Deprecate decargs

Author: snejus

beets/ui/__init__.py

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@
 import sys
 import textwrap
 import traceback
+import warnings
 from difflib import SequenceMatcher
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Callable
 
@@ -104,6 +105,21 @@ def _stream_encoding(stream, default="utf-8"):
     return stream.encoding or default
 
 
+def decargs(arglist):
+    """Given a list of command-line argument bytestrings, attempts to
+    decode them to Unicode strings when running under Python 2.
+
+    .. deprecated:: 2.4.0
+       This function will be removed in 3.0.0. Use new_function() instead.
+    """
+    warnings.warn(
+        "decargs() is deprecated and will be removed in version 3.0.0.",
+        DeprecationWarning,
+        stacklevel=2,
+    )
+    return arglist
+
+
 def print_(*strings: str, end: str = "\n") -> None:
     """Like print, but rather than raising an error when a character
     is not in the terminal's encoding's character set, just silently

docs/changelog.rst

@@ -86,6 +86,10 @@ For plugin developers:
     * ``beets.autotag.current_metadata`` has been renamed to
       ``beets.util.get_most_common_tags``.
 
+  Old imports are now deprecated and will be removed in version ``3.0.0``.
+* ``beets.ui.decargs`` is deprecated and will be removed in version ``3.0.0``.
+
+
 Other changes:
 
 * Refactor: Split responsibilities of Plugins into MetaDataPlugins and general Plugins.