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1.. highlight:: c
2
3.. _apiabiversion:
4
5***********************
6API and ABI Versioning
7***********************
8
9CPython exposes its version number in the following macros.
10Note that these correspond to the version code is **built** with,
11not necessarily the version used at **run time**.
12
13See :ref:`stable` for a discussion of API and ABI stability across versions.
14
15.. c:macro:: PY_MAJOR_VERSION
16
17   The ``3`` in ``3.4.1a2``.
18
19.. c:macro:: PY_MINOR_VERSION
20
21   The ``4`` in ``3.4.1a2``.
22
23.. c:macro:: PY_MICRO_VERSION
24
25   The ``1`` in ``3.4.1a2``.
26
27.. c:macro:: PY_RELEASE_LEVEL
28
29   The ``a`` in ``3.4.1a2``.
30   This can be ``0xA`` for alpha, ``0xB`` for beta, ``0xC`` for release
31   candidate or ``0xF`` for final.
32
33.. c:macro:: PY_RELEASE_SERIAL
34
35   The ``2`` in ``3.4.1a2``. Zero for final releases.
36
37.. c:macro:: PY_VERSION_HEX
38
39   The Python version number encoded in a single integer.
40
41   The underlying version information can be found by treating it as a 32 bit
42   number in the following manner:
43
44   +-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
45   | Bytes | Bits (big endian order) | Meaning                 | Value for ``3.4.1a2``    |
46   +=======+=========================+=========================+==========================+
47   |   1   |         1-8             |  ``PY_MAJOR_VERSION``   | ``0x03``                 |
48   +-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
49   |   2   |         9-16            |  ``PY_MINOR_VERSION``   | ``0x04``                 |
50   +-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
51   |   3   |         17-24           |  ``PY_MICRO_VERSION``   | ``0x01``                 |
52   +-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
53   |   4   |         25-28           |  ``PY_RELEASE_LEVEL``   | ``0xA``                  |
54   +       +-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
55   |       |         29-32           |  ``PY_RELEASE_SERIAL``  | ``0x2``                  |
56   +-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
57
58   Thus ``3.4.1a2`` is hexversion ``0x030401a2`` and ``3.10.0`` is
59   hexversion ``0x030a00f0``.
60
61
62All the given macros are defined in :source:`Include/patchlevel.h`.
63