future 0.8.1

Clean single-source support for Python 3 and 2

The future module helps run Python 3.x-compatible code under Python 2 with minimal code cruft.

The goal is to allow you to write clean, modern, forward-compatible Python 3 code today and to run it with minimal effort under Python 2 alongside a Python 2 stack that may contain dependencies that have not yet been ported to Python 3.

It is designed to be used as follows:

from __future__ import (absolute_import, division,
                        print_function, unicode_literals)
from future import standard_library
from future.builtins import *

followed by clean Python 3 code (with a few restrictions) that can run unchanged on Python 2.7.

On Python 3, the import lines have zero effect (and zero namespace pollution).

On Python 2, from future import standard_library installs import hooks to allow renamed and moved standard library modules to be imported from their new Py3 locations.

On Python 2, the from future.builtins import * line shadows builtins to provide their Python 3 semantics. (See below for the explicit import form.)

Documentation

See: http://python-future.org

Also see the docstrings for each of these modules for more info:

- future.standard_library
- future.builtins
- future.utils

Automatic conversion

An experimental script called futurize is included to aid in making either Python 2 code or Python 3 code compatible with both platforms using the future module. See http://python-future.org/automatic_conversion.html.

Credits

Author:

Ed Schofield

Sponsor:

Python Charmers Pty Ltd, Australia, and Python Charmers Pte Ltd, Singapore. http://pythoncharmers.com

Others:

• The backported super() and range() functions are derived from Ryan Kelly’s magicsuper module and Dan Crosta’s xrange module.

• The futurize script uses lib2to3, lib3to2, and parts of Armin Ronacher’s python-modernize code.

• The python_2_unicode_compatible decorator is from Django. The implements_iterator and with_metaclass decorators are from Jinja2.

• future incorporates the six module by Benjamin Peterson as future.utils.six.

• Documentation is generated using sphinx using an adaptation of Armin Ronacher’s stylesheets from Jinja2.

Licensing

Copyright 2013 Python Charmers Pty Ltd, Australia. The software is distributed under an MIT licence. See LICENSE.txt.