Changelog for Falcon 1.4.0
==========================

Breaking Changes
----------------

- :attr:`falcon.testing.Result.json` now returns None when the response body is
  empty, rather than raising an error.

Changes to Supported Platforms
------------------------------

- Python 3 is now supported on PyPy as of PyPy3.5 v5.10.
- Support for CPython 3.3 is now deprecated and will be removed in
  Falcon 2.0.
- As with the previous release, Python 2.6 and Jython 2.7 remain deprecated and
  will no longer be supported in Falcon 2.0.

New & Improved
--------------

- We added a new method, :meth:`~.API.add_static_route`, that makes it easy to
  serve files from a local directory. This feature provides an alternative to
  serving files from the web server when you don't have that option, when
  authorization is required, or for testing purposes.
- Arguments can now be passed to hooks (see :ref:`Hooks <hooks>`).
- The default JSON media type handler will now use
  `ujson <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ujson>`_, if available, to
  speed up JSON (de)serialization under CPython.
- Semantic validation via the *format* keyword is now enabled for the
  :meth:`~falcon.media.validators.jsonschema.validate` JSON Schema decorator.
- We added a new helper, :meth:`~falcon.Request.get_param_as_uuid`, to the
  :class:`~falcon.Request` class.
- Falcon now supports WebDAV methods
  (`RFC 3253 <https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3253.txt>`_), such as UPDATE and
  REPORT.
- We added a new property, :attr:`~falcon.Response.downloadable_as`, to the
  :class:`~falcon.Response` class for setting the Content-Disposition header.
- :meth:`~falcon.routing.create_http_method_map` has been refactored into two
  new methods, :meth:`~falcon.routing.map_http_methods` and :meth:`~falcon.routing.set_default_responders`, so that
  custom routers can better pick and choose the functionality they need. The
  original method is still available for backwards-compatibility, but will
  be removed in a future release.
- We added a new `json` param to :meth:`~falcon.testing.simulate_request` et al.
  to automatically serialize the request body from a JSON serializable object
  or type (for a complete list of serializable types, see
  `json.JSONEncoder <https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/json.html#json.JSONEncoder>`_).
- :class:`~.TestClient`'s ``simulate_*()`` methods now call
  :meth:`~.TestClient.simulate_request` to make it easier for subclasses to
  override :class:`~.TestClient`'s behavior.
- :class:`~.TestClient` can now be configured with a default set of headers to
  send with every request.
- The :ref:`FAQ <faq>` has been reorganized and greatly expanded.
- We restyled the docs to match https://falconframework.org

Fixed
-----

- Forwarded headers containing quoted strings with commas were not being parsed
  correctly. This has been fixed, and the parser generally made more robust.
- :class:`~falcon.media.JSONHandler` was raising an error under Python 2.x when
  serializing strings containing Unicode code points. This issue has been
  fixed.
- Overriding a resource class and calling its responders via ``super()`` did
  not work when passing URI template params as positional arguments. This has
  now been fixed.
- Python 3.6 was generating warnings for strings containing ``'\s'`` within
  Falcon. These strings have been converted to raw strings to mitigate the
  warning.
- Several syntax errors were found and fixed in the code examples used in the
  docs.

Contributors to this Release
----------------------------

Many thanks to all of our talented and stylish contributors for this release!

- GriffGeorge
- hynek
- kgriffs
- rhemz
- santeyio
- timc13
- tyronegroves
- vytas7
- zhanghanyun
