django/docs/internals/deprecation.txt

===========================
Django Deprecation Timeline
===========================

This document outlines when various pieces of Django will be removed, following
their deprecation, as per the :ref:`deprecation policy
<internal-release-deprecation-policy>`.

1.3
---

    * ``AdminSite.root()``.  This release will remove the old method for
      hooking up admin URLs.  This has been deprecated since the 1.1
      release.

    * Authentication backends need to define the boolean attributes
      ``supports_object_permissions`` and ``supports_anonymous_user``.
      The old backend style is deprecated since the 1.2 release.

    * The :mod:`django.contrib.gis.db.backend` module, including the
      ``SpatialBackend`` interface, is deprecated since the 1.2 release.

1.4
---

    * ``CsrfResponseMiddleware``.  This has been deprecated since the 1.2
      release, in favor of the template tag method for inserting the CSRF
      token.  ``CsrfMiddleware``, which combines ``CsrfResponseMiddleware``
      and ``CsrfViewMiddleware``, is also deprecated.

    * The old imports for CSRF functionality (``django.contrib.csrf.*``),
      which moved to core in 1.2, will be removed.

    * ``SMTPConnection``. The 1.2 release deprecated the ``SMTPConnection``
      class in favor of a generic E-mail backend API.

    * The many to many SQL generation functions on the database backends
      will be removed.

    * The ability to use the ``DATABASE_*`` family of top-level settings to
      define database connections will be removed.

    * The ability to use shorthand notation to specify a database backend
      (i.e., ``sqlite3`` instead of ``django.db.backends.sqlite3``) will be
      removed.

    * The ``get_db_prep_save``, ``get_db_prep_value`` and
      ``get_db_prep_lookup`` methods on Field were modified in 1.2
      to support multiple databases. In 1.4, the support functions
      that allow methods with the old prototype to continue
      working will be removed.

    * The ``Message`` model (in ``django.contrib.auth``), its related
      manager in the ``User`` model (``user.message_set``), and the
      associated methods (``user.message_set.create()`` and
      ``user.get_and_delete_messages()``), which have
      been deprecated since the 1.2 release, will be removed.  The
      :doc:`messages framework </ref/contrib/messages>` should be used
      instead. The related ``messages`` variable returned by the
      auth context processor will also be removed. Note that this
      means that the admin application depends on the messages
      context processor.

    * Authentication backends need to support the ``obj`` parameter for
      permission checking. The ``supports_object_permissions`` variable
      is not checked any longer and can be removed.

    * Authentication backends need to support the ``AnonymousUser``
      being passed to all methods dealing with permissions.
      The ``supports_anonymous_user`` variable is not checked any
      longer and can be removed.

    * The ability to specify a callable template loader rather than a
      ``Loader`` class will be removed, as will the ``load_template_source``
      functions that are included with the built in template loaders for
      backwards compatibility. These have been deprecated since the 1.2
      release.

    * ``django.utils.translation.get_date_formats()`` and
      ``django.utils.translation.get_partial_date_formats()``. These
      functions are replaced by the new locale aware formatting; use
      ``django.utils.formats.get_format()`` to get the appropriate
      formats.

    * In ``django.forms.fields``: ``DEFAULT_DATE_INPUT_FORMATS``,
      ``DEFAULT_TIME_INPUT_FORMATS`` and
      ``DEFAULT_DATETIME_INPUT_FORMATS``. Use
      ``django.utils.formats.get_format()`` to get the appropriate
      formats.

    * The ability to use a function-based test runners will be removed,
      along with the ``django.test.simple.run_tests()`` test runner.

    * The ``views.feed()`` view and ``feeds.Feed`` class in
      ``django.contrib.syndication`` have been deprecated since the 1.2
      release. The class-based view ``views.Feed`` should be used instead.

    * ``django.core.context_processors.auth``.  This release will
      remove the old method in favor of the new method in
      ``django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth``.  This has been
      deprecated since the 1.2 release.

    * The ``postgresql`` database backend has been deprecated in favor of
      the ``postgresql_psycopg2`` backend.

    * The ``no`` language code has been deprecated in favor of the ``nb``
      language code.

    * Authentication backends need to define the boolean attribute
      ``supports_inactive_user``.

    * ``django.db.models.fields.XMLField`` will be removed. This was
      deprecated as part of the 1.3 release. An accelerated deprecation
      schedule has been used because the field hasn't performed any role
      beyond that of a simple ``TextField`` since the removal of oldforms.
      All uses of ``XMLField`` can be replaced with ``TextField``.


1.5
---

    * The ``mod_python`` request handler has been deprecated since the 1.3
      release. The ``mod_wsgi`` handler should be used instead.

    * The ``template`` attribute on :class:`~django.test.client.Response`
      objects returned by the :ref:`test client <test-client>` has been
      deprecated since the 1.3 release. The
      :attr:`~django.test.client.Response.templates` attribute should be
      used instead.

    * The features of the :class:`django.test.simple.DjangoTestRunner`
      (including fail-fast and Ctrl-C test termination) can now be provided
      by the unittest-native :class:`TextTestRunner`. The
      :class:`~django.test.simple.DjangoTestRunner` will be removed in
      favor of using the unittest-native class.

    * The undocumented function
      :func:`django.contrib.formtools.utils.security_hash`
      is deprecated, in favor of :func:`django.contrib.formtools.utils.form_hmac`

    * The function-based generic views have been deprecated in
      favor of their class-based cousins. The following modules
      will be removed:

          * :mod:`django.views.generic.create_update`
          * :mod:`django.views.generic.date_based`
          * :mod:`django.views.generic.list_detail`
          * :mod:`django.views.generic.simple`

    * The :class:`~django.core.servers.basehttp.AdminMediaHandler` has
      been deprecated in favor of the
      :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.handlers.StaticFilesHandler`.

    * The :ttag:`url` and :ttag:`ssi` template tags will be
      modified so that the first argument to each tag is a
      template variable, not an implied string. The new-style
      behavior is provided in the ``future`` template tag library.

    * The :djadmin:`reset` and :djadmin:`sqlreset` management commands
      are deprecated.

    * Authentication backends need to support a inactive user
      being passed to all methods dealing with permissions.
      The ``supports_inactive_user`` variable is not checked any
      longer and can be removed.

    * :meth:`~django.contrib.gis.geos.GEOSGeometry.transform` will raise
      a :class:`~django.contrib.gis.geos.GEOSException` when called
      on a geometry with no SRID value.

    * :class:`~django.http.CompatCookie` will be removed in favor of
      :class:`~django.http.SimpleCookie`.

    * :class:`django.core.context_processors.PermWrapper` and
      :class:`django.core.context_processors.PermLookupDict`
      will be moved to :class:`django.contrib.auth.context_processors.PermWrapper`
      and :class:`django.contrib.auth.context_processors.PermLookupDict`,
      respectively.

    * The :setting:`MEDIA_URL` or :setting:`STATIC_URL` settings are
      required to end with a trailing slash to ensure there is a consistent
      way to combine paths in templates.

    * ``django.db.models.fields.URLField.verify_exists`` was deprecated in 1.4
      due to intractable security and performance issues. The argument will be
      removed in 1.5.

1.6
---

    * The compatibility modules ``django.utils.copycompat`` and
      ``django.utils.hashcompat`` as well as the functions
      ``django.utils.itercompat.all`` and ``django.utils.itercompat.any``
      have been deprecated since the 1.4 release. The native versions
      should be used instead.

    * The :func:`~django.views.decorators.csrf.csrf_response_exempt` and
      :func:`~django.views.decorators.csrf.csrf_view_exempt` decorators will
      be removed. Since 1.4 ``csrf_response_exempt`` has been a no-op (it
      returns the same function), and ``csrf_view_exempt`` has been a
      synonym for ``django.views.decorators.csrf.csrf_exempt``, which should
      be used to replace it.

    * The :class:`~django.core.cache.backends.memcached.CacheClass` backend
      was split into two in Django 1.3 in order to introduce support for
      PyLibMC. The historical :class:`~django.core.cache.backends.memcached.CacheClass`
      is now an alias for :class:`~django.core.cache.backends.memcached.MemcachedCache`.
      In Django 1.6, the historical alias will be removed.

    * The UK-prefixed objects of ``django.contrib.localflavor.uk`` will only
      be accessible through their new GB-prefixed names (GB is the correct
      ISO 3166 code for United Kingdom). They have been deprecated since the
      1.4 release.

    * The :setting:`IGNORABLE_404_STARTS` and :setting:`IGNORABLE_404_ENDS`
      settings have been superseded by :setting:`IGNORABLE_404_URLS` in
      the 1.4 release. They will be removed.

    * The :doc:`form wizard </ref/contrib/formtools/form-wizard>` has been
      refactored to use class based views with pluggable backends in 1.4.
      The previous implementation will be deprecated.

    * Legacy ways of calling
      :func:`~django.views.decorators.cache.cache_page` will be removed.

    * The backward-compatibility shim to automatically add a debug-false
      filter to the ``'mail_admins'`` logging handler will be removed. The
      :setting:`LOGGING` setting should include this filter explicitly if
      it is desired.

    * The template tag
      :func:`django.contrib.admin.templatetags.adminmedia.admin_media_prefix`
      was deprecated since Django 1.4 and will be removed in favor of the
      generic static files handling.

    * The builin truncation functions
      :func:`django.utils.text.truncate_words` and
      :func:`django.utils.text.truncate_html_words`
      were deprecated since Django 1.4 and will be removed in favor
      of the ``django.utils.text.Truncator`` class.

    * The :class:`~django.contrib.gis.geoip.GeoIP` class was moved to
      :mod:`django.contrib.gis.geoip` in 1.4 -- the shortcut in
      :mod:`django.contrib.gis.utils` will be removed.

    * In 1.4, functions :func:`~django.conf.urls.include`, :func:`~django.conf.urls.patterns`
      and :func:`~django.conf.urls.url` plus :data:`~django.conf.urls.handler404`,
      :data:`~django.conf.urls.handler500` were moved to :mod:`django.conf.urls`
      from their previous location ``django.conf.urls.defaults``. This module
      was deprecated at the same time and will be removed in this Django release.

2.0
---

    * ``django.views.defaults.shortcut()``. This function has been moved
      to ``django.contrib.contenttypes.views.shortcut()`` as part of the
      goal of removing all ``django.contrib`` references from the core
      Django codebase. The old shortcut will be removed in the 2.0
      release.