Stable APIs
|
|
===========
|
|
|
|
In general, everything covered in the documentation -- with the exception of
|
|
anything in the :doc:`internals area </internals/index>` is considered stable.
|
|
|
|
Exceptions
|
|
==========
|
|
|
|
There are a few exceptions to this stability and backwards-compatibility
|
|
promise.
|
|
|
|
Security fixes
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
If we become aware of a security problem -- hopefully by someone following our
|
|
:ref:`security reporting policy <reporting-security-issues>` -- we'll do
|
|
everything necessary to fix it. This might mean breaking backwards
|
|
compatibility; security trumps the compatibility guarantee.
|
|
|
|
APIs marked as internal
|
|
-----------------------
|
|
|
|
Certain APIs are explicitly marked as "internal" in a couple of ways:
|
|
|
|
- Some documentation refers to internals and mentions them as such. If the
|
|
documentation says that something is internal, we reserve the right to
|
|
change it.
|
|
|
|
- Functions, methods, and other objects prefixed by a leading underscore
|
|
(``_``). This is the standard Python way of indicating that something is
|
|
private; if any method starts with a single ``_``, it's an internal API.
|
|
|
|
.. _misc-api-stability-localflavor:
|
|
|
|
Local flavors
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
:mod:`django.contrib.localflavor` contains assorted pieces of code
|
|
that are useful for particular countries or cultures. This data is
|
|
local in nature, and is subject to change on timelines that will
|
|
almost never correlate with Django's own release schedules. For
|
|
example, a common change is to split a province into two new
|
|
provinces, or to rename an existing province.
|
|
|
|
These changes present two competing compatibility issues. Moving
|
|
forward, displaying the names of deprecated, renamed and dissolved
|
|
provinces in a selection widget is bad from a user interface
|
|
perspective. However, maintaining full backwards compatibility
|
|
requires that we support historical values that may be stored in a
|
|
database -- including values that may no longer be valid.
|
|
|
|
Therefore, Django has the following policy with respect to changes in
|
|
local flavor:
|
|
|
|
* At the time of a Django release, the data and algorithms
|
|
contained in :mod:`django.contrib.localflavor` will, to the best
|
|
of our ability, reflect the officially gazetted policies of the
|
|
appropriate local government authority. If a province has been
|
|
added, altered, or removed, that change will be reflected in
|
|
Django's localflavor.
|
|
|
|
* These changes will *not* be backported to the previous stable
|
|
release. Upgrading a minor version of Django should not require
|
|
any data migration or audits for UI changes; therefore, if you
|
|
want to get the latest province list, you will either need to
|
|
upgrade your Django install, or backport the province list you
|
|
need.
|
|
|
|
* For one release, the affected localflavor module will raise a
|
|
``RuntimeWarning`` when it is imported.
|
|
|
|
* The change will be announced in the release notes as a backwards
|
|
incompatible change requiring attention. The change will also be
|
|
annotated in the documentation for the localflavor module.
|
|
|
|
* Where necessary and feasible, a migration script will be provided
|
|
to aid the migration process.
|
|
|
|
For example, Django 1.2 contains an Indonesian localflavor. It has a
|
|
province list that includes "Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD)" as a
|
|
province. The Indonesian government has changed the official name of
|
|
the province to "Aceh (ACE)". As a result, Django 1.3 does *not*
|
|
contain "Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD)" in the province list, but
|
|
*does* contain "Aceh (ACE)".
|