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authorSimon McVittie <simon.mcvittie@collabora.co.uk>2012-01-24 16:35:38 +0000
committerSimon McVittie <simon.mcvittie@collabora.co.uk>2012-01-24 16:35:38 +0000
commitcd4e91c65624062b5504c10b2af0a05aefbf4878 (patch)
treee2655497781456a180130744d211ef3f23416584 /doc/PY3PORT.txt
parent09ca5de0f38d3cc30b8d149b2a8c9f0ad810a09a (diff)
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+===============================
+Porting python-dbus to Python 3
+===============================
+
+This is an experimental port to Python 3.x where x >= 2. There are lots of
+great sources for porting C extensions to Python 3, including:
+
+ * http://python3porting.com/toc.html
+ * http://docs.python.org/howto/cporting.html
+ * http://docs.python.org/py3k/c-api/index.html
+
+I also consulted an early take on this port by John Palmieri and David Malcolm
+in the context of Fedora:
+
+ * https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26420
+
+although I have made some different choices. The patches in that tracker
+issue also don't cover porting the Python bits (e.g. the test suite), nor the
+pygtk -> pygi porting, both which I've also attempted to do in this branch.
+
+This document outlines my notes and strategies for doing this port. Please
+feel free to contact me with any bugs, issues, disagreements, suggestions,
+kudos, and curses.
+
+Barry Warsaw
+barry@python.org
+2011-11-11
+
+
+User visible changes
+====================
+
+You've got some dbus-python code that works great in Python 2. This branch
+should generally allow your existing Python 2 code to continue to work
+unchanged. There are a few changes you'll notice in Python 2 though:
+
+ - The minimum supported Python 2 version is 2.6.
+ - All object reprs are unicodes. This change was made because it greatly
+ simplifies the implementation and cross-compatibility with Python 3.
+ - Some exception strings have changed.
+ - `MethodCallMessage` and `SignalMessage` objects have better reprs now.
+
+What do you need to do to port that to Python 3? Here are the user visible
+changes you should be aware of, relative to Python 2. Python 3.2 is the
+minimal required version:
+
+ - `ByteArray` objects must be initialized with bytes objects, not unicodes.
+ Use `b''` literals in the constructor. This also works in Python 2, where
+ bytes objects are aliases for 8-bit strings.
+ - `Byte` objects must be initialized with either a length-1 bytes object
+ (again, use `b''` literals to be compatible with either Python 2 or 3)
+ or an integer.
+ - byte signatures (i.e. `y` type codes) must be passed either a length-1
+ bytes object or an integer. unicodes (str in Python 3) are not allowed.
+ - `ByteArray` is now a subclass of `bytes`, where in Python 2 it is a
+ subclass of `str`.
+ - `dbus.UTF8String` is gone, use `dbus.String`. Also `utf8_string` arguments
+ are no longer allowed.
+ - All longs are now ints, since Python 3 has only a single int type. This
+ also means that the class hierarchy for the dbus numeric types has changed
+ (all derive from int in Python 3).
+
+
+Bytes vs. Strings
+=================
+
+All strings in dbus are defined as UTF-8:
+
+http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#message-protocol-signatures
+
+However, the dbus C API accepts `char*` which must be UTF-8 strings NUL
+terminated and no other NUL bytes.
+
+This page describes the mapping between Python types and dbus types:
+
+ http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-python/doc/tutorial.html#basic-types
+
+Notice that it maps dbus `string` (`'s'`) to `dbus.String` (unicode) or
+`dbus.UTF8String` (str). Also notice that there is no direct dbus equivalent
+of Python's bytes type (although dbus does have byte arrays), so I am mapping
+dbus strings to unicodes in all cases, and getting rid of `dbus.UTF8String` in
+Python 3. I've also added a `dbus._BytesBase` type which is unused in Python
+2, but which forms the base class for `dbus.ByteArray` in Python 3. This is
+an implementation detail and not part of the public API.
+
+In Python 3, object paths (`'o'` or `dbus.ObjectPath`), signatures (`'g'` or
+`dbus.Signature`), bus names, interfaces, and methods are all strings. A
+previous aborted effort was made to use bytes for these, which at first blush
+may makes some sense, but on deeper consideration does not. This approach
+also tended to impose too many changes on user code, and caused lots of
+difficult to track down problems.
+
+In Python 3, all such objects are subclasses of `str` (i.e. `unicode`).
+
+(As an example, dbus-python's callback dispatching pretty much assumes all
+these things are strings. When they are bytes, the fact that `'foo' != b'foo'`
+causes dispatch matching to fail in difficult to debug ways. Even bus names
+are not immune, since they do things like `bus_name[:1] == ':'` which fails in
+multiple ways when `bus_name` is a bytes. For sanity purposes, these are all
+unicode strings now, and we just eat the complexity at the C level.)
+
+I am using `#include <bytesobject.h>`, which exposes the PyBytes API to Python
+2.6 and 2.7, and I have converted all internal PyString calls to PyBytes
+calls. Where this is inappropriate, we'll use PyUnicode calls explicitly.
+E.g. all repr() implementations now return unicodes. Most of these changes
+shouldn't be noticed, even in existing Python 2 code.
+
+Generally, I've left the descriptions and docstrings saying "str" instead of
+"unicode" since there's no distinction in Python 3.
+
+APIs which previously returned PyStrings will usually return PyUnicodes, not
+PyBytes.
+
+
+Ints vs. Longs
+==============
+
+Python 3 only has PyLong types; PyInts are gone. For that reason, I've
+switched all PyInt calls to use PyLong in both Python 2 and Python 3. Python
+3.0 had a nice `<intobject.h>` header that aliased PyInt to PyLong, but that's
+gone as of Python 3.1, and the minimal required Python 3 version is 3.2.
+
+In the above page mapping basic types, you'll notice that the Python int type
+is mapped to 32-bit signed integers ('i') and the Python long type is mapped
+to 64-bit signed integers ('x'). Python 3 doesn't have this distinction, so
+ints map to 'i' even though ints can be larger in Python 3. Use the
+dbus-specific integer types if you must have more exact mappings.
+
+APIs which accepted ints in Python 2 will still do so, but they'll also now
+accept longs. These APIs obviously only accept longs in Python 3.
+
+Long literals in Python code are an interesting thing to have to port. Don't
+use them if you want your code to work in both Python versions.
+
+`dbus._IntBase` is removed in Python 3, you only have `dbus._LongBase`, which
+inherits from a Python 3 int (i.e. a PyLong). Again, this is an
+implementation detail that users should never care about.
+
+
+Macros
+======
+
+In types-internal.h, I define `PY3K` when `PY_MAJOR_VERSION` >= 3, so you'll
+see ifdefs on the former symbol within the C code.
+
+Python 3 really could use a PY_REFCNT() wrapper for ob_refcnt access.
+
+
+PyCapsule vs. PyCObject
+=======================
+
+`_dbus_bindings._C_API` is an attribute exposed to Python in the module. In
+Python 2, this is a PyCObject, but these do not exist in Python >= 3.2, so it
+is replaced with a PyCapsules for Python 3. However, since PyCapsules were
+only introduced in Python 2.7, and I want to support Python 2.6, PyCObjects
+are still used when this module is compiled for Python 2.
+
+
+Python level compatibility
+==========================
+
+`from dbus import _is_py3` gives you a flag to check if you must do something
+different in Python 3. In general I use this flag to support both versions in
+one set of sources, which seems better than trying to use 2to3. It's not part
+of the dbus-python public API, so you must not use it in third-party projects.
+
+
+Miscellaneous
+=============
+
+The PyDoc_STRVAR() documentation is probably out of date. Once the API
+choices have been green-lighted upstream, I'll make a pass through the code to
+update them. It might be tricky based on any differences between Python 2 and
+Python 3.
+
+There were a few places where I noticed what might be considered bugs,
+unchecked exception conditions, or possible reference count leaks. In these
+cases, I've just fixed what I can and hopefully haven't made the situation
+worse.
+
+`dbus_py_variant_level_get()` did not check possible error conditions, nor did
+their callers. When `dbus_py_variant_level_get()` encounters an error, it now
+returns -1, and callers check this.
+
+As much as possible, I've refrained from general code cleanups (e.g. 80
+columns), unless it just bugged me too much or I touched the code for reasons
+related to the port. I've also tried to stick to existing C code style,
+e.g. through the use of pervasive `Py_CLEAR()` calls, comparison against NULL
+usually with `!foo`, and such. As Bart Simpson might write on his classroom
+blackboard::
+
+ This is not a rewrite
+ This is not a rewrite
+ This is not a rewrite
+ This is not a rewrite
+ ...
+
+and so on. Well, mostly ;).
+
+I think I fixed a reference leak in `DBusPyServer_set_auth_mechanisms()`.
+`PySequence_Fast()` returns a new reference, which wasn't getting decref'd in
+any return path.
+
+ - Instantiation of metaclasses uses different, incompatible syntax in Python
+ 2 and 3. You have to use direct calling of the metaclass to work across
+ versions, i.e. `Interface = InterfaceType('Interface', (object,), {})`
+ - `iteritems()` and friends are gone. I dropped the "iter" prefixes.
+ - `xrange() is gone. I changed them to use `range()`.
+ - `isSequenceType()` is gone in Python 3, so I use a different idiom there.
+ - `__next__()` vs. `next()`
+ - `PyUnicode_FromFormat()` `%V` flag is a clever hack!
+ - `sys.version_info` is a tuple in Python 2.6, not a namedtuple. i.e. there
+ is no `sys.version_info.major`
+ - `PyArg_Parse()`: No 'y' code in Python 2; in Python 3, no equivalent of 'z'
+ for bytes objects.
+
+
+Open issues
+===========
+
+Here are a few things that still need to be done, or for which there may be
+open questions::
+
+ - Update all C extension docstrings for accuracy.