Prepare 1.2.0 release (#12933)

* Go through renos, update versions

* add prelude

* fix links

mod:`qiskit.circuit.random` is not working for some reason I do not understand

* fix renos

- no optimization level 2 default
- fix peephole wording

* implement review comments

* Rm already released notes

* move recent renos

* reword backendv1 deprecation

* review comments round 2

* Fix typo in external link syntax

* Remove release note for already release var feature

---------

Co-authored-by: Matthew Treinish <[email protected]>

docs/conf.py

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
 # The short X.Y version
 version = "1.2"
 # The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags
-release = "1.2.0rc1"
+release = "1.2.0"
 
 language = "en"
 

docs/release_notes.rst

@@ -10,4 +10,4 @@ Qiskit |version| release notes
     `:earliest-version:` should be set to the rc1 release for the current minor release series. For example, the stable/1.1 branch should set it to 1.1.0rc1. If on `main`, set to the prior minor version's rc1, like `1.0.0rc1`.
 
 .. release-notes::
-   :earliest-version: 1.0.0rc1
+   :earliest-version: 1.2.0rc1

qiskit/VERSION.txt

@@ -1 +1 @@
-1.2.0rc1
+1.2.0

qiskit/circuit/__init__.py

@@ -301,9 +301,10 @@
 * :data:`SessionEquivalenceLibrary`, a mutable instance of :class:`EquivalenceLibrary` which is used
   by default by the compiler's :class:`.BasisTranslator`.
 
-There is also a utility for generating random circuits:
+There are also utilities for generating random circuits:
 
-* :func:`random.random_circuit`
+* :func:`.random_circuit`
+* :func:`.random_clifford_circuit`
 
 Finally, the circuit module has its own exception class, to indicate when things went wrong in
 circuit-specific manners:
@@ -1004,6 +1005,7 @@ def __array__(self, dtype=None, copy=None):
 
 .. currentmodule:: qiskit.circuit.random
 .. autofunction:: random_circuit
+.. autofunction:: random_clifford_circuit
 .. currentmodule:: qiskit.circuit
 
 
@@ -1250,3 +1252,4 @@ def __array__(self, dtype=None, copy=None):
 )
 
 from .annotated_operation import AnnotatedOperation, InverseModifier, ControlModifier, PowerModifier
+from .random import random_circuit, random_clifford_circuit

releasenotes/notes/1.2/add-qft-gate-fd4e08f6721a9da4.yaml

@@ -17,6 +17,6 @@ features:
     Added two high-level-synthesis plugins for synthesizing a
     :class:`~qiskit.circuit.library.QFTGate`.
     The class :class:`.QFTSynthesisFull` is based on :func:`.synth_qft_full` and synthesizes
-    a QFT gate assuming all-to-all connectivity.
+    a QFT gate assuming an all-to-all connectivity.
     The class :class:`.QFTSynthesisLine` is based on :func:`.synth_qft_line` and synthesizes
-    a QFT gate assuming linear nearest neighbor connectivity.
+    a QFT gate assuming a linear-nearest-neighbor connectivity.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/add-random-clifford-util-5358041208729988.yaml

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
 features_circuits:
   - |
-    Added a new function to ``qiskit.circuit.random`` that allows to generate a pseudo-random
-    Clifford circuit with gates from the standard library: :func:`.random_clifford_circuit`.
+    Added a new function :func:`.random_clifford_circuit` to :mod:`qiskit.circuit`, that allows to 
+    generate a pseudo-random Clifford circuit with gates from the standard library.
     Example usage:
     
     .. plot::

releasenotes/notes/1.2/annotated-params-116288d5628f7ee8.yaml

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 features_circuits:
   - |
-    Added support for :meth:`.AnnotatedOperation.params` and
+    Added support for :attr:`.AnnotatedOperation.params` and
     :meth:`.AnnotatedOperation.validate_parameter`, which enable
     circuit-level parameter handling (such as binding parameters) for
     annotated operations.
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ fixes:
     Fixed a series of issues when controlling parameterized standard gates.
     The controlled version of some gates (e.g. :class:`.RXXGate` or
     :class:`.RYGate` for more than 1 control) cannot be synthesized if
-    they contain unbound parameters. Previously, calling ``.control()`` but
+    they contain unbound parameters. Previously, calling ``.control()`` in such a case failed, but
     now we create an :class:`.AnnotatedOperation` as placeholder. This
     allows to insert the controlled gate into a circuit, bind the parameters
     at a later stage, and then synthesize the operation.
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ fixes:
 upgrade_circuits:
   - |
     The ``annotated`` argument of the :meth:`.Gate.control` method is now 
-    ``None``, which allows Qiskit to choose whether to annotate a controlled operation.
+    ``None`` by default, which allows Qiskit to choose whether to annotate a controlled operation.
     If the concrete implementation (``annotated=False``) is available, it will be returned by
     default. Otherwise, the annotated implementation will be returned (``annotated=True``). 
     This allows, for example, to defer the synthesis of controlled, parameterized gates.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/backend-estimator-v2-variance-905c953415ad0e29.yaml

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 fixes:
   - |
-    Changes the way in which the :class:`.BackendEstimatorV2` class calculates the ``std`` to ensure that
-    it matches the correct formula.
+    Fix the calculation of the standard deviation in :class:`.BackendEstimatorV2`, by taking
+    into account co-variance of non-commuting Paulis. 
+    Fixed `Qiskit/qiskit-ibm-runtime#1751 <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-ibm-runtime/issues/1751>`__.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/backendv1-d0d0642ed38fed3c.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+deprecations_providers:
+  - |
+    The :class:`.BackendV1` class is deprecated and it will be removed no earlier than the next major release,
+    2.0.0. See `the migration guide <https://qisk.it/backendV1-to-V2>`__ for details on how to update
+    to :class:`.BackendV2`.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/barebone-backend-option-675c86df4382a443.yaml

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
 features:
   - |
-    Added two parameters to :class:`.GenericBackendV2` to exclude error (`noise_info`) and
-    pulse channel information (`pulse_channels`) from the construction of the backend. These parameters
-    are true by default, replicating the initial default behavior of the constructor. A memory-sensitive
-    user may set these options to `False` to reduce the memory overhead by 40x when transpiling on large-
+    Added two parameters to :class:`.GenericBackendV2` to exclude error (``noise_info``) and
+    pulse channel information (``pulse_channels``) from the construction of the backend. These parameters
+    are ``True`` by default, replicating the initial default behavior of the constructor. A memory-sensitive
+    user may set these options to ``False`` to reduce the memory overhead by 40x when transpiling on large-
     scale :class:`.GenericBackendV2`.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/circuit-draw-warn-justify-03434d30cccda452.yaml

@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 ---
 deprecations_visualization:
   - |
-    The ``justify`` argument of :func:`circuit_drawer` or :meth:`QuantumCircuit.draw`, will
+    The ``justify`` argument of :func:`.circuit_drawer` or :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.draw`, will
     no longer support invalid values (previously changing them to the default), and in a future
     release they will error. Valid justify values are ``"left"``, ``"right"`` or ``"none"``.
 fixes:
   - |
-    Fixed an issue where :func:`circuit_drawer` or the :meth:`QuantumCircuit.draw` method would
+    Fixed an issue where :func:`.circuit_drawer` or the :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.draw` method would
     not raise a warning when an invalid value was passed to the ``justify`` argument, before
     changing it to the default. Now, it will raise a warning if an invalid value is passed.
     Valid justify values are ``"left"``, ``"right"`` or ``"none"``. Refer to
-    `#12089 <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit/issues/12089>` for more details.
+    `#12089 <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit/issues/12089>`_ for more details.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/circuit-gates-rust-5c6ab6c58f7fd2c9.yaml

@@ -2,36 +2,30 @@
 features_circuits:
   - |
     A native rust representation of Qiskit's standard gate library has been added. When a standard gate
-    is added to a :class:`~.QuantumCircuit` or :class:`~.DAGCircuit` it is now represented in a more
-    efficient manner directly in Rust seamlessly. Accessing that gate object from a circuit or dag will
+    is added to a :class:`.QuantumCircuit` or :class:`.DAGCircuit` it is now represented in a more
+    efficient manner directly in Rust. Accessing that gate object from a circuit or DAG will
     return a new Python object representing the standard gate. This leads to faster and more efficient
     transpilation and manipulation of circuits for functionality written in Rust.
 features_misc:
   - |
     Added a new build-time environment variable ``QISKIT_NO_CACHE_GATES`` which
-    when set to a value of ``1`` (i.e. ``QISKIT_NO_CACHE_GATES=1``) which
+    when set to a value of ``1`` (i.e. ``QISKIT_NO_CACHE_GATES=1``) 
     decreases the memory overhead of a :class:`.CircuitInstruction` and
-    :class:`.DAGOpNode` object at the cost of decreased runtime on multiple
+    :class:`.DAGOpNode` object at the cost of increased runtime on multiple
     accesses to :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.operation` and :attr:`.DAGOpNode.op`.
-    If this environment variable is set when building the Qiskit python package
+    If this environment variable is set when building the Qiskit Python package
     from source the caching of the return of these attributes will be disabled.
 upgrade_circuits:
   - |
     The :class:`.Operation` instances of :attr:`.DAGOpNode.op`
     being returned will not necessarily share a common reference to the
     underlying object anymore. This was never guaranteed to be the case and
-    mutating the :attr:`~.DAGOpNode.op` directly by reference
-    was unsound and always likely to corrupt the dag's internal state tracking
+    mutating the :attr:`.DAGOpNode.op` directly by reference
+    was unsound and always likely to corrupt the DAG's internal state tracking
     Due to the internal refactor of the :class:`.QuantumCircuit` and
-    :class:`.DAGCircuit` to store standard gates in rust the output object from
+    :class:`.DAGCircuit` to store standard gates in Rust, the output object from
     :attr:`.DAGOpNode.op` will now likely be a copy instead of a shared instance. If you
-    need to mutate an element should ensure that you either do::
-
-      op = dag_node.op
-      op.params[0] = 3.14159
-      dag_node.op = op
-
-    or::
+    need to mutate an element should ensure that you do::
 
       op = dag_node.op
       op.params[0] = 3.14159
@@ -41,16 +35,16 @@ upgrade_circuits:
 
       dag_node.op.params[0] = 3.14159
 
-    which will not work for any standard gates in this release. It would have
+    which will **not work** for any standard gate in this release. It would have
     likely worked by chance in a previous release but was never an API guarantee.
   - |
     The :class:`.Operation` instances of :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.operation`
     being returned will not necessarily share a common reference to the
     underlying object anymore. This was never guaranteed to be the case and
-    mutating the :attr:`~.CircuitInstruction.operation` directly by reference
+    mutating the :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.operation` directly by reference
     was unsound and always likely to corrupt the circuit, especially when
-    parameters were in use. Due to the internal refactor of the QuantumCircuit
-    to store standard gates in rust the output object from
+    parameters were in use. Due to the internal refactor of the :class:`.QuantumCircuit`
+    to store standard gates in Rust, the output object from
     :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.operation` will now likely be a copy instead
     of a shared instance. If you need to mutate an element in the circuit (which
     is strongly **not** recommended as it's inefficient and error prone) you
@@ -75,5 +69,5 @@ upgrade_circuits:
 
       qc.data[0].operation.params[0] = 3.14
 
-    which will not work for any standard gates in this release. It would have
+    which will **not work** for any standard gates in this release. It would have
     likely worked by chance in a previous release but was never an API guarantee.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/deprecate-circuit-internal-helpers-ee65fbac455de47c.yaml

@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@ deprecations_circuits:
     The following circuit methods were not intended for public use, but were accidentally left documented in the
     public API during the 1.0 release. They are now deprecated from Qiskit 1.2 and will be removed in Qiskit 2.0:
 
-      * ``QuantumCircuit.cast``
-      * ``QuantumCircuit.cls_instances``
-      * ``QuantumCircuit.cls_prefix``
-      * ``QuantumCircuit.cbit_argument_conversion``
-      * ``QuantumCircuit.qbit_argument_conversion``
+      * :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.cast`
+      * :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.cls_instances`
+      * :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.cls_prefix`
+      * :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.cbit_argument_conversion`
+      * :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.qbit_argument_conversion`

releasenotes/notes/1.2/deprecate-legacy-circuit-instruction-8a332ab09de73766.yaml

@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@ deprecations_circuits:
   - |
     Treating :class:`.CircuitInstruction` as a tuple-like iterable is deprecated, and this legacy
     path way will be removed in Qiskit 2.0.  You should use the attribute-access fields
-    :attr:`~.CircuitInstruction.operation`, :attr:`~.CircuitInstruction.qubits`, and 
-    :attr:`~.CircuitInstruction.clbits` instead.  For example::
+    :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.operation`, :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.qubits`, and 
+    :attr:`.CircuitInstruction.clbits` instead.  For example::
 
       from qiskit.circuit import QuantumCircuit
 

releasenotes/notes/1.2/deprecate-primitives-v1.yaml

@@ -15,18 +15,5 @@ deprecations_primitives:
     * :class:`.BaseEstimator`, alias for :class:`.BaseEstimatorV1`
     * :class:`.BaseSampler`, alias for :class:`.BaseSamplerV1`
 
-    This deprecation does NOT affect the explicitly-versioned :class:`BaseEstimatorV1` 
-    and :class:`BaseSamplerV1` abstract
-    interface definitions or related result and job classes.
-
-    In addition, the following utility functions are deprecated:
-
-    * :func:`.init_circuit`, to initialize a circuit from a :class:`.Statevector`,
-      use :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.initialize` instead,
-    * :func:`.init_observable`, use the constructor of :class:`.SparsePauliOp` instead,
-    * :func:`.final_measurement_mapping`, use :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.layout` and
-      :meth:`.SparsePauliOp.apply_layout` to adjust an operator for a layout.
-      Otherwise, use ``mthree.utils.final_measurement_mapping``.
-      See `Mthree Utility functions <https://qiskit-extensions.github.io/mthree/apidocs/utils.html>`__
-      for details.
-
+    This deprecation does **not** affect the explicitly-versioned :class:`.BaseEstimatorV1` 
+    and :class:`.BaseSamplerV1` abstract interface definitions or related result and job classes.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/deprecate-visualize_transition-8c1d257b7f37aa58.yaml

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 deprecations_visualization:
   - |
-    The :func:`.transition_visualization` function has been deprecated and will
+    The :func:`.visualize_transition` function has been deprecated and will
     be removed in the 2.0.0 release. This function had a number of limitations
-    which limited it's utility to only very specific use cases and didn't fit in with
+    which limited its utility to only very specific use cases and did not fit in with
     the rest of the Qiskit visualization module. 

releasenotes/notes/1.2/deprecate_assemble-67486b4d0a8d4f96.yaml

@@ -1,7 +1,14 @@
 ---
 deprecations_providers:
   - |
-    The `Qobj` structure and related classes are now deprecated, they were introduced as part of the `BackendV1` workflow and are no longer necessary for interacting with  :class:`.BackendV2` backends. Remote backend interaction should be done via `QPY` or `OpenQASM` instead.
+    The Qobj structure and related classes (see :mod:`qiskit.qobj`) are now deprecated. They were 
+    introduced as part of the :class:`.BackendV1` workflow and are no longer necessary for 
+    interacting with  :class:`.BackendV2`  backends. :class:`.QuantumCircuit` serialiaztion should be 
+    done via QPY (see :mod:`qiskit.qpy`) or OpenQASM (see :mod:`qiskit.qasm2` and :mod:`qiskit.qasm3`) 
+    instead.
 deprecations_transpiler:
   - |
-    The `assemble` function is now deprecated and will be removed in the 2.0 release. The function was primarily used to create a `Qobj`, which is no longer necessary in :class:`.BackendV2`-based workflows. It was also used for binding parameters, a functionality fully covered by :meth:`~.QuantumCircuit.assign_parameters`.
+    The :func:`.assemble` function is now deprecated and will be removed in the 2.0 release.
+    The function was primarily used to create a ``Qobj``, which is no longer necessary in 
+    :class:`.BackendV2`-based workflows. It was also used for binding parameters, a functionality 
+    fully covered by :meth:`.QuantumCircuit.assign_parameters`.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/extended-random-circuits-049b67cce39003f4.yaml

@@ -1,21 +1,25 @@
 ---
 features_circuits:
   - |
-    The `random_circuit` function from `qiskit.circuit.random.utils` has a new feature where
-    users can specify a distribution `num_operand_distribution` (a dict) that specifies the
+    The :func:`.random_circuit` function has a new feature where
+    users can specify a distribution ``num_operand_distribution`` (a dict) that specifies the
     ratio of 1-qubit, 2-qubit, 3-qubit, and 4-qubit gates in the random circuit. For example,
-    if `num_operand_distribution = {1: 0.25, 2: 0.25, 3: 0.25, 4: 0.25}` is passed to the function
+    if ``num_operand_distribution = {1: 0.25, 2: 0.25, 3: 0.25, 4: 0.25}`` is passed to the function
     then the generated circuit will have approximately 25% of 1-qubit, 2-qubit, 3-qubit, and
-    4-qubit gates (The order in which the dictionary is passed does not matter i.e. you can specify
-    `num_operand_distribution = {3: 0.5, 1: 0.0, 4: 0.3, 2: 0.2}` and the function will still work
-    as expected). Also it should be noted that the if `num_operand_distribution` is not specified
-    then `max_operands` will default to 4 and a random circuit with a random gate distribution will 
-    be generated. If both `num_operand_distribution` and `max_operands` are specified at the same 
-    time then `num_operand_distribution` will be used to generate the random circuit.
-    Example usage::
+    4-qubit gates. Also it should be noted that the if ``num_operand_distribution`` is not specified
+    then ``max_operands`` will default to 4 and a random circuit with a random gate distribution will 
+    be generated. If both ``num_operand_distribution`` and ``max_operands`` are specified at the same 
+    time then ``num_operand_distribution`` will be used to generate the random circuit.
 
-           from qiskit.circuit.random import random_circuit
+    Example usage:
+        
+    .. plot::
+       :include-source:
 
-           circ = random_circuit(num_qubits=6, depth=5, num_operand_distribution = {1: 0.25, 2: 0.25, 3: 0.25, 4: 0.25})
-           circ.draw(output='mpl')
+       from qiskit.circuit.random import random_circuit
+
+       circ = random_circuit(
+         num_qubits=6, depth=5, num_operand_distribution={1: 0.25, 2: 0.25, 3: 0.25, 4: 0.25}
+       )
+       circ.draw(output="mpl")
 

releasenotes/notes/1.2/fix-bitarray-slice-bits-shots-c9cb7e5d907722f5.yaml

@@ -7,5 +7,5 @@ upgrade_primitives:
   - |
     :meth:`.BitArray.__getitem__` will now raise ``IndexError``
     when indices are out of bounds or the number of dimensions
-    of indices does not match that of BitArray.
+    of indices does not match that of :class:`.BitArray`.
     They used to raise ``ValueError`` in the case.

releasenotes/notes/fix-consolidate-blocks-custom-gate-no-target-e2d1e0b0ee7ace11.yaml → releasenotes/notes/1.2/fix-consolidate-blocks-custom-gate-no-target-e2d1e0b0ee7ace11.yaml

@@ -4,6 +4,6 @@ fixes:
     Fixed a bug in the :class:`.ConsolidateBlocks` transpiler pass, when the
     input circuit contains a custom opaque gate and neither the
     ``basis_gates`` or ``target`` options are set the pass would raise a
-    ``QiskitError`` and fail. This has been corrected so that the in these
+    :class:`.QiskitError` and fail. This has been corrected so that the in these
     situations the transpiler pass will not consolidate the block identified
     containing a custom gate instead of failing.

releasenotes/notes/1.2/fix-kwarg-validation-BitArray-1bf542a1fb5c15c6.yaml

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 ---
 fixes:
   - |
-    The keyword argument ``order`` of the function :meth:`.BitArray.from_bool_array` should be 'little' or 'big'. Added checks to raise error if an invalid value is entered.
+    The keyword argument ``order`` of the function :meth:`.BitArray.from_bool_array` should be
+    ``"little"`` or ``"big"``. Added checks to raise error if an invalid value is entered.