============================================
Django 4.1 release notes - UNDER DEVELOPMENT
============================================

*Expected August 2022*

Welcome to Django 4.1!

These release notes cover the :ref:`new features <whats-new-4.1>`, as well as
some :ref:`backwards incompatible changes <backwards-incompatible-4.1>` you'll
want to be aware of when upgrading from Django 4.0 or earlier. We've
:ref:`begun the deprecation process for some features
<deprecated-features-4.1>`.

See the :doc:`/howto/upgrade-version` guide if you're updating an existing
project.

Python compatibility
====================

Django 4.1 supports Python 3.8, 3.9, and 3.10. We **highly recommend** and only
officially support the latest release of each series.

.. _whats-new-4.1:

What's new in Django 4.1
========================

Asynchronous handlers for class-based views
-------------------------------------------

View subclasses may now define async HTTP method handlers::

    import asyncio
    from django.http import HttpResponse
    from django.views import View

    class AsyncView(View):
        async def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
            # Perform view logic using await.
            await asyncio.sleep(1)
            return HttpResponse("Hello async world!")

See :ref:`async-class-based-views` for more details.

.. _csrf-cookie-masked-usage:

``CSRF_COOKIE_MASKED`` setting
------------------------------

The new :setting:`CSRF_COOKIE_MASKED` transitional setting allows specifying
whether to mask the CSRF cookie.

:class:`~django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware` no longer masks the CSRF
cookie like it does the CSRF token in the DOM. If you are upgrading multiple
instances of the same project to Django 4.1, you should set
:setting:`CSRF_COOKIE_MASKED` to ``True`` during the transition, in
order to allow compatibility with the older versions of Django. Once the
transition to 4.1 is complete you can stop overriding
:setting:`CSRF_COOKIE_MASKED`.

This setting is deprecated as of this release and will be removed in Django
5.0.

Minor features
--------------

:mod:`django.contrib.admin`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The admin :ref:`dark mode CSS variables <admin-theming>` are now applied in a
  separate stylesheet and template block.

* :ref:`modeladmin-list-filters` providing custom ``FieldListFilter``
  subclasses can now control the query string value separator when filtering
  for multiple values using the ``__in`` lookup.

* The admin :meth:`history view <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.history_view>`
  is now paginated.

* Related widget wrappers now have a link to object's change form.

* The :meth:`.AdminSite.get_app_list` method now allows changing the order of
  apps and models on the admin index page.

:mod:`django.contrib.admindocs`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.auth`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The default iteration count for the PBKDF2 password hasher is increased from
  320,000 to 390,000.

* The :meth:`.RemoteUserBackend.configure_user` method now allows synchronizing
  user attributes with attributes in a remote system such as an LDAP directory.

:mod:`django.contrib.contenttypes`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.gis`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :meth:`.GEOSGeometry.make_valid()` method allows converting invalid
  geometries to valid ones.

:mod:`django.contrib.messages`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.postgres`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :class:`BitXor() <django.contrib.postgres.aggregates.BitXor>`
  aggregate function returns an ``int`` of the bitwise ``XOR`` of all non-null
  input values.

* :class:`~django.contrib.postgres.indexes.SpGistIndex` now supports covering
  indexes on PostgreSQL 14+.

* :class:`~django.contrib.postgres.constraints.ExclusionConstraint` now
  supports covering exclusion constraints using SP-GiST indexes on PostgreSQL
  14+.

* The new ``default_bounds`` attribute of :attr:`DateTimeRangeField
  <django.contrib.postgres.fields.DateTimeRangeField.default_bounds>` and
  :attr:`DecimalRangeField
  <django.contrib.postgres.fields.DecimalRangeField.default_bounds>` allows
  specifying bounds for list and tuple inputs.

* :class:`~django.contrib.postgres.constraints.ExclusionConstraint` now allows
  specifying operator classes with the
  :class:`OpClass() <django.contrib.postgres.indexes.OpClass>` expression.

:mod:`django.contrib.redirects`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.sessions`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.sitemaps`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The default sitemap index template ``<sitemapindex>`` now includes the
  ``<lastmod>`` timestamp where available, through the new
  :meth:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap.get_latest_lastmod` method. Custom
  sitemap index templates should be updated for the adjusted :ref:`context
  variables <sitemap-index-context-variables>`.

:mod:`django.contrib.sites`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

:mod:`django.contrib.staticfiles`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage` now
  replaces paths to CSS source map references with their hashed counterparts.

:mod:`django.contrib.syndication`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Cache
~~~~~

* ...

CSRF
~~~~

* ...

Database backends
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Third-party database backends can now specify the minimum required version of
  the database using the ``DatabaseFeatures.minimum_database_version``
  attribute which is a tuple (e.g. ``(10, 0)`` means "10.0"). If a minimum
  version is specified, backends must also implement
  ``DatabaseWrapper.get_database_version()``, which returns a tuple of the
  current database version. The backend's
  ``DatabaseWrapper.init_connection_state()`` method must call ``super()`` in
  order for the check to run.

Decorators
~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Email
~~~~~

* ...

Error Reporting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

File Storage
~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

File Uploads
~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Forms
~~~~~

* The new :meth:`~django.forms.BoundField.legend_tag` allows rendering field
  labels in ``<legend>`` tags via the new ``tag`` argument of
  :meth:`~django.forms.BoundField.label_tag`.

* The new ``edit_only`` argument for :func:`.modelformset_factory` and
  :func:`.inlineformset_factory` allows preventing new objects creation.

* The ``js`` and ``css`` class attributes of :doc:`Media </topics/forms/media>`
  now allow using hashable objects, not only path strings, as long as those
  objects implement the ``__html__()`` method (typically when decorated with
  the :func:`~django.utils.html.html_safe` decorator).

* The new :attr:`.BoundField.use_fieldset` and :attr:`.Widget.use_fieldset`
  attributes help to identify widgets where its inputs should be grouped in a
  ``<fieldset>`` with a ``<legend>``.

Generic Views
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Internationalization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :func:`~django.conf.urls.i18n.i18n_patterns` function now supports
  languages with both scripts and regions.

Logging
~~~~~~~

* ...

Management Commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* :option:`makemigrations --no-input` now logs default answers and reasons why
  migrations cannot be created.

* The new :option:`makemigrations --scriptable` option diverts log output and
  input prompts to ``stderr``, writing only paths of generated migration files
  to ``stdout``.

* The new :option:`migrate --prune` option allows deleting nonexistent
  migrations from the ``django_migrations`` table.

* Python files created by :djadmin:`startproject`, :djadmin:`startapp`,
  :djadmin:`optimizemigration`, :djadmin:`makemigrations`, and
  :djadmin:`squashmigrations` are now formatted using the ``black`` command if
  it is present on your ``PATH``.

* The new :djadmin:`optimizemigration` command allows optimizing operations for
  a migration.

Migrations
~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Models
~~~~~~

* The ``order_by`` argument of the
  :class:`~django.db.models.expressions.Window` expression now accepts string
  references to fields and transforms.

* The new :setting:`CONN_HEALTH_CHECKS` setting allows enabling health checks
  for :ref:`persistent database connections <persistent-database-connections>`
  in order to reduce the number of failed requests, e.g. after database server
  restart.

* :meth:`.QuerySet.bulk_create` now supports updating fields when a row
  insertion fails uniqueness constraints. This is supported on MariaDB, MySQL,
  PostgreSQL, and SQLite 3.24+.

* :meth:`.QuerySet.iterator` now supports prefetching related objects as long
  as the ``chunk_size`` argument is provided. In older versions, no prefetching
  was done.

* :class:`~django.db.models.Q` objects and querysets can now be combined using
  ``^`` as the exclusive or (``XOR``) operator. ``XOR`` is natively supported
  on MariaDB and MySQL. For databases that do not support ``XOR``, the query
  will be converted to an equivalent using ``AND``, ``OR``, and ``NOT``.

* The new :ref:`Field.non_db_attrs <custom-field-non_db_attrs>` attribute
  allows customizing attributes of fields that don't affect a column
  definition.

* On PostgreSQL, ``AutoField``, ``BigAutoField``, and ``SmallAutoField`` are
  now created as identity columns rather than serial columns with sequences.

Requests and Responses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* :meth:`.HttpResponse.set_cookie` now supports :class:`~datetime.timedelta`
  objects for the ``max_age`` argument.

Security
~~~~~~~~

* The new :setting:`SECRET_KEY_FALLBACKS` setting allows providing a list of
  values for secret key rotation.

* The :setting:`SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER` setting now supports a comma-separated
  list of protocols in the header value.

Serialization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

Signals
~~~~~~~

* The :data:`~django.db.models.signals.pre_delete` and
  :data:`~django.db.models.signals.post_delete` signals now dispatch the
  ``origin`` of the deletion.

Templates
~~~~~~~~~

* :tfilter:`json_script` template filter now allows wrapping in a ``<script>``
  tag without the HTML ``id`` attribute.

Tests
~~~~~

* The :class:`.DiscoverRunner` now supports running tests in parallel on
  macOS, Windows, and any other systems where the default
  :mod:`multiprocessing` start method is ``spawn``.

* A nested atomic block marked as durable in :class:`django.test.TestCase` now
  raises a ``RuntimeError``, the same as outside of tests.

* :meth:`.SimpleTestCase.assertFormError` and
  :meth:`~.SimpleTestCase.assertFormsetError` now support passing a
  form/formset object directly.

URLs
~~~~

* The new :attr:`.ResolverMatch.captured_kwargs` attribute stores the captured
  keyword arguments, as parsed from the URL.

* The new :attr:`.ResolverMatch.extra_kwargs` attribute stores the additional
  keyword arguments passed to the view function.

Utilities
~~~~~~~~~

* ``SimpleLazyObject`` now supports addition operations.

* :func:`~django.utils.safestring.mark_safe` now preserves lazy objects.

Validators
~~~~~~~~~~

* ...

.. _backwards-incompatible-4.1:

Backwards incompatible changes in 4.1
=====================================

Database backend API
--------------------

This section describes changes that may be needed in third-party database
backends.

* ``BaseDatabaseFeatures.has_case_insensitive_like`` is changed from ``True``
  to ``False`` to reflect the behavior of most databases.

* ``DatabaseIntrospection.get_key_columns()`` is removed. Use
  ``DatabaseIntrospection.get_relations()`` instead.

* ``DatabaseOperations.ignore_conflicts_suffix_sql()`` method is replaced by
  ``DatabaseOperations.on_conflict_suffix_sql()`` that accepts the ``fields``,
  ``on_conflict``, ``update_fields``, and ``unique_fields`` arguments.

* The ``ignore_conflicts`` argument of the
  ``DatabaseOperations.insert_statement()`` method is replaced by
  ``on_conflict`` that accepts ``django.db.models.constants.OnConflict``.

:mod:`django.contrib.gis`
-------------------------

* Support for GDAL 2.1 is removed.

Dropped support for MariaDB 10.2
--------------------------------

Upstream support for MariaDB 10.2 ends in May 2022. Django 4.1 supports MariaDB
10.3 and higher.

Admin changelist searches spanning multi-valued relationships changes
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Admin changelist searches using multiple search terms are now applied in a
single call to ``filter()``, rather than in sequential ``filter()`` calls.

For multi-valued relationships, this means that rows from the related model
must match all terms rather than any term. For example, if ``search_fields``
is set to ``['child__name', 'child__age']``, and a user searches for
``'Jamal 17'``, parent rows will be returned only if there is a relationship to
some 17-year-old child named Jamal, rather than also returning parents who
merely have a younger or older child named Jamal in addition to some other
17-year-old.

See the :ref:`spanning-multi-valued-relationships` topic for more discussion of
this difference. In Django 4.0 and earlier,
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_search_results` followed the
second example query, but this undocumented behavior led to queries with
excessive joins.

Reverse foreign key changes for unsaved model instances
-------------------------------------------------------

In order to unify the behavior with many-to-many relations for unsaved model
instances, a reverse foreign key now raises ``ValueError`` when calling
:class:`related managers <django.db.models.fields.related.RelatedManager>` for
unsaved objects.

Miscellaneous
-------------

* Related managers for :class:`~django.db.models.ForeignKey`,
  :class:`~django.db.models.ManyToManyField`, and
  :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.fields.GenericRelation` are now cached
  on the :class:`~django.db.models.Model` instance to which they belong.

* The Django test runner now returns a non-zero error code for unexpected
  successes from tests marked with :py:func:`unittest.expectedFailure`.

* :class:`~django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware` no longer masks the CSRF
  cookie like it does the CSRF token in the DOM.

* :class:`~django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware` now uses
  ``request.META['CSRF_COOKIE']`` for storing the unmasked CSRF secret rather
  than a masked version. This is an undocumented, private API.

* The :attr:`.ModelAdmin.actions` and
  :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.inlines` attributes now default to an
  empty tuple rather than an empty list to discourage unintended mutation.

* The ``type="text/css"`` attribute is no longer included in ``<link>`` tags
  for CSS :doc:`form media </topics/forms/media>`.

* ``formset:added`` and ``formset:removed`` JavaScript events are now pure
  JavaScript events and don't depend on jQuery. See
  :ref:`admin-javascript-inline-form-events` for more details on the change.

* The ``exc_info`` argument of the undocumented
  ``django.utils.log.log_response()`` function is replaced by ``exception``.

* The ``size`` argument of the undocumented
  ``django.views.static.was_modified_since()`` function is removed.

* The admin log out UI now uses ``POST`` requests.

* The undocumented ``InlineAdminFormSet.non_form_errors`` property is replaced
  by the ``non_form_errors()`` method. This is consistent with ``BaseFormSet``.

.. _deprecated-features-4.1:

Features deprecated in 4.1
==========================

Log out via GET
---------------

Logging out via ``GET`` requests to the :py:class:`built-in logout view
<django.contrib.auth.views.LogoutView>` is deprecated. Use ``POST`` requests
instead.

If you want to retain the user experience of an HTML link, you can use a form
that is styled to appear as a link:

.. code-block:: html

  <form id="logout-form" method="post" action="{% url 'admin:logout' %}">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <button type="submit">{% translate "Log out" %}</button>
  </form>

.. code-block:: css

  #logout-form {
    display: inline;
  }
  #logout-form button {
    background: none;
    border: none;
    cursor: pointer;
    padding: 0;
    text-decoration: underline;
  }

Miscellaneous
-------------

* The context for sitemap index templates of a flat list of URLs is deprecated.
  Custom sitemap index templates should be updated for the adjusted
  :ref:`context variables <sitemap-index-context-variables>`, expecting a list
  of objects with ``location`` and optional ``lastmod`` attributes.

* ``CSRF_COOKIE_MASKED`` transitional setting is deprecated.

* The ``name`` argument of :func:`django.utils.functional.cached_property` is
  deprecated as it's unnecessary as of Python 3.6.

* The ``opclasses`` argument of
  ``django.contrib.postgres.constraints.ExclusionConstraint`` is deprecated in
  favor of using :class:`OpClass() <django.contrib.postgres.indexes.OpClass>`
  in :attr:`.ExclusionConstraint.expressions`. To use it, you need to add
  ``'django.contrib.postgres'`` in your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`.

  After making this change, :djadmin:`makemigrations` will generate a new
  migration with two operations: ``RemoveConstraint`` and ``AddConstraint``.
  Since this change has no effect on the database schema,
  the :class:`~django.db.migrations.operations.SeparateDatabaseAndState`
  operation can be used to only update the migration state without running any
  SQL. Move the generated operations into the ``state_operations`` argument of
  :class:`~django.db.migrations.operations.SeparateDatabaseAndState`. For
  example::

    class Migration(migrations.Migration):
        ...

        operations = [
            migrations.SeparateDatabaseAndState(
                database_operations=[],
                state_operations=[
                    migrations.RemoveConstraint(
                        ...
                    ),
                    migrations.AddConstraint(
                        ...
                    ),
                ],
            ),
        ]

* The undocumented ability to pass ``errors=None`` to
  :meth:`.SimpleTestCase.assertFormError` and
  :meth:`~.SimpleTestCase.assertFormsetError` is deprecated. Use ``errors=[]``
  instead.

* ``django.contrib.sessions.serializers.PickleSerializer`` is deprecated due to
  the risk of remote code execution.

* The usage of ``QuerySet.iterator()`` on a queryset that prefetches related
  objects without providing the ``chunk_size`` argument is deprecated. In older
  versions, no prefetching was done. Providing a value for ``chunk_size``
  signifies that the additional query per chunk needed to prefetch is desired.

* Passing unsaved model instances to related filters is deprecated. In Django
  5.0, the exception will be raised.

* ``created=True`` is added to the signature of
  :meth:`.RemoteUserBackend.configure_user`. Support  for ``RemoteUserBackend``
  subclasses that do not accept this argument is deprecated.

* The :data:`django.utils.timezone.utc` alias to :attr:`datetime.timezone.utc`
  is deprecated. Use :attr:`datetime.timezone.utc` directly.

* Passing a response object and a form/formset name to
  ``SimpleTestCase.assertFormError()`` and ``assertFormsetError()`` is
  deprecated. Use::

    assertFormError(response.context['form_name'], …)
    assertFormsetError(response.context['formset_name'], …)

  or pass the form/formset object directly instead.

Features removed in 4.1
=======================

These features have reached the end of their deprecation cycle and are removed
in Django 4.1.

See :ref:`deprecated-features-3.2` for details on these changes, including how
to remove usage of these features.

* Support for assigning objects which don't support creating deep copies with
  ``copy.deepcopy()`` to class attributes in ``TestCase.setUpTestData()`` is
  removed.

* Support for using a boolean value in
  :attr:`.BaseCommand.requires_system_checks` is removed.

* The ``whitelist`` argument and ``domain_whitelist`` attribute of
  ``django.core.validators.EmailValidator`` are removed.

* The ``default_app_config`` application configuration variable is removed.

* ``TransactionTestCase.assertQuerysetEqual()`` no longer calls ``repr()`` on a
  queryset when compared to string values.

* The ``django.core.cache.backends.memcached.MemcachedCache`` backend is
  removed.

* Support for the pre-Django 3.2 format of messages used by
  ``django.contrib.messages.storage.cookie.CookieStorage`` is removed.