=====================
60.0 Better Call Saul
=====================

The Avocado team is proud to present another release: Avocado version
60.0, AKA "Better Call Saul", is now available!

Release documentation: `Avocado 60.0
<http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/60.0/>`_

The major changes introduced on this version are listed below,
roughly categorized into major topics and intended audience:

Users/Test Writers
==================

* The legacy options ``--filter-only``, ``--filter-out`` and ``--multiplex``
  have now been removed.  Please adjust your usage, replacing those
  options with ``--mux-filter-only``, ``--mux-filter-out`` and
  ``--mux-yaml`` respectively.

* The deprecated ``skip`` method, previously part of the
  :class:`avocado.Test` API, has been removed.  To skip a test,
  you can still use the :func:`avocado.skip`, :func:`avocado.skipIf`
  and :func:`avocado.skipUnless` decorators.

* The :meth:`avocado.Test.srcdir` property has been deprecated, and
  will be removed in the next release.  Please use
  :meth:`avocado.Test.workdir` instead.

* Python 3 RPM packages are now available for the core Avocado and for
  many of the plugins.  Users can install both versions side by side,
  and they'll share the same configuration.  To run the Python 3
  version, run ``avocado-3`` (or ``avocado-3.x``, which x is the minor
  Python version) instead of ``avocado``.

* The :mod:`avocado.utils.kernel` library now supports setting the URL
  that will be used to fetch the Linux kernel from, and can also build
  installable packages on supported distributions (such as ``.deb``
  packages on Ubuntu).

* The :mod:`avocado.utils.process` library now contains helper
  functions similar to the Python 2 :func:`commands.getstatusoutput`
  and :func:`commands.getoutput` which can be of help to people porting
  code from Python 2 to Python 3.

Bug Fixes
=========

* Each job now gets its own temporary directory, which allows multiple
  jobs to be used in a single interpreter execution.

* On some situations, Avocado would, internally, attempt to operate on
  a closed file, resulting in ``ValueError: I/O operation on closed
  file``.  This has been fixed in the
  :class:`avocado.utils.process.FDDrainer` class, which will not only
  check if the file is not closed, but if the file-like object is
  capable of operations such as ``fsync()``.

* Avocado can now (again) run tests that will produce output in encoding
  different than the Python standard one.  This has been implemented as
  an Avocado-wide, hard-coded setting, that defines the default encoding
  to be ``utf-8``.  This may be made configurable in the future.

Internal Changes
================

* A memory optimization was applied, and allows test jobs with a large
  number of tests to run smoothly.  Previously, Avocado would save the
  :attr:`avocado.Test.params` attribute, a
  :class:`avocado.core.parameters.AvocadoParams` instance to the test
  results.  Now, it just keeps the relevant contents of the test
  parameters instead.

* A number of warnings have been enabled on Avocado's "lint" checks,
  and consequently a number of mistakes have been fixed.

* The usage of the :class:`avocado.core.job.Job` class now requires
  the use of :meth:`avocado.core.job.Job.setup` and
  :meth:`avocado.core.job.Job.cleanup`, either explicitly or as a
  context manager.  This makes sure the temporary files are properly
  cleaned up after the job finishes.

* The exception raised by the utility functions in
  :mod:`avocado.utils.memory` has been renamed from ``MemoryError``
  and became :class:`avocado.utils.memory.MemError`.  The reason is
  that ``MemoryError`` is a Python standard exception, that is
  intended to be used on different situations.

* A number of small improvements to the :class:`avocado.Test`
  implementation, including making :meth:`avocado.Test.workdir`
  creation more consistent with other test temporary directories,
  extended logging of test metadata, logging of test initialization
  (look for ``INIT`` in your test logs) in addition to the already
  existing start of test execution (logged as ``START``), etc.

For more information, please check out the complete
`Avocado changelog
<https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/59.0...60.0>`_.

Release Meeting
===============

The Avocado release meetings are now open to the community via
Hangouts on Air.  The meetings are recorded and made available on the
`Avocado Test Framework YouTube channel
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RVZ_HFTbEztDM7wNY4NfA>`_.

For this release, you can watch the meeting on `this link
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPx6swhbMUs>`_.

----

| Sprint theme: https://trello.com/c/6a7jrsxA/1292-sprint-theme-better-call-saul