docs/releases/1.6.txt
=========================
Django 1.6 release notes
=========================
.. note::
Dedicated to Malcolm Tredinnick
On March 17, 2013, the Django project and the free software community lost
a very dear friend and developer.
Malcolm was a long-time contributor to Django, a model community member, a
brilliant mind, and a friend. His contributions to Django — and to many other
open source projects — are nearly impossible to enumerate. Many on the core
Django team had their first patches reviewed by him; his mentorship enriched
us. His consideration, patience, and dedication will always be an inspiration
to us.
This release of Django is for Malcolm.
-- The Django Developers
*November 6, 2013*
Welcome to Django 1.6!
These release notes cover the :ref:`new features <whats-new-1.6>`, as well as
some :ref:`backwards incompatible changes <backwards-incompatible-1.6>` you'll
want to be aware of when upgrading from Django 1.5 or older versions. We've
also dropped some features, which are detailed in :ref:`our deprecation plan
<deprecation-removed-in-1.6>`, and we've :ref:`begun the deprecation process
for some features <deprecated-features-1.6>`.
Python compatibility
====================
Django 1.6, like Django 1.5, requires Python 2.6.5 or above. Python 3 is also
officially supported. We **highly recommend** the latest minor release for each
supported Python series (2.6.X, 2.7.X, 3.2.X, and 3.3.X).
Django 1.6 will be the final release series to support Python 2.6; beginning
with Django 1.7, the minimum supported Python version will be 2.7.
Python 3.4 is not supported, but support will be added in Django 1.7.
.. _whats-new-1.6:
What's new in Django 1.6
========================
Simplified default project and app templates
--------------------------------------------
The default templates used by :djadmin:`startproject` and :djadmin:`startapp`
have been simplified and modernized. The :doc:`admin
</ref/contrib/admin/index>` is now enabled by default in new projects; the
:doc:`sites </ref/contrib/sites>` framework no longer is. :ref:`clickjacking
prevention <clickjacking-prevention>` is now on and the database defaults to
SQLite.
If the default templates don't suit your tastes, you can use :ref:`custom
project and app templates <custom-app-and-project-templates>`.
Improved transaction management
-------------------------------
Django's transaction management was overhauled. Database-level autocommit is
now turned on by default. This makes transaction handling more explicit and
should improve performance. The existing APIs were deprecated, and new APIs
were introduced, as described in the :doc:`transaction management docs
</topics/db/transactions>`.
Persistent database connections
-------------------------------
Django now supports reusing the same database connection for several requests.
This avoids the overhead of reestablishing a connection at the beginning of
each request. For backwards compatibility, this feature is disabled by
default. See :ref:`persistent-database-connections` for details.
Discovery of tests in any test module
-------------------------------------
Django 1.6 ships with a new test runner that allows more flexibility in the
location of tests. The previous runner
(``django.test.simple.DjangoTestSuiteRunner``) found tests only in the
``models.py`` and ``tests.py`` modules of a Python package in
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`.
The new runner (``django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner``) uses the test discovery
features built into ``unittest2`` (the version of ``unittest`` in the
Python 2.7+ standard library, and bundled with Django). With test discovery,
tests can be located in any module whose name matches the pattern ``test*.py``.
In addition, the test labels provided to ``./manage.py test`` to nominate
specific tests to run must now be full Python dotted paths (or directory
paths), rather than ``applabel.TestCase.test_method_name`` pseudo-paths. This
allows running tests located anywhere in your codebase, rather than only in
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`. For more details, see :doc:`/topics/testing/index`.
This change is backwards-incompatible; see the :ref:`backwards-incompatibility
notes<new-test-runner>`.
Time zone aware aggregation
---------------------------
The support for :doc:`time zones </topics/i18n/timezones>` introduced in
Django 1.4 didn't work well with :meth:`QuerySet.dates()
<django.db.models.query.QuerySet.dates>`: aggregation was always performed in
UTC. This limitation was lifted in Django 1.6. Use :meth:`QuerySet.datetimes()
<django.db.models.query.QuerySet.datetimes>` to perform time zone aware
aggregation on a :class:`~django.db.models.DateTimeField`.
Support for savepoints in SQLite
--------------------------------
Django 1.6 adds support for savepoints in SQLite, with some :ref:`limitations
<savepoints-in-sqlite>`.
``BinaryField`` model field
---------------------------
A new :class:`django.db.models.BinaryField` model field allows storage of raw
binary data in the database.
GeoDjango form widgets
----------------------
GeoDjango now provides :doc:`form fields and widgets </ref/contrib/gis/forms-api>`
for its geo-specialized fields. They are OpenLayers-based by default, but they
can be customized to use any other JS framework.
``check`` management command added for verifying compatibility
--------------------------------------------------------------
A :djadmin:`check` management command was added, enabling you to verify if your
current configuration (currently oriented at settings) is compatible with the
current version of Django.
:meth:`Model.save() <django.db.models.Model.save()>` algorithm changed
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The :meth:`Model.save() <django.db.models.Model.save()>` method now
tries to directly ``UPDATE`` the database if the instance has a primary
key value. Previously ``SELECT`` was performed to determine if ``UPDATE``
or ``INSERT`` were needed. The new algorithm needs only one query for
updating an existing row while the old algorithm needed two. See
:meth:`Model.save() <django.db.models.Model.save()>` for more details.
In some rare cases the database doesn't report that a matching row was
found when doing an ``UPDATE``. An example is the PostgreSQL ``ON UPDATE``
trigger which returns ``NULL``. In such cases it is possible to set
:attr:`django.db.models.Options.select_on_save` flag to force saving to
use the old algorithm.
Minor features
--------------
* Authentication backends can raise ``PermissionDenied`` to immediately fail
the authentication chain.
* The ``HttpOnly`` flag can be set on the CSRF cookie with
:setting:`CSRF_COOKIE_HTTPONLY`.
* The ``assertQuerysetEqual()`` now checks
for undefined order and raises :exc:`ValueError` if undefined
order is spotted. The order is seen as undefined if the given ``QuerySet``
isn't ordered and there is more than one ordered value to compare against.
* Added :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.earliest` for symmetry with
:meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.latest`.
* In addition to :lookup:`year`, :lookup:`month` and :lookup:`day`, the ORM
now supports :lookup:`hour`, :lookup:`minute` and :lookup:`second` lookups.
* Django now wraps all :pep:`249` exceptions.
* The default widgets for :class:`~django.forms.EmailField`,
:class:`~django.forms.URLField`, :class:`~django.forms.IntegerField`,
:class:`~django.forms.FloatField` and :class:`~django.forms.DecimalField` use
the new type attributes available in HTML5 (``type='email'``, ``type='url'``,
``type='number'``). Note that due to erratic support of the ``number``
input type with localized numbers in current browsers, Django only uses it
when numeric fields are not localized.
* The ``number`` argument for :ref:`lazy plural translations
<lazy-plural-translations>` can be provided at translation time rather than
at definition time.
* For custom management commands: Verification of the presence of valid
settings in commands that ask for it by using the
``BaseCommand.can_import_settings`` internal
option is now performed independently from handling of the locale that
should be active during the execution of the command. The latter can now be
influenced by the new
``BaseCommand.leave_locale_alone`` internal
option. See :ref:`management-commands-and-locales` for more details.
* The :attr:`~django.views.generic.edit.DeletionMixin.success_url` of
:class:`~django.views.generic.edit.DeletionMixin` is now interpolated with
its ``object``’s ``__dict__``.
* :class:`~django.http.HttpResponseRedirect` and
:class:`~django.http.HttpResponsePermanentRedirect` now provide an ``url``
attribute (equivalent to the URL the response will redirect to).
* The ``MemcachedCache`` cache backend now uses the latest :mod:`pickle`
protocol available.
* Added :class:`~django.contrib.messages.views.SuccessMessageMixin` which
provides a ``success_message`` attribute for
:class:`~django.views.generic.edit.FormView` based classes.
* Added the :attr:`django.db.models.ForeignKey.db_constraint` and
:attr:`django.db.models.ManyToManyField.db_constraint` options.
* The jQuery library embedded in the admin has been upgraded to version 1.9.1.
* Syndication feeds (:mod:`django.contrib.syndication`) can now pass extra
context through to feed templates using a new
:meth:`Feed.get_context_data()
<django.contrib.syndication.Feed.get_context_data>` callback.
* The admin list columns have a ``column-<field_name>`` class in the HTML
so the columns header can be styled with CSS, e.g. to set a column width.
* The :ref:`isolation level<database-isolation-level>` can be customized under
PostgreSQL.
* The :ttag:`blocktrans` template tag now respects
``TEMPLATE_STRING_IF_INVALID`` for variables not present in the
context, just like other template constructs.
* ``SimpleLazyObject``\s will now present more helpful representations in shell
debugging situations.
* Generic :class:`~django.contrib.gis.db.models.GeometryField` is now editable
with the OpenLayers widget in the admin.
* The documentation contains a :doc:`deployment checklist
</howto/deployment/checklist>`.
* The :djadmin:`diffsettings` command gained a ``--all`` option.
* ``django.forms.fields.Field.__init__`` now calls ``super()``, allowing
field mixins to implement ``__init__()`` methods that will reliably be
called.
* The ``validate_max`` parameter was added to ``BaseFormSet`` and
:func:`~django.forms.formsets.formset_factory`, and ``ModelForm`` and inline
versions of the same. The behavior of validation for formsets with
``max_num`` was clarified. The previously undocumented behavior that
hardened formsets against memory exhaustion attacks was documented,
and the undocumented limit of the higher of 1000 or ``max_num`` forms
was changed so it is always 1000 more than ``max_num``.
* Added ``BCryptSHA256PasswordHasher`` to resolve the password truncation issue
with bcrypt.
* :pypi:`Pillow` is now the preferred image manipulation library to use with
Django. :pypi:`PIL` is pending deprecation (support to be removed in Django
1.8). To upgrade, you should **first** uninstall PIL, **then** install
Pillow.
* :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm` accepts several new ``Meta``
options.
* Fields included in the ``localized_fields`` list will be localized
(by setting ``localize`` on the form field).
* The ``labels``, ``help_texts`` and ``error_messages`` options may be used
to customize the default fields, see
:ref:`modelforms-overriding-default-fields` for details.
* The ``choices`` argument to model fields now accepts an iterable of iterables
instead of requiring an iterable of lists or tuples.
* The reason phrase can be customized in HTTP responses using
:attr:`~django.http.HttpResponse.reason_phrase`.
* When giving the URL of the next page for
``django.contrib.auth.views.logout()``,
``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset()``,
``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm()``,
and ``django.contrib.auth.views.password_change()``, you can now pass
URL names and they will be resolved.
* The new :option:`dumpdata --pks` option specifies the primary keys of objects
to dump. This option can only be used with one model.
* Added ``QuerySet`` methods :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.first`
and :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.last` which are convenience
methods returning the first or last object matching the filters. Returns
``None`` if there are no objects matching.
* :class:`~django.views.generic.base.View` and
:class:`~django.views.generic.base.RedirectView` now support HTTP ``PATCH``
method.
* ``GenericForeignKey`` now takes an optional ``for_concrete_model`` argument,
which when set to ``False`` allows the field to reference proxy models. The
default is ``True`` to retain the old behavior.
* The :class:`~django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware` now stores the active
language in session if it is not present there. This prevents loss of
language settings after session flush, e.g. logout.
* :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.SuspiciousOperation` has been differentiated
into a number of subclasses, and each will log to a matching named logger
under the ``django.security`` logging hierarchy. Along with this change,
a ``handler400`` mechanism and default view are used whenever
a ``SuspiciousOperation`` reaches the WSGI handler to return an
``HttpResponseBadRequest``.
* The :exc:`~django.db.models.Model.DoesNotExist` exception now includes a
message indicating the name of the attribute used for the lookup.
* The :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.get_or_create` method no longer
requires at least one keyword argument.
* The :class:`~django.test.SimpleTestCase` class includes a new assertion
helper for testing formset errors:
``django.test.SimpleTestCase.assertFormsetError()``.
* The list of related fields added to a
:class:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet` by
:meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.select_related` can be cleared using
``select_related(None)``.
* The :meth:`~django.contrib.admin.InlineModelAdmin.get_extra` and
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.InlineModelAdmin.get_max_num` methods on
:class:`~django.contrib.admin.InlineModelAdmin` may be overridden to
customize the extra and maximum number of inline forms.
* Formsets now have a
:meth:`~django.forms.formsets.BaseFormSet.total_error_count` method.
* :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm` fields can now override error messages
defined in model fields by using the
:attr:`~django.forms.Field.error_messages` argument of a ``Field``’s
constructor. To take advantage of this new feature with your custom fields,
:ref:`see the updated recommendation <raising-validation-error>` for raising
a ``ValidationError``.
* :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin` now preserves filters on the list view
after creating, editing or deleting an object. It's possible to restore the previous
behavior of clearing filters by setting the
:attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.preserve_filters` attribute to ``False``.
* Added
:meth:`FormMixin.get_prefix<django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.get_prefix>`
(which returns
:attr:`FormMixin.prefix<django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.prefix>` by
default) to allow customizing the :attr:`~django.forms.Form.prefix` of the
form.
* Raw queries (``Manager.raw()`` or ``cursor.execute()``) can now use the
"pyformat" parameter style, where placeholders in the query are given as
``'%(name)s'`` and the parameters are passed as a dictionary rather than
a list (except on SQLite). This has long been possible (but not officially
supported) on MySQL and PostgreSQL, and is now also available on Oracle.
* The default iteration count for the PBKDF2 password hasher has been
increased by 20%. This backwards compatible change will not affect
existing passwords or users who have subclassed
``django.contrib.auth.hashers.PBKDF2PasswordHasher`` to change the
default value. Passwords :ref:`will be upgraded <password-upgrades>` to use
the new iteration count as necessary.
.. _backwards-incompatible-1.6:
Backwards incompatible changes in 1.6
=====================================
.. warning::
In addition to the changes outlined in this section, be sure to review the
:ref:`deprecation plan <deprecation-removed-in-1.6>` for any features that
have been removed. If you haven't updated your code within the
deprecation timeline for a given feature, its removal may appear as a
backwards incompatible change.
New transaction management model
--------------------------------
Behavior changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Database-level autocommit is enabled by default in Django 1.6. While this
doesn't change the general spirit of Django's transaction management, there
are a few backwards-incompatibilities.
Savepoints and ``assertNumQueries``
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The changes in transaction management may result in additional statements to
create, release or rollback savepoints. This is more likely to happen with
SQLite, since it didn't support savepoints until this release.
If tests using :meth:`~django.test.TransactionTestCase.assertNumQueries` fail
because of a higher number of queries than expected, check that the extra
queries are related to savepoints, and adjust the expected number of queries
accordingly.
Autocommit option for PostgreSQL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In previous versions, database-level autocommit was only an option for
PostgreSQL, and it was disabled by default. This option is now ignored and can
be removed.
.. _new-test-runner:
New test runner
---------------
In order to maintain greater consistency with Python's ``unittest`` module, the
new test runner (``django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner``) does not automatically
support some types of tests that were supported by the previous runner:
* Tests in ``models.py`` and ``tests/__init__.py`` files will no longer be
found and run. Move them to a file whose name begins with ``test``.
* Doctests will no longer be automatically discovered. To integrate doctests in
your test suite, follow the :ref:`recommendations in the Python documentation
<doctest-unittest-api>`.
Django bundles a modified version of the :mod:`doctest` module from the Python
standard library (in ``django.test._doctest``) and includes some additional
doctest utilities. These utilities are deprecated and will be removed in Django
1.8; doctest suites should be updated to work with the standard library's
doctest module (or converted to ``unittest``-compatible tests).
If you wish to delay updates to your test suite, you can set your
:setting:`TEST_RUNNER` setting to ``django.test.simple.DjangoTestSuiteRunner``
to fully restore the old test behavior. ``DjangoTestSuiteRunner`` is deprecated
but will not be removed from Django until version 1.8.
Removal of ``django.contrib.gis.tests.GeoDjangoTestSuiteRunner`` GeoDjango custom test runner
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is for developers working on the GeoDjango application itself and related
to the item above about changes in the test runners:
The ``django.contrib.gis.tests.GeoDjangoTestSuiteRunner`` test runner has been
removed and the standalone GeoDjango tests execution setup it implemented isn't
supported anymore. To run the GeoDjango tests simply use the new
``DiscoverRunner`` and specify the ``django.contrib.gis`` app.
Custom user models in tests
---------------------------
The introduction of the new test runner has also slightly changed the way that
test models are imported. As a result, any test that overrides ``AUTH_USER_MODEL``
to test behavior with one of Django's test user models (
``django.contrib.auth.tests.custom_user.CustomUser`` and
``django.contrib.auth.tests.custom_user.ExtensionUser``) must now
explicitly import the User model in your test module::
from django.contrib.auth.tests.custom_user import CustomUser
@override_settings(AUTH_USER_MODEL="auth.CustomUser")
class CustomUserFeatureTests(TestCase):
def test_something(self):
# Test code here
...
This import forces the custom user model to be registered. Without this import,
the test will be unable to swap in the custom user model, and you will get an
error reporting:
.. code-block:: pytb
ImproperlyConfigured: AUTH_USER_MODEL refers to model 'auth.CustomUser' that has not been installed
Time zone-aware ``day``, ``month``, and ``week_day`` lookups
------------------------------------------------------------
Django 1.6 introduces time zone support for :lookup:`day`, :lookup:`month`,
and :lookup:`week_day` lookups when :setting:`USE_TZ` is ``True``. These
lookups were previously performed in UTC regardless of the current time zone.
This requires :ref:`time zone definitions in the database
<database-time-zone-definitions>`. If you're using SQLite, you must install
pytz_. If you're using MySQL, you must install pytz_ and load the time zone
tables with `mysql_tzinfo_to_sql`_.
.. _pytz: http://pytz.sourceforge.net/
.. _mysql_tzinfo_to_sql: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/en/mysql-tzinfo-to-sql.html
Addition of ``QuerySet.datetimes()``
------------------------------------
When the :doc:`time zone support </topics/i18n/timezones>` added in Django 1.4
was active, :meth:`QuerySet.dates() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.dates>`
lookups returned unexpected results, because the aggregation was performed in
UTC. To fix this, Django 1.6 introduces a new API, :meth:`QuerySet.datetimes()
<django.db.models.query.QuerySet.datetimes>`. This requires a few changes in
your code.
``QuerySet.dates()`` returns ``date`` objects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:meth:`QuerySet.dates() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.dates>` now returns a
list of :class:`~datetime.date`. It used to return a list of
:class:`~datetime.datetime`.
:meth:`QuerySet.datetimes() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.datetimes>`
returns a list of :class:`~datetime.datetime`.
``QuerySet.dates()`` no longer usable on ``DateTimeField``
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:meth:`QuerySet.dates() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.dates>` raises an
error if it's used on :class:`~django.db.models.DateTimeField` when time
zone support is active. Use :meth:`QuerySet.datetimes()
<django.db.models.query.QuerySet.datetimes>` instead.
``date_hierarchy`` requires time zone definitions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.date_hierarchy` feature of the
admin now relies on :meth:`QuerySet.datetimes()
<django.db.models.query.QuerySet.datetimes>` when it's used on a
:class:`~django.db.models.DateTimeField`.
This requires time zone definitions in the database when :setting:`USE_TZ` is
``True``. :ref:`Learn more <database-time-zone-definitions>`.
``date_list`` in generic views requires time zone definitions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the same reason, accessing ``date_list`` in the context of a date-based
generic view requires time zone definitions in the database when the view is
based on a :class:`~django.db.models.DateTimeField` and :setting:`USE_TZ` is
``True``. :ref:`Learn more <database-time-zone-definitions>`.
New lookups may clash with model fields
---------------------------------------
Django 1.6 introduces ``hour``, ``minute``, and ``second`` lookups on
:class:`~django.db.models.DateTimeField`. If you had model fields called
``hour``, ``minute``, or ``second``, the new lookups will clash with you field
names. Append an explicit :lookup:`exact` lookup if this is an issue.
``BooleanField`` no longer defaults to ``False``
------------------------------------------------
When a :class:`~django.db.models.BooleanField` doesn't have an explicit
:attr:`~django.db.models.Field.default`, the implicit default value is
``None``. In previous version of Django, it was ``False``, but that didn't
represent accurately the lack of a value.
Code that relies on the default value being ``False`` may raise an exception
when saving new model instances to the database, because ``None`` isn't an
acceptable value for a :class:`~django.db.models.BooleanField`. You should
either specify ``default=False`` in the field definition, or ensure the field
is set to ``True`` or ``False`` before saving the object.
Translations and comments in templates
--------------------------------------
Extraction of translations after comments
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Extraction of translatable literals from templates with the
:djadmin:`makemessages` command now correctly detects i18n constructs when
they are located after a ``{#`` / ``#}``-type comment on the same line. E.g.:
.. code-block:: html+django
{# A comment #}{% trans "This literal was incorrectly ignored. Not anymore" %}
Location of translator comments
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:ref:`translator-comments-in-templates` specified using ``{#`` / ``#}`` need to
be at the end of a line. If they are not, the comments are ignored and
:djadmin:`makemessages` will generate a warning. For example:
.. code-block:: html+django
{# Translators: This is ignored #}{% trans "Translate me" %}
{{ title }}{# Translators: Extracted and associated with 'Welcome' below #}
<h1>{% trans "Welcome" %}</h1>
Quoting in ``reverse()``
------------------------
When reversing URLs, Django didn't apply ``django.utils.http.urlquote``
to arguments before interpolating them in URL patterns. This bug is fixed in
Django 1.6. If you worked around this bug by applying URL quoting before
passing arguments to ``reverse()``, this may result in double-quoting. If this
happens, simply remove the URL quoting from your code. You will also have to
replace special characters in URLs used in
:func:`~django.test.SimpleTestCase.assertRedirects` with their encoded
versions.
Storage of IP addresses in the comments app
-------------------------------------------
The comments app now uses a
``GenericIPAddressField`` for storing commenters' IP addresses, to support
comments submitted from IPv6 addresses. Until now, it stored them in an
``IPAddressField``, which is only meant to support IPv4. When saving a comment
made from an IPv6 address, the address would be silently truncated on MySQL
databases, and raise an exception on Oracle. You will need to change the
column type in your database to benefit from this change.
For MySQL, execute this query on your project's database:
.. code-block:: sql
ALTER TABLE django_comments MODIFY ip_address VARCHAR(39);
For Oracle, execute this query:
.. code-block:: sql
ALTER TABLE DJANGO_COMMENTS MODIFY (ip_address VARCHAR2(39));
If you do not apply this change, the behavior is unchanged: on MySQL, IPv6
addresses are silently truncated; on Oracle, an exception is generated. No
database change is needed for SQLite or PostgreSQL databases.
Percent literals in ``cursor.execute`` queries
----------------------------------------------
When you are running raw SQL queries through the
:ref:`cursor.execute <executing-custom-sql>` method, the rule about doubling
percent literals (``%``) inside the query has been unified. Past behavior
depended on the database backend. Now, across all backends, you only need to
double literal percent characters if you are also providing replacement
parameters. For example::
# No parameters, no percent doubling
cursor.execute("SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = '30%'")
# Parameters passed, non-placeholders have to be doubled
cursor.execute("SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = '30%%' and id = %s", [self.id])
``SQLite`` users need to check and update such queries.
.. _m2m-help_text:
Help text of model form fields for ManyToManyField fields
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML rendering of model form fields corresponding to
:class:`~django.db.models.ManyToManyField` model fields used to get the
hard-coded sentence:
*Hold down "Control", or "Command" on a Mac, to select more than one.*
(or its translation to the active locale) imposed as the help legend shown along
them if neither :attr:`model <django.db.models.Field.help_text>` nor :attr:`form
<django.forms.Field.help_text>` ``help_text`` attributes were specified by the
user (or this string was appended to any ``help_text`` that was provided).
Since this happened at the model layer, there was no way to prevent the text
from appearing in cases where it wasn't applicable such as form fields that
implement user interactions that don't involve a keyboard and/or a mouse.
Starting with Django 1.6, as an ad-hoc temporary backward-compatibility
provision, the logic to add the "Hold down..." sentence has been moved to the
model form field layer and modified to add the text only when the associated
widget is :class:`~django.forms.SelectMultiple` or selected subclasses.
The change can affect you in a backward incompatible way if you employ custom
model form fields and/or widgets for ``ManyToManyField`` model fields whose UIs
do rely on the automatic provision of the mentioned hard-coded sentence. These
form field implementations need to adapt to the new scenario by providing their
own handling of the ``help_text`` attribute.
Applications that use Django :doc:`model form </topics/forms/modelforms>`
facilities together with Django built-in form :doc:`fields </ref/forms/fields>`
and :doc:`widgets </ref/forms/widgets>` aren't affected but need to be aware of
what's described in :ref:`m2m-help_text-deprecation` below.
QuerySet iteration
------------------
The ``QuerySet`` iteration was changed to immediately convert all fetched
rows to ``Model`` objects. In Django 1.5 and earlier the fetched rows were
converted to ``Model`` objects in chunks of 100.
Existing code will work, but the amount of rows converted to objects
might change in certain use cases. Such usages include partially looping
over a queryset or any usage which ends up doing ``__bool__`` or
``__contains__``.
Notably most database backends did fetch all the rows in one go already in
1.5.
It is still possible to convert the fetched rows to ``Model`` objects
lazily by using the :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.iterator()`
method.
:meth:`BoundField.label_tag<django.forms.BoundField.label_tag>` now includes the form's :attr:`~django.forms.Form.label_suffix`
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is consistent with how methods like
:meth:`Form.as_p<django.forms.Form.as_p>` and
:meth:`Form.as_ul<django.forms.Form.as_ul>` render labels.
If you manually render ``label_tag`` in your templates:
.. code-block:: html+django
{{ form.my_field.label_tag }}: {{ form.my_field }}
you'll want to remove the colon (or whatever other separator you may be
using) to avoid duplicating it when upgrading to Django 1.6. The following
template in Django 1.6 will render identically to the above template in Django
1.5, except that the colon will appear inside the ``<label>`` element.
.. code-block:: html+django
{{ form.my_field.label_tag }} {{ form.my_field }}
will render something like:
.. code-block:: html
<label for="id_my_field">My Field:</label> <input id="id_my_field" type="text" name="my_field" />
If you want to keep the current behavior of rendering ``label_tag`` without
the ``label_suffix``, instantiate the form ``label_suffix=''``. You can also
customize the ``label_suffix`` on a per-field basis using the new
``label_suffix`` parameter on :meth:`~django.forms.BoundField.label_tag`.
Admin views ``_changelist_filters`` GET parameter
-------------------------------------------------
To achieve preserving and restoring list view filters, admin views now
pass around the ``_changelist_filters`` GET parameter. It's important that you
account for that change if you have custom admin templates or if your tests
rely on the previous URLs. If you want to revert to the original behavior you
can set the
:attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.preserve_filters` attribute to ``False``.
``django.contrib.auth`` password reset uses base 64 encoding of ``User`` PK
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Past versions of Django used base 36 encoding of the ``User`` primary key in
the password reset views and URLs
(``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm()``). Base 36 encoding is
sufficient if the user primary key is an integer, however, with the
introduction of custom user models in Django 1.5, that assumption may no longer
be true.
``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm()`` has been modified to
take a ``uidb64`` parameter instead of ``uidb36``. If you are reversing this
view, for example in a custom ``password_reset_email.html`` template, be sure
to update your code.
A temporary shim for ``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm()``
that will allow password reset links generated prior to Django 1.6 to continue
to work has been added to provide backwards compatibility; this will be removed
in Django 1.7. Thus, as long as your site has been running Django 1.6 for more
than ``PASSWORD_RESET_TIMEOUT_DAYS``, this change will have no effect.
If not (for example, if you upgrade directly from Django 1.5 to Django 1.7),
then any password reset links generated before you upgrade to Django 1.7 or
later won't work after the upgrade.
In addition, if you have any custom password reset URLs, you will need to
update them by replacing ``uidb36`` with ``uidb64`` and the dash that follows
that pattern with a slash. Also add ``_\-`` to the list of characters that may
match the ``uidb64`` pattern.
For example::
url(
r"^reset/(?P<uidb36>[0-9A-Za-z]+)-(?P<token>.+)/$",
"django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm",
name="password_reset_confirm",
),
becomes::
url(
r"^reset/(?P<uidb64>[0-9A-Za-z_\-]+)/(?P<token>.+)/$",
"django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm",
name="password_reset_confirm",
),
You may also want to add the shim to support the old style reset links. Using
the example above, you would modify the existing url by replacing
``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm`` with
``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm_uidb36`` and also remove
the ``name`` argument so it doesn't conflict with the new url::
url(
r"^reset/(?P<uidb36>[0-9A-Za-z]+)-(?P<token>.+)/$",
"django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm_uidb36",
),
You can remove this URL pattern after your app has been deployed with Django
1.6 for ``PASSWORD_RESET_TIMEOUT_DAYS``.
Default session serialization switched to JSON
----------------------------------------------
Historically, :mod:`django.contrib.sessions` used :mod:`pickle` to serialize
session data before storing it in the backend. If you're using the :ref:`signed
cookie session backend<cookie-session-backend>` and :setting:`SECRET_KEY` is
known by an attacker (there isn't an inherent vulnerability in Django that
would cause it to leak), the attacker could insert a string into their session
which, when unpickled, executes arbitrary code on the server. The technique for
doing so is simple and easily available on the internet. Although the cookie
session storage signs the cookie-stored data to prevent tampering, a
:setting:`SECRET_KEY` leak immediately escalates to a remote code execution
vulnerability.
This attack can be mitigated by serializing session data using JSON rather
than :mod:`pickle`. To facilitate this, Django 1.5.3 introduced a new setting,
:setting:`SESSION_SERIALIZER`, to customize the session serialization format.
For backwards compatibility, this setting defaulted to using :mod:`pickle`
in Django 1.5.3, but we've changed the default to JSON in 1.6. If you upgrade
and switch from pickle to JSON, sessions created before the upgrade will be
lost. While JSON serialization does not support all Python objects like
:mod:`pickle` does, we highly recommend using JSON-serialized sessions. Be
aware of the following when checking your code to determine if JSON
serialization will work for your application:
* JSON requires string keys, so you will likely run into problems if you are
using non-string keys in ``request.session``.
* Setting session expiration by passing ``datetime`` values to
:meth:`~django.contrib.sessions.backends.base.SessionBase.set_expiry` will
not work as ``datetime`` values are not serializable in JSON. You can use
integer values instead.
See the :ref:`session_serialization` documentation for more details.
Object Relational Mapper changes
--------------------------------
Django 1.6 contains many changes to the ORM. These changes fall mostly in
three categories:
1. Bug fixes (e.g. proper join clauses for generic relations, query combining,
join promotion, and join trimming fixes)
2. Preparation for new features. For example the ORM is now internally ready
for multicolumn foreign keys.
3. General cleanup.
These changes can result in some compatibility problems. For example, some
queries will now generate different table aliases. This can affect
:meth:`QuerySet.extra() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.extra>`. In addition
some queries will now produce different results. An example is
:meth:`exclude(condition) <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.exclude>`
where the condition is a complex one (referencing multijoins inside
:class:`Q objects <django.db.models.Q>`). In many cases the affected
queries didn't produce correct results in Django 1.5 but do now.
Unfortunately there are also cases that produce different results, but
neither Django 1.5 nor 1.6 produce correct results.
Finally, there have been many changes to the ORM internal APIs.
Miscellaneous
-------------
* The ``django.db.models.query.EmptyQuerySet`` can't be instantiated any more -
it is only usable as a marker class for checking if
:meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.none` has been called:
``isinstance(qs.none(), EmptyQuerySet)``
* If your CSS/JavaScript code used to access HTML input widgets by type, you
should review it as ``type='text'`` widgets might be now output as
``type='email'``, ``type='url'`` or ``type='number'`` depending on their
corresponding field type.
* Form field's :attr:`~django.forms.Field.error_messages` that contain a
placeholder should now always use a named placeholder (``"Value '%(value)s' is
too big"`` instead of ``"Value '%s' is too big"``). See the corresponding
field documentation for details about the names of the placeholders. The
changes in 1.6 particularly affect :class:`~django.forms.DecimalField` and
:class:`~django.forms.ModelMultipleChoiceField`.
* Some :attr:`~django.forms.Field.error_messages` for
:class:`~django.forms.IntegerField`, :class:`~django.forms.EmailField`,
``IPAddressField``, :class:`~django.forms.GenericIPAddressField`, and
:class:`~django.forms.SlugField` have been suppressed because they
duplicated error messages already provided by validators tied to the fields.
* Due to a change in the form validation workflow,
:class:`~django.forms.TypedChoiceField` ``coerce`` method should always
return a value present in the ``choices`` field attribute. That limitation
should be lift again in Django 1.7.
* There have been changes in the way timeouts are handled in cache backends.
Explicitly passing in ``timeout=None`` no longer results in using the
default timeout. It will now set a non-expiring timeout. Passing 0 into the
memcache backend no longer uses the default timeout, and now will
set-and-expire-immediately the value.
* The ``django.contrib.flatpages`` app used to set custom HTTP headers for
debugging purposes. This functionality was not documented and made caching
ineffective so it has been removed, along with its generic implementation,
previously available in ``django.core.xheaders``.
* The ``XViewMiddleware`` has been moved from ``django.middleware.doc`` to
``django.contrib.admindocs.middleware`` because it is an implementation
detail of admindocs, proven not to be reusable in general.
* :class:`~django.db.models.GenericIPAddressField` will now only allow
``blank`` values if ``null`` values are also allowed. Creating a
``GenericIPAddressField`` where ``blank`` is allowed but ``null`` is not
will trigger a model validation error because ``blank`` values are always
stored as ``null``. Previously, storing a ``blank`` value in a field which
did not allow ``null`` would cause a database exception at runtime.
* If a ``NoReverseMatch`` exception is raised from a method when rendering a
template, it is not silenced. For example, ``{{ obj.view_href }}`` will
cause template rendering to fail if ``view_href()`` raises
``NoReverseMatch``. There is no change to the :ttag:`{% url %}<url>` tag, it
causes template rendering to fail like always when ``NoReverseMatch`` is
raised.
* :meth:`django.test.Client.logout` now calls
:meth:`django.contrib.auth.logout` which will send the
:func:`~django.contrib.auth.signals.user_logged_out` signal.
* :ref:`Authentication views <built-in-auth-views>` are now reversed by name,
not their locations in ``django.contrib.auth.views``. If you are using the
views without a ``name``, you should update your ``urlpatterns`` to use
``django.conf.urls.url()`` with the ``name`` parameter. For example::
(r"^reset/done/$", "django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_complete")
becomes::
url(
r"^reset/done/$",
"django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_complete",
name="password_reset_complete",
)
* :class:`~django.views.generic.base.RedirectView` now has a ``pattern_name``
attribute which allows it to choose the target by reversing the URL.
* In Django 1.4 and 1.5, a blank string was unintentionally not considered to
be a valid password. This meant
:meth:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.set_password()` would save a blank
password as an unusable password like
:meth:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.set_unusable_password()` does, and
thus :meth:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.check_password()` always
returned ``False`` for blank passwords. This has been corrected in this
release: blank passwords are now valid.
* The admin :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.changelist_view` previously
accepted a ``pop`` GET parameter to signify it was to be displayed in a popup.
This parameter has been renamed to ``_popup`` to be consistent with the rest
of the admin views. You should update your custom templates if they use the
previous parameter name.
* :meth:`~django.core.validators.validate_email` now accepts email addresses
with ``localhost`` as the domain.
* The new :option:`makemessages --keep-pot` option prevents deleting the
temporary ``.pot`` file generated before creating the ``.po`` file.
* The undocumented ``django.core.servers.basehttp.WSGIServerException`` has
been removed. Use ``socket.error`` provided by the standard library instead.
This change was also released in Django 1.5.5.
* The signature of :meth:`django.views.generic.base.RedirectView.get_redirect_url`
has changed and now accepts positional arguments as well (``*args, **kwargs``).
Any unnamed captured group will now be passed to ``get_redirect_url()``
which may result in a ``TypeError`` if you don't update the signature of your
custom method.
.. _deprecated-features-1.6:
Features deprecated in 1.6
==========================
Transaction management APIs
---------------------------
Transaction management was completely overhauled in Django 1.6, and the
current APIs are deprecated:
- ``django.middleware.transaction.TransactionMiddleware``
- ``django.db.transaction.autocommit``
- ``django.db.transaction.commit_on_success``
- ``django.db.transaction.commit_manually``
- the ``TRANSACTIONS_MANAGED`` setting
``django.contrib.comments``
---------------------------
Django's comment framework has been deprecated and is no longer supported. It
will be available in Django 1.6 and 1.7, and removed in Django 1.8. Most users
will be better served with a custom solution, or a hosted product like Disqus__.
The code formerly known as ``django.contrib.comments`` is `still available
in an external repository`__.
__ https://disqus.com/
__ https://github.com/django/django-contrib-comments
Support for PostgreSQL versions older than 8.4
----------------------------------------------
The end of upstream support periods was reached in December 2011 for
PostgreSQL 8.2 and in February 2013 for 8.3. As a consequence, Django 1.6 sets
8.4 as the minimum PostgreSQL version it officially supports.
You're strongly encouraged to use the most recent version of PostgreSQL
available, because of performance improvements and to take advantage of the
native streaming replication available in PostgreSQL 9.x.
Changes to :ttag:`cycle` and :ttag:`firstof`
--------------------------------------------
The template system generally escapes all variables to avoid XSS attacks.
However, due to an accident of history, the :ttag:`cycle` and :ttag:`firstof`
tags render their arguments as-is.
Django 1.6 starts a process to correct this inconsistency. The ``future``
template library provides alternate implementations of :ttag:`cycle` and
:ttag:`firstof` that autoescape their inputs. If you're using these tags,
you're encouraged to include the following line at the top of your templates to
enable the new behavior:
.. code-block:: html+django
{% load cycle from future %}
or:
.. code-block:: html+django
{% load firstof from future %}
The tags implementing the old behavior have been deprecated, and in Django
1.8, the old behavior will be replaced with the new behavior. To ensure
compatibility with future versions of Django, existing templates should be
modified to use the ``future`` versions.
If necessary, you can temporarily disable auto-escaping with
:func:`~django.utils.safestring.mark_safe` or :ttag:`{% autoescape off %}
<autoescape>`.
``CACHE_MIDDLEWARE_ANONYMOUS_ONLY`` setting
-------------------------------------------
``CacheMiddleware`` and ``UpdateCacheMiddleware`` used to provide a way to
cache requests only if they weren't made by a logged-in user. This mechanism
was largely ineffective because the middleware correctly takes into account the
``Vary: Cookie`` HTTP header, and this header is being set on a variety of
occasions, such as:
* accessing the session, or
* using CSRF protection, which is turned on by default, or
* using a client-side library which sets cookies, like `Google Analytics`__.
This makes the cache effectively work on a per-session basis regardless of the
``CACHE_MIDDLEWARE_ANONYMOUS_ONLY`` setting.
__ https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/
``SEND_BROKEN_LINK_EMAILS`` setting
-----------------------------------
:class:`~django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware` used to provide basic
reporting of broken links by email when ``SEND_BROKEN_LINK_EMAILS`` is set to
``True``.
Because of intractable ordering problems between
:class:`~django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware` and
:class:`~django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware`, this feature was split
out into a new middleware:
:class:`~django.middleware.common.BrokenLinkEmailsMiddleware`.
If you're relying on this feature, you should add
``'django.middleware.common.BrokenLinkEmailsMiddleware'`` to your
``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` setting and remove ``SEND_BROKEN_LINK_EMAILS``
from your settings.
``_has_changed`` method on widgets
----------------------------------
If you defined your own form widgets and defined the ``_has_changed`` method
on a widget, you should now define this method on the form field itself.
``module_name`` model _meta attribute
-------------------------------------
``Model._meta.module_name`` was renamed to ``model_name``. Despite being a
private API, it will go through a regular deprecation path.
``get_(add|change|delete)_permission`` model _meta methods
----------------------------------------------------------
``Model._meta.get_(add|change|delete)_permission`` methods were deprecated.
Even if they were not part of the public API they'll also go through
a regular deprecation path. You can replace them with
``django.contrib.auth.get_permission_codename('action', Model._meta)`` where
``'action'`` is ``'add'``, ``'change'``, or ``'delete'``.
``get_query_set`` and similar methods renamed to ``get_queryset``
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Methods that return a ``QuerySet`` such as ``Manager.get_query_set`` or
``ModelAdmin.queryset`` have been renamed to ``get_queryset``.
If you are writing a library that implements, for example, a
``Manager.get_query_set`` method, and you need to support old Django versions,
you should rename the method and conditionally add an alias with the old name::
class CustomManager(models.Manager):
def get_queryset(self):
pass # ...
if django.VERSION < (1, 6):
get_query_set = get_queryset
# For Django >= 1.6, models.Manager provides a get_query_set fallback
# that emits a warning when used.
If you are writing a library that needs to call the ``get_queryset`` method and
must support old Django versions, you should write::
get_queryset = (
some_manager.get_query_set
if hasattr(some_manager, "get_query_set")
else some_manager.get_queryset
)
return get_queryset() # etc
In the general case of a custom manager that both implements its own
``get_queryset`` method and calls that method, and needs to work with older Django
versions, and libraries that have not been updated yet, it is useful to define
a ``get_queryset_compat`` method as below and use it internally to your manager::
class YourCustomManager(models.Manager):
def get_queryset(self):
return YourCustomQuerySet() # for example
if django.VERSION < (1, 6):
get_query_set = get_queryset
def active(self): # for example
return self.get_queryset_compat().filter(active=True)
def get_queryset_compat(self):
get_queryset = (
self.get_query_set if hasattr(self, "get_query_set") else self.get_queryset
)
return get_queryset()
This helps to minimize the changes that are needed, but also works correctly in
the case of subclasses (such as ``RelatedManagers`` from Django 1.5) which might
override either ``get_query_set`` or ``get_queryset``.
``shortcut`` view and URLconf
-----------------------------
The ``shortcut`` view was moved from ``django.views.defaults`` to
``django.contrib.contenttypes.views`` shortly after the 1.0 release, but the
old location was never deprecated. This oversight was corrected in Django 1.6
and you should now use the new location.
The URLconf ``django.conf.urls.shortcut`` was also deprecated. If you're
including it in an URLconf, simply replace::
(r"^prefix/", include("django.conf.urls.shortcut")),
with::
(
r"^prefix/(?P<content_type_id>\d+)/(?P<object_id>.*)/$",
"django.contrib.contenttypes.views.shortcut",
),
``ModelForm`` without ``fields`` or ``exclude``
-----------------------------------------------
Previously, if you wanted a :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm` to use all fields on
the model, you could simply omit the ``Meta.fields`` attribute, and all fields
would be used.
This can lead to security problems where fields are added to the model and,
unintentionally, automatically become editable by end users. In some cases,
particular with boolean fields, it is possible for this problem to be completely
invisible. This is a form of `Mass assignment vulnerability
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_assignment_vulnerability>`_.
For this reason, this behavior is deprecated, and using the ``Meta.exclude``
option is strongly discouraged. Instead, all fields that are intended for
inclusion in the form should be listed explicitly in the ``fields`` attribute.
If this security concern really does not apply in your case, there is a shortcut
to explicitly indicate that all fields should be used - use the special value
``"__all__"`` for the fields attribute::
class MyModelForm(ModelForm):
class Meta:
fields = "__all__"
model = MyModel
If you have custom ``ModelForms`` that only need to be used in the admin, there
is another option. The admin has its own methods for defining fields
(``fieldsets`` etc.), and so adding a list of fields to the ``ModelForm`` is
redundant. Instead, simply omit the ``Meta`` inner class of the ``ModelForm``,
or omit the ``Meta.model`` attribute. Since the ``ModelAdmin`` subclass knows
which model it is for, it can add the necessary attributes to derive a
functioning ``ModelForm``. This behavior also works for earlier Django
versions.
``UpdateView`` and ``CreateView`` without explicit fields
---------------------------------------------------------
The generic views :class:`~django.views.generic.edit.CreateView` and
:class:`~django.views.generic.edit.UpdateView`, and anything else derived from
:class:`~django.views.generic.edit.ModelFormMixin`, are vulnerable to the
security problem described in the section above, because they can automatically
create a ``ModelForm`` that uses all fields for a model.
For this reason, if you use these views for editing models, you must also supply
the ``fields`` attribute (new in Django 1.6), which is a list of model fields
and works in the same way as the :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm`
``Meta.fields`` attribute. Alternatively, you can set the ``form_class``
attribute to a ``ModelForm`` that explicitly defines the fields to be used.
Defining an ``UpdateView`` or ``CreateView`` subclass to be used with a model
but without an explicit list of fields is deprecated.
.. _m2m-help_text-deprecation:
Munging of help text of model form fields for ``ManyToManyField`` fields
------------------------------------------------------------------------
All special handling of the ``help_text`` attribute of ``ManyToManyField`` model
fields performed by standard model or model form fields as described in
:ref:`m2m-help_text` above is deprecated and will be removed in Django 1.8.
Help text of these fields will need to be handled either by applications, custom
form fields or widgets, just like happens with the rest of the model field
types.