decorators in the python standard lib (@deprecated specifically)

Stefano Borini picture Stefano Borini · Mar 29, 2010 · Viewed 70.4k times · Source

I need to mark routines as deprecated, but apparently there's no standard library decorator for deprecation. I am aware of recipes for it and the warnings module, but my question is: why is there no standard library decorator for this (common) task ?

Additional question: are there standard decorators in the standard library at all ?

Answer

Patrizio Bertoni picture Patrizio Bertoni · May 15, 2015

Here's some snippet, modified from those cited by Leandro:

import warnings
import functools

def deprecated(func):
    """This is a decorator which can be used to mark functions
    as deprecated. It will result in a warning being emitted
    when the function is used."""
    @functools.wraps(func)
    def new_func(*args, **kwargs):
        warnings.simplefilter('always', DeprecationWarning)  # turn off filter
        warnings.warn("Call to deprecated function {}.".format(func.__name__),
                      category=DeprecationWarning,
                      stacklevel=2)
        warnings.simplefilter('default', DeprecationWarning)  # reset filter
        return func(*args, **kwargs)
    return new_func

# Examples

@deprecated
def some_old_function(x, y):
    return x + y

class SomeClass:
    @deprecated
    def some_old_method(self, x, y):
        return x + y

Because in some interpreters the first solution exposed (without filter handling) may result in a warning suppression.