[Python-Dev] @deprecated (was: Useful thread project for 2.5?) (original) (raw)

Stephan Richter stephan.richter at tufts.edu
Wed Mar 9 15:07:06 CET 2005

On Tuesday 08 March 2005 18:05, Jim Jewett wrote:

... compiler recognition of "@deprecated" in doc comments.

Michael Chermside suggested: ===== code ===== import warnings def deprecated(func): """This is a decorator which can be used to mark functions as deprecated. It will result in a warning being emmitted when the function is used.""" def newFunc(*args, **kwargs): warnings.warn("Call to deprecated function.") return func(*args, **kwargs) return newFunc ===== example

This is a recipe for disaster. Creating a new function from the old can have unwanted side effects, since you effectively change the object. For example, if someone is monkey patching this function, then the deprecation warning gets lost.

In Zope 3's deprecation package, we have decided to put a special deprecation proxy around the module (instead of the function) and register a list of attribute names (note that it does not matter whether its a class, function or other type of object) that are deprecated. The advantage is that you get a deprecation warning just by looking up the object.

See: http://svn.zope.org/Zope3/trunk/src/zope/deprecation/

Disclaimer: This code is a bit experimental and might not be the best solution. It is currently used in the trunk and does a pretty good job, though.

Regards, Stephan

Stephan Richter CBU Physics & Chemistry (B.S.) / Tufts Physics (Ph.D. student) Web2k - Web Software Design, Development and Training

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