# Python 2 Support Plan for Pydicom

Timeline of support for Python 2

The Python developers have stated that Python 2 will no longer be supported starting Jan 1, 2020. Numpy is also dropping support for Python 2 at that time. Pytest, which pydicom uses for testing, will support only Python 3.5+ starting with the pytest 5.0 release, but are supporting the 4.6 version until mid 2020.

It is clear – Python 2 will become a thing of the past starting Jan 2020. All packages, including pydicom, need to think of transitioning away from Python 2 and supporting only Python 3.

Pydicom code was written with common code for both Python 2.7 and Python 3 as much as possible. Where necessary, checks for Python 2 have been used to create small blocks of distinct code. When the time comes, it should be relatively easy to remove the Python 2 blocks and leave a Python-3-only version of pydicom.

After some discussion on github, the proposed plan for pydicom and Python 2 support is as follows

- pydicom v1.3 (July 2019) - no changes to Python versions supported. Adds a deprecation warning (to be deprecated after next major release) when run under Python 2
- pydicom v1.4 (planned for release ~December 2019) will support Python 2.7 and Python 3.5+, with Python 2 deprecation warning for following major release.
- pydicom v2.0 (planned for ~April 2020) will be Python 3.5+ only
- pydicom v2.1 (no date set) will be Python 3.6+

We may consider the possibility of backporting some fixes to pydicom v1.4 for very serious issues, if users make the case for it. Generally speaking, however, we encourage all pydicom users to make the transition to Python 3 by early 2020.