.. currentmodule:: websockets
websockets
is intended for production use. Therefore, stability is a goal.
websockets
also aims at providing the best API for WebSocket in Python.
While we value stability, we value progress more. When an improvement requires changing a public API, we make the change and document it in this changelog.
When possible with reasonable effort, we preserve backwards-compatibility for five years after the release that introduced the change.
When a release contains backwards-incompatible API changes, the major version is increased, else the minor version is increased. Patch versions are only for fixing regressions shortly after a release.
Only documented APIs are public. Undocumented APIs are considered private. They may change at any time.
In development
May 15, 2021
- Restored compatibility of
python -m websockets
with Python < 3.9. - Restored compatibility with mypy.
May 2, 2021
- Fixed issues with the packaging of the 9.0 release.
May 1, 2021
Note
Version 9.0 moves or deprecates several APIs.
Aliases provide backwards compatibility for all previously public APIs.
- :class:`~datastructures.Headers` and
:exc:`~datastructures.MultipleValuesError` were moved from
websockets.http
to :mod:`websockets.datastructures`. If you're using them, you should adjust the import path. - The
client
,server
,protocol
, andauth
modules were moved from thewebsockets
package towebsockets.legacy
sub-package, as part of an upcoming refactoring. Despite the name, they're still fully supported. The refactoring should be a transparent upgrade for most uses when it's available. The legacy implementation will be preserved according to the backwards-compatibility policy. - The
framing
,handshake
,headers
,http
, anduri
modules in thewebsockets
package are deprecated. These modules provided low-level APIs for reuse by other WebSocket implementations, but that never happened. Keeping these APIs public makes it more difficult to improve websockets for no actual benefit.
Note
Version 9.0 may require changes if you use static code analysis tools.
Convenience imports from the websockets
module are performed lazily.
While this is supported by Python, static code analysis tools such as mypy
are unable to understand the behavior.
If you depend on such tools, use the real import path, which can be found in the API documentation:
from websockets.client import connect from websockets.server import serve
- Added compatibility with Python 3.9.
- Added support for IRIs in addition to URIs.
- Added close codes 1012, 1013, and 1014.
- Raised an error when passing a :class:`dict` to :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.send`.
- Fixed sending fragmented, compressed messages.
- Fixed
Host
header sent when connecting to an IPv6 address. - Fixed creating a client or a server with an existing Unix socket.
- Aligned maximum cookie size with popular web browsers.
- Ensured cancellation always propagates, even on Python versions where :exc:`~asyncio.CancelledError` inherits :exc:`Exception`.
- Improved error reporting.
November 1, 2019
- Added compatibility with Python 3.8.
July 31, 2019
- Restored the ability to pass a socket with the
sock
parameter of :func:`~legacy.server.serve`. - Removed an incorrect assertion when a connection drops.
July 21, 2019
- Restored the ability to import
WebSocketProtocolError
fromwebsockets
.
July 7, 2019
Warning
Version 8.0 drops compatibility with Python 3.4 and 3.5.
Note
Version 8.0 expects process_request
to be a coroutine.
Previously, it could be a function or a coroutine.
If you're passing a process_request
argument to
:func:`~legacy.server.serve`
or :class:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol`, or if you're overriding
:meth:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol.process_request` in a subclass,
define it with async def
instead of def
.
For backwards compatibility, functions are still mostly supported, but mixing functions and coroutines won't work in some inheritance scenarios.
Note
Version 8.0 changes the behavior of the max_queue
parameter.
If you were setting max_queue=0
to make the queue of incoming messages
unbounded, change it to max_queue=None
.
Note
Version 8.0 deprecates the host
, port
, and secure
attributes of :class:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol`.
Use :attr:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.local_address` in
servers and
:attr:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.remote_address` in clients
instead of host
and port
.
Note
Version 8.0 renames the WebSocketProtocolError
exception
to :exc:`~exceptions.ProtocolError` .
A WebSocketProtocolError
alias provides backwards compatibility.
Note
Version 8.0 adds the reason phrase to the return type of the low-level
API read_response()
.
Also:
- :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.send`, :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.ping`, and :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.pong` support bytes-like types :class:`bytearray` and :class:`memoryview` in addition to :class:`bytes`.
- Added :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosedOK` and :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosedError` subclasses of :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed` to tell apart normal connection termination from errors.
- Added :func:`~legacy.auth.basic_auth_protocol_factory` to enforce HTTP Basic Auth on the server side.
- :func:`~legacy.client.connect` handles redirects from the server during the handshake.
- :func:`~legacy.client.connect` supports overriding
host
andport
. - Added :func:`~legacy.client.unix_connect` for connecting to Unix sockets.
- Improved support for sending fragmented messages by accepting asynchronous iterators in :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.send`.
- Prevented spurious log messages about :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed`
exceptions in keepalive ping task. If you were using
ping_timeout=None
as a workaround, you can remove it. - Changed :meth:`WebSocketServer.close() <legacy.server.WebSocketServer.close>` to perform a proper closing handshake instead of failing the connection.
- Avoided a crash when a
extra_headers
callable returnsNone
. - Improved error messages when HTTP parsing fails.
- Enabled readline in the interactive client.
- Added type hints (PEP 484).
- Added a FAQ to the documentation.
- Added documentation for extensions.
- Documented how to optimize memory usage.
- Improved API documentation.
November 1, 2018
Warning
websockets
now sends Ping frames at regular intervals and closes the
connection if it doesn't receive a matching Pong frame.
See :class:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol` for details.
Warning
Version 7.0 changes how a server terminates connections when it's closed with :meth:`WebSocketServer.close() <legacy.server.WebSocketServer.close>` .
Previously, connections handlers were canceled. Now, connections are closed with close code 1001 (going away). From the perspective of the connection handler, this is the same as if the remote endpoint was disconnecting. This removes the need to prepare for :exc:`~asyncio.CancelledError` in connection handlers.
You can restore the previous behavior by adding the following line at the beginning of connection handlers:
def handler(websocket, path): closed = asyncio.ensure_future(websocket.wait_closed()) closed.add_done_callback(lambda task: task.cancel())
Note
Version 7.0 renames the timeout
argument of
:func:`~legacy.server.serve` and :func:`~legacy.client.connect` to
close_timeout
.
This prevents confusion with ping_timeout
.
For backwards compatibility, timeout
is still supported.
Note
Version 7.0 changes how a :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.ping` that hasn't received a pong yet behaves when the connection is closed.
The ping — as in ping = await websocket.ping()
— used to be canceled
when the connection is closed, so that await ping
raised
:exc:`~asyncio.CancelledError`. Now await ping
raises
:exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed` like other public APIs.
Note
Version 7.0 raises a :exc:`RuntimeError` exception if two coroutines call :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.recv` concurrently.
Concurrent calls lead to non-deterministic behavior because there are no guarantees about which coroutine will receive which message.
Also:
- Added
process_request
andselect_subprotocol
arguments to :func:`~legacy.server.serve` and :class:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol` to customize :meth:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol.process_request` and :meth:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol.select_subprotocol` without subclassing :class:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol`. - Added support for sending fragmented messages.
- Added the :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.wait_closed` method to protocols.
- Added an interactive client:
python -m websockets <uri>
. - Changed the
origins
argument to represent the lack of an origin withNone
rather than''
. - Fixed a data loss bug in :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.recv`: canceling it at the wrong time could result in messages being dropped.
- Improved handling of multiple HTTP headers with the same name.
- Improved error messages when a required HTTP header is missing.
July 16, 2018
Warning
Version 6.0 introduces the :class:`~datastructures.Headers` class for managing HTTP headers and changes several public APIs:
- :meth:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol.process_request` now
receives a :class:`~datastructures.Headers` instead of a
http.client.HTTPMessage
in therequest_headers
argument. - The
request_headers
andresponse_headers
attributes of :class:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol` are :class:`~datastructures.Headers` instead ofhttp.client.HTTPMessage
. - The
raw_request_headers
andraw_response_headers
attributes of :class:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol` are removed. Use :meth:`~datastructures.Headers.raw_items` instead. - Functions defined in the
handshake
module now receive :class:`~datastructures.Headers` in argument instead ofget_header
orset_header
functions. This affects libraries that rely on low-level APIs. - Functions defined in the
http
module now return HTTP headers as :class:`~datastructures.Headers` instead of lists of(name, value)
pairs.
Since :class:`~datastructures.Headers` and http.client.HTTPMessage
provide similar APIs, this change won't affect most of the code dealing
with HTTP headers.
Also:
- Added compatibility with Python 3.7.
May 24, 2018
- Fixed a regression in 5.0 that broke some invocations of :func:`~legacy.server.serve` and :func:`~legacy.client.connect`.
May 22, 2018
Note
Version 5.0 fixes a security issue introduced in version 4.0.
Version 4.0 was vulnerable to denial of service by memory exhaustion
because it didn't enforce max_size
when decompressing compressed
messages (CVE-2018-1000518).
Note
Version 5.0 adds a user_info
field to the return value of
:func:`~uri.parse_uri` and :class:`~uri.WebSocketURI` .
If you're unpacking :class:`~uri.WebSocketURI` into four variables, adjust your code to account for that fifth field.
Also:
- :func:`~legacy.client.connect` performs HTTP Basic Auth when the URI contains credentials.
- Iterating on incoming messages no longer raises an exception when the connection terminates with close code 1001 (going away).
- A plain HTTP request now receives a 426 Upgrade Required response and doesn't log a stack trace.
- :func:`~legacy.server.unix_serve` can be used as an asynchronous context manager on Python ≥ 3.5.1.
- Added the :attr:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.closed` property to protocols.
- If a :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.ping` doesn't receive a pong, it's canceled when the connection is closed.
- Reported the cause of :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed` exceptions.
- Added new examples in the documentation.
- Updated documentation with new features from Python 3.6.
- Improved several other sections of the documentation.
- Fixed missing close code, which caused :exc:`TypeError` on connection close.
- Fixed a race condition in the closing handshake that raised :exc:`~exceptions.InvalidState`.
- Stopped logging stack traces when the TCP connection dies prematurely.
- Prevented writing to a closing TCP connection during unclean shutdowns.
- Made connection termination more robust to network congestion.
- Prevented processing of incoming frames after failing the connection.
November 2, 2017
- Fixed issues with the packaging of the 4.0 release.
November 2, 2017
Warning
Version 4.0 drops compatibility with Python 3.3.
Note
Version 4.0 enables compression with the permessage-deflate extension.
In August 2017, Firefox and Chrome support it, but not Safari and IE.
Compression should improve performance but it increases RAM and CPU use.
If you want to disable compression, add compression=None
when calling
:func:`~legacy.server.serve` or :func:`~legacy.client.connect`.
Note
Version 4.0 removes the state_name
attribute of protocols.
Use protocol.state.name
instead of protocol.state_name
.
Also:
- :class:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol` instances can be used as asynchronous iterators on Python ≥ 3.6. They yield incoming messages.
- Added :func:`~legacy.server.unix_serve` for listening on Unix sockets.
- Added the :attr:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServer.sockets` attribute to the return value of :func:`~legacy.server.serve`.
- Reorganized and extended documentation.
- Aborted connections if they don't close within the configured
timeout
. - Rewrote connection termination to increase robustness in edge cases.
- Stopped leaking pending tasks when :meth:`~asyncio.Task.cancel` is called on a connection while it's being closed.
- Reduced verbosity of "Failing the WebSocket connection" logs.
- Allowed
extra_headers
to overrideServer
andUser-Agent
headers.
August 20, 2017
- Renamed :func:`~legacy.server.serve` and :func:`~legacy.client.connect`'s
klass
argument tocreate_protocol
to reflect that it can also be a callable. For backwards compatibility,klass
is still supported. - :func:`~legacy.server.serve` can be used as an asynchronous context manager on Python ≥ 3.5.1.
- Added support for customizing handling of incoming connections with :meth:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol.process_request`.
- Made read and write buffer sizes configurable.
- Rewrote HTTP handling for simplicity and performance.
- Added an optional C extension to speed up low-level operations.
- An invalid response status code during :func:`~legacy.client.connect` now
raises :class:`~exceptions.InvalidStatusCode` with a
code
attribute. - Providing a
sock
argument to :func:`~legacy.client.connect` no longer crashes.
March 29, 2017
- Ensured compatibility with Python 3.6.
- Reduced noise in logs caused by connection resets.
- Avoided crashing on concurrent writes on slow connections.
August 17, 2016
- Added
timeout
,max_size
, andmax_queue
arguments to :func:`~legacy.client.connect` and :func:`~legacy.server.serve`. - Made server shutdown more robust.
April 21, 2016
- Avoided a warning when closing a connection before the opening handshake.
- Added flow control for incoming data.
December 25, 2015
Warning
Version 3.0 introduces a backwards-incompatible change in the :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.recv` API.
If you're upgrading from 2.x or earlier, please read this carefully.
:meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.recv` used to return
None
when the connection was closed. This required checking the return
value of every call:
message = await websocket.recv() if message is None: return
Now it raises a :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed` exception instead. This is more Pythonic. The previous code can be simplified to:
message = await websocket.recv()
When implementing a server, which is the more popular use case, there's no strong reason to handle such exceptions. Let them bubble up, terminate the handler coroutine, and the server will simply ignore them.
In order to avoid stranding projects built upon an earlier version, the
previous behavior can be restored by passing legacy_recv=True
to
:func:`~legacy.server.serve`, :func:`~legacy.client.connect`,
:class:`~legacy.server.WebSocketServerProtocol`, or
:class:`~legacy.client.WebSocketClientProtocol`. legacy_recv
isn't
documented in their signatures but isn't scheduled for deprecation either.
Also:
- :func:`~legacy.client.connect` can be used as an asynchronous context manager on Python ≥ 3.5.1.
- Updated documentation with
await
andasync
syntax from Python 3.5. - :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.ping` and :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.pong` support data passed as :class:`str` in addition to :class:`bytes`.
- Worked around an :mod:`asyncio` bug affecting connection termination under load.
- Made
state_name
attribute on protocols a public API. - Improved documentation.
November 18, 2015
- Added compatibility with Python 3.5.
- Refreshed documentation.
August 18, 2015
- Added
local_address
andremote_address
attributes on protocols. - Closed open connections with code 1001 when a server shuts down.
- Avoided TCP fragmentation of small frames.
July 28, 2015
- Improved documentation.
- Provided access to handshake request and response HTTP headers.
- Allowed customizing handshake request and response HTTP headers.
- Added support for running on a non-default event loop.
- Returned a 403 status code instead of 400 when the request Origin isn't allowed.
- Canceling :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.recv` no longer drops the next message.
- Clarified that the closing handshake can be initiated by the client.
- Set the close code and reason more consistently.
- Strengthened connection termination by simplifying the implementation.
- Improved tests, added tox configuration, and enforced 100% branch coverage.
January 31, 2015
- Added support for subprotocols.
- Added
loop
argument to :func:`~legacy.client.connect` and :func:`~legacy.server.serve`.
November 3, 2014
- Improved compliance of close codes.
July 28, 2014
- Added support for limiting message size.
April 26, 2014
- Added
host
,port
andsecure
attributes on protocols. - Added support for providing and checking Origin.
February 16, 2014
Warning
Version 2.0 introduces a backwards-incompatible change in the :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.send`, :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.ping`, and :meth:`~legacy.protocol.WebSocketCommonProtocol.pong` APIs.
If you're upgrading from 1.x or earlier, please read this carefully.
These APIs used to be functions. Now they're coroutines.
Instead of:
websocket.send(message)
you must now write:
await websocket.send(message)
Also:
- Added flow control for outgoing data.
November 14, 2013
- Initial public release.