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Overview

future is the missing compatibility layer between Python 3 and Python 2. It allows you to maintain a single, clean Python 3.x-compatible codebase with minimal cruft and run it easily on Python 2 without further modification.

Features

  • provides backports and remappings for 15 builtins with different semantics on Py3 versus Py2
  • provides backports and remappings from the Py3 standard library
  • 300+ unit tests
  • 2to3-based futurize script for automatic conversion from either Py2 or Py3 to a clean single-source codebase compatible with both Py3 and Py2
  • a consistent set of utility functions and decorators selected from Py2/3 compatibility interfaces from projects like six, IPython, Jinja2, Django, and Pandas.

Code examples

future is designed to be imported at the top of each Python module together with Python's built-in __future__ module like this:

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

followed by standard Python 3 code. The imports have no effect on Python 3 but allow the code to run mostly unchanged on Python 3 and Python 2.6/2.7.

For example, after these imports, this code runs identically on Python 3 and 2.6/2.7:

# Support for renamed standard library modules via import hooks
from http.client import HttpConnection
from itertools import filterfalse
import html.parser
import queue

# Backported Py3 bytes object
b = bytes(b'ABCD')
assert list(b) == [65, 66, 67, 68]
assert repr(b) == "b'ABCD'"
# These raise TypeErrors:
# b + u'EFGH'
# bytes(b',').join([u'Fred', u'Bill'])

# Backported Py3 str object
s = str(u'ABCD')
assert s != b'ABCD'
assert isinstance(s.encode('utf-8'), bytes)
assert isinstance(b.decode('utf-8'), str)
assert repr(s) == 'ABCD'      # consistent repr with Py3 (no u prefix)
# These raise TypeErrors:
# b'B' in s
# s.find(b'A')

# Extra arguments for the open() function
f = open('japanese.txt', encoding='utf-8', errors='replace')

# New iterable range object with slicing support
for i in range(10**15)[:10]:
    pass

# Other iterators: map, zip, filter
my_iter = zip(range(3), ['a', 'b', 'c'])
assert my_iter != list(my_iter)

# New simpler super() function:
class VerboseList(list):
    def append(self, item):
        print('Adding an item')
        super().append(item)

# The round() function behaves as it does in Python 3, using
# "Banker's Rounding" to the nearest even last digit:
assert round(0.1250, 2) == 0.12

# input() replaces Py2's raw_input() (with no eval()):
name = input('What is your name? ')
print('Hello ' + name)

# Compatible output from isinstance() across Py2/3:
assert isinstance(2**63, int)        # long integers
assert isinstance(u'blah', str)
assert isinstance('blah', str)       # with unicode_literals in effect

Next steps

Check out the :ref:`quickstart-guide`.