Release Date: May 17, 2022

This is the thirteenth and final regular maintenance release of Python 3.9

Note: The release you're looking at is Python 3.9.13, a bugfix release for the legacy 3.9 series. Python 3.11 is now the latest feature release series of Python 3. Get the latest release of 3.11.x here.

According to the release calendar specified in PEP 596, Python 3.9.13 is the final regular maintenance release. Starting now, the 3.9 branch will only accept security fixes and releases of those will be made in source-only form until October 2025.

Compared to the 3.8 series, this last regular bugfix release is still pretty active at 166 commits since 3.9.12. In comparison, version 3.8.10, the final regular bugfix release of Python 3.8, included only 92 commits. However, it's likely that it was 3.8 that was special here with the governance changes occupying core developers' minds. For reference, version 3.7.8, the final regular bugfix release of Python 3.7, included 187 commits.

In any case, 166 commits is quite a few changes, some of which being pretty important fixes. Take a look at the change log for details.

Major new features of the 3.9 series, compared to 3.8

Some of the new major new features and changes in Python 3.9 are:

• PEP 573, Module State Access from C Extension Methods
• PEP 584, Union Operators in dict
• PEP 585, Type Hinting Generics In Standard Collections
• PEP 593, Flexible function and variable annotations
• PEP 602, Python adopts a stable annual release cadence
• PEP 614, Relaxing Grammar Restrictions On Decorators
• PEP 615, Support for the IANA Time Zone Database in the Standard Library
• PEP 616, String methods to remove prefixes and suffixes
• PEP 617, New PEG parser for CPython
• BPO 38379, garbage collection does not block on resurrected objects;
• BPO 38692, os.pidfd_open added that allows process management without races and signals;
• BPO 39926, Unicode support updated to version 13.0.0;
• BPO 1635741, when Python is initialized multiple times in the same process, it does not leak memory anymore;
• A number of Python builtins (range, tuple, set, frozenset, list, dict) are now sped up using PEP 590 vectorcall;
• A number of Python modules (_abc, audioop, _bz2, _codecs, _contextvars, _crypt, _functools, _json, _locale, operator, resource, time, _weakref) now use multiphase initialization as defined by PEP 489;
• A number of standard library modules (audioop, ast, grp, _hashlib, pwd, _posixsubprocess, random, select, struct, termios, zlib) are now using the stable ABI defined by PEP 384.

You can find a more comprehensive list in this release's "What's New" document.

More resources

• Online Documentation
• PEP 596, 3.9 Release Schedule
• Report bugs at https://bugs.python.org.
• Help fund Python and its community.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Mr. Praline (John Cleese): 'ELLO POLLY!!! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call! (Takes parrot out of the cage , throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner (Michael Palin): No, no.....No, he's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um... now look, mate. I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's... he's, ah... probably pining for the fjords.

Full Changelog