sebcorbin/django-compat

Forward and backwards compatibility layer for Django 1.4, 1.7, 1.8, and 1.9

django-compat

Forward and backwards compatibility layer for Django 1.4, 1.7, 1.8, and 1.9

Consider django-compat as an experiment based on the discussion on reddit. Let's see where it goes.

What started as an experiment based on this discussion on reddit has proven to be true in real life.

django-compat is under active development. To learn about other features, bug fixes, and changes, please refer to the changelog.

Who uses django-compat

Two popular examples of open source reusable app that uses django-compat are django-hijack and django-background-tasks.
Want to have yours listed here? Send us a PR.

Why use django-compat

• Be able to use the LTS versions of Django and support newer versions in your app
• Use features from newer Django versions in an old one
• Manage and master the gap between different framework versions

How to use django-compat

Install compat from the PyPI or download and install manually. All relevant releases are listed here under releases.

Using one of the compatible objects is easy. For example

from compat import patterns, url

urlpatterns = patterns('ABC.views',
		url(r'^abc/$', 'abc', name='abc-link'),
...

See a full example here.

Compatible objects

Compatible object	Specifically tested	1.4	1.7	1.8	1.9	Notes
BytesIO	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
EmailValidator	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
GenericForeignKey	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
models.GenericForeignKey	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
HttpResponseBase	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
JsonResponse	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
SortedDict	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
StringIO	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
URLValidator	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
VariableNode	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
View	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
add_to_builtins	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
atomic	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
clean_manytomany_helptext	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
commit	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
commit_on_success	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	commit_on_success replaced by atomic in Django >= 1.8
force_text	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
format_html	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
get_ident	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
get_model	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
get_model_name	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
get_user_model	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
get_username_field	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
handler404	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
handler500	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
import_module	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
import_string	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
include	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
parse_qs	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
patterns	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
python_2_unicode_compatible	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
resolve_url	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
rollback	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	Transaction savepoint (sid) is required for Django < 1.8
simplejson	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
slugify	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
smart_text	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
unquote_plus	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
url	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	Function used in urlpatterns
templatetags.compat.url	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	Templatetag; import with {% load url from compat %}
urlencode	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
urlparse	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
urlunparse	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
user_model_label	✖️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️

Resources and references

Resources

• https://github.com/ubernostrum/django-compat-lint
• https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/misc/api-stability/
• https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/python3/
• http://andrewsforge.com/presentation/upgrading-django-to-17/

compat.py

Bits and bites of the following projects were re-used to build django-compat.

• https://github.com/lukaszb/django-guardian/blob/devel/guardian/compat.py
• https://github.com/evonove/django-oauth-toolkit/blob/master/oauth2_provider/compat.py
• https://github.com/toastdriven/django-tastypie/blob/master/tastypie/compat.py
• https://github.com/tomchristie/django-rest-framework/blob/master/rest_framework/compat.py
  • TODO: MinValueValidator, MaxValueValidator et al. (other relevant bits are included) Django 1.8
• https://gist.github.com/theskumar/ff8de60ff6a33bdacaa8
• https://github.com/evonove/django-oauth-toolkit/blob/master/oauth2_provider/templatetags/compat.py
• https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/blob/master/requests/compat.py
• https://github.com/mitsuhiko/jinja2/blob/master/jinja2/_compat.py
• https://github.com/jaraco/setuptools/blob/master/setuptools/compat.py
• https://github.com/mariocesar/sorl-thumbnail/blob/master/sorl/thumbnail/compat.py

Changelog

### 2015/11/12

• Added {% load url from compat %}

2015/11/11

• 1.9 compatibility for existing objects with the following changes:
  • add_to_builtins was removed for Django >= 1.9
  • GenericForeignKey` was moved to compat.models`` for Django >= 1.9

2015/07/15

• add_to_builtins was added

2015/07/08

• get_query_set/get_queryset support was dropped again (see #29)