[Python-Dev] Deprecate sys.exitfunc?

[Guido van Rossum]

> The documentation for the atexit module (introduced in Py2.0) states:
> 
> """Note: This module is unlikely to work correctly when used with other
> code that sets sys.exitfunc. In particular, other core Python modules
> are free to use atexit without the programmer's knowledge. Authors who
> use sys.exitfunc should convert their code to use atexit instead. The
> simplest way to convert code that sets sys.exitfunc is to import atexit
> and register the function that had been bound to sys.exitfunc."""
> 
> Can we strengthen this by deprecating sys.exitfunc?
> 
> The atexit module does attempt to co-exist by introducing code to
> register a function in sys.exitfunc if it were defined before "import
> atexit" was called.  However, this is unreliable because it depends on
> import order and the library is free to introduce an earlier "import
> atexit" which would break code relying on the co-existance mechanism.

+1

(I think the quoted words were written before we had introduced a
formal concept of deprecation -- atexit is quite old. :-)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)