Remove unused TK_AQUA code

[chrstphrchvz]

Sections of code which are guarded by #ifdef TK_AQUA were committed in cb85244. But from examining the CPython
and Tcl/Tk repository histories, it appears nothing has ever defined this macro. (Tk Aqua itself instead defines/uses the MAC_OSX_TK macro.) The only mentions of it I found elsewhere were as -DTK_AQUA passed to build commands, either in a Setup.local file (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/2001-December/004553.html, https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/2002-November/006746.html) or manual command line invocation (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/2002-January/004776.html).

So I believe this code has long been unused, and I suspect that trying to use it now is not a good idea. Can it be removed?

Linked PRs

• gh-103538: Remove unused TK_AQUA code #103539

[hugovk]

I didn't find any relevant use using GitHub's beta code search:

• https://github.com/search?q=%2F%5CbTK_AQUA%5Cb%2F&type=code
• https://github.com/search?q=%2F%5Cdefine+TK_AQUA%2F&type=code

And zero use in the top 5k PyPI projects:

• https://dev.to/hugovk/how-to-search-5000-python-projects-31gk

---

For reference, the commit references BPO number 490100, which is now at gh-35685.

There's some mention of Aqua Tk and TK_AQUA in #49370, ping participants @terryjreedy, @ronaldoussoren, @ned-deily.

And #49370 (comment) says:

I've talked with Daniel Steffen, who is one of the maintainers of Tcl/Tk
on Mac OSX, and I was told that all this conditional code in _tkinter.c
and tkappinit.c for TK_AQUA is outdated starting with tk 8.4.8, but tk
8.4.7 that ships with macosx (which happens to be the version being used
by the buildslave mentioned above) also includes the patch that
deprecates the usage, and we should be calling only Tk_Init on
tkappinit.c which will deal with all the details (the details are in
tkMacOSXInit:TkpInit).

There is an entry in tk's changelog that is directly related to this:
http://tktoolkit.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/tktoolkit/tk/ChangeLog.2004?revision=1.1&view=markup
(lines 210-220)

Any chance I can change _tkinter and tkappinit to check for
TKINTER_OLD_AQUA (new macro to be added) instead of TK_AQUA and verify
if it helps the buildslaves ?

Working link to ChangeLog.2004: https://github.com/tcltk/tk/blob/64e6bc556004238f93a9ccb5c2b826aed8310882/ChangeLog.2004#L210-L220

Searching https://github.com/tcltk/tk I don't find TK_AQUA or TKINTER_OLD_AQUA in uppercase, or searching with git log -S TK_AQUA etc. Also no TKINTER_OLD_AQUA in any case.

However, there are still some lowercase tk_aqua in:

• unix/configure.ac
• unix/configure
• ChangeLog.2007

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atcltk%2Ftk%20tk_aqua&type=code

Are they relevant?

[chrstphrchvz]

I didn't find any relevant use using GitHub's beta code search:

• https://github.com/search?q=%2F%5CbTK_AQUA%5Cb%2F&type=code
• https://github.com/search?q=%2F%5Cdefine+TK_AQUA%2F&type=code

I checked git log -S TK_AQUA (which I imagine is more exhaustive than the GitHub code search) for a deep clone of CPython and the only commit it lists is cb85244.

For reference, the commit references BPO number 490100, which is now at gh-35685.

Thanks for finding the patch issue; I was not sure where I might find that.

There's some mention of Aqua Tk and TK_AQUA in #49370, ping participants @terryjreedy, @ronaldoussoren, @ned-deily.

Thanks for bringing that issue up as well; I did not notice it during my earlier search. The changes proposed in oldtkaqua.diff still do not cause TK_AQUA to be defined anywhere, so I do not think that patch ever had any effect. But since that patch intended to make the relevant code apply only to Tk 8.4.7 and earlier, and Tkinter has since required 8.5.12 or later, I believe that is further indication that the code can now be removed.

However, there are still some lowercase tk_aqua in:

• unix/configure.ac
• unix/configure
• ChangeLog.2007

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atcltk%2Ftk%20tk_aqua&type=code

Are they relevant?

In the configure scripts, lowercase tk_aqua is just a shell script variable. It is used to define a macro:

if test $tk_aqua != no; then
    AC_DEFINE(MAC_OSX_TK, 1, [Are we building TkAqua?])

…but there is nothing similar to define TK_AQUA.

[hugovk]

Thanks for checking. @zware: here's another cleanup like #103532, looks okay?

For reference, the commit references BPO number 490100, which is now at gh-35685.

Thanks for finding the patch issue; I was not sure where I might find that.

I guessed the number could be a BPO number, you can find them in the old tracker at https://bugs.python.org tracker which has redirects to the migrated issues here on GitHub. (I used my CLI https://github.com/hugovk/pepotron and typed in bpo 490100 and it opened the GH issue directly.)