Deprecations

Policy

If the behavior of the library has to be changed, a deprecation cycle must be followed to warn users.

A deprecation cycle is not necessary when:

  • adding a new function, or

  • adding a new keyword argument to the end of a function signature, or

  • fixing buggy behavior

A deprecation cycle is necessary for any breaking API change, meaning a change where the function, invoked with the same arguments, would return a different result after the change. This includes:

  • changing the order of arguments or keyword arguments, or

  • adding arguments or keyword arguments to a function, or

  • changing the name of a function, class, method, etc., or

  • moving a function, class, etc. to a different module, or

  • changing the default value of a function’s arguments.

Usually, our policy is to put in place a deprecation cycle over two minor releases (e.g., if a deprecation warning appears in 2.3, then the functionality should be removed in 2.5). For major releases we usually require that all deprecations have at least a 1-release deprecation cycle (e.g., if 3.0 occurs after 2.5, then all removed functionality in 3.0 should be deprecated in 2.5).

Note that these 1- and 2-release deprecation cycles for major and minor releases is not a strict rule and in some cases, the developers can agree on a different procedure upon justification (like when we can’t detect the change, or it involves moving or deleting an entire function for example).

Todo

Make sure to review networkx/conftest.py after removing deprecated code.

Version 3.0

  • In readwrite/gml.py remove literal_stringizer and related tests.

  • In readwrite/gml.py remove literal_destringizer and related tests.

  • In utils/misc.py remove is_string_like and related tests.

  • In utils/misc.py remove make_str and related tests.

  • Remove utils/contextmanagers.py and related tests.

  • In drawing/nx_agraph.py remove display_pygraphviz and related tests.

  • In algorithms/chordal.py replace chordal_graph_cliques with _chordal_graph_cliques.

  • In algorithms/centrality/betweenness_centrality_subset.py remove betweenness_centrality_source.

  • In algorithms/centrality/betweenness.py remove edge_betweeness.

  • In algorithms/community_modularity_max.py remove old name _naive_greedy_modularity_communities.