=============
1.3 Changelog
=============

.. changelog_imports::

    .. include:: changelog_12.rst
        :start-line: 5

    .. include:: changelog_11.rst
        :start-line: 5

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.2
    :released: April 2, 2019

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, documentation, sql
       :tickets: 4580

       Thanks to :ref:`change_3981`, we no longer need to rely on recipes that
       subclass dialect-specific types directly, :class:`.TypeDecorator` can now
       handle all cases.   Additionally, the above change made it slightly less
       likely that a direct subclass of a base SQLAlchemy type would work as
       expected, which could be misleading.  Documentation has been updated to use
       :class:`.TypeDecorator` for these examples including the PostgreSQL
       "ArrayOfEnum" example datatype and direct support for the "subclass a type
       directly" has been removed.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, postgresql
       :tickets: 4550

       Modified the :paramref:`.Select.with_for_update.of` parameter so that if a
       join or other composed selectable is passed, the individual :class:`.Table`
       objects will be filtered from it, allowing one to pass a join() object to
       the parameter, as occurs normally when using joined table inheritance with
       the ORM.  Pull request courtesy Raymond Lu.


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, postgresql
        :tickets: 4562

        Added support for parameter-less connection URLs for the psycopg2 dialect,
        meaning, the URL can be passed to :func:`.create_engine` as
        ``"postgresql+psycopg2://"`` with no additional arguments to indicate an
        empty DSN passed to libpq, which indicates to connect to "localhost" with
        no username, password, or database given. Pull request courtesy Julian
        Mehnle.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm, ext
       :tickets: 4574, 4573

       Restored instance-level support for plain Python descriptors, e.g.
       ``@property`` objects, in conjunction with association proxies, in that if
       the proxied object is not within ORM scope at all, it gets classified as
       "ambiguous" but is proxed directly.  For class level access, a basic class
       level``__get__()`` now returns the
       :class:`.AmbiguousAssociationProxyInstance` directly, rather than raising
       its exception, which is the closest approximation to the previous behavior
       that returned the :class:`.AssociationProxy` itself that's possible.  Also
       improved the stringification of these objects to be more descriptive of
       current state.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4537

       Fixed bug where use of :func:`.with_polymorphic` or other aliased construct
       would not properly adapt when the aliased target were used as the
       :meth:`.Select.correlate_except` target of a subquery used inside of a
       :func:`.column_property`. This required a fix to the clause adaption
       mechanics to properly handle a selectable that shows up in the "correlate
       except" list, in a similar manner as which occurs for selectables that show
       up in the "correlate" list.  This is ultimately a fairly fundamental bug
       that has lasted for a long time but it is hard to come across it.


    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4566

       Fixed regression where a new error message that was supposed to raise when
       attempting to link a relationship option to an AliasedClass without using
       :meth:`.PropComparator.of_type` would instead raise an ``AttributeError``.
       Note that in 1.3, it is no longer valid to create an option path from a
       plain mapper relationship to an :class:`.AliasedClass` without using
       :meth:`.PropComparator.of_type`.

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.1
    :released: March 9, 2019

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, mssql
       :tickets: 4525

       Fixed regression in SQL Server reflection due to :ticket:`4393` where the
       removal of open-ended ``**kw`` from the :class:`.Float` datatype caused
       reflection of this type to fail due to a "scale" argument being passed.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm, ext
       :tickets: 4522

       Fixed regression where an association proxy linked to a synonym would no
       longer work, both at instance level and at class level.

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.0
    :released: March 4, 2019

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, schema
       :tickets: 4517

       Added new parameters :paramref:`.Table.resolve_fks` and
       :paramref:`.MetaData.reflect.resolve_fks` which when set to False will
       disable the automatic reflection of related tables encountered in
       :class:`.ForeignKey` objects, which can both reduce SQL overhead for omitted
       tables as well as avoid tables that can't be reflected for database-specific
       reasons.  Two :class:`.Table` objects present in the same :class:`.MetaData`
       collection can still refer to each other even if the reflection of the two
       tables occurred separately.


    .. change::
       :tags: feature, orm
       :tickets: 4316

       The :meth:`.Query.get` method can now accept a dictionary of attribute keys
       and values as a means of indicating the primary key value to load; is
       particularly useful for composite primary keys.  Pull request courtesy
       Sanjana S.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, orm
       :tickets: 3133

       A SQL expression can now be assigned to a primary key attribute for an ORM
       flush in the same manner as ordinary attributes as described in
       :ref:`flush_embedded_sql_expressions` where the expression will be evaulated
       and then returned to the ORM using RETURNING, or in the case of pysqlite,
       works using the cursor.lastrowid attribute.Requires either a database that
       supports RETURNING (e.g. Postgresql, Oracle, SQL Server) or pysqlite.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, sql
       :tickets: 4509

       The :class:`.Alias` class and related subclasses :class:`.CTE`,
       :class:`.Lateral` and :class:`.TableSample` have been reworked so that it is
       not possible for a user to construct the objects directly.  These constructs
       require that the standalone construction function or selectable-bound method
       be used to instantiate new objects.


    .. change::
       :tags: feature, engine
       :tickets: 4500

       Revised the formatting for :class:`.StatementError` when stringified. Each
       error detail is broken up over multiple newlines instead of spaced out on a
       single line.  Additionally, the SQL representation now stringifies the SQL
       statement rather than using ``repr()``, so that newlines are rendered as is.
       Pull request courtesy Nate Clark.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4500`

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.0b3
    :released: March 4, 2019
    :released: February 8, 2019

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, ext
       :tickets: 2642

       Implemented a more comprehensive assignment operation (e.g. "bulk replace")
       when using association proxy with sets or dictionaries.  Fixes the problem
       of redundant proxy objects being created to replace the old ones, which
       leads to excessive events and SQL and in the case of unique constraints
       will cause the flush to fail.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_2642`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, postgresql
        :tickets: 4473

        Fixed issue where using an uppercase name for an index type (e.g. GIST,
        BTREE, etc. ) or an EXCLUDE constraint would treat it as an identifier to
        be quoted, rather than rendering it as is. The new behavior converts these
        types to lowercase and ensures they contain only valid SQL characters.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4469

       Improved the behavior of :func:`.orm.with_polymorphic` in conjunction with
       loader options, in particular wildcard operations as well as
       :func:`.orm.load_only`.  The polymorphic object will be more accurately
       targeted so that column-level options on the entity will correctly take
       effect.The issue is a continuation of the same kinds of things fixed in
       :ticket:`4468`.


    .. change::
       :tags: bug, sql
       :tickets: 4481

       Fully removed the behavior of strings passed directly as components of a
       :func:`.select` or :class:`.Query` object being coerced to :func:`.text`
       constructs automatically; the warning that has been emitted is now an
       ArgumentError or in the case of order_by() / group_by() a CompileError.
       This has emitted a warning since version 1.0 however its presence continues
       to create concerns for the potential of mis-use of this behavior.

       Note that public CVEs have been posted for order_by() / group_by() which
       are resolved by this commit:  CVE-2019-7164  CVE-2019-7548


       .. seealso::

        :ref:`change_4481`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, sql
       :tickets: 4467

       Quoting is applied to :class:`.Function` names, those which are usually but
       not necessarily generated from the :attr:`.sql.func` construct,  at compile
       time if they contain illegal characters, such as spaces or punctuation. The
       names are as before treated as case insensitive however, meaning if the
       names contain uppercase or mixed case characters, that alone does not
       trigger quoting. The case insensitivity is currently maintained for
       backwards compatibility.


    .. change::
       :tags: bug, sql
       :tickets: 4481

       Added "SQL phrase validation" to key DDL phrases that are accepted as plain
       strings, including :paramref:`.ForeignKeyConstraint.on_delete`,
       :paramref:`.ForeignKeyConstraint.on_update`,
       :paramref:`.ExcludeConstraint.using`,
       :paramref:`.ForeignKeyConstraint.initially`, for areas where a series of SQL
       keywords only are expected.Any non-space characters that suggest the phrase
       would need to be quoted will raise a :class:`.CompileError`.   This change
       is related to the series of changes committed as part of :ticket:`4481`.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm, declarative
       :tickets: 4470

       Added some helper exceptions that invoke when a mapping based on
       :class:`.AbstractConcreteBase`, :class:`.DeferredReflection`, or
       :class:`.AutoMap` is used before the mapping is ready to be used, which
       contain descriptive information on the class, rather than falling through
       into other failure modes that are less informative.


    .. change::
       :tags: change, tests
       :tickets: 4460

       The test system has removed support for Nose, which is unmaintained for
       several years and is producing warnings under Python 3. The test suite is
       currently standardized on Pytest.  Pull request courtesy Parth Shandilya.

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.0b2
    :released: March 4, 2019
    :released: January 25, 2019

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, ext
       :tickets: 4401

       Fixed a regression in 1.3.0b1 caused by :ticket:`3423` where association
       proxy objects that access an attribute that's only present on a polymorphic
       subclass would raise an ``AttributeError`` even though the actual instance
       being accessed was an instance of that subclass.

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm
        :tickets: 1103

        Fixed long-standing issue where duplicate collection members would cause a
        backref to delete the association between the member and its parent object
        when one of the duplicates were removed, as occurs as a side effect of
        swapping two objects in one statement.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_1103`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, mssql
       :tickets: 4442

       The ``literal_processor`` for the :class:`.Unicode` and
       :class:`.UnicodeText` datatypes now render an ``N`` character in front of
       the literal string expression as required by SQL Server for Unicode string
       values rendered in SQL expressions.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, orm
       :tickets: 4423

       Implemented a new feature whereby the :class:`.AliasedClass` construct can
       now be used as the target of a :func:`.relationship`.  This allows the
       concept of "non primary mappers" to no longer be necessary, as the
       :class:`.AliasedClass` is much easier to configure and automatically inherits
       all the relationships of the mapped class, as well as preserves the
       ability for loader options to work normally.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4423`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4373

       Extended the fix first made as part of :ticket:`3287`, where a loader option
       made against a subclass using a wildcard would extend itself to include
       application of the wildcard to attributes on the super classes as well, to a
       "bound" loader option as well, e.g. in an expression like
       ``Load(SomeSubClass).load_only('foo')``.  Columns that are part of the
       parent class of ``SomeSubClass`` will also be excluded in the same way as if
       the unbound option ``load_only('foo')`` were used.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4433

       Improved error messages emitted by the ORM in the area of loader option
       traversal.  This includes early detection of mis-matched loader strategies
       along with a clearer explanation why these strategies don't match.


    .. change::
       :tags: change, orm
       :tickets: 4412

       Added a new function :func:`.close_all_sessions` which takes
       over the task of the :meth:`.Session.close_all` method, which
       is now deprecated as this is confusing as a classmethod.
       Pull request courtesy Augustin Trancart.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, orm
       :tickets: 4397

       Added new :meth:`.MapperEvents.before_mapper_configured` event.   This
       event complements the other "configure" stage mapper events with a per
       mapper event that receives each :class:`.Mapper` right before its
       configure step, and additionally may be used to prevent or delay the
       configuration of specific :class:`.Mapper` objects using a new
       return value :attr:`.orm.interfaces.EXT_SKIP`.  See the
       documentation link for an example.

       .. seealso::

          :meth:`.MapperEvents.before_mapper_configured`



    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm

       The "remove" event for collections is now called before the item is removed
       in the case of the ``collection.remove()`` method, as is consistent with the
       behavior for most other forms of collection item removal (such as
       ``__delitem__``, replacement under ``__setitem__``).  For ``pop()`` methods,
       the remove event still fires after the operation.

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm declarative
        :tickets: 4372

       Added a ``__clause_element__()`` method to :class:`.ColumnProperty` which
       can allow the usage of a not-fully-declared column or deferred attribute in
       a declarative mapped class slightly more friendly when it's used in a
       constraint or other column-oriented scenario within the class declaration,
       though this still can't work in open-ended expressions; prefer to call the
       :attr:`.ColumnProperty.expression` attribute if receiving ``TypeError``.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm, engine
       :tickets: 4464

       Added accessors for execution options to Core and ORM, via
       :meth:`.Query.get_execution_options`,
       :meth:`.Connection.get_execution_options`,
       :meth:`.Engine.get_execution_options`, and
       :meth:`.Executable.get_execution_options`.  PR courtesy Daniel Lister.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4446

       Fixed issue in association proxy due to :ticket:`3423` which caused the use
       of custom :class:`.PropComparator` objects with hybrid attribites, such as
       the one demonstrated in  the ``dictlike-polymorphic`` example to not
       function within an association proxy.  The strictness that was added in
       :ticket:`3423` has been relaxed, and additional logic to accomodate for
       an association proxy that links to a custom hybrid have been added.

    .. change::
       :tags: change, general
       :tickets: 4393

       A large change throughout the library has ensured that all objects,
       parameters, and behaviors which have been noted as deprecated or legacy now
       emit ``DeprecationWarning`` warnings when invoked.As the Python 3
       interpreter now defaults to displaying deprecation warnings, as well as that
       modern test suites based on tools like tox and pytest tend to display
       deprecation warnings, this change should make it easier to note what API
       features are obsolete. A major rationale for this change is so that long-
       deprecated features that nonetheless still see continue to see real world
       use can  finally be removed in the near future; the biggest example of this
       are the :class:`.SessionExtension` and :class:`.MapperExtension` classes as
       well as a handful of other pre-event extension hooks, which have been
       deprecated since version 0.7 but still remain in the library.  Another is
       that several major longstanding behaviors are to be deprecated as well,
       including the threadlocal engine strategy, the convert_unicode flag, and non
       primary mappers.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4393_general`


    .. change::
       :tags: change, engine
       :tickets: 4393

       The "threadlocal" engine strategy which has been a legacy feature of
       SQLAlchemy since around version 0.2 is now deprecated, along with the
       :paramref:`.Pool.threadlocal` parameter of :class:`.Pool` which has no
       effect in most modern use cases.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4393_threadlocal`

    .. change::
       :tags: change, sql
       :tickets: 4393

       The :paramref:`.create_engine.convert_unicode` and
       :paramref:`.String.convert_unicode` parameters have been deprecated.  These
       parameters were built back when most Python DBAPIs had little to no support
       for Python Unicode objects, and SQLAlchemy needed to take on the very
       complex task of marshalling data and SQL strings between Unicode and
       bytestrings throughout the system in a performant way.  Thanks to Python 3,
       DBAPIs were compelled to adapt to Unicode-aware APIs and today all DBAPIs
       supported by SQLAlchemy support Unicode natively, including on Python 2,
       allowing this long-lived and very complicated feature to finally be (mostly)
       removed.  There are still of course a few Python 2 edge cases where
       SQLAlchemy has to deal with Unicode however these are handled automatically;
       in modern use, there should be no need for end-user interaction with these
       flags.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4393_convertunicode`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 3777

       Implemented the ``.get_history()`` method, which also implies availability
       of :attr:`.AttributeState.history`, for :func:`.synonym` attributes.
       Previously, trying to access attribute history via a synonym would raise an
       ``AttributeError``.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, engine
       :tickets: 3689

       Added public accessor :meth:`.QueuePool.timeout` that returns the configured
       timeout for a :class:`.QueuePool` object.  Pull request courtesy Irina Delamare.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, sql
       :tickets: 4386

       Amended the :class:`.AnsiFunction` class, the base of common SQL
       functions like ``CURRENT_TIMESTAMP``, to accept positional arguments
       like a regular ad-hoc function.  This to suit the case that many of
       these functions on specific backends accept arguments such as
       "fractional seconds" precision and such.  If the function is created
       with arguments, it renders the parenthesis and the arguments.  If
       no arguments are present, the compiler generates the non-parenthesized form.

.. changelog::
    :version: 1.3.0b1
    :released: March 4, 2019
    :released: November 16, 2018

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, ext
       :tickets: 3423

       Reworked :class:`.AssociationProxy` to store state that's specific to a
       parent class in a separate object, so that a single
       :class:`.AssocationProxy` can serve for multiple parent classes, as is
       intrinsic to inheritance, without any ambiguity in the state returned by it.
       A new method :meth:`.AssociationProxy.for_class` is added to allow
       inspection of class-specific state.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_3423`


    .. change::
       :tags: bug, oracle
       :tickets: 4369

       Updated the parameters that can be sent to the cx_Oracle DBAPI to both allow
       for all current parameters as well as for future parameters not added yet.
       In addition, removed unused parameters that were deprecated in version 1.2,
       and additionally we are now defaulting "threaded" to False.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4369`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, oracle
        :tickets: 4242

        The Oracle dialect will no longer use the NCHAR/NCLOB datatypes
        represent generic unicode strings or clob fields in conjunction with
        :class:`.Unicode` and :class:`.UnicodeText` unless the flag
        ``use_nchar_for_unicode=True`` is passed to :func:`.create_engine` -
        this includes CREATE TABLE behavior as well as ``setinputsizes()`` for
        bound parameters.   On the read side, automatic Unicode conversion under
        Python 2 has been added to CHAR/VARCHAR/CLOB result rows, to match the
        behavior of cx_Oracle under Python 3.  In order to mitigate the performance
        hit under Python 2, SQLAlchemy's very performant (when C extensions
        are built) native Unicode handlers are used under Python 2.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4242`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm
        :tickets: 3844

        Fixed issue regarding passive_deletes="all", where the foreign key
        attribute of an object is maintained with its value even after the object
        is removed from its parent collection.  Previously, the unit of work would
        set this to NULL even though passive_deletes indicated it should not be
        modified.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_3844`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, ext
        :tickets: 4268

        The long-standing behavior of the association proxy collection maintaining
        only a weak reference to the parent object is reverted; the proxy will now
        maintain a strong reference to the parent for as long as the proxy
        collection itself is also in memory, eliminating the "stale association
        proxy" error. This change is being made on an experimental basis to see if
        any use cases arise where it causes side effects.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4268`


    .. change::
        :tags: bug, sql
        :tickets: 4302

        Added "like" based operators as "comparison" operators, including
        :meth:`.ColumnOperators.startswith` :meth:`.ColumnOperators.endswith`
        :meth:`.ColumnOperators.ilike` :meth:`.ColumnOperators.notilike` among many
        others, so that all of these operators can be the basis for an ORM
        "primaryjoin" condition.


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, sqlite
        :tickets: 3850

        Added support for SQLite's json functionality via the new
        SQLite implementation for :class:`.types.JSON`, :class:`.sqlite.JSON`.
        The name used for the type is ``JSON``, following an example found at
        SQLite's own documentation. Pull request courtesy Ilja Everilä.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_3850`

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, engine

       Added new "lifo" mode to :class:`.QueuePool`, typically enabled by setting
       the flag :paramref:`.create_engine.pool_use_lifo` to True.   "lifo" mode
       means the same connection just checked in will be the first to be checked
       out again, allowing excess connections to be cleaned up from the server
       side during periods of the pool being only partially utilized.  Pull request
       courtesy Taem Park.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_pr467`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4359

       Improved the behavior of a relationship-bound many-to-one object expression
       such that the retrieval of column values on the related object are now
       resilient against the object being detached from its parent
       :class:`.Session`, even if the attribute has been expired.  New features
       within the :class:`.InstanceState` are used to memoize the last known value
       of a particular column attribute before its expired, so that the expression
       can still evaluate when the object is detached and expired at the same
       time.  Error conditions are also improved using modern attribute state
       features to produce more specific messages as needed.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4359`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, mysql
        :tickets: 4219

        Support added for the "WITH PARSER" syntax of CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX
        in MySQL, using the ``mysql_with_parser`` keyword argument.  Reflection
        is also supported, which accommodates MySQL's special comment format
        for reporting on this option as well.  Additionally, the "FULLTEXT" and
        "SPATIAL" index prefixes are now reflected back into the ``mysql_prefix``
        index option.



    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm, mysql, postgresql
        :tickets: 4246

        The ORM now doubles the "FOR UPDATE" clause within the subquery that
        renders in conjunction with joined eager loading in some cases, as it has
        been observed that MySQL does not lock the rows from a subquery.   This
        means the query renders with two FOR UPDATE clauses; note that on some
        backends such as Oracle, FOR UPDATE clauses on subqueries are silently
        ignored since they are unnecessary.  Additionally, in the case of the "OF"
        clause used primarily with PostgreSQL, the FOR UPDATE is rendered only on
        the inner subquery when this is used so that the selectable can be targeted
        to the table within the SELECT statement.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4246`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, mssql
        :tickets: 4158

        Added ``fast_executemany=True`` parameter to the SQL Server pyodbc dialect,
        which enables use of pyodbc's new performance feature of the same name
        when using Microsoft ODBC drivers.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4158`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, ext
        :tickets: 4308

        Fixed multiple issues regarding de-association of scalar objects with the
        association proxy.  ``del`` now works, and additionally a new flag
        :paramref:`.AssociationProxy.cascade_scalar_deletes` is added, which when
        set to True indicates that setting a scalar attribute to ``None`` or
        deleting via ``del`` will also set the source association to ``None``.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4308`


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, ext
        :tickets: 4318

        Added new feature :meth:`.BakedQuery.to_query`, which allows for a
        clean way of using one :class:`.BakedQuery` as a subquery inside of another
        :class:`.BakedQuery` without needing to refer explicitly to a
        :class:`.Session`.


    .. change::
       :tags: feature, sqlite
       :tickets: 4360

       Implemented the SQLite ``ON CONFLICT`` clause as understood at the DDL
       level, e.g. for primary key, unique, and CHECK constraints as well as
       specified on a :class:`.Column` to satisfy inline primary key and NOT NULL.
       Pull request courtesy Denis Kataev.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4360`

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, postgresql
       :tickets: 4237

       Added rudimental support for reflection of PostgreSQL
       partitioned tables, e.g. that relkind='p' is added to reflection
       queries that return table information.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4237`

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, ext
       :tickets: 4351

       The :class:`.AssociationProxy` now has standard column comparison operations
       such as :meth:`.ColumnOperators.like` and
       :meth:`.ColumnOperators.startswith` available when the target attribute is a
       plain column - the EXISTS expression that joins to the target table is
       rendered as usual, but the column expression is then use within the WHERE
       criteria of the EXISTS.  Note that this alters the behavior of the
       ``.contains()`` method on the association proxy to make use of
       :meth:`.ColumnOperators.contains` when used on a column-based attribute.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_4351`


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, orm

        Added new flag :paramref:`.Session.bulk_save_objects.preserve_order` to the
        :meth:`.Session.bulk_save_objects` method, which defaults to True. When set
        to False, the given mappings will be grouped into inserts and updates per
        each object type, to allow for greater opportunities to batch common
        operations together.  Pull request courtesy Alessandro Cucci.

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm
        :tickets: 4365

        Refactored :meth:`.Query.join` to further clarify the individual components
        of structuring the join. This refactor adds the ability for
        :meth:`.Query.join` to determine the most appropriate "left" side of the
        join when there is more than one element in the FROM list or the query is
        against multiple entities.  If more than one FROM/entity matches, an error
        is raised that asks for an ON clause to be specified to resolve the
        ambiguity.  In particular this targets the regression we saw in
        :ticket:`4363` but is also of general use.   The codepaths within
        :meth:`.Query.join` are now easier to follow and the error cases are
        decided more specifically at an earlier point in the operation.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4365`

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, sql
        :tickets: 3981

        Fixed issue with :meth:`.TypeEngine.bind_expression` and
        :meth:`.TypeEngine.column_expression` methods where these methods would not
        work if the target type were part of a :class:`.Variant`, or other target
        type of a :class:`.TypeDecorator`.  Additionally, the SQL compiler now
        calls upon the dialect-level implementation when it renders these methods
        so that dialects can now provide for SQL-level processing for built-in
        types.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_3981`


    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm
        :tickets: 4304

        Fixed long-standing issue in :class:`.Query` where a scalar subquery such
        as produced by :meth:`.Query.exists`, :meth:`.Query.as_scalar` and other
        derivations from :attr:`.Query.statement` would not correctly be adapted
        when used in a new :class:`.Query` that required entity adaptation, such as
        when the query were turned into a union, or a from_self(), etc. The change
        removes the "no adaptation" annotation from the :func:`.select` object
        produced by the :attr:`.Query.statement` accessor.

    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm, declarative
        :tickets: 4133

        Fixed bug where declarative would not update the state of the
        :class:`.Mapper` as far as what attributes were present, when additional
        attributes were added or removed after the mapper attribute collections had
        already been called and memoized.  Addtionally, a ``NotImplementedError``
        is now raised if a fully mapped attribute (e.g. column, relationship, etc.)
        is deleted from a class that is currently mapped, since the mapper will not
        function correctly if the attribute has been removed.

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, mssql
       :tickets: 4362

       Deprecated the use of :class:`.Sequence` with SQL Server in order to affect
       the "start" and "increment" of the IDENTITY value, in favor of new
       parameters ``mssql_identity_start`` and ``mssql_identity_increment`` which
       set these parameters directly.  :class:`.Sequence` will be used to generate
       real ``CREATE SEQUENCE`` DDL with SQL Server in a future release.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4362`


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, mysql

        Added support for the parameters in an ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE statement on
        MySQL to be ordered, since parameter order in a MySQL UPDATE clause is
        significant, in a similar manner as that described at
        :ref:`updates_order_parameters`.  Pull request courtesy Maxim Bublis.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_mysql_ondupordering`

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, sql
       :tickets: 4144

       Added :class:`.Sequence` to the "string SQL" system that will render a
       meaningful string expression (``"<next sequence value: my_sequence>"``)
       when stringifying without a dialect a statement that includes a "sequence
       nextvalue" expression, rather than raising a compilation error.



    .. change::
        :tags: bug, orm
        :tickets: 4232

        An informative exception is re-raised when a primary key value is not
        sortable in Python during an ORM flush under Python 3, such as an ``Enum``
        that has no ``__lt__()`` method; normally Python 3 raises a ``TypeError``
        in this case.   The flush process sorts persistent objects by primary key
        in Python so the values must be sortable.


    .. change::
       :tags: orm, bug
       :tickets: 3604

       Removed the collection converter used by the :class:`.MappedCollection`
       class. This converter was used only to assert that the incoming dictionary
       keys matched that of their corresponding objects, and only during a bulk set
       operation.  The converter can interfere with a custom validator or
       :meth:`.AttributeEvents.bulk_replace` listener that wants to convert
       incoming values further.  The ``TypeError`` which would be raised by this
       converter when an incoming key didn't match the value is removed; incoming
       values during a bulk assignment will be keyed to their value-generated key,
       and not the key that's explicitly present in the dictionary.

       Overall, @converter is superseded by the
       :meth:`.AttributeEvents.bulk_replace` event handler added as part of
       :ticket:`3896`.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, sql
       :tickets: 3989

       Added new naming convention tokens ``column_0N_name``, ``column_0_N_name``,
       etc., which will render the names / keys / labels for all columns referenced
       by a particular constraint in a sequence.  In order to accommodate for the
       length of such a naming convention, the SQL compiler's auto-truncation
       feature now applies itself to constraint names as well, which creates a
       shortened, deterministically generated name for the constraint that will
       apply to a target backend without going over the character limit of that
       backend.

       The change also repairs two other issues.  One is that the  ``column_0_key``
       token wasn't available even though this token was documented, the other was
       that the ``referred_column_0_name`` token would  inadvertently render the
       ``.key`` and not the ``.name`` of the column if these two values were
       different.

       .. seealso::

          :ref:`change_3989`


    .. change::
        :tags: feature, ext
        :tickets: 4196

        Added support for bulk :meth:`.Query.update` and :meth:`.Query.delete`
        to the :class:`.ShardedQuery` class within the horizontal sharding
        extension.  This also adds an additional expansion hook to the
        bulk update/delete methods :meth:`.Query._execute_crud`.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4196`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, sql
        :tickets: 4271

        Added new logic to the "expanding IN" bound parameter feature whereby if
        the given list is empty, a special "empty set" expression that is specific
        to different backends is generated, thus allowing IN expressions to be
        fully dynamic including empty IN expressions.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4271`



    .. change::
        :tags: feature, mysql

        The "pre-ping" feature of the connection pool now uses
        the ``ping()`` method of the DBAPI connection in the case of
        mysqlclient, PyMySQL and mysql-connector-python.  Pull request
        courtesy Maxim Bublis.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_mysql_ping`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, orm
        :tickets: 4340

        The "selectin" loader strategy now omits the JOIN in the case of a simple
        one-to-many load, where it instead relies loads only from the related
        table, relying upon the foreign key columns of the related table in order
        to match up to primary keys in the parent table.   This optimization can be
        disabled by setting the :paramref:`.relationship.omit_join` flag to False.
        Many thanks to Jayson Reis for the efforts on this.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4340`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4353

       Added new behavior to the lazy load that takes place when the "old" value of
       a many-to-one is retrieved, such that exceptions which would be raised due
       to either ``lazy="raise"`` or a detached session error are skipped.

       .. seealso::

        :ref:`change_4353`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, sql

        The Python builtin ``dir()`` is now supported for a SQLAlchemy "properties"
        object, such as that of a Core columns collection (e.g. ``.c``),
        ``mapper.attrs``, etc.  Allows iPython autocompletion to work as well.
        Pull request courtesy Uwe Korn.

    .. change::
       :tags: feature, orm
       :tickets: 4257

       Added ``.info`` dictionary to the :class:`.InstanceState` class, the object
       that comes from calling :func:`.inspect` on a mapped object.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4257`

    .. change::
        :tags: feature, sql
        :tickets: 3831

        Added new feature :meth:`.FunctionElement.as_comparison` which allows a SQL
        function to act as a binary comparison operation that can work within the
        ORM.

        .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_3831`

    .. change::
       :tags: bug, orm
       :tickets: 4354

       A long-standing oversight in the ORM, the ``__delete__`` method for a many-
       to-one relationship was non-functional, e.g. for an operation such as ``del
       a.b``.  This is now implemented and is equivalent to setting the attribute
       to ``None``.

       .. seealso::

            :ref:`change_4354`
