path: root/doc/whatsnew/1.7.rst

**************************
  What's New In Pylint 1.7
**************************

:Release: |release|
:Date: |TBD|


Summary -- Release highlights
=============================

* None yet.


New checkers
============

* ``single-string-used-for-slots`` check was added, which is used
  whenever a class is using a single string as a slot value. While this
  is technically not a problem per se, it might trip users when manipulating
  the slots value as an iterable, which would in turn iterate over characters
  of the slot value. In order to be more straight-forward, always try to use
  a container such as a list or a tuple for defining slot values.

* We added a new check, ``literal-comparison``, which is used
  whenever **pylint** can detect a comparison to a literal. This is usually
  not what we want and, potentially, error prone. For instance, in the given example,
  the first string comparison returns true, since smaller strings are interned
  by the interpreter, while for larger ones, it will return False:

  .. code-block:: python

       mystring = "ok"
       if mystring is "ok": # Returns true
           # do stuff

       mystring = "a" * 1000
       if mystring is ("a" * 1000): # This will return False
           # do stuff

  Instead of using the ``is`` operator, you should use the ``==`` operator for
  this use case.


* We added a new refactoring message, ``consider-merging-isinstance``, which is
  emitted whenever we can detect that consecutive *isinstance* calls can be merged
  together.
  For instance, in this example, we can merge the first two *isinstance* calls:

  .. code-block:: python

      $ cat a.py
      if isinstance(x, int) or isinstance(x, float):
          pass
      if isinstance(x, (int, float)) or isinstance(x, str):
          pass
      $ pylint a.py
      R:  1, 0: Consider merging these isinstance calls to isinstance(x, (float, int)) (consider-merging-isinstance)
      R:  3, 0: Consider merging these isinstance calls to isinstance(x, (int, float, str)) (consider-merging-isinstance)

* A new error check was added, ``invalid-metaclass``, which is used whenever *pylint*
  can detect that a given class is using a metaclass which is invalid for the purpose
  of the class. This usually might indicate a problem in the code, rather than
  something done on purpose.

  .. code-block:: python

       # Needs to inherit from *type* in order to be valid
       class SomeClass(object):
           ...

       class MyClass(metaclass=SomeClass):
           pass

* A new warning was added, ``useless-super-delegation``, which is used whenever
  we can detect that an overridden method is useless, relying on *super()* delegation
  to do the same thing as another method from the MRO.

  For instance, in this example, the first two methods are useless, since they
  do the exact same thing as the methods from the base classes, while the next
  two methods are not, since they do some extra operations with the passed
  arguments.

  .. code-block:: python

      class Impl(Base):

          def __init__(self, param1, param2):
              super(Impl, self).__init__(param1, param2)
     
          def useless(self, first, second):
              return super(Impl, self).useless(first, second)

          def not_useless(self, first, **kwargs):
              debug = kwargs.pop('debug', False)
              if debug:
                  ...
              return super(Impl, self).not_useless(first, **kwargs)

          def not_useless_1(self, first, *args):
              return super(Impl, self).not_useless_1(first + some_value, *args)

* A new warning was added, ``len-as-condition``, which is used whenever
  we detect that a condition uses ``len(SEQUENCE)`` incorrectly. Instead
  one could use ``if SEQUENCE`` or ``if not SEQUENCE``.

  For instance, all of the examples below:

  .. code-block:: python

      if len(S):
        pass

      if not len(S):
        pass

      if len(S) > 0:
        pass

      if len(S) != 0:
        pass

      if len(S) == 0:
        pass

  can be written in a more natural way:

  .. code-block:: python

      if S:
        pass

      if not S:
        pass

  See https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#programming-recommendations
  for more information.

* A new extension was added, ``emptystring.py`` which detects whenever
  we detect comparisons to empty string constants. This extension is disabled
  by default. For instance, the examples below:

  .. code-block:: python

      if S != "":
        pass

      if S == '':
        pass

  can be written in a more natural way:

  .. code-block:: python

      if S:
        pass

      if not S:
        pass

  An exception to this is when empty string is an allowed value whose meaning
  is treated differently than ``None``. For example the meaning could be
  user selected no additional options vs. user has not made their selection yet!

  You can activate this checker by adding the line::

      load-plugins=pylint.extensions.emptystring

  to the ``MASTER`` section of your ``.pylintrc`` or using the command::

      $ pylint a.py --load-plugins=pylint.extensions.emptystring

* A new extension was added, ``comparetozero.py`` which detects whenever
  we compare integers to zero. This extension is disabled by default.
  For instance, the examples below:

  .. code-block:: python

      if X != 0:
        pass

      if X == 0:
        pass

  can be written in a more natural way:

  .. code-block:: python

      if X:
        pass

      if not X:
        pass

  An exception to this is when zero is an allowed value whose meaning
  is treated differently than ``None``. For example the meaning could be
  ``None`` means no limit, while ``0`` means the limit it zero!

  You can activate this checker by adding the line::

      load-plugins=pylint.extensions.comparetozero

  to the ``MASTER`` section of your ``.pylintrc`` or using the command::

      $ pylint a.py --load-plugins=pylint.extensions.comparetozero

* We've added new error conditions for ``bad-super-call`` which now detect
  the usage of ``super(type(self), self)`` and ``super(self.__class__, self)``
  patterns. These can lead to recursion loop in derived classes. The problem
  is visible only if you override a class that uses these incorrect invocations
  of ``super()``.

  For instance, ``Derived.__init__()`` will correctly call ``Base.__init__``.
  At this point ``type(self)`` will be equal to ``Derived`` and the call again
  goes to ``Base.__init__`` and we enter a recursion loop.

  .. code-block:: python

      class Base(object):
          def __init__(self, param1, param2):
              super(type(self), self).__init__(param1, param2)

      class Derived(Base):
          def __init__(self, param1, param2):
              super(Derived, self).__init__(param1, param2)

* The warnings ``missing-returns-doc`` and ``missing-yields-doc`` have each
  been replaced with two new warnings - ``missing-[return|yield]-doc`` and
  ``missing-[return|yield]-type-doc``. Having these as separate warnings
  allows the user to choose whether their documentation style requires
  text descriptions of function return/yield, specification of return/yield
  types, or both.

  .. code-block:: python

      # This will raise missing-return-type-doc but not missing-return-doc
      def my_sphinx_style_func(self):
          """This is a Sphinx-style docstring.

          :returns: Always False
          """
          return False

      # This will raise missing-return-doc but not missing-return-type-doc
      def my_google_style_func(self):
          """This is a Google-style docstring.

          Returns:
              bool:
          """
          return False

* A new refactoring check was added, ``redefined-argument-from-local``, which is
  emitted when **pylint** can detect than a function argument is redefined locally
  in some potential error prone cases. For instance, in the following piece of code,
  we have a bug, since the check will never return ``True``, given the fact that we
  are comparing the same object to its attributes.

  .. code-block:: python

      def test(resource):
          for resource in resources:
              # The ``for`` is reusing ``resource``, which means that the following
              # ``resource`` is not what we wanted to check against.
              if resource.resource_type == resource:
                 call_resource(resource)

  Other places where this check looks are *with* statement name bindings and
  except handler's name binding.

* A new refactoring check was added, ``no-else-return``, which is
  emitted when pylint encounters an else following a chain of ifs,
  all of them containing a return statement.

  .. code-block:: python

    def foo1(x, y, z):
        if x:
            return y
        else:  # This is unnecessary here.
            return z


  We could fix it deleting the ``else`` statement.

  .. code-block:: python

    def foo1(x, y, z):
        if x:
            return y
        return z

* A new Python 3 check was added, ``eq-without-hash``, which enforces classes that implement
  ``__eq__`` *also* implement ``__hash__``.  The behavior around classes which implement ``__eq__``
  but not ``__hash__`` changed in Python 3; in Python 2 such classes would get ``object.__hash__``
  as their default implementation.  In Python 3, aforementioned classes get ``None`` as their
  implementation thus making them unhashable.

  .. code-block:: python

      class JustEq(object):
         def __init__(self, x):
           self.x = x

         def __eq__(self, other):
           return self.x == other.x

      class Neither(object):
        def __init__(self, x):
          self.x = x

      class HashAndEq(object):
         def __init__(self, x):
           self.x = x

         def __eq__(self, other):
           return self.x == other.x

         def __hash__(self):
           return hash(self.x)

      {Neither(1), Neither(2)}  # OK in Python 2 and Python 3
      {HashAndEq(1), HashAndEq(2)}  # OK in Python 2 and Python 3
      {JustEq(1), JustEq(2)}  # Works in Python 2, throws in Python 3


  In general, this is a poor practice which motivated the behavior change.

  .. code-block:: python

      as_set = {JustEq(1), JustEq(2)}
      print(JustEq(1) in as_set)  # prints False
      print(JustEq(1) in list(as_set))  # prints True


  In order to fix this error and avoid behavior differences between Python 2 and Python 3, classes
  should either explicitly set ``__hash__`` to ``None`` or implement a hashing function.

  .. code-block:: python

      class JustEq(object):
         def __init__(self, x):
           self.x = x

         def __eq__(self, other):
           return self.x == other.x

         __hash__ = None

      {JustEq(1), JustEq(2)}  # Now throws an exception in both Python 2 and Python 3.

* 3 new Python 3 checkers were added, ``div-method``, ``idiv-method`` and ``rdiv-method``.
  The magic methods ``__div__`` and ``__idiv__`` have been phased out in Python 3 in favor
  of ``__truediv__``.  Classes implementing ``__div__`` that still need to be used from Python
  2 code not using ``from __future__ import division`` should implement ``__truediv__`` and
  alias ``__div__`` to that implementation.

  .. code-block:: python

      from __future__ import division

      class DivisibleThing(object):
         def __init__(self, x):
           self.x = x

         def __truediv__(self, other):
           return DivisibleThing(self.x / other.x)

         __div__ = __truediv__

* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about accessing the ``message`` attribute on
  Exceptions.  The message attribute was deprecated in Python 2.7 and was removed in Python 3.
  See https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0352/#retracted-ideas for more information.

  .. code-block:: python

      try:
        raise Exception("Oh No!!")
      except Exception as e:
        print(e.message)

  Instead of relying on the ``message`` attribute, you should explicitly cast the exception to a
  string:

  .. code-block:: python

      try:
        raise Exception("Oh No!!")
      except Exception as e:
        print(str(e))


* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about using ``encode`` or ``decode`` on strings
  with non-text codecs.  This check also checks calls to ``open`` with the keyword argument
  ``encoding``.  See https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.4.html#improvements-to-codec-handling
  for more information.

  .. code-block:: python

      'hello world'.encode('hex')

  Instead of using the ``encode`` method for non-text codecs use the ``codecs`` module.

  .. code-block:: python

      import codecs
      codecs.encode('hello world', 'hex')


* A new warning was added, ``overlapping-except``, which is emitted
  when an except handler treats two exceptions which are *overlapping*.
  This means that one exception is an ancestor of the other one or it is
  just an alias.

  For example, in Python 3.3+, IOError is an alias for OSError. In addition, socket.error is
  an alias for OSError. The intention is to find cases like the following:

  .. code-block:: python

      import socket
      try:
          pass
      except (ConnectionError, IOError, OSError, socket.error):
          pass

* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about accessing ``sys.maxint``.  This attribute was
  removed in Python 3 in favor of ``sys.maxsize``.

  .. code-block:: python

      import sys
      print(sys.maxint)

  Instead of using ``sys.maxint``, use ``sys.maxsize``

  .. code-block:: python

      import sys
      print(sys.maxsize)

* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about importing modules that have either moved or been
  removed from the standard library.

  One of the major undertakings with Python 3 was a reorganization of the standard library to
  remove old or supplanted modules and reorganize some of the existing modules.  As a result,
  roughly 100 modules that exist in Python 2 no longer exist in Python 3.  See
  https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3108/ and https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0004/ for more
  information.  For suggestions on hwo to handle this, see
  https://pythonhosted.org/six/#module-six.moves or http://python3porting.com/stdlib.html.

  .. code-block:: python

      from cStringIO import StringIO

  Instead of directly importing the deprecated module, either use ``six.moves`` or a conditional
  import.

  .. code-block:: python

      from six.moves import cStringIO as StringIO

      if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
          from io import StringIO
      else:
          from cStringIO import StringIO

  This checker will assume any imports that happen within a conditional or a ``try/except`` block
  are valid.

* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about accessing deprecated functions on the string
  module.  Python 3 removed functions that were duplicated from the builtin ``str`` class.  See
  https://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html#deprecated-string-functions for more information.

  .. code-block:: python

      import string
      print(string.upper('hello world!'))

  Instead of using ``string.upper``, call the ``upper`` method directly on the string object.

  .. code-block:: python

      "hello world!".upper()


* A new Python 3 checker was added to warn about calling ``str.translate`` with the removed
  ``deletechars`` parameter.  ``str.translate`` is frequently used as a way to remove characters
  from a string.

  .. code-block:: python

      'hello world'.translate(None, 'low')

  Unfortunately, there is not an idiomatic way of writing this call in a 2and3 compatible way.  If
  this code is not in the critical path for your application and the use of ``translate`` was a
  premature optimization, consider using ``re.sub`` instead:

  .. code-block:: python

      import re
      chars_to_remove = re.compile('[low]')
      chars_to_remove.sub('', 'hello world')

  If this code is in your critical path and must be as fast as possible, consider declaring a
  helper method that varies based upon Python version.

  .. code-block:: python

      if six.PY3:
          def _remove_characters(text, deletechars):
              return text.translate({ord(x): None for x in deletechars})
      else:
          def _remove_characters(text, deletechars):
              return text.translate(None, deletechars)

* A new refactoring check was added, ``consider-using-ternary``, which is
  emitted when pylint encounters constructs which were used to emulate
  ternary statement before it was introduced in Python 2.5.

  .. code-block:: python

    value = condition and truth_value or false_value


  Warning can be fixed by using standard ternary construct:

  .. code-block:: python

    value = truth_value if condition else false_value


* A new refactoring check was added, ``trailing-comma-tuple``, which is emitted
  when pylint finds an one-element tuple, created by a stray comma. This can
  suggest a potential problem in the code and it is recommended to use parantheses
  in order to emphasise the creation of a tuple, rather than relying on the comma
  itself.

  The warning is emitted for such a construct:

  .. code-block:: python

     a = 1,

  The warning can be fixed by adding parantheses:

  .. code-block:: python

     a = (1, )


* Two new check were added for detecting an unsupported operation
  over an instance, ``unsupported-assignment-operation`` and ``unsupported-delete-operation``.
  The first one is emitted whenever an object does not support item assignment, while
  the second is emitted when an object does not support item deletion:

  .. code-block:: python

      class A:
          pass
      instance = A()
      instance[4] = 4 # unsupported-assignment-operation
      del instance[4] # unsupported-delete-operation

* A new check was added, ``relative-beyond-top-level``, which is emitted
  when a relative import tries to access too many levels in the current package.

* A new check was added, ``trailing-newlines``, which is emitted when a file
  has trailing new lines.

* ``invalid-length-returned`` check was added, which is emitted when a ``__len__``
  implementation does not return a non-negative integer.

* There is a new extension, ``pylint.extensions.mccabe``, which can be used for
  computing the McCabe complexity of classes and functions.

  You can enable this extension through ``--load-plugins=pylint.extensions.mccabe``

* A new check was added, ``used-prior-global-declaration``. This is emitted when
  a name is used prior a global declaration, resulting in a SyntaxError in Python 3.6.



Other Changes
=============

* Namespace packages are now supported by pylint. This includes both explicit namespace
  packages and implicit namespace packages, supported in Python 3 through PEP 420.

* A new option was added, ``--analyse-fallback-block``.

  This can be used to support both Python 2 and 3 compatible import block code,
  which means that the import block might have code that exists only in one or another
  interpreter, leading to false positives when analysed. By default, this is false, you
  can enable the analysis for both branches using this flag.

* ``ignored-argument-names`` option is now used for ignoring arguments
  for unused-variable check.

  This option was used for ignoring arguments when computing the correct number of arguments
  a function should have, but for handling the arguments with regard
  to unused-variable check, dummy-variables-rgx was used instead. Now, ignored-argument-names
  is used for its original purpose and also for ignoring the matched arguments for
  the unused-variable check. This offers a better control of what should be ignored
  and how.
  Also, the same option was moved from the design checker to the variables checker,
  which means that the option now appears under the ``[VARIABLES]`` section inside
  the configuration file.

* A new option was added, ``redefining-builtins-modules``, for controlling the modules
  which can redefine builtins, such as six.moves and future.builtins.

* A new option was added, ``ignore-patterns``, which is used for building a
  blacklist of directories and files matching the regex patterns, similar to the
  ``ignore`` option.


* The reports are now disabled by default, as well as the information category
  warnings.

* ``arguments-differ`` check was rewritten to take in consideration
  keyword only parameters and variadics.

  Now it also complains about losing or adding capabilities to a method,
  by introducing positional or keyword variadics. For instance, *pylint*
  now complains about these cases:

  .. code-block:: python

       class Parent(object):

           def foo(self, first, second):
               ...

           def bar(self, **kwargs):
               ...

           def baz(self, *, first):
               ...

       class Child(Parent):

           # Why subclassing in the first place?
           def foo(self, *args, **kwargs):
               # mutate args or kwargs.
               super(Child, self).foo(*args, **kwargs)

           def bar(self, first=None, second=None, **kwargs):
               # The overridden method adds two new parameters,
               # which can also be passed as positional arguments,
               # breaking the contract of the parent's method.

           def baz(self, first):
               # Not keyword-only

* ``redefined-outer-name`` is now also emitted when a
  nested loop's target variable is the same as an outer loop.

  .. code-block:: python

      for i, j in [(1, 2), (3, 4)]:
          for j in range(i):
              print(j)

* relax character limit for method and function names that starts with ``_``.
  This will let people to use longer descriptive names for methods and
  functions with a shorter scope (considered as private). The same idea
  applies to variable names, only with an inverse rule: you want long
  descriptive names for variables with bigger scope, like globals.

* Add ``InvalidMessageError`` exception class and replace ``assert`` in
  pylint.utils with ``raise InvalidMessageError``.

* ``UnknownMessageError`` (formerly ``UnknownMessage``) and
  ``EmptyReportError`` (formerly ``EmptyReport``) are now provided by the new
  ``pylint.exceptions`` submodule instead of ``pylint.utils`` as before.

* We now support inline comments for comma separated values in the configurations

  For instance, you can now use the **#** sign for having comments inside
  comma separated values, as seen below::

      disable=no-member, # Don't care about it for now
              bad-indentation, # No need for this
              import-error

  Of course, interweaving comments with values is also working::

      disable=no-member,
              # Don't care about it for now
              bad-indentation # No need for this


  This works by setting the `inline comment prefixes`_ accordingly.

* Added epytext docstring support to the docparams extension.

* We added support for providing hints when not finding a missing member.

  For example, given the following code, it should be obvious that
  the programmer intended to use the ``mail`` attribute, rather than
  ``email``.

  .. code-block:: python

    class Contribution:
        def __init__(self, name, email, date):
            self.name = name
            self.mail = mail
            self.date = date

    for c in contributions:
        print(c.email) # Oups

  **pylint** will now warn that there is a chance of having a typo,
  suggesting new names that could be used instead.

  .. code-block:: sh

    $ pylint a.py
    E: 8,10: Instance of 'Contribution' has no 'email' member; maybe 'mail'?

  The behaviour is controlled through the ``--missing-member-hint`` option.
  Other options that come with this change are ``--missing-member-max-choices``
  for choosing the total number of choices that should be picked in this
  situation and ``--missing-member-hint-distance``, which specifies a metric
  for computing the distance between the names (this is based on Levenshtein
  distance, which means the lower the number, the more pickier the algorithm
  will be).

* ``PyLinter.should_analyze_file`` has a new parameter, ``is_argument``,
  which specifies if the given path is a **pylint** argument or not.

  ``should_analyze_file`` is called whenever **pylint** tries to determine
  if a file should be analyzed, defaulting to files with the ``.py``
  extension, but this function gets called only in the case where the said
  file is not passed as a command line argument to **pylint**. This usually
  means that pylint will analyze a file, even if that file has a different
  extension, as long as the file was explicitly passed at command line.
  Since ``should_analyze_file`` cannot be overridden to handle all the cases,
  the check for the provenience of files was moved into ``should_analyze_file``.
  This means we now can write something similar with this example, for ignoring
  every file respecting the desired property, disregarding the provenience of the
  file, being it a file passed as CLI argument or part of a package.

  .. code-block:: python

     from pylint.lint import Run, PyLinter

     class CustomPyLinter(PyLinter):

          def should_analyze_file(self, modname, path, is_argument=False):
              if respect_condition(path):
                  return False
              return super().should_analyze_file(modname, path, is_argument=is_argument)


     class CustomRun(Run):
          LinterClass = CustomPyLinter

     CustomRun(sys.argv[1:])

* Imports aliased with underscore are skipped when checking for unused imports.

* ``bad-builtin`` and ``redefined-variable-type`` are now extensions,
  being disabled by default. They can be enabled through:
  ``--load-plugins=pylint.extensions.redefined_variable_type,pylint.extensions.bad_builtin``

  * Imports checker supports new switch ``allow-wildcard-with-all`` which disables
    warning on wildcard import when imported module defines `__all__` variable.


Bug fixes
=========

* Fix a false positive of ``redundant-returns-doc``, occurred when the documented
  function was using *yield* instead of *return*.

* Fix a false positive of ``missing-param-doc`` and ``missing-type-doc``,
  occurred when a class docstring uses the ``For the parameters, see``
  magic string but the class ``__init__`` docstring does not, or vice versa.

* Added proper exception type inference for ``missing-raises-doc``. Now:

  .. code-block:: python

      def my_func():
          """"My function."""
          ex = ValueError('foo')
          raise ex

  will properly be flagged for missing documentation of
  ``:raises ValueError:`` instead of ``:raises ex:``, among other scenarios.

* Fix false positives of ``missing-[raises|params|type]-doc`` due to not
  recognizing valid keyword synonyms supported by Sphinx.

* More thorough validation in ``MessagesStore.register_messages()`` to detect
  conflicts between a new message and any existing message id, symbol,
  or ``old_names``.

* We now support having plugins that shares the same name and with each one
  providing options.

  A plugin can be logically split into multiple classes, each class providing
  certain capabilities, all of them being tied under the same name. But when
  two or more such classes are also adding options, then **pylint** crashed,
  since it already added the first encountered section. Now, these should
  work as expected.

  .. code-block:: python

     from pylint.checkers import BaseChecker


     class DummyPlugin1(BaseChecker):
         name = 'dummy_plugin'
         msgs = {'I9061': ('Dummy short desc 01', 'dummy-message-01', 'Dummy long desc')}
         options = (
             ('dummy_option_1', {
                 'type': 'string',
                 'metavar': '<string>',
                 'help': 'Dummy option 1',
             }),
         )


     class DummyPlugin2(BaseChecker):
         name = 'dummy_plugin'
         msgs = {'I9060': ('Dummy short desc 02', 'dummy-message-02', 'Dummy long desc')}
         options = (
             ('dummy_option_2', {
                 'type': 'string',
                 'metavar': '<string>',
                 'help': 'Dummy option 2',
             }),
         )


     def register(linter):
         linter.register_checker(DummyPlugin1(linter))
         linter.register_checker(DummyPlugin2(linter))

* We do not yield ``unused-argument`` for singledispatch implementations and
  do not warn about ``function-redefined`` for multiple implementations with same name.

  .. code-block:: python

     from functools import singledispatch

     @singledispatch
     def f(x):
         return 2*x

     @f.register(str)
     def _(x):
         return -1

     @f.register(int)
     @f.register(float)
     def _(x):
         return -x

* ``unused-variable`` checker has new functionality of warning about unused
  variables in global module namespace. Since globals in module namespace
  may be a part of exposed API, this check is disabled by default. For
  enabling it, set ``allow-global-unused-variables`` option to false.

* Fix a false-positive ``logging-format-interpolation`` message, when format
  specifications are used in formatted string. In general, these operations
  are not always convertible to old-style formatting used by logging module.

* Added a new switch ``single-line-class-stmt`` to allow single-line declaration
  of empty class bodies (as seen in the example below). Pylint won't emit a
  ``multiple-statements`` message when this option is enabled.

  .. code-block:: python

     class MyError(Exception): pass

  * `too-many-format-args` and `too-few-format-args` are emitted correctly
    (or not emitted at all, when exact count of elements in RHS cannot be
    inferred) when starred expressions are used in RHS tuple. For example,
    code block as shown below detects correctly that the used tuple has in
    fact three elements, not two.

  .. code-block:: python

    meat = ['spam', 'ham']
    print('%s%s%s' % ('eggs', *meat))

* `cyclic-import` checker supports local disable clauses. When one
  of cycle imports was done in scope where disable clause was active,
  cycle is not reported as violation.

Removed Changes
===============

* ``pylint-gui`` was removed, because it was deemed unfit for being included
  in *pylint*. It had a couple of bugs and misfeatures, its usability was subpar
  and since its development was neglected, we decided it is best to move on without it.


* The HTML reporter was removed, including the ``--output-format=html`` option.
  It was lately a second class citizen in Pylint, being mostly neglected.
  Since we now have the JSON reporter, it can be used as a basis for building
  more prettier HTML reports than what Pylint can currently generate. This is
  part of the effort of removing cruft from Pylint, by removing less used
  features.

* The ``--files-output`` option was removed. While the same functionality cannot
  be easily replicated, the JSON reporter, for instance, can be used as a basis
  for generating the messages per each file.

* ``--required-attributes`` option was removed.

* ``--ignore-iface-methods`` option was removed.

* The ``--optimize-ast`` flag was removed.

  The option was initially added for handling pathological cases,
  such as joining too many strings using the addition operator, which
  was leading pylint to have a recursion error when trying to figure
  out what the string was. Unfortunately, we decided to ignore the
  issue, since the pathological case would have happen when the
  code was parsed by Python as well, without actually reaching the
  runtime step and as such, we decided to remove the error altogether.

* ``epylint.py_run``'s *script* parameter was removed.

  Now ``epylint.py_run`` is always using the underlying ``epylint.lint``
  method from the current interpreter. This avoids some issues when multiple
  instances of **pylint** are installed, which means that ``epylint.py_run``
  might have ran a different ``epylint`` script than what was intended.

.. _`inline comment prefixes`: https://docs.python.org/3/library/configparser.html#customizing-parser-behaviour