Pyinstaller

------------------

Features
~~~~~~~~

* Allow users to re-enable the old onedir layout (without contents directory) by
settings the :option:`--contents-directory` option (or the equivalent
``contents_directory`` argument to ``EXE`` in the .spec file) to ``'.'``.
(:issue:`7968`)


Bugfix
~~~~~~

* (macOS) Prevent bootloader from clearing ``DYLD_*`` environment variables
when running in ``onefile`` mode, in order to make behavior consistent
with ``onedir`` mode. (:issue:`7973`)
* (Windows) Fix unintentional randomization of library search path order
in the binary dependency analysis step. The incorrect order of search
paths would result in defunct builds when using both ``pywin32``
and ``PyQt5``, ``PyQt6``, ``PySide2``, or ``PySide6``, as it would prevent
the python's copy of ``VCRUNTIME140_1.dll`` from being collected into
the top-level application directory due to it being shadowed by the
Qt-provided copy. Consequently, the application would fail with
``ImportError: DLL load failed while importing pywintypes: The specified
module could not be found.`` (:issue:`7978`)
* Ensure that ``__main__`` is always in the list of modules to exclude,
to prevent a program or a library that attempts to import ``__main__``
from pulling PyInstaller itself into frozen application bundle.
(:issue:`7956`)
* Fix :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.collect_entry_point` so that it returns
module names (without class names). This matches the behavior of previous
PyInstaller versions that regressed in PyInstaller ``v6.0.0`` during
transition from ``pkg_resources`` to ``importlib.metadata``. (:issue:`7958`)
* Fix ``TypeError: process_collected_binary() got an unexpected keyword
argument 'strip'`` error when UPX compression is enabled. (:issue:`7998`)
* Validate binaries returned by analysis of ``ctypes`` calls in collected
modules; the analysis might return files that are in ``PATH`` but are
not binaries, which then cause errors during binary dependency analysis.
An example of such problematic case is the ``gmsh`` package on Windows,
where ``ctypes.util.find_library('gmsh')`` ends up resolving the python
script called ``gmsh`` in the environment's Scripts directory.
(:issue:`7984`)


Hooks
~~~~~

* Update ``PySide6.QtHttpServer`` hook for compatibility with ``PySide6``
6.5.3 on Windows. (:issue:`7994`)


PyInstaller Core
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* (macOS) Lower the severity of a missing ``Info.plist`` file in a
collected macOS .framework bundle from an error to a warning (unless
strict collection mode is enabled). While missing ``Info.plist`` in a
collected .framework bundle will cause ``codesign`` to refuse to sign
the generated .app bundle, the user might be interested in building
just the POSIX application or may not plan to sign their .app bundle.
Fixes building with old ``PyQt5`` PyPI wheels (< 5.14.1). (:issue:`7959`)

------------------

Features
~~~~~~~~

* (macOS) PyInstaller now attempts to preserve the ``.framework`` bundles when
collecting shared libraries from them. If a shared library is to be collected
from a ``.framework`` bundle, the ``Info.plist`` is also automatically
collected. The ``.framework`` bundle collection code also attempts to fix the
bundles' structure to conform to code-signing requirements (i.e., creation of
the ``Current`` symbolic link in the ``Versions`` directory, and top-level
contents being symbolic links that point to counterparts in the
``Versions/Current`` directory). Note that other resources (for example from
``Resources`` or ``Helpers`` directories) still need to be explicitly
collected by hooks. (:issue:`7619`)
* (macOS) The file relocation mechanism in ``BUNDLE`` that generates macOS .app
bundles has been completely redesigned. All data files are now placed into
directory structure rooted in ``Contents/Resources``, all shared libraries (as
well as nested .framework bundles) are placed into directory structure rooted
in ``Contents/Frameworks``, and only the the program executable is placed into
the ``Contents/MacOS`` directory. The contents of ``Contents/Resources`` and
``Contents/Frameworks`` directories are cross-linked via symlinks between the
two directory trees in order to maintain illusion of mixed-content directories
(in both directory trees). The cross-linking is done at either file level or
(sub)directory level, depending on the content type of a (sub)directory. For
directories in ``Contents/Frameworks`` that contain a dot in the name, a
work-around is automatically applied: the directory is created with a modified
name that does not include the dot, and next to it, a symbolic link is created
under the original name and pointing to the directory with modified name.
(:issue:`7619`)
* (non-Windows) PyInstaller now attempts to preserve the parent directory
structure for shared libraries discovered and collected by the binary
dependency analysis, instead of automatically collecting them into the
top-level application directory. Due to library search path assumptions
made in various places, symbolic links to collected libraries are created
in the top-level application directory. This complements earlier work
(:issue:`7028`) that implemented DLL parent directory structure
preservation on Windows. (:issue:`7619`)
* (Windows) Add an option to hide or minimize the console window in
console-enabled applications, but only if the program's process owns
the console window (i.e., the program was not launched from an existing
console window). (:issue:`7729`)
* (Windows) The :option:`--add-data` and :option:`--add-binary` options accept
the POSIX syntax of ``--add-data=source:dest`` rather than
``--add-data=source;dest``. The latter will continue to work on Windows to
avoid breaking backwards compatibility but is discouraged in favour of the now
cross platform format. (:issue:`6724`)
* Add automatic binary vs. data file (re)classification step to the analysis
process. PyInstaller now inspects all files passed to ``Analysis`` via
``datas`` and ``binaries`` arguments, as well as all files returned by hooks
via ``datas`` and ``binaries`` hook global variables. The inspection mechanism
is platform-specific, and currently implemented for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Proper file classification ensures that all collected binary files undergo
binary dependency analysis and any other platform-specific binary processing.
On macOS, it also helps ensuring that the collected files are placed in the
proper directory in the generated .app bundles. (:issue:`7619`)
* Add support for specifying hash randomization seed via ``hash_seed=<value>``
:ref:`run-time option <specifying python interpreter options>` when building
the application. This allows the application to use a fixed seed value or
disable hash randomization altogether by using seed value of 0.
(:issue:`7847`)
* Allow spec files to take custom command line parameters. See :ref:`adding
parameters to spec files <spec_parameters>`. (:issue:`4482`)
* Extend the operation retry mechanism that was initially introduced by
:issue:`7840` to cover all processing steps that are performed during
assembly of a Windows executable. This attempts to mitigate the interference
from anti-virus programs and other security tools, which may temporarily block
write access to the executable for a scan between individual processing steps.
(:issue:`7871`)
* Implement pass-through for `Python's X-options
<https://docs.python.org/3/using/cmdline.html#cmdoption-X>`_ via PyInstaller's
:ref:`run-time options mechanism <specifying python interpreter options>`.
(:issue:`7847`)
* Implement support for creating symbolic links from special ``'SYMLINK'``
TOC entries, either at build-time (``onedir`` mode) or at run-time
(``onefile`` mode). Implement symbolic link preservation support in the
analysis process; if a file and a symbolic link pointing to it are both to be
collected, and if their relative relationship is preserved in the frozen
application, the symbolic link is collected as a ``'SYMLINK'`` entry.
(:issue:`7619`)
* Implement :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.check_requirement` hook utility
function as an :mod:`importlib.metadata`-based replacement for
:func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.is_module_satisfies`; the latter is now
just an alias for the former, kept for compatibility with existing hooks.
(:issue:`7943`)
* Restructure onedir mode builds so that everything except the executable (and
``.pkg`` if you're using external PYZ archive mode) are hidden inside a
sub-directory. This sub-directory's name defaults to ``_internal`` but may be
configured with a new :option:`--contents-directory` option. Onefile
applications and macOS ``.app`` bundles are unaffected. (:issue:`7713`)
* The :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.collect_all` hook utility function now
attempts to translate the given importable package name into distribution name
before attempting to collect metadata. This allows the function to handle
cases when the distribution name does not match the importable package name.
(:issue:`7943`)


Bugfix
~~~~~~

* (macOS) ``QtWebEngine`` now works in ``onefile`` builds (previously available
only in ``onedir`` builds). (:issue:`4361`)
* (macOS) Fix the shared library duplication problem where a shared library that
is also referred to via its symbolic links (e.g., a shared library
``libwx_baseu-3.1.5.0.0.dylib`` with symbolic links
``libwx_baseu-3.1.5.dylib`` and ``libwx_baseu-3.0.dylib``) ends up collected
as duplicates and consequently crashes the program. The symbolic links should
now be preserved, thus avoiding the problem. (:issue:`5710`)
* (macOS) In generated .app bundles, the data files from ``PySide2``,
``PySide6``, ``PyQt5``, or ``PyQt6`` directory are now relocated to the
directory structure rooted in ``Contents/Resources`` to ensure compliance with
code-signing requirements. The content cross-linking between
``Contents/Resources`` and ``Contents/Frameworks`` should ensure that ``QML``
components in the ``qml`` sub-directory continue to work in spite of plugins
(shared libraries) being technically separated from their corresponding
metadata files. The automatic work-around for directories with dots in names
should prevent code-signing issues due to some ``QML`` components in Qt5
having dot in their names (e.g. ``QtQuick.2`` and ``QtQuick/Controls.2``.
(:issue:`7619`)
* (macOS) In generated .app bundles, the source .py files are now again
relocated to ``Contents/Resources`` directory (and cross-linked into
``Contents/Frameworks``), which ensures that code-signing does not store
signatures into the files' extended attributes. This reverts the exemption
made in :issue:`7180` to accommodate the ``cv2`` loader script; the problem is
now solved by cross-linking binaries from ``Contents/Frameworks`` to
``Contents/Resources``, which allows the loader to find the extension binary
(or rather, a symbolic link to it) next to the .py file. (:issue:`7619`)
* (macOS) Sandboxing for ``QtWebEngine`` in ``PySide6`` and ``PyQt6`` is not
disabled anymore by the corresponding run-time hooks (see :issue:`6903`), as
it should work out-of-the-box thanks to PyInstaller now preserving the
structure of the ``QtWebEngineCore.framework`` bundle. (:issue:`7619`)
* (macOS) The main process in a program that uses ``QtWebEngine`` is not
mis-identified as ``QtWebEngineCore`` anymore in the application's menu bar.
This applies to ``onedir`` POSIX program builds (i.e. the .app bundles were
not affected by this). (:issue:`5409`)
* (Windows) Avoid aborting the build process if machine type (architecture)
cannot be determined for a DLL in a candidate search path; instead, skip over
such files, and search in other candidate paths. Fixes build errors when a
search path contains an invalid DLL file (for example, a stub file).
(:issue:`7874`)
* (Windows) Prevent PyInstaller's binary dependency analysis from looking for
shared libraries in all :data:`sys.path` locations. Instead, search only
:data:`sys.base_prefix` and ``pywin32`` directories, of available. This, for
example, prevents PyInstaller from picking up incompatible DLLs from
system-installed programs that happen to put their installation directory into
system-wide :envvar:`PYTHONPATH`. (:issue:`5560`)
* (Windows) Remove the use of deprecated ``distutils.sysconfig`` module. The
import of this module seems to cause the python process to crash when
``tensorflow`` is subsequently imported during import analysis.
(:issue:`7347`)
* Fix file duplication when collecting a file and symbolic links pointing at it;
with new symbolic link support, the symbolic links are now properly preserved.
This should help reducing the size of builds made on Linux and macOS with
Anaconda, which provides versioned symbolic links for packaged shared
libraries, and PyInstaller tends to collect them all due to hook helper based
on the packages' metadata. (:issue:`7619`)
* Fix incompatibility between PyInstaller's frozen importer
(``PyiFrozenImporter``) and :mod:`importlib.resources` when trying to look up
the resources of a collected namespace package via
:func:`importlib.resources.files()`. (:issue:`7921`)
* When copying files into ``onedir`` application bundles, use
:func:`shutil.copyfile` instead of :func:`shutil.copy2` to avoid issues
with original permissions/metadata being too restrictive. (:issue:`7938`)


Incompatible Changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* (Linux) Removed support for building LSB-compliant bootloader, due to
lack of support for LSB (Linux Standard Base) in contemporary linux
distributions. (:issue:`7807`)
* (macOS) Due to relocation of all dynamic libraries into directory
structure rooted in the ``Contents/Frameworks`` directory, the
``sys._MEIPASS`` variable as well as the ``os.path.dirname(__file__)``
in the entry-point script now point to ``Contents/Frameworks`` instead of
``Contents/MacOS``, while ``os.path.dirname(sys.executable)`` continues
to point to the ``Contents/MacOS`` directory. The behavior change applies
only to ``onedir`` .app bundles (in ``onefile`` ones, ``sys._MEIPASS``
and ``__file__`` of the entry-point script have always pointed to the
temporary extraction directory and continue to do so). (:issue:`7619`)
* (macOS) The changes made to the macOS .app bundle generation code and the
resulting .app bundle structure (strict relocation of binaries to
``Contents/Frameworks`` and data files to ``Contents/Resources``,
bi-directional cross-linking between ``Contents/Frameworks`` and
``Contents/Resources``, preservation of nested .framework bundles,
automatic work-around for dots in directory names) are likely
incompatible with existing (external) post-processing scripts.
(:issue:`7619`)
* (Windows) Removed command-line options related to processing of the
WinSxS assemblies: ``--win-private-assemblies`` and
``--win-no-prefer-redirects``.
The corresponding arguments to ``Analysis`` are deprecated and raise and
error if set to ``True``. (:issue:`7784`)
* (Windows) Removed support for analyzing and collection of dependencies
referenced via WinSxS (side-by-side) assemblies. This affects binaries
compiled with Visual Studio 2008 and earlier, as VC9 run-time was the
last version to make use of WinSxS. If you require support for such
binaries and you need referenced WinSxS binaries collected with your
application, use older version of PyInstaller. (:issue:`7784`)
* (Windows) Removed support for external application manifest in onedir
builds. Removed the ``--no-embed-manifest`` command-line option and
deprecated the corresponding ``embed_manifest`` argument to ``EXE``
to raise an error if set to ``False``. (:issue:`7784`)
* All of onedir build's contents except for the executable are now moved into a
sub-directory (called ``_internal`` by default). ``sys._MEIPASS`` is adjusted
to
point to this ``_internal`` directory. The breaking implications for this
are:

* Assumptions that ``os.path.dirname(sys.executable) == sys._MEIPASS`` will
break. Code locating application resources using
``os.path.dirname(sys.executable)`` should be adjusted to use ``__file__``
or ``sys._MEIPASS`` and any code locating the original executable using
``sys._MEIPASS`` should use :data:`sys.executable` directly.

* Any custom post processing steps (either in the ``.spec`` file or
externally) which modify the bundle will likely need adjusting to
accommodate the new directory. (:issue:`7713`)
* PyInstaller-frozen applications are not affected by the :envvar:`PYTHONUTF8`
environment variable anymore. To permanently enable or disable the UTF8 mode,
use the ``X utf8_mode=1`` or ``X utf_mode=0`` :ref:`run-time option
<specifying python interpreter options>` when building the application.
(:issue:`7847`)
* Remove bytecode encryption (``--key`` and ``cipher`` options).
(:issue:`6999`)
* Remove the ``--ascii`` command-line option, which is an effective no-op under
python 3; the :mod:`codecs` module is always collected due to being listed
among the base modules. (:issue:`7801`)
* Remove the built-in attempt at collection of data files from packages
that are installed as python eggs. Collection of all non-python resources
from packages should be handled in the standardized way via hooks,
regardless of how a package is installed. (:issue:`7784`)
* Remove support for zipped eggs. PyInstaller will not collect python code nor
resources from zipped eggs, nor will it collect zipped eggs as a whole.
(:issue:`7784`)
* Remove the ``requirements_for_package`` hook utility function, which was
primarily used by :func:`~PyInstaller.utils.hooks.collect_all`; the latter
does not include the top-level modules of metadata-declared requirements among
the returned hidden imports anymore. (:issue:`7943`)
* The :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.collect_data_files` hook utility helper
does not collect ``.pyc`` files from ``__pycache__`` directories anymore, even
with ``include_py_files=True`` argument. (:issue:`7943`)
* The :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.is_module_satisfies` helper does not
support the ``version`` and ``version_attribute`` arguments anymore; the
function will raise an error if they are specified. If the distribution
specified in the ``requirements`` string is not found, the function will not
attempt to import the eponymous module and read its version attribute anymore.
(:issue:`7943`)
* The collection of "py files", enabled by the ``include_py_files=True``
argument to the :func:`PyInstaller.utils.hooks.collect_data_files` hook
utility function, is now restricted to only ``.py`` and ``.pyc`` files.
Previously, all suffices from :func:`importlib.machinery.all_suffixes` were
enabled, which resulted in spurious collection of dynamic libraries and
extensions (due to ``.so``, ``.abi3.so``, ``.pyd``, etc. being among those
suffices). (:issue:`7943`)


Bootloader
~~~~~~~~~~

* (Linux, macOS) When extracting files from ``onefile`` archive, the
executable bit is now set only on binaries (files whose TOC type code
was either ``BINARY``, ``EXECUTABLE``, or ``EXTENSION``) or data files
that originally had the executable bit set. Therefore, binaries are now
extracted with permissions bits set to ``0700``, while all other files
have permissions bits set to ``0600``. (:issue:`7950`)
* Use `PEP 587 Python Initialization Configuration API
<https://peps.python.org/pep-0587>`_ to configure the embedded Python
interpreter. (:issue:`7847`)


PyInstaller Core
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* (Windows) The temporary/intermediate executable files are not generated
with ``.notanexecutable`` suffix anymore, as the retry mechanism from
:issue:`7840` and :issue:`7871` is now the preferred way of dealing with
anti-virus program interference during the build. (:issue:`7871`)
* Avoid collecting ``pathlib`` and ``tokenize`` (and their dependencies,
such as ``urllib``) into ``base_library.zip``. By collecting them into
PYZ archive, only submodules that the application really requires can
be collected, which helps reducing the size of applications that, for
example, do not require the full ``urllib`` package. (:issue:`7836`)
* Drop support for end of life Python 3.7. (:issue:`7733`)


Bootloader build
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* To enable the passing of extra arguments to the bootloader compiler during
installation via pip,
you can utilize the environment variable ``PYINSTALLER_BOOTLOADER_WAF_ARGS``.
However,
it is essential to ensure that the environment variable
``PYINSTALLER_COMPILE_BOOTLOADER``
is present for this functionality to work correctly. (:issue:`7796`)

-------------------

Bugfix
~~~~~~

* (Windows) Fix ``OSError: exception: access violation reading 0x00000010``
raised by ``matplotlib`` and ``win32com`` run-time hooks when ran in 32-bit
frozen application (regression introduced in ``v5.13.1``). (:issue:`7893`)


Hooks
~~~~~

* Fix the license of the new ``_pyi_rth_utils`` run-time package; it is
now licensed under permissive Apache license, which matches the license
of the run-time hooks that use this run-time package. (:issue:`7894`)


PyInstaller Core
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Fix the license of the ``pyi_splash`` run-time module; it is now licensed
under permissive Apache license to avoid unintentionally imposing
additional license restrictions on the frozen applications that make
use of this module. (:issue:`7896`)

-------------------

Security
~~~~~~~~

* (Windows) Ensure that the access to temporary directories created by the
``matplotlib`` and ``win32com`` run-time hooks is restricted to the user
running the frozen application, even if the directory in the ``TMP`` or
``TEMP`` variables points to a system-wide *world writable* location that can
be accessed by all users. (:issue:`7827`)


Bugfix
~~~~~~

* (macOS) Fix :func:`pkgutil.iter_modules` failing to find submodules of a
package that contains data files when running as a macOS .app bundle.
(:issue:`7884`)
* (Windows) Fix ``win32com`` run-time hook to fully isolate the ``gen_py``
cache. This prevents access to the global cache, which results in errors when
the global cache contains some, but not all, required modules. (:issue:`6257`)
* (Windows) Fix splash screen not being able to locate collected Tk resources in
onefile applications created in MSYS2 python environment. (:issue:`7828`)
* (Windows) Fixed bug where GdkPixbuf loaders.cache dll paths are absolute paths
(e.g. ``C:/tools/msys64/mingw64/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders/*.dll``) and
not relative paths (e.g.
``lib\\gdk-pixbuf\\loaders\\libpixbufloader-png.dll``) when the file is
generated in the MSYS2/mingw64 environment. This results in the program
crashing when run on another Windows machine because it cannot find the
GdkPixbuf loader DLLs. (:issue:`7842`)
* Exclude NVIDIA graphics driver libraries from vendoring. (:issue:`7746`)
* Fix error handling in Glib schema compilation helper function. Ignore
character encoding errors when reading stdout/stderr from
``glib-schema-compile`` process; this fixes errors in MSYS2/mingw64
environment, caused by ``U+201C`` and ``U+201D`` quotation marks in the
output. (:issue:`7833`)
* Implement a work-around for un-initialized ``sys._stdlib_dir`` and ensure that
python-frozen stdlib modules in Python >= 3.11 have ``__file__`` attribute
set. (:issue:`7847`)


Hooks
~~~~~

* Add support for commercial PyQt5 and PyQt6 wheels. (:issue:`7770`)


Bootloader
~~~~~~~~~~

* Have bootloader call ``Py_GetPath()`` before ``Py_SetPath()`` on all
platforms (instead of just on Windows) to work around memory-initialization
issues in python 3.8 and 3.9, which come to light with
:envvar:`PYTHONMALLOC=debug <PYTHONMALLOC>` or :envvar:`PYTHONDEVMODE=1
<PYTHONDEVMODE>` being set in the environment. (:issue:`7790`)

-------------------

Features
~~~~~~~~

* Add support for Python 3.12. (:issue:`7670`)
* (Windows) Add support for collecting .pyc files from the ``python3X.zip``
archive where ``Windows embeddable package`` Python stores its stdlib modules.
(:issue:`4989`)


Bugfix
~~~~~~

* Limit the import of collected packages prior to performing binary
dependency analysis to only Windows, where it is actually useful.
On non-Windows platforms, there is no benefit to it, and it might
cause issues with particular orders of package imports. (:issue:`7698`)
* When building PKG for ``onedir`` build, ensure that ``DATA`` entries
are put into dependencies list instead of including them in the PKG.
This complements existing behavior for ``BINARY`` and ``EXTENSION``
entries, and prevents a ``onedir`` build from becoming a broken
``onefile`` one if user accidentally passes binaries and data files
TOCs to ``EXE`` instead of `COLLECT` when manually editing the
spec file. (:issue:`7708`)

-------------------

Features
~~~~~~~~

* (macOS) PyInstaller now removes all rpaths from collected binaries
and replaces them with a single rpath pointing to the top-level
application directory, relative to ``loader_path``. (:issue:`7664`)
* Attempt to preserve the parent directory layout for ``pywin32``
extensions that originate from ``win32`` and ``pythonwin`` directories,
instead of collecting those extensions to top-level application directory.
(:issue:`7627`)


Bugfix
~~~~~~

* (Linux/macOS) Fix the Qt directory path override in ``PySide2`` and
``PySide6`` run-time hooks. These paths, set via ``QT_PLUGIN_PATH`` and
``QML2_IMPORT_PATH`` environment variables, are used with ``PySide2``
and ``PySide6`` builds that that use system-wide Qt installation and
are not portable by default (e.g. Homebrew). (:issue:`7649`)
* (macOS) When rewriting the dylib identifier and paths to linked
libraries in a collected binary, instead of directly using
``loader_path``-based path, use ``rpath``-based path and replace
rpaths in the binary with a single rpath that points to the top-level
application directory, relative to ``loader_path``. This ensures that
the library identifiers of collected shared libraries and their
references in referring binaries always match, which allows packages
to pre-load a library from an arbitrary location via for example
``ctypes``. (:issue:`7664`)
* (Windows) Fix string serialization of ``VSVersionInfo`` to account for
the possibility of ``StringStruct`` values containing quote characters.
(:issue:`7630`)
* Attempt to fix compatibility of PyInstaller's ``PyiFrozenImporter`` with
``importlib.util.LazyLoader``. (:issue:`7657`)
* Attempt to mitigate issues with Anaconda ``pywin32`` package that
result from the package installing three copies of ``pywintypes3X.dll``
and ``pythoncom3X.dll`` in different locations. (:issue:`7627`)
* Changes made to ``datas`` and ``binaries`` lists that are passed to
``Analysis`` constructor will now invalidate the cached ``Analysis``
and trigger a re-build. This applies both to changes made by editing
the .spec file manually and to automatic changes due to addition or
removal of corresponding command-line options (:option:`--add-data`,
:option:`--add-binary`, :option:`--collect-data`,
:option:`--collect-binaries`, :option:`--copy-metadata`).
Previously, changes might not have taken effect as the old cached build
was returned if available and unless user explicitly requested a clean
build using the :option:`--clean` command-line option. (:issue:`7653`)
* Ensure that ``qt_{lang}`` translation files are collected with the
``QtCore`` module, in addition to already-collected ``qtbase_{lang}``
files. Applies to all four Qt-bindings: ``PySide2``, ``PySide6``,
``PyQt5``, and ``PyQt6``. (:issue:`7682`)
* Fix ``ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ipaddress'`` for any application
built with Python >=3.11.4. (:issue:`7692`)
* Fix splash-enabled program crashing due to NULL-pointer dereference
in the bootloader when the Tcl/Tk shared libraries cannot be loaded.
The program should now run the user's python code, where it will
raise an exception if the ``pyi_splash`` module is used. (:issue:`7679`)
* Implement proper binary dependency scanning in the ``SPLASH`` target,
so that binary dependencies of the Tcl and Tk shared libraries are
always collected and added to the list of splash requirements
(for pre-extraction in onefile builds). This fixes the splash screen
when building with Windows build of python.org Python 3.12b1, which
ships Tcl shared library with new dependency on ``zlib1.dll``.
(:issue:`7679`)


PyInstaller Core
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* (macOS) Use macOS-provided ``install_name_tool`` utility to modify headers
on collected binaries: change the dylib identifier to
``rpath/<name>.dylib``,
rewrite paths to linked non-system shared libraries to
``rpath/<dependency>``,
remove any additional rpaths and add an rpath pointing to the application's
top-level directory, relative to the ``loader_path``. Previously, the
header modification was performed using ``macholib`` and was limited
only to modification of dylib identifier and paths to linked non-system
shared libraries. (:issue:`7664`)