I initially merged this and backported it to 5.2.x to avoid test failures (or any issues) with docutils 0.22+, since we do not currently pin the dependency beyond requiring 0.19 or higher.

However, after a closer look, this is actually a backward incompatible change for 5.2.x — docutils < 0.22 does not support this usage and breaks as a result.

To address this, I’m proposing PR #19690, which ensures the docutils.core.publish_parts call works across versions 0.19 through 0.22+ without raising errors.

I think we should consider applying this to main (possibly targeting main first and then backporting it), which would allow us to maintain compatibility without needing to bump the minimum docutils version to 0.22+ for Django 6.0 (i.e. we would not need to land PR #19686 for now, IMHO).

@felixxm @sarahboyce do you have a preference?

I created ticket-36535 to keep track of this issue.

I created ticket-36535 to keep track of this issue.

I missed this, sorry. I can fix it if you want.

@felixxm @sarahboyce do you have a preference?

Personally, I'd not bother about the main branch. Theoretically, docutils < 0.22 doesn't support Python 3.12+ 🤷

I created ticket-36535 to keep track of this issue.

I missed this, sorry. I can fix it if you want.

No worries! I think I have a PR with a fix: #19690

The question is whether we want to target main instead (and then I backport). It seems like a safe approach and I have slight preference to got this route.

@felixxm @sarahboyce do you have a preference?

Personally, I'd bother about the main branch. Theoretically, docutils < 0.22 doesn't support Python 3.12+ 🤷

Ok, this is a fair point and we may avoid future headaches by bumping minimum supported version to 0.22 on 6.0 and above. Let's keep the other PR targeting 5.2.x only.