array: Add 'w' type and deprecate 'u' type. #80480

The doc says:

'u' will be removed together with the rest of the Py_UNICODE API.
Deprecated since version 3.3, will be removed in version 4.0.
https://docs.python.org/3/library/array.html

But DeprecationWarning is not raised yet. Let's raise it.

• 3.8 -- PendingDeprecationWarning
• 3.9 -- DeprecationWarning
• 4.0 or 3.10 -- Remove it.

'4.0' is a stand-in for 'sometime after 2.7.final', scheduled for Jan 2020. A Pending... for 3.8.0, scheduled for Oct 2019, seems reasonable to me. Perhaps we should have a pydev discussion for the general issue of post 2.7 removals of already deprecated items.

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2019-March/156807.html

We may able to convert 'u' to wchar_t to int32_t and un-deprecate it.

I found converting Py_UNICODE to Py_UCS4 wad happened, and reverted.
ref: https://bugs.python.org/issue13072

I think the problem is still whether to use 'u' == UCS2 and 'w' == UCS4 like in PEP-3118.

For the project I'm currently working on I'd need these for buffer exports:

>>> from xnd import *
>>> x = xnd(["abc", "xyz"], dtype="fixed_string(10, 'utf16')")
>>> y = xnd(["abc", "xyz"], dtype="fixed_string(10, 'utf32')")
>>> 
>>> memoryview(x)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: type is not supported by the buffer protocol

The use case is not an array that represents a single utf16 string, but
an array *of* fixed strings with different encodings.

So x would be exported with format 'u' and y with format 'w'.

Just to demonstrate what the format would look like, this is working
for an array of fixed bytes:

>>> x = xnd([b"123", b"23456"], dtype="fixed_bytes(size=10)")
>>> memoryview(x).format
'10s'

So the formats in the previous message would be '10u' and '10w'.

array('u') is not tied with the legacy Unicode C API. It is possible to use the modern wchar_t based Unicode C API for it. See bpo-36346.

There are benefits from getting rid of the legacy Unicode C API, but not from array('u').

array() uses struct module characters except for 'u'. PEP-3118 was
supposed to be implemented in the struct module.

If array() continues to use 'u', the only sensible thing would be
to remove (or rename) 'a', 'u' and 'w' from PEP-3118.

The funny thing is that array() already knows this:

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array("u", "123")
>>> memoryview(a).format
'w'

I closed #56706 (Py_UNICODE -> Py_UCS4).
I created #63852 (Py_UNICODE -> wchar_t) instead.

Should this issue be closed, possibly as superseded by bpo-36346, the issue for the new PR-19653?

While array('u') doesn't use deprecated API with #63852, I still don't like 'u' because:

• I don't have any reason to use platform dependant wchar_t. 1
• It is not consistent with PEP-3118.

How about this plan?

• Add 'w' for Py_UCS4.
• Deprecate 'u', and remove it in the future.

How about:

• Add 'w' for Py_UCS4.
• Wait until all Python versions that don't have w reach end of life
• Deprecate 'u', and remove it in the future.

Is there a reason to rush this?

array('u') will cause bugs and almost no valid use case for it.
So waiting deprecation 5+ years seems too slow.

On the other hand, I don't hurry about removing it.
I can wait 3+ releases instead of minimum 2 releases.

My plan is:

• Add 'w' and deprecate 'u' in Python 3.13
• Remove 'u' in Python 3.16+ (Postpone removal if some users still use 'u').

@methane added array.array('w') format to Python 3.13.

@methane: Would you mind to also document the addition with versionchanged in https://docs.python.org/dev/library/array.html ? Currently, it's only documented at: https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.13.html#array

I dislike the fact that array.array('u') is only deprecated in the doc. I would prefer to either emit a DeprecationWarning at runtime, or remove the deprecation. See also issue #105373. I'm fine with really deprecating it if someone wants to submit a PR (@methane ?).

@vstinner PR already open at #95760 :)

array('u') will cause bugs and almost no valid use case for it. So waiting deprecation 5+ years seems too slow.

On the other hand, I don't hurry about removing it. I can wait 3+ releases instead of minimum 2 releases.

My plan is:

• Add 'w' and deprecate 'u' in Python 3.13

Done in #105242 and #95760.

• Remove 'u' in Python 3.16+ (Postpone removal if some users still use 'u').

Let's close this issue and come back to this in four years.

The array u type has been removed by the PR gh-149535.