Why?
Often Python core developers think about deprecating and removing old bits of the language. But first it's a good idea to get an idea of how much the old bits are used. Searching the 5,000 most-popular projects on PyPI is a helpful proxy to gauge community use.
How?
Core developer Victor Stinner has written a couple of useful scripts that live in his misc repo.
Setup
First, clone the repo somewhere, doesn't matter where:
mkdir -p ~/github
cd ~/github/
git clone https://github.com/vstinner/misc
# Optionally for some colour in the logs:
python3 -m pip install termcolor
Then download 5,000 sdists! Again, doesn't matter where:
$ mkdir -p ~/top-pypi/output
$ cd ~/top-pypi/output/
$ python3 ~/github/misc/cpython/download_pypi_top.py .
Download JSON from: https://hugovk.github.io/top-pypi-packages/top-pypi-packages-30-days.min.json
Project#: 5000
[1/5000] Saving to ./boto3-1.26.25.tar.gz (101.7 kB)
[2/5000] Saving to ./botocore-1.29.25.tar.gz (10426.8 kB)
[3/5000] Saving to ./urllib3-1.26.13.tar.gz (293.4 kB)
...
[4990/5000] Saving to ./meld3-2.0.1.tar.gz (35.3 kB)
[4991/5000] Saving to ./browserstack-local-1.2.4.tar.gz (6.6 kB)
Cannot find URL for project: allensdk
Cannot find URL for project: dataframe-image
[4994/5000] Saving to ./SQLAlchemy-Continuum-1.3.13.tar.gz (79.2 kB)
[4995/5000] Saving to ./sarge-0.1.7.post1.tar.gz (25.1 kB)
[4996/5000] Saving to ./confusable_homoglyphs-3.2.0.tar.gz (158.1 kB)
[4997/5000] Saving to ./YTThumb-1.4.5.tar.gz (3.0 kB)
[4998/5000] Saving to ./azure-ai-ml-1.2.0.zip (4486.3 kB)
[4999/5000] Saving to ./pythena-1.6.0.tar.gz (5.2 kB)
[5000/5000] Saving to ./interchange-2021.0.4.tar.gz (25.2 kB)
Downloaded 5000 projects in 1602.4 seconds
With colour:
⏳ This will take a bit of time. Some projects don't have sdists, nothing to worry about, we will still end up with a good number. At the time of writing (2022-12-09), it took me just under 27 minutes to download 4,748 files, taking up 5.37 GB of space.
If you want to download fewer, specify how many:
python3 ~/github/misc/cpython/download_pypi_top.py . 100
Search
Next, we can search all the sdists using another script. And we don't need to extract them!
For example, configparser's LegacyInterpolation was deprecated in Python 3.2 (released February 2011), but only in docs and without raising a DeprecationWarning.
How much is it used in the top 5k?
$ cd ~/top-pypi/output/
$ python3 ~/github/misc/cpython/search_pypi_top.py -q . "LegacyInterpolation"
./hexbytes-0.3.0.tar.gz: hexbytes-0.3.0/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./hexbytes-0.3.0.tar.gz: hexbytes-0.3.0/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./hexbytes-0.3.0.tar.gz: hexbytes-0.3.0/.tox/py39-lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./hexbytes-0.3.0.tar.gz: hexbytes-0.3.0/.tox/py39-lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./jedi-0.18.2.tar.gz: jedi-0.18.2/jedi/third_party/typeshed/stdlib/3/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation): ...
./mypy-0.991.tar.gz: mypy-0.991/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./mypy-0.991.tar.gz: mypy-0.991/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./eth-hash-0.5.1.tar.gz: eth-hash-0.5.1/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./eth-hash-0.5.1.tar.gz: eth-hash-0.5.1/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./eth-account-0.7.0.tar.gz: eth-account-0.7.0/.tox/lint/lib/python3.10/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./eth-account-0.7.0.tar.gz: eth-account-0.7.0/.tox/py310-lint/lib/python3.10/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./eth-utils-2.1.0.tar.gz: eth-utils-2.1.0/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./pytype-2022.11.29.tar.gz: pytype-2022.11.29/pytype/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./pytype-2022.11.29.tar.gz: pytype-2022.11.29/pytype/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./pylint-2.15.8.tar.gz: pylint-2.15.8/pylint/checkers/stdlib.py: "LegacyInterpolation",
./pyre-check-0.9.17.tar.gz: pyre-check-0.9.17/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: "LegacyInterpolation",
./pyre-check-0.9.17.tar.gz: pyre-check-0.9.17/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/backports/configparser/__init__.py: "LegacyInterpolation",
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/backports/configparser/__init__.py: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/backports/configparser/__init__.py: "LegacyInterpolation has been deprecated since Python 3.2 "
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/configparser.py: LegacyInterpolation,
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/configparser.py: "LegacyInterpolation",
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: elif isinstance(self.interpolation, configparser.LegacyInterpolation):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: elif isinstance(self.interpolation, configparser.LegacyInterpolation):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: elif isinstance(self.interpolation, configparser.LegacyInterpolation):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: class ConfigParserTestCaseLegacyInterpolation(ConfigParserTestCase):
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: interpolation = configparser.LegacyInterpolation()
./configparser-5.3.0.tar.gz: configparser-5.3.0/src/test_configparser.py: configparser.LegacyInterpolation()
./eth-rlp-0.3.0.tar.gz: eth-rlp-0.3.0/.tox/lint/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/3/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation): ...
./eth-rlp-0.3.0.tar.gz: eth-rlp-0.3.0/venv-erlp/lib/python3.9/site-packages/jedi/third_party/typeshed/stdlib/3/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation): ...
./eth-rlp-0.3.0.tar.gz: eth-rlp-0.3.0/venv-erlp/lib/python3.9/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/3/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation): ...
./eth_abi-3.0.1.tar.gz: eth_abi-3.0.1/.tox/lint/lib/python3.10/site-packages/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/configparser.pyi: class LegacyInterpolation(Interpolation):
Time: 0:00:17.957695
Found 32 matching lines in 12 projects
With colour:
Answer: very little, mostly backports and type stubs. This told us it's a good candidate for removal, so a proper DeprecationWarning was added in Python 3.11 (released October 2022) and it will be removed in Python 3.13 (October 2024).
The tool searches using a regex, so you can look for more complicated things like "\b(currentThread|activeCount|notifyAll|isSet|isDaemon|setDaemon)\b", and it can also log to file. See --help for other options.
Happy searching! 🔎
Header photo: "The card index department" by Boston Public Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Top comments (0)