Policies#
Version policy#
pandas uses a loose variant of semantic versioning (SemVer) to governdeprecations, API compatibility, and version numbering.
A pandas release number is made up ofMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.
API breaking changes should only occur inmajor releases. These changeswill be documented, with clear guidance on what is changing, why it’s changing,and how to migrate existing code to the new behavior.
Whenever possible, a deprecation path will be provided rather than an outrightbreaking change.
pandas will introduce deprecations inminor releases. These deprecationswill preserve the existing behavior while emitting a warning that provideguidance on:
How to achieve similar behavior if an alternative is available
The pandas version in which the deprecation will be enforced.
We will not introduce new deprecations in patch releases.
Deprecations will only be enforced inmajor releases. For example, if abehavior is deprecated in pandas 1.2.0, it will continue to work, with awarning, for all releases in the 1.x series. The behavior will change and thedeprecation removed in the next major release (2.0.0).
Note
pandas will sometimes makebehavior changing bug fixes, as part ofminor or patch releases. Whether or not a change is a bug fix or anAPI-breaking change is a judgement call. We’ll do our best, and weinvite you to participate in development discussion on the issuetracker or mailing list.
These policies do not apply to features marked asexperimental in the documentation.pandas may change the behavior of experimental features at any time.
Python support#
pandas mirrors theSPEC 0 guideline for Python support.
Security policy#
To report a security vulnerability to pandas, please go topandas-dev/pandas and see the instructions there.