LightGBM changelog & breaking changes

v4.6.0

2025-02-15

⚠ Potential breaking changes

🔨 Breaking
[R-package] require lgb.Dataset, remove support for passing 'colnames' and 'categorical_feature' for lgb.train() and lgb.cv() @jameslamb (#6714)
[python-package] remove support for passing 'feature_name' and 'categorical_feature' through train() and cv() @jameslamb (#6706)
[R-package] only warn about early stopping and DART boosting being incompatible if early stopping was requested @serkor1 (#6619)
[docs] Remove only cpu note due to gpu support for linear trees @JAroyan (#6686)
[ci] remove pandas before testing that LightGBM can be imported without extra deps @StrikerRUS (#6801)
[CUDA] remove src/treelearner/kernels @shiyu1994 (#6766)
[ci] remove Docker volumes during Azure cleanup @StrikerRUS (#6760)
[ci] [R-package] remove code for 'rchk' checks @jameslamb (#6545)
[python-package] remove MSVS solution files from sdist @jameslamb (#6698)

2024-07-25

⚠ Potential breaking changes

🔨 Breaking
[c++] remove HDFS support (fixes #6436) @jameslamb (#6534)
[docs] remove link to Roadmap (fixes #6556) @jameslamb (#6557)
[docs] remove outdated docs from the repo @StrikerRUS (#6552)
[docs] remove pmml redirect, simplify some other docs @jameslamb (#6490)
[test][python] fix pandas DeprecationWarning about `is_sparse` function @StrikerRUS (#6532)
Remove template parameters from copy constructor @hgminh95 (#6514)
[ci] remove OpenMP / MKL workaround in CI jobs @jameslamb (#6496)
[ci] remove unnecessary package installations in CI @jameslamb (#6488)

2024-06-15

⚠ Potential breaking changes

🔨 Breaking
[python-package] remove uses of deprecated NumPy random number generation APIs, require 'numpy>=1.17.0' @jameslamb (#6468)
remove unnecessary omp single that cause deadlock (fixes #6273) @morokosi (#6394)
[docs] remove language about CUDA version being experimental (fixes #6340) @jameslamb (#6371)
[python-package] make LGBMDeprecationWarning inherit from FutureWarning @jameslamb (#6447)
[R-package] [python-package] deprecate Dataset arguments to cv() and train() @jameslamb (#6446)
deprecate HDFS support @jameslamb (#6443)
[c++] remove uses of '..' in headers @jameslamb (#6409)
[c++] remove unused variable 'need_connect_cnt' @jameslamb (#6410)
[ci] [python-package] remove unused flake8 configuration @jameslamb (#6372)

2024-01-26

⚠ Potential breaking changes

🔨 Breaking
[R-package] remove readRDS.lgb.Booster() and saveRDS.lgb.Booster() @jameslamb (#6246)
[R-package] Remove non-beneficial parallelization @david-cortes (#6209)
[R-package] [ci] remove unnecessary include in linear_tree_learner (fixes #6264) @jameslamb (#6265)

2023-12-21

⚠ Potential breaking changes

🔨 Breaking
[docs] remove links to Laurae++ site @jameslamb (#6193)
[R-package] remove unreachable code @jameslamb (#6180)
remove unnecessary allocations in HistogramSumReducer @jameslamb (#6132)
[python-package] remove unnecessary allocations in ctypes code @jameslamb (#6111)

2023-09-12

⚠ Potential breaking changes

2023-07-13

⚠ Potential breaking changes

scikit-learn` is no longer a required dependency
Summary of breaking changes:
dropped support for macOS Mojave (10.14)
removed `setup.py`, `pip install --install-option` support
remove support for `pip install --install-option` (to work with newer `pip`, see https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/11358)
dropped support for installation with `MSBUild.exe` ... that now requires compiling `lib_lightgbm.dll` separately and then building a wheel that bundles it
dropped support for Solaris
removed most support for passing parameters through `...
removed `lgb.unloader()
🔨 Breaking