Migrating to v0.10.0

v0.10.0 is one of the biggest breaking changes in the library due to massive fundamental changes in how the library operates.

The biggest major change is that the library has dropped support to all versions prior to Python 3.4.2. This was made to support asyncio, in which more detail can be seen in the corresponding issue. To reiterate this, the implication is that python version 2.7 and 3.3 are no longer supported.

Below are all the other major changes from v0.9.0 to v0.10.0.

Event Registration

All events before were registered using Client.event(). While this is still possible, the events must be decorated with @asyncio.coroutine.

Before:

@client.event
def on_message(message):
    pass

After:

@client.event
@asyncio.coroutine
def on_message(message):
    pass

Or in Python 3.5+:

@client.event
async def on_message(message):
    pass

Because there is a lot of typing, a utility decorator (Client.async_event()) is provided for easier registration. For example:

@client.async_event
def on_message(message):
    pass

Be aware however, that this is still a coroutine and your other functions that are coroutines must be decorated with @asyncio.coroutine or be async def.

Event Changes

Some events in v0.9.0 were considered pretty useless due to having no separate states. The main events that were changed were the _update events since previously they had no context on what was changed.

Before:

def on_channel_update(channel): pass
def on_member_update(member): pass
def on_status(member): pass
def on_server_role_update(role): pass
def on_voice_state_update(member): pass
def on_socket_raw_send(payload, is_binary): pass

After:

def on_channel_update(before, after): pass
def on_member_update(before, after): pass
def on_server_role_update(before, after): pass
def on_voice_state_update(before, after): pass
def on_socket_raw_send(payload): pass

Note that on_status was removed. If you want its functionality, use on_member_update(). See Event Reference for more information. Other removed events include on_socket_closed, on_socket_receive, and on_socket_opened.

Coroutines

The biggest change that the library went through is that almost every function in Client was changed to be a coroutine. Functions that are marked as a coroutine in the documentation must be awaited from or yielded from in order for the computation to be done. For example…

Before:

client.send_message(message.channel, 'Hello')

After:

yield from client.send_message(message.channel, 'Hello')

# or in python 3.5+
await client.send_message(message.channel, 'Hello')

In order for you to yield from or await a coroutine then your function must be decorated with @asyncio.coroutine or async def.

Iterables

For performance reasons, many of the internal data structures were changed into a dictionary to support faster lookup. As a consequence, this meant that some lists that were exposed via the API have changed into iterables and not sequences. In short, this means that certain attributes now only support iteration and not any of the sequence functions.

The affected attributes are as follows:

Some examples of previously valid behaviour that is now invalid

if client.servers[0].name == "test":
    # do something

Since they are no longer lists, they no longer support indexing or any operation other than iterating. In order to get the old behaviour you should explicitly cast it to a list.

servers = list(client.servers)
# work with servers

Warning

Due to internal changes of the structure, the order you receive the data in is not in a guaranteed order.

Enumerations

Due to dropping support for versions lower than Python 3.4.2, the library can now use enum — Support for enumerations in places where it makes sense.

The common places where this was changed was in the server region, member status, and channel type.

Before:

server.region == 'us-west'
member.status == 'online'
channel.type == 'text'

After:

server.region == discord.ServerRegion.us_west
member.status = discord.Status.online
channel.type == discord.ChannelType.text

The main reason for this change was to reduce the use of finicky strings in the API as this could give users a false sense of power. More information can be found in the Enumerations page.

Properties

A lot of function calls that returned constant values were changed into Python properties for ease of use in format strings.

The following functions were changed into properties:

Before

After

User.avatar_url()

User.avatar_url

User.mention()

User.mention

Channel.mention()

Channel.mention

Channel.is_default_channel()

Channel.is_default

Role.is_everyone()

Role.is_everyone

Server.get_default_role()

Server.default_role

Server.icon_url()

Server.icon_url

Server.get_default_channel()

Server.default_channel

Message.get_raw_mentions()

Message.raw_mentions

Message.get_raw_channel_mentions()

Message.raw_channel_mentions

Member Management

Functions that involved banning and kicking were changed.

Before

After

Client.ban(server, user)

Client.ban(member)

Client.kick(server, user)

Client.kick(member)

Renamed Functions

Functions have been renamed.

Before

After

Client.set_channel_permissions

Client.edit_channel_permissions()

All the Permissions related attributes have been renamed and the can_ prefix has been dropped. So for example, can_manage_messages has become manage_messages.

Forced Keyword Arguments

Since 3.0+ of Python, we can now force questions to take in forced keyword arguments. A keyword argument is when you explicitly specify the name of the variable and assign to it, for example: foo(name='test'). Due to this support, some functions in the library were changed to force things to take said keyword arguments. This is to reduce errors of knowing the argument order and the issues that could arise from them.

The following parameters are now exclusively keyword arguments:

  • Client.send_message()
    • tts

  • Client.logs_from()
    • before

    • after

  • Client.edit_channel_permissions()
    • allow

    • deny

In the documentation you can tell if a function parameter is a forced keyword argument if it is after \*, in the function signature.

Running the Client

In earlier versions of discord.py, client.run() was a blocking call to the main thread that called it. In v0.10.0 it is still a blocking call but it handles the event loop for you. However, in order to do that you must pass in your credentials to Client.run().

Basically, before:

client.login('token')
client.run()

After:

client.run('token')

Warning

Like in the older Client.run function, the newer one must be the one of the last functions to call. This is because the function is blocking. Registering events or doing anything after Client.run() will not execute until the function returns.

This is a utility function that abstracts the event loop for you. There’s no need for the run call to be blocking and out of your control. Indeed, if you want control of the event loop then doing so is quite straightforward:

import discord
import asyncio

client = discord.Client()

@asyncio.coroutine
def main_task():
    yield from client.login('token')
    yield from client.connect()

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
try:
    loop.run_until_complete(main_task())
except:
    loop.run_until_complete(client.logout())
finally:
    loop.close()