Writing Python 2.7 code that is as close to Python 3.x syntax as possible

Question

Since Django doesn't yet support Python 3.x, I'm using Python 2.7. However, I'd like to go ahead and start familiarizing myself with the new Python 3.x syntax as much as possible. Which leads me to the question:

• What is the best way to write Python 2.7 code that will be as compatible as possible with Python 3.x?

I know that running python -3 will

Warn about Python 3.x incompatibilities that 2to3 cannot trivially fix.

However, I'm interested in getting used to Python 3.x syntax while still using Python 2.7.

For instance, it seems that I should be using the following imports to my code:

from __future__ import print_function from __future__ import unicode_literals from __future__ import division from __future__ import absolute_import 

The above four __future__ import statements are required as of Python 3.0, but not required in 2.7 as described in Python 2.7.3's documentation 27.11. Future Statement Definitions

What else?

Answer 1

Many modules these days get rewritten in a way that allows execution on both Python 2 and Python 3. This turns out to be not very hard at all, and in the future it will be very easy to just drop Python 2 support.

Take a look at the six module that helps with this task, encapsulating many of the differences in a convenient way:

Six provides simple utilities for wrapping over differences between Python 2 and Python 3.

Its website (and of course, code) lists a lot of ways to make this possible.