10. Backwards Compatibility
GPIO Zero 2.x is a new major version and thus backwards incompatible changes can be expected. We have attempted to keep these as minimal as reasonably possible while taking advantage of the opportunity to clean up things. This chapter documents breaking changes from version 1.x of the library to 2.x, and all deprecated functionality which will still work in release 2.0 but is scheduled for removal in a future 2.x release.
10.1. Finding and fixing deprecated usage
As of release 2.0, all deprecated functionality will raise
DeprecationWarning when used. By default, the Python interpreter
suppresses these warnings (as they’re only of interest to developers, not
users) but you can easily configure different behaviour.
The following example script uses a number of deprecated functions:
import gpiozero
board = gpiozero.pi_info()
for header in board.headers.values():
for pin in header.pins.values():
if pin.pull_up:
print(pin.function, 'is pulled up')
Despite using deprecated functionality the script runs happily (and silently)
with gpiozero 2.0. To discover what deprecated functions are being used, we add
a couple of lines to tell the warnings module that we want “default” handling
of DeprecationWarning; “default” handling means that the first time an
attempt is made to raise this warning at a particular location, the warning’s
details will be printed to the console. All future invocations from the same
location will be ignored. This saves flooding the console with warning details
from tight loops. With this change, the script looks like this:
import gpiozero
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('default', category=DeprecationWarning)
board = gpiozero.pi_info()
for header in board.headers.values():
for pin in header.pins.values():
if pin.pull_up:
print(pin.function, 'is pulled up')
And produces the following output on the console when run:
/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/gpiozero/pins/__init__.py:899:
DeprecationWarning: PinInfo.pull_up is deprecated; please use PinInfo.pull
warnings.warn(
/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/gpiozero/pins/__init__.py:889:
DeprecationWarning: PinInfo.function is deprecated; please use PinInfo.name
warnings.warn(
GPIO2 is pulled up
GPIO3 is pulled up
This tells us which pieces of deprecated functionality are being used in our
script, but it doesn’t tell us where in the script they were used. For this,
it is more useful to have warnings converted into full blown exceptions. With
this change, each time a DeprecationWarning would have been printed, it
will instead cause the script to terminate with an unhandled exception and a
full stack trace:
import gpiozero
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('error', category=DeprecationWarning)
board = gpiozero.pi_info()
for header in board.headers.values():
for pin in header.pins.values():
if pin.pull_up:
print(pin.function, 'is pulled up')
Now when we run the script it produces the following:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/foo.py", line 9, in <module>
if pin.pull_up:
File "/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/gpiozero/pins/__init__.py", line 899, in pull_up
warnings.warn(
DeprecationWarning: PinInfo.pull_up is deprecated; please use PinInfo.pull
This tells us that line 10 of our script is using deprecated functionality, and provides a hint of how to fix it. We change line 9 to use the “pull” attribute instead. Now we run again, and this time get the following:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/foo.py", line 10, in <module>
print(pin.function, 'is pulled up')
File "/home/dave/projects/home/gpiozero/gpio-zero/gpiozero/pins/__init__.py", line 889, in function
warnings.warn(
DeprecationWarning: PinInfo.function is deprecated; please use PinInfo.name
Now we can tell line 10 has a problem, and once again the exception tells us how to fix it. We continue in this fashion until the script looks like this:
import gpiozero
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('error', category=DeprecationWarning)
board = gpiozero.pi_info()
for header in board.headers.values():
for pin in header.pins.values():
if pin.pull == 'up':
print(pin.name, 'is pulled up')
The script now runs to completion, so we can be confident it’s no longer using
any deprecated functionality and will run happily even when this functionality
is removed in a future 2.x release. At this point, you may wish to remove the
filterwarnings line as well (or at least comment it out).
10.2. Python 2.x support dropped
By far the biggest and most important change is that the Python 2.x series is no longer supported (in practice, this means Python 2.7 is no longer supported). If your code is not compatible with Python 3, you should follow the porting guide in the Python documentation.
As of GPIO Zero 2.0, the lowest supported Python version will be 3.5. This base version may advance with minor releases, but we will make a reasonable best effort not to break compatibility with old Python 3.x versions, and to ensure that GPIO Zero can run on the version of Python in Debian oldstable at the time of its release.
10.3. RPIO pin factory removed
The RPIO pin implementation is unsupported on the Raspberry Pi 2 onwards and hence of little practical use these days. Anybody still relying on RPIO’s stable PWM implementation is advised to try the pigpio pin implementation instead (also supported by GPIO Zero).
10.4. Deprecated pin-factory aliases removed
Several deprecated aliases for pin factories, which could be specified by the
GPIOZERO_PIN_FACTORY environment variable, have been removed:
“PiGPIOPin” is removed in favour of “pigpio”
“RPiGPIOPin” is removed in favour of “rpigpio”
“NativePin” is removed in favour of “native”
In other words, you can no longer use the following when invoking your script:
$ GPIOZERO_PIN_FACTORY=PiGPIOPin python3 my_script.py
Instead, you should use the following:
$ GPIOZERO_PIN_FACTORY=pigpio python3 my_script.py
10.5. Keyword arguments
Many classes in GPIO Zero 1.x were documented as having keyword-only arguments
in their constructors and methods. For example, the PiLiter was
documented as having the constructor: PiLiter(*, pwm=False,
initial_value=False, pin_factory=None) implying that all its arguments were
keyword only.
However, despite being documented in this manner, this was rarely enforced as it was extremely difficult to do so under Python 2.x without complicating the code-base considerably (Python 2.x lacked the “*” syntax to declare keyword-only arguments; they could only be implemented via “**kwargs” arguments and dictionary manipulation).
In GPIO Zero 2.0, all such arguments are now actually keyword arguments. If your code complied with the 1.x documentation you shouldn’t notice any difference. In other words, the following is still fine:
from gpiozero import PiLiter
l = PiLiter(pwm=True)
However, if you had omitted the keyword you will need to modify your code:
from gpiozero import PiLiter
l = PiLiter(True) # this will no longer work
10.6. Robots take Motors, and PhaseEnableRobot is deprecated
The GPIO Zero 1.x API specified that a Robot was constructed with two
tuples that were in turn used to construct two Motor instances. The
2.x API replaces this with simply passing in the Motor, or
PhaseEnableMotor() instances you wish to use as the left and right
wheels.
If your current code uses pins 4 and 14 for the left wheel, and 17 and 18 for the right wheel, it may look like this:
from gpiozero import Robot
r = Robot(left=(4, 14), right=(17, 18))
This should be changed to the following:
from gpiozero import Robot, Motor
r = Robot(left=Motor(4, 14), right=Motor(17, 18))
Likewise, if you are currently using PhaseEnableRobot() your code may
look like this:
from gpiozero import PhaseEnableRobot
r = PhaseEnableRobot(left=(4, 14), right=(17, 18))
This should be changed to the following:
from gpiozero import Robot, PhaseEnableMotor
r = Robot(left=PhaseEnableMotor(4, 14),
right=PhaseEnableMotor(17, 18))
This change came about because the Motor class was also documented as
having two mandatory parameters (forward and backward) and several
keyword-only parameters, including the enable pin. However, enable was
treated as a positional argument for the sake of constructing Robot
which was inconsistent. Furthermore, PhaseEnableRobot() was more or less
a redundant duplicate of Robot but was lacking a couple of features
added to Robot later (notable “curved” turning).
Although the new API requires a little more typing, it does mean that phase
enable robot boards now inherit all the functionality of Robot because
that’s all they use. Theoretically you could also mix and match regular motors
and phase-enable motors although there’s little sense in doing so.
The former functionality (passing tuples to the Robot constructor)
will remain as deprecated functionality for gpiozero 2.0, but will be removed
in a future 2.x release. PhaseEnableRobot() remains as a stub function
which simply returns a Robot instance, but this will be removed in a
future 2.x release.
10.7. PiBoardInfo, HeaderInfo, PinInfo
The PiBoardInfo class, and the associated HeaderInfo and
PinInfo classes have undergone a major re-structuring. This is partly
because some of the prior terminology was confusing (e.g. the meaning of
PinInfo.function and Pin.function clashed), and partly because
with the addition of the “lgpio” factory it’s entirely possible to use gpiozero
on non-Pi boards (although at present the pins.lgpio.LGPIOFactory is
still written assuming it is only ever used on a Pi).
As a result the following classes, methods, and attributes are deprecated (not yet removed, but will be in a future release within the 2.x series):
Factory.pi_infois deprecated in favour ofFactory.board_infowhich returns aBoardInfoinstead ofPiBoardInfo(which is now a subclass of the former).PinInfo.pull_upis deprecated in favour ofPinInfo.pull.PinInfo.functionis deprecated in favour ofPinInfo.name.BoardInfo.physical_pins(),BoardInfo.physical_pin(), andBoardInfo.pulled_up(), are all deprecated in favour of a combination of the newBoardInfo.find_pin()and the attributes mentioned above.PiPin.numberis deprecated in favour ofPin.info.name.