Context
CI builds one wheel per (platform × Python version): currently 4 CPython versions across 10 platform targets, growing by 10 wheels every October. Users on a Python that shipped after our last release fall back to the sdist and need a Rust toolchain.
Building against the stable ABI (pyo3/abi3-py311) gives one wheel per platform that works on every CPython ≥ 3.11, including ones released after us.
Trade-offs to measure before switching
- Performance. Under abi3, PyO3 loses some fast paths. The one most likely to matter here is datetime: the
chrono conversion used for timestamp/duration values goes through the C datetime API on regular builds but through Python-level attribute access under the limited API. size(items) on a 1000-element list and the timestamp cases in examples/performance/compile_execute_benchmark.py are the numbers to compare. If abi3 costs more than ~10% on timestamp-heavy workloads, keep per-version wheels.
- Free-threading. abi3 wheels cannot target the free-threaded build, so if we want
cp314t wheels (see the GIL issue) we would ship abi3 for the default build plus explicit cp314t wheels.
- Reproducibility. The
--find-interpreter flag in maturin-action becomes unnecessary; pyproject.toml gains [tool.maturin] features = ["pyo3/extension-module", "pyo3/abi3-py311"].
Suggested approach
Build an abi3 wheel locally, run the benchmark and the full test suite against it, and post the numbers here. Decide based on the datetime cases.
Context
CI builds one wheel per (platform × Python version): currently 4 CPython versions across 10 platform targets, growing by 10 wheels every October. Users on a Python that shipped after our last release fall back to the sdist and need a Rust toolchain.
Building against the stable ABI (
pyo3/abi3-py311) gives one wheel per platform that works on every CPython ≥ 3.11, including ones released after us.Trade-offs to measure before switching
chronoconversion used fortimestamp/durationvalues goes through the C datetime API on regular builds but through Python-level attribute access under the limited API.size(items)on a 1000-element list and the timestamp cases inexamples/performance/compile_execute_benchmark.pyare the numbers to compare. If abi3 costs more than ~10% on timestamp-heavy workloads, keep per-version wheels.cp314twheels (see the GIL issue) we would ship abi3 for the default build plus explicitcp314twheels.--find-interpreterflag inmaturin-actionbecomes unnecessary;pyproject.tomlgains[tool.maturin] features = ["pyo3/extension-module", "pyo3/abi3-py311"].Suggested approach
Build an abi3 wheel locally, run the benchmark and the full test suite against it, and post the numbers here. Decide based on the datetime cases.