PyPy 7.3.2 triple release: python 2.7, 3.6, and 3.7

 

The PyPy team is proud to release version 7.3.2 of PyPy, which includes three different interpreters:

• PyPy2.7, which is an interpreter supporting the syntax and the features of Python 2.7 including the stdlib for CPython 2.7.13
• PyPy3.6: which is an interpreter supporting the syntax and the features of Python 3.6, including the stdlib for CPython 3.6.9.
• PyPy3.7 alpha: which is our first release of an interpreter supporting the syntax and the features of Python 3.7, including the stdlib for CPython 3.7.9. We call this an alpha release since it is our first. It is based off PyPy 3.6 so issues should be around compatibility and not stability. Please try it out and let us know what is broken or missing. We have not implemented some of the documented changes in the re module, and other pieces are also missing. For more information, see the PyPy 3.7 wiki page

The interpreters are based on much the same codebase, thus the multiple release. This is a micro release, all APIs are compatible with the 7.3.0 (Dec 2019) and 7.3.1 (April 2020) releases, but read on to find out what is new.

Conda Forge now supports PyPy as a python interpreter. The support is quite complete for linux and macOS. This is the result of a lot of hard work and good will on the part of the Conda Forge team. A big shout out to them for taking this on.

Development of PyPy has transitioning to https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy. This move was covered more extensively in this blog post. We have seen an increase in the number of drive-by contributors who are able to use gitlab + mercurial to create merge requests.

The CFFI backend has been updated to version 1.14.2. We recommend using CFFI rather than c-extensions to interact with C, and using cppyy for performant wrapping of C++ code for Python.

NumPy has begun shipping wheels on PyPI for PyPy, currently for linux 64-bit only. Wheels for PyPy windows will be available from the next NumPy release. Thanks to NumPy for their support.

A new contributor took us up on the challenge to get windows 64-bit support. The work is proceeding on the win64 branch, more help in coding or sponsorship is welcome.

As always, this release fixed several issues and bugs. We strongly recommend updating. Many of the fixes are the direct result of end-user bug reports, so please continue reporting issues as they crop up.

You can find links to download the v7.3.2 releases here:

https://pypy.org/download.html

We would like to thank our donors for the continued support of the PyPy project. Please help support us at Open Collective. If PyPy is not yet good enough for your needs, we are available for direct consulting work.

We would also like to thank our contributors and encourage new people to join the project. PyPy has many layers and we need help with all of them: PyPy and RPython documentation improvements, tweaking popular modules to run on pypy, or general help with making RPython’s JIT even better. Since the previous release, we have accepted contributions from 8 new contributors, thanks for pitching in.

If you are a python library maintainer and use c-extensions, please consider making a cffi / cppyy version of your library that would be performant on PyPy. In any case both cibuildwheel and the multibuild system support building wheels for PyPy.

What is PyPy?

PyPy is a very compliant Python interpreter, almost a drop-in replacement for CPython 2.7, 3.6, and 3.7. It’s fast (PyPy and CPython 2.7.x performance comparison) due to its integrated tracing JIT compiler.

We also welcome developers of other dynamic languages to see what RPython can do for them.

This PyPy release supports:

• x86 machines on most common operating systems (Linux 32/64 bits, Mac OS X 64 bits, Windows 32 bits, OpenBSD, FreeBSD)
• big- and little-endian variants of PPC64 running Linux,
• s390x running Linux
• 64-bit ARM machines running Linux.

PyPy does support ARM 32 bit processors, but does not release binaries.

What else is new?

For more information about the 7.3.2 release, see the full changelog.

Please update, and continue to help us make PyPy better.

Cheers,
The PyPy team