Switch LGPL'd chardet for MIT licensed charset_normalizer (#5797)

Although using the (non-vendored) chardet library is fine for requests
itself, but using a LGPL dependency the story is a lot less clear
for downstream projects, particularly ones that might like to bundle
requests (and thus chardet) in to a single binary -- think something
similar to what docker-compose is doing. By including an LGPL'd module
it is no longer clear if the resulting artefact must also be LGPL'd.

By changing out this dependency for one under MIT we remove all
license ambiguity.

As an "escape hatch" I have made the code so that it will use chardet
first if it is installed, but we no longer depend upon it directly,
although there is a new extra added, `requests[lgpl]`. This should
minimize the impact to users, and give them an escape hatch if
charset_normalizer turns out to be not as good. (In my non-exhaustive
tests it detects the same encoding as chartdet in every case I threw at
it)

Co-authored-by: Jarek Potiuk <jarek@potiuk.com>

Co-authored-by: Jarek Potiuk <jarek@potiuk.com>

.gitignore

@@ -23,6 +23,12 @@ env/
 
 .workon
 
+# in case you work with IntelliJ/PyCharm
+.idea
+*.iml
+.python-version
+
+
 t.py
 
 t2.py

HISTORY.md

@@ -6,6 +6,22 @@ dev
 
 -   \[Short description of non-trivial change.\]
 
+**Dependencies**
+
+- Instead of `chardet`, use the MIT-licensed `charset_normalizer` for Python3
+  to remove license ambiguity for projects bundling requests. If `chardet`
+  is already installed on your machine it will be used instead of `charset_normalizer`
+  to keep backwards compatibility.
+
+  You can also install `chardet` while installing requests by
+  specifying `[use_chardet_on_py3]` extra as follows:
+
+    ```shell
+    pip install "requests[use_chardet_on_py3]"
+    ```
+
+  Python2 still depends upon the `chardet` module.
+
 2.25.1 (2020-12-16)
 -------------------
 
@@ -1707,4 +1723,3 @@ This is not a backwards compatible change.
 
 -   Frustration
 -   Conception
-

docs/user/advanced.rst

@@ -697,10 +697,22 @@ Encodings
 When you receive a response, Requests makes a guess at the encoding to
 use for decoding the response when you access the :attr:`Response.text
 <requests.Response.text>` attribute. Requests will first check for an
-encoding in the HTTP header, and if none is present, will use `chardet
-<https://pypi.org/project/chardet/>`_ to attempt to guess the encoding.
-
-The only time Requests will not do this is if no explicit charset
+encoding in the HTTP header, and if none is present, will use
+`charset_normalizer <https://pypi.org/project/charset_normalizer/>`_
+or `chardet <https://github.com/chardet/chardet>`_ to attempt to
+guess the encoding.
+
+If ``chardet`` is installed, ``requests`` uses it, however for python3
+``chardet`` is no longer a mandatory dependency. The ``chardet``
+library is an LGPL-licenced dependency and some users of requests
+cannot depend on mandatory LGPL-licensed dependencies.
+
+When you install ``request`` without specifying ``[use_chardet_on_py3]]`` extra,
+and ``chardet`` is not already installed, ``requests`` uses ``charset-normalizer``
+(MIT-licensed) to guess the encoding. For Python 2, ``requests`` uses only
+``chardet`` and is a mandatory dependency there.
+
+The only time Requests will not guess the encoding is if no explicit charset
 is present in the HTTP headers **and** the ``Content-Type``
 header contains ``text``. In this situation, `RFC 2616
 <https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html#sec3.7.1>`_ specifies

requests/__init__.py

@@ -41,12 +41,20 @@
 """
 
 import urllib3
-import chardet
 import warnings
 from .exceptions import RequestsDependencyWarning
 
+try:
+    from charset_normalizer import __version__ as charset_normalizer_version
+except ImportError:
+    charset_normalizer_version = None
 
-def check_compatibility(urllib3_version, chardet_version):
+try:
+    from chardet import __version__ as chardet_version
+except ImportError:
+    chardet_version = None
+
+def check_compatibility(urllib3_version, chardet_version, charset_normalizer_version):
     urllib3_version = urllib3_version.split('.')
     assert urllib3_version != ['dev']  # Verify urllib3 isn't installed from git.
 
@@ -62,12 +70,19 @@ def check_compatibility(urllib3_version, chardet_version):
     assert minor >= 21
     assert minor <= 26
 
-    # Check chardet for compatibility.
-    major, minor, patch = chardet_version.split('.')[:3]
-    major, minor, patch = int(major), int(minor), int(patch)
-    # chardet >= 3.0.2, < 5.0.0
-    assert (3, 0, 2) <= (major, minor, patch) < (5, 0, 0)
-
+    # Check charset_normalizer for compatibility.
+    if chardet_version:
+        major, minor, patch = chardet_version.split('.')[:3]
+        major, minor, patch = int(major), int(minor), int(patch)
+        # chardet_version >= 3.0.2, < 5.0.0
+        assert (3, 0, 2) <= (major, minor, patch) < (5, 0, 0)
+    elif charset_normalizer_version:
+        major, minor, patch = charset_normalizer_version.split('.')[:3]
+        major, minor, patch = int(major), int(minor), int(patch)
+        # charset_normalizer >= 2.0.0 < 3.0.0
+        assert (2, 0, 0) <= (major, minor, patch) < (3, 0, 0)
+    else:
+        raise Exception("You need either charset_normalizer or chardet installed")
 
 def _check_cryptography(cryptography_version):
     # cryptography < 1.3.4
@@ -82,10 +97,10 @@ def _check_cryptography(cryptography_version):
 
 # Check imported dependencies for compatibility.
 try:
-    check_compatibility(urllib3.__version__, chardet.__version__)
+    check_compatibility(urllib3.__version__, chardet_version, charset_normalizer_version)
 except (AssertionError, ValueError):
-    warnings.warn("urllib3 ({}) or chardet ({}) doesn't match a supported "
-                  "version!".format(urllib3.__version__, chardet.__version__),
+    warnings.warn("urllib3 ({}) or chardet ({})/charset_normalizer ({}) doesn't match a supported "
+                  "version!".format(urllib3.__version__, chardet_version, charset_normalizer_version),
                   RequestsDependencyWarning)
 
 # Attempt to enable urllib3's fallback for SNI support

requests/compat.py

@@ -8,7 +8,10 @@
 Python 3.
 """
 
-import chardet
+try:
+    import chardet
+except ImportError:
+    import charset_normalizer as chardet
 
 import sys
 

requests/help.py

@@ -8,10 +8,19 @@
 
 import idna
 import urllib3
-import chardet
 
 from . import __version__ as requests_version
 
+try:
+    import charset_normalizer
+except ImportError:
+    charset_normalizer = None
+
+try:
+    import chardet
+except ImportError:
+    chardet = None
+
 try:
     from urllib3.contrib import pyopenssl
 except ImportError:
@@ -71,7 +80,12 @@ def info():
 
     implementation_info = _implementation()
     urllib3_info = {'version': urllib3.__version__}
-    chardet_info = {'version': chardet.__version__}
+    charset_normalizer_info = {'version': None}
+    chardet_info = {'version': None}
+    if charset_normalizer:
+        charset_normalizer_info = {'version': charset_normalizer.__version__}
+    if chardet:
+        chardet_info = {'version': chardet.__version__}
 
     pyopenssl_info = {
         'version': None,
@@ -99,9 +113,11 @@ def info():
         'implementation': implementation_info,
         'system_ssl': system_ssl_info,
         'using_pyopenssl': pyopenssl is not None,
+        'using_charset_normalizer': chardet is None,
         'pyOpenSSL': pyopenssl_info,
         'urllib3': urllib3_info,
         'chardet': chardet_info,
+        'charset_normalizer': charset_normalizer_info,
         'cryptography': cryptography_info,
         'idna': idna_info,
         'requests': {

requests/models.py

@@ -731,7 +731,7 @@ def next(self):
 
     @property
     def apparent_encoding(self):
-        """The apparent encoding, provided by the chardet library."""
+        """The apparent encoding, provided by the charset_normalizer or chardet libraries."""
         return chardet.detect(self.content)['encoding']
 
     def iter_content(self, chunk_size=1, decode_unicode=False):
@@ -845,7 +845,7 @@ def text(self):
         """Content of the response, in unicode.
 
         If Response.encoding is None, encoding will be guessed using
-        ``chardet``.
+        ``charset_normalizer`` or ``chardet``.
 
         The encoding of the response content is determined based solely on HTTP
         headers, following RFC 2616 to the letter. If you can take advantage of
@@ -893,7 +893,7 @@ def json(self, **kwargs):
         if not self.encoding and self.content and len(self.content) > 3:
             # No encoding set. JSON RFC 4627 section 3 states we should expect
             # UTF-8, -16 or -32. Detect which one to use; If the detection or
-            # decoding fails, fall back to `self.text` (using chardet to make
+            # decoding fails, fall back to `self.text` (using charset_normalizer to make
             # a best guess).
             encoding = guess_json_utf(self.content)
             if encoding is not None:

requests/packages.py

@@ -1,14 +1,26 @@
 import sys
 
+try:
+    import chardet
+except ImportError:
+    import charset_normalizer as chardet
+    import warnings
+
+    warnings.filterwarnings('ignore', 'Trying to detect', module='charset_normalizer')
+
 # This code exists for backwards compatibility reasons.
 # I don't like it either. Just look the other way. :)
 
-for package in ('urllib3', 'idna', 'chardet'):
+for package in ('urllib3', 'idna'):
     locals()[package] = __import__(package)
     # This traversal is apparently necessary such that the identities are
     # preserved (requests.packages.urllib3.* is urllib3.*)
     for mod in list(sys.modules):
         if mod == package or mod.startswith(package + '.'):
             sys.modules['requests.packages.' + mod] = sys.modules[mod]
 
+target = chardet.__name__
+for mod in list(sys.modules):
+    if mod == target or mod.startswith(target + '.'):
+        sys.modules['requests.packages.' + target.replace(target, 'chardet')] = sys.modules[mod]
 # Kinda cool, though, right?

setup.py

@@ -41,7 +41,8 @@ def run_tests(self):
 packages = ['requests']
 
 requires = [
-    'chardet>=3.0.2,<5',
+    'charset_normalizer~=2.0.0; python_version >= "3"',
+    'chardet>=3.0.2,<5; python_version < "3"',
     'idna>=2.5,<3',
     'urllib3>=1.21.1,<1.27',
     'certifi>=2017.4.17'
@@ -103,6 +104,7 @@ def run_tests(self):
         'security': ['pyOpenSSL >= 0.14', 'cryptography>=1.3.4'],
         'socks': ['PySocks>=1.5.6, !=1.5.7'],
         'socks:sys_platform == "win32" and python_version == "2.7"': ['win_inet_pton'],
+        'use_chardet_on_py3': ['chardet>=3.0.2,<5']
     },
     project_urls={
         'Documentation': 'https://requests.readthedocs.io',

tox.ini

@@ -1,7 +1,18 @@
 [tox]
-envlist = py27,py35,py36,py37,py38
+envlist = py{27,35,36,37,38}-{default,use_chardet_on_py3}
 
 [testenv]
-
+deps = -rrequirements-dev.txt
+extras =
+    security
+    socks
 commands =
-    python setup.py test
+    pytest tests
+
+[testenv:default]
+
+[testenv:use_chardet_on_py3]
+extras =
+    security
+    socks
+    use_chardet_on_py3