Python 2 removal part 1: tests (C++ code is intentionally ~untouched) (#3688)

* `#error BYE_BYE_GOLDEN_SNAKE`

* Removing everything related to 2.7 from ci.yml

* Commenting-out Centos7

* Removing `PYTHON: 27` from .appveyor.yml

* "PY2" removal, mainly from tests. C++ code is not touched.

* Systematic removal of `u` prefix from `u"..."` and `u'...'` literals. Collateral cleanup of a couple minor other things.

* Cleaning up around case-insensitive hits for `[^a-z]py.*2` in tests/.

* Removing obsolete Python 2 mention in compiling.rst

* Proper `#error` for Python 2.

* Using PY_VERSION_HEX to guard `#error "PYTHON 2 IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED.`

* chore: bump pre-commit

* style: run pre-commit for pyupgrade 3+

* tests: use sys.version_info, not PY

* chore: more Python 2 removal

* Uncommenting Centos7 block (PR #3691 showed that it is working again).

* Update pre-commit hooks

* Fix pre-commit hook

* refactor: remove Python 2 from CMake

* refactor: remove Python 2 from setup code

* refactor: simplify, better static typing

* feat: fail with nice messages

* refactor: drop Python 2 C++ code

* docs: cleanup for Python 3

* revert: intree

revert: intree

* docs: minor touchup to py2 statement

Co-authored-by: Henry Schreiner <henryschreineriii@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Aaron Gokaslan <skylion.aaron@gmail.com>

docs/Doxyfile

@@ -18,5 +18,4 @@ ALIASES               += "endrst=\endverbatim"
 QUIET                  = YES
 WARNINGS               = YES
 WARN_IF_UNDOCUMENTED   = NO
-PREDEFINED             = PY_MAJOR_VERSION=3 \
-                         PYBIND11_NOINLINE
+PREDEFINED             = PYBIND11_NOINLINE

docs/advanced/cast/strings.rst

@@ -1,14 +1,6 @@
 Strings, bytes and Unicode conversions
 ######################################
 
-.. note::
-
-    This section discusses string handling in terms of Python 3 strings. For
-    Python 2.7, replace all occurrences of ``str`` with ``unicode`` and
-    ``bytes`` with ``str``.  Python 2.7 users may find it best to use ``from
-    __future__ import unicode_literals`` to avoid unintentionally using ``str``
-    instead of ``unicode``.
-
 Passing Python strings to C++
 =============================
 
@@ -58,9 +50,9 @@ Passing bytes to C++
 --------------------
 
 A Python ``bytes`` object will be passed to C++ functions that accept
-``std::string`` or ``char*`` *without* conversion.  On Python 3, in order to
-make a function *only* accept ``bytes`` (and not ``str``), declare it as taking
-a ``py::bytes`` argument.
+``std::string`` or ``char*`` *without* conversion.  In order to make a function
+*only* accept ``bytes`` (and not ``str``), declare it as taking a ``py::bytes``
+argument.
 
 
 Returning C++ strings to Python
@@ -204,11 +196,6 @@ decoded to Python ``str``.
         }
     );
 
-.. warning::
-
-    Wide character strings may not work as described on Python 2.7 or Python
-    3.3 compiled with ``--enable-unicode=ucs2``.
-
 Strings in multibyte encodings such as Shift-JIS must transcoded to a
 UTF-8/16/32 before being returned to Python.
 

docs/advanced/classes.rst

@@ -133,14 +133,14 @@ a virtual method call.
     >>> from example import *
     >>> d = Dog()
     >>> call_go(d)
-    u'woof! woof! woof! '
+    'woof! woof! woof! '
     >>> class Cat(Animal):
     ...     def go(self, n_times):
     ...         return "meow! " * n_times
     ...
     >>> c = Cat()
     >>> call_go(c)
-    u'meow! meow! meow! '
+    'meow! meow! meow! '
 
 If you are defining a custom constructor in a derived Python class, you *must*
 ensure that you explicitly call the bound C++ constructor using ``__init__``,
@@ -813,26 +813,21 @@ An instance can now be pickled as follows:
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    try:
-        import cPickle as pickle  # Use cPickle on Python 2.7
-    except ImportError:
-        import pickle
+    import pickle
 
     p = Pickleable("test_value")
     p.setExtra(15)
-    data = pickle.dumps(p, 2)
+    data = pickle.dumps(p)
 
 
 .. note::
-    Note that only the cPickle module is supported on Python 2.7.
-
-    The second argument to ``dumps`` is also crucial: it selects the pickle
-    protocol version 2, since the older version 1 is not supported. Newer
-    versions are also fine—for instance, specify ``-1`` to always use the
-    latest available version. Beware: failure to follow these instructions
-    will cause important pybind11 memory allocation routines to be skipped
-    during unpickling, which will likely lead to memory corruption and/or
-    segmentation faults.
+    If given, the second argument to ``dumps`` must be 2 or larger - 0 and 1 are
+    not supported. Newer versions are also fine; for instance, specify ``-1`` to
+    always use the latest available version. Beware: failure to follow these
+    instructions will cause important pybind11 memory allocation routines to be
+    skipped during unpickling, which will likely lead to memory corruption
+    and/or segmentation faults. Python defaults to version 3 (Python 3-3.7) and
+    version 4 for Python 3.8+.
 
 .. seealso::
 
@@ -849,11 +844,9 @@ Python normally uses references in assignments. Sometimes a real copy is needed
 to prevent changing all copies. The ``copy`` module [#f5]_ provides these
 capabilities.
 
-On Python 3, a class with pickle support is automatically also (deep)copy
+A class with pickle support is automatically also (deep)copy
 compatible. However, performance can be improved by adding custom
-``__copy__`` and ``__deepcopy__`` methods. With Python 2.7, these custom methods
-are mandatory for (deep)copy compatibility, because pybind11 only supports
-cPickle.
+``__copy__`` and ``__deepcopy__`` methods.
 
 For simple classes (deep)copy can be enabled by using the copy constructor,
 which should look as follows:

docs/advanced/exceptions.rst

@@ -328,8 +328,8 @@ an invalid state.
 Chaining exceptions ('raise from')
 ==================================
 
-In Python 3.3 a mechanism for indicating that exceptions were caused by other
-exceptions was introduced:
+Python has a mechanism for indicating that exceptions were caused by other
+exceptions:
 
 .. code-block:: py
 
@@ -340,7 +340,7 @@ exceptions was introduced:
 
 To do a similar thing in pybind11, you can use the ``py::raise_from`` function. It
 sets the current python error indicator, so to continue propagating the exception
-you should ``throw py::error_already_set()`` (Python 3 only).
+you should ``throw py::error_already_set()``.
 
 .. code-block:: cpp
 

docs/advanced/pycpp/numpy.rst

@@ -398,8 +398,6 @@ Ellipsis
 Python 3 provides a convenient ``...`` ellipsis notation that is often used to
 slice multidimensional arrays. For instance, the following snippet extracts the
 middle dimensions of a tensor with the first and last index set to zero.
-In Python 2, the syntactic sugar ``...`` is not available, but the singleton
-``Ellipsis`` (of type ``ellipsis``) can still be used directly.
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
@@ -414,8 +412,6 @@ operation on the C++ side:
    py::array a = /* A NumPy array */;
    py::array b = a[py::make_tuple(0, py::ellipsis(), 0)];
 
-.. versionchanged:: 2.6
-   ``py::ellipsis()`` is now also available in Python 2.
 
 Memory view
 ===========
@@ -455,9 +451,5 @@ We can also use ``memoryview::from_memory`` for a simple 1D contiguous buffer:
         );
     })
 
-.. note::
-
-    ``memoryview::from_memory`` is not available in Python 2.
-
 .. versionchanged:: 2.6
     ``memoryview::from_memory`` added.

docs/basics.rst

@@ -166,12 +166,12 @@ load and execute the example:
 .. code-block:: pycon
 
     $ python
-    Python 2.7.10 (default, Aug 22 2015, 20:33:39)
-    [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.0.0 (clang-700.0.59.1)] on darwin
+    Python 3.9.10 (main, Jan 15 2022, 11:48:04)
+    [Clang 13.0.0 (clang-1300.0.29.3)] on darwin
     Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
     >>> import example
     >>> example.add(1, 2)
-    3L
+    3
     >>>
 
 .. _keyword_args:

docs/benchmark.py

@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 import datetime as dt
 import os
 import random
@@ -75,7 +74,7 @@ def generate_dummy_code_boost(nclasses=10):
 for codegen in [generate_dummy_code_pybind11, generate_dummy_code_boost]:
     print("{")
     for i in range(0, 10):
-        nclasses = 2 ** i
+        nclasses = 2**i
         with open("test.cpp", "w") as f:
             f.write(codegen(nclasses))
         n1 = dt.datetime.now()

docs/classes.rst

@@ -48,10 +48,10 @@ interactive Python session demonstrating this example is shown below:
     >>> print(p)
     <example.Pet object at 0x10cd98060>
     >>> p.getName()
-    u'Molly'
+    'Molly'
     >>> p.setName("Charly")
     >>> p.getName()
-    u'Charly'
+    'Charly'
 
 .. seealso::
 
@@ -124,10 +124,10 @@ This makes it possible to write
 
     >>> p = example.Pet("Molly")
     >>> p.name
-    u'Molly'
+    'Molly'
     >>> p.name = "Charly"
     >>> p.name
-    u'Charly'
+    'Charly'
 
 Now suppose that ``Pet::name`` was a private internal variable
 that can only be accessed via setters and getters.
@@ -282,9 +282,9 @@ expose fields and methods of both types:
 
     >>> p = example.Dog("Molly")
     >>> p.name
-    u'Molly'
+    'Molly'
     >>> p.bark()
-    u'woof!'
+    'woof!'
 
 The C++ classes defined above are regular non-polymorphic types with an
 inheritance relationship. This is reflected in Python:
@@ -332,7 +332,7 @@ will automatically recognize this:
     >>> type(p)
     PolymorphicDog  # automatically downcast
     >>> p.bark()
-    u'woof!'
+    'woof!'
 
 Given a pointer to a polymorphic base, pybind11 performs automatic downcasting
 to the actual derived type. Note that this goes beyond the usual situation in

docs/compiling.rst

@@ -462,11 +462,8 @@ available in all modes. The targets provided are:
    ``pybind11::headers``
      Just the pybind11 headers and minimum compile requirements
 
-   ``pybind11::python2_no_register``
-     Quiets the warning/error when mixing C++14 or higher and Python 2
-
    ``pybind11::pybind11``
-     Python headers + ``pybind11::headers`` + ``pybind11::python2_no_register`` (Python 2 only)
+     Python headers + ``pybind11::headers``
 
    ``pybind11::python_link_helper``
      Just the "linking" part of pybind11:module
@@ -577,21 +574,12 @@ On Linux, you can compile an example such as the one given in
 
     $ c++ -O3 -Wall -shared -std=c++11 -fPIC $(python3 -m pybind11 --includes) example.cpp -o example$(python3-config --extension-suffix)
 
-The flags given here assume that you're using Python 3. For Python 2, just
-change the executable appropriately (to ``python`` or ``python2``).
-
 The ``python3 -m pybind11 --includes`` command fetches the include paths for
 both pybind11 and Python headers. This assumes that pybind11 has been installed
 using ``pip`` or ``conda``. If it hasn't, you can also manually specify
 ``-I <path-to-pybind11>/include`` together with the Python includes path
 ``python3-config --includes``.
 
-Note that Python 2.7 modules don't use a special suffix, so you should simply
-use ``example.so`` instead of ``example$(python3-config --extension-suffix)``.
-Besides, the ``--extension-suffix`` option may or may not be available, depending
-on the distribution; in the latter case, the module extension can be manually
-set to ``.so``.
-
 On macOS: the build command is almost the same but it also requires passing
 the ``-undefined dynamic_lookup`` flag so as to ignore missing symbols when
 building the module:

docs/conf.py

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 #
 # pybind11 documentation build configuration file, created by
 # sphinx-quickstart on Sun Oct 11 19:23:48 2015.

docs/faq.rst

@@ -8,9 +8,7 @@ Frequently asked questions
 filename of the extension library (without suffixes such as ``.so``).
 
 2. If the above did not fix the issue, you are likely using an incompatible
-version of Python (for instance, the extension library was compiled against
-Python 2, while the interpreter is running on top of some version of Python
-3, or vice versa).
+version of Python that does not match what you compiled with.
 
 "Symbol not found: ``__Py_ZeroStruct`` / ``_PyInstanceMethod_Type``"
 ========================================================================
@@ -289,27 +287,7 @@ Conflicts can arise, however, when using pybind11 in a project that *also* uses
 the CMake Python detection in a system with several Python versions installed.
 
 This difference may cause inconsistencies and errors if *both* mechanisms are
-used in the same project. Consider the following CMake code executed in a
-system with Python 2.7 and 3.x installed:
-
-.. code-block:: cmake
-
-    find_package(PythonInterp)
-    find_package(PythonLibs)
-    find_package(pybind11)
-
-It will detect Python 2.7 and pybind11 will pick it as well.
-
-In contrast this code:
-
-.. code-block:: cmake
-
-    find_package(pybind11)
-    find_package(PythonInterp)
-    find_package(PythonLibs)
-
-will detect Python 3.x for pybind11 and may crash on
-``find_package(PythonLibs)`` afterwards.
+used in the same project.
 
 There are three possible solutions: