4
This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases.
5
As you read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history.
6
(Note: news about 2.5c2 and later 2.5 releases is in the Misc/NEWS
7
file of the release25-maint branch.)
10
======================================================================
13
What's New in Python 2.5 release candidate 1?
14
=============================================
16
*Release date: 17-AUG-2006*
21
- Unicode objects will no longer raise an exception when being
22
compared equal or unequal to a string and a UnicodeDecodeError
23
exception occurs, e.g. as result of a decoding failure.
25
Instead, the equal (==) and unequal (!=) comparison operators will
26
now issue a UnicodeWarning and interpret the two objects as
27
unequal. The UnicodeWarning can be filtered as desired using
28
the warning framework, e.g. silenced completely, turned into an
29
exception, logged, etc.
31
Note that compare operators other than equal and unequal will still
32
raise UnicodeDecodeError exceptions as they've always done.
34
- Fix segfault when doing string formatting on subclasses of long.
36
- Fix bug related to __len__ functions using values > 2**32 on 64-bit machines
37
with new-style classes.
39
- Fix bug related to __len__ functions returning negative values with
42
- Patch #1538606, Fix __index__() clipping. There were some problems
43
discovered with the API and how integers that didn't fit into Py_ssize_t
44
were handled. This patch attempts to provide enough alternatives
45
to effectively use __index__.
47
- Bug #1536021: __hash__ may now return long int; the final hash
48
value is obtained by invoking hash on the long int.
50
- Bug #1536786: buffer comparison could emit a RuntimeWarning.
52
- Bug #1535165: fixed a segfault in input() and raw_input() when
55
- On Windows, the PyErr_Warn function is now exported from
58
- Bug #1191458: tracing over for loops now produces a line event
59
on each iteration. Fixing this problem required changing the .pyc
60
magic number. This means that .pyc files generated before 2.5c1
63
- Bug #1333982: string/number constants were inappropriately stored
64
in the byte code and co_consts even if they were not used, ie
65
immediately popped off the stack.
67
- Fixed a reference-counting problem in property().
73
- Fix a bug in the ``compiler`` package that caused invalid code to be
74
generated for generator expressions.
76
- The distutils version has been changed to 2.5.0. The change to
77
keep it programmatically in sync with the Python version running
78
the code (introduced in 2.5b3) has been reverted. It will continue
79
to be maintained manually as static string literal.
81
- If the Python part of a ctypes callback function returns None,
82
and this cannot be converted to the required C type, an exception is
83
printed with PyErr_WriteUnraisable. Before this change, the C
84
callback returned arbitrary values to the calling code.
86
- The __repr__ method of a NULL ctypes.py_object() no longer raises
89
- uuid.UUID now has a bytes_le attribute. This returns the UUID in
90
little-endian byte order for Windows. In addition, uuid.py gained some
91
workarounds for clocks with low resolution, to stop the code yielding
94
- Patch #1540892: site.py Quitter() class attempts to close sys.stdin
95
before raising SystemExit, allowing IDLE to honor quit() and exit().
97
- Bug #1224621: make tabnanny recognize IndentationErrors raised by tokenize.
99
- Patch #1536071: trace.py should now find the full module name of a
100
file correctly even on Windows.
102
- logging's atexit hook now runs even if the rest of the module has
103
already been cleaned up.
105
- Bug #1112549, fix DoS attack on cgi.FieldStorage.
107
- Bug #1531405, format_exception no longer raises an exception if
108
str(exception) raised an exception.
110
- Fix a bug in the ``compiler`` package that caused invalid code to be
111
generated for nested functions.
117
- Patch #1511317: don't crash on invalid hostname (alias) info.
119
- Patch #1535500: fix segfault in BZ2File.writelines and make sure it
120
raises the correct exceptions.
122
- Patch # 1536908: enable building ctypes on OpenBSD/AMD64. The
123
'-no-stack-protector' compiler flag for OpenBSD has been removed.
125
- Patch #1532975 was applied, which fixes Bug #1533481: ctypes now
126
uses the _as_parameter_ attribute when objects are passed to foreign
127
function calls. The ctypes version number was changed to 1.0.1.
129
- Bug #1530559, struct.pack raises TypeError where it used to convert.
130
Passing float arguments to struct.pack when integers are expected
131
now triggers a DeprecationWarning.
137
- test_socketserver should now work on cygwin and not fail sporadically
140
- test_mailbox should now work on cygwin versions 2006-08-10 and later.
142
- Bug #1535182: really test the xreadlines() method of bz2 objects.
144
- test_threading now skips testing alternate thread stack sizes on
145
platforms that don't support changing thread stack size.
151
- Patch #1534922: unittest docs were corrected and enhanced.
157
- Bug #1535502, build _hashlib on Windows, and use masm assembler
160
- Bug #1534738, win32 debug version of _msi should be _msi_d.pyd.
162
- Bug #1530448, ctypes build failure on Solaris 10 was fixed.
168
- New API for Unicode rich comparisons: PyUnicode_RichCompare()
170
- Bug #1069160. Internal correctness changes were made to
171
``PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc()``. A test case was added, and
172
the documentation was changed to state that the return value
173
is always 1 (normal) or 0 (if the specified thread wasn't found).
176
What's New in Python 2.5 beta 3?
177
================================
179
*Release date: 03-AUG-2006*
184
- _PyWeakref_GetWeakrefCount() now returns a Py_ssize_t; it previously
185
returned a long (see PEP 353).
187
- Bug #1515471: string.replace() accepts character buffers again.
189
- Add PyErr_WarnEx() so C code can pass the stacklevel to warnings.warn().
190
This provides the proper warning for struct.pack().
191
PyErr_Warn() is now deprecated in favor of PyErr_WarnEx().
193
- Patch #1531113: Fix augmented assignment with yield expressions.
194
Also fix a SystemError when trying to assign to yield expressions.
196
- Bug #1529871: The speed enhancement patch #921466 broke Python's compliance
197
with PEP 302. This was fixed by adding an ``imp.NullImporter`` type that is
198
used in ``sys.path_importer_cache`` to cache non-directory paths and avoid
199
excessive filesystem operations during imports.
201
- Bug #1521947: When checking for overflow, ``PyOS_strtol()`` used some
202
operations on signed longs that are formally undefined by C.
203
Unfortunately, at least one compiler now cares about that, so complicated
204
the code to make that compiler happy again.
206
- Bug #1524310: Properly report errors from FindNextFile in os.listdir.
208
- Patch #1232023: Stop including current directory in search
211
- Fix some potential crashes found with failmalloc.
213
- Fix warnings reported by Klocwork's static analysis tool.
215
- Bug #1512814, Fix incorrect lineno's when code within a function
216
had more than 255 blank lines.
218
- Patch #1521179: Python now accepts the standard options ``--help`` and
219
``--version`` as well as ``/?`` on Windows.
221
- Bug #1520864: unpacking singleton tuples in a 'for' loop (for x, in) works
222
again. Fixing this problem required changing the .pyc magic number.
223
This means that .pyc files generated before 2.5b3 will be regenerated.
225
- Bug #1524317: Compiling Python ``--without-threads`` failed.
226
The Python core compiles again, and, in a build without threads, the
227
new ``sys._current_frames()`` returns a dictionary with one entry,
228
mapping the faux "thread id" 0 to the current frame.
230
- Bug #1525447: build on MacOS X on a case-sensitive filesystem.
236
- Fix #1693149. Now you can pass several modules separated by
237
comma to trace.py in the same --ignore-module option.
239
- Correction of patch #1455898: In the mbcs decoder, set final=False
240
for stream decoder, but final=True for the decode function.
242
- os.urandom no longer masks unrelated exceptions like SystemExit or
245
- Bug #1525866: Don't copy directory stat times in
246
shutil.copytree on Windows
248
- Bug #1002398: The documentation for os.path.sameopenfile now correctly
249
refers to file descriptors, not file objects.
251
- The renaming of the xml package to xmlcore, and the import hackery done
252
to make it appear at both names, has been removed. Bug #1511497,
253
#1513611, and probably others.
255
- Bug #1441397: The compiler module now recognizes module and function
256
docstrings correctly as it did in Python 2.4.
258
- Bug #1529297: The rewrite of doctest for Python 2.4 unintentionally
259
lost that tests are sorted by name before being run. This rarely
260
matters for well-written tests, but can create baffling symptoms if
261
side effects from one test to the next affect outcomes. ``DocTestFinder``
262
has been changed to sort the list of tests it returns.
264
- The distutils version has been changed to 2.5.0, and is now kept
265
in sync with sys.version_info[:3].
267
- Bug #978833: Really close underlying socket in _socketobject.close.
269
- Bug #1459963: urllib and urllib2 now normalize HTTP header names with
272
- Patch #1525766: In pkgutil.walk_packages, correctly pass the onerror callback
273
to recursive calls and call it with the failing package name.
275
- Bug #1525817: Don't truncate short lines in IDLE's tool tips.
277
- Patch #1515343: Fix printing of deprecated string exceptions with a
278
value in the traceback module.
280
- Resync optparse with Optik 1.5.3: minor tweaks for/to tests.
282
- Patch #1524429: Use repr() instead of backticks in Tkinter again.
284
- Bug #1520914: Change time.strftime() to accept a zero for any position in its
285
argument tuple. For arguments where zero is illegal, the value is forced to
286
the minimum value that is correct. This is to support an undocumented but
287
common way people used to fill in inconsequential information in the time
290
- Patch #1220874: Update the binhex module for Mach-O.
292
- The email package has improved RFC 2231 support, specifically for
293
recognizing the difference between encoded (name*0*=<blah>) and non-encoded
294
(name*0=<blah>) parameter continuations. This may change the types of
295
values returned from email.message.Message.get_param() and friends.
296
Specifically in some cases where non-encoded continuations were used,
297
get_param() used to return a 3-tuple of (None, None, string) whereas now it
298
will just return the string (since non-encoded continuations don't have
299
charset and language parts).
301
Also, whereas % values were decoded in all parameter continuations, they are
302
now only decoded in encoded parameter parts.
304
- Bug #1517990: IDLE keybindings on MacOS X now work correctly
306
- Bug #1517996: IDLE now longer shows the default Tk menu when a
307
path browser, class browser or debugger is the frontmost window on MacOS X
309
- Patch #1520294: Support for getset and member descriptors in types.py,
310
inspect.py, and pydoc.py. Specifically, this allows for querying the type
311
of an object against these built-in types and more importantly, for getting
312
their docstrings printed in the interactive interpreter's help() function.
318
- Patch #1519025 and bug #926423: If a KeyboardInterrupt occurs during
319
a socket operation on a socket with a timeout, the exception will be
320
caught correctly. Previously, the exception was not caught.
322
- Patch #1529514: The _ctypes extension is now compiled on more
323
openbsd target platforms.
325
- The ``__reduce__()`` method of the new ``collections.defaultdict`` had
326
a memory leak, affecting pickles and deep copies.
328
- Bug #1471938: Fix curses module build problem on Solaris 8; patch by
331
- Patch #1448199: Release interpreter lock in _winreg.ConnectRegistry.
333
- Patch #1521817: Index range checking on ctypes arrays containing
334
exactly one element enabled again. This allows iterating over these
335
arrays, without the need to check the array size before.
337
- Bug #1521375: When the code in ctypes.util.find_library was
338
run with root privileges, it could overwrite or delete
339
/dev/null in certain cases; this is now fixed.
341
- Bug #1467450: On Mac OS X 10.3, RTLD_GLOBAL is now used as the
342
default mode for loading shared libraries in ctypes.
344
- Because of a misspelled preprocessor symbol, ctypes was always
345
compiled without thread support; this is now fixed.
347
- pybsddb Bug #1527939: bsddb module DBEnv dbremove and dbrename
348
methods now allow their database parameter to be None as the
349
sleepycat API allows.
351
- Bug #1526460: Fix socketmodule compile on NetBSD as it has a different
352
bluetooth API compared with Linux and FreeBSD.
357
- Bug #1501330: Change test_ossaudiodev to be much more tolerant in terms of
358
how long the test file should take to play. Now accepts taking 2.93 secs
359
(exact time) +/- 10% instead of the hard-coded 3.1 sec.
361
- Patch #1529686: The standard tests ``test_defaultdict``, ``test_iterlen``,
362
``test_uuid`` and ``test_email_codecs`` didn't actually run any tests when
363
run via ``regrtest.py``. Now they do.
368
- Bug #1439538: Drop usage of test -e in configure as it is not portable.
373
- PythonLauncher now works correctly when the path to the script contains
374
characters that are treated specially by the shell (such as quotes).
376
- Bug #1527397: PythonLauncher now launches scripts with the working directory
377
set to the directory that contains the script instead of the user home
378
directory. That latter was an implementation accident and not what users
382
What's New in Python 2.5 beta 2?
383
================================
385
*Release date: 11-JUL-2006*
390
- Bug #1441486: The literal representation of -(sys.maxint - 1)
391
again evaluates to a int object, not a long.
393
- Bug #1501934: The scope of global variables that are locally assigned
394
using augmented assignment is now correctly determined.
396
- Bug #927248: Recursive method-wrapper objects can now safely
399
- Bug #1417699: Reject locale-specific decimal point in float()
402
- Bug #1511381: codec_getstreamcodec() in codec.c is corrected to
403
omit a default "error" argument for NULL pointer. This allows
404
the parser to take a codec from cjkcodecs again.
406
- Bug #1519018: 'as' is now validated properly in import statements.
408
- On 64 bit systems, int literals that use less than 64 bits are
409
now ints rather than longs.
411
- Bug #1512814, Fix incorrect lineno's when code at module scope
412
started after line 256.
414
- New function ``sys._current_frames()`` returns a dict mapping thread
415
id to topmost thread stack frame. This is for expert use, and is
416
especially useful for debugging application deadlocks. The functionality
417
was previously available in Fazal Majid's ``threadframe`` extension
418
module, but it wasn't possible to do this in a wholly threadsafe way from
424
- Bug #1257728: Mention Cygwin in distutils error message about a missing
427
- Patch #1519566: Update turtle demo, make begin_fill idempotent.
429
- Bug #1508010: msvccompiler now requires the DISTUTILS_USE_SDK
430
environment variable to be set in order to the SDK environment
431
for finding the compiler, include files, etc.
433
- Bug #1515998: Properly generate logical ids for files in bdist_msi.
435
- warnings.py now ignores ImportWarning by default
437
- string.Template() now correctly handles tuple-values. Previously,
438
multi-value tuples would raise an exception and single-value tuples would
439
be treated as the value they contain, instead.
441
- Bug #822974: Honor timeout in telnetlib.{expect,read_until}
442
even if some data are received.
444
- Bug #1267547: Put proper recursive setup.py call into the
445
spec file generated by bdist_rpm.
447
- Bug #1514693: Update turtle's heading when switching between
450
- Reimplement turtle.circle using a polyline, to allow correct
453
- Bug #1514703: Only setup canvas window in turtle when the canvas
456
- Bug #1513223: .close() of a _socketobj now releases the underlying
457
socket again, which then gets closed as it becomes unreferenced.
459
- Bug #1504333: Make sgmllib support angle brackets in quoted
462
- Bug #853506: Fix IPv6 address parsing in unquoted attributes in
463
sgmllib ('[' and ']' were not accepted).
465
- Fix a bug in the turtle module's end_fill function.
467
- Bug #1510580: The 'warnings' module improperly required that a Warning
468
category be either a types.ClassType and a subclass of Warning. The proper
469
check is just that it is a subclass with Warning as the documentation states.
471
- The compiler module now correctly compiles the new try-except-finally
472
statement (bug #1509132).
474
- The wsgiref package is now installed properly on Unix.
476
- A bug was fixed in logging.config.fileConfig() which caused a crash on
477
shutdown when fileConfig() was called multiple times.
479
- The sqlite3 module did cut off data from the SQLite database at the first
480
null character before sending it to a custom converter. This has been fixed
486
- #1494314: Fix a regression with high-numbered sockets in 2.4.3. This
487
means that select() on sockets > FD_SETSIZE (typically 1024) work again.
488
The patch makes sockets use poll() internally where available.
490
- Assigning None to pointer type fields in ctypes structures possible
491
overwrote the wrong fields, this is fixed now.
493
- Fixed a segfault in _ctypes when ctypes.wintypes were imported
494
on non-Windows platforms.
496
- Bug #1518190: The ctypes.c_void_p constructor now accepts any
497
integer or long, without range checking.
499
- Patch #1517790: It is now possible to use custom objects in the ctypes
500
foreign function argtypes sequence as long as they provide a from_param
501
method, no longer is it required that the object is a ctypes type.
503
- The '_ctypes' extension module now works when Python is configured
504
with the --without-threads option.
506
- Bug #1513646: os.access on Windows now correctly determines write
509
- Bug #1512695: cPickle.loads could crash if it was interrupted with
512
- Bug #1296433: parsing XML with a non-default encoding and
513
a CharacterDataHandler could crash the interpreter in pyexpat.
515
- Patch #1516912: improve Modules support for OpenVMS.
520
- Automate Windows build process for the Win64 SSL module.
522
- 'configure' now detects the zlib library the same way as distutils.
523
Previously, the slight difference could cause compilation errors of the
524
'zlib' module on systems with more than one version of zlib.
526
- The MSI compileall step was fixed to also support a TARGETDIR
529
- Bug #1517388: sqlite3.dll is now installed on Windows independent
532
- Bug #1513032: 'make install' failed on FreeBSD 5.3 due to lib-old
533
trying to be installed even though it's empty.
538
- Call os.waitpid() at the end of tests that spawn child processes in order
539
to minimize resources (zombies).
544
- Cover ImportWarning, PendingDeprecationWarning and simplefilter() in the
545
documentation for the warnings module.
547
- Patch #1509163: MS Toolkit Compiler no longer available.
549
- Patch #1504046: Add documentation for xml.etree.
552
What's New in Python 2.5 beta 1?
553
================================
555
*Release date: 20-JUN-2006*
560
- Patch #1507676: Error messages returned by invalid abstract object operations
561
(such as iterating over an integer) have been improved and now include the
562
type of the offending object to help with debugging.
564
- Bug #992017: A classic class that defined a __coerce__() method that returned
565
its arguments swapped would infinitely recurse and segfault the interpreter.
567
- Fix the socket tests so they can be run concurrently.
569
- Removed 5 integers from C frame objects (PyFrameObject).
570
f_nlocals, f_ncells, f_nfreevars, f_stack_size, f_restricted.
572
- Bug #532646: object.__call__() will continue looking for the __call__
573
attribute on objects until one without one is found. This leads to recursion
574
when you take a class and set its __call__ attribute to an instance of the
575
class. Originally fixed for classic classes, but this fix is for new-style.
576
Removes the infinite_rec_3 crasher.
578
- The string and unicode methods startswith() and endswith() now accept
579
a tuple of prefixes/suffixes to look for. Implements RFE #1491485.
581
- Buffer objects, at the C level, never used the char buffer
582
implementation even when the char buffer for the wrapped object was
583
explicitly requested (originally returned the read or write buffer).
584
Now a TypeError is raised if the char buffer is not present but is
587
- Patch #1346214: Statements like "if 0: suite" are now again optimized
588
away like they were in Python 2.4.
590
- Builtin exceptions are now full-blown new-style classes instead of
591
instances pretending to be classes, which speeds up exception handling
592
by about 80% in comparison to 2.5a2.
594
- Patch #1494554: Update unicodedata.numeric and unicode.isnumeric to
597
- Patch #921466: sys.path_importer_cache is now used to cache valid and
598
invalid file paths for the built-in import machinery which leads to
599
fewer open calls on startup.
601
- Patch #1442927: ``long(str, base)`` is now up to 6x faster for non-power-
602
of-2 bases. The largest speedup is for inputs with about 1000 decimal
603
digits. Conversion from non-power-of-2 bases remains quadratic-time in
604
the number of input digits (it was and remains linear-time for bases
607
- Bug #1334662: ``int(string, base)`` could deliver a wrong answer
608
when ``base`` was not 2, 4, 8, 10, 16 or 32, and ``string`` represented
609
an integer close to ``sys.maxint``. This was repaired by patch
610
#1335972, which also gives a nice speedup.
612
- Patch #1337051: reduced size of frame objects.
614
- PyErr_NewException now accepts a tuple of base classes as its
617
- Patch #876206: function call speedup by retaining allocated frame
620
- Bug #1462152: file() now checks more thoroughly for invalid mode
621
strings and removes a possible "U" before passing the mode to the
624
- Patch #1488312, Fix memory alignment problem on SPARC in unicode
626
- Bug #1487966: Fix SystemError with conditional expression in assignment
628
- WindowsError now has two error code attributes: errno, which carries
629
the error values from errno.h, and winerror, which carries the error
630
values from winerror.h. Previous versions put the winerror.h values
631
(from GetLastError()) into the errno attribute.
633
- Patch #1475845: Raise IndentationError for unexpected indent.
635
- Patch #1479181: split open() and file() from being aliases for each other.
637
- Patch #1497053 & bug #1275608: Exceptions occurring in ``__eq__()``
638
methods were always silently ignored by dictionaries when comparing keys.
639
They are now passed through (except when using the C API function
640
``PyDict_GetItem()``, whose semantics did not change).
642
- Bug #1456209: In some obscure cases it was possible for a class with a
643
custom ``__eq__()`` method to confuse dict internals when class instances
644
were used as a dict's keys and the ``__eq__()`` method mutated the dict.
645
No, you don't have any code that did this ;-)
650
- Bug #1295808: expat symbols should be namespaced in pyexpat
652
- Patch #1462338: Upgrade pyexpat to expat 2.0.0
654
- Change binascii.hexlify to accept a read-only buffer instead of only a char
655
buffer and actually follow its documentation.
657
- Fixed a potentially invalid memory access of CJKCodecs' shift-jis decoder.
659
- Patch #1478788 (modified version): The functional extension module has
660
been renamed to _functools and a functools Python wrapper module added.
661
This provides a home for additional function related utilities that are
662
not specifically about functional programming. See PEP 309.
664
- Patch #1493701: performance enhancements for struct module.
666
- Patch #1490224: time.altzone is now set correctly on Cygwin.
668
- Patch #1435422: zlib's compress and decompress objects now have a
671
- Patch #1454481: thread stack size is now tunable at runtime for thread
672
enabled builds on Windows and systems with Posix threads support.
674
- On Win32, os.listdir now supports arbitrarily-long Unicode path names
675
(up to the system limit of 32K characters).
677
- Use Win32 API to implement os.{access,chdir,chmod,mkdir,remove,rename,rmdir,utime}.
678
As a result, these functions now raise WindowsError instead of OSError.
680
- ``time.clock()`` on Win64 should use the high-performance Windows
681
``QueryPerformanceCounter()`` now (as was already the case on 32-bit
684
- Calling Tk_Init twice is refused if the first call failed as that
687
- bsddb: added the DB_ARCH_REMOVE flag and fixed db.DBEnv.log_archive() to
688
accept it without potentially using an uninitialized pointer.
690
- bsddb: added support for the DBEnv.log_stat() and DBEnv.lsn_reset() methods
691
assuming BerkeleyDB >= 4.0 and 4.4 respectively. [pybsddb project SF
692
patch numbers 1494885 and 1494902]
694
- bsddb: added an interface for the BerkeleyDB >= 4.3 DBSequence class.
695
[pybsddb project SF patch number 1466734]
697
- bsddb: fix DBCursor.pget() bug with keyword argument names when no data
698
parameter is supplied. [SF pybsddb bug #1477863]
700
- bsddb: the __len__ method of a DB object has been fixed to return correct
701
results. It could previously incorrectly return 0 in some cases.
702
Fixes SF bug 1493322 (pybsddb bug 1184012).
704
- bsddb: the bsddb.dbtables Modify method now raises the proper error and
705
aborts the db transaction safely when a modifier callback fails.
706
Fixes SF python patch/bug #1408584.
708
- bsddb: multithreaded DB access using the simple bsddb module interface
709
now works reliably. It has been updated to use automatic BerkeleyDB
710
deadlock detection and the bsddb.dbutils.DeadlockWrap wrapper to retry
711
database calls that would previously deadlock. [SF python bug #775414]
713
- Patch #1446489: add support for the ZIP64 extensions to zipfile.
715
- Patch #1506645: add Python wrappers for the curses functions
716
is_term_resized, resize_term and resizeterm.
721
- Patch #815924: Restore ability to pass type= and icon= in tkMessageBox
724
- Patch #812986: Update turtle output even if not tracing.
726
- Patch #1494750: Destroy master after deleting children in
729
- Patch #1096231: Add ``default`` argument to Tkinter.Wm.wm_iconbitmap.
731
- Patch #763580: Add name and value arguments to Tkinter variable
734
- Bug #1117556: SimpleHTTPServer now tries to find and use the system's
735
mime.types file for determining MIME types.
737
- Bug #1339007: Shelf objects now don't raise an exception in their
738
__del__ method when initialization failed.
740
- Patch #1455898: The MBCS codec now supports the incremental mode for
741
double-byte encodings.
743
- ``difflib``'s ``SequenceMatcher.get_matching_blocks()`` was changed to
744
guarantee that adjacent triples in the return list always describe
745
non-adjacent blocks. Previously, a pair of matching blocks could end
746
up being described by multiple adjacent triples that formed a partition
747
of the matching pair.
749
- Bug #1498146: fix optparse to handle Unicode strings in option help,
750
description, and epilog.
752
- Bug #1366250: minor optparse documentation error.
754
- Bug #1361643: fix textwrap.dedent() so it handles tabs appropriately;
757
- The wsgiref package has been added to the standard library.
759
- The functions update_wrapper() and wraps() have been added to the functools
760
module. These make it easier to copy relevant metadata from the original
761
function when writing wrapper functions.
763
- The optional ``isprivate`` argument to ``doctest.testmod()``, and the
764
``doctest.is_private()`` function, both deprecated in 2.4, were removed.
766
- Patch #1359618: Speed up charmap encoder by using a trie structure
769
- The functions in the ``pprint`` module now sort dictionaries by key
770
before computing the display. Before 2.5, ``pprint`` sorted a dictionary
771
if and only if its display required more than one line, although that
772
wasn't documented. The new behavior increases predictability; e.g.,
773
using ``pprint.pprint(a_dict)`` in a doctest is now reliable.
775
- Patch #1497027: try HTTP digest auth before basic auth in urllib2
776
(thanks for J. J. Lee).
778
- Patch #1496206: improve urllib2 handling of passwords with respect to
779
default HTTP and HTTPS ports.
781
- Patch #1080727: add "encoding" parameter to doctest.DocFileSuite.
783
- Patch #1281707: speed up gzip.readline.
785
- Patch #1180296: Two new functions were added to the locale module:
786
format_string() to get the effect of "format % items" but locale-aware,
787
and currency() to format a monetary number with currency sign.
789
- Patch #1486962: Several bugs in the turtle Tk demo module were fixed
790
and several features added, such as speed and geometry control.
792
- Patch #1488881: add support for external file objects in bz2 compressed
795
- Patch #721464: pdb.Pdb instances can now be given explicit stdin and
796
stdout arguments, making it possible to redirect input and output
797
for remote debugging.
799
- Patch #1484695: Update the tarfile module to version 0.8. This fixes
800
a couple of issues, notably handling of long file names using the
801
GNU LONGNAME extension.
803
- Patch #1478292. ``doctest.register_optionflag(name)`` shouldn't create a
804
new flag when ``name`` is already the name of an option flag.
806
- Bug #1385040: don't allow "def foo(a=1, b): pass" in the compiler
809
- Patch #1472854: make the rlcompleter.Completer class usable on non-
812
- Patch #1470846: fix urllib2 ProxyBasicAuthHandler.
814
- Bug #1472827: correctly escape newlines and tabs in attribute values in
815
the saxutils.XMLGenerator class.
821
- Bug #1502728: Correctly link against librt library on HP-UX.
823
- OpenBSD 3.9 is supported now.
825
- Patch #1492356: Port to Windows CE.
827
- Bug/Patch #1481770: Use .so extension for shared libraries on HP-UX for ia64.
829
- Patch #1471883: Add --enable-universalsdk.
845
What's New in Python 2.5 alpha 2?
846
=================================
848
*Release date: 27-APR-2006*
853
- Bug #1465834: 'bdist_wininst preinstall script support' was fixed
854
by converting these apis from macros into exported functions again:
856
PyParser_SimpleParseFile PyParser_SimpleParseString PyRun_AnyFile
857
PyRun_AnyFileEx PyRun_AnyFileFlags PyRun_File PyRun_FileEx
858
PyRun_FileFlags PyRun_InteractiveLoop PyRun_InteractiveOne
859
PyRun_SimpleFile PyRun_SimpleFileEx PyRun_SimpleString
860
PyRun_String Py_CompileString
862
- Under COUNT_ALLOCS, types are not necessarily immortal anymore.
864
- All uses of PyStructSequence_InitType have been changed to initialize
865
the type objects only once, even if the interpreter is initialized
868
- Bug #1454485, array.array('u') could crash the interpreter. This was
869
due to PyArgs_ParseTuple(args, 'u#', ...) trying to convert buffers (strings)
870
to unicode when it didn't make sense. 'u#' now requires a unicode string.
872
- Py_UNICODE is unsigned. It was always documented as unsigned, but
873
due to a bug had a signed value in previous versions.
875
- Patch #837242: ``id()`` of any Python object always gives a positive
876
number now, which might be a long integer. ``PyLong_FromVoidPtr`` and
877
``PyLong_AsVoidPtr`` have been changed accordingly. Note that it has
878
never been correct to implement a ``__hash()__`` method that returns the
879
``id()`` of an object:
882
return id(self) # WRONG
884
because a hash result must be a (short) Python int but it was always
885
possible for ``id()`` to return a Python long. However, because ``id()``
886
could return negative values before, on a 32-bit box an ``id()`` result
887
was always usable as a hash value before this patch. That's no longer
890
- Python on OS X 10.3 and above now uses dlopen() (via dynload_shlib.c)
891
to load extension modules and now provides the dl module. As a result,
892
sys.setdlopenflags() now works correctly on these systems. (SF patch
895
- Patch #1463867: enhanced garbage collection to allow cleanup of cycles
896
involving generators that have paused outside of any ``try`` or ``with``
897
blocks. (In 2.5a1, a paused generator that was part of a reference
898
cycle could not be garbage collected, regardless of whether it was
899
paused in a ``try`` or ``with`` block.)
904
- Patch #1191065: Fix preprocessor problems on systems where recvfrom
907
- Bug #1467952: os.listdir() now correctly raises an error if readdir()
908
fails with an error condition.
910
- Fixed bsddb.db.DBError derived exceptions so they can be unpickled.
912
- Bug #1117761: bsddb.*open() no longer raises an exception when using
913
the cachesize parameter.
915
- Bug #1149413: bsddb.*open() no longer raises an exception when using
916
a temporary db (file=None) with the 'n' flag to truncate on open.
918
- Bug #1332852: bsddb module minimum BerkeleyDB version raised to 3.3
919
as older versions cause excessive test failures.
921
- Patch #1062014: AF_UNIX sockets under Linux have a special
922
abstract namespace that is now fully supported.
927
- Bug #1223937: subprocess.CalledProcessError reports the exit status
928
of the process using the returncode attribute, instead of
931
- Patch #1475231: ``doctest`` has a new ``SKIP`` option, which causes
932
a doctest to be skipped (the code is not run, and the expected output
933
or exception is ignored).
935
- Fixed contextlib.nested to cope with exceptions being raised and
936
caught inside exit handlers.
938
- Updated optparse module to Optik 1.5.1 (allow numeric constants in
939
hex, octal, or binary; add ``append_const`` action; keep going if
940
gettext cannot be imported; added ``OptionParser.destroy()`` method;
941
added ``epilog`` for better help generation).
943
- Bug #1473760: ``tempfile.TemporaryFile()`` could hang on Windows, when
944
called from a thread spawned as a side effect of importing a module.
946
- The pydoc module now supports documenting packages contained in
949
- The pkgutil module now has several new utility functions, such
950
as ``walk_packages()`` to support working with packages that are either
951
in the filesystem or zip files.
953
- The mailbox module can now modify and delete messages from
954
mailboxes, in addition to simply reading them. Thanks to Gregory
955
K. Johnson for writing the code, and to the 2005 Google Summer of
956
Code for funding his work.
958
- The ``__del__`` method of class ``local`` in module ``_threading_local``
959
returned before accomplishing any of its intended cleanup.
961
- Patch #790710: Add breakpoint command lists in pdb.
963
- Patch #1063914: Add Tkinter.Misc.clipboard_get().
965
- Patch #1191700: Adjust column alignment in bdb breakpoint lists.
967
- SimpleXMLRPCServer relied on the fcntl module, which is unavailable on
968
Windows. Bug #1469163.
970
- The warnings, linecache, inspect, traceback, site, and doctest modules
971
were updated to work correctly with modules imported from zipfiles or
972
via other PEP 302 __loader__ objects.
974
- Patch #1467770: Reduce usage of subprocess._active to processes which
975
the application hasn't waited on.
977
- Patch #1462222: Fix Tix.Grid.
979
- Fix exception when doing glob.glob('anything*/')
981
- The pstats.Stats class accepts an optional stream keyword argument to
982
direct output to an alternate file-like object.
987
- The Makefile now has a reindent target, which runs reindent.py on
990
- Patch #1470875: Building Python with MS Free Compiler
992
- Patch #1161914: Add a python-config script.
994
- Patch #1324762:Remove ccpython.cc; replace --with-cxx with
995
--with-cxx-main. Link with C++ compiler only if --with-cxx-main was
996
specified. (Can be overridden by explicitly setting LINKCC.) Decouple
997
CXX from --with-cxx-main, see description in README.
999
- Patch #1429775: Link extension modules with the shared libpython.
1001
- Fixed a libffi build problem on MIPS systems.
1003
- ``PyString_FromFormat``, ``PyErr_Format``, and ``PyString_FromFormatV``
1004
now accept formats "%u" for unsigned ints, "%lu" for unsigned longs,
1005
and "%zu" for unsigned integers of type ``size_t``.
1010
- test_contextlib now checks contextlib.nested can cope with exceptions
1011
being raised and caught inside exit handlers.
1013
- test_cmd_line now checks operation of the -m and -c command switches
1015
- The test_contextlib test in 2.5a1 wasn't actually run unless you ran
1016
it separately and by hand. It also wasn't cleaning up its changes to
1017
the current Decimal context.
1019
- regrtest.py now has a -M option to run tests that test the new limits of
1020
containers, on 64-bit architectures. Running these tests is only sensible
1021
on 64-bit machines with more than two gigabytes of memory. The argument
1022
passed is the maximum amount of memory for the tests to use.
1027
- Added the Python benchmark suite pybench to the Tools/ directory;
1028
contributed by Marc-Andre Lemburg.
1033
- Patch #1473132: Improve docs for ``tp_clear`` and ``tp_traverse``.
1035
- PEP 343: Added Context Types section to the library reference
1036
and attempted to bring other PEP 343 related documentation into
1037
line with the implementation and/or python-dev discussions.
1039
- Bug #1337990: clarified that ``doctest`` does not support examples
1040
requiring both expected output and an exception.
1043
What's New in Python 2.5 alpha 1?
1044
=================================
1046
*Release date: 05-APR-2006*
1051
- PEP 338: -m command line switch now delegates to runpy.run_module
1052
allowing it to support modules in packages and zipfiles
1054
- On Windows, .DLL is not an accepted file name extension for
1055
extension modules anymore; extensions are only found if they
1058
- Bug #1421664: sys.stderr.encoding is now set to the same value as
1059
sys.stdout.encoding.
1061
- __import__ accepts keyword arguments.
1063
- Patch #1460496: round() now accepts keyword arguments.
1065
- Fixed bug #1459029 - unicode reprs were double-escaped.
1067
- Patch #1396919: The system scope threads are reenabled on FreeBSD
1068
5.4 and later versions.
1070
- Bug #1115379: Compiling a Unicode string with an encoding declaration
1071
now gives a SyntaxError.
1073
- Previously, Python code had no easy way to access the contents of a
1074
cell object. Now, a ``cell_contents`` attribute has been added
1075
(closes patch #1170323).
1077
- Patch #1123430: Python's small-object allocator now returns an arena to
1078
the system ``free()`` when all memory within an arena becomes unused
1079
again. Prior to Python 2.5, arenas (256KB chunks of memory) were never
1080
freed. Some applications will see a drop in virtual memory size now,
1081
especially long-running applications that, from time to time, temporarily
1082
use a large number of small objects. Note that when Python returns an
1083
arena to the platform C's ``free()``, there's no guarantee that the
1084
platform C library will in turn return that memory to the operating system.
1085
The effect of the patch is to stop making that impossible, and in tests it
1086
appears to be effective at least on Microsoft C and gcc-based systems.
1087
Thanks to Evan Jones for hard work and patience.
1089
- Patch #1434038: property() now uses the getter's docstring if there is
1090
no "doc" argument given. This makes it possible to legitimately use
1091
property() as a decorator to produce a read-only property.
1093
- PEP 357, patch 1436368: add an __index__ method to int/long and a matching
1094
nb_index slot to the PyNumberMethods struct. The slot is consulted instead
1095
of requiring an int or long in slicing and a few other contexts, enabling
1096
other objects (e.g. Numeric Python's integers) to be used as slice indices.
1098
- Fixed various bugs reported by Coverity's Prevent tool.
1100
- PEP 352, patch #1104669: Make exceptions new-style objects. Introduced the
1101
new exception base class, BaseException, which has a new message attribute.
1102
KeyboardInterrupt and SystemExit to directly inherit from BaseException now.
1103
Raising a string exception now raises a DeprecationWarning.
1105
- Patch #1438387, PEP 328: relative and absolute imports. Imports can now be
1106
explicitly relative, using 'from .module import name' to mean 'from the same
1107
package as this module is in. Imports without dots still default to the
1108
old relative-then-absolute, unless 'from __future__ import
1109
absolute_import' is used.
1111
- Properly check if 'warnings' raises an exception (usually when a filter set
1112
to "error" is triggered) when raising a warning for raising string
1115
- CO_GENERATOR_ALLOWED is no longer defined. This behavior is the default.
1116
The name was removed from Include/code.h.
1118
- PEP 308: conditional expressions were added: (x if cond else y).
1121
- The copy module now "copies" function objects (as atomic objects).
1122
- dict.__getitem__ now looks for a __missing__ hook before raising
1125
- PEP 343: with statement implemented. Needs ``from __future__ import
1126
with_statement``. Use of 'with' as a variable will generate a warning.
1127
Use of 'as' as a variable will also generate a warning (unless it's
1128
part of an import statement).
1129
The following objects have __context__ methods:
1130
- The built-in file type.
1131
- The thread.LockType type.
1132
- The following types defined by the threading module:
1133
Lock, RLock, Condition, Semaphore, BoundedSemaphore.
1134
- The decimal.Context class.
1136
- Fix the encodings package codec search function to only search
1137
inside its own package. Fixes problem reported in patch #1433198.
1139
Note: Codec packages should implement and register their own
1140
codec search function. PEP 100 has the details.
1142
- PEP 353: Using ``Py_ssize_t`` as the index type.
1144
- ``PYMALLOC_DEBUG`` builds now add ``4*sizeof(size_t)`` bytes of debugging
1145
info to each allocated block, since the ``Py_ssize_t`` changes (PEP 353)
1146
now allow Python to make use of memory blocks exceeding 2**32 bytes for
1147
some purposes on 64-bit boxes. A ``PYMALLOC_DEBUG`` build was limited
1148
to 4-byte allocations before.
1150
- Patch #1400181, fix unicode string formatting to not use the locale.
1151
This is how string objects work. u'%f' could use , instead of .
1152
for the decimal point. Now both strings and unicode always use periods.
1154
- Bug #1244610, #1392915, fix build problem on OpenBSD 3.7 and 3.8.
1155
configure would break checking curses.h.
1157
- Bug #959576: The pwd module is now builtin. This allows Python to be
1158
built on UNIX platforms without $HOME set.
1160
- Bug #1072182, fix some potential problems if characters are signed.
1162
- Bug #889500, fix line number on SyntaxWarning for global declarations.
1164
- Bug #1378022, UTF-8 files with a leading BOM crashed the interpreter.
1166
- Support for converting hex strings to floats no longer works.
1167
This was not portable. float('0x3') now raises a ValueError.
1169
- Patch #1382163: Expose Subversion revision number to Python. New C API
1170
function Py_GetBuildNumber(). New attribute sys.subversion. Build number
1171
is now displayed in interactive prompt banner.
1173
- Implementation of PEP 341 - Unification of try/except and try/finally.
1174
"except" clauses can now be written together with a "finally" clause in
1175
one try statement instead of two nested ones. Patch #1355913.
1177
- Bug #1379994: Builtin unicode_escape and raw_unicode_escape codec
1178
now encodes backslash correctly.
1180
- Patch #1350409: Work around signal handling bug in Visual Studio 2005.
1182
- Bug #1281408: Py_BuildValue now works correctly even with unsigned longs
1185
- SF Bug #1350188, "setdlopenflags" leads to crash upon "import"
1186
It was possible for dlerror() to return a NULL pointer, so
1187
it will now use a default error message in this case.
1189
- Replaced most Unicode charmap codecs with new ones using the
1190
new Unicode translate string feature in the builtin charmap
1191
codec; the codecs were created from the mapping tables available
1192
at ftp.unicode.org and contain a few updates (e.g. the Mac OS
1193
encodings now include a mapping for the Apple logo)
1195
- Added a few more codecs for Mac OS encodings
1197
- Sped up some Unicode operations.
1199
- A new AST parser implementation was completed. The abstract
1200
syntax tree is available for read-only (non-compile) access
1201
to Python code; an _ast module was added.
1203
- SF bug #1167751: fix incorrect code being produced for generator expressions.
1204
The following code now raises a SyntaxError: foo(a = i for i in range(10))
1206
- SF Bug #976608: fix SystemError when mtime of an imported file is -1.
1208
- SF Bug #887946: fix segfault when redirecting stdin from a directory.
1209
Provide a warning when a directory is passed on the command line.
1211
- Fix segfault with invalid coding.
1213
- SF bug #772896: unknown encoding results in MemoryError.
1215
- All iterators now have a Boolean value of True. Formerly, some iterators
1216
supported a __len__() method which evaluated to False when the iterator
1219
- On 64-bit platforms, when __len__() returns a value that cannot be
1220
represented as a C int, raise OverflowError.
1222
- test__locale is skipped on OS X < 10.4 (only partial locale support is
1225
- SF bug #893549: parsing keyword arguments was broken with a few format
1228
- Changes donated by Elemental Security to make it work on AIX 5.3
1229
with IBM's 64-bit compiler (SF patch #1284289). This also closes SF
1230
bug #105470: test_pwd fails on 64bit system (Opteron).
1232
- Changes donated by Elemental Security to make it work on HP-UX 11 on
1233
Itanium2 with HP's 64-bit compiler (SF patch #1225212).
1235
- Disallow keyword arguments for type constructors that don't use them
1236
(fixes bug #1119418).
1238
- Forward UnicodeDecodeError into SyntaxError for source encoding errors.
1240
- SF bug #900092: When tracing (e.g. for hotshot), restore 'return' events for
1241
exceptions that cause a function to exit.
1243
- The implementation of set() and frozenset() was revised to use its
1244
own internal data structure. Memory consumption is reduced by 1/3
1245
and there are modest speed-ups as well. The API is unchanged.
1247
- SF bug #1238681: freed pointer is used in longobject.c:long_pow().
1249
- SF bug #1229429: PyObject_CallMethod failed to decrement some
1250
reference counts in some error exit cases.
1252
- SF bug #1185883: Python's small-object memory allocator took over
1253
a block managed by the platform C library whenever a realloc specified
1254
a small new size. However, there's no portable way to know then how
1255
much of the address space following the pointer is valid, so there's no
1256
portable way to copy data from the C-managed block into Python's
1257
small-object space without risking a memory fault. Python's small-object
1258
realloc now leaves such blocks under the control of the platform C
1261
- SF bug #1232517: An overflow error was not detected properly when
1262
attempting to convert a large float to an int in os.utime().
1264
- SF bug #1224347: hex longs now print with lowercase letters just
1265
like their int counterparts.
1267
- SF bug #1163563: the original fix for bug #1010677 ("thread Module
1268
Breaks PyGILState_Ensure()") broke badly in the case of multiple
1269
interpreter states; back out that fix and do a better job (see
1270
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-June/054258.html
1271
for a longer write-up of the problem).
1273
- SF patch #1180995: marshal now uses a binary format by default when
1276
- SF patch #1181301: on platforms that appear to use IEEE 754 floats,
1277
the routines that promise to produce IEEE 754 binary representations
1278
of floats now simply copy bytes around.
1280
- bug #967182: disallow opening files with 'wU' or 'aU' as specified by PEP
1283
- patch #1109424: int, long, float, complex, and unicode now check for the
1284
proper magic slot for type conversions when subclassed. Previously the
1285
magic slot was ignored during conversion. Semantics now match the way
1286
subclasses of str always behaved. int/long/float, conversion of an instance
1287
to the base class has been moved to the proper nb_* magic slot and out of
1289
Thanks Walter Dļæ½rwald.
1291
- Descriptors defined in C with a PyGetSetDef structure, where the setter is
1292
NULL, now raise an AttributeError when attempting to set or delete the
1293
attribute. Previously a TypeError was raised, but this was inconsistent
1294
with the equivalent pure-Python implementation.
1296
- It is now safe to call PyGILState_Release() before
1297
PyEval_InitThreads() (note that if there is reason to believe there
1298
are multiple threads around you still must call PyEval_InitThreads()
1299
before using the Python API; this fix is for extension modules that
1300
have no way of knowing if Python is multi-threaded yet).
1302
- Typing Ctrl-C whilst raw_input() was waiting in a build with threads
1303
disabled caused a crash.
1305
- Bug #1165306: instancemethod_new allowed the creation of a method
1306
with im_class == im_self == NULL, which caused a crash when called.
1308
- Move exception finalisation later in the shutdown process - this
1309
fixes the crash seen in bug #1165761
1311
- Added two new builtins, any() and all().
1313
- Defining a class with empty parentheses is now allowed
1314
(e.g., ``class C(): pass`` is no longer a syntax error).
1315
Patch #1176012 added support to the 'parser' module and 'compiler' package
1316
(thanks to logistix for that added support).
1318
- Patch #1115086: Support PY_LONGLONG in structmember.
1320
- Bug #1155938: new style classes did not check that __init__() was
1323
- Patch #802188: Report characters after line continuation character
1324
('\') with a specific error message.
1326
- Bug #723201: Raise a TypeError for passing bad objects to 'L' format.
1328
- Bug #1124295: the __name__ attribute of file objects was
1329
inadvertently made inaccessible in restricted mode.
1331
- Bug #1074011: closing sys.std{out,err} now causes a flush() and
1334
- min() and max() now support key= arguments with the same meaning as in
1337
- The peephole optimizer now performs simple constant folding in expressions:
1340
- set and frozenset objects can now be marshalled. SF #1098985.
1342
- Bug #1077106: Poor argument checking could cause memory corruption
1343
in calls to os.read().
1345
- The parser did not complain about future statements in illegal
1346
positions. It once again reports a syntax error if a future
1347
statement occurs after anything other than a doc string.
1349
- Change the %s format specifier for str objects so that it returns a
1350
unicode instance if the argument is not an instance of basestring and
1351
calling __str__ on the argument returns a unicode instance.
1353
- Patch #1413181: changed ``PyThreadState_Delete()`` to forget about the
1354
current thread state when the auto-GIL-state machinery knows about
1355
it (since the thread state is being deleted, continuing to remember it
1356
can't help, but can hurt if another thread happens to get created with
1357
the same thread id).
1362
- Patch #1380952: fix SSL objects timing out on consecutive read()s
1364
- Patch #1309579: wait3 and wait4 were added to the posix module.
1366
- Patch #1231053: The audioop module now supports encoding/decoding of alaw.
1367
In addition, the existing ulaw code was updated.
1369
- RFE #567972: Socket objects' family, type and proto properties are
1370
now exposed via new attributes.
1372
- Everything under lib-old was removed. This includes the following modules:
1373
Para, addpack, cmp, cmpcache, codehack, dircmp, dump, find, fmt, grep,
1374
lockfile, newdir, ni, packmail, poly, rand, statcache, tb, tzparse,
1375
util, whatsound, whrandom, zmod
1377
- The following modules were removed: regsub, reconvert, regex, regex_syntax.
1379
- re and sre were swapped, so help(re) provides full help. importing sre
1380
is deprecated. The undocumented re.engine variable no longer exists.
1382
- Bug #1448490: Fixed a bug that ISO-2022 codecs could not handle
1383
SS2 (single-shift 2) escape sequences correctly.
1385
- The unicodedata module was updated to the 4.1 version of the Unicode
1386
database. The 3.2 version is still available as unicodedata.db_3_2_0
1387
for applications that require this specific version (such as IDNA).
1389
- The timing module is no longer built by default. It was deprecated
1390
in PEP 4 in Python 2.0 or earlier.
1392
- Patch 1433928: Added a new type, defaultdict, to the collections module.
1393
This uses the new __missing__ hook behavior added to dict (see above).
1395
- Bug #854823: socketmodule now builds on Sun platforms even when
1396
INET_ADDRSTRLEN is not defined.
1398
- Patch #1393157: os.startfile() now has an optional argument to specify
1399
a "command verb" to invoke on the file.
1401
- Bug #876637, prevent stack corruption when socket descriptor
1402
is larger than FD_SETSIZE.
1404
- Patch #1407135, bug #1424041: harmonize mmap behavior of anonymous memory.
1405
mmap.mmap(-1, size) now returns anonymous memory in both Unix and Windows.
1406
mmap.mmap(0, size) should not be used on Windows for anonymous memory.
1408
- Patch #1422385: The nis module now supports access to domains other
1409
than the system default domain.
1411
- Use Win32 API to implement os.stat/fstat. As a result, subsecond timestamps
1412
are reported, the limit on path name lengths is removed, and stat reports
1413
WindowsError now (instead of OSError).
1415
- Add bsddb.db.DBEnv.set_tx_timestamp allowing time based database recovery.
1417
- Bug #1413192, fix seg fault in bsddb if a transaction was deleted
1420
- Patch #1103116: Basic AF_NETLINK support.
1422
- Bug #1402308, (possible) segfault when using mmap.mmap(-1, ...)
1424
- Bug #1400822, _curses over{lay,write} doesn't work when passing 6 ints.
1425
Also fix ungetmouse() which did not accept arguments properly.
1426
The code now conforms to the documented signature.
1428
- Bug #1400115, Fix segfault when calling curses.panel.userptr()
1429
without prior setting of the userptr.
1431
- Fix 64-bit problems in bsddb.
1433
- Patch #1365916: fix some unsafe 64-bit mmap methods.
1435
- Bug #1290333: Added a workaround for cjkcodecs' _codecs_cn build
1438
- Bug #869197: os.setgroups rejects long integer arguments
1440
- Bug #1346533, select.poll() doesn't raise an error if timeout > sys.maxint
1442
- Bug #1344508, Fix UNIX mmap leaking file descriptors
1444
- Patch #1338314, Bug #1336623: fix tarfile so it can extract
1445
REGTYPE directories from tarfiles written by old programs.
1447
- Patch #1407992, fixes broken bsddb module db associate when using
1448
BerkeleyDB 3.3, 4.0 or 4.1.
1450
- Get bsddb module to build with BerkeleyDB version 4.4
1452
- Get bsddb module to build with BerkeleyDB version 3.2
1454
- Patch #1309009, Fix segfault in pyexpat when the XML document is in latin_1,
1455
but Python incorrectly assumes it is in UTF-8 format
1457
- Fix parse errors in the readline module when compiling without threads.
1459
- Patch #1288833: Removed thread lock from socket.getaddrinfo on
1460
FreeBSD 5.3 and later versions which got thread-safe getaddrinfo(3).
1462
- Patches #1298449 and #1298499: Add some missing checks for error
1463
returns in cStringIO.c.
1465
- Patch #1297028: fix segfault if call type on MultibyteCodec,
1466
MultibyteStreamReader, or MultibyteStreamWriter
1468
- Fix memory leak in posix.access().
1470
- Patch #1213831: Fix typo in unicodedata._getcode.
1472
- Bug #1007046: os.startfile() did not accept unicode strings encoded in
1473
the file system encoding.
1475
- Patch #756021: Special-case socket.inet_aton('255.255.255.255') for
1476
platforms that don't have inet_aton().
1478
- Bug #1215928: Fix bz2.BZ2File.seek() for 64-bit file offsets.
1480
- Bug #1191043: Fix bz2.BZ2File.(x)readlines for files containing one
1481
line without newlines.
1483
- Bug #728515: mmap.resize() now resizes the file on Unix as it did
1486
- Patch #1180695: Add nanosecond stat resolution, and st_gen,
1487
st_birthtime for FreeBSD.
1489
- Patch #1231069: The fcntl.ioctl function now uses the 'I' code for
1490
the request code argument, which results in more C-like behaviour
1491
for large or negative values.
1493
- Bug #1234979: For the argument of thread.Lock.acquire, the Windows
1494
implementation treated all integer values except 1 as false.
1496
- Bug #1194181: bz2.BZ2File didn't handle mode 'U' correctly.
1498
- Patch #1212117: os.stat().st_flags is now accessible as a attribute
1499
if available on the platform.
1501
- Patch #1103951: Expose O_SHLOCK and O_EXLOCK in the posix module if
1502
available on the platform.
1504
- Bug #1166660: The readline module could segfault if hook functions
1505
were set in a different thread than that which called readline.
1507
- collections.deque objects now support a remove() method.
1509
- operator.itemgetter() and operator.attrgetter() now support retrieving
1510
multiple fields. This provides direct support for sorting on multiple
1511
keys (primary, secondary, etc).
1513
- os.access now supports Unicode path names on non-Win32 systems.
1515
- Patches #925152, #1118602: Avoid reading after the end of the buffer
1516
in pyexpat.GetInputContext.
1518
- Patches #749830, #1144555: allow UNIX mmap size to default to current
1521
- Added functional.partial(). See PEP309.
1523
- Patch #1093585: raise a ValueError for negative history items in readline.
1524
{remove_history,replace_history}
1526
- The spwd module has been added, allowing access to the shadow password
1529
- stat_float_times is now True.
1531
- array.array objects are now picklable.
1533
- the cPickle module no longer accepts the deprecated None option in the
1534
args tuple returned by __reduce__().
1536
- itertools.islice() now accepts None for the start and step arguments.
1537
This allows islice() to work more readily with slices:
1538
islice(s.start, s.stop, s.step)
1540
- datetime.datetime() now has a strptime class method which can be used to
1541
create datetime object using a string and format.
1543
- Patch #1117961: Replace the MD5 implementation from RSA Data Security Inc
1544
with the implementation from http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmd5-rfc/.
1549
- Patch #1388073: Numerous __-prefixed attributes of unittest.TestCase have
1550
been renamed to have only a single underscore prefix. This was done to
1551
make subclassing easier.
1553
- PEP 338: new module runpy defines a run_module function to support
1554
executing modules which provide access to source code or a code object
1555
via the PEP 302 import mechanisms.
1557
- The email module's parsedate_tz function now sets the daylight savings
1558
flag to -1 (unknown) since it can't tell from the date whether it should
1561
- Patch #624325: urlparse.urlparse() and urlparse.urlsplit() results
1562
now sport attributes that provide access to the parts of the result.
1564
- Patch #1462498: sgmllib now handles entity and character references
1565
in attribute values.
1567
- Added the sqlite3 package. This is based on pysqlite2.1.3, and provides
1568
a DB-API interface in the standard library. You'll need sqlite 3.0.8 or
1569
later to build this - if you have an earlier version, the C extension
1570
module will not be built.
1572
- Bug #1460340: ``random.sample(dict)`` failed in various ways. Dicts
1573
aren't officially supported here, and trying to use them will probably
1574
raise an exception some day. But dicts have been allowed, and "mostly
1575
worked", so support for them won't go away without warning.
1577
- Bug #1445068: getpass.getpass() can now be given an explicit stream
1578
argument to specify where to write the prompt.
1580
- Patch #1462313, bug #1443328: the pickle modules now can handle classes
1581
that have __private names in their __slots__.
1583
- Bug #1250170: mimetools now handles socket.gethostname() failures gracefully.
1585
- patch #1457316: "setup.py upload" now supports --identity to select the
1586
key to be used for signing the uploaded code.
1588
- Queue.Queue objects now support .task_done() and .join() methods
1589
to make it easier to monitor when daemon threads have completed
1590
processing all enqueued tasks. Patch #1455676.
1592
- popen2.Popen objects now preserve the command in a .cmd attribute.
1594
- Added the ctypes ffi package.
1596
- email 4.0 package now integrated. This is largely the same as the email 3.0
1597
package that was included in Python 2.3, except that PEP 8 module names are
1598
now used (e.g. mail.message instead of email.Message). The MIME classes
1599
have been moved to a subpackage (e.g. email.mime.text instead of
1600
email.MIMEText). The old names are still supported for now. Several
1601
deprecated Message methods have been removed and lots of bugs have been
1602
fixed. More details can be found in the email package documentation.
1604
- Patches #1436130/#1443155: codecs.lookup() now returns a CodecInfo object
1605
(a subclass of tuple) that provides incremental decoders and encoders
1606
(a way to use stateful codecs without the stream API). Python functions
1607
codecs.getincrementaldecoder() and codecs.getincrementalencoder() as well
1608
as C functions PyCodec_IncrementalEncoder() and PyCodec_IncrementalDecoder()
1611
- Patch #1359365: Calling next() on a closed StringIO.String object raises
1612
a ValueError instead of a StopIteration now (like file and cString.String do).
1613
cStringIO.StringIO.isatty() will raise a ValueError now if close() has been
1614
called before (like file and StringIO.StringIO do).
1616
- A regrtest option -w was added to re-run failed tests in verbose mode.
1618
- Patch #1446372: quit and exit can now be called from the interactive
1619
interpreter to exit.
1621
- The function get_count() has been added to the gc module, and gc.collect()
1622
grew an optional 'generation' argument.
1624
- A library msilib to generate Windows Installer files, and a distutils
1625
command bdist_msi have been added.
1627
- PEP 343: new module contextlib.py defines decorator @contextmanager
1628
and helpful context managers nested() and closing().
1630
- The compiler package now supports future imports after the module docstring.
1632
- Bug #1413790: zipfile now sanitizes absolute archive names that are
1633
not allowed by the specs.
1635
- Patch #1215184: FileInput now can be given an opening hook which can
1636
be used to control how files are opened.
1638
- Patch #1212287: fileinput.input() now has a mode parameter for
1639
specifying the file mode input files should be opened with.
1641
- Patch #1215184: fileinput now has a fileno() function for getting the
1642
current file number.
1644
- Patch #1349274: gettext.install() now optionally installs additional
1645
translation functions other than _() in the builtin namespace.
1647
- Patch #1337756: fileinput now accepts Unicode filenames.
1649
- Patch #1373643: The chunk module can now read chunks larger than
1652
- Patch #1417555: SimpleHTTPServer now returns Last-Modified headers.
1654
- Bug #1430298: It is now possible to send a mail with an empty
1655
return address using smtplib.
1657
- Bug #1432260: The names of lambda functions are now properly displayed
1660
- Patch #1412872: zipfile now sets the creator system to 3 (Unix)
1661
unless the system is Win32.
1663
- Patch #1349118: urllib now supports user:pass@ style proxy
1664
specifications, raises IOErrors when proxies for unsupported protocols
1665
are defined, and uses the https proxy on https redirections.
1667
- Bug #902075: urllib2 now supports 'host:port' style proxy specifications.
1669
- Bug #1407902: Add support for sftp:// URIs to urlparse.
1671
- Bug #1371247: Update Windows locale identifiers in locale.py.
1673
- Bug #1394565: SimpleHTTPServer now doesn't choke on query parameters
1676
- Bug #1403410: The warnings module now doesn't get confused
1677
when it can't find out the module name it generates a warning for.
1679
- Patch #1177307: Added a new codec utf_8_sig for UTF-8 with a BOM signature.
1681
- Patch #1157027: cookielib mishandles RFC 2109 cookies in Netscape mode
1683
- Patch #1117398: cookielib.LWPCookieJar and .MozillaCookieJar now raise
1684
LoadError as documented, instead of IOError. For compatibility,
1685
LoadError subclasses IOError.
1687
- Added the hashlib module. It provides secure hash functions for MD5 and
1688
SHA1, 224, 256, 384, and 512. Note that recent developments make the
1689
historic MD5 and SHA1 unsuitable for cryptographic-strength applications.
1690
In <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-December/058850.html>
1691
Ronald L. Rivest offered this advice for Python:
1693
"The consensus of researchers in this area (at least as
1694
expressed at the NIST Hash Function Workshop 10/31/05),
1695
is that SHA-256 is a good choice for the time being, but
1696
that research should continue, and other alternatives may
1697
arise from this research. The larger SHA's also seem OK."
1699
- Added a subset of Fredrik Lundh's ElementTree package. Available
1700
modules are xml.etree.ElementTree, xml.etree.ElementPath, and
1701
xml.etree.ElementInclude, from ElementTree 1.2.6.
1703
- Patch #1162825: Support non-ASCII characters in IDLE window titles.
1705
- Bug #1365984: urllib now opens "data:" URLs again.
1707
- Patch #1314396: prevent deadlock for threading.Thread.join() when an exception
1708
is raised within the method itself on a previous call (e.g., passing in an
1711
- Bug #1340337: change time.strptime() to always return ValueError when there
1712
is an error in the format string.
1714
- Patch #754022: Greatly enhanced webbrowser.py (by Oleg Broytmann).
1716
- Bug #729103: pydoc.py: Fix docother() method to accept additional
1719
- Patch #1300515: xdrlib.py: Fix pack_fstring() to really use null bytes
1722
- Bug #1296004: httplib.py: Limit maximal amount of data read from the
1723
socket to avoid a MemoryError on Windows.
1725
- Patch #1166948: locale.py: Prefer LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and LANG over LANGUAGE
1726
to get the correct encoding.
1728
- Patch #1166938: locale.py: Parse LANGUAGE as a colon separated list of
1731
- Patch #1268314: Cache lines in StreamReader.readlines for performance.
1733
- Bug #1290505: Fix clearing the regex cache for time.strptime().
1735
- Bug #1167128: Fix size of a symlink in a tarfile to be 0.
1737
- Patch #810023: Fix off-by-one bug in urllib.urlretrieve reporthook
1740
- Bug #1163178: Make IDNA return an empty string when the input is empty.
1742
- Patch #848017: Make Cookie more RFC-compliant. Use CRLF as default output
1743
separator and do not output trailing semicolon.
1745
- Patch #1062060: urllib.urlretrieve() now raises a new exception, named
1746
ContentTooShortException, when the actually downloaded size does not
1747
match the Content-Length header.
1749
- Bug #1121494: distutils.dir_utils.mkpath now accepts Unicode strings.
1751
- Bug #1178484: Return complete lines from codec stream readers
1752
even if there is an exception in later lines, resulting in
1753
correct line numbers for decoding errors in source code.
1755
- Bug #1192315: Disallow negative arguments to clear() in pdb.
1757
- Patch #827386: Support absolute source paths in msvccompiler.py.
1759
- Patch #1105730: Apply the new implementation of commonprefix in posixpath
1760
to ntpath, macpath, os2emxpath and riscospath.
1762
- Fix a problem in Tkinter introduced by SF patch #869468: delete bogus
1763
__hasattr__ and __delattr__ methods on class Tk that were breaking
1766
- Bug #1015140: disambiguated the term "article id" in nntplib docs and
1767
docstrings to either "article number" or "message id".
1769
- Bug #1238170: threading.Thread.__init__ no longer has "kwargs={}" as a
1770
parameter, but uses the usual "kwargs=None".
1772
- textwrap now processes text chunks at O(n) speed instead of O(n**2).
1773
Patch #1209527 (Contributed by Connelly).
1775
- urllib2 has now an attribute 'httpresponses' mapping from HTTP status code
1776
to W3C name (404 -> 'Not Found'). RFE #1216944.
1778
- Bug #1177468: Don't cache the /dev/urandom file descriptor for os.urandom,
1779
as this can cause problems with apps closing all file descriptors.
1781
- Bug #839151: Fix an attempt to access sys.argv in the warnings module;
1782
it can be missing in embedded interpreters
1784
- Bug #1155638: Fix a bug which affected HTTP 0.9 responses in httplib.
1786
- Bug #1100201: Cross-site scripting was possible on BaseHTTPServer via
1789
- Bug #1108948: Cookie.py produced invalid JavaScript code.
1791
- The tokenize module now detects and reports indentation errors.
1794
- The tokenize module has a new untokenize() function to support a full
1795
roundtrip from lexed tokens back to Python source code. In addition,
1796
the generate_tokens() function now accepts a callable argument that
1797
terminates by raising StopIteration.
1799
- Bug #1196315: fix weakref.WeakValueDictionary constructor.
1801
- Bug #1213894: os.path.realpath didn't resolve symlinks that were the first
1802
component of the path.
1804
- Patch #1120353: The xmlrpclib module provides better, more transparent,
1805
support for datetime.{datetime,date,time} objects. With use_datetime set
1806
to True, applications shouldn't have to fiddle with the DateTime wrapper
1809
- distutils.commands.upload was added to support uploading distribution
1812
- distutils.commands.register now encodes the data as UTF-8 before posting
1815
- decimal operator and comparison methods now return NotImplemented
1816
instead of raising a TypeError when interacting with other types. This
1817
allows other classes to implement __radd__ style methods and have them
1820
- Bug #1163325: Decimal infinities failed to hash. Attempting to
1821
hash a NaN raised an InvalidOperation instead of a TypeError.
1823
- Patch #918101: Add tarfile open mode r|* for auto-detection of the
1824
stream compression; add, for symmetry reasons, r:* as a synonym of r.
1826
- Patch #1043890: Add extractall method to tarfile.
1828
- Patch #1075887: Don't require MSVC in distutils if there is nothing
1831
- Patch #1103407: Properly deal with tarfile iterators when untarring
1832
symbolic links on Windows.
1834
- Patch #645894: Use getrusage for computing the time consumption in
1835
profile.py if available.
1837
- Patch #1046831: Use get_python_version where appropriate in sysconfig.py.
1839
- Patch #1117454: Remove code to special-case cookies without values
1842
- Patch #1117339: Add cookielib special name tests.
1844
- Patch #1112812: Make bsddb/__init__.py more friendly for modulefinder.
1846
- Patch #1110248: SYNC_FLUSH the zlib buffer for GZipFile.flush.
1848
- Patch #1107973: Allow to iterate over the lines of a tarfile.ExFileObject.
1850
- Patch #1104111: Alter setup.py --help and --help-commands.
1852
- Patch #1121234: Properly cleanup _exit and tkerror commands.
1854
- Patch #1049151: xdrlib now unpacks booleans as True or False.
1856
- Fixed bug in a NameError bug in cookielib. Patch #1116583.
1858
- Applied a security fix to SimpleXMLRPCserver (PSF-2005-001). This
1859
disables recursive traversal through instance attributes, which can
1860
be exploited in various ways.
1862
- Bug #1222790: in SimpleXMLRPCServer, set the reuse-address and close-on-exec
1863
flags on the HTTP listening socket.
1865
- Bug #792570: SimpleXMLRPCServer had problems if the request grew too large.
1866
Fixed by reading the HTTP body in chunks instead of one big socket.read().
1868
- Patches #893642, #1039083: add allow_none, encoding arguments to
1869
constructors of SimpleXMLRPCServer and CGIXMLRPCRequestHandler.
1871
- Bug #1110478: Revert os.environ.update to do putenv again.
1873
- Bug #1103844: fix distutils.install.dump_dirs() with negated options.
1875
- os.{SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END} have been added for convenience.
1877
- Enhancements to the csv module:
1879
+ Dialects are now validated by the underlying C code, better
1880
reflecting its capabilities, and improving its compliance with
1882
+ Dialect parameter parsing has been re-implemented to improve error
1884
+ quotechar=None and quoting=QUOTE_NONE now work the way PEP 305
1886
+ the parser now removes the escapechar prefix from escaped characters.
1887
+ when quoting=QUOTE_NONNUMERIC, the writer now tests for numeric
1888
types, rather than any object that can be represented as a numeric.
1889
+ when quoting=QUOTE_NONNUMERIC, the reader now casts unquoted fields
1891
+ reader now allows \r characters to be quoted (previously it only allowed
1893
+ writer doublequote handling improved.
1894
+ Dialect classes passed to the module are no longer instantiated by
1895
the module before being parsed (the former validation scheme required
1896
this, but the mechanism was unreliable).
1897
+ The dialect registry now contains instances of the internal
1898
C-coded dialect type, rather than references to python objects.
1899
+ the internal c-coded dialect type is now immutable.
1900
+ register_dialect now accepts the same keyword dialect specifications
1901
as the reader and writer, allowing the user to register dialects
1902
without first creating a dialect class.
1903
+ a configurable limit to the size of parsed fields has been added -
1904
previously, an unmatched quote character could result in the entire
1905
file being read into the field buffer before an error was reported.
1906
+ A new module method csv.field_size_limit() has been added that sets
1907
the parser field size limit (returning the former limit). The initial
1909
+ A line_num attribute has been added to the reader object, which tracks
1910
the number of lines read from the source iterator. This is not
1911
the same as the number of records returned, as records can span
1913
+ reader and writer objects were not being registered with the cyclic-GC.
1914
This has been fixed.
1916
- _DummyThread objects in the threading module now delete self.__block that is
1917
inherited from _Thread since it uses up a lock allocated by 'thread'. The
1918
lock primitives tend to be limited in number and thus should not be wasted on
1919
a _DummyThread object. Fixes bug #1089632.
1921
- The imghdr module now detects Exif files.
1923
- StringIO.truncate() now correctly adjusts the size attribute.
1926
- locale.py now uses an updated locale alias table (built using
1927
Tools/i18n/makelocalealias.py, a tool to parse the X11 locale
1928
alias file); the encoding lookup was enhanced to use Python's
1929
encoding alias table.
1931
- moved deprecated modules to Lib/lib-old: whrandom, tzparse, statcache.
1933
- the pickle module no longer accepts the deprecated None option in the
1934
args tuple returned by __reduce__().
1936
- optparse now optionally imports gettext. This allows its use in setup.py.
1938
- the pickle module no longer uses the deprecated bin parameter.
1940
- the shelve module no longer uses the deprecated binary parameter.
1942
- the pstats module no longer uses the deprecated ignore() method.
1944
- the filecmp module no longer uses the deprecated use_statcache argument.
1946
- unittest.TestCase.run() and unittest.TestSuite.run() can now be successfully
1947
extended or overridden by subclasses. Formerly, the subclassed method would
1948
be ignored by the rest of the module. (Bug #1078905).
1950
- heapq.nsmallest() and heapq.nlargest() now support key= arguments with
1951
the same meaning as in list.sort().
1953
- Bug #1076985: ``codecs.StreamReader.readline()`` now calls ``read()`` only
1954
once when a size argument is given. This prevents a buffer overflow in the
1955
tokenizer with very long source lines.
1957
- Bug #1083110: ``zlib.decompress.flush()`` would segfault if called
1958
immediately after creating the object, without any intervening
1959
``.decompress()`` calls.
1961
- The reconvert.quote function can now emit triple-quoted strings. The
1962
reconvert module now has some simple documentation.
1964
- ``UserString.MutableString`` now supports negative indices in
1965
``__setitem__`` and ``__delitem__``
1967
- Bug #1149508: ``textwrap`` now handles hyphenated numbers (eg. "2004-03-05")
1970
- Partial fixes for SF bugs #1163244 and #1175396: If a chunk read by
1971
``codecs.StreamReader.readline()`` has a trailing "\r", read one more
1972
character even if the user has passed a size parameter to get a proper
1973
line ending. Remove the special handling of a "\r\n" that has been split
1976
- Bug #1251300: On UCS-4 builds the "unicode-internal" codec will now complain
1977
about illegal code points. The codec now supports PEP 293 style error
1980
- Bug #1235646: ``codecs.StreamRecoder.next()`` now reencodes the data it reads
1981
from the input stream, so that the output is a byte string in the correct
1982
encoding instead of a unicode string.
1984
- Bug #1202493: Fixing SRE parser to handle '{}' as perl does, rather than
1985
considering it exactly like a '*'.
1987
- Bug #1245379: Add "unicode-1-1-utf-7" as an alias for "utf-7" to
1988
``encodings.aliases``.
1990
- ` uu.encode()`` and ``uu.decode()`` now support unicode filenames.
1992
- Patch #1413711: Certain patterns of differences were making difflib
1993
touch the recursion limit.
1995
- Bug #947906: An object oriented interface has been added to the calendar
1996
module. It's possible to generate HTML calendar now and the module can be
1997
called as a script (e.g. via ``python -mcalendar``). Localized month and
1998
weekday names can be ouput (even if an exotic encoding is used) using
1999
special classes that use unicode.
2004
- Fix test_float, test_long, and test_struct failures on Tru64 with gcc
2005
by using -mieee gcc option.
2007
- Patch #1432345: Make python compile on DragonFly.
2009
- Build support for Win64-AMD64 was added.
2011
- Patch #1428494: Prefer linking against ncursesw over ncurses library.
2013
- Patch #881820: look for openpty and forkpty also in libbsd.
2015
- The sources of zlib are now part of the Python distribution (zlib 1.2.3).
2016
The zlib module is now builtin on Windows.
2018
- Use -xcode=pic32 for CCSHARED on Solaris with SunPro.
2020
- Bug #1189330: configure did not correctly determine the necessary
2021
value of LINKCC if python was built with GCC 4.0.
2023
- Upgrade Windows build to zlib 1.2.3 which eliminates a potential security
2024
vulnerability in zlib 1.2.1 and 1.2.2.
2026
- EXTRA_CFLAGS has been introduced as an environment variable to hold compiler
2027
flags that change binary compatibility. Changes were also made to
2028
distutils.sysconfig to also use the environment variable when used during
2029
compilation of the interpreter and of C extensions through distutils.
2031
- SF patch 1171735: Darwin 8's headers are anal about POSIX compliance,
2032
and linking has changed (prebinding is now deprecated, and libcc_dynamic
2033
no longer exists). This configure patch makes things right.
2035
- Bug #1158607: Build with --disable-unicode again.
2037
- spwdmodule.c is built only if either HAVE_GETSPNAM or HAVE_HAVE_GETSPENT is
2038
defined. Discovered as a result of not being able to build on OS X.
2040
- setup.py now uses the directories specified in LDFLAGS using the -L option
2041
and in CPPFLAGS using the -I option for adding library and include
2042
directories, respectively, for compiling extension modules against. This has
2043
led to the core being compiled using the values in CPPFLAGS. It also removes
2044
the need for the special-casing of both DarwinPorts and Fink for darwin since
2045
the proper directories can be specified in LDFLAGS (``-L/sw/lib`` for Fink,
2046
``-L/opt/local/lib`` for DarwinPorts) and CPPFLAGS (``-I/sw/include`` for
2047
Fink, ``-I/opt/local/include`` for DarwinPorts).
2049
- Test in configure.in that checks for tzset no longer dependent on tm->tm_zone
2050
to exist in the struct (not required by either ISO C nor the UNIX 2 spec).
2051
Tests for sanity in tzname when HAVE_TZNAME defined were also defined.
2052
Closes bug #1096244. Thanks Gregory Bond.
2057
- ``PyMem_{Del, DEL}`` and ``PyMem_{Free, FREE}`` no longer map to
2058
``PyObject_{Free, FREE}``. They map to the system ``free()`` now. If memory
2059
is obtained via the ``PyObject_`` family, it must be released via the
2060
``PyObject_`` family, and likewise for the ``PyMem_`` family. This has
2061
always been officially true, but when Python's small-object allocator was
2062
introduced, an attempt was made to cater to a few extension modules
2063
discovered at the time that obtained memory via ``PyObject_New`` but
2064
released it via ``PyMem_DEL``. It's years later, and if such code still
2065
exists it will fail now (probably with segfaults, but calling wrong
2066
low-level memory management functions can yield many symptoms).
2068
- Added a C API for set and frozenset objects.
2070
- Removed PyRange_New().
2072
- Patch #1313939: PyUnicode_DecodeCharmap() accepts a unicode string as the
2073
mapping argument now. This string is used as a mapping table. Byte values
2074
greater than the length of the string and 0xFFFE are treated as undefined
2081
- In test_os, st_?time is now truncated before comparing it with ST_?TIME.
2083
- Patch #1276356: New resource "urlfetch" is implemented. This enables
2084
even impatient people to run tests that require remote files.
2090
- Bug #1402224: Add warning to dl docs about crashes.
2092
- Bug #1396471: Document that Windows' ftell() can return invalid
2093
values for text files with UNIX-style line endings.
2095
- Bug #1274828: Document os.path.splitunc().
2097
- Bug #1190204: Clarify which directories are searched by site.py.
2099
- Bug #1193849: Clarify os.path.expanduser() documentation.
2101
- Bug #1243192: re.UNICODE and re.LOCALE affect \d, \D, \s and \S.
2103
- Bug #755617: Document the effects of os.chown() on Windows.
2105
- Patch #1180012: The documentation for modulefinder is now in the library reference.
2107
- Patch #1213031: Document that os.chown() accepts argument values of -1.
2109
- Bug #1190563: Document os.waitpid() return value with WNOHANG flag.
2111
- Bug #1175022: Correct the example code for property().
2113
- Document the IterableUserDict class in the UserDict module.
2114
Closes bug #1166582.
2116
- Remove all latent references for "Macintosh" that referred to semantics for
2117
Mac OS 9 and change to reflect the state for OS X.
2118
Closes patch #1095802. Thanks Jack Jansen.
2127
- FreeBSD 7 support is added.
2133
- Created Misc/Vim/vim_syntax.py to auto-generate a python.vim file in that
2134
directory for syntax highlighting in Vim. Vim directory was added and placed
2135
vimrc to it (was previous up a level).
2137
- Added two new files to Tools/scripts: pysource.py, which recursively
2138
finds Python source files, and findnocoding.py, which finds Python
2139
source files that need an encoding declaration.
2140
Patch #784089, credits to Oleg Broytmann.
2142
- Bug #1072853: pindent.py used an uninitialized variable.
2144
- Patch #1177597: Correct Complex.__init__.
2146
- Fixed a display glitch in Pynche, which could cause the right arrow to
2147
wiggle over by a pixel.
2150
What's New in Python 2.4 final?
2151
===============================
2153
*Release date: 30-NOV-2004*
2158
- Bug 875692: Improve signal handling, especially when using threads, by
2159
forcing an early re-execution of PyEval_EvalFrame() "periodic" code when
2160
things_to_do is not cleared by Py_MakePendingCalls().
2163
What's New in Python 2.4 (release candidate 1)
2164
==============================================
2166
*Release date: 18-NOV-2004*
2171
- Bug 1061968: Fixes in 2.4a3 to address thread bug 1010677 reintroduced
2172
the years-old thread shutdown race bug 225673. Numeric history lesson
2173
aside, all bugs in all three reports are fixed now.
2179
- Bug 1052242: If exceptions are raised by an atexit handler function an
2180
attempt is made to execute the remaining handlers. The last exception
2181
raised is re-raised.
2183
- ``doctest``'s new support for adding ``pdb.set_trace()`` calls to
2184
doctests was broken in a dramatic but shallow way. Fixed.
2186
- Bug 1065388: ``calendar``'s ``day_name``, ``day_abbr``, ``month_name``,
2187
and ``month_abbr`` attributes emulate sequences of locale-correct
2188
spellings of month and day names. Because the locale can change at
2189
any time, the correct spelling is recomputed whenever one of these is
2190
indexed. In the worst case, the index may be a slice object, so these
2191
recomputed every day or month name each time they were indexed. This is
2192
much slower than necessary in the usual case, when the index is just an
2193
integer. In that case, only the single spelling needed is recomputed
2194
now; and, when the index is a slice object, only the spellings needed
2195
by the slice are recomputed now.
2197
- Patch 1061679: Added ``__all__`` to pickletools.py.
2202
- Bug 1034277 / Patch 1035255: Remove compilation of core against CoreServices
2203
and CoreFoundation on OS X. Involved removing PyMac_GetAppletScriptFile()
2204
which has no known users. Thanks Bob Ippolito.
2209
- The PyRange_New() function is deprecated.
2212
What's New in Python 2.4 beta 2?
2213
================================
2215
*Release date: 03-NOV-2004*
2220
The Python Software Foundation changed the license under which Python
2221
is released, to remove Python version numbers. There were no other
2222
changes to the license. So, for example, wherever the license for
2223
Python 2.3 said "Python 2.3", the new license says "Python". The
2224
intent is to make it possible to refer to the PSF license in a more
2225
durable way. For example, some people say they're confused by that
2226
the Open Source Initiative's entry for the Python Software Foundation
2229
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/PythonSoftFoundation.php
2231
says "Python 2.1.1" all over it, wondering whether it applies only
2234
The official name of the new license is the Python Software Foundation
2240
- Bug #1055820 Cyclic garbage collection was not protecting against that
2241
calling a live weakref to a piece of cyclic trash could resurrect an
2242
insane mutation of the trash if any Python code ran during gc (via
2243
running a dead object's __del__ method, running another callback on a
2244
weakref to a dead object, or via any Python code run in any other thread
2245
that managed to obtain the GIL while a __del__ or callback was running
2246
in the thread doing gc). The most likely symptom was "impossible"
2247
``AttributeError`` exceptions, appearing seemingly at random, on weakly
2248
referenced objects. The cure was to clear all weakrefs to unreachable
2249
objects before allowing any callbacks to run.
2251
- Bug #1054139 _PyString_Resize() now invalidates its cached hash value.
2256
- Bug #1048870: the compiler now generates distinct code objects for
2257
functions with identical bodies. This was producing confusing
2258
traceback messages which pointed to the function where the code
2259
object was first defined rather than the function being executed.
2264
- Patch #1056967 changes the semantics of Template.safe_substitute() so that
2265
no ValueError is raised on an 'invalid' match group. Now the delimiter is
2268
- Bug #1052503 pdb.runcall() was not passing along keyword arguments.
2270
- Bug #902037: XML.sax.saxutils.prepare_input_source() now combines relative
2271
paths with a base path before checking os.path.isfile().
2273
- The whichdb module can now be run from the command line.
2275
- Bug #1045381: time.strptime() can now infer the date using %U or %W (week of
2276
the year) when the day of the week and year are also specified.
2278
- Bug #1048816: fix bug in Ctrl-K at start of line in curses.textpad.Textbox
2280
- Bug #1017553: fix bug in tarfile.filemode()
2282
- Patch #737473: fix bug that old source code is shown in tracebacks even if
2283
the source code is updated and reloaded.
2288
- Patch #1044395: --enable-shared is allowed in FreeBSD also.
2290
What's New in Python 2.4 beta 1?
2291
================================
2293
*Release date: 15-OCT-2004*
2298
- Patch #975056: Restartable signals were not correctly disabled on
2299
BSD systems. Consistently use PyOS_setsig() instead of signal().
2301
- The internal portable implementation of thread-local storage (TLS), used
2302
by the ``PyGILState_Ensure()``/``PyGILState_Release()`` API, was not
2303
thread-correct. This could lead to a variety of problems, up to and
2304
including segfaults. See bug 1041645 for an example.
2306
- Added a command line option, -m module, which searches sys.path for the
2307
module and then runs it. (Contributed by Nick Coghlan.)
2309
- The bytecode optimizer now folds tuples of constants into a single
2312
- SF bug #513866: Float/long comparison anomaly. Prior to 2.4b1, when
2313
an integer was compared to a float, the integer was coerced to a float.
2314
That could yield spurious overflow errors (if the integer was very
2315
large), and to anomalies such as
2316
``long(1e200)+1 == 1e200 == long(1e200)-1``. Coercion to float is no
2317
longer performed, and cases like ``long(1e200)-1 < 1e200``,
2318
``long(1e200)+1 > 1e200`` and ``(1 << 20000) > 1e200`` are computed
2324
- ``collections.deque`` objects didn't play quite right with garbage
2325
collection, which could lead to a segfault in a release build, or
2326
an assert failure in a debug build. Also, added overflow checks,
2327
better detection of mutation during iteration, and shielded deque
2328
comparisons from unusual subclass overrides of the __iter__() method.
2333
- Patch 1046644: distutils build_ext grew two new options - --swig for
2334
specifying the swig executable to use, and --swig-opts to specify
2335
options to pass to swig. --swig-opts="-c++" is the new way to spell
2338
- Patch 983206: distutils now obeys environment variable LDSHARED, if
2341
- Added Peter Astrand's subprocess.py module. See PEP 324 for details.
2343
- time.strptime() now properly escapes timezones and all other locale-specific
2344
strings for regex-specific symbols. Was breaking under Japanese Windows when
2345
the timezone was specified as "Tokyo (standard time)".
2346
Closes bug #1039270.
2348
- Updates for the email package:
2350
+ email.Utils.formatdate() grew a 'usegmt' argument for HTTP support.
2351
+ All deprecated APIs that in email 2.x issued warnings have been removed:
2352
_encoder argument to the MIMEText constructor, Message.add_payload(),
2353
Utils.dump_address_pair(), Utils.decode(), Utils.encode()
2354
+ New deprecations: Generator.__call__(), Message.get_type(),
2355
Message.get_main_type(), Message.get_subtype(), the 'strict' argument to
2356
the Parser constructor. These will be removed in email 3.1.
2357
+ Support for Python earlier than 2.3 has been removed (see PEP 291).
2358
+ All defect classes have been renamed to end in 'Defect'.
2359
+ Some FeedParser fixes; also a MultipartInvariantViolationDefect will be
2360
added to messages that claim to be multipart but really aren't.
2361
+ Updates to documentation.
2363
- re's findall() and finditer() functions now take an optional flags argument
2364
just like the compile(), search(), and match() functions. Also, documented
2365
the previously existing start and stop parameters for the findall() and
2366
finditer() methods of regular expression objects.
2368
- rfc822 Messages now support iterating over the headers.
2370
- The (undocumented) tarfile.Tarfile.membernames has been removed;
2371
applications should use the getmember function.
2373
- httplib now offers symbolic constants for the HTTP status codes.
2375
- SF bug #1028306: Trying to compare a ``datetime.date`` to a
2376
``datetime.datetime`` mistakenly compared only the year, month and day.
2377
Now it acts like a mixed-type comparison: ``False`` for ``==``,
2378
``True`` for ``!=``, and raises ``TypeError`` for other comparison
2379
operators. Because datetime is a subclass of date, comparing only the
2380
base class (date) members can still be done, if that's desired, by
2381
forcing using of the approprate date method; e.g.,
2382
``a_date.__eq__(a_datetime)`` is true if and only if the year, month
2383
and day members of ``a_date`` and ``a_datetime`` are equal.
2385
- bdist_rpm now supports command line options --force-arch,
2386
{pre,post}-install, {pre,post}-uninstall, and
2387
{prep,build,install,clean,verify}-script.
2389
- SF patch #998993: The UTF-8 and the UTF-16 stateful decoders now support
2390
decoding incomplete input (when the input stream is temporarily exhausted).
2391
``codecs.StreamReader`` now implements buffering, which enables proper
2392
readline support for the UTF-16 decoders. ``codecs.StreamReader.read()``
2393
has a new argument ``chars`` which specifies the number of characters to
2394
return. ``codecs.StreamReader.readline()`` and
2395
``codecs.StreamReader.readlines()`` have a new argument ``keepends``.
2396
Trailing "\n"s will be stripped from the lines if ``keepends`` is false.
2398
- The documentation for doctest is greatly expanded, and now covers all
2399
the new public features (of which there are many).
2401
- ``doctest.master`` was put back in, and ``doctest.testmod()`` once again
2402
updates it. This isn't good, because every ``testmod()`` call
2403
contributes to bloating the "hidden" state of ``doctest.master``, but
2404
some old code apparently relies on it. For now, all we can do is
2405
encourage people to stitch doctests together via doctest's unittest
2406
integration features instead.
2408
- httplib now handles ipv6 address/port pairs.
2410
- SF bug #1017864: ConfigParser now correctly handles default keys,
2411
processing them with ``ConfigParser.optionxform`` when supplied,
2412
consistent with the handling of config file entries and runtime-set
2415
- SF bug #997050: Document, test, & check for non-string values in
2416
ConfigParser. Moved the new string-only restriction added in
2417
rev. 1.65 to the SafeConfigParser class, leaving existing
2418
ConfigParser & RawConfigParser behavior alone, and documented the
2419
conditions under which non-string values work.
2424
- Building on darwin now includes /opt/local/include and /opt/local/lib for
2425
building extension modules. This is so as to include software installed as
2426
a DarwinPorts port <http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/>
2428
- pyport.h now defines a Py_IS_NAN macro. It works as-is when the
2429
platform C computes true for ``x != x`` if and only if X is a NaN.
2430
Other platforms can override the default definition with a platform-
2431
specific spelling in that platform's pyconfig.h. You can also override
2432
pyport.h's default Py_IS_INFINITY definition now.
2437
- SF patch 1044089: New function ``PyEval_ThreadsInitialized()`` returns
2438
non-zero if PyEval_InitThreads() has been called.
2440
- The undocumented and unused extern int ``_PyThread_Started`` was removed.
2442
- The C API calls ``PyInterpreterState_New()`` and ``PyThreadState_New()``
2443
are two of the very few advertised as being safe to call without holding
2444
the GIL. However, this wasn't true in a debug build, as bug 1041645
2445
demonstrated. In a debug build, Python redirects the ``PyMem`` family
2446
of calls to Python's small-object allocator, to get the benefit of
2447
its extra debugging capabilities. But Python's small-object allocator
2448
isn't threadsafe, relying on the GIL to avoid the expense of doing its
2449
own locking. ``PyInterpreterState_New()`` and ``PyThreadState_New()``
2450
call the platform ``malloc()`` directly now, regardless of build type.
2452
- PyLong_AsUnsignedLong[Mask] now support int objects as well.
2454
- SF patch #998993: ``PyUnicode_DecodeUTF8Stateful`` and
2455
``PyUnicode_DecodeUTF16Stateful`` have been added, which implement stateful
2461
- test__locale ported to unittest
2466
- ``plistlib`` now supports non-dict root objects. There is also a new
2467
interface for reading and writing plist files: ``readPlist(pathOrFile)``
2468
and ``writePlist(rootObject, pathOrFile)``
2473
- The text file comparison scripts ``ndiff.py`` and ``diff.py`` now
2474
read the input files in universal-newline mode. This spares them
2475
from consuming a great deal of time to deduce the useless result that,
2476
e.g., a file with Windows line ends and a file with Linux line ends
2477
have no lines in common.
2480
What's New in Python 2.4 alpha 3?
2481
=================================
2483
*Release date: 02-SEP-2004*
2488
- SF patch #1007189: ``from ... import ...`` statements now allow the name
2489
list to be surrounded by parentheses.
2491
- Some speedups for long arithmetic, thanks to Trevor Perrin. Gradeschool
2492
multiplication was sped a little by optimizing the C code. Gradeschool
2493
squaring was sped by about a factor of 2, by exploiting that about half
2494
the digit products are duplicates in a square. Because exponentiation
2495
uses squaring often, this also speeds long power. For example, the time
2496
to compute 17**1000000 dropped from about 14 seconds to 9 on my box due
2497
to this much. The cutoff for Karatsuba multiplication was raised,
2498
since gradeschool multiplication got quicker, and the cutoff was
2499
aggressively small regardless. The exponentiation algorithm was switched
2500
from right-to-left to left-to-right, which is more efficient for small
2501
bases. In addition, if the exponent is large, the algorithm now does
2502
5 bits (instead of 1 bit) at a time. That cut the time to compute
2503
17**1000000 on my box in half again, down to about 4.5 seconds.
2505
- OverflowWarning is no longer generated. PEP 237 scheduled this to
2506
occur in Python 2.3, but since OverflowWarning was disabled by default,
2507
nobody realized it was still being generated. On the chance that user
2508
code is still using them, the Python builtin OverflowWarning, and
2509
corresponding C API PyExc_OverflowWarning, will exist until Python 2.5.
2511
- Py_InitializeEx has been added.
2513
- Fix the order of application of decorators. The proper order is bottom-up;
2514
the first decorator listed is the last one called.
2516
- SF patch #1005778. Fix a seg fault if the list size changed while
2517
calling list.index(). This could happen if a rich comparison function
2520
- The ``func_name`` (a.k.a. ``__name__``) attribute of user-defined
2521
functions is now writable.
2523
- code_new (a.k.a new.code()) now checks its arguments sufficiently
2524
carefully that passing them on to PyCode_New() won't trigger calls
2525
to Py_FatalError() or PyErr_BadInternalCall(). It is still the case
2526
that the returned code object might be entirely insane.
2528
- Subclasses of string can no longer be interned. The semantics of
2529
interning were not clear here -- a subclass could be mutable, for
2530
example -- and had bugs. Explicitly interning a subclass of string
2531
via intern() will raise a TypeError. Internal operations that attempt
2532
to intern a string subclass will have no effect.
2534
- Bug 1003935: xrange() could report bogus OverflowErrors. Documented
2535
what xrange() intends, and repaired tests accordingly.
2540
- difflib now supports HTML side-by-side diff.
2542
- os.urandom has been added for systems that support sources of random
2545
- Patch 1012740: truncate() on a writeable cStringIO now resets the
2546
position to the end of the stream. This is consistent with the original
2547
StringIO module and avoids inadvertently resurrecting data that was
2548
supposed to have been truncated away.
2550
- Added socket.socketpair().
2552
- Added CurrentByteIndex, CurrentColumnNumber, CurrentLineNumber
2553
members to xml.parsers.expat.XMLParser object.
2555
- The mpz, rotor, and xreadlines modules, all deprecated in earlier
2556
versions of Python, have now been removed.
2561
- Patch #934356: if a module defines __all__, believe that rather than using
2562
heuristics for filtering out imported names.
2564
- Patch #941486: added os.path.lexists(), which returns True for broken
2565
symlinks, unlike os.path.exists().
2567
- the random module now uses os.urandom() for seeding if it is available.
2568
Added a new generator based on os.urandom().
2570
- difflib and diff.py can now generate HTML.
2572
- bdist_rpm now includes version and release in the BuildRoot, and
2573
replaces - by ``_`` in version and release.
2575
- distutils build/build_scripts now has an -e option to specify the
2576
path to the Python interpreter for installed scripts.
2578
- PEP 292 classes Template and SafeTemplate are added to the string module.
2580
- tarfile now generates GNU tar files by default.
2582
- HTTPResponse has now a getheaders method.
2584
- Patch #1006219: let inspect.getsource handle '@' decorators. Thanks Simon
2587
- logging.handlers.SMTPHandler.date_time has been removed;
2588
the class now uses email.Utils.formatdate to generate the time stamp.
2590
- A new function tkFont.nametofont was added to return an existing
2591
font. The Font class constructor now has an additional exists argument
2592
which, if True, requests to return/configure an existing font, rather
2593
than creating a new one.
2595
- Updated the decimal package's min() and max() methods to match the
2596
latest revision of the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification.
2597
Quiet NaNs are ignored and equal values are sorted based on sign
2600
- The decimal package's Context.copy() method now returns deep copies.
2602
- Deprecated sys.exitfunc in favor of the atexit module. The sys.exitfunc
2603
attribute will be kept around for backwards compatibility and atexit
2604
will just become the one preferred way to do it.
2606
- patch #675551: Add get_history_item and replace_history_item functions
2607
to the readline module.
2609
- bug #989672: pdb.doc and the help messages for the help_d and help_u methods
2610
of the pdb.Pdb class gives have been corrected. d(own) goes to a newer
2611
frame, u(p) to an older frame, not the other way around.
2613
- bug #990669: os.path.realpath() will resolve symlinks before normalizing the
2614
path, as normalizing the path may alter the meaning of the path if it
2617
- bug #851123: shutil.copyfile will raise an exception when trying to copy a
2618
file onto a link to itself. Thanks Gregory Ball.
2620
- bug #570300: Fix inspect to resolve file locations using os.path.realpath()
2621
so as to properly list all functions in a module when the module itself is
2622
reached through a symlink. Thanks Johannes Gijsbers.
2624
- doctest refactoring continued. See the docs for details. As part of
2625
this effort, some old and little- (never?) used features are now
2626
deprecated: the Tester class, the module is_private() function, and the
2627
isprivate argument to testmod(). The Tester class supplied a feeble
2628
"by hand" way to combine multiple doctests, if you knew exactly what
2629
you were doing. The newer doctest features for unittest integration
2630
already did a better job of that, are stronger now than ever, and the
2631
new DocTestRunner class is a saner foundation if you want to do it by
2632
hand. The "private name" filtering gimmick was a mistake from the
2633
start, and testmod() changed long ago to ignore it by default. If
2634
you want to filter out tests, the new DocTestFinder class can be used
2635
to return a list of all doctests, and you can filter that list by
2636
any computable criteria before passing it to a DocTestRunner instance.
2638
- Bug #891637, patch #1005466: fix inspect.getargs() crash on def foo((bar)).
2643
- IDLE's shortcut keys for windows are now case insensitive so that
2644
Control-V works the same as Control-v.
2646
- pygettext.py: Generate POT-Creation-Date header in ISO format.
2651
- Backward incompatibility: longintrepr.h now triggers a compile-time
2652
error if SHIFT (the number of bits in a Python long "digit") isn't
2653
divisible by 5. This new requirement allows simple code for the new
2654
5-bits-at-a-time long_pow() implementation. If necessary, the
2655
restriction could be removed (by complicating long_pow(), or by
2656
falling back to the 1-bit-at-a-time algorithm), but there are no
2659
- bug #991962: When building with --disable-toolbox-glue on Darwin no
2660
attempt to build Mac-specific modules occurs.
2662
- The --with-tsc flag to configure to enable VM profiling with the
2663
processor's timestamp counter now works on PPC platforms.
2665
- patch #1006629: Define _XOPEN_SOURCE to 500 on Solaris 8/9 to match
2666
GCC's definition and avoid redefinition warnings.
2668
- Detect pthreads support (provided by gnu pth pthread emulation) on
2671
- bug #1005737, #1007249: Fixed several build problems and warnings
2672
found on old/legacy C compilers of HP-UX, IRIX and Tru64.
2682
- patch #1005936, bug #1009373: fix index entries which contain
2683
an underscore when viewed with Acrobat.
2685
- bug #990669: os.path.normpath may alter the meaning of a path if
2686
it contains symbolic links. This has been documented in a comment
2687
since 1992, but is now in the library reference as well.
2692
- FreeBSD 6 is now supported.
2702
- Boosted the stack reservation for python.exe and pythonw.exe from
2703
the default 1MB to 2MB. Stack frames under VC 7.1 for 2.4 are enough
2704
bigger than under VC 6.0 for 2.3.4 that deeply recursive progams
2705
within the default sys.getrecursionlimit() default value of 1000 were
2706
able to suffer undetected C stack overflows. The standard test program
2707
test_compiler was one such program. If a Python process on Windows
2708
"just vanishes" without a trace, and without an error message of any
2709
kind, but with an exit code of 128, undetected stack overflow may be
2718
What's New in Python 2.4 alpha 2?
2719
=================================
2721
*Release date: 05-AUG-2004*
2726
- Patch #980695: Implements efficient string concatenation for statements
2727
of the form s=s+t and s+=t. This will vary across implementations.
2728
Accordingly, the str.join() method is strongly preferred for performance
2731
- PEP-0318, Function Decorators have been added to the language. These are
2732
implemented using the Java-style @decorator syntax, like so::
2737
(The PEP needs to be updated to reflect the current state)
2739
- When importing a module M raises an exception, Python no longer leaves M
2740
in sys.modules. Before 2.4a2 it did, and a subsequent import of M would
2741
succeed, picking up a module object from sys.modules reflecting as much
2742
of the initialization of M as completed before the exception was raised.
2743
Subsequent imports got no indication that M was in a partially-
2744
initialized state, and the importers could get into arbitrarily bad
2745
trouble as a result (the M they got was in an unintended state,
2746
arbitrarily far removed from M's author's intent). Now subsequent
2747
imports of M will continue raising exceptions (but if, for example, the
2748
source code for M is edited between import attempts, then perhaps later
2749
attempts will succeed, or raise a different exception).
2751
This can break existing code, but in such cases the code was probably
2752
working before by accident. In the Python source, the only case of
2753
breakage discovered was in a test accidentally relying on a damaged
2754
module remaining in sys.modules. Cases are also known where tests
2755
deliberately provoking import errors remove damaged modules from
2756
sys.modules themselves, and such tests will break now if they do an
2757
unconditional del sys.modules[M].
2759
- u'%s' % obj will now try obj.__unicode__() first and fallback to
2760
obj.__str__() if no __unicode__ method can be found.
2762
- Patch #550732: Add PyArg_VaParseTupleAndKeywords(). Analogous to
2763
PyArg_VaParse(). Both are now documented. Thanks Greg Chapman.
2765
- Allow string and unicode return types from .encode()/.decode()
2766
methods on string and unicode objects. Added unicode.decode()
2767
which was missing for no apparent reason.
2769
- An attempt to fix the mess that is Python's behaviour with
2770
signal handlers and threads, complicated by readline's behaviour.
2771
It's quite possible that there are still bugs here.
2773
- Added C macros Py_CLEAR and Py_VISIT to ease the implementation of
2774
types that support garbage collection.
2776
- Compiler now treats None as a constant.
2778
- The type of values returned by __int__, __float__, __long__,
2779
__oct__, and __hex__ are now checked. Returning an invalid type
2780
will cause a TypeError to be raised. This matches the behavior of
2783
- Implemented bind_textdomain_codeset() in locale module.
2785
- Added a workaround for proper string operations in BSDs. str.split
2786
and str.is* methods can now work correctly with UTF-8 locales.
2788
- Bug #989185: unicode.iswide() and unicode.width() is dropped and
2789
the East Asian Width support is moved to unicodedata extension
2792
- Patch #941229: The source code encoding in interactive mode
2793
now refers sys.stdin.encoding not just ISO-8859-1 anymore. This
2794
allows for non-latin-1 users to write unicode strings directly.
2799
- cpickle now supports the same keyword arguments as pickle.
2804
- Added new codecs and aliases for ISO_8859-11, ISO_8859-16 and
2807
- Thanks to Edward Loper, doctest has been massively refactored, and
2808
many new features were added. Full docs will appear later. For now
2809
the doctest module comments and new test cases give good coverage.
2810
The refactoring provides many hook points for customizing behavior
2811
(such as how to report errors, and how to compare expected to actual
2812
output). New features include a <BLANKLINE> marker for expected
2813
output containing blank lines, options to produce unified or context
2814
diffs when actual output doesn't match expectations, an option to
2815
normalize whitespace before comparing, and an option to use an
2816
ellipsis to signify "don't care" regions of output.
2818
- Tkinter now supports the wish -sync and -use options.
2820
- The following methods in time support passing of None: ctime(), gmtime(),
2821
and localtime(). If None is provided, the current time is used (the
2822
same as when the argument is omitted).
2823
[SF bug 658254, patch 663482]
2825
- nntplib does now allow to ignore a .netrc file.
2827
- urllib2 now recognizes Basic authentication even if other authentication
2828
schemes are offered.
2830
- Bug #1001053. wave.open() now accepts unicode filenames.
2832
- gzip.GzipFile has a new fileno() method, to retrieve the handle of the
2833
underlying file object (provided it has a fileno() method). This is
2834
needed if you want to use os.fsync() on a GzipFile.
2836
- imaplib has two new methods: deleteacl and myrights.
2838
- nntplib has two new methods: description and descriptions. They
2839
use a more RFC-compliant way of getting a newsgroup description.
2841
- Bug #993394. Fix a possible red herring of KeyError in 'threading' being
2842
raised during interpreter shutdown from a registered function with atexit
2843
when dummy_threading is being used.
2845
- Bug #857297/Patch #916874. Fix an error when extracting a hard link
2848
- Patch #846659. Fix an error in tarfile.py when using
2849
GNU longname/longlink creation.
2851
- The obsolete FCNTL.py has been deleted. The builtin fcntl module
2852
has been available (on platforms that support fcntl) since Python
2853
1.5a3, and all FCNTL.py did is export fcntl's names, after generating
2854
a deprecation warning telling you to use fcntl directly.
2856
- Several new unicode codecs are added: big5hkscs, euc_jis_2004,
2857
iso2022_jp_2004, shift_jis_2004.
2859
- Bug #788520. Queue.{get, get_nowait, put, put_nowait} have new
2860
implementations, exploiting Conditions (which didn't exist at the time
2861
Queue was introduced). A minor semantic change is that the Full and
2862
Empty exceptions raised by non-blocking calls now occur only if the
2863
queue truly was full or empty at the instant the queue was checked (of
2864
course the Queue may no longer be full or empty by the time a calling
2865
thread sees those exceptions, though). Before, the exceptions could
2866
also be raised if it was "merely inconvenient" for the implementation
2867
to determine the true state of the Queue (because the Queue was locked
2868
by some other method in progress).
2870
- Bugs #979794 and #980117: difflib.get_grouped_opcodes() now handles the
2871
case of comparing two empty lists. This affected both context_diff() and
2874
- Bug #980938: smtplib now prints debug output to sys.stderr.
2876
- Bug #930024: posixpath.realpath() now handles infinite loops in symlinks by
2877
returning the last point in the path that was not part of any loop. Thanks
2880
- Bug #980327: ntpath not handles compressing erroneous slashes between the
2881
drive letter and the rest of the path. Also clearly handles UNC addresses now
2882
as well. Thanks Paul Moore.
2884
- bug #679953: zipfile.py should now work for files over 2 GB. The packed data
2885
for file sizes (compressed and uncompressed) was being stored as signed
2886
instead of unsigned.
2888
- decimal.py now only uses signals in the IBM spec. The other conditions are
2889
no longer part of the public API.
2891
- codecs module now has two new generic APIs: encode() and decode()
2892
which don't restrict the return types (unlike the unicode and
2893
string methods of the same name).
2895
- Non-blocking SSL sockets work again; they were broken in Python 2.3.
2898
- doctest unittest integration improvements:
2900
o Improved the unitest test output for doctest-based unit tests
2902
o Can now pass setUp and tearDown functions when creating
2905
- The threading module has a new class, local, for creating objects
2906
that provide thread-local data.
2908
- Bug #990307: when keep_empty_values is True, cgi.parse_qsl()
2909
no longer returns spurious empty fields.
2911
- Implemented bind_textdomain_codeset() in gettext module.
2913
- Introduced in gettext module the l*gettext() family of functions,
2914
which return translation strings encoded in the preferred encoding,
2915
as informed by locale module's getpreferredencoding().
2917
- optparse module (and tests) upgraded to Optik 1.5a1. Changes:
2919
- Add expansion of default values in help text: the string
2920
"%default" in an option's help string is expanded to str() of
2921
that option's default value, or "none" if no default value.
2923
- Bug #955889: option default values that happen to be strings are
2924
now processed in the same way as values from the command line; this
2925
allows generation of nicer help when using custom types. Can
2926
be disabled with parser.set_process_default_values(False).
2928
- Bug #960515: don't crash when generating help for callback
2929
options that specify 'type', but not 'dest' or 'metavar'.
2931
- Feature #815264: change the default help format for short options
2932
that take an argument from e.g. "-oARG" to "-o ARG"; add
2933
set_short_opt_delimiter() and set_long_opt_delimiter() methods to
2934
HelpFormatter to allow (slight) customization of the formatting.
2936
- Patch #736940: internationalize Optik: all built-in user-
2937
targeted literal strings are passed through gettext.gettext(). (If
2938
you want translations (.po files), they're not included with Python
2939
-- you'll find them in the Optik source distribution from
2940
http://optik.sourceforge.net/ .)
2942
- Bug #878453: respect $COLUMNS environment variable for
2943
wrapping help output.
2945
- Feature #988122: expand "%prog" in the 'description' passed
2946
to OptionParser, just like in the 'usage' and 'version' strings.
2947
(This is *not* done in the 'description' passed to OptionGroup.)
2952
- PyImport_ExecCodeModule() and PyImport_ExecCodeModuleEx(): if an
2953
error occurs while loading the module, these now delete the module's
2954
entry from sys.modules. All ways of loading modules eventually call
2955
one of these, so this is an error-case change in semantics for all
2956
ways of loading modules. In rare cases, a module loader may wish
2957
to keep a module object in sys.modules despite that the module's
2958
code cannot be executed. In such cases, the module loader must
2959
arrange to reinsert the name and module object in sys.modules.
2960
PyImport_ReloadModule() has been changed to reinsert the original
2961
module object into sys.modules if the module reload fails, so that
2962
its visible semantics have not changed.
2964
- A large pile of datetime field-extraction macros is now documented,
2965
thanks to Anthony Tuininga (patch #986010).
2970
- Improved the tutorial on creating types in C.
2972
- point out the importance of reassigning data members before
2973
assigning their values
2975
- correct my misconception about return values from visitprocs. Sigh.
2977
- mention the labor saving Py_VISIT and Py_CLEAR macros.
2979
- Major rewrite of the math module docs, to address common confusions.
2984
- The test data files for the decimal test suite are now installed on
2985
platforms that use the Makefile.
2987
- SF patch 995225: The test file testtar.tar accidentally contained
2988
CVS keywords (like $Id: HISTORY 60928 2008-02-21 19:46:35Z guido.van.rossum $), which could cause spurious failures in
2989
test_tarfile.py depending on how the test file was checked out.
2992
What's New in Python 2.4 alpha 1?
2993
=================================
2995
*Release date: 08-JUL-2004*
3000
- weakref.ref is now the type object also known as
3001
weakref.ReferenceType; it can be subclassed like any other new-style
3002
class. There's less per-entry overhead in WeakValueDictionary
3003
objects now (one object instead of three).
3005
- Bug #951851: Python crashed when reading import table of certain
3008
- Bug #215126. The locals argument to eval(), execfile(), and exec now
3009
accept any mapping type.
3011
- marshal now shares interned strings. This change introduces
3014
- Bug #966623. classes created with type() in an exec(, {}) don't
3015
have a __module__, but code in typeobject assumed it would always
3018
- Python no longer relies on the LC_NUMERIC locale setting to be
3019
the "C" locale; as a result, it no longer tries to prevent changing
3020
the LC_NUMERIC category.
3022
- Bug #952807: Unpickling pickled instances of subclasses of
3023
datetime.date, datetime.datetime and datetime.time could yield insane
3024
objects. Thanks to Jiwon Seo for a fix.
3026
- Bug #845802: Python crashes when __init__.py is a directory.
3028
- Unicode objects received two new methods: iswide() and width().
3029
These query East Asian width information, as specified in Unicode
3032
- Improved the tuple hashing algorithm to give fewer collisions in
3033
common cases. Fixes bug #942952.
3035
- Implemented generator expressions (PEP 289). Coded by Jiwon Seo.
3037
- Enabled the profiling of C extension functions (and builtins) - check
3038
new documentation and modified profile and bdb modules for more details
3040
- Set file.name to the object passed to open (instead of a new string)
3042
- Moved tracebackobject into traceback.h and renamed to PyTracebackObject
3044
- Optimized the byte coding for multiple assignments like "a,b=b,a" and
3045
"a,b,c=1,2,3". Improves their speed by 25% to 30%.
3047
- Limit the nested depth of a tuple for the second argument to isinstance()
3048
and issubclass() to the recursion limit of the interpreter.
3051
- Optimized dict iterators, creating separate types for each
3052
and having them reveal their length. Also optimized the
3053
methods: keys(), values(), and items().
3055
- Implemented a newcode opcode, LIST_APPEND, that simplifies
3056
the generated bytecode for list comprehensions and further
3057
improves their performance (about 35%).
3059
- Implemented rich comparisons for floats, which seems to make
3060
comparisons involving NaNs somewhat less surprising when the
3061
underlying C compiler actually implements C99 semantics.
3063
- Optimized list.extend() to save memory and no longer create
3064
intermediate sequences. Also, extend() now pre-allocates the
3065
needed memory whenever the length of the iterable is known in
3066
advance -- this halves the time to extend the list.
3068
- Optimized list resize operations to make fewer calls to the system
3069
realloc(). Significantly speeds up list appends, list pops,
3070
list comprehensions, and the list constructor (when the input iterable
3071
length is not known).
3073
- Changed the internal list over-allocation scheme. For larger lists,
3074
overallocation ranged between 3% and 25%. Now, it is a constant 12%.
3075
For smaller lists (n<8), overallocation was upto eight elements. Now,
3076
the overallocation is no more than three elements -- this improves space
3077
utilization for applications that have large numbers of small lists.
3079
- Most list bodies now get re-used rather than freed. Speeds up list
3080
instantiation and deletion by saving calls to malloc() and free().
3082
- The dict.update() method now accepts all the same argument forms
3083
as the dict() constructor. This now includes item lists and/or
3086
- Support for arbitrary objects supporting the read-only buffer
3087
interface as the co_code field of code objects (something that was
3088
only possible to create from C code) has been removed.
3090
- Made omitted callback and None equivalent for weakref.ref() and
3091
weakref.proxy(); the None case wasn't handled correctly in all
3094
- Fixed problem where PyWeakref_NewRef() and PyWeakref_NewProxy()
3095
assumed that initial existing entries in an object's weakref list
3096
would not be removed while allocating a new weakref object. Since
3097
GC could be invoked at that time, however, that assumption was
3098
invalid. In a truly obscure case of GC being triggered during
3099
creation for a new weakref object for an referent which already
3100
has a weakref without a callback which is only referenced from
3101
cyclic trash, a memory error can occur. This consistently created a
3102
segfault in a debug build, but provided less predictable behavior in
3105
- input() builtin function now respects compiler flags such as
3106
__future__ statements. SF patch 876178.
3108
- Removed PendingDeprecationWarning from apply(). apply() remains
3109
deprecated, but the nuisance warning will not be issued.
3111
- At Python shutdown time (Py_Finalize()), 2.3 called cyclic garbage
3112
collection twice, both before and after tearing down modules. The
3113
call after tearing down modules has been disabled, because too much
3114
of Python has been torn down then for __del__ methods and weakref
3115
callbacks to execute sanely. The most common symptom was a sequence
3116
of uninformative messages on stderr when Python shut down, produced
3117
by threads trying to raise exceptions, but unable to report the nature
3118
of their problems because too much of the sys module had already been
3121
- Removed FutureWarnings related to hex/oct literals and conversions
3122
and left shifts. (Thanks to Kalle Svensson for SF patch 849227.)
3123
This addresses most of the remaining semantic changes promised by
3124
PEP 237, except for repr() of a long, which still shows the trailing
3125
'L'. The PEP appears to promise warnings for operations that
3126
changed semantics compared to Python 2.3, but this is not
3127
implemented; we've suffered through enough warnings related to
3128
hex/oct literals and I think it's best to be silent now.
3130
- For str and unicode objects, the ljust(), center(), and rjust()
3131
methods now accept an optional argument specifying a fill
3132
character other than a space.
3134
- When method objects have an attribute that can be satisfied either
3135
by the function object or by the method object, the function
3136
object's attribute usually wins. Christian Tismer pointed out that
3137
that this is really a mistake, because this only happens for special
3138
methods (like __reduce__) where the method object's version is
3139
really more appropriate than the function's attribute. So from now
3140
on, all method attributes will have precedence over function
3141
attributes with the same name.
3143
- Critical bugfix, for SF bug 839548: if a weakref with a callback,
3144
its callback, and its weakly referenced object, all became part of
3145
cyclic garbage during a single run of garbage collection, the order
3146
in which they were torn down was unpredictable. It was possible for
3147
the callback to see partially-torn-down objects, leading to immediate
3148
segfaults, or, if the callback resurrected garbage objects, to
3149
resurrect insane objects that caused segfaults (or other surprises)
3150
later. In one sense this wasn't surprising, because Python's cyclic gc
3151
had no knowledge of Python's weakref objects. It does now. When
3152
weakrefs with callbacks become part of cyclic garbage now, those
3153
weakrefs are cleared first. The callbacks don't trigger then,
3154
preventing the problems. If you need callbacks to trigger, then just
3155
as when cyclic gc is not involved, you need to write your code so
3156
that weakref objects outlive the objects they weakly reference.
3158
- Critical bugfix, for SF bug 840829: if cyclic garbage collection
3159
happened to occur during a weakref callback for a new-style class
3160
instance, subtle memory corruption was the result (in a release build;
3161
in a debug build, a segfault occurred reliably very soon after).
3162
This has been repaired.
3164
- Compiler flags set in PYTHONSTARTUP are now active in __main__.
3166
- Added two builtin types, set() and frozenset().
3168
- Added a reversed() builtin function that returns a reverse iterator
3171
- Added a sorted() builtin function that returns a new sorted list
3174
- CObjects are now mutable (on the C level) through PyCObject_SetVoidPtr.
3176
- list.sort() now supports three keyword arguments: cmp, key, and reverse.
3177
The key argument can be a function of one argument that extracts a
3178
comparison key from the original record: mylist.sort(key=str.lower).
3179
The reverse argument is a boolean value and if True will change the
3180
sort order as if the comparison arguments were reversed. In addition,
3181
the documentation has been amended to provide a guarantee that all sorts
3182
starting with Py2.3 are guaranteed to be stable (the relative order of
3183
records with equal keys is unchanged).
3185
- Added test whether wchar_t is signed or not. A signed wchar_t is not
3186
usable as internal unicode type base for Py_UNICODE since the
3187
unicode implementation assumes an unsigned type.
3189
- Fixed a bug in the cache of length-one Unicode strings that could
3190
lead to a seg fault. The specific problem occurred when an earlier,
3191
non-fatal error left an uninitialized Unicode object in the
3194
- The % formatting operator now supports '%F' which is equivalent to
3195
'%f'. This has always been documented but never implemented.
3197
- complex(obj) could leak a little memory if obj wasn't a string or
3200
- zip() with no arguments now returns an empty list instead of raising
3201
a TypeError exception.
3203
- obj.__contains__() now returns True/False instead of 1/0. SF patch
3206
- Python no longer tries to be smart about recursive comparisons.
3207
When comparing containers with cyclic references to themselves it
3208
will now just hit the recursion limit. See SF patch 825639.
3210
- str and unicode builtin types now have an rsplit() method that is
3211
same as split() except that it scans the string from the end
3212
working towards the beginning. See SF feature request 801847.
3214
- Fixed a bug in object.__reduce_ex__ when using protocol 2. Failure
3215
to clear the error when attempts to get the __getstate__ attribute
3216
fail caused intermittent errors and odd behavior.
3218
- buffer objects based on other objects no longer cache a pointer to
3219
the data and the data length. Instead, the appropriate tp_as_buffer
3220
method is called as necessary.
3222
- fixed: if a file is opened with an explicit buffer size >= 1, repeated
3223
close() calls would attempt to free() the buffer already free()ed on
3230
- Added socket.getservbyport(), and make the second argument in
3231
getservbyname() and getservbyport() optional.
3233
- time module code that deals with input POSIX timestamps will now raise
3234
ValueError if more than a second is lost in precision when the
3235
timestamp is cast to the platform C time_t type. There's no chance
3236
that the platform will do anything sensible with the result in such
3237
cases. This includes ctime(), localtime() and gmtime(). Assorted
3238
fromtimestamp() and utcfromtimestamp() methods in the datetime module
3239
were also protected. Closes bugs #919012 and 975996.
3241
- fcntl.ioctl now warns if the mutate flag is not specified.
3243
- nt now properly allows to refer to UNC roots, e.g. in nt.stat().
3245
- the weakref module now supports additional objects: array.array,
3246
sre.pattern_objects, file objects, and sockets.
3248
- operator.isMappingType() and operator.isSequenceType() now give
3249
fewer false positives.
3251
- socket.sslerror is now a subclass of socket.error . Also added
3252
socket.error to the socket module's C API.
3254
- Bug #920575: A problem where the _locale module segfaults on
3255
nl_langinfo(ERA) caused by GNU libc's illegal NULL return is fixed.
3257
- array objects now support the copy module. Also, their resizing
3258
scheme has been updated to match that used for list objects. This improves
3259
the performance (speed and memory usage) of append() operations.
3260
Also, array.array() and array.extend() now accept any iterable argument
3261
for repeated appends without needing to create another temporary array.
3263
- cStringIO.writelines() now accepts any iterable argument and writes
3264
the lines one at a time rather than joining them and writing once.
3265
Made a parallel change to StringIO.writelines(). Saves memory and
3266
makes suitable for use with generator expressions.
3268
- time.strftime() now checks that the values in its time tuple argument
3269
are within the proper boundaries to prevent possible crashes from the
3270
platform's C library implementation of strftime(). Can possibly
3271
break code that uses values outside the range that didn't cause
3272
problems previously (such as sitting day of year to 0). Fixes bug
3275
- The socket module now supports Bluetooth sockets, if the
3276
system has <bluetooth/bluetooth.h>
3278
- Added a collections module containing a new datatype, deque(),
3279
offering high-performance, thread-safe, memory friendly appends
3280
and pops on either side of the deque.
3282
- Several modules now take advantage of collections.deque() for
3283
improved performance: Queue, mutex, shlex, threading, and pydoc.
3285
- The operator module has two new functions, attrgetter() and
3286
itemgetter() which are useful for creating fast data extractor
3287
functions for map(), list.sort(), itertools.groupby(), and
3288
other functions that expect a function argument.
3290
- socket.SHUT_{RD,WR,RDWR} was added.
3292
- os.getsid was added.
3294
- The pwd module incorrectly advertised its struct type as
3295
struct_pwent; this has been renamed to struct_passwd. (The old name
3296
is still supported for backwards compatibility.)
3298
- The xml.parsers.expat module now provides Expat 1.95.7.
3300
- socket.IPPROTO_IPV6 was added.
3302
- readline.clear_history was added.
3304
- select.select() now accepts sequences for its first three arguments.
3306
- cStringIO now supports the f.closed attribute.
3308
- The signal module now exposes SIGRTMIN and SIGRTMAX (if available).
3310
- curses module now supports use_default_colors(). [patch #739124]
3312
- Bug #811028: ncurses.h breakage on FreeBSD/MacOS X
3314
- Bug #814613: INET_ADDRSTRLEN fix needed for all compilers on SGI
3316
- Implemented non-recursive SRE matching scheme (#757624).
3318
- Implemented (?(id/name)yes|no) support in SRE (#572936).
3320
- random.seed() with no arguments or None uses time.time() as a default
3321
seed. Modified to match Py2.2 behavior and use fractional seconds so
3322
that successive runs are more likely to produce different sequences.
3324
- random.Random has a new method, getrandbits(k), which returns an int
3325
with k random bits. This method is now an optional part of the API
3326
for user defined generators. Any generator that defines genrandbits()
3327
can now use randrange() for ranges with a length >= 2**53. Formerly,
3328
randrange would return only even numbers for ranges that large (see
3329
SF bug #812202). Generators that do not define genrandbits() now
3330
issue a warning when randrange() is called with a range that large.
3332
- itertools has a new function, groupby() for aggregating iterables
3333
into groups sharing the same key (as determined by a key function).
3334
It offers some of functionality of SQL's groupby keyword and of
3335
the Unix uniq filter.
3337
- itertools now has a new tee() function which produces two independent
3338
iterators from a single iterable.
3340
- itertools.izip() with no arguments now returns an empty iterator instead
3341
of raising a TypeError exception.
3343
- Fixed #853061: allow BZ2Compressor.compress() to receive an empty string
3349
- Added a new module: cProfile, a C profiler with the same interface as the
3350
profile module. cProfile avoids some of the drawbacks of the hotshot
3351
profiler and provides a bit more information than the other two profilers.
3352
Based on "lsprof" (patch #1212837).
3354
- Bug #1266283: The new function "lexists" is now in os.path.__all__.
3356
- Bug #981530: Fix UnboundLocalError in shutil.rmtree(). This affects
3357
the documented behavior: the function passed to the onerror()
3358
handler can now also be os.listdir.
3360
- Bug #754449: threading.Thread objects no longer mask exceptions raised during
3361
interpreter shutdown with another exception from attempting to handle the
3364
- Added decimal.py per PEP 327.
3366
- Bug #981299: rsync is now a recognized protocol in urlparse that uses a
3367
"netloc" portion of a URL.
3369
- Bug #919012: shutil.move() will not try to move a directory into itself.
3370
Thanks Johannes Gijsbers.
3372
- Bug #934282: pydoc.stripid() is now case-insensitive. Thanks Robin Becker.
3374
- Bug #823209: cmath.log() now takes an optional base argument so that its
3375
API matches math.log().
3377
- Bug #957381: distutils bdist_rpm no longer fails on recent RPM versions
3378
that generate a -debuginfo.rpm
3380
- os.path.devnull has been added for all supported platforms.
3382
- Fixed #877165: distutils now picks the right C++ compiler command
3383
on cygwin and mingw32.
3385
- urllib.urlopen().readline() now handles HTTP/0.9 correctly.
3387
- refactored site.py into functions. Also wrote regression tests for the
3390
- The distutils install command now supports the --home option and
3391
installation scheme for all platforms.
3393
- asyncore.loop now has a repeat count parameter that defaults to
3396
- The distutils sdist command now ignores all .svn directories, in
3397
addition to CVS and RCS directories. .svn directories hold
3398
administrative files for the Subversion source control system.
3400
- Added a new module: cookielib. Automatic cookie handling for HTTP
3401
clients. Also, support for cookielib has been added to urllib2, so
3402
urllib2.urlopen() can transparently handle cookies.
3404
- stringprep.py now uses built-in set() instead of sets.Set().
3406
- Bug #876278: Unbounded recursion in modulefinder
3408
- Bug #780300: Swap public and system ID in LexicalHandler.startDTD.
3409
Applications relying on the wrong order need to be corrected.
3411
- Bug #926075: Fixed a bug that returns a wrong pattern object
3412
for a string or unicode object in sre.compile() when a different
3413
type pattern with the same value exists.
3415
- Added countcallers arg to trace.Trace class (--trackcalls command line arg
3416
when run from the command prompt).
3418
- Fixed a caching bug in platform.platform() where the argument of 'terse' was
3419
not taken into consideration when caching value.
3421
- Added two new command-line arguments for profile (output file and
3424
- Added global runctx function to profile module
3426
- Add hlist missing entryconfigure and entrycget methods.
3428
- The ptcp154 codec was added for Kazakh character set support.
3430
- Support non-anonymous ftp URLs in urllib2.
3432
- The encodings package will now apply codec name aliases
3433
first before starting to try the import of the codec module.
3434
This simplifies overriding built-in codecs with external
3435
packages, e.g. the included CJK codecs with the JapaneseCodecs
3436
package, by adjusting the aliases dictionary in encodings.aliases
3439
- base64 now supports RFC 3548 Base16, Base32, and Base64 encoding and
3442
- urllib2 now supports processors. A processor is a handler that
3443
implements an xxx_request or xxx_response method. These methods are
3444
called for all requests.
3446
- distutils compilers now compile source files in the same order as
3447
they are passed to the compiler.
3449
- pprint.pprint() and pprint.pformat() now have additional parameters
3450
indent, width and depth.
3452
- Patch #750542: pprint now will pretty print subclasses of list, tuple
3453
and dict too, as long as they don't overwrite __repr__().
3455
- Bug #848614: distutils' msvccompiler fails to find the MSVC6
3456
compiler because of incomplete registry entries.
3458
- httplib.HTTP.putrequest now offers to omit the implicit Accept-Encoding.
3460
- Patch #841977: modulefinder didn't find extension modules in packages
3462
- imaplib.IMAP4.thread was added.
3464
- Plugged a minor hole in tempfile.mktemp() due to the use of
3465
os.path.exists(), switched to using os.lstat() directly if possible.
3467
- bisect.py and heapq.py now have underlying C implementations
3468
for better performance.
3470
- heapq.py has two new functions, nsmallest() and nlargest().
3472
- traceback.format_exc has been added (similar to print_exc but it returns
3475
- xmlrpclib.MultiCall has been added.
3477
- poplib.POP3_SSL has been added.
3479
- tmpfile.mkstemp now returns an absolute path even if dir is relative.
3481
- urlparse is RFC 2396 compliant.
3483
- The fieldnames argument to the csv module's DictReader constructor is now
3484
optional. If omitted, the first row of the file will be used as the
3487
- encodings.bz2_codec was added for access to bz2 compression
3488
using "a long string".encode('bz2')
3490
- Various improvements to unittest.py, realigned with PyUnit CVS.
3492
- dircache now passes exceptions to the caller, instead of returning
3495
- The bsddb module and dbhash module now support the iterator and
3496
mapping protocols which make them more substitutable for dictionaries
3499
- The csv module's DictReader and DictWriter classes now accept keyword
3500
arguments. This was an omission in the initial implementation.
3502
- The email package handles some RFC 2231 parameters with missing
3503
CHARSET fields better. It also includes a patch to parameter
3504
parsing when semicolons appear inside quotes.
3506
- sets.py now runs under Py2.2. In addition, the argument restrictions
3507
for most set methods (but not the operators) have been relaxed to
3510
- _strptime.py now has a behind-the-scenes caching mechanism for the most
3511
recent TimeRE instance used along with the last five unique directive
3512
patterns. The overall module was also made more thread-safe.
3514
- random.cunifvariate() and random.stdgamma() were deprecated in Py2.3
3515
and removed in Py2.4.
3517
- Bug #823328: urllib2.py's HTTP Digest Auth support works again.
3519
- Patch #873597: CJK codecs are imported into rank of default codecs.
3524
- A hotshotmain script was added to the Tools/scripts directory that
3525
makes it easy to run a script under control of the hotshot profiler.
3527
- The db2pickle and pickle2db scripts can now dump/load gdbm files.
3529
- The file order on the command line of the pickle2db script was reversed.
3530
It is now [ picklefile ] dbfile. This provides better symmetry with
3531
db2pickle. The file arguments to both scripts are now source followed by
3532
destination in situations where both files are given.
3534
- The pydoc script will display a link to the module documentation for
3535
modules determined to be part of the core distribution. The documentation
3536
base directory defaults to http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/ but can
3537
be changed by setting the PYTHONDOCS environment variable.
3539
- texcheck.py now detects double word errors.
3541
- md5sum.py mistakenly opened input files in text mode by default, a
3542
silent and dangerous change from previous releases. It once again
3543
opens input files in binary mode by default. The -t and -b flags
3544
remain for compatibility with the 2.3 release, but -b is the default
3547
- py-electric-colon now works when pending-delete/delete-selection mode is
3550
- py-help-at-point is no longer bound to the F1 key - it's still bound to
3553
- Pynche was fixed to not crash when there is no ~/.pynche file and no
3554
-d option was given.
3559
- Bug #978645: Modules/getpath.c now builds properly in --disable-framework
3562
- Profiling using gprof is now available if Python is configured with
3565
- Profiling the VM using the Pentium TSC is now possible if Python
3566
is configured --with-tsc.
3568
- In order to find libraries, setup.py now also looks in /lib64, for use
3571
- Bug #934635: Fixed a bug where the configure script couldn't detect
3572
getaddrinfo() properly if the KAME stack had SCTP support.
3574
- Support for missing ANSI C header files (limits.h, stddef.h, etc) was
3577
- Systems requiring the D4, D6 or D7 variants of pthreads are no longer
3578
supported (see PEP 11).
3580
- Universal newline support can no longer be disabled (see PEP 11).
3582
- Support for DGUX, SunOS 4, IRIX 4 and Minix was removed (see PEP 11).
3584
- Support for systems requiring --with-dl-dld or --with-sgi-dl was removed
3587
- Tests for sizeof(char) were removed since ANSI C mandates that
3588
sizeof(char) must be 1.
3593
- Thanks to Anthony Tuininga, the datetime module now supplies a C API
3594
containing type-check macros and constructors. See new docs in the
3595
Python/C API Reference Manual for details.
3597
- Private function _PyTime_DoubleToTimet added, to convert a Python
3598
timestamp (C double) to platform time_t with some out-of-bounds
3599
checking. Declared in new header file timefuncs.h. It would be
3600
good to expose some other internal timemodule.c functions there.
3602
- New public functions PyEval_EvaluateFrame and PyGen_New to expose
3605
- New public functions Py_IncRef() and Py_DecRef(), exposing the
3606
functionality of the Py_XINCREF() and Py_XDECREF macros. Useful for
3607
runtime dynamic embedding of Python. See patch #938302, by Bob
3610
- Added a new macro, PySequence_Fast_ITEMS, which retrieves a fast sequence's
3611
underlying array of PyObject pointers. Useful for high speed looping.
3613
- Created a new method flag, METH_COEXIST, which causes a method to be loaded
3614
even if already defined by a slot wrapper. This allows a __contains__
3615
method, for example, to co-exist with a defined sq_contains slot. This
3616
is helpful because the PyCFunction can take advantage of optimized calls
3617
whenever METH_O or METH_NOARGS flags are defined.
3619
- Added a new function, PyDict_Contains(d, k) which is like
3620
PySequence_Contains() but is specific to dictionaries and executes
3623
- Added three new macros: Py_RETURN_NONE, Py_RETURN_TRUE, and Py_RETURN_FALSE.
3624
Each return the singleton they mention after Py_INCREF()ing them.
3626
- Added a new function, PyTuple_Pack(n, ...) for constructing tuples from a
3627
variable length argument list of Python objects without having to invoke
3628
the more complex machinery of Py_BuildValue(). PyTuple_Pack(3, a, b, c)
3629
is equivalent to Py_BuildValue("(OOO)", a, b, c).
3634
- The _winreg module could segfault when reading very large registry
3635
values, due to unchecked alloca() calls (SF bug 851056). The fix is
3636
uses either PyMem_Malloc(n) or PyString_FromStringAndSize(NULL, n),
3637
as appropriate, followed by a size check.
3639
- file.truncate() could misbehave if the file was open for update
3640
(modes r+, rb+, w+, wb+), and the most recent file operation before
3641
the truncate() call was an input operation. SF bug 801631.
3644
What's New in Python 2.3 final?
3645
===============================
3647
*Release date: 29-Jul-2003*
3652
- Bug 778400: IDLE hangs when selecting "Edit with IDLE" from explorer.
3653
This was unique to Windows, and was fixed by adding an -n switch to
3654
the command the Windows installer creates to execute "Edit with IDLE"
3655
context-menu actions.
3657
- IDLE displays a new message upon startup: some "personal firewall"
3658
kinds of programs (for example, ZoneAlarm) open a dialog of their
3659
own when any program opens a socket. IDLE does use sockets, talking
3660
on the computer's internal loopback interface. This connection is not
3661
visible on any external interface and no data is sent to or received
3662
from the Internet. So, if you get such a dialog when opening IDLE,
3663
asking whether to let pythonw.exe talk to address 127.0.0.1, say yes,
3664
and rest assured no communication external to your machine is taking
3665
place. If you don't allow it, IDLE won't be able to start.
3668
What's New in Python 2.3 release candidate 2?
3669
=============================================
3671
*Release date: 24-Jul-2003*
3676
- It is now possible to import from zipfiles containing additional
3677
data bytes before the zip compatible archive. Zipfiles containing a
3678
comment at the end are still unsupported.
3683
- A longstanding bug in the parser module's initialization could cause
3684
fatal internal refcount confusion when the module got initialized more
3685
than once. This has been fixed.
3687
- Fixed memory leak in pyexpat; using the parser's ParseFile() method
3688
with open files that aren't instances of the standard file type
3689
caused an instance of the bound .read() method to be leaked on every
3692
- Fixed some leaks in the locale module.
3697
- Lib/encodings/rot_13.py when used as a script, now more properly
3698
uses the first Python interpreter on your path.
3700
- Removed caching of TimeRE (and thus LocaleTime) in _strptime.py to
3701
fix a locale related bug in the test suite. Although another patch
3702
was needed to actually fix the problem, the cache code was not
3713
- For MacOSX, added -mno-fused-madd to BASECFLAGS to fix test_coercion
3714
on Panther (OSX 10.3).
3722
- The tempfile module could do insane imports on Windows if PYTHONCASEOK
3723
was set, making temp file creation impossible. Repaired.
3725
- Add a patch to workaround pthread_sigmask() bugs in Cygwin.
3730
- Various fixes to pimp.
3732
- Scripts runs with pythonw no longer had full window manager access.
3734
- Don't force boot-disk-only install, for reasons unknown it causes
3735
more problems than it solves.
3738
What's New in Python 2.3 release candidate 1?
3739
=============================================
3741
*Release date: 18-Jul-2003*
3746
- The new function sys.getcheckinterval() returns the last value set
3747
by sys.setcheckinterval().
3749
- Several bugs in the symbol table phase of the compiler have been
3750
fixed. Errors could be lost and compilation could fail without
3751
reporting an error. SF patch 763201.
3753
- The interpreter is now more robust about importing the warnings
3754
module. In an executable generated by freeze or similar programs,
3755
earlier versions of 2.3 would fail if the warnings module could
3756
not be found on the file system. Fixes SF bug 771097.
3758
- A warning about assignments to module attributes that shadow
3759
builtins, present in earlier releases of 2.3, has been removed.
3761
- It is not possible to create subclasses of builtin types like str
3762
and tuple that define an itemsize. Earlier releases of Python 2.3
3763
allowed this by mistake, leading to crashes and other problems.
3765
- The thread_id is now initialized to 0 in a non-thread build. SF bug
3768
- SF bug 762891: "del p[key]" on proxy object no longer raises SystemError.
3773
- weakref.proxy() can now handle "del obj[i]" for proxy objects
3774
defining __delitem__. Formerly, it generated a SystemError.
3776
- SSL no longer crashes the interpreter when the remote side disconnects.
3778
- On Unix the mmap module can again be used to map device files.
3780
- time.strptime now exclusively uses the Python implementation
3781
contained within the _strptime module.
3783
- The print slot of weakref proxy objects was removed, because it was
3784
not consistent with the object's repr slot.
3786
- The mmap module only checks file size for regular files, not
3787
character or block devices. SF patch 708374.
3789
- The cPickle Pickler garbage collection support was fixed to traverse
3790
the find_class attribute, if present.
3792
- There are several fixes for the bsddb3 wrapper module.
3794
bsddb3 no longer crashes if an environment is closed before a cursor
3797
The DB and DBEnv set_get_returns_none function was extended to take
3798
a level instead of a boolean flag. The new level 2 means that in
3799
addition, cursor.set()/.get() methods return None instead of raising
3802
A typo was fixed in DBCursor.join_item(), preventing a crash.
3807
- distutils now supports MSVC 7.1
3809
- doctest now examines all docstrings by default. Previously, it would
3810
skip over functions with private names (as indicated by the underscore
3811
naming convention). The old default created too much of a risk that
3812
user tests were being skipped inadvertently. Note, this change could
3813
break code in the unlikely case that someone had intentionally put
3814
failing tests in the docstrings of private functions. The breakage
3815
is easily fixable by specifying the old behavior when calling testmod()
3818
- There were several fixes to the way dumbdbms are closed. It's vital
3819
that a dumbdbm database be closed properly, else the on-disk data
3820
and directory files can be left in mutually inconsistent states.
3821
dumbdbm.py's _Database.__del__() method attempted to close the
3822
database properly, but a shutdown race in _Database._commit() could
3823
prevent this from working, so that a program trusting __del__() to
3824
get the on-disk files in synch could be badly surprised. The race
3825
has been repaired. A sync() method was also added so that shelve
3826
can guarantee data is written to disk.
3828
The close() method can now be called more than once without complaint.
3830
- The classes in threading.py are now new-style classes. That they
3831
weren't before was an oversight.
3833
- The urllib2 digest authentication handlers now define the correct
3834
auth_header. The earlier versions would fail at runtime.
3836
- SF bug 763023: fix uncaught ZeroDivisionError in difflib ratio methods
3837
when there are no lines.
3839
- SF bug 763637: fix exception in Tkinter with after_cancel
3840
which could occur with Tk 8.4
3842
- SF bug 770601: CGIHTTPServer.py now passes the entire environment
3845
- SF bug 765238: add filter to fnmatch's __all__.
3847
- SF bug 748201: make time.strptime() error messages more helpful.
3849
- SF patch 764470: Do not dump the args attribute of a Fault object in
3852
- SF patch 549151: urllib and urllib2 now redirect POSTs on 301
3855
- SF patch 766650: The whichdb module was fixed to recognize dbm files
3856
generated by gdbm on OS/2 EMX.
3858
- SF bugs 763047 and 763052: fixes bug of timezone value being left as
3859
-1 when ``time.tzname[0] == time.tzname[1] and not time.daylight``
3860
is true when it should only when time.daylight is true.
3862
- SF bug 764548: re now allows subclasses of str and unicode to be
3865
- SF bug 763637: In Tkinter, change after_cancel() to handle tuples
3866
of varying sizes. Tk 8.4 returns a different number of values
3869
- SF bug 763023: difflib.ratio() did not catch zero division.
3871
- The Queue module now has an __all__ attribute.
3876
- See Lib/idlelib/NEWS.txt for IDLE news.
3878
- SF bug 753592: webchecker/wsgui now handles user supplied directories.
3880
- The trace.py script has been removed. It is now in the standard library.
3885
- Python now compiles with -fno-strict-aliasing if possible (SF bug 766696).
3887
- The socket module compiles on IRIX 6.5.10.
3889
- An irix64 system is treated the same way as an irix6 system (SF
3892
- Several definitions were missing on FreeBSD 5.x unless the
3893
__BSD_VISIBLE symbol was defined. configure now defines it as
3899
- Unicode objects now support mbcs as a built-in encoding, so the C
3900
API can use it without deferring to the encodings package.
3905
- The Windows implementation of PyThread_start_new_thread() never
3906
checked error returns from Windows functions correctly. As a result,
3907
it could claim to start a new thread even when the Microsoft
3908
_beginthread() function failed (due to "too many threads" -- this is
3909
on the order of thousands when it happens). In these cases, the
3912
thread.error: can't start new thread
3916
- SF bug 766669: Prevent a GPF on interpreter exit when sockets are in
3917
use. The interpreter now calls WSACleanup() from Py_Finalize()
3918
instead of from DLL teardown.
3923
- Bundlebuilder now inherits default values in the right way. It was
3924
previously possible for app bundles to get a type of "BNDL" instead
3925
of "APPL." Other improvements include, a --build-id option to
3926
specify the CFBundleIdentifier and using the --python option to set
3927
the executable in the bundle.
3929
- Fixed two bugs in MacOSX framework handling.
3931
- pythonw did not allow user interaction in 2.3rc1, this has been fixed.
3933
- Python is now compiled with -mno-fused-madd, making all tests pass
3936
What's New in Python 2.3 beta 2?
3937
================================
3939
*Release date: 29-Jun-2003*
3944
- A program can now set the environment variable PYTHONINSPECT to some
3945
string value in Python, and cause the interpreter to enter the
3946
interactive prompt at program exit, as if Python had been invoked
3949
- list.index() now accepts optional start and stop arguments. Similar
3950
changes were made to UserList.index(). SF feature request 754014.
3952
- SF patch 751998 fixes an unwanted side effect of the previous fix
3953
for SF bug 742860 (the next item).
3955
- SF bug 742860: "WeakKeyDictionary __delitem__ uses iterkeys". This
3956
wasn't threadsafe, was very inefficient (expected time O(len(dict))
3957
instead of O(1)), and could raise a spurious RuntimeError if another
3958
thread mutated the dict during __delitem__, or if a comparison function
3959
mutated it. It also neglected to raise KeyError when the key wasn't
3960
present; didn't raise TypeError when the key wasn't of a weakly
3961
referencable type; and broke various more-or-less obscure dict
3962
invariants by using a sequence of equality comparisons over the whole
3963
set of dict keys instead of computing the key's hash code to narrow
3964
the search to those keys with the same hash code. All of these are
3965
considered to be bugs. A new implementation of __delitem__ repairs all
3966
that, but note that fixing these bugs may change visible behavior in
3967
code relying (whether intentionally or accidentally) on old behavior.
3969
- SF bug 734869: Fixed a compiler bug that caused a fatal error when
3970
compiling a list comprehension that contained another list comprehension
3971
embedded in a lambda expression.
3973
- SF bug 705231: builtin pow() no longer lets the platform C pow()
3974
raise -1.0 to integer powers, because (at least) glibc gets it wrong
3975
in some cases. The result should be -1.0 if the power is odd and 1.0
3976
if the power is even, and any float with a sufficiently large exponent
3977
is (mathematically) an exact even integer.
3979
- SF bug 759227: A new-style class that implements __nonzero__() must
3980
return a bool or int (but not an int subclass) from that method. This
3981
matches the restriction on classic classes.
3983
- The encoding attribute has been added for file objects, and set to
3984
the terminal encoding on Unix and Windows.
3986
- The softspace attribute of file objects became read-only by oversight.
3987
It's writable again.
3989
- Reverted a 2.3 beta 1 change to iterators for subclasses of list and
3990
tuple. By default, the iterators now access data elements directly
3991
instead of going through __getitem__. If __getitem__ access is
3992
preferred, then __iter__ can be overridden.
3994
- SF bug 735247: The staticmethod and super types participate in
3995
garbage collection. Before this change, it was possible for leaks to
3996
occur in functions with non-global free variables that used these types.
4001
- the socket module has a new exception, socket.timeout, to allow
4002
timeouts to be handled separately from other socket errors.
4004
- SF bug 751276: cPickle has fixed to propagate exceptions raised in
4005
user code. In earlier versions, cPickle caught and ignored any
4006
exception when it performed operations that it expected to raise
4007
specific exceptions like AttributeError.
4009
- cPickle Pickler and Unpickler objects now participate in garbage
4012
- mimetools.choose_boundary() could return duplicate strings at times,
4013
especially likely on Windows. The strings returned are now guaranteed
4014
unique within a single program run.
4016
- thread.interrupt_main() raises KeyboardInterrupt in the main thread.
4017
dummy_thread has also been modified to try to simulate the behavior.
4019
- array.array.insert() now treats negative indices as being relative
4020
to the end of the array, just like list.insert() does. (SF bug #739313)
4022
- The datetime module classes datetime, time, and timedelta are now
4023
properly subclassable.
4025
- _tkinter.{get|set}busywaitinterval was added.
4027
- itertools.islice() now accepts stop=None as documented.
4028
Fixes SF bug #730685.
4030
- the bsddb185 module is built in one restricted instance -
4031
/usr/include/db.h exists and defines HASHVERSION to be 2. This is true
4032
for many BSD-derived systems.
4038
- Some happy doctest extensions from Jim Fulton have been added to
4039
doctest.py. These are already being used in Zope3. The two
4042
doctest.debug(module, name) extracts the doctests from the named object
4043
in the given module, puts them in a temp file, and starts pdb running
4044
on that file. This is great when a doctest fails.
4046
doctest.DocTestSuite(module=None) returns a synthesized unittest
4047
TestSuite instance, to be run by the unittest framework, which
4048
runs all the doctests in the module. This allows writing tests in
4049
doctest style (which can be clearer and shorter than writing tests
4050
in unittest style), without losing unittest's powerful testing
4051
framework features (which doctest lacks).
4053
- For compatibility with doctests created before 2.3, if an expected
4054
output block consists solely of "1" and the actual output block
4055
consists solely of "True", it's accepted as a match; similarly
4056
for "0" and "False". This is quite un-doctest-like, but is practical.
4057
The behavior can be disabled by passing the new doctest module
4058
constant DONT_ACCEPT_TRUE_FOR_1 to the new optionflags optional
4061
- ZipFile.testzip() now only traps BadZipfile exceptions. Previously,
4062
a bare except caught to much and reported all errors as a problem
4065
- The logging module now has a new function, makeLogRecord() making
4066
LogHandler easier to interact with DatagramHandler and SocketHandler.
4068
- The cgitb module has been extended to support plain text display (SF patch
4071
- A brand new version of IDLE (from the IDLEfork project at
4072
SourceForge) is now included as Lib/idlelib. The old Tools/idle is
4075
- Added a new module: trace (documentation missing). This module used
4076
to be distributed in Tools/scripts. It uses sys.settrace() to trace
4077
code execution -- either function calls or individual lines. It can
4078
generate tracing output during execution or a post-mortem report of
4081
- The threading module has new functions settrace() and setprofile()
4082
that cooperate with the functions of the same name in the sys
4083
module. A function registered with the threading module will
4084
be used for all threads it creates. The new trace module uses this
4085
to provide tracing for code running in threads.
4087
- copy.py: applied SF patch 707900, fixing bug 702858, by Steven
4088
Taschuk. Copying a new-style class that had a reference to itself
4089
didn't work. (The same thing worked fine for old-style classes.)
4090
Builtin functions are now treated as atomic, fixing bug #746304.
4092
- difflib.py has two new functions: context_diff() and unified_diff().
4094
- More fixes to urllib (SF 549151): (a) When redirecting, always use
4095
GET. This is common practice and more-or-less sanctioned by the
4096
HTTP standard. (b) Add a handler for 307 redirection, which becomes
4097
an error for POST, but a regular redirect for GET and HEAD
4099
- Added optional 'onerror' argument to os.walk(), to control error
4102
- inspect.is{method|data}descriptor was added, to allow pydoc display
4103
__doc__ of data descriptors.
4105
- Fixed socket speed loss caused by use of the _socketobject wrapper class
4108
- timeit.py now checks the current directory for imports.
4110
- urllib2.py now knows how to order proxy classes, so the user doesn't
4111
have to insert it in front of other classes, nor do dirty tricks like
4112
inserting a "dummy" HTTPHandler after a ProxyHandler when building an
4113
opener with proxy support.
4115
- Iterators have been added for dbm keys.
4117
- random.Random objects can now be pickled.
4122
- pydoc now offers help on keywords and topics.
4124
- Tools/idle is gone; long live Lib/idlelib.
4126
- diff.py prints file diffs in context, unified, or ndiff formats,
4127
providing a command line interface to difflib.py.
4129
- texcheck.py is a new script for making a rough validation of Python LaTeX
4135
- Setting DESTDIR during 'make install' now allows specifying a
4136
different root directory.
4141
- PyType_Ready(): If a type declares that it participates in gc
4142
(Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_GC), and its base class does not, and its base class's
4143
tp_free slot is the default _PyObject_Del, and type does not define
4144
a tp_free slot itself, _PyObject_GC_Del is assigned to type->tp_free.
4145
Previously _PyObject_Del was inherited, which could at best lead to a
4146
segfault. In addition, if even after this magic the type's tp_free
4147
slot is _PyObject_Del or NULL, and the type is a base type
4148
(Py_TPFLAGS_BASETYPE), TypeError is raised: since the type is a base
4149
type, its dealloc function must call type->tp_free, and since the type
4150
is gc'able, tp_free must not be NULL or _PyObject_Del.
4152
- PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(): A new API (deliberately accessible only
4153
from C) to interrupt a thread by sending it an exception. It is
4154
intentional that you have to write your own C extension to call it
4166
- test_imp rewritten so that it doesn't raise RuntimeError if run as a
4167
side effect of being imported ("import test.autotest").
4172
- The Windows installer ships with Tcl/Tk 8.4.3 (upgraded from 8.4.1).
4174
- The installer always suggested that Python be installed on the C:
4175
drive, due to a hardcoded "C:" generated by the Wise installation
4176
wizard. People with machines where C: is not the system drive
4177
usually want Python installed on whichever drive is their system drive
4178
instead. We removed the hardcoded "C:", and two testers on machines
4179
where C: is not the system drive report that the installer now
4180
suggests their system drive. Note that you can always select the
4181
directory you want in the "Select Destination Directory" dialog --
4182
that's what it's for.
4187
- There's a new module called "autoGIL", which offers a mechanism to
4188
automatically release the Global Interpreter Lock when an event loop
4189
goes to sleep, allowing other threads to run. It's currently only
4190
supported on OSX, in the Mach-O version.
4191
- The OSA modules now allow direct access to properties of the
4192
toplevel application class (in AppleScript terminology).
4193
- The Package Manager can now update itself.
4195
SourceForge Bugs and Patches Applied
4196
------------------------------------
4198
430160, 471893, 501716, 542562, 549151, 569574, 595837, 596434,
4199
598163, 604210, 604716, 610332, 612627, 614770, 620190, 621891,
4200
622042, 639139, 640236, 644345, 649742, 649742, 658233, 660022,
4201
661318, 661676, 662807, 662923, 666219, 672855, 678325, 682347,
4202
683486, 684981, 685773, 686254, 692776, 692959, 693094, 696777,
4203
697989, 700827, 703666, 708495, 708604, 708901, 710733, 711902,
4204
713722, 715782, 718286, 719359, 719367, 723136, 723831, 723962,
4205
724588, 724767, 724767, 725942, 726150, 726446, 726869, 727051,
4206
727719, 727719, 727805, 728277, 728563, 728656, 729096, 729103,
4207
729293, 729297, 729300, 729317, 729395, 729622, 729817, 730170,
4208
730296, 730594, 730685, 730826, 730963, 731209, 731403, 731504,
4209
731514, 731626, 731635, 731643, 731644, 731644, 731689, 732124,
4210
732143, 732234, 732284, 732284, 732479, 732761, 732783, 732951,
4211
733667, 733781, 734118, 734231, 734869, 735051, 735293, 735527,
4212
735613, 735694, 736962, 736962, 737970, 738066, 739313, 740055,
4213
740234, 740301, 741806, 742126, 742741, 742860, 742860, 742911,
4214
744041, 744104, 744238, 744687, 744877, 745055, 745478, 745525,
4215
745620, 746012, 746304, 746366, 746801, 746953, 747348, 747667,
4216
747954, 748846, 748849, 748973, 748975, 749191, 749210, 749759,
4217
749831, 749911, 750008, 750092, 750542, 750595, 751038, 751107,
4218
751276, 751451, 751916, 751941, 751956, 751998, 752671, 753451,
4219
753602, 753617, 753845, 753925, 754014, 754340, 754447, 755031,
4220
755087, 755147, 755245, 755683, 755987, 756032, 756996, 757058,
4221
757229, 757818, 757821, 757822, 758112, 758910, 759227, 759889,
4222
760257, 760703, 760792, 761104, 761337, 761519, 761830, 762455
4225
What's New in Python 2.3 beta 1?
4226
================================
4228
*Release date: 25-Apr-2003*
4233
- New format codes B, H, I, k and K have been implemented for
4234
PyArg_ParseTuple and PyBuild_Value.
4236
- New builtin function sum(seq, start=0) returns the sum of all the
4237
items in iterable object seq, plus start (items are normally numbers,
4238
and cannot be strings).
4240
- bool() called without arguments now returns False rather than
4241
raising an exception. This is consistent with calling the
4242
constructors for the other builtin types -- called without argument
4243
they all return the false value of that type. (SF patch #724135)
4245
- In support of PEP 269 (making the pgen parser generator accessible
4246
from Python), some changes to the pgen code structure were made; a
4247
few files that used to be linked only with pgen are now linked with
4250
- The repr() of a weakref object now shows the __name__ attribute of
4251
the referenced object, if it has one.
4253
- super() no longer ignores data descriptors, except __class__. See
4254
the thread started at
4255
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-April/034338.html
4257
- list.insert(i, x) now interprets negative i as it would be
4258
interpreted by slicing, so negative values count from the end of the
4259
list. This was the only place where such an interpretation was not
4260
placed on a list index.
4262
- range() now works even if the arguments are longs with magnitude
4263
larger than sys.maxint, as long as the total length of the sequence
4264
fits. E.g., range(2**100, 2**101, 2**100) is the following list:
4265
[1267650600228229401496703205376L]. (SF patch #707427.)
4267
- Some horridly obscure problems were fixed involving interaction
4268
between garbage collection and old-style classes with "ambitious"
4269
getattr hooks. If an old-style instance didn't have a __del__ method,
4270
but did have a __getattr__ hook, and the instance became reachable
4271
only from an unreachable cycle, and the hook resurrected or deleted
4272
unreachable objects when asked to resolve "__del__", anything up to
4273
a segfault could happen. That's been repaired.
4275
- dict.pop now takes an optional argument specifying a default
4276
value to return if the key is not in the dict. If a default is not
4277
given and the key is not found, a KeyError will still be raised.
4278
Parallel changes were made to UserDict.UserDict and UserDict.DictMixin.
4279
[SF patch #693753] (contributed by Michael Stone.)
4281
- sys.getfilesystemencoding() was added to expose
4282
Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding.
4284
- New function sys.exc_clear() clears the current exception. This is
4285
rarely needed, but can sometimes be useful to release objects
4286
referenced by the traceback held in sys.exc_info()[2]. (SF patch
4289
- On 64-bit systems, a dictionary could contain duplicate long/int keys
4290
if the key value was larger than 2**32. See SF bug #689659.
4292
- Fixed SF bug #663074. The codec system was using global static
4293
variables to store internal data. As a result, any attempts to use the
4294
unicode system with multiple active interpreters, or successive
4295
interpreter executions, would fail.
4297
- "%c" % u"a" now returns a unicode string instead of raising a
4298
TypeError. u"%c" % 0xffffffff now raises a OverflowError instead
4299
of a ValueError to be consistent with "%c" % 256. See SF patch #710127.
4304
- The socket module now provides the functions inet_pton and inet_ntop
4305
for converting between string and packed representation of IP
4306
addresses. There is also a new module variable, has_ipv6, which is
4307
True iff the current Python has IPv6 support. See SF patch #658327.
4309
- Tkinter wrappers around Tcl variables now pass objects directly
4310
to Tcl, instead of first converting them to strings.
4312
- The .*? pattern in the re module is now special-cased to avoid the
4313
recursion limit. (SF patch #720991 -- many thanks to Gary Herron
4316
- New function sys.call_tracing() allows pdb to debug code
4319
- New function gc.get_referents(obj) returns a list of objects
4320
directly referenced by obj. In effect, it exposes what the object's
4321
tp_traverse slot does, and can be helpful when debugging memory
4324
- The iconv module has been removed from this release.
4326
- The platform-independent routines for packing floats in IEEE formats
4327
(struct.pack's <f, >f, <d, and >d codes; pickle and cPickle's protocol 1
4328
pickling of floats) ignored that rounding can cause a carry to
4329
propagate. The worst consequence was that, in rare cases, <f and >f
4330
could produce strings that, when unpacked again, were a factor of 2
4331
away from the original float. This has been fixed. See SF bug
4334
- New function time.tzset() provides access to the C library tzset()
4335
function, if supported. (SF patch #675422.)
4337
- Using createfilehandler, deletefilehandler, createtimerhandler functions
4338
on Tkinter.tkinter (_tkinter module) no longer crashes the interpreter.
4341
- Modified the fcntl.ioctl() function to allow modification of a passed
4342
mutable buffer (for details see the reference documentation).
4344
- Made user requested changes to the itertools module.
4345
Subsumed the times() function into repeat().
4346
Added chain() and cycle().
4348
- The rotor module is now deprecated; the encryption algorithm it uses
4349
is not believed to be secure, and including crypto code with Python
4350
has implications for exporting and importing it in various countries.
4352
- The socket module now always uses the _socketobject wrapper class, even on
4353
platforms which have dup(2). The makefile() method is built directly
4354
on top of the socket without duplicating the file descriptor, allowing
4355
timeouts to work properly.
4360
- New generator function os.walk() is an easy-to-use alternative to
4361
os.path.walk(). See os module docs for details. os.path.walk()
4362
isn't deprecated at this time, but may become deprecated in a
4365
- Added new module "platform" which provides a wide range of tools
4366
for querying platform dependent features.
4368
- netrc now allows ASCII punctuation characters in passwords.
4370
- shelve now supports the optional writeback argument, and exposes
4371
pickle protocol versions.
4373
- Several methods of nntplib.NNTP have grown an optional file argument
4374
which specifies a file where to divert the command's output
4375
(already supported by the body() method). (SF patch #720468)
4377
- The self-documenting XML server library DocXMLRPCServer was added.
4379
- Support for internationalized domain names has been added through
4380
the 'idna' and 'punycode' encodings, the 'stringprep' module, the
4381
'mkstringprep' tool, and enhancements to the socket and httplib
4384
- htmlentitydefs has two new dictionaries: name2codepoint maps
4385
HTML entity names to Unicode codepoints (as integers).
4386
codepoint2name is the reverse mapping. See SF patch #722017.
4388
- pdb has a new command, "debug", which lets you step through
4389
arbitrary code from the debugger's (pdb) prompt.
4391
- unittest.failUnlessEqual and its equivalent unittest.assertEqual now
4392
return 'not a == b' rather than 'a != b'. This gives the desired
4393
result for classes that define __eq__ without defining __ne__.
4395
- sgmllib now supports SGML marked sections, in particular the
4396
MS Office extensions.
4398
- The urllib module now offers support for the iterator protocol.
4399
SF patch 698520 contributed by Brett Cannon.
4401
- New module timeit provides a simple framework for timing the
4402
execution speed of expressions and statements.
4404
- sets.Set objects now support mixed-type __eq__ and __ne__, instead
4405
of raising TypeError. If x is a Set object and y is a non-Set object,
4406
x == y is False, and x != y is True. This is akin to the change made
4407
for mixed-type comparisons of datetime objects in 2.3a2; more info
4408
about the rationale is in the NEWS entry for that. See also SF bug
4409
report <http://www.python.org/sf/693121>.
4411
- On Unix platforms, if os.listdir() is called with a Unicode argument,
4412
it now returns Unicode strings. (This behavior was added earlier
4413
to the Windows NT/2k/XP version of os.listdir().)
4415
- Distutils: both 'py_modules' and 'packages' keywords can now be specified
4416
in core.setup(). Previously you could supply one or the other, but
4417
not both of them. (SF patch #695090 from Bernhard Herzog)
4419
- New csv package makes it easy to read/write CSV files.
4421
- Module shlex has been extended to allow posix-like shell parsings,
4422
including a split() function for easy spliting of quoted strings and
4423
commands. An iterator interface was also implemented.
4428
- New script combinerefs.py helps analyze new PYTHONDUMPREFS output.
4429
See the module docstring for details.
4434
- Fix problem building on OSF1 because the compiler only accepted
4435
preprocessor directives that start in column 1. (SF bug #691793.)
4440
- Added PyGC_Collect(), equivalent to calling gc.collect().
4442
- PyThreadState_GetDict() was changed not to raise an exception or
4443
issue a fatal error when no current thread state is available. This
4444
makes it possible to print dictionaries when no thread is active.
4446
- LONG_LONG was renamed to PY_LONG_LONG. Extensions that use this and
4447
need compatibility with previous versions can use this:
4449
#ifndef PY_LONG_LONG
4450
#define PY_LONG_LONG LONG_LONG
4453
- Added PyObject_SelfIter() to fill the tp_iter slot for the
4454
typical case where the method returns its self argument.
4456
- The extended type structure used for heap types (new-style
4457
classes defined by Python code using a class statement) is now
4458
exported from object.h as PyHeapTypeObject. (SF patch #696193.)
4468
- test_timeout now requires -u network to be passed to regrtest to run.
4474
- os.fsync() now exists on Windows, and calls the Microsoft _commit()
4477
- New function winsound.MessageBeep() wraps the Win32 API
4483
- os.listdir() now returns Unicode strings on MacOS X when called with
4484
a Unicode argument. See the general news item under "Library".
4486
- A new method MacOS.WMAvailable() returns true if it is safe to access
4487
the window manager, false otherwise.
4489
- EasyDialogs dialogs are now movable-modal, and if the application is
4490
currently in the background they will ask to be moved to the foreground
4493
- OSA Scripting support has improved a lot, and gensuitemodule.py can now
4494
be used by mere mortals. The documentation is now also more or less
4497
- The IDE (in a framework build) now includes introductory documentation
4498
in Apple Help Viewer format.
4501
What's New in Python 2.3 alpha 2?
4502
=================================
4504
*Release date: 19-Feb-2003*
4509
- Negative positions returned from PEP 293 error callbacks are now
4510
treated as being relative to the end of the input string. Positions
4511
that are out of bounds raise an IndexError.
4513
- sys.path[0] (the directory from which the script is loaded) is now
4514
turned into an absolute pathname, unless it is the empty string.
4517
- Finally fixed the bug in compile() and exec where a string ending
4518
with an indented code block but no newline would raise SyntaxError.
4519
This would have been a four-line change in parsetok.c... Except
4520
codeop.py depends on this behavior, so a compilation flag had to be
4521
invented that causes the tokenizer to revert to the old behavior;
4522
this required extra changes to 2 .h files, 2 .c files, and 2 .py
4523
files. (Fixes SF bug #501622.)
4525
- If a new-style class defines neither __new__ nor __init__, its
4526
constructor would ignore all arguments. This is changed now: the
4527
constructor refuses arguments in this case. This might break code
4528
that worked under Python 2.2. The simplest fix is to add a no-op
4529
__init__: ``def __init__(self, *args, **kw): pass``.
4531
- Through a bytecode optimizer bug (and I bet you didn't even know
4532
Python *had* a bytecode optimizer :-), "unsigned" hex/oct constants
4533
with a leading minus sign would come out with the wrong sign.
4534
("Unsigned" hex/oct constants are those with a face value in the
4535
range sys.maxint+1 through sys.maxint*2+1, inclusive; these have
4536
always been interpreted as negative numbers through sign folding.)
4537
E.g. 0xffffffff is -1, and -(0xffffffff) is 1, but -0xffffffff would
4538
come out as -4294967295. This was the case in Python 2.2 through
4539
2.2.2 and 2.3a1, and in Python 2.4 it will once again have that
4540
value, but according to PEP 237 it really needs to be 1 now. This
4541
will be backported to Python 2.2.3 a well. (SF #660455)
4543
- int(s, base) sometimes sign-folds hex and oct constants; it only
4544
does this when base is 0 and s.strip() starts with a '0'. When the
4545
sign is actually folded, as in int("0xffffffff", 0) on a 32-bit
4546
machine, which returns -1, a FutureWarning is now issued; in Python
4547
2.4, this will return 4294967295L, as do int("+0xffffffff", 0) and
4548
int("0xffffffff", 16) right now. (PEP 347)
4550
- super(X, x): x may now be a proxy for an X instance, i.e.
4551
issubclass(x.__class__, X) but not issubclass(type(x), X).
4553
- isinstance(x, X): if X is a new-style class, this is now equivalent
4554
to issubclass(type(x), X) or issubclass(x.__class__, X). Previously
4555
only type(x) was tested. (For classic classes this was already the
4558
- compile(), eval() and the exec statement now fully support source code
4559
passed as unicode strings.
4561
- int subclasses can be initialized with longs if the value fits in an int.
4564
- long(string, base) takes time linear in len(string) when base is a power
4565
of 2 now. It used to take time quadratic in len(string).
4567
- filter returns now Unicode results for Unicode arguments.
4569
- raw_input can now return Unicode objects.
4571
- List objects' sort() method now accepts None as the comparison function.
4572
Passing None is semantically identical to calling sort() with no
4575
- Fixed crash when printing a subclass of str and __str__ returned self.
4578
- Fixed an invalid RuntimeWarning and an undetected error when trying
4579
to convert a long integer into a float which couldn't fit.
4582
- Function objects now have a __module__ attribute that is bound to
4583
the name of the module in which the function was defined. This
4584
applies for C functions and methods as well as functions and methods
4585
defined in Python. This attribute is used by pickle.whichmodule(),
4586
which changes the behavior of whichmodule slightly. In Python 2.2
4587
whichmodule() returns "__main__" for functions that are not defined
4588
at the top-level of a module (examples: methods, nested functions).
4589
Now whichmodule() will return the proper module name.
4594
- operator.isNumberType() now checks that the object has a nb_int or
4595
nb_float slot, rather than simply checking whether it has a non-NULL
4596
tp_as_number pointer.
4598
- The imp module now has ways to acquire and release the "import
4599
lock": imp.acquire_lock() and imp.release_lock(). Note: this is a
4600
reentrant lock, so releasing the lock only truly releases it when
4601
this is the last release_lock() call. You can check with
4602
imp.lock_held(). (SF bug #580952 and patch #683257.)
4604
- Change to cPickle to match pickle.py (see below and PEP 307).
4606
- Fix some bugs in the parser module. SF bug #678518.
4608
- Thanks to Scott David Daniels, a subtle bug in how the zlib
4609
extension implemented flush() was fixed. Scott also rewrote the
4610
zlib test suite using the unittest module. (SF bug #640230 and
4613
- Added an itertools module containing high speed, memory efficient
4614
looping constructs inspired by tools from Haskell and SML.
4616
- The SSL module now handles sockets with a timeout set correctly (SF
4617
patch #675750, fixing SF bug #675552).
4619
- os/posixmodule has grown the sysexits.h constants (EX_OK and friends).
4621
- Fixed broken threadstate swap in readline that could cause fatal
4622
errors when a readline hook was being invoked while a background
4623
thread was active. (SF bugs #660476 and #513033.)
4625
- fcntl now exposes the strops.h I_* constants.
4627
- Fix a crash on Solaris that occurred when calling close() on
4628
an mmap'ed file which was already closed. (SF patch #665913)
4630
- Fixed several serious bugs in the zipimport implementation.
4634
The date class is now properly subclassable. (SF bug #720908)
4636
The datetime and datetimetz classes have been collapsed into a single
4637
datetime class, and likewise the time and timetz classes into a single
4638
time class. Previously, a datetimetz object with tzinfo=None acted
4639
exactly like a datetime object, and similarly for timetz. This wasn't
4640
enough of a difference to justify distinct classes, and life is simpler
4643
today() and now() now round system timestamps to the closest
4644
microsecond <http://www.python.org/sf/661086>. This repairs an
4645
irritation most likely seen on Windows systems.
4647
In dt.astimezone(tz), if tz.utcoffset(dt) returns a duration,
4648
ValueError is raised if tz.dst(dt) returns None (2.3a1 treated it
4649
as 0 instead, but a tzinfo subclass wishing to participate in
4650
time zone conversion has to take a stand on whether it supports
4651
DST; if you don't care about DST, then code dst() to return 0 minutes,
4652
meaning that DST is never in effect).
4654
The tzinfo methods utcoffset() and dst() must return a timedelta object
4655
(or None) now. In 2.3a1 they could also return an int or long, but that
4656
was an unhelpfully redundant leftover from an earlier version wherein
4657
they couldn't return a timedelta. TOOWTDI.
4659
The example tzinfo class for local time had a bug. It was replaced
4660
by a later example coded by Guido.
4662
datetime.astimezone(tz) no longer raises an exception when the
4663
input datetime has no UTC equivalent in tz. For typical "hybrid" time
4664
zones (a single tzinfo subclass modeling both standard and daylight
4665
time), this case can arise one hour per year, at the hour daylight time
4666
ends. See new docs for details. In short, the new behavior mimics
4667
the local wall clock's behavior of repeating an hour in local time.
4669
dt.astimezone() can no longer be used to convert between naive and aware
4670
datetime objects. If you merely want to attach, or remove, a tzinfo
4671
object, without any conversion of date and time members, use
4672
dt.replace(tzinfo=whatever) instead, where "whatever" is None or a
4673
tzinfo subclass instance.
4675
A new method tzinfo.fromutc(dt) can be overridden in tzinfo subclasses
4676
to give complete control over how a UTC time is to be converted to
4677
a local time. The default astimezone() implementation calls fromutc()
4678
as its last step, so a tzinfo subclass can affect that too by overriding
4679
fromutc(). It's expected that the default fromutc() implementation will
4680
be suitable as-is for "almost all" time zone subclasses, but the
4681
creativity of political time zone fiddling appears unbounded -- fromutc()
4682
allows the highly motivated to emulate any scheme expressible in Python.
4684
datetime.now(): The optional tzinfo argument was undocumented (that's
4685
repaired), and its name was changed to tz ("tzinfo" is overloaded enough
4686
already). With a tz argument, now(tz) used to return the local date
4687
and time, and attach tz to it, without any conversion of date and time
4688
members. This was less than useful. Now now(tz) returns the current
4689
date and time as local time in tz's time zone, akin to ::
4691
tz.fromutc(datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=utc))
4693
where "utc" is an instance of a tzinfo subclass modeling UTC. Without
4694
a tz argument, now() continues to return the current local date and time,
4695
as a naive datetime object.
4697
datetime.fromtimestamp(): Like datetime.now() above, this had less than
4698
useful behavior when the optional tinzo argument was specified. See
4699
also SF bug report <http://www.python.org/sf/660872>.
4701
date and datetime comparison: In order to prevent comparison from
4702
falling back to the default compare-object-addresses strategy, these
4703
raised TypeError whenever they didn't understand the other object type.
4704
They still do, except when the other object has a "timetuple" attribute,
4705
in which case they return NotImplemented now. This gives other
4706
datetime objects (e.g., mxDateTime) a chance to intercept the
4709
date, time, datetime and timedelta comparison: When the exception
4710
for mixed-type comparisons in the last paragraph doesn't apply, if
4711
the comparison is == then False is returned, and if the comparison is
4712
!= then True is returned. Because dict lookup and the "in" operator
4713
only invoke __eq__, this allows, for example, ::
4715
if some_datetime in some_sequence:
4719
some_dict[some_timedelta] = whatever
4721
to work as expected, without raising TypeError just because the
4722
sequence is heterogeneous, or the dict has mixed-type keys. [This
4723
seems like a good idea to implement for all mixed-type comparisons
4724
that don't want to allow falling back to address comparison.]
4726
The constructors building a datetime from a timestamp could raise
4727
ValueError if the platform C localtime()/gmtime() inserted "leap
4728
seconds". Leap seconds are ignored now. On such platforms, it's
4729
possible to have timestamps that differ by a second, yet where
4730
datetimes constructed from them are equal.
4732
The pickle format of date, time and datetime objects has changed
4733
completely. The undocumented pickler and unpickler functions no
4734
longer exist. The undocumented __setstate__() and __getstate__()
4735
methods no longer exist either.
4740
- The logging module was updated slightly; the WARN level was renamed
4741
to WARNING, and the matching function/method warn() to warning().
4743
- The pickle and cPickle modules were updated with a new pickling
4744
protocol (documented by pickletools.py, see below) and several
4745
extensions to the pickle customization API (__reduce__, __setstate__
4746
etc.). The copy module now uses more of the pickle customization
4747
API to copy objects that don't implement __copy__ or __deepcopy__.
4748
See PEP 307 for details.
4750
- The distutils "register" command now uses http://www.python.org/pypi
4751
as the default repository. (See PEP 301.)
4753
- the platform dependent path related variables sep, altsep, extsep,
4754
pathsep, curdir, pardir and defpath are now defined in the platform
4755
dependent path modules (e.g. ntpath.py) rather than os.py, so these
4756
variables are now available via os.path. They continue to be
4757
available from the os module.
4758
(see <http://www.python.org/sf/680789>).
4760
- array.array was added to the types repr.py knows about (see
4761
<http://www.python.org/sf/680789>).
4763
- The new pickletools.py contains lots of documentation about pickle
4764
internals, and supplies some helpers for working with pickles, such as
4765
a symbolic pickle disassembler.
4767
- Xmlrpclib.py now supports the builtin boolean type.
4769
- py_compile has a new 'doraise' flag and a new PyCompileError
4772
- SimpleXMLRPCServer now supports CGI through the CGIXMLRPCRequestHandler
4775
- The sets module now raises TypeError in __cmp__, to clarify that
4776
sets are not intended to be three-way-compared; the comparison
4777
operators are overloaded as subset/superset tests.
4779
- Bastion.py and rexec.py are disabled. These modules are not safe in
4782
- realpath is now exported when doing ``from poxixpath import *``.
4783
It is also exported for ntpath, macpath, and os2emxpath.
4786
- New module tarfile from Lars GustƤbel provides a comprehensive interface
4787
to tar archive files with transparent gzip and bzip2 compression.
4788
See SF patch #651082.
4790
- urlparse can now parse imap:// URLs. See SF feature request #618024.
4792
- Tkinter.Canvas.scan_dragto() provides an optional parameter to support
4793
the gain value which is passed to Tk. SF bug# 602259.
4795
- Fix logging.handlers.SysLogHandler protocol when using UNIX domain sockets.
4796
See SF patch #642974.
4798
- The dospath module was deleted. Use the ntpath module when manipulating
4799
DOS paths from other platforms.
4804
- Two new scripts (db2pickle.py and pickle2db.py) were added to the
4805
Tools/scripts directory to facilitate conversion from the old bsddb module
4806
to the new one. While the user-visible API of the new module is
4807
compatible with the old one, it's likely that the version of the
4808
underlying database library has changed. To convert from the old library,
4809
run the db2pickle.py script using the old version of Python to convert it
4810
to a pickle file. After upgrading Python, run the pickle2db.py script
4811
using the new version of Python to reconstitute your database. For
4814
% python2.2 db2pickle.py -h some.db > some.pickle
4815
% python2.3 pickle2db.py -h some.db.new < some.pickle
4817
Run the scripts without any args to get a usage message.
4823
- The audio driver tests (test_ossaudiodev.py and
4824
test_linuxaudiodev.py) are no longer run by default. This is
4825
because they don't always work, depending on your hardware and
4826
software. To run these tests, you must use an invocation like ::
4828
./python Lib/test/regrtest.py -u audio test_ossaudiodev
4830
- On systems which build using the configure script, compiler flags which
4831
used to be lumped together using the OPT flag have been split into two
4832
groups, OPT and BASECFLAGS. OPT is meant to carry just optimization- and
4833
debug-related flags like "-g" and "-O3". BASECFLAGS is meant to carry
4834
compiler flags that are required to get a clean compile. On some
4835
platforms (many Linux flavors in particular) BASECFLAGS will be empty by
4836
default. On others, such as Mac OS X and SCO, it will contain required
4837
flags. This change allows people building Python to override OPT without
4838
fear of clobbering compiler flags which are required to get a clean build.
4840
- On Darwin/Mac OS X platforms, /sw/lib and /sw/include are added to the
4841
relevant search lists in setup.py. This allows users building Python to
4842
take advantage of the many packages available from the fink project
4843
<http://fink.sf.net/>.
4845
- A new Makefile target, scriptsinstall, installs a number of useful scripts
4846
from the Tools/scripts directory.
4851
- PyEval_GetFrame() is now declared to return a ``PyFrameObject *``
4852
instead of a plain ``PyObject *``. (SF patch #686601.)
4854
- PyNumber_Check() now checks that the object has a nb_int or nb_float
4855
slot, rather than simply checking whether it has a non-NULL
4856
tp_as_number pointer.
4858
- A C type that inherits from a base type that defines tp_as_buffer
4859
will now inherit the tp_as_buffer pointer if it doesn't define one.
4862
- The PyArg_Parse functions now issue a DeprecationWarning if a float
4863
argument is provided when an integer is specified (this affects the 'b',
4864
'B', 'h', 'H', 'i', and 'l' codes). Future versions of Python will
4870
- Several tests weren't being run from regrtest.py (test_timeout.py,
4871
test_tarfile.py, test_netrc.py, test_multifile.py,
4872
test_importhooks.py and test_imp.py). Now they are. (Note to
4873
developers: please read Lib/test/README when creating a new test, to
4874
make sure to do it right! All tests need to use either unittest or
4877
- Added test_posix.py, a test suite for the posix module.
4879
- Added test_hexoct.py, a test suite for hex/oct constant folding.
4884
- The timeout code for socket connect() didn't work right; this has
4885
now been fixed. test_timeout.py should pass (at least most of the
4888
- distutils' msvccompiler class now passes the preprocessor options to
4889
the resource compiler. See SF patch #669198.
4891
- The bsddb module now ships with Sleepycat's 4.1.25.NC, the latest
4892
release without strong cryptography.
4894
- sys.path[0], if it contains a directory name, is now always an
4895
absolute pathname. (SF patch #664376.)
4897
- The new logging package is now installed by the Windows installer. It
4898
wasn't in 2.3a1 due to oversight.
4903
- There are new dialogs EasyDialogs.AskFileForOpen, AskFileForSave
4904
and AskFolder. The old macfs.StandardGetFile and friends are deprecated.
4906
- Most of the standard library now uses pathnames or FSRefs in preference
4907
of FSSpecs, and use the underlying Carbon.File and Carbon.Folder modules
4908
in stead of macfs. macfs will probably be deprecated in the future.
4910
- Type Carbon.File.FSCatalogInfo and supporting methods have been implemented.
4911
This also makes macfs.FSSpec.SetDates() work again.
4913
- There is a new module pimp, the package install manager for Python, and
4914
accompanying applet PackageManager. These allow you to easily download
4915
and install pretested extension packages either in source or binary
4916
form. Only in MacPython-OSX.
4918
- Applets are now built with bundlebuilder in MacPython-OSX, which should make
4919
them more robust and also provides a path towards BuildApplication. The
4920
downside of this change is that applets can no longer be run from the
4921
Terminal window, this will hopefully be fixed in the 2.3b1.
4924
What's New in Python 2.3 alpha 1?
4925
=================================
4927
*Release date: 31-Dec-2002*
4929
Type/class unification and new-style classes
4930
--------------------------------------------
4932
- One can now assign to __bases__ and __name__ of new-style classes.
4934
- dict() now accepts keyword arguments so that dict(one=1, two=2)
4935
is the equivalent of {"one": 1, "two": 2}. Accordingly,
4936
the existing (but undocumented) 'items' keyword argument has
4937
been eliminated. This means that dict(items=someMapping) now has
4938
a different meaning than before.
4940
- int() now returns a long object if the argument is outside the
4941
integer range, so int("4" * 1000), int(1e200) and int(1L<<1000) will
4942
all return long objects instead of raising an OverflowError.
4944
- Assignment to __class__ is disallowed if either the old or the new
4945
class is a statically allocated type object (such as defined by an
4946
extension module). This prevents anomalies like 2.__class__ = bool.
4948
- New-style object creation and deallocation have been sped up
4949
significantly; they are now faster than classic instance creation
4952
- The __slots__ variable can now mention "private" names, and the
4953
right thing will happen (e.g. __slots__ = ["__foo"]).
4955
- The built-ins slice() and buffer() are now callable types. The
4956
types classobj (formerly class), code, function, instance, and
4957
instancemethod (formerly instance-method), which have no built-in
4958
names but are accessible through the types module, are now also
4959
callable. The type dict-proxy is renamed to dictproxy.
4961
- Cycles going through the __class__ link of a new-style instance are
4962
now detected by the garbage collector.
4964
- Classes using __slots__ are now properly garbage collected.
4967
- Tightened the __slots__ rules: a slot name must be a valid Python
4970
- The constructor for the module type now requires a name argument and
4971
takes an optional docstring argument. Previously, this constructor
4972
ignored its arguments. As a consequence, deriving a class from a
4973
module (not from the module type) is now illegal; previously this
4974
created an unnamed module, just like invoking the module type did.
4977
- A new type object, 'basestring', is added. This is a common base type
4978
for 'str' and 'unicode', and can be used instead of
4979
types.StringTypes, e.g. to test whether something is "a string":
4980
isinstance(x, basestring) is True for Unicode and 8-bit strings. This
4981
is an abstract base class and cannot be instantiated directly.
4983
- Changed new-style class instantiation so that when C's __new__
4984
method returns something that's not a C instance, its __init__ is
4985
not called. [SF bug #537450]
4987
- Fixed super() to work correctly with class methods. [SF bug #535444]
4989
- If you try to pickle an instance of a class that has __slots__ but
4990
doesn't define or override __getstate__, a TypeError is now raised.
4991
This is done by adding a bozo __getstate__ to the class that always
4992
raises TypeError. (Before, this would appear to be pickled, but the
4993
state of the slots would be lost.)
4998
- Import from zipfiles is now supported. The name of a zipfile placed
4999
on sys.path causes the import statement to look for importable Python
5000
modules (with .py, pyc and .pyo extensions) and packages inside the
5001
zipfile. The zipfile import follows the specification (though not
5002
the sample implementation) of PEP 273. The semantics of __path__ are
5003
compatible with those that have been implemented in Jython since
5006
- PEP 302 has been accepted. Although it was initially developed to
5007
support zipimport, it offers a new, general import hook mechanism.
5008
Several new variables have been added to the sys module:
5009
sys.meta_path, sys.path_hooks, and sys.path_importer_cache; these
5010
make extending the import statement much more convenient than
5011
overriding the __import__ built-in function. For a description of
5014
- A frame object's f_lineno attribute can now be written to from a
5015
trace function to change which line will execute next. A command to
5016
exploit this from pdb has been added. [SF patch #643835]
5018
- The _codecs support module for codecs.py was turned into a builtin
5019
module to assure that at least the builtin codecs are available
5020
to the Python parser for source code decoding according to PEP 263.
5022
- issubclass now supports a tuple as the second argument, just like
5023
isinstance does. ``issubclass(X, (A, B))`` is equivalent to
5024
``issubclass(X, A) or issubclass(X, B)``.
5026
- Thanks to Armin Rigo, the last known way to provoke a system crash
5027
by cleverly arranging for a comparison function to mutate a list
5028
during a list.sort() operation has been fixed. The effect of
5029
attempting to mutate a list, or even to inspect its contents or
5030
length, while a sort is in progress, is not defined by the language.
5031
The C implementation of Python 2.3 attempts to detect mutations,
5032
and raise ValueError if one occurs, but there's no guarantee that
5033
all mutations will be caught, or that any will be caught across
5034
releases or implementations.
5036
- Unicode file name processing for Windows (PEP 277) is implemented.
5037
All platforms now have an os.path.supports_unicode_filenames attribute,
5038
which is set to True on Windows NT/2000/XP, and False elsewhere.
5040
- Codec error handling callbacks (PEP 293) are implemented.
5041
Error handling in unicode.encode or str.decode can now be customized.
5043
- A subtle change to the semantics of the built-in function intern():
5044
interned strings are no longer immortal. You must keep a reference
5045
to the return value intern() around to get the benefit.
5047
- Use of 'None' as a variable, argument or attribute name now
5048
issues a SyntaxWarning. In the future, None may become a keyword.
5050
- SET_LINENO is gone. co_lnotab is now consulted to determine when to
5051
call the trace function. C code that accessed f_lineno should call
5052
PyCode_Addr2Line instead (f_lineno is still there, but only kept up
5053
to date when there is a trace function set).
5055
- There's a new warning category, FutureWarning. This is used to warn
5056
about a number of situations where the value or sign of an integer
5057
result will change in Python 2.4 as a result of PEP 237 (integer
5058
unification). The warnings implement stage B0 mentioned in that
5059
PEP. The warnings are about the following situations:
5061
- Octal and hex literals without 'L' prefix in the inclusive range
5062
[0x80000000..0xffffffff]; these are currently negative ints, but
5063
in Python 2.4 they will be positive longs with the same bit
5066
- Left shifts on integer values that cause the outcome to lose
5067
bits or have a different sign than the left operand. To be
5068
precise: x<<n where this currently doesn't yield the same value
5069
as long(x)<<n; in Python 2.4, the outcome will be long(x)<<n.
5071
- Conversions from ints to string that show negative values as
5072
unsigned ints in the inclusive range [0x80000000..0xffffffff];
5073
this affects the functions hex() and oct(), and the string
5074
formatting codes %u, %o, %x, and %X. In Python 2.4, these will
5075
show signed values (e.g. hex(-1) currently returns "0xffffffff";
5076
in Python 2.4 it will return "-0x1").
5078
- The bits manipulated under the cover by sys.setcheckinterval() have
5079
been changed. Both the check interval and the ticker used to be
5080
per-thread values. They are now just a pair of global variables.
5081
In addition, the default check interval was boosted from 10 to 100
5082
bytecode instructions. This may have some effect on systems that
5083
relied on the old default value. In particular, in multi-threaded
5084
applications which try to be highly responsive, response time will
5085
increase by some (perhaps imperceptible) amount.
5087
- When multiplying very large integers, a version of the so-called
5088
Karatsuba algorithm is now used. This is most effective if the
5089
inputs have roughly the same size. If they both have about N digits,
5090
Karatsuba multiplication has O(N**1.58) runtime (the exponent is
5091
log_base_2(3)) instead of the previous O(N**2). Measured results may
5092
be better or worse than that, depending on platform quirks. Besides
5093
the O() improvement in raw instruction count, the Karatsuba algorithm
5094
appears to have much better cache behavior on extremely large integers
5095
(starting in the ballpark of a million bits). Note that this is a
5096
simple implementation, and there's no intent here to compete with,
5097
e.g., GMP. It gives a very nice speedup when it applies, but a package
5098
devoted to fast large-integer arithmetic should run circles around it.
5100
- u'%c' will now raise a ValueError in case the argument is an
5101
integer outside the valid range of Unicode code point ordinals.
5103
- The tempfile module has been overhauled for enhanced security. The
5104
mktemp() function is now deprecated; new, safe replacements are
5105
mkstemp() (for files) and mkdtemp() (for directories), and the
5106
higher-level functions NamedTemporaryFile() and TemporaryFile().
5107
Use of some global variables in this module is also deprecated; the
5108
new functions have keyword arguments to provide the same
5109
functionality. All Lib, Tools and Demo modules that used the unsafe
5110
interfaces have been updated to use the safe replacements. Thanks
5113
- When x is an object whose class implements __mul__ and __rmul__,
5114
1.0*x would correctly invoke __rmul__, but 1*x would erroneously
5115
invoke __mul__. This was due to the sequence-repeat code in the int
5116
type. This has been fixed now.
5118
- Previously, "str1 in str2" required str1 to be a string of length 1.
5119
This restriction has been relaxed to allow str1 to be a string of
5120
any length. Thus "'el' in 'hello world'" returns True now.
5122
- File objects are now their own iterators. For a file f, iter(f) now
5123
returns f (unless f is closed), and f.next() is similar to
5124
f.readline() when EOF is not reached; however, f.next() uses a
5125
readahead buffer that messes up the file position, so mixing
5126
f.next() and f.readline() (or other methods) doesn't work right.
5127
Calling f.seek() drops the readahead buffer, but other operations
5128
don't. It so happens that this gives a nice additional speed boost
5129
to "for line in file:"; the xreadlines method and corresponding
5130
module are now obsolete. Thanks to Oren Tirosh!
5132
- Encoding declarations (PEP 263, phase 1) have been implemented. A
5133
comment of the form "# -*- coding: <encodingname> -*-" in the first
5134
or second line of a Python source file indicates the encoding.
5136
- list.sort() has a new implementation. While cross-platform results
5137
may vary, and in data-dependent ways, this is much faster on many
5138
kinds of partially ordered lists than the previous implementation,
5139
and reported to be just as fast on randomly ordered lists on
5140
several major platforms. This sort is also stable (if A==B and A
5141
precedes B in the list at the start, A precedes B after the sort too),
5142
although the language definition does not guarantee stability. A
5143
potential drawback is that list.sort() may require temp space of
5144
len(list)*2 bytes (``*4`` on a 64-bit machine). It's therefore possible
5145
for list.sort() to raise MemoryError now, even if a comparison function
5146
does not. See <http://www.python.org/sf/587076> for full details.
5148
- All standard iterators now ensure that, once StopIteration has been
5149
raised, all future calls to next() on the same iterator will also
5150
raise StopIteration. There used to be various counterexamples to
5151
this behavior, which could caused confusion or subtle program
5152
breakage, without any benefits. (Note that this is still an
5153
iterator's responsibility; the iterator framework does not enforce
5156
- Ctrl+C handling on Windows has been made more consistent with
5157
other platforms. KeyboardInterrupt can now reliably be caught,
5158
and Ctrl+C at an interactive prompt no longer terminates the
5159
process under NT/2k/XP (it never did under Win9x). Ctrl+C will
5160
interrupt time.sleep() in the main thread, and any child processes
5161
created via the popen family (on win2k; we can't make win9x work
5162
reliably) are also interrupted (as generally happens on for Linux/Unix.)
5163
[SF bugs 231273, 439992 and 581232]
5165
- sys.getwindowsversion() has been added on Windows. This
5166
returns a tuple with information about the version of Windows
5169
- Slices and repetitions of buffer objects now consistently return
5170
a string. Formerly, strings would be returned most of the time,
5171
but a buffer object would be returned when the repetition count
5172
was one or when the slice range was all inclusive.
5174
- Unicode objects in sys.path are no longer ignored but treated
5177
- Fixed string.startswith and string.endswith builtin methods
5178
so they accept negative indices. [SF bug 493951]
5180
- Fixed a bug with a continue inside a try block and a yield in the
5181
finally clause. [SF bug 567538]
5183
- Most builtin sequences now support "extended slices", i.e. slices
5184
with a third "stride" parameter. For example, "hello world"[::-1]
5185
gives "dlrow olleh".
5187
- A new warning PendingDeprecationWarning was added to provide
5188
direction on features which are in the process of being deprecated.
5189
The warning will not be printed by default. To see the pending
5190
deprecations, use -Walways::PendingDeprecationWarning::
5191
as a command line option or warnings.filterwarnings() in code.
5193
- Deprecated features of xrange objects have been removed as
5194
promised. The start, stop, and step attributes and the tolist()
5195
method no longer exist. xrange repetition and slicing have been
5198
- New builtin function enumerate(x), from PEP 279. Example:
5199
enumerate("abc") is an iterator returning (0,"a"), (1,"b"), (2,"c").
5200
The argument can be an arbitrary iterable object.
5202
- The assert statement no longer tests __debug__ at runtime. This means
5203
that assert statements cannot be disabled by assigning a false value
5206
- A method zfill() was added to str and unicode, that fills a numeric
5207
string to the left with zeros. For example,
5208
"+123".zfill(6) -> "+00123".
5210
- Complex numbers supported divmod() and the // and % operators, but
5211
these make no sense. Since this was documented, they're being
5214
- String and unicode methods lstrip(), rstrip() and strip() now take
5215
an optional argument that specifies the characters to strip. For
5216
example, "Foo!!!?!?!?".rstrip("?!") -> "Foo".
5218
- There's a new dictionary constructor (a class method of the dict
5219
class), dict.fromkeys(iterable, value=None). It constructs a
5220
dictionary with keys taken from the iterable and all values set to a
5221
single value. It can be used for building sets and for removing
5222
duplicates from sequences.
5224
- Added a new dict method pop(key). This removes and returns the
5225
value corresponding to key. [SF patch #539949]
5227
- A new built-in type, bool, has been added, as well as built-in
5228
names for its two values, True and False. Comparisons and sundry
5229
other operations that return a truth value have been changed to
5230
return a bool instead. Read PEP 285 for an explanation of why this
5231
is backward compatible.
5233
- Fixed two bugs reported as SF #535905: under certain conditions,
5234
deallocating a deeply nested structure could cause a segfault in the
5235
garbage collector, due to interaction with the "trashcan" code;
5236
access to the current frame during destruction of a local variable
5237
could access a pointer to freed memory.
5239
- The optional object allocator ("pymalloc") has been enabled by
5240
default. The recommended practice for memory allocation and
5241
deallocation has been streamlined. A header file is included,
5242
Misc/pymemcompat.h, which can be bundled with 3rd party extensions
5243
and lets them use the same API with Python versions from 1.5.2
5246
- PyErr_Display will provide file and line information for all exceptions
5247
that have an attribute print_file_and_line, not just SyntaxErrors.
5249
- The UTF-8 codec will now encode and decode Unicode surrogates
5250
correctly and without raising exceptions for unpaired ones.
5252
- Universal newlines (PEP 278) is implemented. Briefly, using 'U'
5253
instead of 'r' when opening a text file for reading changes the line
5254
ending convention so that any of '\r', '\r\n', and '\n' is
5255
recognized (even mixed in one file); all three are converted to
5256
'\n', the standard Python line end character.
5258
- file.xreadlines() now raises a ValueError if the file is closed:
5259
Previously, an xreadlines object was returned which would raise
5260
a ValueError when the xreadlines.next() method was called.
5262
- sys.exit() inadvertently allowed more than one argument.
5263
An exception will now be raised if more than one argument is used.
5265
- Changed evaluation order of dictionary literals to conform to the
5266
general left to right evaluation order rule. Now {f1(): f2()} will
5269
- Fixed bug #521782: when a file was in non-blocking mode, file.read()
5270
could silently lose data or wrongly throw an unknown error.
5272
- The sq_repeat, sq_inplace_repeat, sq_concat and sq_inplace_concat
5273
slots are now always tried after trying the corresponding nb_* slots.
5274
This fixes a number of minor bugs (see bug #624807).
5276
- Fix problem with dynamic loading on 64-bit AIX (see bug #639945).
5281
- Added three operators to the operator module:
5282
operator.pow(a,b) which is equivalent to: a**b.
5283
operator.is_(a,b) which is equivalent to: a is b.
5284
operator.is_not(a,b) which is equivalent to: a is not b.
5286
- posix.openpty now works on all systems that have /dev/ptmx.
5288
- A module zipimport exists to support importing code from zip
5291
- The new datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and
5292
times. The basic design came from the Zope "fishbowl process", and
5293
favors practical commercial applications over calendar esoterica. See
5295
http://www.zope.org/Members/fdrake/DateTimeWiki/FrontPage
5297
- _tkinter now returns Tcl objects, instead of strings. Objects which
5298
have Python equivalents are converted to Python objects, other objects
5299
are wrapped. This can be configured through the wantobjects method,
5300
or Tkinter.wantobjects.
5302
- The PyBSDDB wrapper around the Sleepycat Berkeley DB library has
5303
been added as the package bsddb. The traditional bsddb module is
5304
still available in source code, but not built automatically anymore,
5305
and is now named bsddb185. This supports Berkeley DB versions from
5306
3.0 to 4.1. For help converting your databases from the old module (which
5307
probably used an obsolete version of Berkeley DB) to the new module, see
5308
the db2pickle.py and pickle2db.py scripts described in the Tools/Demos
5311
- unicodedata was updated to Unicode 3.2. It supports normalization
5312
and names for Hangul syllables and CJK unified ideographs.
5314
- resource.getrlimit() now returns longs instead of ints.
5316
- readline now dynamically adjusts its input/output stream if
5317
sys.stdin/stdout changes.
5319
- The _tkinter module (and hence Tkinter) has dropped support for
5320
Tcl/Tk 8.0 and 8.1. Only Tcl/Tk versions 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 are
5323
- cPickle.BadPickleGet is now a class.
5325
- The time stamps in os.stat_result are floating point numbers
5326
after stat_float_times has been called.
5328
- If the size passed to mmap.mmap() is larger than the length of the
5329
file on non-Windows platforms, a ValueError is raised. [SF bug 585792]
5331
- The xreadlines module is slated for obsolescence.
5333
- The strptime function in the time module is now always available (a
5334
Python implementation is used when the C library doesn't define it).
5336
- The 'new' module is no longer an extension, but a Python module that
5337
only exists for backwards compatibility. Its contents are no longer
5338
functions but callable type objects.
5340
- The bsddb.*open functions can now take 'None' as a filename.
5341
This will create a temporary in-memory bsddb that won't be
5344
- posix.getloadavg, posix.lchown, posix.killpg, posix.mknod, and
5345
posix.getpgid have been added where available.
5347
- The locale module now exposes the C library's gettext interface. It
5348
also has a new function getpreferredencoding.
5350
- A security hole ("double free") was found in zlib-1.1.3, a popular
5351
third party compression library used by some Python modules. The
5352
hole was quickly plugged in zlib-1.1.4, and the Windows build of
5353
Python now ships with zlib-1.1.4.
5355
- pwd, grp, and resource return enhanced tuples now, with symbolic
5358
- array.array is now a type object. A new format character
5359
'u' indicates Py_UNICODE arrays. For those, .tounicode and
5360
.fromunicode methods are available. Arrays now support __iadd__
5363
- dl now builds on every system that has dlfcn.h. Failure in case
5364
of sizeof(int)!=sizeof(long)!=sizeof(void*) is delayed until dl.open
5367
- The sys module acquired a new attribute, api_version, which evaluates
5368
to the value of the PYTHON_API_VERSION macro with which the
5369
interpreter was compiled.
5371
- Fixed bug #470582: sre module would return a tuple (None, 'a', 'ab')
5372
when applying the regular expression '^((a)c)?(ab)$' on 'ab'. It now
5373
returns (None, None, 'ab'), as expected. Also fixed handling of
5374
lastindex/lastgroup match attributes in similar cases. For example,
5375
when running the expression r'(a)(b)?b' over 'ab', lastindex must be
5378
- Fixed bug #581080: sre scanner was not checking the buffer limit
5379
before increasing the current pointer. This was creating an infinite
5380
loop in the search function, once the pointer exceeded the buffer
5383
- The os.fdopen function now enforces a file mode starting with the
5384
letter 'r', 'w' or 'a', otherwise a ValueError is raised. This fixes
5387
- The linuxaudiodev module is now deprecated; it is being replaced by
5388
ossaudiodev. The interface has been extended to cover a lot more of
5389
OSS (see www.opensound.com), including most DSP ioctls and the
5390
OSS mixer API. Documentation forthcoming in 2.3a2.
5395
- imaplib.py now supports SSL (Tino Lange and Piers Lauder).
5397
- Freeze's modulefinder.py has been moved to the standard library;
5398
slightly improved so it will issue less false missing submodule
5399
reports (see sf path #643711 for details). Documentation will follow
5402
- os.path exposes getctime.
5404
- unittest.py now has two additional methods called assertAlmostEqual()
5405
and failIfAlmostEqual(). They implement an approximate comparison
5406
by rounding the difference between the two arguments and comparing
5407
the result to zero. Approximate comparison is essential for
5408
unit tests of floating point results.
5410
- calendar.py now depends on the new datetime module rather than
5411
the time module. As a result, the range of allowable dates
5414
- pdb has a new 'j(ump)' command to select the next line to be
5417
- The distutils created windows installers now can run a
5418
postinstallation script.
5420
- doctest.testmod can now be called without argument, which means to
5421
test the current module.
5423
- When canceling a server that implemented threading with a keyboard
5424
interrupt, the server would shut down but not terminate (waiting on
5425
client threads). A new member variable, daemon_threads, was added to
5426
the ThreadingMixIn class in SocketServer.py to make it explicit that
5427
this behavior needs to be controlled.
5429
- A new module, optparse, provides a fancy alternative to getopt for
5430
command line parsing. It is a slightly modified version of Greg
5431
Ward's Optik package.
5433
- UserDict.py now defines a DictMixin class which defines all dictionary
5434
methods for classes that already have a minimum mapping interface.
5435
This greatly simplifies writing classes that need to be substitutable
5436
for dictionaries (such as the shelve module).
5438
- shelve.py now subclasses from UserDict.DictMixin. Now shelve supports
5439
all dictionary methods. This eases the transition to persistent
5440
storage for scripts originally written with dictionaries in mind.
5442
- shelve.open and the various classes in shelve.py now accept an optional
5443
binary flag, which defaults to False. If True, the values stored in the
5444
shelf are binary pickles.
5446
- A new package, logging, implements the logging API defined by PEP
5447
282. The code is written by Vinay Sajip.
5449
- StreamReader, StreamReaderWriter and StreamRecoder in the codecs
5450
modules are iterators now.
5452
- gzip.py now handles files exceeding 2GB. Files over 4GB also work
5453
now (provided the OS supports it, and Python is configured with large
5454
file support), but in that case the underlying gzip file format can
5455
record only the least-significant 32 bits of the file size, so that
5456
some tools working with gzipped files may report an incorrect file
5459
- xml.sax.saxutils.unescape has been added, to replace entity references
5460
with their entity value.
5462
- Queue.Queue.{put,get} now support an optional timeout argument.
5464
- Various features of Tk 8.4 are exposed in Tkinter.py. The multiple
5465
option of tkFileDialog is exposed as function askopenfile{,name}s.
5467
- Various configure methods of Tkinter have been stream-lined, so that
5468
tag_configure, image_configure, window_configure now return a
5469
dictionary when invoked with no argument.
5471
- Importing the readline module now no longer has the side effect of
5472
calling setlocale(LC_CTYPE, ""). The initial "C" locale, or
5473
whatever locale is explicitly set by the user, is preserved. If you
5474
want repr() of 8-bit strings in your preferred encoding to preserve
5475
all printable characters of that encoding, you have to add the
5476
following code to your $PYTHONSTARTUP file or to your application's
5480
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_CTYPE, "")
5482
- shutil.move was added. shutil.copytree now reports errors as an
5483
exception at the end, instead of printing error messages.
5485
- Encoding name normalization was generalized to not only
5486
replace hyphens with underscores, but also all other non-alphanumeric
5487
characters (with the exception of the dot which is used for Python
5488
package names during lookup). The aliases.py mapping was updated
5489
to the new standard.
5491
- mimetypes has two new functions: guess_all_extensions() which
5492
returns a list of all known extensions for a mime type, and
5493
add_type() which adds one mapping between a mime type and
5494
an extension to the database.
5496
- New module: sets, defines the class Set that implements a mutable
5497
set type using the keys of a dict to represent the set. There's
5498
also a class ImmutableSet which is useful when you need sets of sets
5499
or when you need to use sets as dict keys, and a class BaseSet which
5500
is the base class of the two.
5502
- Added random.sample(population,k) for random sampling without replacement.
5503
Returns a k length list of unique elements chosen from the population.
5505
- random.randrange(-sys.maxint-1, sys.maxint) no longer raises
5506
OverflowError. That is, it now accepts any combination of 'start'
5507
and 'stop' arguments so long as each is in the range of Python's
5510
- Thanks to Raymond Hettinger, random.random() now uses a new core
5511
generator. The Mersenne Twister algorithm is implemented in C,
5512
threadsafe, faster than the previous generator, has an astronomically
5513
large period (2**19937-1), creates random floats to full 53-bit
5514
precision, and may be the most widely tested random number generator
5517
The random.jumpahead(n) method has different semantics for the new
5518
generator. Instead of jumping n steps ahead, it uses n and the
5519
existing state to create a new state. This means that jumpahead()
5520
continues to support multi-threaded code needing generators of
5521
non-overlapping sequences. However, it will break code which relies
5522
on jumpahead moving a specific number of steps forward.
5524
The attributes random.whseed and random.__whseed have no meaning for
5525
the new generator. Code using these attributes should switch to a
5526
new class, random.WichmannHill which is provided for backward
5527
compatibility and to make an alternate generator available.
5529
- New "algorithms" module: heapq, implements a heap queue. Thanks to
5530
Kevin O'Connor for the code and FranƧois Pinard for an entertaining
5531
write-up explaining the theory and practical uses of heaps.
5533
- New encoding for the Palm OS character set: palmos.
5535
- binascii.crc32() and the zipfile module had problems on some 64-bit
5536
platforms. These have been fixed. On a platform with 8-byte C longs,
5537
crc32() now returns a signed-extended 4-byte result, so that its value
5538
as a Python int is equal to the value computed a 32-bit platform.
5540
- xml.dom.minidom.toxml and toprettyxml now take an optional encoding
5543
- Some fixes in the copy module: when an object is copied through its
5544
__reduce__ method, there was no check for a __setstate__ method on
5545
the result [SF patch 565085]; deepcopy should treat instances of
5546
custom metaclasses the same way it treats instances of type 'type'
5549
- Sockets now support timeout mode. After s.settimeout(T), where T is
5550
a float expressing seconds, subsequent operations raise an exception
5551
if they cannot be completed within T seconds. To disable timeout
5552
mode, use s.settimeout(None). There's also a module function,
5553
socket.setdefaulttimeout(T), which sets the default for all sockets
5556
- getopt.gnu_getopt was added. This supports GNU-style option
5557
processing, where options can be mixed with non-option arguments.
5559
- Stop using strings for exceptions. String objects used for
5560
exceptions are now classes deriving from Exception. The objects
5561
changed were: Tkinter.TclError, bdb.BdbQuit, macpath.norm_error,
5562
tabnanny.NannyNag, and xdrlib.Error.
5564
- Constants BOM_UTF8, BOM_UTF16, BOM_UTF16_LE, BOM_UTF16_BE,
5565
BOM_UTF32, BOM_UTF32_LE and BOM_UTF32_BE that represent the Byte
5566
Order Mark in UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 encodings for little and
5567
big endian systems were added to the codecs module. The old names
5568
BOM32_* and BOM64_* were off by a factor of 2.
5570
- Added conversion functions math.degrees() and math.radians().
5572
- math.log() now takes an optional argument: math.log(x[, base]).
5574
- ftplib.retrlines() now tests for callback is None rather than testing
5575
for False. Was causing an error when given a callback object which
5576
was callable but also returned len() as zero. The change may
5577
create new breakage if the caller relied on the undocumented behavior
5578
and called with callback set to [] or some other False value not
5581
- random.gauss() uses a piece of hidden state used by nothing else,
5582
and the .seed() and .whseed() methods failed to reset it. In other
5583
words, setting the seed didn't completely determine the sequence of
5584
results produced by random.gauss(). It does now. Programs repeatedly
5585
mixing calls to a seed method with calls to gauss() may see different
5588
- The pickle.Pickler class grew a clear_memo() method to mimic that
5589
provided by cPickle.Pickler.
5591
- difflib's SequenceMatcher class now does a dynamic analysis of
5592
which elements are so frequent as to constitute noise. For
5593
comparing files as sequences of lines, this generally works better
5594
than the IS_LINE_JUNK function, and function ndiff's linejunk
5595
argument defaults to None now as a result. A happy benefit is
5596
that SequenceMatcher may run much faster now when applied
5597
to large files with many duplicate lines (for example, C program
5598
text with lots of repeated "}" and "return NULL;" lines).
5600
- New Text.dump() method in Tkinter module.
5602
- New distutils commands for building packagers were added to
5603
support pkgtool on Solaris and swinstall on HP-UX.
5605
- distutils now has a new abstract binary packager base class
5606
command/bdist_packager, which simplifies writing packagers.
5607
This will hopefully provide the missing bits to encourage
5608
people to submit more packagers, e.g. for Debian, FreeBSD
5611
- The UTF-16, -LE and -BE stream readers now raise a
5612
NotImplementedError for all calls to .readline(). Previously, they
5613
used to just produce garbage or fail with an encoding error --
5614
UTF-16 is a 2-byte encoding and the C lib's line reading APIs don't
5615
work well with these.
5617
- compileall now supports quiet operation.
5619
- The BaseHTTPServer now implements optional HTTP/1.1 persistent
5622
- socket module: the SSL support was broken out of the main
5623
_socket module C helper and placed into a new _ssl helper
5624
which now gets imported by socket.py if available and working.
5626
- encodings package: added aliases for all supported IANA character
5629
- ftplib: to safeguard the user's privacy, anonymous login will use
5630
"anonymous@" as default password, rather than the real user and host
5633
- webbrowser: tightened up the command passed to os.system() so that
5634
arbitrary shell code can't be executed because a bogus URL was
5637
- gettext.translation has an optional fallback argument, and
5638
gettext.find an optional all argument. Translations will now fallback
5639
on a per-message basis. The module supports plural forms, by means
5640
of gettext.[d]ngettext and Translation.[u]ngettext.
5642
- distutils bdist commands now offer a --skip-build option.
5644
- warnings.warn now accepts a Warning instance as first argument.
5646
- The xml.sax.expatreader.ExpatParser class will no longer create
5647
circular references by using itself as the locator that gets passed
5648
to the content handler implementation. [SF bug #535474]
5650
- The email.Parser.Parser class now properly parses strings regardless
5651
of their line endings, which can be any of \r, \n, or \r\n (CR, LF,
5652
or CRLF). Also, the Header class's constructor default arguments
5653
has changed slightly so that an explicit maxlinelen value is always
5654
honored, and so unicode conversion error handling can be specified.
5656
- distutils' build_ext command now links C++ extensions with the C++
5657
compiler available in the Makefile or CXX environment variable, if
5658
running under \*nix.
5660
- New module bz2: provides a comprehensive interface for the bz2 compression
5661
library. It implements a complete file interface, one-shot (de)compression
5662
functions, and types for sequential (de)compression.
5664
- New pdb command 'pp' which is like 'p' except that it pretty-prints
5665
the value of its expression argument.
5667
- Now bdist_rpm distutils command understands a verify_script option in
5668
the config file, including the contents of the referred filename in
5669
the "%verifyscript" section of the rpm spec file.
5671
- Fixed bug #495695: webbrowser module would run graphic browsers in a
5672
unix environment even if DISPLAY was not set. Also, support for
5673
skipstone browser was included.
5675
- Fixed bug #636769: rexec would run unallowed code if subclasses of
5676
strings were used as parameters for certain functions.
5681
- pygettext.py now supports globbing on Windows, and accepts module
5682
names in addition to accepting file names.
5684
- The SGI demos (Demo/sgi) have been removed. Nobody thought they
5685
were interesting any more. (The SGI library modules and extensions
5686
are still there; it is believed that at least some of these are
5687
still used and useful.)
5689
- IDLE supports the new encoding declarations (PEP 263); it can also
5690
deal with legacy 8-bit files if they use the locale's encoding. It
5691
allows non-ASCII strings in the interactive shell and executes them
5692
in the locale's encoding.
5694
- freeze.py now produces binaries which can import shared modules,
5695
unlike before when this failed due to missing symbol exports in
5696
the generated binary.
5701
- On Unix, IDLE is now installed automatically.
5703
- The fpectl module is not built by default; it's dangerous or useless
5704
except in the hands of experts.
5706
- The public Python C API will generally be declared using PyAPI_FUNC
5707
and PyAPI_DATA macros, while Python extension module init functions
5708
will be declared with PyMODINIT_FUNC. DL_EXPORT/DL_IMPORT macros
5711
- A bug was fixed that could cause COUNT_ALLOCS builds to segfault, or
5712
get into infinite loops, when a new-style class got garbage-collected.
5713
Unfortunately, to avoid this, the way COUNT_ALLOCS works requires
5714
that new-style classes be immortal in COUNT_ALLOCS builds. Note that
5715
COUNT_ALLOCS is not enabled by default, in either release or debug
5716
builds, and that new-style classes are immortal only in COUNT_ALLOCS
5719
- Compiling out the cyclic garbage collector is no longer an option.
5720
The old symbol WITH_CYCLE_GC is now ignored, and Python.h arranges
5721
that it's always defined (for the benefit of any extension modules
5722
that may be conditionalizing on it). A bonus is that any extension
5723
type participating in cyclic gc can choose to participate in the
5724
Py_TRASHCAN mechanism now too; in the absence of cyclic gc, this used
5725
to require editing the core to teach the trashcan mechanism about the
5728
- According to Annex F of the current C standard,
5730
The Standard C macro HUGE_VAL and its float and long double analogs,
5731
HUGE_VALF and HUGE_VALL, expand to expressions whose values are
5732
positive infinities.
5734
Python only uses the double HUGE_VAL, and only to #define its own symbol
5735
Py_HUGE_VAL. Some platforms have incorrect definitions for HUGE_VAL.
5736
pyport.h used to try to worm around that, but the workarounds triggered
5737
other bugs on other platforms, so we gave up. If your platform defines
5738
HUGE_VAL incorrectly, you'll need to #define Py_HUGE_VAL to something
5739
that works on your platform. The only instance of this I'm sure about
5740
is on an unknown subset of Cray systems, described here:
5742
http://www.cray.com/swpubs/manuals/SN-2194_2.0/html-SN-2194_2.0/x3138.htm
5744
Presumably 2.3a1 breaks such systems. If anyone uses such a system, help!
5746
- The configure option --without-doc-strings can be used to remove the
5747
doc strings from the builtin functions and modules; this reduces the
5748
size of the executable.
5750
- The universal newlines option (PEP 278) is on by default. On Unix
5751
it can be disabled by passing --without-universal-newlines to the
5752
configure script. On other platforms, remove
5753
WITH_UNIVERSAL_NEWLINES from pyconfig.h.
5755
- On Unix, a shared libpython2.3.so can be created with --enable-shared.
5757
- All uses of the CACHE_HASH, INTERN_STRINGS, and DONT_SHARE_SHORT_STRINGS
5758
preprocessor symbols were eliminated. The internal decisions they
5759
controlled stopped being experimental long ago.
5761
- The tools used to build the documentation now work under Cygwin as
5764
- The bsddb and dbm module builds have been changed to try and avoid version
5765
skew problems and disable linkage with Berkeley DB 1.85 unless the
5766
installer knows what s/he's doing. See the section on building these
5767
modules in the README file for details.
5772
- PyNumber_Check() now returns true for string and unicode objects.
5773
This is a result of these types having a partially defined
5774
tp_as_number slot. (This is not a feature, but an indication that
5775
PyNumber_Check() is not very useful to determine numeric behavior.
5776
It may be deprecated.)
5778
- The string object's layout has changed: the pointer member
5779
ob_sinterned has been replaced by an int member ob_sstate. On some
5780
platforms (e.g. most 64-bit systems) this may change the offset of
5781
the ob_sval member, so as a precaution the API_VERSION has been
5782
incremented. The apparently unused feature of "indirect interned
5783
strings", supported by the ob_sinterned member, is gone. Interned
5784
strings are now usually mortal; there is a new API,
5785
PyString_InternImmortal() that creates immortal interned strings.
5786
(The ob_sstate member can only take three values; however, while
5787
making it a char saves a few bytes per string object on average, in
5788
it also slowed things down a bit because ob_sval was no longer
5791
- The Py_InitModule*() functions now accept NULL for the 'methods'
5792
argument. Modules without global functions are becoming more common
5793
now that factories can be types rather than functions.
5795
- New C API PyUnicode_FromOrdinal() which exposes unichr() at C
5798
- New functions PyErr_SetExcFromWindowsErr() and
5799
PyErr_SetExcFromWindowsErrWithFilename(). Similar to
5800
PyErr_SetFromWindowsErrWithFilename() and
5801
PyErr_SetFromWindowsErr(), but they allow to specify
5802
the exception type to raise. Available on Windows.
5804
- Py_FatalError() is now declared as taking a const char* argument. It
5805
was previously declared without const. This should not affect working
5808
- Added new macro PySequence_ITEM(o, i) that directly calls
5809
sq_item without rechecking that o is a sequence and without
5810
adjusting for negative indices.
5812
- PyRange_New() now raises ValueError if the fourth argument is not 1.
5813
This is part of the removal of deprecated features of the xrange
5816
- PyNumber_Coerce() and PyNumber_CoerceEx() now also invoke the type's
5817
coercion if both arguments have the same type but this type has the
5818
CHECKTYPES flag set. This is to better support proxies.
5820
- The type of tp_free has been changed from "``void (*)(PyObject *)``" to
5821
"``void (*)(void *)``".
5823
- PyObject_Del, PyObject_GC_Del are now functions instead of macros.
5825
- A type can now inherit its metatype from its base type. Previously,
5826
when PyType_Ready() was called, if ob_type was found to be NULL, it
5827
was always set to &PyType_Type; now it is set to base->ob_type,
5828
where base is tp_base, defaulting to &PyObject_Type.
5830
- PyType_Ready() accidentally did not inherit tp_is_gc; now it does.
5832
- The PyCore_* family of APIs have been removed.
5834
- The "u#" parser marker will now pass through Unicode objects as-is
5835
without going through the buffer API.
5837
- The enumerators of cmp_op have been renamed to use the prefix ``PyCmp_``.
5839
- An old #define of ANY as void has been removed from pyport.h. This
5840
hasn't been used since Python's pre-ANSI days, and the #define has
5841
been marked as obsolete since then. SF bug 495548 says it created
5842
conflicts with other packages, so keeping it around wasn't harmless.
5844
- Because Python's magic number scheme broke on January 1st, we decided
5845
to stop Python development. Thanks for all the fish!
5847
- Some of us don't like fish, so we changed Python's magic number
5848
scheme to a new one. See Python/import.c for details.
5853
- OpenVMS is now supported.
5855
- AtheOS is now supported.
5857
- the EMX runtime environment on OS/2 is now supported.
5859
- GNU/Hurd is now supported.
5864
- The regrtest.py script's -u option now provides a way to say "allow
5865
all resources except this one." For example, to allow everything
5866
except bsddb, give the option '-uall,-bsddb'.
5871
- The Windows distribution now ships with version 4.0.14 of the
5872
Sleepycat Berkeley database library. This should be a huge
5873
improvement over the previous Berkeley DB 1.85, which had many
5875
XXX What are the licensing issues here?
5876
XXX If a user has a database created with a previous version of
5877
XXX Python, what must they do to convert it?
5878
XXX I'm still not sure how to link this thing (see PCbuild/readme.txt).
5879
XXX The version # is likely to change before 2.3a1.
5881
- The Windows distribution now ships with a Secure Sockets Library (SLL)
5884
- The Windows distribution now ships with Tcl/Tk version 8.4.1 (it
5885
previously shipped with Tcl/Tk 8.3.2).
5887
- When Python is built under a Microsoft compiler, sys.version now
5888
includes the compiler version number (_MSC_VER). For example, under
5889
MSVC 6, sys.version contains the substring "MSC v.1200 ". 1200 is
5890
the value of _MSC_VER under MSVC 6.
5892
- Sometimes the uninstall executable (UNWISE.EXE) vanishes. One cause
5893
of that has been fixed in the installer (disabled Wise's "delete in-
5894
use files" uninstall option).
5896
- Fixed a bug in urllib's proxy handling in Windows. [SF bug #503031]
5898
- The installer now installs Start menu shortcuts under (the local
5899
equivalent of) "All Users" when doing an Admin install.
5901
- file.truncate([newsize]) now works on Windows for all newsize values.
5902
It used to fail if newsize didn't fit in 32 bits, reflecting a
5903
limitation of MS _chsize (which is no longer used).
5905
- os.waitpid() is now implemented for Windows, and can be used to block
5906
until a specified process exits. This is similar to, but not exactly
5907
the same as, os.waitpid() on POSIX systems. If you're waiting for
5908
a specific process whose pid was obtained from one of the spawn()
5909
functions, the same Python os.waitpid() code works across platforms.
5910
See the docs for details. The docs were changed to clarify that
5911
spawn functions return, and waitpid requires, a process handle on
5912
Windows (not the same thing as a Windows process id).
5914
- New tempfile.TemporaryFile implementation for Windows: this doesn't
5915
need a TemporaryFileWrapper wrapper anymore, and should be immune
5916
to a nasty problem: before 2.3, if you got a temp file on Windows, it
5917
got wrapped in an object whose close() method first closed the
5918
underlying file, then deleted the file. This usually worked fine.
5919
However, the spawn family of functions on Windows create (at a low C
5920
level) the same set of open files in the spawned process Q as were
5921
open in the spawning process P. If a temp file f was among them, then
5922
doing f.close() in P first closed P's C-level file handle on f, but Q's
5923
C-level file handle on f remained open, so the attempt in P to delete f
5924
blew up with a "Permission denied" error (Windows doesn't allow
5925
deleting open files). This was surprising, subtle, and difficult to
5928
- The os module now exports all the symbolic constants usable with the
5929
low-level os.open() on Windows: the new constants in 2.3 are
5930
O_NOINHERIT, O_SHORT_LIVED, O_TEMPORARY, O_RANDOM and O_SEQUENTIAL.
5931
The others were also available in 2.2: O_APPEND, O_BINARY, O_CREAT,
5932
O_EXCL, O_RDONLY, O_RDWR, O_TEXT, O_TRUNC and O_WRONLY. Contrary
5933
to Microsoft docs, O_SHORT_LIVED does not seem to imply O_TEMPORARY
5934
(so specify both if you want both; note that neither is useful unless
5935
specified with O_CREAT too).
5940
- Mac/Relnotes is gone, the release notes are now here.
5942
- Python (the OSX-only, unix-based version, not the OS9-compatible CFM
5943
version) now fully supports unicode strings as arguments to various file
5944
system calls, eg. open(), file(), os.stat() and os.listdir().
5946
- The current naming convention for Python on the Macintosh is that MacPython
5947
refers to the unix-based OSX-only version, and MacPython-OS9 refers to the
5948
CFM-based version that runs on both OS9 and OSX.
5950
- All MacPython-OS9 functionality is now available in an OSX unix build,
5951
including the Carbon modules, the IDE, OSA support, etc. A lot of this
5952
will only work correctly in a framework build, though, because you cannot
5953
talk to the window manager unless your application is run from a .app
5954
bundle. There is a command line tool "pythonw" that runs your script
5955
with an interpreter living in such a .app bundle, this interpreter should
5956
be used to run any Python script using the window manager (including
5957
Tkinter or wxPython scripts).
5959
- Most of Mac/Lib has moved to Lib/plat-mac, which is again used both in
5960
MacPython-OSX and MacPython-OS9. The only modules remaining in Mac/Lib
5961
are specifically for MacPython-OS9 (CFM support, preference resources, etc).
5963
- A new utility PythonLauncher will start a Python interpreter when a .py or
5964
.pyw script is double-clicked in the Finder. By default .py scripts are
5965
run with a normal Python interpreter in a Terminal window and .pyw
5966
files are run with a window-aware pythonw interpreter without a Terminal
5967
window, but all this can be customized.
5969
- MacPython-OS9 is now Carbon-only, so it runs on Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X and
5970
possibly on Mac OS 8.6 with the right CarbonLib installed, but not on earlier
5973
- Many tools such as BuildApplet.py and gensuitemodule.py now support a command
5976
- All the Carbon classes are now PEP253 compliant, meaning that you can
5977
subclass them from Python. Most of the attributes have gone, you should
5978
now use the accessor function call API, which is also what Apple's
5979
documentation uses. Some attributes such as grafport.visRgn are still
5980
available for convenience.
5982
- New Carbon modules File (implementing the APIs in Files.h and Aliases.h)
5983
and Folder (APIs from Folders.h). The old macfs builtin module is
5984
gone, and replaced by a Python wrapper around the new modules.
5986
- Pathname handling should now be fully consistent: MacPython-OSX always uses
5987
unix pathnames and MacPython-OS9 always uses colon-separated Mac pathnames
5988
(also when running on Mac OS X).
5990
- New Carbon modules Help and AH give access to the Carbon Help Manager.
5991
There are hooks in the IDE to allow accessing the Python documentation
5992
(and Apple's Carbon and Cocoa documentation) through the Help Viewer.
5993
See Mac/OSX/README for converting the Python documentation to a
5994
Help Viewer compatible form and installing it.
5996
- OSA support has been redesigned and the generated Python classes now
5997
mirror the inheritance defined by the underlying OSA classes.
5999
- MacPython no longer maps both \r and \n to \n on input for any text file.
6000
This feature has been replaced by universal newline support (PEP278).
6002
- The default encoding for Python sourcefiles in MacPython-OS9 is no longer
6003
mac-roman (or whatever your local Mac encoding was) but "ascii", like on
6004
other platforms. If you really need sourcefiles with Mac characters in them
6005
you can change this in site.py.
6008
What's New in Python 2.2 final?
6009
===============================
6011
*Release date: 21-Dec-2001*
6013
Type/class unification and new-style classes
6014
--------------------------------------------
6016
- pickle.py, cPickle: allow pickling instances of new-style classes
6017
with a custom metaclass.
6022
- weakref proxy object: when comparing, unwrap both arguments if both
6028
- binascii.b2a_base64(): fix a potential buffer overrun when encoding
6031
- cPickle: the obscure "fast" mode was suspected of causing stack
6032
overflows on the Mac. Hopefully fixed this by setting the recursion
6033
limit much smaller. If the limit is too low (it only affects
6034
performance), you can change it by defining PY_CPICKLE_FAST_LIMIT
6035
when compiling cPickle.c (or in pyconfig.h).
6040
- dumbdbm.py: fixed a dumb old bug (the file didn't get synched at
6041
close or delete time).
6043
- rfc822.py: fixed a bug where the address '<>' was converted to None
6044
instead of an empty string (also fixes the email.Utils module).
6046
- xmlrpclib.py: version 1.0.0; uses precision for doubles.
6048
- test suite: the pickle and cPickle tests were not executing any code
6049
when run from the standard regression test.
6069
- distutils package: fixed broken Windows installers (bdist_wininst).
6071
- tempfile.py: prevent mysterious warnings when TemporaryFileWrapper
6072
instances are deleted at process exit time.
6074
- socket.py: prevent mysterious warnings when socket instances are
6075
deleted at process exit time.
6077
- posixmodule.c: fix a Windows crash with stat() of a filename ending
6083
- The Carbon toolbox modules have been upgraded to Universal Headers
6084
3.4, and experimental CoreGraphics and CarbonEvents modules have
6085
been added. All only for framework-enabled MacOSX.
6088
What's New in Python 2.2c1?
6089
===========================
6091
*Release date: 14-Dec-2001*
6093
Type/class unification and new-style classes
6094
--------------------------------------------
6096
- Guido's tutorial introduction to the new type/class features has
6097
been extensively updated. See
6099
http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html
6101
That remains the primary documentation in this area.
6103
- Fixed a leak: instance variables declared with __slots__ were never
6106
- The "delete attribute" method of descriptor objects is called
6107
__delete__, not __del__. In previous releases, it was mistakenly
6108
called __del__, which created an unfortunate overloading condition
6109
with finalizers. (The "get attribute" and "set attribute" methods
6110
are still called __get__ and __set__, respectively.)
6112
- Some subtle issues with the super built-in were fixed:
6114
(a) When super itself is subclassed, its __get__ method would still
6115
return an instance of the base class (i.e., of super).
6117
(b) super(C, C()).__class__ would return C rather than super. This
6118
is confusing. To fix this, I decided to change the semantics of
6119
super so that it only applies to code attributes, not to data
6120
attributes. After all, overriding data attributes is not
6123
(c) The __get__ method didn't check whether the argument was an
6124
instance of the type used in creation of the super instance.
6126
- Previously, hash() of an instance of a subclass of a mutable type
6127
(list or dictionary) would return some value, rather than raising
6128
TypeError. This has been fixed. Also, directly calling
6129
dict.__hash__ and list.__hash__ now raises the same TypeError
6130
(previously, these were the same as object.__hash__).
6132
- New-style objects now support deleting their __dict__. This is for
6133
all intents and purposes equivalent to assigning a brand new empty
6134
dictionary, but saves space if the object is not used further.
6139
- -Qnew now works as documented in PEP 238: when -Qnew is passed on
6140
the command line, all occurrences of "/" use true division instead
6141
of classic division. See the PEP for details. Note that "all"
6142
means all instances in library and 3rd-party modules, as well as in
6143
your own code. As the PEP says, -Qnew is intended for use only in
6144
educational environments with control over the libraries in use.
6145
Note that test_coercion.py in the standard Python test suite fails
6146
under -Qnew; this is expected, and won't be repaired until true
6147
division becomes the default (in the meantime, test_coercion is
6148
testing the current rules).
6150
- complex() now only allows the first argument to be a string
6151
argument, and raises TypeError if either the second arg is a string
6152
or if the second arg is specified when the first is a string.
6157
- gc.get_referents was renamed to gc.get_referrers.
6162
- Functions in the os.spawn() family now release the global interpreter
6163
lock around calling the platform spawn. They should always have done
6164
this, but did not before 2.2c1. Multithreaded programs calling
6165
an os.spawn function with P_WAIT will no longer block all Python threads
6166
until the spawned program completes. It's possible that some programs
6167
relies on blocking, although more likely by accident than by design.
6169
- webbrowser defaults to netscape.exe on OS/2 now.
6171
- Tix.ResizeHandle exposes detach_widget, hide, and show.
6173
- The charset alias windows_1252 has been added.
6175
- types.StringTypes is a tuple containing the defined string types;
6176
usually this will be (str, unicode), but if Python was compiled
6177
without Unicode support it will be just (str,).
6179
- The pulldom and minidom modules were synchronized to PyXML.
6184
- A new script called Tools/scripts/google.py was added, which fires
6185
off a search on Google.
6190
- Note that release builds of Python should arrange to define the
6191
preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the command line (or equivalent).
6192
In the 2.2 pre-release series we tried to define this by magic in
6193
Python.h instead, but it proved to cause problems for extension
6194
authors. The Unix, Windows and Mac builds now all define NDEBUG in
6195
release builds via cmdline (or equivalent) instead. Ports to
6196
other platforms should do likewise.
6198
- It is no longer necessary to use --with-suffix when building on a
6199
case-insensitive file system (such as Mac OS X HFS+). In the build
6200
directory an extension is used, but not in the installed python.
6205
- New function PyDict_MergeFromSeq2() exposes the builtin dict
6206
constructor's logic for updating a dictionary from an iterable object
6207
producing key-value pairs.
6209
- PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords() requires that the number of entries in
6210
the keyword list equal the number of argument specifiers. This
6211
wasn't checked correctly, and PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords could even
6212
dump core in some bad cases. This has been repaired. As a result,
6213
PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords may raise RuntimeError in bad cases that
6214
previously went unchallenged.
6228
- In unix-Python on Mac OS X (and darwin) sys.platform is now "darwin",
6229
without any trailing digits.
6231
- Changed logic for finding python home in Mac OS X framework Pythons.
6232
Now sys.executable points to the executable again, in stead of to
6233
the shared library. The latter is used only for locating the python
6237
What's New in Python 2.2b2?
6238
===========================
6240
*Release date: 16-Nov-2001*
6242
Type/class unification and new-style classes
6243
--------------------------------------------
6245
- Multiple inheritance mixing new-style and classic classes in the
6246
list of base classes is now allowed, so this works now:
6249
class Mixed(Classic, object): pass
6251
The MRO (method resolution order) for each base class is respected
6252
according to its kind, but the MRO for the derived class is computed
6253
using new-style MRO rules if any base class is a new-style class.
6254
This needs to be documented.
6256
- The new builtin dictionary() constructor, and dictionary type, have
6257
been renamed to dict. This reflects a decade of common usage.
6259
- dict() now accepts an iterable object producing 2-sequences. For
6260
example, dict(d.items()) == d for any dictionary d. The argument,
6261
and the elements of the argument, can be any iterable objects.
6263
- New-style classes can now have a __del__ method, which is called
6264
when the instance is deleted (just like for classic classes).
6266
- Assignment to object.__dict__ is now possible, for objects that are
6267
instances of new-style classes that have a __dict__ (unless the base
6270
- Methods of built-in types now properly check for keyword arguments
6271
(formerly these were silently ignored). The only built-in methods
6272
that take keyword arguments are __call__, __init__ and __new__.
6274
- The socket function has been converted to a type; see below.
6279
- Assignment to __debug__ raises SyntaxError at compile-time. This
6280
was promised when 2.1c1 was released as "What's New in Python 2.1c1"
6283
- Clarified the error messages for unsupported operands to an operator
6289
- mmap has a new keyword argument, "access", allowing a uniform way for
6290
both Windows and Unix users to create read-only, write-through and
6291
copy-on-write memory mappings. This was previously possible only on
6292
Unix. A new keyword argument was required to support this in a
6293
uniform way because the mmap() signatures had diverged across
6294
platforms. Thanks to Jay T Miller for repairing this!
6296
- By default, the gc.garbage list now contains only those instances in
6297
unreachable cycles that have __del__ methods; in 2.1 it contained all
6298
instances in unreachable cycles. "Instances" here has been generalized
6299
to include instances of both new-style and old-style classes.
6301
- The socket module defines a new method for socket objects,
6302
sendall(). This is like send() but may make multiple calls to
6303
send() until all data has been sent. Also, the socket function has
6304
been converted to a subclassable type, like list and tuple (etc.)
6305
before it; socket and SocketType are now the same thing.
6307
- Various bugfixes to the curses module. There is now a test suite
6308
for the curses module (you have to run it manually).
6310
- binascii.b2a_base64 no longer places an arbitrary restriction of 57
6316
- tkFileDialog exposes a Directory class and askdirectory
6317
convenience function.
6319
- Symbolic group names in regular expressions must be unique. For
6320
example, the regexp r'(?P<abc>)(?P<abc>)' is not allowed, because a
6321
single name can't mean both "group 1" and "group 2" simultaneously.
6322
Python 2.2 detects this error at regexp compilation time;
6323
previously, the error went undetected, and results were
6324
unpredictable. Also in sre, the pattern.split(), pattern.sub(), and
6325
pattern.subn() methods have been rewritten in C. Also, an
6326
experimental function/method finditer() has been added, which works
6327
like findall() but returns an iterator.
6329
- Tix exposes more commands through the classes DirSelectBox,
6330
DirSelectDialog, ListNoteBook, Meter, CheckList, and the
6331
methods tix_addbitmapdir, tix_cget, tix_configure, tix_filedialog,
6332
tix_getbitmap, tix_getimage, tix_option_get, and tix_resetoptions.
6334
- Traceback objects are now scanned by cyclic garbage collection, so
6335
cycles created by casual use of sys.exc_info() no longer cause
6336
permanent memory leaks (provided garbage collection is enabled).
6338
- os.extsep -- a new variable needed by the RISCOS support. It is the
6339
separator used by extensions, and is '.' on all platforms except
6340
RISCOS, where it is '/'. There is no need to use this variable
6341
unless you have a masochistic desire to port your code to RISCOS.
6343
- mimetypes.py has optional support for non-standard, but commonly
6344
found types. guess_type() and guess_extension() now accept an
6345
optional 'strict' flag, defaulting to true, which controls whether
6346
recognize non-standard types or not. A few non-standard types we
6347
know about have been added. Also, when run as a script, there are
6348
new -l and -e options.
6350
- statcache is now deprecated.
6352
- email.Utils.formatdate() now produces the preferred RFC 2822 style
6353
dates with numeric timezones (it used to produce obsolete dates
6354
hard coded to "GMT" timezone). An optional 'localtime' flag is
6355
added to produce dates in the local timezone, with daylight savings
6356
time properly taken into account.
6358
- In pickle and cPickle, instead of masking errors in load() by
6359
transforming them into SystemError, we let the original exception
6360
propagate out. Also, implement support for __safe_for_unpickling__
6361
in pickle, as it already was supported in cPickle.
6369
- The dbm module is built using libdb1 if available. The bsddb module
6370
is built with libdb3 if available.
6372
- Misc/Makefile.pre.in has been removed by BDFL pronouncement.
6377
- New function PySequence_Fast_GET_SIZE() returns the size of a non-
6378
NULL result from PySequence_Fast(), more quickly than calling
6381
- New argument unpacking function PyArg_UnpackTuple() added.
6383
- New functions PyObject_CallFunctionObjArgs() and
6384
PyObject_CallMethodObjArgs() have been added to make it more
6385
convenient and efficient to call functions and methods from C.
6387
- PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords() no longer masks errors, so it's
6388
possible that this will propagate errors it didn't before.
6390
- New function PyObject_CheckReadBuffer(), which returns true if its
6391
argument supports the single-segment readable buffer interface.
6396
- We've finally confirmed that this release builds on HP-UX 11.00,
6397
*with* threads, and passes the test suite.
6399
- Thanks to a series of patches from Michael Muller, Python may build
6400
again under OS/2 Visual Age C++.
6402
- Updated RISCOS port by Dietmar Schwertberger.
6407
- Added a test script for the curses module. It isn't run automatically;
6408
regrtest.py must be run with '-u curses' to enable it.
6416
- PythonScript has been moved to unsupported and is slated to be
6417
removed completely in the next release.
6419
- It should now be possible to build applets that work on both OS9 and
6422
- The core is now linked with CoreServices not Carbon; as a side
6423
result, default 8bit encoding on OSX is now ASCII.
6425
- Python should now build on OSX 10.1.1
6428
What's New in Python 2.2b1?
6429
===========================
6431
*Release date: 19-Oct-2001*
6433
Type/class unification and new-style classes
6434
--------------------------------------------
6436
- New-style classes are now always dynamic (except for built-in and
6437
extension types). There is no longer a performance penalty, and I
6438
no longer see another reason to keep this baggage around. One relic
6439
remains: the __dict__ of a new-style class is a read-only proxy; you
6440
must set the class's attribute to modify it. As a consequence, the
6441
__defined__ attribute of new-style types no longer exists, for lack
6442
of need: there is once again only one __dict__ (although in the
6443
future a __cache__ may be resurrected with a similar function, if I
6444
can prove that it actually speeds things up).
6446
- C.__doc__ now works as expected for new-style classes (in 2.2a4 it
6447
always returned None, even when there was a class docstring).
6449
- doctest now finds and runs docstrings attached to new-style classes,
6450
class methods, static methods, and properties.
6455
- A very subtle syntactical pitfall in list comprehensions was fixed.
6456
For example: [a+b for a in 'abc', for b in 'def']. The comma in
6457
this example is a mistake. Previously, this would silently let 'a'
6458
iterate over the singleton tuple ('abc',), yielding ['abcd', 'abce',
6459
'abcf'] rather than the intended ['ad', 'ae', 'af', 'bd', 'be',
6460
'bf', 'cd', 'ce', 'cf']. Now, this is flagged as a syntax error.
6461
Note that [a for a in <singleton>] is a convoluted way to say
6462
[<singleton>] anyway, so it's not like any expressiveness is lost.
6464
- getattr(obj, name, default) now only catches AttributeError, as
6465
documented, rather than returning the default value for all
6466
exceptions (which could mask bugs in a __getattr__ hook, for
6469
- Weak reference objects are now part of the core and offer a C API.
6470
A bug which could allow a core dump when binary operations involved
6471
proxy reference has been fixed. weakref.ReferenceError is now a
6474
- unicode(obj) now behaves more like str(obj), accepting arbitrary
6475
objects, and calling a __unicode__ method if it exists.
6476
unicode(obj, encoding) and unicode(obj, encoding, errors) still
6477
require an 8-bit string or character buffer argument.
6479
- isinstance() now allows any object as the first argument and a
6480
class, a type or something with a __bases__ tuple attribute for the
6481
second argument. The second argument may also be a tuple of a
6482
class, type, or something with __bases__, in which case isinstance()
6483
will return true if the first argument is an instance of any of the
6484
things contained in the second argument tuple. E.g.
6486
isinstance(x, (A, B))
6488
returns true if x is an instance of A or B.
6493
- thread.start_new_thread() now returns the thread ID (previously None).
6495
- binascii has now two quopri support functions, a2b_qp and b2a_qp.
6497
- readline now supports setting the startup_hook and the
6498
pre_event_hook, and adds the add_history() function.
6500
- os and posix supports chroot(), setgroups() and unsetenv() where
6501
available. The stat(), fstat(), statvfs() and fstatvfs() functions
6502
now return "pseudo-sequences" -- the various fields can now be
6503
accessed as attributes (e.g. os.stat("/").st_mtime) but for
6504
backwards compatibility they also behave as a fixed-length sequence.
6505
Some platform-specific fields (e.g. st_rdev) are only accessible as
6508
- time: localtime(), gmtime() and strptime() now return a
6509
pseudo-sequence similar to the os.stat() return value, with
6510
attributes like tm_year etc.
6512
- Decompression objects in the zlib module now accept an optional
6513
second parameter to decompress() that specifies the maximum amount
6514
of memory to use for the uncompressed data.
6516
- optional SSL support in the socket module now exports OpenSSL
6517
functions RAND_add(), RAND_egd(), and RAND_status(). These calls
6518
are useful on platforms like Solaris where OpenSSL does not
6519
automatically seed its PRNG. Also, the keyfile and certfile
6520
arguments to socket.ssl() are now optional.
6522
- posixmodule (and by extension, the os module on POSIX platforms) now
6523
exports O_LARGEFILE, O_DIRECT, O_DIRECTORY, and O_NOFOLLOW.
6528
- doctest now excludes functions and classes not defined by the module
6529
being tested, thanks to Tim Hochberg.
6531
- HotShot, a new profiler implemented using a C-based callback, has
6532
been added. This substantially reduces the overhead of profiling,
6533
but it is still quite preliminary. Support modules and
6534
documentation will be added in upcoming releases (before 2.2 final).
6536
- profile now produces correct output in situations where an exception
6537
raised in Python is cleared by C code (e.g. hasattr()). This used
6538
to cause wrong output, including spurious claims of recursive
6539
functions and attribution of time spent to the wrong function.
6541
The code and documentation for the derived OldProfile and HotProfile
6542
profiling classes was removed. The code hasn't worked for years (if
6543
you tried to use them, they raised exceptions). OldProfile
6544
intended to reproduce the behavior of the profiler Python used more
6545
than 7 years ago, and isn't interesting anymore. HotProfile intended
6546
to provide a faster profiler (but producing less information), and
6547
that's a worthy goal we intend to meet via a different approach (but
6548
without losing information).
6550
- Profile.calibrate() has a new implementation that should deliver
6551
a much better system-specific calibration constant. The constant can
6552
now be specified in an instance constructor, or as a Profile class or
6553
instance variable, instead of by editing profile.py's source code.
6554
Calibration must still be done manually (see the docs for the profile
6557
Note that Profile.calibrate() must be overridden by subclasses.
6558
Improving the accuracy required exploiting detailed knowledge of
6559
profiler internals; the earlier method abstracted away the details
6560
and measured a simplified model instead, but consequently computed
6561
a constant too small by a factor of 2 on some modern machines.
6563
- quopri's encode and decode methods take an optional header parameter,
6564
which indicates whether output is intended for the header 'Q'
6567
- The SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn class now closes the request after
6568
finish_request() returns. (Not when it errors out though.)
6570
- The nntplib module's NNTP.body() method has grown a 'file' argument
6571
to allow saving the message body to a file.
6573
- The email package has added a class email.Parser.HeaderParser which
6574
only parses headers and does not recurse into the message's body.
6575
Also, the module/class MIMEAudio has been added for representing
6576
audio data (contributed by Anthony Baxter).
6578
- ftplib should be able to handle files > 2GB.
6580
- ConfigParser.getboolean() now also interprets TRUE, FALSE, YES, NO,
6583
- xml.dom.minidom NodeList objects now support the length attribute
6584
and item() method as required by the DOM specifications.
6589
- Demo/dns was removed. It no longer serves any purpose; a package
6590
derived from it is now maintained by Anthony Baxter, see
6591
http://PyDNS.SourceForge.net.
6593
- The freeze tool has been made more robust, and two new options have
6594
been added: -X and -E.
6599
- configure will use CXX in LINKCC if CXX is used to build main() and
6600
the system requires to link a C++ main using the C++ compiler.
6605
- The documentation for the tp_compare slot is updated to require that
6606
the return value must be -1, 0, 1; an arbitrary number <0 or >0 is
6607
not correct. This is not yet enforced but will be enforced in
6608
Python 2.3; even later, we may use -2 to indicate errors and +2 for
6609
"NotImplemented". Right now, -1 should be used for an error return.
6611
- PyLong_AsLongLong() now accepts int (as well as long) arguments.
6612
Consequently, PyArg_ParseTuple's 'L' code also accepts int (as well
6615
- PyThread_start_new_thread() now returns a long int giving the thread
6616
ID, if one can be calculated; it returns -1 for error, 0 if no
6617
thread ID is calculated (this is an incompatible change, but only
6618
the thread module used this API). This code has only really been
6619
tested on Linux and Windows; other platforms please beware (and
6620
report any bugs or strange behavior).
6622
- PyUnicode_FromEncodedObject() no longer accepts Unicode objects as
6634
- Installer: If you install IDLE, and don't disable file-extension
6635
registration, a new "Edit with IDLE" context (right-click) menu entry
6636
is created for .py and .pyw files.
6638
- The signal module now supports SIGBREAK on Windows, thanks to Steven
6639
Scott. Note that SIGBREAK is unique to Windows. The default SIGBREAK
6640
action remains to call Win32 ExitProcess(). This can be changed via
6641
signal.signal(). For example::
6643
# Make Ctrl+Break raise KeyboardInterrupt, like Python's default Ctrl+C
6644
# (SIGINT) behavior.
6646
signal.signal(signal.SIGBREAK, signal.default_int_handler)
6651
except KeyboardInterrupt:
6652
# We get here on Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Break now; if we had not changed
6653
# SIGBREAK, only on Ctrl+C (and Ctrl+Break would terminate the
6654
# program without the possibility for any Python-level cleanup).
6658
What's New in Python 2.2a4?
6659
===========================
6661
*Release date: 28-Sep-2001*
6663
Type/class unification and new-style classes
6664
--------------------------------------------
6666
- pydoc and inspect are now aware of new-style classes;
6667
e.g. help(list) at the interactive prompt now shows proper
6668
documentation for all operations on list objects.
6670
- Applications using Jim Fulton's ExtensionClass module can now safely
6671
be used with Python 2.2. In particular, Zope 2.4.1 now works with
6672
Python 2.2 (as well as with Python 2.1.1). The Demo/metaclass
6673
examples also work again. It is hoped that Gtk and Boost also work
6674
with 2.2a4 and beyond. (If you can confirm this, please write
6675
webmaster@python.org; if there are still problems, please open a bug
6676
report on SourceForge.)
6678
- property() now takes 4 keyword arguments: fget, fset, fdel and doc.
6679
These map to read-only attributes 'fget', 'fset', 'fdel', and '__doc__'
6680
in the constructed property object. fget, fset and fdel weren't
6681
discoverable from Python in 2.2a3. __doc__ is new, and allows to
6682
associate a docstring with a property.
6684
- Comparison overloading is now more completely implemented. For
6685
example, a str subclass instance can properly be compared to a str
6686
instance, and it can properly overload comparison. Ditto for most
6687
other built-in object types.
6689
- The repr() of new-style classes has changed; instead of <type
6690
'M.Foo'> a new-style class is now rendered as <class 'M.Foo'>,
6691
*except* for built-in types, which are still rendered as <type
6692
'Foo'> (to avoid upsetting existing code that might parse or
6693
otherwise rely on repr() of certain type objects).
6695
- The repr() of new-style objects is now always <Foo object at XXX>;
6696
previously, it was sometimes <Foo instance at XXX>.
6698
- For new-style classes, what was previously called __getattr__ is now
6699
called __getattribute__. This method, if defined, is called for
6700
*every* attribute access. A new __getattr__ hook more similar to the
6701
one in classic classes is defined which is called only if regular
6702
attribute access raises AttributeError; to catch *all* attribute
6703
access, you can use __getattribute__ (for new-style classes). If
6704
both are defined, __getattribute__ is called first, and if it raises
6705
AttributeError, __getattr__ is called.
6707
- The __class__ attribute of new-style objects can be assigned to.
6708
The new class must have the same C-level object layout as the old
6711
- The builtin file type can be subclassed now. In the usual pattern,
6712
"file" is the name of the builtin type, and file() is a new builtin
6713
constructor, with the same signature as the builtin open() function.
6714
file() is now the preferred way to open a file.
6716
- Previously, __new__ would only see sequential arguments passed to
6717
the type in a constructor call; __init__ would see both sequential
6718
and keyword arguments. This made no sense whatsoever any more, so
6719
now both __new__ and __init__ see all arguments.
6721
- Previously, hash() applied to an instance of a subclass of str or
6722
unicode always returned 0. This has been repaired.
6724
- Previously, an operation on an instance of a subclass of an
6725
immutable type (int, long, float, complex, tuple, str, unicode),
6726
where the subtype didn't override the operation (and so the
6727
operation was handled by the builtin type), could return that
6728
instance instead a value of the base type. For example, if s was of
6729
a str subclass type, s[:] returned s as-is. Now it returns a str
6730
with the same value as s.
6732
- Provisional support for pickling new-style objects has been added.
6737
- file.writelines() now accepts any iterable object producing strings.
6739
- PyUnicode_FromEncodedObject() now works very much like
6740
PyObject_Str(obj) in that it tries to use __str__/tp_str
6741
on the object if the object is not a string or buffer. This
6742
makes unicode() behave like str() when applied to non-string/buffer
6745
- PyFile_WriteObject now passes Unicode objects to the file's write
6746
method. As a result, all file-like objects which may be the target
6747
of a print statement must support Unicode objects, i.e. they must
6748
at least convert them into ASCII strings.
6750
- Thread scheduling on Solaris should be improved; it is no longer
6751
necessary to insert a small sleep at the start of a thread in order
6752
to let other runnable threads be scheduled.
6757
- StringIO.StringIO instances and cStringIO.StringIO instances support
6758
read character buffer compatible objects for their .write() methods.
6759
These objects are converted to strings and then handled as such
6762
- The "email" package has been added. This is basically a port of the
6763
mimelib package <http://sf.net/projects/mimelib> with API changes
6764
and some implementations updated to use iterators and generators.
6766
- difflib.ndiff() and difflib.Differ.compare() are generators now. This
6767
restores the ability of Tools/scripts/ndiff.py to start producing output
6768
before the entire comparison is complete.
6770
- StringIO.StringIO instances and cStringIO.StringIO instances support
6771
iteration just like file objects (i.e. their .readline() method is
6772
called for each iteration until it returns an empty string).
6774
- The codecs module has grown four new helper APIs to access
6775
builtin codecs: getencoder(), getdecoder(), getreader(),
6778
- SimpleXMLRPCServer: a new module (based upon SimpleHTMLServer)
6779
simplifies writing XML RPC servers.
6781
- os.path.realpath(): a new function that returns the absolute pathname
6782
after interpretation of symbolic links. On non-Unix systems, this
6783
is an alias for os.path.abspath().
6785
- operator.indexOf() (PySequence_Index() in the C API) now works with any
6788
- smtplib now supports various authentication and security features of
6789
the SMTP protocol through the new login() and starttls() methods.
6791
- hmac: a new module implementing keyed hashing for message
6794
- mimetypes now recognizes more extensions and file types. At the
6795
same time, some mappings not sanctioned by IANA were removed.
6797
- The "compiler" package has been brought up to date to the state of
6798
Python 2.2 bytecode generation. It has also been promoted from a
6799
Tool to a standard library package. (Tools/compiler still exists as
6805
- Large file support (LFS) is now automatic when the platform supports
6806
it; no more manual configuration tweaks are needed. On Linux, at
6807
least, it's possible to have a system whose C library supports large
6808
files but whose kernel doesn't; in this case, large file support is
6809
still enabled but doesn't do you any good unless you upgrade your
6810
kernel or share your Python executable with another system whose
6811
kernel has large file support.
6813
- The configure script now supplies plausible defaults in a
6814
cross-compilation environment. This doesn't mean that the supplied
6815
values are always correct, or that cross-compilation now works
6816
flawlessly -- but it's a first step (and it shuts up most of
6817
autoconf's warnings about AC_TRY_RUN).
6819
- The Unix build is now a bit less chatty, courtesy of the parser
6820
generator. The build is completely silent (except for errors) when
6821
using "make -s", thanks to a -q option to setup.py.
6826
- The "structmember" API now supports some new flag bits to deny read
6827
and/or write access to attributes in restricted execution mode.
6832
- Compaq's iPAQ handheld, running the "familiar" Linux distribution
6833
(http://familiar.handhelds.org).
6838
- The "classic" standard tests, which work by comparing stdout to
6839
an expected-output file under Lib/test/output/, no longer stop at
6840
the first mismatch. Instead the test is run to completion, and a
6841
variant of ndiff-style comparison is used to report all differences.
6842
This is much easier to understand than the previous style of reporting.
6844
- The unittest-based standard tests now use regrtest's test_main()
6845
convention, instead of running as a side-effect of merely being
6846
imported. This allows these tests to be run in more natural and
6847
flexible ways as unittests, outside the regrtest framework.
6849
- regrtest.py is much better integrated with unittest and doctest now,
6850
especially in regard to reporting errors.
6855
- Large file support now also works for files > 4GB, on filesystems
6856
that support it (NTFS under Windows 2000). See "What's New in
6857
Python 2.2a3" for more detail.
6860
What's New in Python 2.2a3?
6861
===========================
6863
*Release Date: 07-Sep-2001*
6868
- Conversion of long to float now raises OverflowError if the long is too
6869
big to represent as a C double.
6871
- The 3-argument builtin pow() no longer allows a third non-None argument
6872
if either of the first two arguments is a float, or if both are of
6873
integer types and the second argument is negative (in which latter case
6874
the arguments are converted to float, so this is really the same
6877
- The builtin dir() now returns more information, and sometimes much
6878
more, generally naming all attributes of an object, and all attributes
6879
reachable from the object via its class, and from its class's base
6880
classes, and so on from them too. Example: in 2.2a2, dir([]) returned
6881
an empty list. In 2.2a3,
6884
['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__delitem__',
6885
'__eq__', '__ge__', '__getattr__', '__getitem__', '__getslice__',
6886
'__gt__', '__hash__', '__iadd__', '__imul__', '__init__', '__le__',
6887
'__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__repr__',
6888
'__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__setslice__', '__str__',
6889
'append', 'count', 'extend', 'index', 'insert', 'pop', 'remove',
6892
dir(module) continues to return only the module's attributes, though.
6894
- Overflowing operations on plain ints now return a long int rather
6895
than raising OverflowError. This is a partial implementation of PEP
6896
237. You can use -Wdefault::OverflowWarning to enable a warning for
6897
this situation, and -Werror::OverflowWarning to revert to the old
6898
OverflowError exception.
6900
- A new command line option, -Q<arg>, is added to control run-time
6901
warnings for the use of classic division. (See PEP 238.) Possible
6902
values are -Qold, -Qwarn, -Qwarnall, and -Qnew. The default is
6903
-Qold, meaning the / operator has its classic meaning and no
6904
warnings are issued. Using -Qwarn issues a run-time warning about
6905
all uses of classic division for int and long arguments; -Qwarnall
6906
also warns about classic division for float and complex arguments
6907
(for use with fixdiv.py).
6908
[Note: the remainder of this item (preserved below) became
6909
obsolete in 2.2c1 -- -Qnew has global effect in 2.2] ::
6911
Using -Qnew is questionable; it turns on new division by default, but
6912
only in the __main__ module. You can usefully combine -Qwarn or
6913
-Qwarnall and -Qnew: this gives the __main__ module new division, and
6914
warns about classic division everywhere else.
6916
- Many built-in types can now be subclassed. This applies to int,
6917
long, float, str, unicode, and tuple. (The types complex, list and
6918
dictionary can also be subclassed; this was introduced earlier.)
6919
Note that restrictions apply when subclassing immutable built-in
6920
types: you can only affect the value of the instance by overloading
6921
__new__. You can add mutable attributes, and the subclass instances
6922
will have a __dict__ attribute, but you cannot change the "value"
6923
(as implemented by the base class) of an immutable subclass instance
6926
- The dictionary constructor now takes an optional argument, a
6927
mapping-like object, and initializes the dictionary from its
6930
- A new built-in type, super, has been added. This facilitates making
6931
"cooperative super calls" in a multiple inheritance setting. For an
6932
explanation, see http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html#cooperation
6934
- A new built-in type, property, has been added. This enables the
6935
creation of "properties". These are attributes implemented by
6936
getter and setter functions (or only one of these for read-only or
6937
write-only attributes), without the need to override __getattr__.
6938
See http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html#property
6940
- The syntax of floating-point and imaginary literals has been
6941
liberalized, to allow leading zeroes. Examples of literals now
6942
legal that were SyntaxErrors before:
6944
00.0 0e3 0100j 07.5 00000000000000000008.
6946
- An old tokenizer bug allowed floating point literals with an incomplete
6947
exponent, such as 1e and 3.1e-. Such literals now raise SyntaxError.
6952
- telnetlib includes symbolic names for the options, and support for
6953
setting an option negotiation callback. It also supports processing
6956
- The new C standard no longer requires that math libraries set errno to
6957
ERANGE on overflow. For platform libraries that exploit this new
6958
freedom, Python's overflow-checking was wholly broken. A new overflow-
6959
checking scheme attempts to repair that, but may not be reliable on all
6960
platforms (C doesn't seem to provide anything both useful and portable
6961
in this area anymore).
6963
- Asynchronous timeout actions are available through the new class
6966
- math.log and math.log10 now return sensible results for even huge
6967
long arguments. For example, math.log10(10 ** 10000) ~= 10000.0.
6969
- A new function, imp.lock_held(), returns 1 when the import lock is
6970
currently held. See the docs for the imp module.
6972
- pickle, cPickle and marshal on 32-bit platforms can now correctly read
6973
dumps containing ints written on platforms where Python ints are 8 bytes.
6974
When read on a box where Python ints are 4 bytes, such values are
6975
converted to Python longs.
6977
- In restricted execution mode (using the rexec module), unmarshalling
6978
code objects is no longer allowed. This plugs a security hole.
6980
- unittest.TestResult instances no longer store references to tracebacks
6981
generated by test failures. This prevents unexpected dangling references
6982
to objects that should be garbage collected between tests.
6987
- Tools/scripts/fixdiv.py has been added which can be used to fix
6988
division operators as per PEP 238.
6993
- If you are an adventurous person using Mac OS X you may want to look at
6994
Mac/OSX. There is a Makefile there that will build Python as a real Mac
6995
application, which can be used for experimenting with Carbon or Cocoa.
6996
Discussion of this on pythonmac-sig, please.
7001
- New function PyObject_Dir(obj), like Python __builtin__.dir(obj).
7003
- Note that PyLong_AsDouble can fail! This has always been true, but no
7004
callers checked for it. It's more likely to fail now, because overflow
7005
errors are properly detected now. The proper way to check::
7007
double x = PyLong_AsDouble(some_long_object);
7008
if (x == -1.0 && PyErr_Occurred()) {
7009
/* The conversion failed. */
7012
- The GC API has been changed. Extensions that use the old API will still
7013
compile but will not participate in GC. To upgrade an extension
7016
- rename Py_TPFLAGS_GC to PyTPFLAGS_HAVE_GC
7018
- use PyObject_GC_New or PyObject_GC_NewVar to allocate objects and
7019
PyObject_GC_Del to deallocate them
7021
- rename PyObject_GC_Init to PyObject_GC_Track and PyObject_GC_Fini
7022
to PyObject_GC_UnTrack
7024
- remove PyGC_HEAD_SIZE from object size calculations
7026
- remove calls to PyObject_AS_GC and PyObject_FROM_GC
7028
- Two new functions: PyString_FromFormat() and PyString_FromFormatV().
7029
These can be used safely to construct string objects from a
7030
sprintf-style format string (similar to the format string supported
7036
- Stephen Hansen contributed patches sufficient to get a clean compile
7037
under Borland C (Windows), but he reports problems running it and ran
7038
out of time to complete the port. Volunteers? Expect a MemoryError
7039
when importing the types module; this is probably shallow, and
7040
causing later failures too.
7048
- Large file support is now enabled on Win32 platforms as well as on
7049
Win64. This means that, for example, you can use f.tell() and f.seek()
7050
to manipulate files larger than 2 gigabytes (provided you have enough
7051
disk space, and are using a Windows filesystem that supports large
7052
partitions). Windows filesystem limits: FAT has a 2GB (gigabyte)
7053
filesize limit, and large file support makes no difference there.
7054
FAT32's limit is 4GB, and files >= 2GB are easier to use from Python now.
7055
NTFS has no practical limit on file size, and files of any size can be
7056
used from Python now.
7058
- The w9xpopen hack is now used on Windows NT and 2000 too when COMPSPEC
7059
points to command.com (patch from Brian Quinlan).
7062
What's New in Python 2.2a2?
7063
===========================
7065
*Release Date: 22-Aug-2001*
7070
- Tim Peters developed a brand new Windows installer using Wise 8.1,
7071
generously donated to us by Wise Solutions.
7073
- configure supports a new option --enable-unicode, with the values
7074
ucs2 and ucs4 (new in 2.2a1). With --disable-unicode, the Unicode
7075
type and supporting code is completely removed from the interpreter.
7077
- A new configure option --enable-framework builds a Mac OS X framework,
7078
which "make frameworkinstall" will install. This provides a starting
7079
point for more mac-like functionality, join pythonmac-sig@python.org
7080
if you are interested in helping.
7082
- The NeXT platform is no longer supported.
7084
- The 'new' module is now statically linked.
7089
- The new Tools/scripts/cleanfuture.py can be used to automatically
7090
edit out obsolete future statements from Python source code. See
7091
the module docstring for details.
7096
- regrtest.py now knows which tests are expected to be skipped on some
7097
platforms, allowing to give clearer test result output. regrtest
7098
also has optional --use/-u switch to run normally disabled tests
7099
which require network access or consume significant disk resources.
7101
- Several new tests in the standard test suite, with special thanks to
7107
- The floor division operator // has been added as outlined in PEP
7108
238. The / operator still provides classic division (and will until
7109
Python 3.0) unless "from __future__ import division" is included, in
7110
which case the / operator will provide true division. The operator
7111
module provides truediv() and floordiv() functions. Augmented
7112
assignment variants are included, as are the equivalent overloadable
7113
methods and C API methods. See the PEP for a full discussion:
7114
<http://python.sf.net/peps/pep-0238.html>
7116
- Future statements are now effective in simulated interactive shells
7117
(like IDLE). This should "just work" by magic, but read Michael
7118
Hudson's "Future statements in simulated shells" PEP 264 for full
7119
details: <http://python.sf.net/peps/pep-0264.html>.
7121
- The type/class unification (PEP 252-253) was integrated into the
7122
trunk and is not so tentative any more (the exact specification of
7123
some features is still tentative). A lot of work has done on fixing
7124
bugs and adding robustness and features (performance still has to
7127
- Warnings about a mismatch in the Python API during extension import
7128
now use the Python warning framework (which makes it possible to
7129
write filters for these warnings).
7131
- A function's __dict__ (aka func_dict) will now always be a
7132
dictionary. It used to be possible to delete it or set it to None,
7133
but now both actions raise TypeErrors. It is still legal to set it
7134
to a dictionary object. Getting func.__dict__ before any attributes
7135
have been assigned now returns an empty dictionary instead of None.
7137
- A new command line option, -E, was added which disables the use of
7138
all environment variables, or at least those that are specifically
7139
significant to Python. Usually those have a name starting with
7140
"PYTHON". This was used to fix a problem where the tests fail if
7141
the user happens to have PYTHONHOME or PYTHONPATH pointing to an
7147
- New class Differ and new functions ndiff() and restore() in difflib.py.
7148
These package the algorithms used by the popular Tools/scripts/ndiff.py,
7149
for programmatic reuse.
7151
- New function xml.sax.saxutils.quoteattr(): Quote an XML attribute
7152
value using the minimal quoting required for the value; more
7153
reliable than using xml.sax.saxutils.escape() for attribute values.
7155
- Readline completion support for cmd.Cmd was added.
7157
- Calling os.tempnam() or os.tmpnam() generate RuntimeWarnings.
7159
- Added function threading.BoundedSemaphore()
7161
- Added Ka-Ping Yee's cgitb.py module.
7163
- The 'new' module now exposes the CO_xxx flags.
7165
- The gc module offers the get_referents function.
7173
- Two new APIs PyOS_snprintf() and PyOS_vsnprintf() were added
7174
which provide a cross-platform implementations for the
7175
relatively new snprintf()/vsnprintf() C lib APIs. In contrast to
7176
the standard sprintf() and vsprintf() C lib APIs, these versions
7177
apply bounds checking on the used buffer which enhances protection
7178
against buffer overruns.
7180
- Unicode APIs now use name mangling to assure that mixing interpreters
7181
and extensions using different Unicode widths is rendered next to
7182
impossible. Trying to import an incompatible Unicode-aware extension
7183
will result in an ImportError. Unicode extensions writers must make
7184
sure to check the Unicode width compatibility in their extensions by
7185
using at least one of the mangled Unicode APIs in the extension.
7187
- Two new flags METH_NOARGS and METH_O are available in method definition
7188
tables to simplify implementation of methods with no arguments and a
7189
single untyped argument. Calling such methods is more efficient than
7190
calling corresponding METH_VARARGS methods. METH_OLDARGS is now
7196
- "import module" now compiles module.pyw if it exists and nothing else
7200
What's New in Python 2.2a1?
7201
===========================
7203
*Release date: 18-Jul-2001*
7208
- TENTATIVELY, a large amount of code implementing much of what's
7209
described in PEP 252 (Making Types Look More Like Classes) and PEP
7210
253 (Subtyping Built-in Types) was added. This will be released
7211
with Python 2.2a1. Documentation will be provided separately
7212
through http://www.python.org/2.2/. The purpose of releasing this
7213
with Python 2.2a1 is to test backwards compatibility. It is
7214
possible, though not likely, that a decision is made not to release
7215
this code as part of 2.2 final, if any serious backwards
7216
incompatibilities are found during alpha testing that cannot be
7219
- Generators were added; this is a new way to create an iterator (see
7220
below) using what looks like a simple function containing one or
7221
more 'yield' statements. See PEP 255. Since this adds a new
7222
keyword to the language, this feature must be enabled by including a
7223
future statement: "from __future__ import generators" (see PEP 236).
7224
Generators will become a standard feature in a future release
7225
(probably 2.3). Without this future statement, 'yield' remains an
7226
ordinary identifier, but a warning is issued each time it is used.
7227
(These warnings currently don't conform to the warnings framework of
7228
PEP 230; we intend to fix this in 2.2a2.)
7230
- The UTF-16 codec was modified to be more RFC compliant. It will now
7231
only remove BOM characters at the start of the string and then
7232
only if running in native mode (UTF-16-LE and -BE won't remove a
7233
leading BMO character).
7235
- Strings now have a new method .decode() to complement the already
7236
existing .encode() method. These two methods provide direct access
7237
to the corresponding decoders and encoders of the registered codecs.
7239
To enhance the usability of the .encode() method, the special
7240
casing of Unicode object return values was dropped (Unicode objects
7241
were auto-magically converted to string using the default encoding).
7243
Both methods will now return whatever the codec in charge of the
7244
requested encoding returns as object, e.g. Unicode codecs will
7245
return Unicode objects when decoding is requested ("Ć¤Ć¶Ć¼".decode("latin-1")
7246
will return u"Ć¤Ć¶Ć¼"). This enables codec writer to create codecs
7247
for various simple to use conversions.
7249
New codecs were added to demonstrate these new features (the .encode()
7250
and .decode() columns indicate the type of the returned objects):
7252
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7253
|Name | .encode() | .decode() | Description |
7254
+=========+===========+===========+=============================+
7255
|uu | string | string | UU codec (e.g. for email) |
7256
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7257
|base64 | string | string | base64 codec |
7258
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7259
|quopri | string | string | quoted-printable codec |
7260
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7261
|zlib | string | string | zlib compression |
7262
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7263
|hex | string | string | 2-byte hex codec |
7264
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7265
|rot-13 | string | Unicode | ROT-13 Unicode charmap codec|
7266
+---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+
7268
- Some operating systems now support the concept of a default Unicode
7269
encoding for file system operations. Notably, Windows supports 'mbcs'
7270
as the default. The Macintosh will also adopt this concept in the medium
7271
term, although the default encoding for that platform will be other than
7274
On operating system that support non-ASCII filenames, it is common for
7275
functions that return filenames (such as os.listdir()) to return Python
7276
string objects pre-encoded using the default file system encoding for
7277
the platform. As this encoding is likely to be different from Python's
7278
default encoding, converting this name to a Unicode object before passing
7279
it back to the Operating System would result in a Unicode error, as Python
7280
would attempt to use its default encoding (generally ASCII) rather than
7281
the default encoding for the file system.
7283
In general, this change simply removes surprises when working with
7284
Unicode and the file system, making these operations work as you expect,
7285
increasing the transparency of Unicode objects in this context.
7286
See [????] for more details, including examples.
7288
- Float (and complex) literals in source code were evaluated to full
7289
precision only when running from a .py file; the same code loaded from a
7290
.pyc (or .pyo) file could suffer numeric differences starting at about the
7291
12th significant decimal digit. For example, on a machine with IEEE-754
7292
floating arithmetic,
7294
x = 9007199254740992.0
7297
printed 9007199254740992 if run directly from .py, but 9007199254740000
7298
if from a compiled (.pyc or .pyo) file. This was due to marshal using
7299
str(float) instead of repr(float) when building code objects. marshal
7300
now uses repr(float) instead, which should reproduce floats to full
7301
machine precision (assuming the platform C float<->string I/O conversion
7302
functions are of good quality).
7304
This may cause floating-point results to change in some cases, and
7305
usually for the better, but may also cause numerically unstable
7306
algorithms to break.
7308
- The implementation of dicts suffers fewer collisions, which has speed
7309
benefits. However, the order in which dict entries appear in dict.keys(),
7310
dict.values() and dict.items() may differ from previous releases for a
7311
given dict. Nothing is defined about this order, so no program should
7312
rely on it. Nevertheless, it's easy to write test cases that rely on the
7313
order by accident, typically because of printing the str() or repr() of a
7314
dict to an "expected results" file. See Lib/test/test_support.py's new
7315
sortdict(dict) function for a simple way to display a dict in sorted
7318
- Many other small changes to dicts were made, resulting in faster
7319
operation along the most common code paths.
7321
- Dictionary objects now support the "in" operator: "x in dict" means
7322
the same as dict.has_key(x).
7324
- The update() method of dictionaries now accepts generic mapping
7325
objects. Specifically the argument object must support the .keys()
7326
and __getitem__() methods. This allows you to say, for example,
7327
{}.update(UserDict())
7329
- Iterators were added; this is a generalized way of providing values
7330
to a for loop. See PEP 234. There's a new built-in function iter()
7331
to return an iterator. There's a new protocol to get the next value
7332
from an iterator using the next() method (in Python) or the
7333
tp_iternext slot (in C). There's a new protocol to get iterators
7334
using the __iter__() method (in Python) or the tp_iter slot (in C).
7335
Iterating (i.e. a for loop) over a dictionary generates its keys.
7336
Iterating over a file generates its lines.
7338
- The following functions were generalized to work nicely with iterator
7341
map(), filter(), reduce(), zip()
7342
list(), tuple() (PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_Fast() in C API)
7344
join() method of strings
7345
extend() method of lists
7346
'x in y' and 'x not in y' (PySequence_Contains() in C API)
7347
operator.countOf() (PySequence_Count() in C API)
7348
right-hand side of assignment statements with multiple targets, such as ::
7349
x, y, z = some_iterable_object_returning_exactly_3_values
7351
- Accessing module attributes is significantly faster (for example,
7352
random.random or os.path or yourPythonModule.yourAttribute).
7354
- Comparing dictionary objects via == and != is faster, and now works even
7355
if the keys and values don't support comparisons other than ==.
7357
- Comparing dictionaries in ways other than == and != is slower: there were
7358
insecurities in the dict comparison implementation that could cause Python
7359
to crash if the element comparison routines for the dict keys and/or
7360
values mutated the dicts. Making the code bulletproof slowed it down.
7362
- Collisions in dicts are resolved via a new approach, which can help
7363
dramatically in bad cases. For example, looking up every key in a dict
7364
d with d.keys() == [i << 16 for i in range(20000)] is approximately 500x
7365
faster now. Thanks to Christian Tismer for pointing out the cause and
7366
the nature of an effective cure (last December! better late than never).
7368
- repr() is much faster for large containers (dict, list, tuple).
7374
- The constants ascii_letters, ascii_lowercase. and ascii_uppercase
7375
were added to the string module. These a locale-independent
7376
constants, unlike letters, lowercase, and uppercase. These are now
7377
use in appropriate locations in the standard library.
7379
- The flags used in dlopen calls can now be configured using
7380
sys.setdlopenflags and queried using sys.getdlopenflags.
7382
- Fredrik Lundh's xmlrpclib is now a standard library module. This
7383
provides full client-side XML-RPC support. In addition,
7384
Demo/xmlrpc/ contains two server frameworks (one SocketServer-based,
7385
one asyncore-based). Thanks to Eric Raymond for the documentation.
7387
- The xrange() object is simplified: it no longer supports slicing,
7388
repetition, comparisons, efficient 'in' checking, the tolist()
7389
method, or the start, stop and step attributes. See PEP 260.
7391
- A new function fnmatch.filter to filter lists of file names was added.
7393
- calendar.py uses month and day names based on the current locale.
7395
- strop is now *really* obsolete (this was announced before with 1.6),
7396
and issues DeprecationWarning when used (except for the four items
7397
that are still imported into string.py).
7399
- Cookie.py now sorts key+value pairs by key in output strings.
7401
- pprint.isrecursive(object) didn't correctly identify recursive objects.
7404
- pprint functions now much faster for large containers (tuple, list, dict).
7406
- New 'q' and 'Q' format codes in the struct module, corresponding to C
7407
types "long long" and "unsigned long long" (on Windows, __int64). In
7408
native mode, these can be used only when the platform C compiler supports
7409
these types (when HAVE_LONG_LONG is #define'd by the Python config
7410
process), and then they inherit the sizes and alignments of the C types.
7411
In standard mode, 'q' and 'Q' are supported on all platforms, and are
7412
8-byte integral types.
7414
- The site module installs a new built-in function 'help' that invokes
7415
pydoc.help. It must be invoked as 'help()'; when invoked as 'help',
7416
it displays a message reminding the user to use 'help()' or
7422
- New test_mutants.py runs dict comparisons where the key and value
7423
comparison operators mutate the dicts randomly during comparison. This
7424
rapidly causes Python to crash under earlier releases (not for the faint
7425
of heart: it can also cause Win9x to freeze or reboot!).
7427
- New test_pprint.py verifies that pprint.isrecursive() and
7428
pprint.isreadable() return sensible results. Also verifies that simple
7429
cases produce correct output.
7434
- Removed the unused last_is_sticky argument from the internal
7435
_PyTuple_Resize(). If this affects you, you were cheating.
7437
What's New in Python 2.1 (final)?
7438
=================================
7440
We only changed a few things since the last release candidate, all in
7441
Python library code:
7443
- A bug in the locale module was fixed that affected locales which
7444
define no grouping for numeric formatting.
7446
- A few bugs in the weakref module's implementations of weak
7447
dictionaries (WeakValueDictionary and WeakKeyDictionary) were fixed,
7448
and the test suite was updated to check for these bugs.
7450
- An old bug in the os.path.walk() function (introduced in Python
7451
2.0!) was fixed: a non-existent file would cause an exception
7452
instead of being ignored.
7454
- Fixed a few bugs in the new symtable module found by Neil Norwitz's
7458
What's New in Python 2.1c2?
7459
===========================
7461
A flurry of small changes, and one showstopper fixed in the nick of
7462
time made it necessary to release another release candidate. The list
7463
here is the *complete* list of patches (except version updates):
7467
- Tim discovered a nasty bug in the dictionary code, caused by
7468
PyDict_Next() calling dict_resize(), and the GC code's use of
7469
PyDict_Next() violating an assumption in dict_items(). This was
7470
fixed with considerable amounts of band-aid, but the net effect is a
7471
saner and more robust implementation.
7473
- Made a bunch of symbols static that were accidentally global.
7477
- The setup.py script didn't check for a new enough version of zlib
7478
(1.1.3 is needed). Now it does.
7480
- Changed "make clean" target to also remove shared libraries.
7482
- Added a more general warning about the SGI Irix optimizer to README.
7486
- Fix a bug in urllib.basejoin("http://host", "../file.html") which
7487
omitted the slash between host and file.html.
7489
- The mailbox module's _Mailbox class contained a completely broken
7490
and undocumented seek() method. Ripped it out.
7492
- Fixed a bunch of typos in various library modules (urllib2, smtpd,
7493
sgmllib, netrc, chunk) found by Neil Norwitz's PyChecker.
7495
- Fixed a few last-minute bugs in unittest.
7499
- Reverted the patch to the OpenSSL code in socketmodule.c to support
7500
RAND_status() and the EGD, and the subsequent patch that tried to
7501
fix it for pre-0.9.5 versions; the problem with the patch is that on
7502
some systems it issues a warning whenever socket is imported, and
7503
that's unacceptable.
7507
- Fixed the pickle tests to work with "import test.test_pickle".
7509
- Tweaked test_locale.py to actually run the test Windows.
7511
- In distutils/archive_util.py, call zipfile.ZipFile() with mode "w",
7512
not "wb" (which is not a valid mode at all).
7514
- Fix pstats browser crashes. Import readline if it exists to make
7515
the user interface nicer.
7517
- Add "import thread" to the top of test modules that import the
7518
threading module (test_asynchat and test_threadedtempfile). This
7519
prevents test failures caused by a broken threading module resulting
7520
from a previously caught failed import.
7522
- Changed test_asynchat.py to set the SO_REUSEADDR option; this was
7523
needed on some platforms (e.g. Solaris 8) when the tests are run
7524
twice in succession.
7526
- Skip rather than fail test_sunaudiodev if no audio device is found.
7529
What's New in Python 2.1c1?
7530
===========================
7532
This list was significantly updated when 2.1c2 was released; the 2.1c1
7533
release didn't mention most changes that were actually part of 2.1c1:
7537
- Copyright was assigned to the Python Software Foundation (PSF) and a
7538
PSF license (very similar to the CNRI license) was added.
7540
- The CNRI copyright notice was updated to include 2001.
7544
- After a public outcry, assignment to __debug__ is no longer illegal;
7545
instead, a warning is issued. It will become illegal in 2.2.
7547
- Fixed a core dump with "%#x" % 0, and changed the semantics so that
7548
"%#x" now always prepends "0x", even if the value is zero.
7550
- Fixed some nits in the bytecode compiler.
7552
- Fixed core dumps when calling certain kinds of non-functions.
7554
- Fixed various core dumps caused by reference count bugs.
7558
- Use INSTALL_SCRIPT to install script files.
7560
- New port: SCO Unixware 7, by Billy G. Allie.
7562
- Updated RISCOS port.
7564
- Updated BeOS port and notes.
7566
- Various other porting problems resolved.
7570
- The TERMIOS and SOCKET modules are now truly obsolete and
7571
unnecessary. Their symbols are incorporated in the termios and
7574
- Fixed some 64-bit bugs in pickle, cPickle, and struct, and added
7575
better tests for pickling.
7577
- threading: make Condition.wait() robust against KeyboardInterrupt.
7579
- zipfile: add support to zipfile to support opening an archive
7580
represented by an open file rather than a file name. Fix bug where
7581
the archive was not properly closed. Fixed a bug in this bugfix
7582
where flush() was called for a read-only file.
7584
- imputil: added an uninstall() method to the ImportManager.
7586
- Canvas: fixed bugs in lower() and tkraise() methods.
7588
- SocketServer: API change (added overridable close_request() method)
7589
so that the TCP server can explicitly close the request.
7591
- pstats: Eric Raymond added a simple interactive statistics browser,
7592
invoked when the module is run as a script.
7594
- locale: fixed a problem in format().
7596
- webbrowser: made it work when the BROWSER environment variable has a
7597
value like "/usr/bin/netscape". Made it auto-detect Konqueror for
7598
KDE 2. Fixed some other nits.
7600
- unittest: changes to allow using a different exception than
7601
AssertionError, and added a few more function aliases. Some other
7604
- urllib, urllib2: fixed redirect problems and a coupleof other nits.
7606
- asynchat: fixed a critical bug in asynchat that slipped through the
7607
2.1b2 release. Fixed another rare bug.
7609
- Fix some unqualified except: clauses (always a bad code example).
7613
- pyexpat: new API get_version_string().
7615
- Fixed some minidom bugs.
7619
- Fixed a core dump in _weakref. Removed the weakref.mapping()
7620
function (it adds nothing to the API).
7622
- Rationalized the use of header files in the readline module, to make
7623
it compile (albeit with some warnings) with the very recent readline
7624
4.2, without breaking for earlier versions.
7626
- Hopefully fixed a buffering problem in linuxaudiodev.
7628
- Attempted a fix to make the OpenSSL support in the socket module
7629
work again with pre-0.9.5 versions of OpenSSL.
7633
- Added a test case for asynchat and asyncore.
7635
- Removed coupling between tests where one test failing could break
7640
- Ping added an interactive help browser to pydoc, fixed some nits
7641
in the rest of the pydoc code, and added some features to his
7644
- An updated python-mode.el version 4.1 which integrates Ken
7645
Manheimer's pdbtrack.el. This makes debugging Python code via pdb
7646
much nicer in XEmacs and Emacs. When stepping through your program
7647
with pdb, in either the shell window or the *Python* window, the
7648
source file and line will be tracked by an arrow. Very cool!
7650
- IDLE: syntax warnings in interactive mode are changed into errors.
7652
- Some improvements to Tools/webchecker (ignore some more URL types,
7653
follow some more links).
7655
- Brought the Tools/compiler package up to date.
7658
What's New in Python 2.1 beta 2?
7659
================================
7661
(Unlisted are many fixed bugs, more documentation, etc.)
7663
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
7665
- The nested scopes work (enabled by "from __future__ import
7666
nested_scopes") is completed; in particular, the future now extends
7667
into code executed through exec, eval() and execfile(), and into the
7668
interactive interpreter.
7670
- When calling a base class method (e.g. BaseClass.__init__(self)),
7671
this is now allowed even if self is not strictly spoken a class
7672
instance (e.g. when using metaclasses or the Don Beaudry hook).
7674
- Slice objects are now comparable but not hashable; this prevents
7675
dict[:] from being accepted but meaningless.
7677
- Complex division is now calculated using less braindead algorithms.
7678
This doesn't change semantics except it's more likely to give useful
7679
results in extreme cases. Complex repr() now uses full precision
7682
- sgmllib.py now calls handle_decl() for simple <!...> declarations.
7684
- It is illegal to assign to the name __debug__, which is set when the
7685
interpreter starts. It is effectively a compile-time constant.
7687
- A warning will be issued if a global statement for a variable
7688
follows a use or assignment of that variable.
7692
- unittest.py, a unit testing framework by Steve Purcell (PyUNIT,
7693
inspired by JUnit), is now part of the standard library. You now
7694
have a choice of two testing frameworks: unittest requires you to
7695
write testcases as separate code, doctest gathers them from
7696
docstrings. Both approaches have their advantages and
7699
- A new module Tix was added, which wraps the Tix extension library
7700
for Tk. With that module, it is not necessary to statically link
7701
Tix with _tkinter, since Tix will be loaded with Tcl's "package
7702
require" command. See Demo/tix/.
7704
- tzparse.py is now obsolete.
7706
- In gzip.py, the seek() and tell() methods are removed -- they were
7707
non-functional anyway, and it's better if callers can test for their
7708
existence with hasattr().
7712
- PyDict_Next(): it is now safe to call PyDict_SetItem() with a key
7713
that's already in the dictionary during a PyDict_Next() iteration.
7714
This used to fail occasionally when a dictionary resize operation
7715
could be triggered that would rehash all the keys. All other
7716
modifications to the dictionary are still off-limits during a
7717
PyDict_Next() iteration!
7719
- New extended APIs related to passing compiler variables around.
7721
- New abstract APIs PyObject_IsInstance(), PyObject_IsSubclass()
7722
implement isinstance() and issubclass().
7724
- Py_BuildValue() now has a "D" conversion to create a Python complex
7725
number from a Py_complex C value.
7727
- Extensions types which support weak references must now set the
7728
field allocated for the weak reference machinery to NULL themselves;
7729
this is done to avoid the cost of checking each object for having a
7730
weakly referencable type in PyObject_INIT(), since most types are
7731
not weakly referencable.
7733
- PyFrame_FastToLocals() and PyFrame_LocalsToFast() copy bindings for
7734
free variables and cell variables to and from the frame's f_locals.
7736
- Variants of several functions defined in pythonrun.h have been added
7737
to support the nested_scopes future statement. The variants all end
7738
in Flags and take an extra argument, a PyCompilerFlags *; examples:
7739
PyRun_AnyFileExFlags(), PyRun_InteractiveLoopFlags(). These
7740
variants may be removed in Python 2.2, when nested scopes are
7745
- the sdist command now writes a PKG-INFO file, as described in PEP 241,
7746
into the release tree.
7748
- several enhancements to the bdist_wininst command from Thomas Heller
7749
(an uninstaller, more customization of the installer's display)
7751
- from Jack Jansen: added Mac-specific code to generate a dialog for
7752
users to specify the command-line (because providing a command-line with
7753
MacPython is awkward). Jack also made various fixes for the Mac
7754
and the Metrowerks compiler.
7756
- added 'platforms' and 'keywords' to the set of metadata that can be
7757
specified for a distribution.
7759
- applied patches from Jason Tishler to make the compiler class work with
7763
What's New in Python 2.1 beta 1?
7764
================================
7766
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
7768
- Following an outcry from the community about the amount of code
7769
broken by the nested scopes feature introduced in 2.1a2, we decided
7770
to make this feature optional, and to wait until Python 2.2 (or at
7771
least 6 months) to make it standard. The option can be enabled on a
7772
per-module basis by adding "from __future__ import nested_scopes" at
7773
the beginning of a module (before any other statements, but after
7774
comments and an optional docstring). See PEP 236 (Back to the
7775
__future__) for a description of the __future__ statement. PEP 227
7776
(Statically Nested Scopes) has been updated to reflect this change,
7777
and to clarify the semantics in a number of endcases.
7779
- The nested scopes code, when enabled, has been hardened, and most
7780
bugs and memory leaks in it have been fixed.
7782
- Compile-time warnings are now generated for a number of conditions
7783
that will break or change in meaning when nested scopes are enabled:
7785
- Using "from...import *" or "exec" without in-clause in a function
7786
scope that also defines a lambda or nested function with one or
7787
more free (non-local) variables. The presence of the import* or
7788
bare exec makes it impossible for the compiler to determine the
7789
exact set of local variables in the outer scope, which makes it
7790
impossible to determine the bindings for free variables in the
7791
inner scope. To avoid the warning about import *, change it into
7792
an import of explicitly name object, or move the import* statement
7793
to the global scope; to avoid the warning about bare exec, use
7794
exec...in... (a good idea anyway -- there's a possibility that
7795
bare exec will be deprecated in the future).
7797
- Use of a global variable in a nested scope with the same name as a
7798
local variable in a surrounding scope. This will change in
7799
meaning with nested scopes: the name in the inner scope will
7800
reference the variable in the outer scope rather than the global
7801
of the same name. To avoid the warning, either rename the outer
7802
variable, or use a global statement in the inner function.
7804
- An optional object allocator has been included. This allocator is
7805
optimized for Python objects and should be faster and use less memory
7806
than the standard system allocator. It is not enabled by default
7807
because of possible thread safety problems. The allocator is only
7808
protected by the Python interpreter lock and it is possible that some
7809
extension modules require a thread safe allocator. The object
7810
allocator can be enabled by providing the "--with-pymalloc" option to
7815
- pyexpat now detects the expat version if expat.h defines it. A
7816
number of additional handlers are provided, which are only available
7817
since expat 1.95. In addition, the methods SetParamEntityParsing and
7818
GetInputContext of Parser objects are available with 1.95.x
7819
only. Parser objects now provide the ordered_attributes and
7820
specified_attributes attributes. A new module expat.model was added,
7821
which offers a number of additional constants if 1.95.x is used.
7823
- xml.dom offers the new functions registerDOMImplementation and
7824
getDOMImplementation.
7826
- xml.dom.minidom offers a toprettyxml method. A number of DOM
7827
conformance issues have been resolved. In particular, Element now
7828
has an hasAttributes method, and the handling of namespaces was
7831
- Ka-Ping Yee contributed two new modules: inspect.py, a module for
7832
getting information about live Python code, and pydoc.py, a module
7833
for interactively converting docstrings to HTML or text.
7834
Tools/scripts/pydoc, which is now automatically installed into
7835
<prefix>/bin, uses pydoc.py to display documentation; try running
7836
"pydoc -h" for instructions. "pydoc -g" pops up a small GUI that
7837
lets you browse the module docstrings using a web browser.
7839
- New library module difflib.py, primarily packaging the SequenceMatcher
7840
class at the heart of the popular ndiff.py file-comparison tool.
7842
- doctest.py (a framework for verifying Python code examples in docstrings)
7843
is now part of the std library.
7847
- A new entry in the Start menu, "Module Docs", runs "pydoc -g" -- a
7848
small GUI that lets you browse the module docstrings using your
7849
default web browser.
7851
- Import is now case-sensitive. PEP 235 (Import on Case-Insensitive
7852
Platforms) is implemented. See
7854
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0235.html
7856
for full details, especially the "Current Lower-Left Semantics" section.
7857
The new Windows import rules are simpler than before:
7859
A. If the PYTHONCASEOK environment variable exists, same as
7860
before: silently accept the first case-insensitive match of any
7861
kind; raise ImportError if none found.
7863
B. Else search sys.path for the first case-sensitive match; raise
7864
ImportError if none found.
7866
The same rules have been implemented on other platforms with case-
7867
insensitive but case-preserving filesystems too (including Cygwin, and
7868
several flavors of Macintosh operating systems).
7870
- winsound module: Under Win9x, winsound.Beep() now attempts to simulate
7871
what it's supposed to do (and does do under NT and 2000) via direct
7872
port manipulation. It's unknown whether this will work on all systems,
7873
but it does work on my Win98SE systems now and was known to be useless on
7874
all Win9x systems before.
7876
- Build: Subproject _test (effectively) renamed to _testcapi.
7880
- 2.1 should compile and run out of the box under MacOS X, even using HFS+.
7881
Thanks to Steven Majewski!
7883
- 2.1 should compile and run out of the box on Cygwin. Thanks to Jason
7886
- 2.1 contains new files and patches for RISCOS, thanks to Dietmar
7887
Schwertberger! See RISCOS/README for more information -- it seems
7888
that because of the bizarre filename conventions on RISCOS, no port
7889
to that platform is easy.
7892
What's New in Python 2.1 alpha 2?
7893
=================================
7895
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
7897
- Scopes nest. If a name is used in a function or class, but is not
7898
local, the definition in the nearest enclosing function scope will
7899
be used. One consequence of this change is that lambda statements
7900
could reference variables in the namespaces where the lambda is
7901
defined. In some unusual cases, this change will break code.
7903
In all previous version of Python, names were resolved in exactly
7904
three namespaces -- the local namespace, the global namespace, and
7905
the builtin namespace. According to this old definition, if a
7906
function A is defined within a function B, the names bound in B are
7907
not visible in A. The new rules make names bound in B visible in A,
7908
unless A contains a name binding that hides the binding in B.
7910
Section 4.1 of the reference manual describes the new scoping rules
7911
in detail. The test script in Lib/test/test_scope.py demonstrates
7912
some of the effects of the change.
7914
The new rules will cause existing code to break if it defines nested
7915
functions where an outer function has local variables with the same
7916
name as globals or builtins used by the inner function. Example:
7921
if type(str) != type(''):
7925
Under the old rules, the name str in helper() is bound to the
7926
builtin function str(). Under the new rules, it will be bound to
7927
the argument named str and an error will occur when helper() is
7930
- The compiler will report a SyntaxError if "from ... import *" occurs
7931
in a function or class scope. The language reference has documented
7932
that this case is illegal, but the compiler never checked for it.
7933
The recent introduction of nested scope makes the meaning of this
7934
form of name binding ambiguous. In a future release, the compiler
7935
may allow this form when there is no possibility of ambiguity.
7937
- repr(string) is easier to read, now using hex escapes instead of octal,
7938
and using \t, \n and \r instead of \011, \012 and \015 (respectively):
7940
>>> "\texample \r\n" + chr(0) + chr(255)
7941
'\texample \r\n\x00\xff' # in 2.1
7942
'\011example \015\012\000\377' # in 2.0
7944
- Functions are now compared and hashed by identity, not by value, since
7945
the func_code attribute is writable.
7947
- Weak references (PEP 205) have been added. This involves a few
7948
changes in the core, an extension module (_weakref), and a Python
7949
module (weakref). The weakref module is the public interface. It
7950
includes support for "explicit" weak references, proxy objects, and
7951
mappings with weakly held values.
7953
- A 'continue' statement can now appear in a try block within the body
7954
of a loop. It is still not possible to use continue in a finally
7959
- mailbox.py now has a new class, PortableUnixMailbox which is
7960
identical to UnixMailbox but uses a more portable scheme for
7961
determining From_ separators. Also, the constructors for all the
7962
classes in this module have a new optional `factory' argument, which
7963
is a callable used when new message classes must be instantiated by
7966
- random.py is now self-contained, and offers all the functionality of
7967
the now-deprecated whrandom.py. See the docs for details. random.py
7968
also supports new functions getstate() and setstate(), for saving
7969
and restoring the internal state of the generator; and jumpahead(n),
7970
for quickly forcing the internal state to be the same as if n calls to
7971
random() had been made. The latter is particularly useful for multi-
7972
threaded programs, creating one instance of the random.Random() class for
7973
each thread, then using .jumpahead() to force each instance to use a
7974
non-overlapping segment of the full period.
7976
- random.py's seed() function is new. For bit-for-bit compatibility with
7977
prior releases, use the whseed function instead. The new seed function
7978
addresses two problems: (1) The old function couldn't produce more than
7979
about 2**24 distinct internal states; the new one about 2**45 (the best
7980
that can be done in the Wichmann-Hill generator). (2) The old function
7981
sometimes produced identical internal states when passed distinct
7982
integers, and there was no simple way to predict when that would happen;
7983
the new one guarantees to produce distinct internal states for all
7984
arguments in [0, 27814431486576L).
7986
- The socket module now supports raw packets on Linux. The socket
7987
family is AF_PACKET.
7989
- test_capi.py is a start at running tests of the Python C API. The tests
7990
are implemented by the new Modules/_testmodule.c.
7992
- A new extension module, _symtable, provides provisional access to the
7993
internal symbol table used by the Python compiler. A higher-level
7994
interface will be added on top of _symtable in a future release.
7996
- Removed the obsolete soundex module.
7998
- xml.dom.minidom now uses the standard DOM exceptions. Node supports
7999
the isSameNode method; NamedNodeMap the get method.
8001
- xml.sax.expatreader supports the lexical handler property; it
8002
generates comment, startCDATA, and endCDATA events.
8006
- Build procedure: the zlib project is built in a different way that
8007
ensures the zlib header files used can no longer get out of synch with
8008
the zlib binary used. See PCbuild\readme.txt for details. Your old
8009
zlib-related directories can be deleted; you'll need to download fresh
8010
source for zlib and unpack it into a new directory.
8012
- Build: New subproject _test for the benefit of test_capi.py (see above).
8014
- Build: New subproject _symtable, for new DLL _symtable.pyd (a nascent
8015
interface to some Python compiler internals).
8017
- Build: Subproject ucnhash is gone, since the code was folded into the
8018
unicodedata subproject.
8020
What's New in Python 2.1 alpha 1?
8021
=================================
8023
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
8025
- There is a new Unicode companion to the PyObject_Str() API
8026
called PyObject_Unicode(). It behaves in the same way as the
8027
former, but assures that the returned value is an Unicode object
8028
(applying the usual coercion if necessary).
8030
- The comparison operators support "rich comparison overloading" (PEP
8031
207). C extension types can provide a rich comparison function in
8032
the new tp_richcompare slot in the type object. The cmp() function
8033
and the C function PyObject_Compare() first try the new rich
8034
comparison operators before trying the old 3-way comparison. There
8035
is also a new C API PyObject_RichCompare() (which also falls back on
8036
the old 3-way comparison, but does not constrain the outcome of the
8037
rich comparison to a Boolean result).
8039
The rich comparison function takes two objects (at least one of
8040
which is guaranteed to have the type that provided the function) and
8041
an integer indicating the opcode, which can be Py_LT, Py_LE, Py_EQ,
8042
Py_NE, Py_GT, Py_GE (for <, <=, ==, !=, >, >=), and returns a Python
8043
object, which may be NotImplemented (in which case the tp_compare
8044
slot function is used as a fallback, if defined).
8046
Classes can overload individual comparison operators by defining one
8047
or more of the methods__lt__, __le__, __eq__, __ne__, __gt__,
8048
__ge__. There are no explicit "reflected argument" versions of
8049
these; instead, __lt__ and __gt__ are each other's reflection,
8050
likewise for__le__ and __ge__; __eq__ and __ne__ are their own
8051
reflection (similar at the C level). No other implications are
8052
made; in particular, Python does not assume that == is the Boolean
8053
inverse of !=, or that < is the Boolean inverse of >=. This makes
8054
it possible to define types with partial orderings.
8056
Classes or types that want to implement (in)equality tests but not
8057
the ordering operators (i.e. unordered types) should implement ==
8058
and !=, and raise an error for the ordering operators.
8060
It is possible to define types whose rich comparison results are not
8061
Boolean; e.g. a matrix type might want to return a matrix of bits
8062
for A < B, giving elementwise comparisons. Such types should ensure
8063
that any interpretation of their value in a Boolean context raises
8064
an exception, e.g. by defining __nonzero__ (or the tp_nonzero slot
8065
at the C level) to always raise an exception.
8067
- Complex numbers use rich comparisons to define == and != but raise
8068
an exception for <, <=, > and >=. Unfortunately, this also means
8069
that cmp() of two complex numbers raises an exception when the two
8070
numbers differ. Since it is not mathematically meaningful to compare
8071
complex numbers except for equality, I hope that this doesn't break
8074
- The outcome of comparing non-numeric objects of different types is
8075
not defined by the language, other than that it's arbitrary but
8076
consistent (see the Reference Manual). An implementation detail changed
8077
in 2.1a1 such that None now compares less than any other object. Code
8078
relying on this new behavior (like code that relied on the previous
8079
behavior) does so at its own risk.
8081
- Functions and methods now support getting and setting arbitrarily
8082
named attributes (PEP 232). Functions have a new __dict__
8083
(a.k.a. func_dict) which hold the function attributes. Methods get
8084
and set attributes on their underlying im_func. It is a TypeError
8085
to set an attribute on a bound method.
8087
- The xrange() object implementation has been improved so that
8088
xrange(sys.maxint) can be used on 64-bit platforms. There's still a
8089
limitation that in this case len(xrange(sys.maxint)) can't be
8090
calculated, but the common idiom "for i in xrange(sys.maxint)" will
8091
work fine as long as the index i doesn't actually reach 2**31.
8092
(Python uses regular ints for sequence and string indices; fixing
8093
that is much more work.)
8095
- Two changes to from...import:
8097
1) "from M import X" now works even if (after loading module M)
8098
sys.modules['M'] is not a real module; it's basically a getattr()
8099
operation with AttributeError exceptions changed into ImportError.
8101
2) "from M import *" now looks for M.__all__ to decide which names to
8102
import; if M.__all__ doesn't exist, it uses M.__dict__.keys() but
8103
filters out names starting with '_' as before. Whether or not
8104
__all__ exists, there's no restriction on the type of M.
8106
- File objects have a new method, xreadlines(). This is the fastest
8107
way to iterate over all lines in a file:
8109
for line in file.xreadlines():
8110
...do something to line...
8112
See the xreadlines module (mentioned below) for how to do this for
8113
other file-like objects.
8115
- Even if you don't use file.xreadlines(), you may expect a speedup on
8116
line-by-line input. The file.readline() method has been optimized
8117
quite a bit in platform-specific ways: on systems (like Linux) that
8118
support flockfile(), getc_unlocked(), and funlockfile(), those are
8119
used by default. On systems (like Windows) without getc_unlocked(),
8120
a complicated (but still thread-safe) method using fgets() is used by
8123
You can force use of the fgets() method by #define'ing
8124
USE_FGETS_IN_GETLINE at build time (it may be faster than
8127
You can force fgets() not to be used by #define'ing
8128
DONT_USE_FGETS_IN_GETLINE (this is the first thing to try if std test
8129
test_bufio.py fails -- and let us know if it does!).
8131
- In addition, the fileinput module, while still slower than the other
8132
methods on most platforms, has been sped up too, by using
8133
file.readlines(sizehint).
8135
- Support for run-time warnings has been added, including a new
8136
command line option (-W) to specify the disposition of warnings.
8137
See the description of the warnings module below.
8139
- Extensive changes have been made to the coercion code. This mostly
8140
affects extension modules (which can now implement mixed-type
8141
numerical operators without having to use coercion), but
8142
occasionally, in boundary cases the coercion semantics have changed
8143
subtly. Since this was a terrible gray area of the language, this
8144
is considered an improvement. Also note that __rcmp__ is no longer
8145
supported -- instead of calling __rcmp__, __cmp__ is called with
8146
reflected arguments.
8148
- In connection with the coercion changes, a new built-in singleton
8149
object, NotImplemented is defined. This can be returned for
8150
operations that wish to indicate they are not implemented for a
8151
particular combination of arguments. From C, this is
8154
- The interpreter accepts now bytecode files on the command line even
8155
if they do not have a .pyc or .pyo extension. On Linux, after executing
8157
import imp,sys,string
8158
magic = string.join(["\\x%.2x" % ord(c) for c in imp.get_magic()],"")
8159
reg = ':pyc:M::%s::%s:' % (magic, sys.executable)
8160
open("/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register","wb").write(reg)
8162
any byte code file can be used as an executable (i.e. as an argument
8165
- %[xXo] formats of negative Python longs now produce a sign
8166
character. In 1.6 and earlier, they never produced a sign,
8167
and raised an error if the value of the long was too large
8168
to fit in a Python int. In 2.0, they produced a sign if and
8169
only if too large to fit in an int. This was inconsistent
8170
across platforms (because the size of an int varies across
8171
platforms), and inconsistent with hex() and oct(). Example:
8175
'ffffffbe' # in 2.0 and before, on 32-bit machines
8177
'-0x42L' # in all versions of Python
8179
The behavior of %d formats for negative Python longs remains
8180
the same as in 2.0 (although in 1.6 and before, they raised
8181
an error if the long didn't fit in a Python int).
8183
%u formats don't make sense for Python longs, but are allowed
8184
and treated the same as %d in 2.1. In 2.0, a negative long
8185
formatted via %u produced a sign if and only if too large to
8186
fit in an int. In 1.6 and earlier, a negative long formatted
8187
via %u raised an error if it was too big to fit in an int.
8189
- Dictionary objects have an odd new method, popitem(). This removes
8190
an arbitrary item from the dictionary and returns it (in the form of
8191
a (key, value) pair). This can be useful for algorithms that use a
8192
dictionary as a bag of "to do" items and repeatedly need to pick one
8193
item. Such algorithms normally end up running in quadratic time;
8194
using popitem() they can usually be made to run in linear time.
8198
- In the time module, the time argument to the functions strftime,
8199
localtime, gmtime, asctime and ctime is now optional, defaulting to
8200
the current time (in the local timezone).
8202
- The ftplib module now defaults to passive mode, which is deemed a
8203
more useful default given that clients are often inside firewalls
8204
these days. Note that this could break if ftplib is used to connect
8205
to a *server* that is inside a firewall, from outside; this is
8206
expected to be a very rare situation. To fix that, you can call
8209
- The module site now treats .pth files not only for path configuration,
8210
but also supports extensions to the initialization code: Lines starting
8211
with import are executed.
8213
- There's a new module, warnings, which implements a mechanism for
8214
issuing and filtering warnings. There are some new built-in
8215
exceptions that serve as warning categories, and a new command line
8216
option, -W, to control warnings (e.g. -Wi ignores all warnings, -We
8217
turns warnings into errors). warnings.warn(message[, category])
8218
issues a warning message; this can also be called from C as
8219
PyErr_Warn(category, message).
8221
- A new module xreadlines was added. This exports a single factory
8222
function, xreadlines(). The intention is that this code is the
8223
absolutely fastest way to iterate over all lines in an open
8227
for line in xreadlines.xreadlines(file):
8228
...do something to line...
8230
This is equivalent to the previous the speed record holder using
8231
file.readlines(sizehint). Note that if file is a real file object
8232
(as opposed to a file-like object), this is equivalent:
8234
for line in file.xreadlines():
8235
...do something to line...
8237
- The bisect module has new functions bisect_left, insort_left,
8238
bisect_right and insort_right. The old names bisect and insort
8239
are now aliases for bisect_right and insort_right. XXX_right
8240
and XXX_left methods differ in what happens when the new element
8241
compares equal to one or more elements already in the list: the
8242
XXX_left methods insert to the left, the XXX_right methods to the
8243
right. Code that doesn't care where equal elements end up should
8244
continue to use the old, short names ("bisect" and "insort").
8246
- The new curses.panel module wraps the panel library that forms part
8247
of SYSV curses and ncurses. Contributed by Thomas Gellekum.
8249
- The SocketServer module now sets the allow_reuse_address flag by
8250
default in the TCPServer class.
8252
- A new function, sys._getframe(), returns the stack frame pointer of
8253
the caller. This is intended only as a building block for
8254
higher-level mechanisms such as string interpolation.
8256
- The pyexpat module supports a number of new handlers, which are
8257
available only in expat 1.2. If invocation of a callback fails, it
8258
will report an additional frame in the traceback. Parser objects
8259
participate now in garbage collection. If expat reports an unknown
8260
encoding, pyexpat will try to use a Python codec; that works only
8261
for single-byte charsets. The parser type objects is exposed as
8264
- xml.dom now offers standard definitions for symbolic node type and
8265
exception code constants, and a hierarchy of DOM exceptions. minidom
8266
was adjusted to use them.
8268
- The conformance of xml.dom.minidom to the DOM specification was
8269
improved. It detects a number of additional error cases; the
8270
previous/next relationship works even when the tree is modified;
8271
Node supports the normalize() method; NamedNodeMap, DocumentType and
8272
DOMImplementation classes were added; Element supports the
8273
hasAttribute and hasAttributeNS methods; and Text supports the splitText
8278
- For Unix (and Unix-compatible) builds, configuration and building of
8279
extension modules is now greatly automated. Rather than having to
8280
edit the Modules/Setup file to indicate which modules should be
8281
built and where their include files and libraries are, a
8282
distutils-based setup.py script now takes care of building most
8283
extension modules. All extension modules built this way are built
8284
as shared libraries. Only a few modules that must be linked
8285
statically are still listed in the Setup file; you won't need to
8286
edit their configuration.
8288
- Python should now build out of the box on Cygwin. If it doesn't,
8289
mail to Jason Tishler (jlt63 at users.sourceforge.net).
8291
- Python now always uses its own (renamed) implementation of getopt()
8292
-- there's too much variation among C library getopt()
8295
- C++ compilers are better supported; the CXX macro is always set to a
8296
C++ compiler if one is found.
8300
- select module: By default under Windows, a select() call
8301
can specify no more than 64 sockets. Python now boosts
8302
this Microsoft default to 512. If you need even more than
8303
that, see the MS docs (you'll need to #define FD_SETSIZE
8304
and recompile Python from source).
8306
- Support for Windows 3.1, DOS and OS/2 is gone. The Lib/dos-8x3
8307
subdirectory is no more!
8310
What's New in Python 2.0?
8311
=========================
8313
Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.6. Older
8314
changes are in the file HISTORY. If you are making the jump directly
8315
from Python 1.5.2 to 2.0, make sure to read the section for 1.6 in the
8316
HISTORY file! Many important changes listed there.
8318
Alternatively, a good overview of the changes between 1.5.2 and 2.0 is
8319
the document "What's New in Python 2.0" by Kuchling and Moshe Zadka:
8320
http://www.amk.ca/python/2.0/.
8322
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)
8324
======================================================================
8326
What's new in 2.0 (since release candidate 1)?
8327
==============================================
8331
- The copy_reg module was modified to clarify its intended use: to
8332
register pickle support for extension types, not for classes.
8333
pickle() will raise a TypeError if it is passed a class.
8335
- Fixed a bug in gettext's "normalize and expand" code that prevented
8336
it from finding an existing .mo file.
8338
- Restored support for HTTP/0.9 servers in httplib.
8340
- The math module was changed to stop raising OverflowError in case of
8341
underflow, and return 0 instead in underflow cases. Whether Python
8342
used to raise OverflowError in case of underflow was platform-
8343
dependent (it did when the platform math library set errno to ERANGE
8346
- Fixed a bug in StringIO that occurred when the file position was not
8347
at the end of the file and write() was called with enough data to
8348
extend past the end of the file.
8350
- Fixed a bug that caused Tkinter error messages to get lost on
8351
Windows. The bug was fixed by replacing direct use of
8352
interp->result with Tcl_GetStringResult(interp).
8354
- Fixed bug in urllib2 that caused it to fail when it received an HTTP
8357
- Several changes were made to distutils: Some debugging code was
8358
removed from util. Fixed the installer used when an external zip
8359
program (like WinZip) is not found; the source code for this
8360
installer is in Misc/distutils. check_lib() was modified to behave
8361
more like AC_CHECK_LIB by add other_libraries() as a parameter. The
8362
test for whether installed modules are on sys.path was changed to
8363
use both normcase() and normpath().
8365
- Several minor bugs were fixed in the xml package (the minidom,
8366
pulldom, expatreader, and saxutils modules).
8368
- The regression test driver (regrtest.py) behavior when invoked with
8369
-l changed: It now reports a count of objects that are recognized as
8370
garbage but not freed by the garbage collector.
8372
- The regression test for the math module was changed to test
8373
exceptional behavior when the test is run in verbose mode. Python
8374
cannot yet guarantee consistent exception behavior across platforms,
8375
so the exception part of test_math is run only in verbose mode, and
8376
may fail on your platform.
8380
- PyOS_CheckStack() has been disabled on Win64, where it caused
8385
- Changed compiler flags, so that gcc is always invoked with -Wall and
8386
-Wstrict-prototypes. Users compiling Python with GCC should see
8387
exactly one warning, except if they have passed configure the
8388
--with-pydebug flag. The expected warning is for getopt() in
8389
Modules/main.c. This warning will be fixed for Python 2.1.
8391
- Fixed configure to add -threads argument during linking on OSF1.
8393
Tools and other miscellany
8395
- The compiler in Tools/compiler was updated to support the new
8396
language features introduced in 2.0: extended print statement, list
8397
comprehensions, and augmented assignments. The new compiler should
8398
also be backwards compatible with Python 1.5.2; the compiler will
8399
always generate code for the version of the interpreter it runs
8402
What's new in 2.0 release candidate 1 (since beta 2)?
8403
=====================================================
8405
What is release candidate 1?
8407
We believe that release candidate 1 will fix all known bugs that we
8408
intend to fix for the 2.0 final release. This release should be a bit
8409
more stable than the previous betas. We would like to see even more
8410
widespread testing before the final release, so we are producing this
8411
release candidate. The final release will be exactly the same unless
8412
any show-stopping (or brown bag) bugs are found by testers of the
8415
All the changes since the last beta release are bug fixes or changes
8416
to support building Python for specific platforms.
8418
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
8420
- A bug that caused crashes when __coerce__ was used with augmented
8421
assignment, e.g. +=, was fixed.
8423
- Raise ZeroDivisionError when raising zero to a negative number,
8424
e.g. 0.0 ** -2.0. Note that math.pow is unrelated to the builtin
8425
power operator and the result of math.pow(0.0, -2.0) will vary by
8426
platform. On Linux, it raises a ValueError.
8428
- A bug in Unicode string interpolation was fixed that occasionally
8429
caused errors with formats including "%%". For example, the
8430
following expression "%% %s" % u"abc" no longer raises a TypeError.
8432
- Compilation of deeply nested expressions raises MemoryError instead
8433
of SyntaxError, e.g. eval("[" * 50 + "]" * 50).
8435
- In 2.0b2 on Windows, the interpreter wrote .pyc files in text mode,
8436
rendering them useless. They are now written in binary mode again.
8440
- Keyword arguments are now accepted for most pattern and match object
8441
methods in SRE, the standard regular expression engine.
8443
- In SRE, fixed error with negative lookahead and lookbehind that
8444
manifested itself as a runtime error in patterns like "(?<!abc)(def)".
8446
- Several bugs in the Unicode handling and error handling in _tkinter
8449
- Fix memory management errors in Merge() and Tkapp_Call() routines.
8451
- Several changes were made to cStringIO to make it compatible with
8452
the file-like object interface and with StringIO. If operations are
8453
performed on a closed object, an exception is raised. The truncate
8454
method now accepts a position argument and readline accepts a size
8457
- There were many changes made to the linuxaudiodev module and its
8458
test suite; as a result, a short, unexpected audio sample should now
8459
play when the regression test is run.
8461
Note that this module is named poorly, because it should work
8462
correctly on any platform that supports the Open Sound System
8465
The module now raises exceptions when errors occur instead of
8466
crashing. It also defines the AFMT_A_LAW format (logarithmic A-law
8467
audio) and defines a getptr() method that calls the
8468
SNDCTL_DSP_GETxPTR ioctl defined in the OSS Programmer's Guide.
8470
- The library_version attribute, introduced in an earlier beta, was
8471
removed because it can not be supported with early versions of the C
8472
readline library, which provides no way to determine the version at
8475
- The binascii module is now enabled on Win64.
8477
- tokenize.py no longer suffers "recursion depth" errors when parsing
8478
programs with very long string literals.
8482
- Fixed several buffer overflow vulnerabilities in calculate_path(),
8483
which is called when the interpreter starts up to determine where
8484
the standard library is installed. These vulnerabilities affect all
8485
previous versions of Python and can be exploited by setting very
8486
long values for PYTHONHOME or argv[0]. The risk is greatest for a
8487
setuid Python script, although use of the wrapper in
8488
Misc/setuid-prog.c will eliminate the vulnerability.
8490
- Fixed garbage collection bugs in instance creation that were
8491
triggered when errors occurred during initialization. The solution,
8492
applied in cPickle and in PyInstance_New(), is to call
8493
PyObject_GC_Init() after the initialization of the object's
8494
container attributes is complete.
8496
- pyexpat adds definitions of PyModule_AddStringConstant and
8497
PyModule_AddObject if the Python version is less than 2.0, which
8498
provides compatibility with PyXML on Python 1.5.2.
8500
- If the platform has a bogus definition for LONG_BIT (the number of
8501
bits in a long), an error will be reported at compile time.
8503
- Fix bugs in _PyTuple_Resize() which caused hard-to-interpret garbage
8504
collection crashes and possibly other, unreported crashes.
8506
- Fixed a memory leak in _PyUnicode_Fini().
8510
- configure now accepts a --with-suffix option that specifies the
8511
executable suffix. This is useful for builds on Cygwin and Mac OS
8514
- The mmap.PAGESIZE constant is now initialized using sysconf when
8515
possible, which eliminates a dependency on -lucb for Reliant UNIX.
8517
- The md5 file should now compile on all platforms.
8519
- The select module now compiles on platforms that do not define
8520
POLLRDNORM and related constants.
8522
- Darwin (Mac OS X): Initial support for static builds on this
8525
- BeOS: A number of changes were made to the build and installation
8526
process. ar-fake now operates on a directory of object files.
8527
dl_export.h is gone, and its macros now appear on the mwcc command
8528
line during build on PPC BeOS.
8530
- Platform directory in lib/python2.0 is "plat-beos5" (or
8531
"plat-beos4", if building on BeOS 4.5), rather than "plat-beos".
8533
- Cygwin: Support for shared libraries, Tkinter, and sockets.
8535
- SunOS 4.1.4_JL: Fix test for directory existence in configure.
8537
Tools and other miscellany
8539
- Removed debugging prints from main used with freeze.
8541
- IDLE auto-indent no longer crashes when it encounters Unicode
8544
What's new in 2.0 beta 2 (since beta 1)?
8545
========================================
8547
Core language, builtins, and interpreter
8549
- Add support for unbounded ints in %d,i,u,x,X,o formats; for example
8550
"%d" % 2L**64 == "18446744073709551616".
8552
- Add -h and -V command line options to print the usage message and
8553
Python version number and exit immediately.
8555
- eval() and exec accept Unicode objects as code parameters.
8557
- getattr() and setattr() now also accept Unicode objects for the
8558
attribute name, which are converted to strings using the default
8559
encoding before lookup.
8561
- Multiplication on string and Unicode now does proper bounds
8562
checking; e.g. 'a' * 65536 * 65536 will raise ValueError, "repeated
8563
string is too long."
8565
- Better error message when continue is found in try statement in a
8569
Standard library and extensions
8571
- socket module: the OpenSSL code now adds support for RAND_status()
8572
and EGD (Entropy Gathering Device).
8574
- array: reverse() method of array now works. buffer_info() now does
8575
argument checking; it still takes no arguments.
8577
- asyncore/asynchat: Included most recent version from Sam Rushing.
8579
- cgi: Accept '&' or ';' as separator characters when parsing form data.
8581
- CGIHTTPServer: Now works on Windows (and perhaps even Mac).
8583
- ConfigParser: When reading the file, options spelled in upper case
8584
letters are now correctly converted to lowercase.
8586
- copy: Copy Unicode objects atomically.
8588
- cPickle: Fail gracefully when copy_reg can't be imported.
8590
- cStringIO: Implemented readlines() method.
8592
- dbm: Add get() and setdefault() methods to dbm object. Add constant
8593
`library' to module that names the library used. Added doc strings
8594
and method names to error messages. Uses configure to determine
8595
which ndbm.h file to include; Berkeley DB's nbdm and GDBM's ndbm is
8596
now available options.
8598
- distutils: Update to version 0.9.3.
8600
- dl: Add several dl.RTLD_ constants.
8602
- fpectl: Now supported on FreeBSD.
8604
- gc: Add DEBUG_SAVEALL option. When enabled all garbage objects
8605
found by the collector will be saved in gc.garbage. This is useful
8606
for debugging a program that creates reference cycles.
8608
- httplib: Three changes: Restore support for set_debuglevel feature
8609
of HTTP class. Do not close socket on zero-length response. Do not
8610
crash when server sends invalid content-length header.
8612
- mailbox: Mailbox class conforms better to qmail specifications.
8614
- marshal: When reading a short, sign-extend on platforms where shorts
8615
are bigger than 16 bits. When reading a long, repair the unportable
8616
sign extension that was being done for 64-bit machines. (It assumed
8617
that signed right shift sign-extends.)
8619
- operator: Add contains(), invert(), __invert__() as aliases for
8620
__contains__(), inv(), and __inv__() respectively.
8622
- os: Add support for popen2() and popen3() on all platforms where
8623
fork() exists. (popen4() is still in the works.)
8625
- os: (Windows only:) Add startfile() function that acts like double-
8626
clicking on a file in Explorer (or passing the file name to the
8627
DOS "start" command).
8629
- os.path: (Windows, DOS:) Treat trailing colon correctly in
8630
os.path.join. os.path.join("a:", "b") yields "a:b".
8632
- pickle: Now raises ValueError when an invalid pickle that contains
8633
a non-string repr where a string repr was expected. This behavior
8636
- posixfile: Remove broken __del__() method.
8638
- py_compile: support CR+LF line terminators in source file.
8640
- readline: Does not immediately exit when ^C is hit when readline and
8641
threads are configured. Adds definition of rl_library_version. (The
8642
latter addition requires GNU readline 2.2 or later.)
8644
- rfc822: Domain literals returned by AddrlistClass method
8645
getdomainliteral() are now properly wrapped in brackets.
8647
- site: sys.setdefaultencoding() should only be called in case the
8648
standard default encoding ("ascii") is changed. This saves quite a
8649
few cycles during startup since the first call to
8650
setdefaultencoding() will initialize the codec registry and the
8653
- socket: Support for size hint in readlines() method of object returned
8656
- sre: Added experimental expand() method to match objects. Does not
8657
use buffer interface on Unicode strings. Does not hang if group id
8658
is followed by whitespace.
8660
- StringIO: Size hint in readlines() is now supported as documented.
8662
- struct: Check ranges for bytes and shorts.
8664
- urllib: Improved handling of win32 proxy settings. Fixed quote and
8665
quote_plus functions so that the always encode a comma.
8667
- Tkinter: Image objects are now guaranteed to have unique ids. Set
8668
event.delta to zero if Tk version doesn't support mousewheel.
8669
Removed some debugging prints.
8671
- UserList: now implements __contains__().
8673
- webbrowser: On Windows, use os.startfile() instead of os.popen(),
8674
which works around a bug in Norton AntiVirus 2000 that leads directly
8675
to a Blue Screen freeze.
8677
- xml: New version detection code allows PyXML to override standard
8678
XML package if PyXML version is greater than 0.6.1.
8680
- xml.dom: DOM level 1 support for basic XML. Includes xml.dom.minidom
8681
(conventional DOM), and xml.dom.pulldom, which allows building the DOM
8682
tree only for nodes which are sufficiently interesting to a specific
8683
application. Does not provide the HTML-specific extensions. Still
8686
- xml.sax: SAX 2 support for Python, including all the handler
8687
interfaces needed to process XML 1.0 compliant XML. Some
8688
documentation is already available.
8690
- pyexpat: Renamed to xml.parsers.expat since this is part of the new,
8691
packagized XML support.
8696
- Add three new convenience functions for module initialization --
8697
PyModule_AddObject(), PyModule_AddIntConstant(), and
8698
PyModule_AddStringConstant().
8700
- Cleaned up definition of NULL in C source code; all definitions were
8701
removed and add #error to Python.h if NULL isn't defined after
8702
#include of stdio.h.
8704
- Py_PROTO() macros that were removed in 2.0b1 have been restored for
8705
backwards compatibility (at the source level) with old extensions.
8707
- A wrapper API was added for signal() and sigaction(). Instead of
8708
either function, always use PyOS_getsig() to get a signal handler
8709
and PyOS_setsig() to set one. A new convenience typedef
8710
PyOS_sighandler_t is defined for the type of signal handlers.
8712
- Add PyString_AsStringAndSize() function that provides access to the
8713
internal data buffer and size of a string object -- or the default
8714
encoded version of a Unicode object.
8716
- PyString_Size() and PyString_AsString() accept Unicode objects.
8718
- The standard header <limits.h> is now included by Python.h (if it
8719
exists). INT_MAX and LONG_MAX will always be defined, even if
8720
<limits.h> is not available.
8722
- PyFloat_FromString takes a second argument, pend, that was
8723
effectively useless. It is now officially useless but preserved for
8724
backwards compatibility. If the pend argument is not NULL, *pend is
8727
- PyObject_GetAttr() and PyObject_SetAttr() now accept Unicode objects
8728
for the attribute name. See note on getattr() above.
8730
- A few bug fixes to argument processing for Unicode.
8731
PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords() now accepts "es#" and "es".
8732
PyArg_Parse() special cases "s#" for Unicode objects; it returns a
8733
pointer to the default encoded string data instead of to the raw
8736
- Py_BuildValue accepts B format (for bgen-generated code).
8741
- On Unix, fix code for finding Python installation directory so that
8742
it works when argv[0] is a relative path.
8744
- Added a true unicode_internal_encode() function and fixed the
8745
unicode_internal_decode function() to support Unicode objects directly
8746
rather than by generating a copy of the object.
8748
- Several of the internal Unicode tables are much smaller now, and
8749
the source code should be much friendlier to weaker compilers.
8751
- In the garbage collector: Fixed bug in collection of tuples. Fixed
8752
bug that caused some instances to be removed from the container set
8753
while they were still live. Fixed parsing in gc.set_debug() for
8754
platforms where sizeof(long) > sizeof(int).
8756
- Fixed refcount problem in instance deallocation that only occurred
8757
when Py_REF_DEBUG was defined and Py_TRACE_REFS was not.
8759
- On Windows, getpythonregpath is now protected against null data in
8762
- On Unix, create .pyc/.pyo files with O_EXCL flag to avoid a race
8766
Build and platform-specific issues
8768
- Better support of GNU Pth via --with-pth configure option.
8770
- Python/C API now properly exposed to dynamically-loaded extension
8771
modules on Reliant UNIX.
8773
- Changes for the benefit of SunOS 4.1.4 (really!). mmapmodule.c:
8774
Don't define MS_SYNC to be zero when it is undefined. Added missing
8775
prototypes in posixmodule.c.
8777
- Improved support for HP-UX build. Threads should now be correctly
8778
configured (on HP-UX 10.20 and 11.00).
8780
- Fix largefile support on older NetBSD systems and OpenBSD by adding
8784
Tools and other miscellany
8786
- ftpmirror: Call to main() is wrapped in if __name__ == "__main__".
8788
- freeze: The modulefinder now works with 2.0 opcodes.
8791
Move hackery of sys.argv until after the Tk instance has been
8792
created, which allows the application-specific Tkinter
8793
initialization to be executed if present; also pass an explicit
8794
className parameter to the Tk() constructor.
8797
What's new in 2.0 beta 1?
8798
=========================
8800
Source Incompatibilities
8801
------------------------
8803
None. Note that 1.6 introduced several incompatibilities with 1.5.2,
8804
such as single-argument append(), connect() and bind(), and changes to
8805
str(long) and repr(float).
8808
Binary Incompatibilities
8809
------------------------
8811
- Third party extensions built for Python 1.5.x or 1.6 cannot be used
8812
with Python 2.0; these extensions will have to be rebuilt for Python
8815
- On Windows, attempting to import a third party extension built for
8816
Python 1.5.x or 1.6 results in an immediate crash; there's not much we
8817
can do about this. Check your PYTHONPATH environment variable!
8819
- Python bytecode files (*.pyc and *.pyo) are not compatible between
8823
Overview of Changes Since 1.6
8824
-----------------------------
8826
There are many new modules (including brand new XML support through
8827
the xml package, and i18n support through the gettext module); a list
8828
of all new modules is included below. Lots of bugs have been fixed.
8830
The process for making major new changes to the language has changed
8831
since Python 1.6. Enhancements must now be documented by a Python
8832
Enhancement Proposal (PEP) before they can be accepted.
8834
There are several important syntax enhancements, described in more
8837
- Augmented assignment, e.g. x += 1
8839
- List comprehensions, e.g. [x**2 for x in range(10)]
8841
- Extended import statement, e.g. import Module as Name
8843
- Extended print statement, e.g. print >> file, "Hello"
8845
Other important changes:
8847
- Optional collection of cyclical garbage
8849
Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP)
8850
---------------------------------
8852
PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal. A PEP is a design
8853
document providing information to the Python community, or describing
8854
a new feature for Python. The PEP should provide a concise technical
8855
specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature.
8857
We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new
8858
features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for
8859
documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python. The PEP
8860
author is responsible for building consensus within the community and
8861
documenting dissenting opinions.
8863
The PEPs are available at http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/.
8865
Augmented Assignment
8866
--------------------
8868
This must have been the most-requested feature of the past years!
8869
Eleven new assignment operators were added:
8871
+= -= *= /= %= **= <<= >>= &= ^= |=
8881
except that A is evaluated only once (relevant when A is something
8882
like dict[index].attr).
8884
However, if A is a mutable object, A may be modified in place. Thus,
8885
if A is a number or a string, A += B has the same effect as A = A+B
8886
(except A is only evaluated once); but if a is a list, A += B has the
8887
same effect as A.extend(B)!
8889
Classes and built-in object types can override the new operators in
8890
order to implement the in-place behavior; the not-in-place behavior is
8891
used automatically as a fallback when an object doesn't implement the
8892
in-place behavior. For classes, the method name is derived from the
8893
method name for the corresponding not-in-place operator by inserting
8894
an 'i' in front of the name, e.g. __iadd__ implements in-place
8897
Augmented assignment was implemented by Thomas Wouters.
8903
This is a flexible new notation for lists whose elements are computed
8904
from another list (or lists). The simplest form is:
8906
[<expression> for <variable> in <sequence>]
8908
For example, [i**2 for i in range(4)] yields the list [0, 1, 4, 9].
8909
This is more efficient than a for loop with a list.append() call.
8911
You can also add a condition:
8913
[<expression> for <variable> in <sequence> if <condition>]
8915
For example, [w for w in words if w == w.lower()] would yield the list
8916
of words that contain no uppercase characters. This is more efficient
8917
than a for loop with an if statement and a list.append() call.
8919
You can also have nested for loops and more than one 'if' clause. For
8920
example, here's a function that flattens a sequence of sequences::
8923
return [x for subseq in seq for x in subseq]
8925
flatten([[0], [1,2,3], [4,5], [6,7,8,9], []])
8929
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
8931
List comprehensions originated as a patch set from Greg Ewing; Skip
8932
Montanaro and Thomas Wouters also contributed. Described by PEP 202.
8935
Extended Import Statement
8936
-------------------------
8938
Many people have asked for a way to import a module under a different
8939
name. This can be accomplished like this:
8945
but this common idiom gets old quickly. A simple extension of the
8946
import statement now allows this to be written as follows:
8950
There's also a variant for 'from ... import':
8952
from foo import bar as spam
8954
This also works with packages; e.g. you can write this:
8956
import test.regrtest as regrtest
8958
Note that 'as' is not a new keyword -- it is recognized only in this
8959
context (this is only possible because the syntax for the import
8960
statement doesn't involve expressions).
8962
Implemented by Thomas Wouters. Described by PEP 221.
8965
Extended Print Statement
8966
------------------------
8968
Easily the most controversial new feature, this extension to the print
8969
statement adds an option to make the output go to a different file
8970
than the default sys.stdout.
8972
For example, to write an error message to sys.stderr, you can now
8975
print >> sys.stderr, "Error: bad dog!"
8977
As a special feature, if the expression used to indicate the file
8978
evaluates to None, the current value of sys.stdout is used. Thus:
8980
print >> None, "Hello world"
8986
Design and implementation by Barry Warsaw. Described by PEP 214.
8989
Optional Collection of Cyclical Garbage
8990
---------------------------------------
8992
Python is now equipped with a garbage collector that can hunt down
8993
cyclical references between Python objects. It's no replacement for
8994
reference counting; in fact, it depends on the reference counts being
8995
correct, and decides that a set of objects belong to a cycle if all
8996
their reference counts can be accounted for from their references to
8997
each other. This devious scheme was first proposed by Eric Tiedemann,
8998
and brought to implementation by Neil Schemenauer.
9000
There's a module "gc" that lets you control some parameters of the
9001
garbage collection. There's also an option to the configure script
9002
that lets you enable or disable the garbage collection. In 2.0b1,
9003
it's on by default, so that we (hopefully) can collect decent user
9004
experience with this new feature. There are some questions about its
9005
performance. If it proves to be too much of a problem, we'll turn it
9006
off by default in the final 2.0 release.
9012
A new function zip() was added. zip(seq1, seq2, ...) is equivalent to
9013
map(None, seq1, seq2, ...) when the sequences have the same length;
9014
i.e. zip([1,2,3], [10,20,30]) returns [(1,10), (2,20), (3,30)]. When
9015
the lists are not all the same length, the shortest list wins:
9016
zip([1,2,3], [10,20]) returns [(1,10), (2,20)]. See PEP 201.
9018
sys.version_info is a tuple (major, minor, micro, level, serial).
9020
Dictionaries have an odd new method, setdefault(key, default).
9021
dict.setdefault(key, default) returns dict[key] if it exists; if not,
9022
it sets dict[key] to default and returns that value. Thus:
9024
dict.setdefault(key, []).append(item)
9026
does the same work as this common idiom:
9028
if not dict.has_key(key):
9030
dict[key].append(item)
9032
There are two new variants of SyntaxError that are raised for
9033
indentation-related errors: IndentationError and TabError.
9035
Changed \x to consume exactly two hex digits; see PEP 223. Added \U
9036
escape that consumes exactly eight hex digits.
9038
The limits on the size of expressions and file in Python source code
9039
have been raised from 2**16 to 2**32. Previous versions of Python
9040
were limited because the maximum argument size the Python VM accepted
9041
was 2**16. This limited the size of object constructor expressions,
9042
e.g. [1,2,3] or {'a':1, 'b':2}, and the size of source files. This
9043
limit was raised thanks to a patch by Charles Waldman that effectively
9044
fixes the problem. It is now much more likely that you will be
9045
limited by available memory than by an arbitrary limit in Python.
9047
The interpreter's maximum recursion depth can be modified by Python
9048
programs using sys.getrecursionlimit and sys.setrecursionlimit. This
9049
limit is the maximum number of recursive calls that can be made by
9050
Python code. The limit exists to prevent infinite recursion from
9051
overflowing the C stack and causing a core dump. The default value is
9052
1000. The maximum safe value for a particular platform can be found
9053
by running Misc/find_recursionlimit.py.
9055
New Modules and Packages
9056
------------------------
9058
atexit - for registering functions to be called when Python exits.
9060
imputil - Greg Stein's alternative API for writing custom import
9063
pyexpat - an interface to the Expat XML parser, contributed by Paul
9066
xml - a new package with XML support code organized (so far) in three
9067
subpackages: xml.dom, xml.sax, and xml.parsers. Describing these
9068
would fill a volume. There's a special feature whereby a
9069
user-installed package named _xmlplus overrides the standard
9070
xmlpackage; this is intended to give the XML SIG a hook to distribute
9071
backwards-compatible updates to the standard xml package.
9073
webbrowser - a platform-independent API to launch a web browser.
9079
array -- new methods for array objects: count, extend, index, pop, and
9082
binascii -- new functions b2a_hex and a2b_hex that convert between
9083
binary data and its hex representation
9085
calendar -- Many new functions that support features including control
9086
over which day of the week is the first day, returning strings instead
9087
of printing them. Also new symbolic constants for days of week,
9088
e.g. MONDAY, ..., SUNDAY.
9090
cgi -- FieldStorage objects have a getvalue method that works like a
9091
dictionary's get method and returns the value attribute of the object.
9093
ConfigParser -- The parser object has new methods has_option,
9094
remove_section, remove_option, set, and write. They allow the module
9095
to be used for writing config files as well as reading them.
9097
ftplib -- ntransfercmd(), transfercmd(), and retrbinary() all now
9098
optionally support the RFC 959 REST command.
9100
gzip -- readline and readlines now accept optional size arguments
9102
httplib -- New interfaces and support for HTTP/1.1 by Greg Stein. See
9103
the module doc strings for details.
9105
locale -- implement getdefaultlocale for Win32 and Macintosh
9107
marshal -- no longer dumps core when marshaling deeply nested or
9108
recursive data structures
9110
os -- new functions isatty, seteuid, setegid, setreuid, setregid
9112
os/popen2 -- popen2/popen3/popen4 support under Windows. popen2/popen3
9115
os/pty -- support for openpty and forkpty
9117
os.path -- fix semantics of os.path.commonprefix
9119
smtplib -- support for sending very long messages
9121
socket -- new function getfqdn()
9123
readline -- new functions to read, write and truncate history files.
9124
The readline section of the library reference manual contains an
9127
select -- add interface to poll system call
9129
shutil -- new copyfileobj function
9131
SimpleHTTPServer, CGIHTTPServer -- Fix problems with buffering in the
9134
Tkinter -- optimization of function flatten
9136
urllib -- scans environment variables for proxy configuration,
9139
whichdb -- recognizes dumbdbm format
9145
None. However note that 1.6 made a whole slew of modules obsolete:
9146
stdwin, soundex, cml, cmpcache, dircache, dump, find, grep, packmail,
9147
poly, zmod, strop, util, whatsound.
9150
Changed, New, Obsolete Tools
9151
----------------------------
9159
Several cleanup jobs were carried out throughout the source code.
9161
All C code was converted to ANSI C; we got rid of all uses of the
9162
Py_PROTO() macro, which makes the header files a lot more readable.
9164
Most of the portability hacks were moved to a new header file,
9165
pyport.h; several other new header files were added and some old
9166
header files were removed, in an attempt to create a more rational set
9167
of header files. (Few of these ever need to be included explicitly;
9168
they are all included by Python.h.)
9170
Trent Mick ensured portability to 64-bit platforms, under both Linux
9171
and Win64, especially for the new Intel Itanium processor. Mick also
9172
added large file support for Linux64 and Win64.
9174
The C APIs to return an object's size have been update to consistently
9175
use the form PyXXX_Size, e.g. PySequence_Size and PyDict_Size. In
9176
previous versions, the abstract interfaces used PyXXX_Length and the
9177
concrete interfaces used PyXXX_Size. The old names,
9178
e.g. PyObject_Length, are still available for backwards compatibility
9179
at the API level, but are deprecated.
9181
The PyOS_CheckStack function has been implemented on Windows by
9182
Fredrik Lundh. It prevents Python from failing with a stack overflow
9185
The GC changes resulted in creation of two new slots on object,
9186
tp_traverse and tp_clear. The augmented assignment changes result in
9187
the creation of a new slot for each in-place operator.
9189
The GC API creates new requirements for container types implemented in
9190
C extension modules. See Include/objimpl.h for details.
9192
PyErr_Format has been updated to automatically calculate the size of
9193
the buffer needed to hold the formatted result string. This change
9194
prevents crashes caused by programmer error.
9196
New C API calls: PyObject_AsFileDescriptor, PyErr_WriteUnraisable.
9198
PyRun_AnyFileEx, PyRun_SimpleFileEx, PyRun_FileEx -- New functions
9199
that are the same as their non-Ex counterparts except they take an
9200
extra flag argument that tells them to close the file when done.
9202
XXX There were other API changes that should be fleshed out here.
9208
New popen2/popen3/peopen4 in os module (see Changed Modules above).
9210
os.popen is much more usable on Windows 95 and 98. See Microsoft
9211
Knowledge Base article Q150956. The Win9x workaround described there
9212
is implemented by the new w9xpopen.exe helper in the root of your
9213
Python installation. Note that Python uses this internally; it is not
9214
a standalone program.
9216
Administrator privileges are no longer required to install Python
9217
on Windows NT or Windows 2000. If you have administrator privileges,
9218
Python's registry info will be written under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
9219
Otherwise the installer backs off to writing Python's registry info
9220
under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. The latter is sufficient for all "normal"
9221
uses of Python, but will prevent some advanced uses from working
9222
(for example, running a Python script as an NT service, or possibly
9225
[This was new in 1.6] The installer no longer runs a separate Tcl/Tk
9226
installer; instead, it installs the needed Tcl/Tk files directly in the
9227
Python directory. If you already have a Tcl/Tk installation, this
9228
wastes some disk space (about 4 Megs) but avoids problems with
9229
conflicting Tcl/Tk installations, and makes it much easier for Python
9230
to ensure that Tcl/Tk can find all its files.
9232
[This was new in 1.6] The Windows installer now installs by default in
9233
\Python20\ on the default volume, instead of \Program Files\Python-2.0\.
9236
Updates to the changes between 1.5.2 and 1.6
9237
--------------------------------------------
9239
The 1.6 NEWS file can't be changed after the release is done, so here
9240
is some late-breaking news:
9242
New APIs in locale.py: normalize(), getdefaultlocale(), resetlocale(),
9243
and changes to getlocale() and setlocale().
9245
The new module is now enabled per default.
9247
It is not true that the encodings codecs cannot be used for normal
9248
strings: the string.encode() (which is also present on 8-bit strings
9249
!) allows using them for 8-bit strings too, e.g. to convert files from
9250
cp1252 (Windows) to latin-1 or vice-versa.
9252
Japanese codecs are available from Tamito KAJIYAMA:
9253
http://pseudo.grad.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/~kajiyama/python/
9256
======================================================================
9259
=======================================
9260
==> Release 1.6 (September 5, 2000) <==
9261
=======================================
9263
What's new in release 1.6?
9264
==========================
9266
Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.5.2.
9269
Source Incompatibilities
9270
------------------------
9272
Several small incompatible library changes may trip you up:
9274
- The append() method for lists can no longer be invoked with more
9275
than one argument. This used to append a single tuple made out of
9276
all arguments, but was undocumented. To append a tuple, use
9277
e.g. l.append((a, b, c)).
9279
- The connect(), connect_ex() and bind() methods for sockets require
9280
exactly one argument. Previously, you could call s.connect(host,
9281
port), but this was undocumented. You must now write
9282
s.connect((host, port)).
9284
- The str() and repr() functions are now different more often. For
9285
long integers, str() no longer appends a 'L'. Thus, str(1L) == '1',
9286
which used to be '1L'; repr(1L) is unchanged and still returns '1L'.
9287
For floats, repr() now gives 17 digits of precision, to ensure no
9288
precision is lost (on all current hardware).
9290
- The -X option is gone. Built-in exceptions are now always
9291
classes. Many more library modules also have been converted to
9292
class-based exceptions.
9295
Binary Incompatibilities
9296
------------------------
9298
- Third party extensions built for Python 1.5.x cannot be used with
9299
Python 1.6; these extensions will have to be rebuilt for Python 1.6.
9301
- On Windows, attempting to import a third party extension built for
9302
Python 1.5.x results in an immediate crash; there's not much we can do
9303
about this. Check your PYTHONPATH environment variable!
9306
Overview of Changes since 1.5.2
9307
-------------------------------
9309
For this overview, I have borrowed from the document "What's New in
9310
Python 2.0" by Andrew Kuchling and Moshe Zadka:
9311
http://www.amk.ca/python/2.0/ .
9313
There are lots of new modules and lots of bugs have been fixed. A
9314
list of all new modules is included below.
9316
Probably the most pervasive change is the addition of Unicode support.
9317
We've added a new fundamental datatype, the Unicode string, a new
9318
build-in function unicode(), an numerous C APIs to deal with Unicode
9319
and encodings. See the file Misc/unicode.txt for details, or
9320
http://starship.python.net/crew/lemburg/unicode-proposal.txt.
9322
Two other big changes, related to the Unicode support, are the
9323
addition of string methods and (yet another) new regular expression
9326
- String methods mean that you can now say s.lower() etc. instead of
9327
importing the string module and saying string.lower(s) etc. One
9328
peculiarity is that the equivalent of string.join(sequence,
9329
delimiter) is delimiter.join(sequence). Use " ".join(sequence) for
9330
the effect of string.join(sequence); to make this more readable, try
9331
space=" " first. Note that the maxsplit argument defaults in
9332
split() and replace() have changed from 0 to -1.
9334
- The new regular expression engine, SRE by Fredrik Lundh, is fully
9335
backwards compatible with the old engine, and is in fact invoked
9336
using the same interface (the "re" module). You can explicitly
9337
invoke the old engine by import pre, or the SRE engine by importing
9338
sre. SRE is faster than pre, and supports Unicode (which was the
9339
main reason to put effort in yet another new regular expression
9340
engine -- this is at least the fourth!).
9346
Other changes that won't break code but are nice to know about:
9348
Deleting objects is now safe even for deeply nested data structures.
9350
Long/int unifications: long integers can be used in seek() calls, as
9353
String formatting (s % args) has a new formatting option, '%r', which
9354
acts like '%s' but inserts repr(arg) instead of str(arg). (Not yet in
9357
Greg Ward's "distutils" package is included: this will make
9358
installing, building and distributing third party packages much
9361
There's now special syntax that you can use instead of the apply()
9362
function. f(*args, **kwds) is equivalent to apply(f, args, kwds).
9363
You can also use variations f(a1, a2, *args, **kwds) and you can leave
9364
one or the other out: f(*args), f(**kwds).
9366
The built-ins int() and long() take an optional second argument to
9367
indicate the conversion base -- of course only if the first argument
9368
is a string. This makes string.atoi() and string.atol() obsolete.
9369
(string.atof() was already obsolete).
9371
When a local variable is known to the compiler but undefined when
9372
used, a new exception UnboundLocalError is raised. This is a class
9373
derived from NameError so code catching NameError should still work.
9374
The purpose is to provide better diagnostics in the following example:
9379
This used to raise a NameError on the print statement, which confused
9380
even experienced Python programmers (especially if there are several
9381
hundreds of lines of code between the reference and the assignment to
9384
You can now override the 'in' operator by defining a __contains__
9385
method. Note that it has its arguments backwards: x in a causes
9386
a.__contains__(x) to be called. That's why the name isn't __in__.
9388
The exception AttributeError will have a more friendly error message,
9389
e.g.: <code>'Spam' instance has no attribute 'eggs'</code>. This may
9390
<b>break code</b> that expects the message to be exactly the attribute
9397
UserString - base class for deriving from the string type.
9399
distutils - tools for distributing Python modules.
9401
robotparser - parse a robots.txt file, for writing web spiders.
9402
(Moved from Tools/webchecker/.)
9404
linuxaudiodev - audio for Linux.
9406
mmap - treat a file as a memory buffer. (Windows and Unix.)
9408
sre - regular expressions (fast, supports unicode). Currently, this
9409
code is very rough. Eventually, the re module will be reimplemented
9410
using sre (without changes to the re API).
9412
filecmp - supersedes the old cmp.py and dircmp.py modules.
9414
tabnanny - check Python sources for tab-width dependance. (Moved from
9417
urllib2 - new and improved but incompatible version of urllib (still
9420
zipfile - read and write zip archives.
9422
codecs - support for Unicode encoders/decoders.
9424
unicodedata - provides access to the Unicode 3.0 database.
9426
_winreg - Windows registry access.
9428
encodings - package which provides a large set of standard codecs --
9429
currently only for the new Unicode support. It has a drop-in extension
9430
mechanism which allows you to add new codecs by simply copying them
9431
into the encodings package directory. Asian codec support will
9432
probably be made available as separate distribution package built upon
9433
this technique and the new distutils package.
9439
readline, ConfigParser, cgi, calendar, posix, readline, xmllib, aifc,
9440
chunk, wave, random, shelve, nntplib - minor enhancements.
9442
socket, httplib, urllib - optional OpenSSL support (Unix only).
9444
_tkinter - support for 8.0 up to 8.3. Support for versions older than
9445
8.0 has been dropped.
9447
string - most of this module is deprecated now that strings have
9448
methods. This no longer uses the built-in strop module, but takes
9449
advantage of the new string methods to provide transparent support for
9450
both Unicode and ordinary strings.
9456
The installer no longer runs a separate Tcl/Tk installer; instead, it
9457
installs the needed Tcl/Tk files directly in the Python directory. If
9458
you already have a Tcl/Tk installation, this wastes some disk space
9459
(about 4 Megs) but avoids problems with conflincting Tcl/Tk
9460
installations, and makes it much easier for Python to ensure that
9461
Tcl/Tk can find all its files. Note: the alpha installers don't
9462
include the documentation.
9464
The Windows installer now installs by default in \Python16\ on the
9465
default volume, instead of \Program Files\Python-1.6\.
9471
IDLE - complete overhaul. See the <a href="../idle/">IDLE home
9472
page</a> for more information. (Python 1.6 alpha 1 will come with
9475
Tools/i18n/pygettext.py - Python equivalent of xgettext(1). A message
9476
text extraction tool used for internationalizing applications written
9483
stdwin and everything that uses it. (Get Python 1.5.2 if you need
9486
soundex. (Skip Montanaro has a version in Python but it won't be
9487
included in the Python release.)
9489
cmp, cmpcache, dircmp. (Replaced by filecmp.)
9493
find. (Easily coded using os.walk().)
9495
grep. (Not very useful as a library module.)
9497
packmail. (No longer has any use.)
9499
poly, zmod. (These were poor examples at best.)
9501
strop. (No longer needed by the string module.)
9503
util. (This functionality was long ago built in elsewhere).
9505
whatsound. (Use sndhdr.)
9508
Detailed Changes from 1.6b1 to 1.6
9509
----------------------------------
9511
- Slight changes to the CNRI license. A copyright notice has been
9512
added; the requirement to indicate the nature of modifications now
9513
applies when making a derivative work available "to others" instead of
9514
just "to the public"; the version and date are updated. The new
9515
license has a new handle.
9517
- Added the Tools/compiler package. This is a project led by Jeremy
9518
Hylton to write the Python bytecode generator in Python.
9520
- The function math.rint() is removed.
9522
- In Python.h, "#define _GNU_SOURCE 1" was added.
9524
- Version 0.9.1 of Greg Ward's distutils is included (instead of
9527
- A new version of SRE is included. It is more stable, and more
9528
compatible with the old RE module. Non-matching ranges are indicated
9529
by -1, not None. (The documentation said None, but the PRE
9530
implementation used -1; changing to None would break existing code.)
9532
- The winreg module has been renamed to _winreg. (There are plans for
9533
a higher-level API called winreg, but this has not yet materialized in
9534
a form that is acceptable to the experts.)
9536
- The _locale module is enabled by default.
9538
- Fixed the configuration line for the _curses module.
9540
- A few crashes have been fixed, notably <file>.writelines() with a
9541
list containing non-string objects would crash, and there were
9542
situations where a lost SyntaxError could dump core.
9544
- The <list>.extend() method now accepts an arbitrary sequence
9547
- If __str__() or __repr__() returns a Unicode object, this is
9548
converted to an 8-bit string.
9550
- Unicode string comparisons is no longer aware of UTF-16
9551
encoding peculiarities; it's a straight 16-bit compare.
9553
- The Windows installer now installs the LICENSE file and no longer
9554
registers the Python DLL version in the registry (this is no longer
9555
needed). It now uses Tcl/Tk 8.3.2.
9557
- A few portability problems have been fixed, in particular a
9558
compilation error involving socklen_t.
9560
- The PC configuration is slightly friendlier to non-Microsoft
9564
======================================================================
9567
======================================
9568
==> Release 1.5.2 (April 13, 1999) <==
9569
======================================
9571
From 1.5.2c1 to 1.5.2 (final)
9572
=============================
9574
Tue Apr 13 15:44:49 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9576
* PCbuild/python15.wse: Bump version to 1.5.2 (final)
9578
* PCbuild/python15.dsp: Added shamodule.c
9580
* PC/config.c: Added sha module!
9582
* README, Include/patchlevel.h: Prepare for final release.
9585
More (Cameron Laird is honorary; the others are 1.5.2c1 testers).
9587
* Python/thread_solaris.h:
9588
While I can't really test this thoroughly, Pat Knight and the Solaris
9589
man pages suggest that the proper thing to do is to add THR_NEW_LWP to
9590
the flags on thr_create(), and that there really isn't a downside, so
9594
Bunch of new names who helped iron out the last wrinkles of 1.5.2.
9597
Bump the myusterious M$ version number from 1,5,2,1 to 1,5,2,3.
9598
(I can't even display this on NT, maybe Win/98 can?)
9601
Fix mysterious references to jprofile that were in the source since
9602
its creation. I'm assuming these were once valid references to "Jim
9603
Roskind's profile"...
9605
* Lib/Attic/threading_api.py:
9606
Removed; since long subsumed in Doc/lib/libthreading.tex
9608
* Modules/socketmodule.c:
9609
Put back __osf__ support for gethostbyname_r(); the real bug was that
9610
it was being used even without threads. This of course might be an
9611
all-platform problem so now we only use the _r variant when we are
9614
Mon Apr 12 22:51:20 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9616
* Modules/cPickle.c:
9617
Fix accidentally reversed NULL test in load_mark(). Suggested by
9618
Tamito Kajiyama. (This caused a bug only on platforms where malloc(0)
9622
Add note about popen2 problem on Linux noticed by Pablo Bleyer.
9624
* README: Add note about -D_REENTRANT for HP-UX 10.20.
9626
* Modules/Makefile.pre.in: 'clean' target should remove hassignal.
9628
* PC/Attic/vc40.mak, PC/readme.txt:
9629
Remove all VC++ info (except VC 1.5) from readme.txt;
9630
remove the VC++ 4.0 project file; remove the unused _tkinter extern defs.
9632
* README: Clarify PC build instructions (point to PCbuild).
9634
* Modules/zlibmodule.c: Cast added by Jack Jansen (for Mac port).
9636
* Lib/plat-sunos5/CDIO.py, Lib/plat-linux2/CDROM.py:
9637
Forgot to add this file. CDROM device parameters.
9639
* Lib/gzip.py: Two different changes.
9641
1. Jack Jansen reports that on the Mac, the time may be negative, and
9642
solves this by adding a write32u() function that writes an unsigned
9645
2. On 64-bit platforms the CRC comparison fails; I've fixed this by
9646
casting both values to be compared to "unsigned long" i.e. modulo
9649
Sat Apr 10 18:42:02 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9651
* PC/Attic/_tkinter.def: No longer needed.
9653
* Misc/ACKS: Correct missed character in Andrew Dalke's name.
9655
* README: Add DEC Ultrix notes (from Donn Cave's email).
9657
* configure: The usual
9660
Quote a bunch of shell variables used in test, related to long-long.
9662
* Objects/fileobject.c, Modules/shamodule.c, Modules/regexpr.c:
9663
casts for picky compilers.
9665
* Modules/socketmodule.c:
9666
3-arg gethostbyname_r doesn't really work on OSF/1.
9668
* PC/vc15_w31/_.c, PC/vc15_lib/_.c, Tools/pynche/__init__.py:
9669
Avoid totally empty files.
9671
Fri Apr 9 14:56:35 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9673
* Tools/scripts/fixps.py: Use re instead of regex.
9674
Don't rewrite the file in place.
9675
(Reported by Andy Dustman.)
9677
* Lib/netrc.py, Lib/shlex.py: Get rid of #! line
9679
Thu Apr 8 23:13:37 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9681
* PCbuild/python15.wse: Use the Tcl 8.0.5 installer.
9682
Add a variable %_TCL_% that makes it easier to switch to a different version.
9685
======================================================================
9688
From 1.5.2b2 to 1.5.2c1
9689
=======================
9691
Thu Apr 8 23:13:37 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9693
* PCbuild/python15.wse:
9694
Release 1.5.2c1. Add IDLE and Uninstall to program group.
9695
Don't distribute zlib.dll. Tweak some comments.
9697
* PCbuild/zlib.dsp: Now using static zlib 1.1.3
9699
* Lib/dos-8x3/userdict.py, Lib/dos-8x3/userlist.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_zli.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_use.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_pop.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_pic.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_ntp.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_gzi.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_fcn.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_cpi.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_bsd.py, Lib/dos-8x3/posixfil.py, Lib/dos-8x3/mimetype.py, Lib/dos-8x3/nturl2pa.py, Lib/dos-8x3/compilea.py, Lib/dos-8x3/exceptio.py, Lib/dos-8x3/basehttp.py:
9702
* Include/patchlevel.h: Release 1.5.2c1
9704
* README: Release 1.5.2c1.
9706
* Misc/NEWS: News for the 1.5.2c1 release.
9708
* Lib/test/test_strftime.py:
9709
On Windows, we suddenly find, strftime() may return "" for an
9710
unsupported format string. (I guess this is because the logic for
9711
deciding whether to reallocate the buffer or not has been improved.)
9712
This caused the test code to crash on result[0]. Fix this by assuming
9713
an empty result also means the format is not supported.
9715
* Demo/tkinter/matt/window-creation-w-location.py:
9716
This demo imported some private code from Matt. Make it cripple along.
9718
* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py:
9719
Delete an accidentally checked-in feature that actually broke more
9720
than was worth it: when deleting a canvas item, it would try to
9721
automatically delete the bindings for that item. Since there's
9722
nothing that says you can't reuse the tag and still have the bindings,
9723
this is not correct. Also, it broke at least one demo
9724
(Demo/tkinter/matt/rubber-band-box-demo-1.py).
9726
* Python/thread_wince.h: Win/CE thread support by Mark Hammond.
9728
Wed Apr 7 20:23:17 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9730
* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
9731
Patch by Andrew Kuchling to unflush() (flush() for deflating).
9732
Without this, if inflate() returned Z_BUF_ERROR asking for more output
9733
space, we would report the error; now, we increase the buffer size and
9734
try again, just as for Z_OK.
9736
* Lib/test/test_gzip.py: Use binary mode for all gzip files we open.
9738
* Tools/idle/ChangeLog: New change log.
9740
* Tools/idle/README.txt, Tools/idle/NEWS.txt: New version.
9742
* Python/pythonrun.c:
9743
Alas, get rid of the Win specific hack to ask the user to press Return
9744
before exiting when an error happened. This didn't work right when
9745
Python is invoked from a daemon.
9747
* Tools/idle/idlever.py: Version bump awaiting impending new release.
9748
(Not much has changed :-( )
9750
* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py:
9751
lower, tkraise/lift hide Misc.lower, Misc.tkraise/lift,
9752
so the preferred name for them is tag_lower, tag_raise
9753
(similar to tag_bind, and similar to the Text widget);
9754
unfortunately can't delete the old ones yet (maybe in 1.6)
9756
* Python/thread.c, Python/strtod.c, Python/mystrtoul.c, Python/import.c, Python/ceval.c:
9757
Changes by Mark Hammond for Windows CE. Mostly of the form
9758
#ifdef DONT_HAVE_header_H ... #endif around #include <header.h>.
9760
* Python/bltinmodule.c:
9761
Remove unused variable from complex_from_string() code.
9763
* Include/patchlevel.h:
9764
Add the possibility of a gamma release (release candidate).
9765
Add '+' to string version number to indicate we're beyond b2 now.
9767
* Modules/posixmodule.c: Add extern decl for fsync() for SunOS 4.x.
9769
* Lib/smtplib.py: Changes by Per Cederquist and The Dragon.
9774
The application where Signum Support uses smtplib needs to be able to
9775
report good error messages to the user when sending email fails. To
9776
help in diagnosing problems it is useful to be able to report the
9777
entire message sent by the server, not only the SMTP error code of the
9780
A lot of the functions in sendmail.py unfortunately discards the
9781
message, leaving only the code. The enclosed patch fixes that
9784
The enclosed patch also introduces a base class for exceptions that
9785
include an SMTP error code and error message, and make the code and
9786
message available on separate attributes, so that surrounding code can
9787
deal with them in whatever way it sees fit. I've also added some
9788
documentation to the exception classes.
9790
The constructor will now raise an exception if it cannot connect to
9793
The data() method will raise an SMTPDataError if it doesn't receive
9794
the expected 354 code in the middle of the exchange.
9796
According to section 5.2.10 of RFC 1123 a smtp client must accept "any
9797
text, including no text at all" after the error code. If the response
9798
of a HELO command contains no text self.helo_resp will be set to the
9799
empty string (""). The patch fixes the test in the sendmail() method
9800
so that helo_resp is tested against None; if it has the empty string
9801
as value the sendmail() method would invoke the helo() method again.
9803
The code no longer accepts a -1 reply from the ehlo() method in
9806
[Text about removing SMTPRecipientsRefused deleted --GvR]
9812
smtplib.py appends an extra blank line to the outgoing mail if the
9813
`msg' argument to the sendmail method already contains a trailing
9814
newline. This patch should fix the problem.
9820
Mostly I just re-added the SMTPRecipientsRefused exception
9821
(the exeption object now has the appropriate info in it ) [Per had
9822
removed this in his patch --GvR] and tweaked the behavior of the
9823
sendmail method whence it throws the newly added SMTPHeloException (it
9824
was closing the connection, which it shouldn't. whatever catches the
9825
exception should do that. )
9827
I pondered the change of the return values to tuples all around,
9828
and after some thinking I decided that regularizing the return values was
9829
too much of the Right Thing (tm) to not do.
9831
My one concern is that code expecting an integer & getting a tuple
9834
(i.e. if it's doing :
9836
x.somemethod() >= 400:
9837
expecting an integer, the expression will always be true if it gets a
9840
However, most smtplib code I've seen only really uses the
9841
sendmail() method, so this wouldn't bother it. Usually code I've seen
9842
that calls the other methods usually only calls helo() and ehlo() for
9843
doing ESMTP, a feature which was not in the smtplib included with 1.5.1,
9844
and thus I would think not much code uses it yet.
9847
Tue Apr 6 19:38:18 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9849
* Lib/test/test_ntpath.py:
9850
Fix the tests now that splitdrive() no longer treats UNC paths special.
9851
(Some tests converted to splitunc() tests.)
9854
Withdraw the UNC support from splitdrive(). Instead, a new function
9855
splitunc() parses UNC paths. The contributor of the UNC parsing in
9856
splitdrive() doesn't like it, but I haven't heard a good reason to
9857
keep it, and it causes some problems. (I think there's a
9858
philosophical problem -- to me, the split*() functions are purely
9859
syntactical, and the fact that \\foo is not a valid path doesn't mean
9860
that it shouldn't be considered an absolute path.)
9862
Also (quite separately, but strangely related to the philosophical
9863
issue above) fix abspath() so that if win32api exists, it doesn't fail
9864
when the path doesn't actually exist -- if GetFullPathName() fails,
9865
fall back on the old strategy (join with getcwd() if neccessary, and
9866
then use normpath()).
9868
* configure.in, configure, config.h.in, acconfig.h:
9869
For BeOS PowerPC. Chris Herborth.
9871
Mon Apr 5 21:54:14 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9873
* Modules/timemodule.c:
9874
Jonathan Giddy notes, and Chris Lawrence agrees, that some comments on
9875
#else/#endif are wrong, and that #if HAVE_TM_ZONE should be #ifdef.
9878
Bunch of new contributors, including 9 who contributed to the Docs,
9881
Mon Apr 5 18:37:59 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9884
Oops, missed mode parameter to open().
9887
Made the default mode 'rb' instead of 'r', for better cross-platform
9888
support. (Based on comment on the documentation by Bernhard Reiter
9889
<bernhard@csd.uwm.edu>).
9891
Fri Apr 2 22:18:25 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9893
* Tools/scripts/dutree.py:
9894
For reasons I dare not explain, this script should always execute
9895
main() when imported (in other words, it is not usable as a module).
9897
Thu Apr 1 15:32:30 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9899
* Lib/test/test_cpickle.py: Jonathan Giddy write:
9901
In test_cpickle.py, the module os got imported, but the line to remove
9902
the temp file has gone missing.
9904
Tue Mar 30 20:17:31 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9906
* Lib/BaseHTTPServer.py: Per Cederqvist writes:
9908
If you send something like "PUT / HTTP/1.0" to something derived from
9909
BaseHTTPServer that doesn't define do_PUT, you will get a response
9910
that begins like this:
9912
HTTP/1.0 501 Unsupported method ('do_PUT')
9913
Server: SimpleHTTP/0.3 Python/1.5
9914
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 18:53:53 GMT
9916
The server should complain about 'PUT' instead of 'do_PUT'. This
9917
patch should fix the problem.
9919
Mon Mar 29 20:33:21 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9921
* Lib/smtplib.py: Patch by Per Cederqvist, who writes:
9924
- It needlessly used the makefile() method for each response that is
9925
read from the SMTP server.
9927
- If the remote SMTP server closes the connection unexpectedly the
9928
code raised an IndexError. It now raises an SMTPServerDisconnected
9931
- The code now checks that all lines in a multiline response actually
9932
contains an error code.
9935
The Dragon approves.
9937
Mon Mar 29 20:25:40 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9939
* Lib/compileall.py:
9940
When run as a script, report failures in the exit code as well.
9941
Patch largely based on changes by Andrew Dalke, as discussed in the
9944
Mon Mar 29 20:23:41 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9947
Hack so that if a 302 or 301 redirect contains a relative URL, the
9948
right thing "just happens" (basejoin() with old URL).
9950
* Modules/cPickle.c:
9951
Protection against picling to/from closed (real) file.
9952
The problem was reported by Moshe Zadka.
9954
* Lib/test/test_cpickle.py:
9955
Test protection against picling to/from closed (real) file.
9957
* Modules/timemodule.c: Chris Lawrence writes:
9960
The GNU folks, in their infinite wisdom, have decided not to implement
9961
altzone in libc6; this would not be horrible, except that timezone
9962
(which is implemented) includes the current DST setting (i.e. timezone
9963
for Central is 18000 in summer and 21600 in winter). So Python's
9964
timezone and altzone variables aren't set correctly during DST.
9966
Here's a patch relative to 1.5.2b2 that (a) makes timezone and altzone
9967
show the "right" thing on Linux (by using the tm_gmtoff stuff
9968
available in BSD, which is how the GLIBC manual claims things should
9969
be done) and (b) should cope with the southern hemisphere. In pursuit
9970
of (b), I also took the liberty of renaming the "summer" and "winter"
9971
variables to "july" and "jan". This patch should also make certain
9972
time calculations on Linux actually work right (like the tz-aware
9973
functions in the rfc822 module).
9975
(It's hard to find DST that's currently being used in the southern
9976
hemisphere; I tested using Africa/Windhoek.)
9979
* Lib/test/output/test_gzip:
9980
Jonathan Giddy discovered this file was missing.
9982
* Modules/shamodule.c:
9983
Avoid warnings from AIX compiler. Reported by Vladimir (AIX is my
9984
middlename) Marangozov, patch coded by Greg Stein.
9986
* Tools/idle/ScriptBinding.py, Tools/idle/PyShell.py:
9987
At Tim Peters' recommendation, add a dummy flush() method to PseudoFile.
9989
Sun Mar 28 17:55:32 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
9991
* Tools/scripts/ndiff.py: Tim Peters writes:
9993
I should have waited overnight <wink/sigh>. Nothing wrong with the one I
9994
sent, but I couldn't resist going on to add new -r1 / -r2 cmdline options
9995
for recreating the original files from ndiff's output. That's attached, if
9996
you're game! Us Windows guys don't usually have a sed sitting around
9999
Sat Mar 27 13:34:01 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10001
* Tools/scripts/ndiff.py: Tim Peters writes:
10003
Attached is a cleaned-up version of ndiff (added useful module
10004
docstring, now echo'ed in case of cmd line mistake); added -q option
10005
to suppress initial file identification lines; + other minor cleanups,
10006
& a slightly faster match engine.
10008
Fri Mar 26 22:36:00 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10010
* Tools/scripts/dutree.py:
10011
During display, if EPIPE is raised, it's probably because a pager was
10012
killed. Discard the error in that case, but propogate it otherwise.
10014
Fri Mar 26 16:20:45 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10016
* Lib/test/output/test_userlist, Lib/test/test_userlist.py:
10017
Test suite for UserList.
10019
* Lib/UserList.py: Use isinstance() where appropriate.
10020
Reformatted with 4-space indent.
10022
Fri Mar 26 16:11:40 1999 Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10024
* Tools/pynche/PyncheWidget.py:
10025
Helpwin.__init__(): The text widget should get focus.
10027
* Tools/pynche/pyColorChooser.py:
10028
Removed unnecessary import `from PyncheWidget import PyncheWidget'
10030
Fri Mar 26 15:32:05 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10032
* Lib/test/output/test_userdict, Lib/test/test_userdict.py:
10033
Test suite for UserDict
10035
* Lib/UserDict.py: Improved a bunch of things.
10036
The constructor now takes an optional dictionary.
10037
Use isinstance() where appropriate.
10039
Thu Mar 25 22:38:49 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10041
* Lib/test/output/test_pickle, Lib/test/output/test_cpickle, Lib/test/test_pickle.py, Lib/test/test_cpickle.py:
10042
Basic regr tests for pickle/cPickle
10045
Don't use "exec" in find_class(). It's slow, unnecessary, and (as AMK
10046
points out) it doesn't work in JPython Applets.
10048
Thu Mar 25 21:50:27 1999 Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10050
* Lib/test/test_gzip.py:
10051
Added a simple test suite for gzip. It simply opens a temp file,
10052
writes a chunk of compressed data, closes it, writes another chunk, and
10053
reads the contents back to verify that they are the same.
10056
Based on a suggestion from bruce@hams.com, make a trivial change to
10057
allow using the 'a' flag as a mode for opening a GzipFile. gzip
10058
files, surprisingly enough, can be concatenated and then decompressed;
10059
the effect is to concatenate the two chunks of data.
10061
If we support it on writing, it should also be supported on reading.
10062
This *wasn't* trivial, and required rearranging the code in the
10063
reading path, particularly the _read() method.
10065
Raise IOError instead of RuntimeError in two cases, 'Not a gzipped file'
10066
and 'Unknown compression method'
10068
Thu Mar 25 21:25:01 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10070
* Lib/test/test_b1.py:
10071
Add tests for float() and complex() with string args (Nick/Stephanie
10074
Thu Mar 25 21:21:08 1999 Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10076
* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
10077
Add an .unused_data attribute to decompressor objects. If .unused_data
10078
is not an empty string, this means that you have arrived at the
10079
end of the stream of compressed data, and the contents of .unused_data are
10080
whatever follows the compressed stream.
10082
Thu Mar 25 21:16:07 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10084
* Python/bltinmodule.c:
10085
Patch by Nick and Stephanie Lockwood to implement complex() with a string
10086
argument. This closes TODO item 2.19.
10088
Wed Mar 24 19:09:00 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10090
* Tools/webchecker/wcnew.py: Added Samuel Bayer's new webchecker.
10091
Unfortunately his code breaks wcgui.py in a way that's not easy
10092
to fix. I expect that this is a temporary situation --
10093
eventually Sam's changes will be merged back in.
10094
(The changes add a -t option to specify exceptions to the -x
10095
option, and explicit checking for #foo style fragment ids.)
10097
* Objects/dictobject.c:
10098
Vladimir Marangozov contributed updated comments.
10100
* Objects/bufferobject.c: Folded long lines.
10102
* Lib/test/output/test_sha, Lib/test/test_sha.py:
10103
Added Jeremy's test code for the sha module.
10105
* Modules/shamodule.c, Modules/Setup.in:
10106
Added Greg Stein and Andrew Kuchling's sha module.
10107
Fix comments about zlib version and URL.
10109
* Lib/test/test_bsddb.py: Remove the temp file when we're done.
10111
* Include/pythread.h: Conform to standard boilerplate.
10113
* configure.in, configure, BeOS/linkmodule, BeOS/ar-fake:
10114
Chris Herborth: the new compiler in R4.1 needs some new options to work...
10116
* Modules/socketmodule.c:
10117
Implement two suggestions by Jonathan Giddy: (1) in AIX, clear the
10118
data struct before calling gethostby{name,addr}_r(); (2) ignore the
10119
3/5/6 args determinations made by the configure script and switch on
10120
platform identifiers instead:
10122
AIX, OSF have 3 args
10123
Sun, SGI have 5 args
10126
On all other platforms, undef HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R altogether.
10128
* Modules/socketmodule.c:
10129
Vladimir Marangozov implements the AIX 3-arg gethostbyname_r code.
10132
Add readlines() to _Subfile class. Not clear who would need it, but
10133
Chris Lawrence sent me a broken version; this one is a tad simpler and
10134
more conforming to the standard.
10136
Tue Mar 23 23:05:34 1999 Jeremy Hylton <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10138
* Lib/gzip.py: use struct instead of bit-manipulate in Python
10140
Tue Mar 23 19:00:55 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10142
* Modules/Makefile.pre.in:
10143
Add $(EXE) to various occurrences of python so it will work on Cygwin
10144
with egcs (after setting EXE=.exe). Patch by Norman Vine.
10146
* configure, configure.in:
10147
Ack! It never defined HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R so that code was never tested!
10149
Mon Mar 22 22:25:39 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10151
* Include/thread.h:
10152
Adding thread.h -- unused but for b/w compatibility.
10153
As requested by Bill Janssen.
10155
* configure.in, configure:
10156
Add code to test for all sorts of gethostbyname_r variants,
10157
donated by David Arnold.
10159
* config.h.in, acconfig.h:
10160
Add symbols for gethostbyname_r variants (sigh).
10162
* Modules/socketmodule.c: Clean up pass for the previous patches.
10164
- Use HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R_6_ARG instead of testing for Linux and
10167
- If gethostbyname takes 3 args, undefine HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R --
10168
don't know what code should be used.
10170
- New symbol USE_GETHOSTBYNAME_LOCK defined iff the lock should be used.
10172
- Modify the gethostbyaddr() code to also hold on to the lock until
10173
after it is safe to release, overlapping with the Python lock.
10175
(Note: I think that it could in theory be possible that Python code
10176
executed while gethostbyname_lock is held could attempt to reacquire
10177
the lock -- e.g. in a signal handler or destructor. I will simply say
10178
"don't do that then.")
10180
* Modules/socketmodule.c: Jonathan Giddy writes:
10182
Here's a patch to fix the race condition, which wasn't fixed by Rob's
10183
patch. It holds the gethostbyname lock until the results are copied out,
10184
which means that this lock and the Python global lock are held at the same
10185
time. This shouldn't be a problem as long as the gethostbyname lock is
10186
always acquired when the global lock is not held.
10188
Mon Mar 22 19:25:30 1999 Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10190
* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
10191
Fixed the flush() method of compression objects; the test for
10192
the end of loop was incorrect, and failed when the flushmode != Z_FINISH.
10193
Logic cleaned up and commented.
10195
* Lib/test/test_zlib.py:
10196
Added simple test for the flush() method of compression objects, trying the
10197
different flush values Z_NO_FLUSH, Z_SYNC_FLUSH, Z_FULL_FLUSH.
10199
Mon Mar 22 15:28:08 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10202
Bug reported by Tobias Thelen: missing "self." in assignment target.
10204
Fri Mar 19 21:50:11 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10206
* Modules/arraymodule.c:
10207
Use an unsigned cast to avoid a warning in VC++.
10209
* Lib/dospath.py, Lib/ntpath.py:
10210
New code for split() by Tim Peters, behaves more like posixpath.split().
10212
* Objects/floatobject.c:
10213
Fix a problem with Vladimir's PyFloat_Fini code: clear the free list; if
10214
a block cannot be freed, add its free items back to the free list.
10215
This is necessary to avoid leaking when Python is reinitialized later.
10217
* Objects/intobject.c:
10218
Fix a problem with Vladimir's PyInt_Fini code: clear the free list; if
10219
a block cannot be freed, add its free items back to the free list, and
10220
add its valid ints back to the small_ints array if they are in range.
10221
This is necessary to avoid leaking when Python is reinitialized later.
10224
Added BufferType, the type returned by the new builtin buffer(). Greg Stein.
10226
* Python/bltinmodule.c:
10227
New builtin buffer() creates a derived read-only buffer from any
10228
object that supports the buffer interface (e.g. strings, arrays).
10230
* Objects/bufferobject.c:
10231
Added check for negative offset for PyBuffer_FromObject and check for
10232
negative size for PyBuffer_FromMemory. Greg Stein.
10234
Thu Mar 18 15:10:44 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10236
* Lib/urlparse.py: Sjoerd Mullender writes:
10238
If a filename on Windows starts with \\, it is converted to a URL
10239
which starts with ////. If this URL is passed to urlparse.urlparse
10240
you get a path that starts with // (and an empty netloc). If you pass
10241
the result back to urlparse.urlunparse, you get a URL that starts with
10242
//, which is parsed differently by urlparse.urlparse. The fix is to
10243
add the (empty) netloc with accompanying slashes if the path in
10244
urlunparse starts with //. Do this for all schemes that use a netloc.
10246
* Lib/nturl2path.py: Sjoerd Mullender writes:
10248
Pathnames of files on other hosts in the same domain
10249
(\\host\path\to\file) are not translated correctly to URLs and back.
10250
The URL should be something like file:////host/path/to/file.
10251
Note that a combination of drive letter and remote host is not
10254
Wed Mar 17 22:30:10 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10257
Delete non-standard-conforming code in urljoin() that would use the
10258
netloc from the base url as the default netloc for the resulting url
10259
even if the schemes differ.
10261
Once upon a time, when the web was wild, this was a valuable hack
10262
because some people had a URL referencing an ftp server colocated with
10263
an http server without having the host in the ftp URL (so they could
10264
replicate it or change the hostname easily).
10266
More recently, after the file: scheme got added back to the list of
10267
schemes that accept a netloc, it turns out that this caused weirdness
10268
when joining an http: URL with a file: URL -- the resulting file: URL
10269
would always inherit the host from the http: URL because the file:
10270
scheme supports a netloc but in practice never has one.
10272
There are two reasons to get rid of the old, once-valuable hack,
10273
instead of removing the file: scheme from the uses_netloc list. One,
10274
the RFC says that file: uses the netloc syntax, and does not endorse
10275
the old hack. Two, neither netscape 4.5 nor IE 4.0 support the old
10278
* Include/ceval.h, Include/abstract.h:
10279
Add DLL level b/w compat for PySequence_In and PyEval_CallObject
10281
Tue Mar 16 21:54:50 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10283
* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py: Bug reported by Jim Robinson:
10285
An attempt to execute grid_slaves with arguments (0,0) results in
10286
*all* of the slaves being returned, not just the slave associated with
10287
row 0, column 0. This is because the test for arguments in the method
10288
does not test to see if row (and column) does not equal None, but
10289
rather just whether is evaluates to non-false. A value of 0 fails
10292
Tue Mar 16 14:17:48 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10294
* Modules/cmathmodule.c:
10295
Docstring fix: acosh() returns the hyperbolic arccosine, not the
10296
hyperbolic cosine. Problem report via David Ascher by one of his
10299
Mon Mar 15 21:40:59 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10302
Should test for gethost*by*name_r, not for gethostname_r (which
10303
doesn't exist and doesn't make sense).
10305
* Modules/socketmodule.c:
10306
Patch by Rob Riggs for Linux -- glibc2 has a different argument
10307
converntion for gethostbyname_r() etc. than Solaris!
10309
* Python/thread_pthread.h: Rob Riggs wrote:
10312
Spec says that on success pthread_create returns 0. It does not say
10313
that an error code will be < 0. Linux glibc2 pthread_create() returns
10314
ENOMEM (12) when one exceed process limits. (It looks like it should
10315
return EAGAIN, but that's another story.)
10317
For reference, see:
10318
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/pthread_create.html
10321
[I have a feeling that similar bugs were fixed before; perhaps someone
10322
could check that all error checks no check for != 0?]
10324
* Tools/bgen/bgen/bgenObjectDefinition.py:
10325
New mixin class that defines cmp and hash that use
10326
the ob_itself pointer. This allows (when using the mixin)
10327
different Python objects pointing to the same C object and
10328
behaving well as dictionary keys.
10330
Or so sez Jack Jansen...
10332
* Lib/urllib.py: Yet another patch by Sjoerd Mullender:
10334
Don't convert URLs to URLs using pathname2url.
10336
Fri Mar 12 22:15:43 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10338
* Lib/cmd.py: Patch by Michael Scharf. He writes:
10340
The module cmd requires for each do_xxx command a help_xxx
10341
function. I think this is a little old fashioned.
10343
Here is a patch: use the docstring as help if no help_xxx
10344
function can be found.
10346
[I'm tempted to rip out all the help_* functions from pdb, but I'll
10347
resist it. Any takers? --Guido]
10349
* Tools/freeze/freeze.py: Bug submitted by Wayne Knowles, who writes:
10351
Under Windows, python freeze.py -o hello hello.py
10352
creates all the correct files in the hello subdirectory, but the
10353
Makefile has the directory prefix in it for frozen_extensions.c
10354
nmake fails because it tries to locate hello/frozen_extensions.c
10356
(His fix adds a call to os.path.basename() in the appropriate place.)
10358
* Objects/floatobject.c, Objects/intobject.c:
10359
Vladimir has restructured his code somewhat so that the blocks are now
10360
represented by an explicit structure. (There are still too many casts
10361
in the code, but that may be unavoidable.)
10363
Also added code so that with -vv it is very chatty about what it does.
10365
* Demo/zlib/zlibdemo.py, Demo/zlib/minigzip.py:
10366
Change #! line to modern usage; also chmod +x
10368
* Demo/pdist/rrcs, Demo/pdist/rcvs, Demo/pdist/rcsbump:
10369
Change #! line to modern usage
10371
* Lib/nturl2path.py, Lib/urllib.py: From: Sjoerd Mullender
10373
The filename to URL conversion didn't properly quote special
10375
The URL to filename didn't properly unquote special chatacters.
10377
* Objects/floatobject.c:
10378
OK, try again. Vladimir gave me a fix for the alignment bus error,
10379
so here's his patch again. This time it works (at least on Solaris,
10382
Thu Mar 11 23:21:23 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10384
* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
10385
Don't crash when sys.path contains an empty string.
10387
* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
10388
- Don't crash in the case where a superclass is a string instead of a
10389
pyclbr.Class object; this can happen when the superclass is
10390
unrecognizable (to pyclbr), e.g. when module renaming is used.
10392
- Show a watch cursor when calling pyclbr (since it may take a while
10393
recursively parsing imported modules!).
10395
Thu Mar 11 16:04:04 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10397
* Lib/mimetypes.py:
10398
Added .rdf and .xsl as application/xml types. (.rdf is for the
10399
Resource Description Framework, a metadata encoding, and .xsl is for
10400
the Extensible Stylesheet Language.)
10402
Thu Mar 11 13:26:23 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10404
* Lib/test/output/test_popen2, Lib/test/test_popen2.py:
10405
Test for popen2 module, by Chris Tismer.
10407
* Objects/floatobject.c:
10408
Alas, Vladimir's patch caused a bus error (probably double
10409
alignment?), and I didn't test it. Withdrawing it for now.
10411
Wed Mar 10 22:55:47 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10413
* Objects/floatobject.c:
10414
Patch by Vladimir Marangoz to allow freeing of the allocated blocks of
10415
floats on finalization.
10417
* Objects/intobject.c:
10418
Patch by Vladimir Marangoz to allow freeing of the allocated blocks of
10419
integers on finalization.
10421
* Tools/idle/EditorWindow.py, Tools/idle/Bindings.py:
10422
Add PathBrowser to File module
10424
* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
10425
"Path browser" - 4 scrolled lists displaying:
10426
directories on sys.path
10427
modules in selected directory
10428
classes in selected module
10429
methods of selected class
10431
Sinlge clicking in a directory, module or class item updates the next
10432
column with info about the selected item. Double clicking in a
10433
module, class or method item opens the file (and selects the clicked
10434
item if it is a class or method).
10436
I guess eventually I should be using a tree widget for this, but the
10437
ones I've seen don't work well enough, so for now I use the old
10438
Smalltalk or NeXT style multi-column hierarchical browser.
10440
* Tools/idle/MultiScrolledLists.py:
10441
New utility: multiple scrolled lists in parallel
10443
* Tools/idle/ScrolledList.py: - White background.
10444
- Display "(None)" (or text of your choosing) when empty.
10445
- Don't set the focus.
10447
Tue Mar 9 19:31:21 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10450
open_http also had the 'data is None' test backwards. don't call with the
10451
extra argument if data is None.
10453
* Demo/embed/demo.c:
10454
Call Py_SetProgramName() instead of redefining getprogramname(),
10455
reflecting changes in the runtime around 1.5 or earlier.
10458
Always test for an error return (usually NULL or -1) without setting
10461
* Modules/timemodule.c: Patch by Chris Herborth for BeOS code.
10464
I had an off-by-1000 error in floatsleep(),
10465
and the problem with time.clock() is that it's not implemented properly
10466
on QNX... ANSI says it's supposed to return _CPU_ time used by the
10467
process, but on QNX it returns the amount of real time used... so I was
10470
* Tools/bgen/bgen/macsupport.py: Small change by Jack Jansen.
10471
Test for self.returntype behaving like OSErr rather than being it.
10473
Thu Feb 25 16:14:58 1999 Jeremy Hylton <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10476
http_error had the 'data is None' test backwards. don't call with the
10477
extra argument if data is None.
10479
* Lib/urllib.py: change indentation from 8 spaces to 4 spaces
10481
* Lib/urllib.py: pleasing the tabnanny
10483
Thu Feb 25 14:26:02 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10486
Oops, one more "x, y, z" to convert...
10489
Adjusted comment at the top to be less confusing, following Fredrik
10492
Converted comment to docstring.
10494
Wed Feb 24 18:49:15 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10497
Use sndhdr instead of the obsolete whatsound module.
10499
Wed Feb 24 18:42:38 1999 Jeremy Hylton <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10502
When performing a POST request, i.e. when the second argument to
10503
urlopen is used to specify form data, make sure the second argument is
10504
threaded through all of the http_error_NNN calls. This allows error
10505
handlers like the redirect and authorization handlers to properly
10506
re-start the connection.
10508
Wed Feb 24 16:25:17 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10510
* Lib/mhlib.py: Patch by Lars Wirzenius:
10512
o the initial comment is wrong: creating messages is already
10515
o Message.getbodytext: if the mail or it's part contains an
10516
empty content-transfer-encoding header, the code used to
10517
break; the change below treats an empty encoding value the same
10518
as the other types that do not need decoding
10520
o SubMessage.getbodytext was missing the decode argument; the
10521
change below adds it; I also made it unconditionally return
10522
the raw text if decoding was not desired, because my own
10523
routines needed that (and it was easier than rewriting my
10526
Wed Feb 24 00:35:43 1999 Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10528
* Python/bltinmodule.c (initerrors):
10529
Make sure that the exception tuples ("base-classes" when
10530
string-based exceptions are used) reflect the real class hierarchy,
10531
i.e. that SystemExit derives from Exception not StandardError.
10533
* Lib/exceptions.py:
10534
Document the correct class hierarchy for SystemExit. It is not an
10535
error and so it derives from Exception and not SystemError. The
10536
docstring was incorrect but the implementation was fine.
10538
Tue Feb 23 23:07:51 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10541
Add import sys, needed by reference to sys.exc_info() in rmtree().
10542
Discovered by Mitch Chapman.
10545
Now that we don't have AC_CHECK_LIB(m, pow), the HAVE_LIBM symbol
10546
disappears. It wasn't used anywhere anyway...
10548
* Modules/arraymodule.c:
10549
Carefully check for overflow when allocating the memory for fromfile
10550
-- someone tried to pass in sys.maxint and got bitten by the bogus
10554
Get rid of AC_CHECK_LIB(m, pow) since this is taken care of later with
10555
LIBM (from --with-libm=...); this actually broke the customizability
10556
offered by the latter option. Thanks go to Clay Spence for reporting
10559
* Lib/test/test_dl.py:
10560
1. Print the error message (carefully) when a dl.open() fails in verbose mode.
10561
2. When no test case worked, raise ImportError instead of failing.
10563
* Python/bltinmodule.c:
10564
Patch by Tim Peters to improve the range checks for range() and
10565
xrange(), especially for platforms where int and long are different
10566
sizes (so sys.maxint isn't actually the theoretical limit for the
10567
length of a list, but the largest C int is -- sys.maxint is the
10568
largest Python int, which is actually a C long).
10571
1. Augment the DG/UX rule so it doesn't break the BeOS build.
10572
2. Add $(EXE) to various occurrences of python so it will work on
10573
Cygwin with egcs (after setting EXE=.exe). These patches by
10576
* Lib/posixfile.py:
10577
According to Jeffrey Honig, bsd/os 2.0 - 4.0 should be added to the
10578
list (of bsd variants that have a different lock structure).
10580
* Lib/test/test_fcntl.py:
10581
According to Jeffrey Honig, bsd/os 4.0 should be added to the list.
10583
* Modules/timemodule.c:
10584
Patch by Tadayoshi Funaba (with some changes) to be smarter about
10585
guessing what happened when strftime() returns 0. Is it buffer
10586
overflow or was the result simply 0 bytes long? (This happens for an
10587
empty format string, or when the format string is a single %Z and the
10588
timezone is unknown.) if the buffer is at least 256 times as long as
10589
the format, assume the latter.
10591
Mon Feb 22 19:01:42 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10594
As Des Barry points out, we need to call pathname2url(file) in two
10595
calls to addinfourl() in open_file().
10597
* Modules/Setup.in: Document *static* -- in two places!
10599
* Modules/timemodule.c:
10600
We don't support leap seconds, so the seconds field of a time 9-tuple
10601
should be in the range [0-59]. Noted by Tadayoshi Funaba.
10603
* Modules/stropmodule.c:
10604
In atoi(), don't use isxdigit() to test whether the last character
10605
converted was a "digit" -- use isalnum(). This test is there only to
10606
guard against "+" or "-" being interpreted as a valid int literal.
10607
Reported by Takahiro Nakayama.
10610
As Finn Bock points out, _P_WAIT etc. don't have a leading underscore
10611
so they don't need to be treated specially here.
10613
Mon Feb 22 15:38:58 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10616
Typo: "apparentlt" --> "apparently"
10618
Mon Feb 22 15:38:46 1999 Guido van Rossum <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10620
* Lib/urlparse.py: Steve Clift pointed out that 'file' allows a netloc.
10622
* Modules/posixmodule.c:
10623
The docstring for ttyname(..) claims a second "mode" argument. The
10624
actual code does not allow such an argument. (Finn Bock.)
10626
* Lib/lib-old/poly.py:
10627
Dang. Even though this is obsolete code, somebody found a bug, and I
10630
Thu Feb 18 20:51:50 1999 Fred Drake <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
10633
Bow to font-lock at the end of the docstring, since it throws stuff
10636
Make sure the path paramter to readmodule() is a list before adding it
10637
with sys.path, or the addition could fail.
10640
======================================================================
10643
From 1.5.2b1 to 1.5.2b2
10644
=======================
10649
- Many memory leaks fixed.
10651
- Many small bugs fixed.
10653
- Command line option -OO (or -O -O) suppresses inclusion of doc
10654
strings in resulting bytecode.
10656
Windows-specific changes
10657
------------------------
10659
- New built-in module winsound provides an interface to the Win32
10662
- Re-enable the audioop module in the config.c file.
10664
- On Windows, support spawnv() and associated P_* symbols.
10666
- Fixed the conversion of times() return values on Windows.
10668
- Removed freeze from the installer -- it doesn't work without the
10669
source tree. (See FAQ 8.11.)
10671
- On Windows 95/98, the Tkinter module now is smart enough to find
10672
Tcl/Tk even when the PATH environment variable hasn't been set -- when
10673
the import of _tkinter fails, it searches in a standard locations,
10674
patches os.environ["PATH"], and tries again. When it still fails, a
10675
clearer error message is produced. This should avoid most
10676
installation problems with Tkinter use (e.g. in IDLE).
10678
- The -i option doesn't make any calls to set[v]buf() for stdin --
10679
this apparently screwed up _kbhit() and the _tkinter main loop.
10681
- The ntpath module (and hence, os.path on Windows) now parses out UNC
10682
paths (e.g. \\host\mountpoint\dir\file) as "drive letters", so that
10683
splitdrive() will \\host\mountpoint as the drive and \dir\file as the
10684
path. ** EXPERIMENTAL **
10686
- Added a hack to the exit code so that if (1) the exit status is
10687
nonzero and (2) we think we have our own DOS box (i.e. we're not
10688
started from a command line shell), we print a message and wait for
10689
the user to hit a key before the DOS box is closed.
10691
- Updated the installer to WISE 5.0g. Added a dialog warning about
10692
the imminent Tcl installation. Added a dialog to specify the program
10693
group name in the start menu. Upgraded the Tcl installer to Tcl
10696
Changes to intrinsics
10697
---------------------
10699
- The repr() or str() of a module object now shows the __file__
10700
attribute (i.e., the file which it was loaded), or the string
10701
"(built-in)" if there is no __file__ attribute.
10703
- The range() function now avoids overflow during its calculations (if
10706
- New info string sys.hexversion, which is an integer encoding the
10707
version in hexadecimal. In other words, hex(sys.hexversion) ==
10708
0x010502b2 for Python 1.5.2b2.
10710
New or improved ports
10711
---------------------
10713
- Support for Nextstep descendants (future Mac systems).
10715
- Improved BeOS support.
10717
- Support dynamic loading of shared libraries on NetBSD platforms that
10718
use ELF (i.e., MIPS and Alpha systems).
10720
Configuration/build changes
10721
---------------------------
10723
- The Lib/test directory is no longer included in the default module
10724
search path (sys.path) -- "test" has been a package ever since 1.5.
10726
- Now using autoconf 2.13.
10728
New library modules
10729
-------------------
10731
- New library modules asyncore and asynchat: these form Sam Rushing's
10732
famous asynchronous socket library. Sam has gracefully allowed me to
10733
incorporate these in the standard Python library.
10735
- New module statvfs contains indexing constants for [f]statvfs()
10738
Changes to the library
10739
----------------------
10741
- The wave module (platform-independent support for Windows sound
10742
files) has been fixed to actually make it work.
10744
- The sunau module (platform-independent support for Sun/NeXT sound
10745
files) has been fixed to work across platforms. Also, a weird
10746
encoding bug in the header of the audio test data file has been
10749
- Fix a bug in the urllib module that occasionally tripped up
10750
webchecker and other ftp retrieves.
10752
- ConfigParser's get() method now accepts an optional keyword argument
10753
(vars) that is substituted on top of the defaults that were setup in
10754
__init__. You can now also have recusive references in your
10755
configuration file.
10757
- Some improvements to the Queue module, including a put_nowait()
10758
module and an optional "block" second argument, to get() and put(),
10761
- The updated xmllib module is once again compatible with the version
10762
present in Python 1.5.1 (this was accidentally broken in 1.5.2b1).
10764
- The bdb module (base class for the debugger) now supports
10765
canonicalizing pathnames used in breakpoints. The derived class must
10766
override the new canonical() method for this to work. Also changed
10767
clear_break() to the backwards compatible old signature, and added
10768
clear_bpbynumber() for the new functionality.
10770
- In sgmllib (and hence htmllib), recognize attributes even if they
10771
don't have space in front of them. I.e. '<a
10772
name="foo"href="bar.html">' will now have two attributes recognized.
10774
- In the debugger (pdb), change clear syntax to support three
10775
alternatives: clear; clear file:line; clear bpno bpno ...
10777
- The os.path module now pretends to be a submodule within the os
10778
"package", so you can do things like "from os.path import exists".
10780
- The standard exceptions now have doc strings.
10782
- In the smtplib module, exceptions are now classes. Also avoid
10783
inserting a non-standard space after "TO" in rcpt() command.
10785
- The rfc822 module's getaddrlist() method now uses all occurrences of
10786
the specified header instead of just the first. Some other bugfixes
10787
too (to handle more weird addresses found in a very large test set,
10788
and to avoid crashes on certain invalid dates), and a small test
10789
module has been added.
10791
- Fixed bug in urlparse in the common-case code for HTTP URLs; it
10792
would lose the query, fragment, and/or parameter information.
10794
- The sndhdr module no longer supports whatraw() -- it depended on a
10795
rare extenral program.
10797
- The UserList module/class now supports the extend() method, like
10800
- The uu module now deals better with trailing garbage generated by
10801
some broke uuencoders.
10803
- The telnet module now has an my_interact() method which uses threads
10804
instead of select. The interact() method uses this by default on
10805
Windows (where the single-threaded version doesn't work).
10807
- Add a class to mailbox.py for dealing with qmail directory
10808
mailboxes. The test code was extended to notice these being used as
10811
Changes to extension modules
10812
----------------------------
10814
- Support for the [f]statvfs() system call, where it exists.
10816
- Fixed some bugs in cPickle where bad input could cause it to dump
10819
- Fixed cStringIO to make the writelines() function actually work.
10821
- Added strop.expandtabs() so string.expandtabs() is now much faster.
10823
- Added fsync() and fdatasync(), if they appear to exist.
10825
- Support for "long files" (64-bit seek pointers).
10827
- Fixed a bug in the zlib module's flush() function.
10829
- Added access() system call. It returns 1 if access granted, 0 if
10832
- The curses module implements an optional nlines argument to
10833
w.scroll(). (It then calls wscrl(win, nlines) instead of scoll(win).)
10838
- Some changes to IDLE; see Tools/idle/NEWS.txt.
10840
- Latest version of Misc/python-mode.el included.
10845
- Avoid tracebacks when an image is deleted after its root has been
10848
Changes to the Python/C API
10849
---------------------------
10851
- When parentheses are used in a PyArg_Parse[Tuple]() call, any
10852
sequence is now accepted, instead of requiring a tuple. This is in
10853
line with the general trend towards accepting arbitrary sequences.
10855
- Added PyModule_GetFilename().
10857
- In PyNumber_Power(), remove unneeded and even harmful test for float
10858
to the negative power (which is already and better done in
10861
- New version identification symbols; read patchlevel.h for info. The
10862
version numbers are now exported by Python.h.
10864
- Rolled back the API version change -- it's back to 1007!
10866
- The frozenmain.c function calls PyInitFrozenExtensions().
10868
- Added 'N' format character to Py_BuildValue -- like 'O' but doesn't
10872
======================================================================
10875
From 1.5.2a2 to 1.5.2b1
10876
=======================
10878
Changes to intrinsics
10879
---------------------
10881
- New extension NotImplementedError, derived from RuntimeError. Not
10882
used, but recommended use is for "abstract" methods to raise this.
10884
- The parser will now spit out a warning or error when -t or -tt is
10885
used for parser input coming from a string, too.
10887
- The code generator now inserts extra SET_LINENO opcodes when
10888
compiling multi-line argument lists.
10890
- When comparing bound methods, use identity test on the objects, not
10893
New or improved ports
10894
---------------------
10896
- Chris Herborth has redone his BeOS port; it now works on PowerPC
10897
(R3/R4) and x86 (R4 only). Threads work too in this port.
10902
- Thanks to Chris Herborth, the thread primitives now have proper Py*
10903
names in the source code (they already had those for the linker,
10904
through some smart macros; but the source still had the old, un-Py
10907
Configuration/build changes
10908
---------------------------
10910
- Improved support for FreeBSD/3.
10912
- Check for pthread_detach instead of pthread_create in libc.
10914
- The makesetup script now searches EXECINCLUDEPY before INCLUDEPY.
10916
- Misc/Makefile.pre.in now also looks at Setup.thread and Setup.local.
10917
Otherwise modules such as thread didn't get incorporated in extensions.
10919
New library modules
10920
-------------------
10922
- shlex.py by Eric Raymond provides a lexical analyzer class for
10923
simple shell-like syntaxes.
10925
- netrc.py by Eric Raymond provides a parser for .netrc files. (The
10926
undocumented Netrc class in ftplib.py is now obsolete.)
10928
- codeop.py is a new module that contains the compile_command()
10929
function that was previously in code.py. This is so that JPython can
10930
provide its own version of this function, while still sharing the
10931
higher-level classes in code.py.
10933
- turtle.py is a new module for simple turtle graphics. I'm still
10934
working on it; let me know if you use this to teach Python to children
10935
or other novices without prior programming experience.
10937
Obsoleted library modules
10938
-------------------------
10940
- poly.py and zmod.py have been moved to Lib/lib-old to emphasize
10941
their status of obsoleteness. They don't do a particularly good job
10942
and don't seem particularly relevant to the Python core.
10947
- I've added IDLE: my Integrated DeveLopment Environment for Python.
10948
Requires Tcl/Tk (and Tkinter). Works on Windows and Unix (and should
10949
work on Macintosh, but I haven't been able to test it there; it does
10950
depend on new features in 1.5.2 and perhaps even new features in
10951
1.5.2b1, especially the new code module). This is very much a work in
10952
progress. I'd like to hear how people like it compared to PTUI (or
10953
any other IDE they are familiar with).
10955
- New tools by Barry Warsaw:
10957
= audiopy: controls the Solaris Audio device
10958
= pynche: The PYthonically Natural Color and Hue Editor
10959
= world: Print mappings between country names and DNS country codes
10964
- Demo/scripts/beer.py prints the lyrics to an arithmetic drinking
10967
- Demo/tkinter/guido/optionmenu.py shows how to do an option menu in
10968
Tkinter. (By Fredrik Lundh -- not by me!)
10970
Changes to the library
10971
----------------------
10973
- compileall.py now avoids recompiling .py files that haven't changed;
10974
it adds a -f option to force recompilation.
10976
- New version of xmllib.py by Sjoerd Mullender (0.2 with latest
10979
- nntplib.py: statparse() no longer lowercases the message-id.
10981
- types.py: use type(__stdin__) for FileType.
10983
- urllib.py: fix translations for filenames with "funny" characters.
10984
Patch by Sjoerd Mullender. Note that if you subclass one of the
10985
URLopener classes, and you have copied code from the old urllib.py,
10986
your subclass may stop working. A long-term solution is to provide
10987
more methods so that you don't have to copy code.
10989
- cgi.py: In read_multi, allow a subclass to override the class we
10990
instantiate when we create a recursive instance, by setting the class
10991
variable 'FieldStorageClass' to the desired class. By default, this
10992
is set to None, in which case we use self.__class__ (as before).
10993
Also, a patch by Jim Fulton to pass additional arguments to recursive
10994
calls to the FieldStorage constructor from its read_multi method.
10996
- UserList.py: In __getslice__, use self.__class__ instead of
10999
- In SimpleHTTPServer.py, the server specified in test() should be
11000
BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer, in case the request handler should want to
11001
reference the two attributes added by BaseHTTPServer.server_bind. (By
11002
Jeff Rush, for Bobo). Also open the file in binary mode, so serving
11003
images from a Windows box might actually work.
11005
- In CGIHTTPServer.py, the list of acceptable formats is -split-
11006
on spaces but -joined- on commas, resulting in double commas
11007
in the joined text. (By Jeff Rush.)
11009
- SocketServer.py, patch by Jeff Bauer: a minor change to declare two
11010
new threaded versions of Unix Server classes, using the ThreadingMixIn
11011
class: ThreadingUnixStreamServer, ThreadingUnixDatagramServer.
11013
- bdb.py: fix bomb on deleting a temporary breakpoint: there's no
11014
method do_delete(); do_clear() was meant. By Greg Ward.
11016
- getopt.py: accept a non-list sequence for the long options (request
11017
by Jack Jansen). Because it might be a common mistake to pass a
11018
single string, this situation is treated separately. Also added
11019
docstrings (copied from the library manual) and removed the (now
11020
redundant) module comments.
11022
- tempfile.py: improvements to avoid security leaks.
11024
- code.py: moved compile_command() to new module codeop.py.
11026
- pickle.py: support pickle format 1.3 (binary float added). By Jim
11027
Fulton. Also get rid of the undocumented obsolete Pickler dump_special
11030
- uu.py: Move 'import sys' to top of module, as noted by Tim Peters.
11032
- imaplib.py: fix problem with some versions of IMAP4 servers that
11033
choose to mix the case in their CAPABILITIES response.
11035
- cmp.py: use (f1, f2) as cache key instead of f1 + ' ' + f2. Noted
11038
Changes to extension modules
11039
----------------------------
11041
- More doc strings for several modules were contributed by Chris
11042
Petrilli: math, cmath, fcntl.
11044
- Fixed a bug in zlibmodule.c that could cause core dumps on
11045
decompression of rarely occurring input.
11047
- cPickle.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright
11048
notice. Also, initialize self->safe_constructors early on to prevent
11049
crash in early dealloc.
11051
- cStringIO.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright
11052
notice. Also fixed a core dump in cStringIO.c when doing seeks.
11054
- mpzmodule.c: fix signed character usage in mpz.mpz(stringobjecty).
11056
- readline.c: Bernard Herzog pointed out that rl_parse_and_bind
11057
modifies its argument string (bad function!), so we make a temporary
11060
- sunaudiodev.c: Barry Warsaw added more smarts to get the device and
11061
control pseudo-device, per audio(7I).
11066
- New, improved version of Barry Warsaw's Misc/python-mode.el (editing
11067
support for Emacs).
11069
- tabnanny.py: added a -q ('quiet') option to tabnanny, which causes
11070
only the names of offending files to be printed.
11072
- freeze: when printing missing modules, also print the module they
11073
were imported from.
11075
- untabify.py: patch by Detlef Lannert to implement -t option
11081
- grid_bbox(): support new Tk API: grid bbox ?column row? ?column2
11084
- _tkinter.c: RajGopal Srinivasan noted that the latest code (1.5.2a2)
11085
doesn't work when running in a non-threaded environment. He added
11086
some #ifdefs that fix this.
11088
Changes to the Python/C API
11089
---------------------------
11091
- Bumped API version number to 1008 -- enough things have changed!
11093
- There's a new macro, PyThreadState_GET(), which does the same work
11094
as PyThreadState_Get() without the overhead of a function call (it
11095
also avoids the error check). The two top calling locations of
11096
PyThreadState_Get() have been changed to use this macro.
11098
- All symbols intended for export from a DLL or shared library are now
11099
marked as such (with the DL_IMPORT() macro) in the header file that
11100
declares them. This was needed for the BeOS port, and should also
11101
make some other ports easier. The PC port no longer needs the file
11102
with exported symbols (PC/python_nt.def). There's also a DL_EXPORT
11103
macro which is only used for init methods in extension modules, and
11106
Invisible changes to internals
11107
------------------------------
11109
- Fixed a bug in new_buffersize() in fileobject.c which could
11110
return a buffer size that was way too large.
11112
- Use PySys_WriteStderr instead of fprintf in most places.
11114
- dictobject.c: remove dead code discovered by Vladimir Marangozov.
11116
- tupleobject.c: make tuples less hungry -- an extra item was
11117
allocated but never used. Tip by Vladimir Marangozov.
11119
- mymath.h: Metrowerks PRO4 finally fixes the hypot snafu. (Jack
11122
- import.c: Jim Fulton fixes a reference count bug in
11125
- glmodule.c: check in the changed version after running the stubber
11126
again -- this solves the conflict with curses over the 'clear' entry
11127
point much nicer. (Jack Jansen had checked in the changes to cstubs
11128
eons ago, but I never regenrated glmodule.c :-( )
11130
- frameobject.c: fix reference count bug in PyFrame_New. Vladimir
11133
- stropmodule.c: add a missing DECREF in an error exit. Submitted by
11137
======================================================================
11140
From 1.5.2a1 to 1.5.2a2
11141
=======================
11146
- It is now a syntax error to have a function argument without a
11147
default following one with a default.
11149
- __file__ is now set to the .py file if it was parsed (it used to
11150
always be the .pyc/.pyo file).
11152
- Don't exit with a fatal error during initialization when there's a
11153
problem with the exceptions.py module.
11155
- New environment variable PYTHONOPTIMIZE can be used to set -O.
11157
- New version of python-mode.el for Emacs.
11159
Miscellaneous fixed bugs
11160
------------------------
11162
- No longer print the (confusing) error message about stack underflow
11165
- Some threading and locking bugs fixed.
11167
- When errno is zero, report "Error", not "Success".
11172
- Documentation will be released separately.
11174
- Doc strings added to array and md5 modules by Chris Petrilli.
11176
Ports and build procedure
11177
-------------------------
11179
- Stop installing when a move or copy fails.
11181
- New version of the OS/2 port code by Jeff Rush.
11183
- The makesetup script handles absolute filenames better.
11185
- The 'new' module is now enabled by default in the Setup file.
11187
- I *think* I've solved the problem with the Linux build blowing up
11188
sometimes due to a conflict between sigcheck/intrcheck and
11194
- The second argument to apply() can now be any sequence, not just a
11200
- Lists have a new method: L1.extend(L2) is equivalent to the common
11201
idiom L1[len(L1):] = L2.
11203
- Better error messages when a sequence is indexed with a non-integer.
11205
- Bettter error message when calling a non-callable object (include
11206
the type in the message).
11211
- New version of cPickle.c fixes some bugs.
11213
- pickle.py: improved instantiation error handling.
11215
- code.py: reworked quite a bit. New base class
11216
InteractiveInterpreter and derived class InteractiveConsole. Fixed
11217
several problems in compile_command().
11219
- py_compile.py: print error message and continue on syntax errors.
11220
Also fixed an old bug with the fstat code (it was never used).
11222
- pyclbr.py: support submodules of packages.
11227
- StringIO.py: raise the right exception (ValueError) for attempted
11228
I/O on closed StringIO objects.
11230
- re.py: fixed a bug in subn(), which caused .groups() to fail inside
11231
the replacement function called by sub().
11233
- The struct module has a new format 'P': void * in native mode.
11235
Generic OS Services
11236
-------------------
11238
- Module time: Y2K robustness. 2-digit year acceptance depends on
11239
value of time.accept2dyear, initialized from env var PYTHONY2K,
11240
default 0. Years 00-68 mean 2000-2068, while 69-99 mean 1969-1999
11241
(POSIX or X/Open recommendation).
11243
- os.path: normpath(".//x") should return "x", not "/x".
11245
- getpass.py: fall back on default_getpass() when sys.stdin.fileno()
11248
- tempfile.py: regenerate the template after a fork() call.
11250
Optional OS Services
11251
--------------------
11253
- In the signal module, disable restarting interrupted system calls
11254
when we have siginterrupt().
11259
- No longer set __args__; this feature is no longer supported and can
11260
affect the debugged code.
11262
- cmd.py, pdb.py and bdb.py have been overhauled by Richard Wolff, who
11263
added aliases and some other useful new features, e.g. much better
11264
breakpoint support: temporary breakpoint, disabled breakpoints,
11265
breakpoints with ignore counts, and conditions; breakpoints can be set
11266
on a file before it is loaded.
11271
- Changes so that JPython can use it. Also fix the calibration code
11272
so it actually works again
11274
Internet Protocols and Support
11275
------------------------------
11277
- imaplib.py: new version from Piers Lauder.
11279
- smtplib.py: change sendmail() method to accept a single string or a
11280
list or strings as the destination (commom newbie mistake).
11282
- poplib.py: LIST with a msg argument fixed.
11284
- urlparse.py: some optimizations for common case (http).
11286
- urllib.py: support content-length in info() for ftp protocol;
11287
support for a progress meter through a third argument to
11288
urlretrieve(); commented out gopher test (the test site is dead).
11290
Internet Data handling
11291
----------------------
11293
- sgmllib.py: support tags with - or . in their name.
11295
- mimetypes.py: guess_type() understands 'data' URLs.
11297
Restricted Execution
11298
--------------------
11300
- The classes rexec.RModuleLoader and rexec.RModuleImporter no
11306
- When reporting an exception, store its info in sys.last_*. Also,
11307
write all of it to stderr.
11309
- Added NS, EW, and NSEW constants, for grid's sticky option.
11311
- Fixed last-minute bug in 1.5.2a1 release: need to include "mytime.h".
11313
- Make bind variants without a sequence return a tuple of sequences
11314
(formerly it returned a string, which wasn't very convenient).
11316
- Add image commands to the Text widget (these are new in Tk 8.0).
11318
- Added new listbox and canvas methods: {xview,yview}_{scroll,moveto}.)
11320
- Improved the thread code (but you still can't call update() from
11321
another thread on Windows).
11323
- Fixed unnecessary references to _default_root in the new dialog
11326
- Miscellaneous problems fixed.
11332
- Call LoadLibraryEx(..., ..., LOAD_WITH_ALTERED_SEARCH_PATH) to
11333
search for dependent dlls in the directory containing the .pyd.
11335
- In debugging mode, call DebugBreak() in Py_FatalError().
11340
- Install zlib.dll in the DLLs directory instead of in the win32
11341
system directory, to avoid conflicts with other applications that have
11342
their own zlib.dll.
11347
- test_long.py: new test for long integers, by Tim Peters.
11349
- regrtest.py: improved so it can be used for other test suites as
11352
- test_strftime.py: use re to compare test results, to support legal
11353
variants (e.g. on Linux).
11358
- Four new scripts in Tools/scripts: crlf.py and lfcr.py (to
11359
remove/add Windows style '\r\n' line endings), untabify.py (to remove
11360
tabs), and rgrep.yp (reverse grep).
11362
- Improvements to Tools/freeze/. Each Python module is now written to
11363
its own C file. This prevents some compilers or assemblers from
11364
blowing up on large frozen programs, and saves recompilation time if
11365
only a few modules are changed. Other changes too, e.g. new command
11366
line options -x and -i.
11368
- Much improved (and smaller!) version of Tools/scripts/mailerdaemon.py.
11373
- New mechanism to support extensions of the type object while
11374
remaining backward compatible with extensions compiled for previous
11375
versions of Python 1.5. A flags field indicates presence of certain
11378
- Addition to the buffer API to differentiate access to bytes and
11379
8-bit characters (in anticipation of Unicode characters).
11381
- New argument parsing format t# ("text") to indicate 8-bit
11382
characters; s# simply means 8-bit bytes, for backwards compatibility.
11384
- New object type, bufferobject.c is an example and can be used to
11385
create buffers from memory.
11387
- Some support for 64-bit longs, including some MS platforms.
11389
- Many calls to fprintf(stderr, ...) have been replaced with calls to
11390
PySys_WriteStderr(...).
11392
- The calling context for PyOS_Readline() has changed: it must now be
11393
called with the interpreter lock held! It releases the lock around
11394
the call to the function pointed to by PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer
11395
(default PyOS_StdioReadline()).
11397
- New APIs PyLong_FromVoidPtr() and PyLong_AsVoidPtr().
11399
- Renamed header file "thread.h" to "pythread.h".
11401
- The code string of code objects may now be anything that supports the
11405
======================================================================
11408
From 1.5.1 to 1.5.2a1
11409
=====================
11414
- When searching for the library, a landmark that is a compiled module
11415
(string.pyc or string.pyo) is also accepted.
11417
- When following symbolic links to the python executable, use a loop
11418
so that a symlink to a symlink can work.
11420
- Added a hack so that when you type 'quit' or 'exit' at the
11421
interpreter, you get a friendly explanation of how to press Ctrl-D (or
11424
- New and improved Misc/python-mode.el (Python mode for Emacs).
11426
- Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
11427
revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag. It turned
11428
out to be a bad idea.
11430
Miscellaneous fixed bugs
11431
------------------------
11433
- All patches on the patch page have been integrated. (But much more
11436
- Several memory leaks plugged (e.g. the one for classes with a
11437
__getattr__ method).
11439
- Removed the only use of calloc(). This triggered an obscure bug on
11440
multiprocessor Sparc Solaris 2.6.
11442
- Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
11443
(believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
11445
- Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
11446
a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and some other cases).
11451
- Doc strings have been added to many extension modules: __builtin__,
11452
errno, select, signal, socket, sys, thread, time. Also to methods of
11453
list objects (try [].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now
11454
automatically be propagated to an instance if the instance has methods
11455
that are accessed in the usual way.
11457
- The documentation has been expanded and the formatting improved.
11458
(Remember that the documentation is now unbundled and has its own
11459
release cycle though; see http://www.python.org/doc/.)
11461
- Added Misc/Porting -- a mini-FAQ on porting to a new platform.
11463
Ports and build procedure
11464
-------------------------
11466
- The BeOS port is now integrated. Courtesy Chris Herborth.
11468
- Symbol files for FreeBSD 2.x and 3.x have been contributed
11469
(Lib/plat-freebsd[23]/*).
11471
- Support HPUX 10.20 DCE threads.
11473
- Finally fixed the configure script so that (on SGI) if -OPT:Olimit=0
11474
works, it won't also use -Olimit 1500 (which gives a warning for every
11475
file). Also support the SGI_ABI environment variable better.
11477
- The makesetup script now understands absolute pathnames ending in .o
11478
in the module -- it assumes it's a file for which we have no source.
11480
- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
11483
- The test suite now uses a different sound sample.
11488
- Better checks for invalid input to int(), long(), string.atoi(),
11489
string.atol(). (Formerly, a sign without digits would be accepted as
11490
a legal ways to spell zero.)
11492
- Changes to map() and filter() to use the length of a sequence only
11493
as a hint -- if an IndexError happens earlier, take that. (Formerly,
11494
this was considered an error.)
11496
- Experimental feature in getattr(): a third argument can specify a
11497
default (instead of raising AttributeError).
11499
- Implement round() slightly different, so that for negative ndigits
11500
no additional errors happen in the last step.
11502
- The open() function now adds the filename to the exception when it
11505
Built-in exceptions
11506
-------------------
11508
- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError.
11509
EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
11510
PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
11511
class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
11512
The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
11513
filename argument now use this.
11518
- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
11519
and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
11520
i. Also, the sort() method is faster again. Sorting is now also
11521
safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
11522
while the sort is going on (which could cause core dumps).
11524
- Changes to comparisons: numbers are now smaller than any other type.
11525
This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < [] is
11526
true. As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
11527
negative. This *shouldn't* affect any working code, but I've found
11528
that the change caused several "sleeping" bugs to become active, so
11531
- Instance methods may now have other callable objects than just
11532
Python functions as their im_func. Use new.instancemethod() or write
11533
your own C code to create them; new.instancemethod() may be called
11534
with None for the instance to create an unbound method.
11536
- Assignment to __name__, __dict__ or __bases__ of a class object is
11537
now allowed (with stringent type checks); also allow assignment to
11538
__getattr__ etc. The cached values for __getattr__ etc. are
11539
recomputed after such assignments (but not for derived classes :-( ).
11541
- Allow assignment to some attributes of function objects: func_code,
11542
func_defaults and func_doc / __doc__. (With type checks except for
11543
__doc__ / func_doc .)
11548
- New tests (in Lib/test): reperf.py (regular expression benchmark),
11549
sortperf.py (list sorting benchmark), test_MimeWriter.py (test case
11550
for the MimeWriter module).
11552
- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
11555
- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
11557
- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
11558
PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
11560
- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
11561
IndexError when there are no more completions left.
11563
- Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
11564
input. (It's still not foolproof!)
11566
- In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
11567
"contains" for "sequenceincludes".
11572
- In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
11573
empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
11575
- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
11576
functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
11577
occurrences of a given substring.
11579
- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
11580
readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
11582
- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
11583
result in long integer values.
11585
Miscellaneous services
11586
----------------------
11588
- In whrandom.py, added new method and function randrange(), same as
11589
choice(range(start, stop, step)) but faster. This addresses the
11590
problem that randint() was accidentally defined as taking an inclusive
11591
range. Also, randint(a, b) is now redefined as randrange(a, b+1),
11592
adding extra range and type checking to its arguments!
11594
- Add some semi-thread-safety to random.gauss() (it used to be able to
11595
crash when invoked from separate threads; now the worst it can do is
11596
give a duplicate result occasionally).
11598
- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
11600
- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
11601
exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name. No
11602
longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
11604
- In getpass.py, don't use raw_input() to ask for the password -- we
11605
don't want it to show up in the readline history! Also don't catch
11606
interrupts (the try-finally already does all necessary cleanup).
11608
Generic OS Services
11609
-------------------
11611
- New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames(). New
11612
variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
11613
i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac. Do *not* use
11614
this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
11615
will always be '\n'!
11617
- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
11618
getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
11621
- In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists. (This parses a
11622
time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().) Also,
11623
remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
11624
formatting of some non-local times.
11626
- In the socket module, added a new function gethostbyname_ex().
11627
Also, don't use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some
11628
platforms (and should exist everywhere).
11630
Optional OS Services
11631
--------------------
11633
- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
11634
returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
11635
of regular file objects. Also, it didn't work together with cPickle;
11638
- In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
11640
- In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
11641
which module to use to open it. (The anydbm.error exception is now a
11647
- In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
11648
calling tcgetattr().
11650
- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions to
11651
the posix module (and thus to the os module): WEXITSTATUS(),
11652
WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(), WTERMSIG().
11654
- In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
11655
(matching the docs).
11660
- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
11663
Internet Protocols and Support
11664
------------------------------
11666
- Changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote(). Fixed an
11667
obscure bug in quote_plus(). Added urlencode(dict) -- convenience
11668
function for sending a POST request with urlopen(). Use the getpass
11669
module to ask for a password. Rewrote the (test) main program so that
11670
when used as a script, it can retrieve one or more URLs to stdout.
11671
Use -t to run the self-test. Made the proxy code work again.
11673
- In cgi.py, treat "HEAD" the same as "GET", so that CGI scripts don't
11674
fail when someone asks for their HEAD. Also, for POST, set the
11675
default content-type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Also, in
11676
FieldStorage.__init__(), when method='GET', always get the query
11677
string from environ['QUERY_STRING'] or sys.argv[1] -- ignore an
11678
explicitly passed in fp.
11680
- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
11681
compliance, for picky servers.
11683
- Improved imaplib.py.
11685
- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py (it never worked).
11687
- Fixed a small bug in CGIHTTPServer.py.
11689
Internet Data handling
11690
----------------------
11692
- In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList. Also support a new
11693
overridable method, isheader(). Also add a get() method similar to
11694
dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it). Also, be smarter
11695
about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
11696
unread() method before trying seeks.
11698
- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
11699
long ago. Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
11700
instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
11703
- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py; support
11706
Restricted Execution
11707
--------------------
11709
- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
11710
sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
11711
can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
11716
- On Unix, Tkinter can now safely be used from a multi-threaded
11717
application. (Formerly, no threads would make progress while
11718
Tkinter's mainloop() was active, because it didn't release the Python
11719
interpreter lock.) Unfortunately, on Windows, threads other than the
11720
main thread should not call update() or update_idletasks() because
11721
this will deadlock the application.
11723
- An interactive interpreter that uses readline and Tkinter no longer
11724
uses up all available CPU time.
11726
- Even if readline is not used, Tk windows created in an interactive
11727
interpreter now get continuously updated. (This even works in Windows
11728
as long as you don't hit a key.)
11730
- New demos in Demo/tkinter/guido/: brownian.py, redemo.py, switch.py.
11732
- No longer register Tcl_finalize() as a low-level exit handler. It
11733
may call back into Python, and that's a bad idea.
11735
- Allow binding of Tcl commands (given as a string).
11737
- Some minor speedups; replace explicitly coded getint() with int() in
11740
- In FileDialog.py, remember the directory of the selected file, if
11743
- Change the names of all methods in the Wm class: they are now
11744
wm_title(), etc. The old names (title() etc.) are still defined as
11747
- Add a new method of interpreter objects, interpaddr(). This returns
11748
the address of the Tcl interpreter object, as an integer. Not very
11749
useful for the Python programmer, but this can be called by another C
11750
extension that needs to make calls into the Tcl/Tk C API and needs to
11751
get the address of the Tcl interpreter object. A simple cast of the
11752
return value to (Tcl_Interp *) will do the trick.
11757
- Don't insist on proper case for module source files if the filename
11758
is all uppercase (e.g. FOO.PY now matches foo; but FOO.py still
11759
doesn't). This should address problems with this feature on
11760
oldfashioned filesystems (Novell servers?).
11765
- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive,
11766
and the putenv() calls made as a side effect of changing os.environ
11767
are case preserving.
11769
- Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
11770
ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
11771
wouldn't know how).
11773
- Fixed os.pipe() so that it returns file descriptors acceptable to
11774
os.read() and os.write() (like it does on Unix), rather than Windows
11777
- Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
11779
- In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the
11782
- The getpass module now raises KeyboardInterrupt when it sees ^C.
11784
- In mailbox.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
11786
- In rfc822.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
11788
- In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
11789
calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche(). Also fix a
11790
bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
11796
- The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
11797
versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be
11803
- Several improvements to freeze specifically for Windows.
11805
Windows Build Procedure
11806
-----------------------
11808
- The VC++ project files and the WISE installer have been moved to the
11809
PCbuild subdirectory, so they are distributed in the same subdirectory
11810
where they must be used. This avoids confusion.
11812
- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
11814
- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
11816
- The projects now use distinct filenames for the .exe, .dll, .lib and
11817
.pyd files built in debug mode (by appending "_d" to the base name,
11818
before the extension). This makes it easier to switch between the two
11819
and get the right versions. There's a pragma in config.h that directs
11820
the linker to include the appropriate .lib file (so python15.lib no
11821
longer needs to be explicit in your project).
11823
- The installer now installs more files (e.g. config.h). The idea is
11824
that you shouldn't need the source distribution if you want build your
11825
own extensions in C or C++.
11830
- New script nm2def.py by Marc-Andre Lemburg, to construct
11831
PC/python_nt.def automatically (some hand editing still required).
11833
- New tool ndiff.py: Tim Peters' text diffing tool.
11835
- Various and sundry improvements to the freeze script.
11837
- The script texi2html.py (which was part of the Doc tree but is no
11838
longer used there) has been moved to the Tools/scripts subdirectory.
11840
- Some generalizations in the webchecker code. There's now a
11841
primnitive gui for websucker.py: wsgui.py. (In Tools/webchecker/.)
11843
- The ftpmirror.py script now handles symbolic links properly, and
11844
also files with multiple spaces in their names.
11846
- The 1.5.1 tabnanny.py suffers an assert error if fed a script whose
11847
last line is both indented and lacks a newline. This is now fixed.
11852
- Added missing prototypes for PyEval_CallFunction() and
11853
PyEval_CallMethod().
11855
- New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
11857
- New macros to access object members for PyFunction, PyCFunction
11860
- New APIs PyImport_AppendInittab() an PyImport_ExtendInittab() to
11861
dynamically add one or many entries to the table of built-in modules.
11863
- New macro Py_InitModule3(name, methods, doc) which calls
11864
Py_InitModule4() with appropriate arguments. (The -4 variant requires
11865
you to pass an obscure version number constant which is always the same.)
11867
- New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
11868
sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface. (Used in
11869
_tkinter.c, for example.)
11871
- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
11872
your compiler supports it.
11874
- PySequence_In() is now called PySequence_Contains().
11875
(PySequence_In() is still supported for b/w compatibility; it is
11876
declared obsolete because its argument order is confusing.)
11878
- PyDict_GetItem() and PyDict_GetItemString() are changed so that they
11879
*never* raise an exception -- (even if the hash() fails, simply clear
11880
the error). This was necessary because there is lots of code out
11881
there that already assumes this.
11883
- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_List() to use the
11884
length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
11885
earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
11887
- Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
11888
many error checking bugs.
11890
- Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
11891
object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
11893
- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
11894
instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
11895
Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
11896
change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
11899
- Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
11902
======================================================================
11905
========================================
11906
==> Release 1.5.1 (October 31, 1998) <==
11907
========================================
11915
- The documentation is now unbundled. It has also been extensively
11916
modified (mostly to implement a new and more uniform formatting
11917
style). We figure that most people will prefer to download one of the
11918
preformatted documentation sets (HTML, PostScript or PDF) and that
11919
only a minority have a need for the LaTeX or FrameMaker sources. Of
11920
course, the unbundled documentation sources still released -- just not
11921
in the same archive file, and perhaps not on the same date.
11923
- All bugs noted on the errors page (and many unnoted) are fixed. All
11924
new bugs take their places.
11926
- No longer a core dump when attempting to print (or repr(), or str())
11927
a list or dictionary that contains an instance of itself; instead, the
11928
recursive entry is printed as [...] or {...}. See Py_ReprEnter() and
11929
Py_ReprLeave() below. Comparisons of such objects still go beserk,
11930
since this requires a different kind of fix; fortunately, this is a
11931
less common scenario in practice.
11936
- The raise statement can now be used without arguments, to re-raise
11937
a previously set exception. This should be used after catching an
11938
exception with an except clause only, either in the except clause or
11939
later in the same function.
11941
Import and module handling
11942
--------------------------
11944
- The implementation of import has changed to use a mutex (when
11945
threading is supported). This means that when two threads
11946
simultaneously import the same module, the import statements are
11947
serialized. Recursive imports are not affected.
11949
- Rewrote the finalization code almost completely, to be much more
11950
careful with the order in which modules are destroyed. Destructors
11951
will now generally be able to reference built-in names such as None
11954
- Case-insensitive platforms such as Mac and Windows require the case
11955
of a module's filename to match the case of the module name as
11956
specified in the import statement (see below).
11958
- The code for figuring out the default path now distinguishes between
11959
files, modules, executable files, and directories. When expecting a
11960
module, we also look for the .pyc or .pyo file.
11962
Parser/tokenizer changes
11963
------------------------
11965
- The tokenizer can now warn you when your source code mixes tabs and
11966
spaces for indentation in a manner that depends on how much a tab is
11967
worth in spaces. Use "python -t" or "python -v" to enable this
11968
option. Use "python -tt" to turn the warnings into errors. (See also
11969
tabnanny.py and tabpolice.py below.)
11971
- Return unsigned characters from tok_nextc(), so '\377' isn't
11972
mistaken for an EOF character.
11974
- Fixed two pernicious bugs in the tokenizer that only affected AIX.
11975
One was actually a general bug that was triggered by AIX's smaller I/O
11976
buffer size. The other was a bug in the AIX optimizer's loop
11977
unrolling code; swapping two statements made the problem go away.
11979
Tools, demos and miscellaneous files
11980
------------------------------------
11982
- There's a new version of Misc/python-mode.el (the Emacs mode for
11983
Python) which is much smarter about guessing the indentation style
11984
used in a particular file. Lots of other cool features too!
11986
- There are two new tools in Tools/scripts: tabnanny.py and
11987
tabpolice.py, implementing two different ways of checking whether a
11988
file uses indentation in a way that is sensitive to the interpretation
11989
of a tab. The preferred module is tabnanny.py (by Tim Peters).
11991
- Some new demo programs:
11993
Demo/tkinter/guido/paint.py -- Dave Mitchell
11994
Demo/sockets/unixserver.py -- Piet van Oostrum
11997
- Much better freeze support. The freeze script can now freeze
11998
hierarchical module names (with a corresponding change to import.c),
11999
and has a few extra options (e.g. to suppress freezing specific
12000
modules). It also does much more on Windows NT.
12002
- Version 1.0 of the faq wizard is included (only very small changes
12003
since version 0.9.0).
12005
- New feature for the ftpmirror script: when removing local files
12006
(i.e., only when -r is used), do a recursive delete.
12008
Configuring and building Python
12009
-------------------------------
12011
- Get rid of the check for -linet -- recent Sequent Dynix systems don't
12012
need this any more and apparently it screws up their configuration.
12014
- Some changes because gcc on SGI doesn't support '-all'.
12016
- Changed the build rules to use $(LIBRARY) instead of
12017
-L.. -lpython$(VERSION)
12018
since the latter trips up the SunOS 4.1.x linker (sigh).
12020
- Fix the bug where the '# dgux is broken' comment in the Makefile
12021
tripped over Make on some platforms.
12023
- Changes for AIX: install the python.exp file; properly use
12024
$(srcdir); the makexp_aix script now removes C++ entries of the form
12027
- Deleted some Makefile targets only used by the (long obsolete)
12033
- Performance and threading improvements to the socket and bsddb
12034
modules, by Christopher Lindblad of Infoseek.
12036
- Added operator.__not__ and operator.not_.
12038
- In the thread module, when a thread exits due to an unhandled
12039
exception, don't store the exception information in sys.last_*; it
12040
prevents proper calling of destructors of local variables.
12042
- Fixed a number of small bugs in the cPickle module.
12044
- Changed find() and rfind() in the strop module so that
12045
find("x","",2) returns -1, matching the implementation in string.py.
12047
- In the time module, be more careful with the result of ctime(), and
12048
test for HAVE_MKTIME before usinmg mktime().
12050
- Doc strings contributed by Mitch Chapman to the termios, pwd, gdbm
12053
- Added the LOG_SYSLOG constant to the syslog module, if defined.
12055
Standard library modules
12056
------------------------
12058
- All standard library modules have been converted to an indentation
12059
style using either only tabs or only spaces -- never a mixture -- if
12060
they weren't already consistent according to tabnanny. This means
12061
that the new -t option (see above) won't complain about standard
12064
- New standard library modules:
12066
threading -- GvR and the thread-sig
12067
Java style thread objects -- USE THIS!!!
12069
getpass -- Piers Lauder
12070
simple utilities to prompt for a password and to
12071
retrieve the current username
12073
imaplib -- Piers Lauder
12074
interface for the IMAP4 protocol
12076
poplib -- David Ascher, Piers Lauder
12077
interface for the POP3 protocol
12079
smtplib -- Dragon De Monsyne
12080
interface for the SMTP protocol
12082
- Some obsolete modules moved to a separate directory (Lib/lib-old)
12083
which is *not* in the default module search path:
12095
- New version of the PCRE code (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions --
12096
the re module and the supporting pcre extension) by Andrew Kuchling.
12097
Incompatible new feature in re.sub(): the handling of escapes in the
12098
replacement string has changed.
12100
- Interface change in the copy module: a __deepcopy__ method is now
12101
called with the memo dictionary as an argument.
12103
- Feature change in the tokenize module: differentiate between NEWLINE
12104
token (an official newline) and NL token (a newline that the grammar
12107
- Several bugfixes to the urllib module. It is now truly thread-safe,
12108
and several bugs and a portability problem have been fixed. New
12109
features, all due to Sjoerd Mullender: When creating a temporary file,
12110
it gives it an appropriate suffix. Support the "data:" URL scheme.
12111
The open() method uses the tempcache.
12113
- New version of the xmllib module (this time with a test suite!) by
12116
- Added debugging code to the telnetlib module, to be able to trace
12117
the actual traffic.
12119
- In the rfc822 module, added support for deleting a header (still no
12120
support for adding headers, though). Also fixed a bug where an
12121
illegal address would cause a crash in getrouteaddr(), fixed a
12122
sign reversal in mktime_tz(), and use the local timezone by default
12123
(the latter two due to Bill van Melle).
12125
- The normpath() function in the dospath and ntpath modules no longer
12126
does case normalization -- for that, use the separate function
12127
normcase() (which always existed); normcase() has been sped up and
12128
fixed (it was the cause of a crash in Mark Hammond's installer in
12131
- New command supported by the ftplib module: rmd(); also fixed some
12134
- The profile module now uses a different timer function by default --
12135
time.clock() is generally better than os.times(). This makes it work
12136
better on Windows NT, too.
12138
- The tempfile module now recovers when os.getcwd() raises an
12141
- Fixed some bugs in the random module; gauss() was subtly wrong, and
12142
vonmisesvariate() should return a full circle. Courtesy Mike Miller,
12143
Lambert Meertens (gauss()), and Magnus Kessler (vonmisesvariate()).
12145
- Better default seed in the whrandom module, courtesy Andrew Kuchling.
12147
- Fix slow close() in shelve module.
12149
- The Unix mailbox class in the mailbox module is now more robust when
12150
a line begins with the string "From " but is definitely not the start
12151
of a new message. The pattern used can be changed by overriding a
12152
method or class variable.
12154
- Added a rmtree() function to the copy module.
12156
- Fixed several typos in the pickle module. Also fixed problems when
12157
unpickling in restricted execution environments.
12159
- Added docstrings and fixed a typo in the py_compile and compileall
12160
modules. At Mark Hammond's repeated request, py_compile now append a
12161
newline to the source if it needs one. Both modules support an extra
12162
parameter to specify the purported source filename (to be used in
12165
- Some performance tweaks by Jeremy Hylton to the gzip module.
12167
- Fixed a bug in the merge order of dictionaries in the ConfigParser
12168
module. Courtesy Barry Warsaw.
12170
- In the multifile module, support the optional second parameter to
12171
seek() when possible.
12173
- Several fixes to the gopherlib module by Lars Marius Garshol. Also,
12174
urlparse now correctly handles Gopher URLs with query strings.
12176
- Fixed a tiny bug in format_exception() in the traceback module.
12177
Also rewrite tb_lineno() to be compatible with JPython (and not
12178
disturb the current exception!); by Jim Hugunin.
12180
- The httplib module is more robust when servers send a short response
12181
-- courtesy Tim O'Malley.
12183
Tkinter and friends
12184
-------------------
12186
- Various typos and bugs fixed.
12188
- New module Tkdnd implements a drag-and-drop protocol (within one
12191
- The event_*() widget methods have been restructured slightly -- they
12192
no longer use the default root.
12194
- The interfaces for the bind*() and unbind() widget methods have been
12195
redesigned; the bind*() methods now return the name of the Tcl command
12196
created for the callback, and this can be passed as a optional
12197
argument to unbind() in order to delete the command (normally, such
12198
commands are automatically unbound when the widget is destroyed, but
12199
for some applications this isn't enough).
12201
- Variable objects now have trace methods to interface to Tcl's
12202
variable tracing facilities.
12204
- Image objects now have an optional keyword argument, 'master', to
12205
specify a widget (tree) to which they belong. The image_names() and
12206
image_types() calls are now also widget methods.
12208
- There's a new global call, Tkinter.NoDefaultRoot(), which disables
12209
all use of the default root by the Tkinter library. This is useful to
12210
debug applications that are in the process of being converted from
12211
relying on the default root to explicit specification of the root
12214
- The 'exit' command is deleted from the Tcl interpreter, since it
12215
provided a loophole by which one could (accidentally) exit the Python
12216
interpreter without invoking any cleanup code.
12218
- Tcl_Finalize() is now registered as a Python low-level exit handle,
12219
so Tcl will be finalized when Python exits.
12224
- New function PyThreadState_GetDict() returns a per-thread dictionary
12225
intended for storing thread-local global variables.
12227
- New functions Py_ReprEnter() and Py_ReprLeave() use the per-thread
12228
dictionary to allow recursive container types to detect recursion in
12229
their repr(), str() and print implementations.
12231
- New function PyObject_Not(x) calculates (not x) according to Python's
12232
standard rules (basically, it negates the outcome PyObject_IsTrue(x).
12234
- New function _PyModule_Clear(), which clears a module's dictionary
12235
carefully without removing the __builtins__ entry. This is implied
12236
when a module object is deallocated (this used to clear the dictionary
12239
- New function PyImport_ExecCodeModuleEx(), which extends
12240
PyImport_ExecCodeModule() by adding an extra parameter to pass it the
12243
- New functions Py_GetPythonHome() and Py_SetPythonHome(), intended to
12244
allow embedded applications to force a different value for PYTHONHOME.
12246
- New global flag Py_FrozenFlag is set when this is a "frozen" Python
12247
binary; it suppresses warnings about not being able to find the
12248
standard library directories.
12250
- New global flag Py_TabcheckFlag is incremented by the -t option and
12251
causes the tokenizer to issue warnings or errors about inconsistent
12252
mixing of tabs and spaces for indentation.
12254
Miscellaneous minor changes and bug fixes
12255
-----------------------------------------
12257
- Improved the error message when an attribute of an attribute-less
12258
object is requested -- include the name of the attribute and the type
12259
of the object in the message.
12261
- Sped up int(), long(), float() a bit.
12263
- Fixed a bug in list.sort() that would occasionally dump core.
12265
- Fixed a bug in PyNumber_Power() that caused numeric arrays to fail
12266
when taken tothe real power.
12268
- Fixed a number of bugs in the file reading code, at least one of
12269
which could cause a core dump on NT, and one of which would
12270
occasionally cause file.read() to return less than the full contents
12273
- Performance hack by Vladimir Marangozov for stack frame creation.
12275
- Make sure setvbuf() isn't used unless HAVE_SETVBUF is defined.
12280
- The .lib files are now part of the distribution; they are collected
12281
in the subdirectory "libs" of the installation directory.
12283
- The extension modules (.pyd files) are now collected in a separate
12284
subdirectory of the installation directory named "DLLs".
12286
- The case of a module's filename must now match the case of the
12287
module name as specified in the import statement. This is an
12288
experimental feature -- if it turns out to break in too many
12289
situations, it will be removed (or disabled by default) in the future.
12290
It can be disabled on a per-case basis by setting the environment
12291
variable PYTHONCASEOK (to any value).
12294
======================================================================
12297
=====================================
12298
==> Release 1.5 (January 3, 1998) <==
12299
=====================================
12305
- Newly documentated module: BaseHTTPServer.py, thanks to Greg Stein.
12307
- Added doc strings to string.py, stropmodule.c, structmodule.c,
12308
thanks to Charles Waldman.
12310
- Many nits fixed in the manuals, thanks to Fred Drake and many others
12311
(especially Rob Hooft and Andrew Kuchling). The HTML version now uses
12312
HTML markup instead of inline GIF images for tables; only two images
12313
are left (for obsure bits of math). The index of the HTML version has
12314
also been much improved. Finally, it is once again possible to
12315
generate an Emacs info file from the library manual (but I don't
12316
commit to supporting this in future versions).
12318
- New module: telnetlib.py (a simple telnet client library).
12320
- New tool: Tools/versioncheck/, by Jack Jansen.
12322
- Ported zlibmodule.c and bsddbmodule.c to NT; The project file for MS
12323
DevStudio 5.0 now includes new subprojects to build the zlib and bsddb
12326
- Many small changes again to Tkinter.py -- mostly bugfixes and adding
12327
missing routines. Thanks to Greg McFarlane for reporting a bunch of
12328
problems and proofreading my fixes.
12330
- The re module and its documentation are up to date with the latest
12331
version released to the string-sig (Dec. 22).
12333
- Stop test_grp.py from failing when the /etc/group file is empty
12334
(yes, this happens!).
12336
- Fix bug in integer conversion (mystrtoul.c) that caused
12337
4294967296==0 to be true!
12339
- The VC++ 4.2 project file should be complete again.
12341
- In tempfile.py, use a better template on NT, and add a new optional
12342
argument "suffix" with default "" to specify a specific extension for
12343
the temporary filename (needed sometimes on NT but perhaps also handy
12346
- Fixed some bugs in the FAQ wizard, and converted it to use re
12349
- Fixed a mysteriously undetected error in dlmodule.c (it was using a
12350
totally bogus routine name to raise an exception).
12352
- Fixed bug in import.c which wasn't using the new "dos-8x3" name yet.
12354
- Hopefully harmless changes to the build process to support shared
12355
libraries on DG/UX. This adds a target to create
12356
libpython$(VERSION).so; however this target is *only* for DG/UX.
12358
- Fixed a bug in the new format string error checking in getargs.c.
12360
- A simple fix for infinite recursion when printing __builtins__:
12361
reset '_' to None before printing and set it to the printed variable
12362
*after* printing (and only when printing is successful).
12364
- Fixed lib-tk/SimpleDialog.py to keep the dialog visible even if the
12365
parent window is not (Skip Montanaro).
12367
- Fixed the two most annoying problems with ftp URLs in
12368
urllib.urlopen(); an empty file now correctly raises an error, and it
12369
is no longer required to explicitly close the returned "file" object
12370
before opening another ftp URL to the same host and directory.
12373
======================================================================
12376
From 1.5b1 to 1.5b2
12377
===================
12379
- Fixed a bug in cPickle.c that caused it to crash right away because
12380
the version string had a different format.
12382
- Changes in pickle.py and cPickle.c: when unpickling an instance of a
12383
class that doesn't define the __getinitargs__() method, the __init__()
12384
constructor is no longer called. This makes a much larger group of
12385
classes picklable by default, but may occasionally change semantics.
12386
To force calling __init__() on unpickling, define a __getinitargs__()
12387
method. Other changes too, in particular cPickle now handles classes
12388
defined in packages correctly. The same change applies to copying
12389
instances with copy.py. The cPickle.c changes and some pickle.py
12390
changes are courtesy Jim Fulton.
12392
- Locale support in he "re" (Perl regular expressions) module. Use
12393
the flag re.L (or re.LOCALE) to enable locale-specific matching
12394
rules for \w and \b. The in-line syntax for this flag is (?L).
12396
- The built-in function isinstance(x, y) now also succeeds when y is
12397
a type object and type(x) is y.
12399
- repr() and str() of class and instance objects now reflect the
12400
package/module in which the class is defined.
12402
- Module "ni" has been removed. (If you really need it, it's been
12403
renamed to "ni1". Let me know if this causes any problems for you.
12404
Package authors are encouraged to write __init__.py files that
12405
support both ni and 1.5 package support, so the same version can be
12406
used with Python 1.4 as well as 1.5.)
12408
- The thread module is now automatically included when threads are
12409
configured. (You must remove it from your existing Setup file,
12410
since it is now in its own Setup.thread file.)
12412
- New command line option "-x" to skip the first line of the script;
12413
handy to make executable scripts on non-Unix platforms.
12415
- In importdl.c, add the RTLD_GLOBAL to the dlopen() flags. I
12416
haven't checked how this affects things, but it should make symbols
12417
in one shared library available to the next one.
12419
- The Windows installer now installs in the "Program Files" folder on
12420
the proper volume by default.
12422
- The Windows configuration adds a new main program, "pythonw", and
12423
registers a new extension, ".pyw" that invokes this. This is a
12424
pstandard Python interpreter that does not pop up a console window;
12425
handy for pure Tkinter applications. All output to the original
12426
stdout and stderr is lost; reading from the original stdin yields
12427
EOF. Also, both python.exe and pythonw.exe now have a pretty icon
12428
(a green snake in a box, courtesy Mark Hammond).
12430
- Lots of improvements to emacs-mode.el again. See Barry's web page:
12431
http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html.
12433
- Lots of improvements and additions to the library reference manual;
12434
many by Fred Drake.
12436
- Doc strings for the following modules: rfc822.py, posixpath.py,
12437
ntpath.py, httplib.py. Thanks to Mitch Chapman and Charles Waldman.
12439
- Some more regression testing.
12441
- An optional 4th (maxsplit) argument to strop.replace().
12443
- Fixed handling of maxsplit in string.splitfields().
12445
- Tweaked os.environ so it can be pickled and copied.
12447
- The portability problems caused by indented preprocessor commands
12448
and C++ style comments should be gone now.
12450
- In random.py, added Pareto and Weibull distributions.
12452
- The crypt module is now disabled in Modules/Setup.in by default; it
12453
is rarely needed and causes errors on some systems where users often
12454
don't know how to deal with those.
12456
- Some improvements to the _tkinter build line suggested by Case Roole.
12458
- A full suite of platform specific files for NetBSD 1.x, submitted by
12461
- New Solaris specific header STROPTS.py.
12463
- Moved a confusing occurrence of *shared* from the comments in
12464
Modules/Setup.in (people would enable this one instead of the real
12465
one, and get disappointing results).
12467
- Changed the default mode for directories to be group-writable when
12468
the installation process creates them.
12470
- Check for pthread support in "-l_r" for FreeBSD/NetBSD, and support
12471
shared libraries for both.
12473
- Support FreeBSD and NetBSD in posixfile.py.
12475
- Support for the "event" command, new in Tk 4.2. By Case Roole.
12477
- Add Tix_SafeInit() support to tkappinit.c.
12479
- Various bugs fixed in "re.py" and "pcre.c".
12481
- Fixed a bug (broken use of the syntax table) in the old "regexpr.c".
12483
- In frozenmain.c, stdin is made unbuffered too when PYTHONUNBUFFERED
12486
- Provide default blocksize for retrbinary in ftplib.py (Skip
12489
- In NT, pick the username up from different places in user.py (Jeff
12492
- Patch to urlparse.urljoin() for ".." and "..#1", Marc Lemburg.
12494
- Many small improvements to Jeff Rush' OS/2 support.
12496
- ospath.py is gone; it's been obsolete for so many years now...
12498
- The reference manual is now set up to prepare better HTML (still
12499
using webmaker, alas).
12501
- Add special handling to /Tools/freeze for Python modules that are
12502
imported implicitly by the Python runtime: 'site' and 'exceptions'.
12504
- Tools/faqwiz 0.8.3 -- add an option to suppress URL processing
12505
inside <PRE>, by "Scott".
12507
- Added ConfigParser.py, a generic parser for sectioned configuration
12510
- In _localemodule.c, LC_MESSAGES is not always defined; put it
12513
- Typo in resource.c: RUSAGE_CHILDERN -> RUSAGE_CHILDREN.
12515
- Demo/scripts/newslist.py: Fix the way the version number is gotten
12516
out of the RCS revision.
12518
- PyArg_Parse[Tuple] now explicitly check for bad characters at the
12519
end of the format string.
12521
- Revamped PC/example_nt to support VC++ 5.x.
12523
- <listobject>.sort() now uses a modified quicksort by Raymund Galvin,
12524
after studying the GNU libg++ quicksort. This should be much faster
12525
if there are lots of duplicates, and otherwise at least as good.
12527
- Added "uue" as an alias for "uuencode" to mimetools.py. (Hm, the
12528
uudecode bug where it complaints about trailing garbage is still there
12531
- pickle.py requires integers in text mode to be in decimal notation
12532
(it used to accept octal and hex, even though it would only generate
12535
- In string.atof(), don't fail when the "re" module is unavailable.
12536
Plug the ensueing security leak by supplying an empty __builtins__
12537
directory to eval().
12539
- A bunch of small fixes and improvements to Tkinter.py.
12541
- Fixed a buffer overrun in PC/getpathp.c.
12544
======================================================================
12547
From 1.5a4 to 1.5b1
12548
===================
12550
- The Windows NT/95 installer now includes full HTML of all manuals.
12551
It also has a checkbox that lets you decide whether to install the
12552
interpreter and library. The WISE installer script for the installer
12553
is included in the source tree as PC/python15.wse, and so are the
12554
icons used for Python files. The config.c file for the Windows build
12555
is now complete with the pcre module.
12557
- sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 can now arbitrary objects; their str() is
12558
evaluated for the prompt.
12560
- The reference manual is brought up to date (more or less -- it still
12561
needs work, e.g. in the area of package import).
12563
- The icons used by latex2html are now included in the Doc
12564
subdirectory (mostly so that tarring up the HTML files can be fully
12565
automated). A simple index.html is also added to Doc (it only works
12566
after you have successfully run latex2html).
12568
- For all you would-be proselytizers out there: a new version of
12569
Misc/BLURB describes Python more concisely, and Misc/comparisons
12570
compares Python to several other languages. Misc/BLURB.WINDOWS
12571
contains a blurb specifically aimed at Windows programmers (by Mark
12574
- A new version of the Python mode for Emacs is included as
12575
Misc/python-mode.el. There are too many new features to list here.
12576
See http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for more info.
12578
- New module fileinput makes iterating over the lines of a list of
12579
files easier. (This still needs some more thinking to make it more
12582
- There's full OS/2 support, courtesy Jeff Rush. To build the OS/2
12583
version, see PC/readme.txt and PC/os2vacpp. This is for IBM's Visual
12584
Age C++ compiler. I expect that Jeff will also provide a binary
12585
release for this platform.
12587
- On Linux, the configure script now uses '-Xlinker -export-dynamic'
12588
instead of '-rdynamic' to link the main program so that it exports its
12589
symbols to shared libraries it loads dynamically. I hope this doesn't
12590
break on older Linux versions; it is needed for mklinux and appears to
12591
work on Linux 2.0.30.
12593
- Some Tkinter resstructuring: the geometry methods that apply to a
12594
master are now properly usable on toplevel master widgets. There's a
12595
new (internal) widget class, BaseWidget. New, longer "official" names
12596
for the geometry manager methods have been added,
12597
e.g. "grid_columnconfigure()" instead of "columnconfigure()". The old
12598
shorter names still work, and where there's ambiguity, pack wins over
12599
place wins over grid. Also, the bind_class method now returns its
12602
- New, RFC-822 conformant parsing of email addresses and address lists
12603
in the rfc822 module, courtesy Ben Escoto.
12605
- New, revamped tkappinit.c with support for popular packages (PIL,
12606
TIX, BLT, TOGL). For the last three, you need to execute the Tcl
12607
command "load {} Tix" (or Blt, or Togl) to gain access to them.
12608
The Modules/Setup line for the _tkinter module has been rewritten
12609
using the cool line-breaking feature of most Bourne shells.
12611
- New socket method connect_ex() returns the error code from connect()
12612
instead of raising an exception on errors; this makes the logic
12613
required for asynchronous connects simpler and more efficient.
12615
- New "locale" module with (still experimental) interface to the
12616
standard C library locale interface, courtesy Martin von Loewis. This
12617
does not repeat my mistake in 1.5a4 of always calling
12618
setlocale(LC_ALL, ""). In fact, we've pretty much decided that
12619
Python's standard numerical formatting operations should always use
12620
the conventions for the C locale; the locale module contains utility
12621
functions to format numbers according to the user specified locale.
12622
(All this is accomplished by an explicit call to setlocale(LC_NUMERIC,
12623
"C") after locale-changing calls.) See the library manual. (Alas, the
12624
promised changes to the "re" module for locale support have not been
12625
materialized yet. If you care, volunteer!)
12627
- Memory leak plugged in Py_BuildValue when building a dictionary.
12629
- Shared modules can now live inside packages (hierarchical module
12630
namespaces). No changes to the shared module itself are needed.
12632
- Improved policy for __builtins__: this is a module in __main__ and a
12633
dictionary everywhere else.
12635
- Python no longer catches SIGHUP and SIGTERM by default. This was
12636
impossible to get right in the light of thread contexts. If you want
12637
your program to clean up when a signal happens, use the signal module
12638
to set up your own signal handler.
12640
- New Python/C API PyNumber_CoerceEx() does not return an exception
12641
when no coercion is possible. This is used to fix a problem where
12642
comparing incompatible numbers for equality would raise an exception
12643
rather than return false as in Python 1.4 -- it once again will return
12646
- The errno module is changed again -- the table of error messages
12647
(errorstr) is removed. Instead, you can use os.strerror(). This
12648
removes redundance and a potential locale dependency.
12650
- New module xmllib, to parse XML files. By Sjoerd Mullender.
12652
- New C API PyOS_AfterFork() is called after fork() in posixmodule.c.
12653
It resets the signal module's notion of what the current process ID
12654
and thread are, so that signal handlers will work after (and across)
12655
calls to os.fork().
12657
- Fixed most occurrences of fatal errors due to missing thread state.
12659
- For vgrind (a flexible source pretty printer) fans, there's a simple
12660
Python definition in Misc/vgrindefs, courtesy Neale Pickett.
12662
- Fixed memory leak in exec statement.
12664
- The test.pystone module has a new function, pystones(loops=LOOPS),
12665
which returns a (benchtime, stones) tuple. The main() function now
12666
calls this and prints the report.
12668
- Package directories now *require* the presence of an __init__.py (or
12669
__init__.pyc) file before they are considered as packages. This is
12670
done to prevent accidental subdirectories with common names from
12671
overriding modules with the same name.
12673
- Fixed some strange exceptions in __del__ methods in library modules
12674
(e.g. urllib). This happens because the builtin names are already
12675
deleted by the time __del__ is called. The solution (a hack, but it
12676
works) is to set some instance variables to 0 instead of None.
12678
- The table of built-in module initializers is replaced by a pointer
12679
variable. This makes it possible to switch to a different table at
12680
run time, e.g. when a collection of modules is loaded from a shared
12681
library. (No example code of how to do this is given, but it is
12682
possible.) The table is still there of course, its name prefixed with
12683
an underscore and used to initialize the pointer.
12685
- The warning about a thread still having a frame now only happens in
12688
- Change the signal finialization so that it also resets the signal
12689
handlers. After this has been called, our signal handlers are no
12692
- New version of tokenize.py (by Ka-Ping Yee) recognizes raw string
12693
literals. There's now also a test fort this module.
12695
- The copy module now also uses __dict__.update(state) instead of
12696
going through individual attribute assignments, for class instances
12697
without a __setstate__ method.
12699
- New module reconvert translates old-style (regex module) regular
12700
expressions to new-style (re module, Perl-style) regular expressions.
12702
- Most modules that used to use the regex module now use the re
12703
module. The grep module has a new pgrep() function which uses
12704
Perl-style regular expressions.
12706
- The (very old, backwards compatibility) regexp.py module has been
12709
- Restricted execution (rexec): added the pcre module (support for the
12710
re module) to the list of trusted extension modules.
12712
- New version of Jim Fulton's CObject object type, adds
12713
PyCObject_FromVoidPtrAndDesc() and PyCObject_GetDesc() APIs.
12715
- Some patches to Lee Busby's fpectl mods that accidentally didn't
12716
make it into 1.5a4.
12718
- In the string module, add an optional 4th argument to count(),
12719
matching find() etc.
12721
- Patch for the nntplib module by Charles Waldman to add optional user
12722
and password arguments to NNTP.__init__(), for nntp servers that need
12725
- The str() function for class objects now returns
12726
"modulename.classname" instead of returning the same as repr().
12728
- The parsing of \xXX escapes no longer relies on sscanf().
12730
- The "sharedmodules" subdirectory of the installation is renamed to
12731
"lib-dynload". (You may have to edit your Modules/Setup file to fix
12732
this in an existing installation!)
12734
- Fixed Don Beaudry's mess-up with the OPT test in the configure
12735
script. Certain SGI platforms will still issue a warning for each
12736
compile; there's not much I can do about this since the compiler's
12737
exit status doesn't indicate that I was using an obsolete option.
12739
- Fixed Barry's mess-up with {}.get(), and added test cases for it.
12741
- Shared libraries didn't quite work under AIX because of the change
12742
in status of the GNU readline interface. Fix due to by Vladimir
12746
======================================================================
12749
From 1.5a3 to 1.5a4
12750
===================
12752
- faqwiz.py: version 0.8; Recognize https:// as URL; <html>...</html>
12753
feature; better install instructions; removed faqmain.py (which was an
12756
- nntplib.py: Fixed some bugs reported by Lars Wirzenius (to Debian)
12757
about the treatment of lines starting with '.'. Added a minimal test
12760
- struct module: ignore most whitespace in format strings.
12762
- urllib.py: close the socket and temp file in URLopener.retrieve() so
12763
that multiple retrievals using the same connection work.
12765
- All standard exceptions are now classes by default; use -X to make
12766
them strings (for backward compatibility only).
12768
- There's a new standard exception hierarchy, defined in the standard
12769
library module exceptions.py (which you never need to import
12771
http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/stdexceptions.html for
12774
- Three new C API functions:
12776
- int PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches(obj1, obj2)
12778
Returns 1 if obj1 and obj2 are the same object, or if obj1 is an
12779
instance of type obj2, or of a class derived from obj2
12781
- int PyErr_ExceptionMatches(obj)
12783
Higher level wrapper around PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches() which uses
12784
PyErr_Occurred() as obj1. This will be the more commonly called
12787
- void PyErr_NormalizeException(typeptr, valptr, tbptr)
12789
Normalizes exceptions, and places the normalized values in the
12790
arguments. If type is not a class, this does nothing. If type is a
12791
class, then it makes sure that value is an instance of the class by:
12793
1. if instance is of the type, or a class derived from type, it does
12796
2. otherwise it instantiates the class, using the value as an
12797
argument. If value is None, it uses an empty arg tuple, and if
12798
the value is a tuple, it uses just that.
12800
- Another new C API function: PyErr_NewException() creates a new
12801
exception class derived from Exception; when -X is given, it creates a
12802
new string exception.
12804
- core interpreter: remove the distinction between tuple and list
12805
unpacking; allow an arbitrary sequence on the right hand side of any
12806
unpack instruction. (UNPACK_LIST and UNPACK_TUPLE now do the same
12807
thing, which should really be called UNPACK_SEQUENCE.)
12809
- classes: Allow assignments to an instance's __dict__ or __class__,
12810
so you can change ivars (including shared ivars -- shock horror) and
12811
change classes dynamically. Also make the check on read-only
12812
attributes of classes less draconic -- only the specials names
12813
__dict__, __bases__, __name__ and __{get,set,del}attr__ can't be
12816
- Two new built-in functions: issubclass() and isinstance(). Both
12817
take classes as their second arguments. The former takes a class as
12818
the first argument and returns true iff first is second, or is a
12819
subclass of second. The latter takes any object as the first argument
12820
and returns true iff first is an instance of the second, or any
12821
subclass of second.
12823
- configure: Added configuration tests for presence of alarm(),
12824
pause(), and getpwent().
12826
- Doc/Makefile: changed latex2html targets.
12828
- classes: Reverse the search order for the Don Beaudry hook so that
12829
the first class with an applicable hook wins. Makes more sense.
12831
- Changed the checks made in Py_Initialize() and Py_Finalize(). It is
12832
now legal to call these more than once. The first call to
12833
Py_Initialize() initializes, the first call to Py_Finalize()
12834
finalizes. There's also a new API, Py_IsInitalized() which checks
12835
whether we are already initialized (in case you want to leave things
12838
- Completely disable the declarations for malloc(), realloc() and
12839
free(). Any 90's C compiler has these in header files, and the tests
12840
to decide whether to suppress the declarations kept failing on some
12843
- *Before* (instead of after) signalmodule.o is added, remove both
12844
intrcheck.o and sigcheck.o. This should get rid of warnings in ar or
12845
ld on various systems.
12847
- Added reop to PC/config.c
12849
- configure: Decided to use -Aa -D_HPUX_SOURCE on HP-UX platforms.
12850
Removed outdated HP-UX comments from README. Added Cray T3E comments.
12852
- Various renames of statically defined functions that had name
12853
conflicts on some systems, e.g. strndup (GNU libc), join (Cray),
12854
roundup (sys/types.h).
12856
- urllib.py: Interpret three slashes in file: URL as local file (for
12857
Netscape on Windows/Mac).
12859
- copy.py: Make sure the objects returned by __getinitargs__() are
12860
kept alive (in the memo) to avoid a certain kind of nasty crash. (Not
12861
easily reproducable because it requires a later call to
12862
__getinitargs__() to return a tuple that happens to be allocated at
12865
- Added definition of AR to toplevel Makefile. Renamed @buildno temp
12868
- Moved Include/assert.h to Parser/assert.h, which seems to be the
12869
only place where it's needed.
12871
- Tweaked the dictionary lookup code again for some more speed
12872
(Vladimir Marangozov).
12874
- NT build: Changed the way python15.lib is included in the other
12875
projects. Per Mark Hammond's suggestion, add it to the extra libs in
12876
Settings instead of to the project's source files.
12878
- regrtest.py: Change default verbosity so that there are only three
12879
levels left: -q, default and -v. In default mode, the name of each
12880
test is now printed. -v is the same as the old -vv. -q is more quiet
12881
than the old default mode.
12883
- Removed the old FAQ from the distribution. You now have to get it
12886
- Removed the PC/make_nt.in file from the distribution; it is no
12889
- Changed the build sequence so that shared modules are built last.
12890
This fixes things for AIX and doesn't hurt elsewhere.
12892
- Improved test for GNU MP v1 in mpzmodule.c
12894
- fileobject.c: ftell() on Linux discards all buffered data; changed
12895
read() code to use lseek() instead to get the same effect
12897
- configure.in, configure, importdl.c: NeXT sharedlib fixes
12899
- tupleobject.c: PyTuple_SetItem asserts refcnt==1
12901
- resource.c: Different strategy regarding whether to declare
12902
getrusage() and getpagesize() -- #ifdef doesn't work, Linux has
12903
conflicting decls in its headers. Choice: only declare the return
12904
type, not the argument prototype, and not on Linux.
12906
- importdl.c, configure*: set sharedlib extensions properly for NeXT
12908
- configure*, Makefile.in, Modules/Makefile.pre.in: AIX shared libraries
12909
fixed; moved addition of PURIFY to LINKCC to configure
12911
- reopmodule.c, regexmodule.c, regexpr.c, zlibmodule.c: needed casts
12912
added to shup up various compilers.
12914
- _tkinter.c: removed buggy mac #ifndef
12916
- Doc: various Mac documentation changes, added docs for 'ic' module
12918
- PC/make_nt.in: deleted
12920
- test_time.py, test_strftime.py: tweaks to catch %Z (which may return
12923
- test_rotor.py: print b -> print `b`
12925
- Tkinter.py: (tagOrId) -> (tagOrId,)
12927
- Tkinter.py: the Tk class now also has a configure() method and
12928
friends (they have been moved to the Misc class to accomplish this).
12930
- dict.get(key[, default]) returns dict[key] if it exists, or default
12931
if it doesn't. The default defaults to None. This is quicker for
12932
some applications than using either has_key() or try:...except
12935
- Tools/webchecker/: some small changes to webchecker.py; added
12936
websucker.py (a simple web site mirroring script).
12938
- Dictionary objects now have a get() method (also in UserDict.py).
12939
dict.get(key, default) returns dict[key] if it exists and default
12940
otherwise; default defaults to None.
12942
- Tools/scripts/logmerge.py: print the author, too.
12944
- Changes to import: support for "import a.b.c" is now built in. See
12945
http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html
12946
for more info. Most important deviations from "ni.py": __init__.py is
12947
executed in the package's namespace instead of as a submodule; and
12948
there's no support for "__" or "__domain__". Note that "ni.py" is not
12949
changed to match this -- it is simply declared obsolete (while at the
12950
same time, it is documented...:-( ).
12951
Unfortunately, "ihooks.py" has not been upgraded (but see "knee.py"
12952
for an example implementation of hierarchical module import written in
12955
- More changes to import: the site.py module is now imported by
12956
default when Python is initialized; use -S to disable it. The site.py
12957
module extends the path with several more directories: site-packages
12958
inside the lib/python1.5/ directory, site-python in the lib/
12959
directory, and pathnames mentioned in *.pth files found in either of
12960
those directories. See
12961
http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html
12964
- Changes to standard library subdirectory names: those subdirectories
12965
that are not packages have been renamed with a hypen in their name,
12966
e.g. lib-tk, lib-stdwin, plat-win, plat-linux2, plat-sunos5, dos-8x3.
12967
The test suite is now a package -- to run a test, you must now use
12968
"import test.test_foo".
12970
- A completely new re.py module is provided (thanks to Andrew
12971
Kuchling, Tim Peters and Jeffrey Ollie) which uses Philip Hazel's
12972
"pcre" re compiler and engine. For a while, the "old" re.py (which
12973
was new in 1.5a3!) will be kept around as re1.py. The "old" regex
12974
module and underlying parser and engine are still present -- while
12975
regex is now officially obsolete, it will probably take several major
12976
release cycles before it can be removed.
12978
- The posix module now has a strerror() function which translates an
12979
error code to a string.
12981
- The emacs.py module (which was long obsolete) has been removed.
12983
- The universal makefile Misc/Makefile.pre.in now features an
12984
"install" target. By default, installed shared libraries go into
12985
$exec_prefix/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages/.
12987
- The install-sh script is installed with the other configuration
12988
specific files (in the config/ subdirectory).
12990
- It turns out whatsound.py and sndhdr.py were identical modules.
12991
Since there's also an imghdr.py file, I propose to make sndhdr.py the
12992
official one. For compatibility, whatsound.py imports * from
12995
- Class objects have a new attribute, __module__, giving the name of
12996
the module in which they were declared. This is useful for pickle and
12997
for printing the full name of a class exception.
12999
- Many extension modules no longer issue a fatal error when their
13000
initialization fails; the importing code now checks whether an error
13001
occurred during module initialization, and correctly propagates the
13002
exception to the import statement.
13004
- Most extension modules now raise class-based exceptions (except when
13007
- Subtle changes to PyEval_{Save,Restore}Thread(): always swap the
13008
thread state -- just don't manipulate the lock if it isn't there.
13010
- Fixed a bug in Python/getopt.c that made it do the wrong thing when
13011
an option was a single '-'. Thanks to Andrew Kuchling.
13013
- New module mimetypes.py will guess a MIME type from a filename's
13016
- Windows: the DLL version is now settable via a resource rather than
13017
being hardcoded. This can be used for "branding" a binary Python
13020
- urllib.py is now threadsafe -- it now uses re instead of regex, and
13021
sys.exc_info() instead of sys.exc_{type,value}.
13023
- Many other library modules that used to use
13024
sys.exc_{type,value,traceback} are now more thread-safe by virtue of
13025
using sys.exc_info().
13027
- The functions in popen2 have an optional buffer size parameter.
13028
Also, the command argument can now be either a string (passed to the
13029
shell) or a list of arguments (passed directly to execv).
13031
- Alas, the thread support for _tkinter released with 1.5a3 didn't
13032
work. It's been rewritten. The bad news is that it now requires a
13033
modified version of a file in the standard Tcl distribution, which you
13034
must compile with a -I option pointing to the standard Tcl source
13035
tree. For this reason, the thread support is disabled by default.
13037
- The errno extension module adds two tables: errorcode maps errno
13038
numbers to errno names (e.g. EINTR), and errorstr maps them to
13039
message strings. (The latter is redundant because the new call
13040
posix.strerror() now does the same, but alla...) (Marc-Andre Lemburg)
13042
- The readline extension module now provides some interfaces to
13043
internal readline routines that make it possible to write a completer
13044
in Python. An example completer, rlcompleter.py, is provided.
13046
When completing a simple identifier, it completes keywords,
13047
built-ins and globals in __main__; when completing
13048
NAME.NAME..., it evaluates (!) the expression up to the last
13049
dot and completes its attributes.
13051
It's very cool to do "import string" type "string.", hit the
13052
completion key (twice), and see the list of names defined by
13055
Tip: to use the tab key as the completion key, call
13057
readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")
13059
- The traceback.py module has a new function tb_lineno() by Marc-Andre
13060
Lemburg which extracts the line number from the linenumber table in
13061
the code object. Apparently the traceback object doesn't contains the
13062
right linenumber when -O is used. Rather than guessing whether -O is
13063
on or off, the module itself uses tb_lineno() unconditionally.
13065
- Fixed Demo/tkinter/matt/canvas-moving-or-creating.py: change bind()
13066
to tag_bind() so it works again.
13068
- The pystone script is now a standard library module. Example use:
13069
"import test.pystone; test.pystone.main()".
13071
- The import of the readline module in interactive mode is now also
13072
attempted when -i is specified. (Yes, I know, giving in to Marc-Andre
13073
Lemburg, who asked for this. :-)
13075
- rfc822.py: Entirely rewritten parseaddr() function by Sjoerd
13076
Mullender, to be closer to the standard. This fixes the getaddr()
13077
method. Unfortunately, getaddrlist() is as broken as ever, since it
13078
splits on commas without regard for RFC 822 quoting conventions.
13080
- pprint.py: correctly emit trailing "," in singleton tuples.
13082
- _tkinter.c: export names for its type objects, TkappType and
13085
- pickle.py: use __module__ when defined; fix a particularly hard to
13086
reproduce bug that confuses the memo when temporary objects are
13087
returned by custom pickling interfaces; and a semantic change: when
13088
unpickling the instance variables of an instance, use
13089
inst.__dict__.update(value) instead of a for loop with setattr() over
13090
the value.keys(). This is more consistent (the pickling doesn't use
13091
getattr() either but pickles inst.__dict__) and avoids problems with
13092
instances that have a __setattr__ hook. But it *is* a semantic change
13093
(because the setattr hook is no longer used). So beware!
13095
- config.h is now installed (at last) in
13096
$exec_prefix/include/python1.5/. For most sites, this means that it
13097
is actually in $prefix/include/python1.5/, with all the other Python
13098
include files, since $prefix and $exec_prefix are the same by
13101
- The imp module now supports parts of the functionality to implement
13102
import of hierarchical module names. It now supports find_module()
13103
and load_module() for all types of modules. Docstrings have been
13104
added for those functions in the built-in imp module that are still
13105
relevant (some old interfaces are obsolete). For a sample
13106
implementation of hierarchical module import in Python, see the new
13107
library module knee.py.
13109
- The % operator on string objects now allows arbitrary nested parens
13110
in a %(...)X style format. (Brad Howes)
13112
- Reverse the order in which Setup and Setup.local are passed to the
13113
makesetup script. This allows variable definitions in Setup.local to
13114
override definitions in Setup. (But you'll still have to edit Setup
13115
if you want to disable modules that are enabled by default, or if such
13116
modules need non-standard options.)
13118
- Added PyImport_ImportModuleEx(name, globals, locals, fromlist); this
13119
is like PyImport_ImporModule(name) but receives the globals and locals
13120
dict and the fromlist arguments as well. (The name is a char*; the
13121
others are PyObject*s).
13123
- The 'p' format in the struct extension module alloded to above is
13126
- The types.py module now uses try-except in a few places to make it
13127
more likely that it can be imported in restricted mode. Some type
13128
names are undefined in that case, e.g. CodeType (inaccessible),
13129
FileType (not always accessible), and TracebackType and FrameType
13132
- In urllib.py: added separate administration of temporary files
13133
created y URLopener.retrieve() so cleanup() can properly remove them.
13134
The old code removed everything in tempcache which was a bad idea if
13135
the user had passed a non-temp file into it. Also, in basejoin(),
13136
interpret relative paths starting in "../". This is necessary if the
13137
server uses symbolic links.
13139
- The Windows build procedure and project files are now based on
13140
Microsoft Visual C++ 5.x. The build now takes place in the PCbuild
13141
directory. It is much more robust, and properly builds separate Debug
13142
and Release versions. (The installer will be added shortly.)
13144
- Added casts and changed some return types in regexpr.c to avoid
13145
compiler warnings or errors on some platforms.
13147
- The AIX build tools for shared libraries now supports VPATH. (Donn
13150
- By default, disable the "portable" multimedia modules audioop,
13151
imageop, and rgbimg, since they don't work on 64-bit platforms.
13153
- Fixed a nasty bug in cStringIO.c when code was actually using the
13154
close() method (the destructors would try to free certain fields a
13157
- For those who think they need it, there's a "user.py" module. This
13158
is *not* imported by default, but can be imported to run user-specific
13159
setup commands, ~/.pythonrc.py.
13161
- Various speedups suggested by Fredrik Lundh, Marc-Andre Lemburg,
13162
Vladimir Marangozov, and others.
13164
- Added os.altsep; this is '/' on DOS/Windows, and None on systems
13165
with a sane filename syntax.
13167
- os.py: Write out the dynamic OS choice, to avoid exec statements.
13168
Adding support for a new OS is now a bit more work, but I bet that
13169
'dos' or 'nt' will cover most situations...
13171
- The obsolete exception AccessError is now really gone.
13173
- Tools/faqwiz/: New installation instructions show how to maintain
13174
multiple FAQs. Removed bootstrap script from end of faqwiz.py module.
13175
Added instructions to bootstrap script, too. Version bumped to 0.8.1.
13176
Added <html>...</html> feature suggested by Skip Montanaro. Added
13177
leading text for Roulette, default to 'Hit Reload ...'. Fix typo in
13180
- Documentation for the relatively new modules "keyword" and "symbol"
13181
has been added (to the end of the section on the parser extension
13184
- In module bisect.py, but functions have two optional argument 'lo'
13185
and 'hi' which allow you to specify a subsequence of the array to
13188
- In ftplib.py, changed most methods to return their status (even when
13189
it is always "200 OK") rather than swallowing it.
13191
- main() now calls setlocale(LC_ALL, ""), if setlocale() and
13192
<locale.h> are defined.
13194
- Changes to configure.in, the configure script, and both
13195
Makefile.pre.in files, to support SGI's SGI_ABI platform selection
13196
environment variable.
13199
======================================================================
13208
- If you are using the setuid script C wrapper (Misc/setuid-prog.c),
13209
please use the new version. The old version has a huge security leak.
13214
- Because of various (small) incompatible changes in the Python
13215
bytecode interpreter, the magic number for .pyc files has changed
13218
- The default module search path is now much saner. Both on Unix and
13219
Windows, it is essentially derived from the path to the executable
13220
(which can be overridden by setting the environment variable
13221
$PYTHONHOME). The value of $PYTHONPATH on Windows is now inserted in
13222
front of the default path, like in Unix (instead of overriding the
13223
default path). On Windows, the directory containing the executable is
13224
added to the end of the path.
13226
- A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs has been included. Also,
13227
a new file ccpy-style.el has been added to configure Emacs cc-mode for
13228
the preferred style in Python C sources.
13230
- On Unix, when using sys.argv[0] to insert the script directory in
13231
front of sys.path, expand a symbolic link. You can now install a
13232
program in a private directory and have a symbolic link to it in a
13233
public bin directory, and it will put the private directory in the
13234
module search path. Note that the symlink is expanded in sys.path[0]
13235
but not in sys.argv[0], so you can still tell the name by which you
13238
- It is now recommended to use ``#!/usr/bin/env python'' instead of
13239
``#!/usr/local/bin/python'' at the start of executable scripts, except
13240
for CGI scripts. It has been determined that the use of /usr/bin/env
13241
is more portable than that of /usr/local/bin/python -- scripts almost
13242
never have to be edited when the Python interpreter lives in a
13243
non-standard place. Note that this doesn't work for CGI scripts since
13244
the python executable often doesn't live in the HTTP server's default
13247
- The silly -s command line option and the corresponding
13248
PYTHONSUPPRESS environment variable (and the Py_SuppressPrint global
13249
flag in the Python/C API) are gone.
13251
- Most problems on 64-bit platforms should now be fixed. Andrew
13252
Kuchling helped. Some uncommon extension modules are still not
13253
clean (image and audio ops?).
13255
- Fixed a bug where multiple anonymous tuple arguments would be mixed up
13256
when using the debugger or profiler (reported by Just van Rossum).
13257
The simplest example is ``def f((a,b),(c,d)): print a,b,c,d''; this
13258
would print the wrong value when run under the debugger or profiler.
13260
- The hacks that the dictionary implementation used to speed up
13261
repeated lookups of the same C string were removed; these were a
13262
source of subtle problems and don't seem to serve much of a purpose
13265
- All traces of support for the long dead access statement have been
13266
removed from the sources.
13268
- Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an
13271
- There's a -O option to the interpreter that removes SET_LINENO
13272
instructions and assert statements (see below); it uses and produces
13273
.pyo files instead of .pyc files. The speedup is only a few percent
13274
in most cases. The line numbers are still available in the .pyo file,
13275
as a separate table (which is also available in .pyc files). However,
13276
the removal of the SET_LINENO instructions means that the debugger
13277
(pdb) can't set breakpoints on lines in -O mode. The traceback module
13278
contains a function to extract a line number from the code object
13279
referenced in a traceback object. In the future it should be possible
13280
to write external bytecode optimizers that create better optimized
13281
.pyo files, and there should be more control over optimization;
13282
consider the -O option a "teaser". Without -O, the assert statement
13283
actually generates code that first checks __debug__; if this variable
13284
is false, the assertion is not checked. __debug__ is a built-in
13285
variable whose value is initialized to track the -O flag (it's true
13286
iff -O is not specified). With -O, no code is generated for assert
13287
statements, nor for code of the form ``if __debug__: <something>''.
13288
Sorry, no further constant folding happens.
13294
- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see
13295
Tools/scripts). See the entry on string interning below.
13297
- Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both
13298
the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers.
13300
- Big speedup by allocating frame objects with a single malloc() call.
13301
The Python/C API for frames is changed (you shouldn't be using this
13304
- Significant speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand
13305
types (e.g. i+i, i-i, and list[i]). Fredrik Lundh.
13307
- Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common
13308
objects (e.g. list.append is now first).
13310
- Big optimization to the read() method of file objects. A read()
13311
without arguments now attempts to use fstat to allocate a buffer of
13312
the right size; for pipes and sockets, it will fall back to doubling
13313
the buffer size. While that the improvement is real on all systems,
13314
it is most dramatic on Windows.
13320
- Many new pieces of library documentation were contributed, mostly by
13321
Andrew Kuchling. Even cmath is now documented! There's also a
13322
chapter of the library manual, "libundoc.tex", which provides a
13323
listing of all undocumented modules, plus their status (e.g. internal,
13324
obsolete, or in need of documentation). Also contributions by Sue
13325
Williams, Skip Montanaro, and some module authors who succumbed to
13326
pressure to document their own contributed modules :-). Note that
13327
printing the documentation now kills fewer trees -- the margins have
13330
- I have started documenting the Python/C API. Unfortunately this project
13331
hasn't been completed yet. It will be complete before the final release of
13332
Python 1.5, though. At the moment, it's better to read the LaTeX source
13333
than to attempt to run it through LaTeX and print the resulting dvi file.
13335
- The posix module (and hence os.py) now has doc strings! Thanks to Neil
13336
Schemenauer. I received a few other contributions of doc strings. In most
13337
other places, doc strings are still wishful thinking...
13343
- Private variables with leading double underscore are now a permanent
13344
feature of the language. (These were experimental in release 1.4. I have
13345
favorable experience using them; I can't label them "experimental"
13348
- There's new string literal syntax for "raw strings". Prefixing a string
13349
literal with the letter r (or R) disables all escape processing in the
13350
string; for example, r'\n' is a two-character string consisting of a
13351
backslash followed by the letter n. This combines with all forms of string
13352
quotes; it is actually useful for triple quoted doc strings which might
13353
contain references to \n or \t. An embedded quote prefixed with a
13354
backslash does not terminate the string, but the backslash is still
13355
included in the string; for example, r'\'' is a two-character string
13356
consisting of a backslash and a quote. (Raw strings are also
13357
affectionately known as Robin strings, after their inventor, Robin
13360
- There's a simple assert statement, and a new exception
13361
AssertionError. For example, ``assert foo > 0'' is equivalent to ``if
13362
not foo > 0: raise AssertionError''. Sorry, the text of the asserted
13363
condition is not available; it would be too complicated to generate
13364
code for this (since the code is generated from a parse tree).
13365
However, the text is displayed as part of the traceback!
13367
- The raise statement has a new feature: when using "raise SomeClass,
13368
somevalue" where somevalue is not an instance of SomeClass, it
13369
instantiates SomeClass(somevalue). In 1.5a4, if somevalue is an
13370
instance of a *derived* class of SomeClass, the exception class raised
13371
is set to somevalue.__class__, and SomeClass is ignored after that.
13373
- Duplicate keyword arguments are now detected at compile time;
13374
f(a=1,a=2) is now a syntax error.
13377
Changes to builtin features
13378
---------------------------
13380
- There's a new exception FloatingPointError (used only by Lee Busby's
13381
patches to catch floating point exceptions, at the moment).
13383
- The obsolete exception ConflictError (presumably used by the long
13384
obsolete access statement) has been deleted.
13386
- There's a new function sys.exc_info() which returns the tuple
13387
(sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback) in a thread-safe way.
13389
- There's a new variable sys.executable, pointing to the executable file
13390
for the Python interpreter.
13392
- The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I
13393
wrote my own quicksort implementation, with lots of help (in the form
13394
of a kind of competition) from Tim Peters. This solves a bug in
13395
dictionary comparisons on some Solaris versions when Python is built
13396
with threads, and makes sorting lists even faster.
13398
- The semantics of comparing two dictionaries have changed, to make
13399
comparison of unequal dictionaries faster. A shorter dictionary is
13400
always considered smaller than a larger dictionary. For dictionaries
13401
of the same size, the smallest differing element determines the
13402
outcome (which yields the same results as before in this case, without
13403
explicit sorting). Thanks to Aaron Watters for suggesting something
13406
- The semantics of try-except have changed subtly so that calling a
13407
function in an exception handler that itself raises and catches an
13408
exception no longer overwrites the sys.exc_* variables. This also
13409
alleviates the problem that objects referenced in a stack frame that
13410
caught an exception are kept alive until another exception is caught
13411
-- the sys.exc_* variables are restored to their previous value when
13412
returning from a function that caught an exception.
13414
- There's a new "buffer" interface. Certain objects (e.g. strings and
13415
arrays) now support the "buffer" protocol. Buffer objects are acceptable
13416
whenever formerly a string was required for a write operation; mutable
13417
buffer objects can be the target of a read operation using the call
13418
f.readinto(buffer). A cool feature is that regular expression matching now
13419
also work on array objects. Contribution by Jack Jansen. (Needs
13422
- String interning: dictionary lookups are faster when the lookup
13423
string object is the same object as the key in the dictionary, not
13424
just a string with the same value. This is done by having a pool of
13425
"interned" strings. Most names generated by the interpreter are now
13426
automatically interned, and there's a new built-in function intern(s)
13427
that returns the interned version of a string. Interned strings are
13428
not a different object type, and interning is totally optional, but by
13429
interning most keys a speedup of about 15% was obtained for the
13432
- Dictionary objects have several new methods; clear() and copy() have
13433
the obvious semantics, while update(d) merges the contents of another
13434
dictionary d into this one, overriding existing keys. The dictionary
13435
implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than the
13436
confusing mappingobject.c.
13438
- The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__,
13439
__members__ and __methods__.
13441
- The intrinsic functions int(), long() and float() can now take a
13442
string argument and then do the same thing as string.atoi(),
13443
string.atol(), and string.atof(). No second 'base' argument is
13444
allowed, and complex() does not take a string (nobody cared enough).
13446
- When a module is deleted, its globals are now deleted in two phases.
13447
In the first phase, all variables whose name begins with exactly one
13448
underscore are replaced by None; in the second phase, all variables
13449
are deleted. This makes it possible to have global objects whose
13450
destructors depend on other globals. The deletion order within each
13451
phase is still random.
13453
- It is no longer an error for a function to be called without a
13454
global variable __builtins__ -- an empty directory will be provided
13457
- Guido's corollary to the "Don Beaudry hook": it is now possible to
13458
do metaprogramming by using an instance as a base class. Not for the
13459
faint of heart; and undocumented as yet, but basically if a base class
13460
is an instance, its class will be instantiated to create the new
13461
class. Jim Fulton will love it -- it also works with instances of his
13462
"extension classes", since it is triggered by the presence of a
13463
__class__ attribute on the purported base class. See
13464
Demo/metaclasses/index.html for an explanation and see that directory
13467
- Another change is that the Don Beaudry hook is now invoked when
13468
*any* base class is special. (Up to 1.5a3, the *last* special base
13469
class is used; in 1.5a4, the more rational choice of the *first*
13470
special base class is used.)
13472
- New optional parameter to the readlines() method of file objects.
13473
This indicates the number of bytes to read (the actual number of bytes
13474
read will be somewhat larger due to buffering reading until the end of
13475
the line). Some optimizations have also been made to speed it up (but
13476
not as much as read()).
13478
- Complex numbers no longer have the ".conj" pseudo attribute; use
13479
z.conjugate() instead, or complex(z.real, -z.imag). Complex numbers
13480
now *do* support the __members__ and __methods__ special attributes.
13482
- The complex() function now looks for a __complex__() method on class
13483
instances before giving up.
13485
- Long integers now support arbitrary shift counts, so you can now
13486
write 1L<<1000000, memory permitting. (Python 1.4 reports "outrageous
13487
shift count for this.)
13489
- The hex() and oct() functions have been changed so that for regular
13490
integers, they never emit a minus sign. For example, on a 32-bit
13491
machine, oct(-1) now returns '037777777777' and hex(-1) returns
13492
'0xffffffff'. While this may seem inconsistent, it is much more
13493
useful. (For long integers, a minus sign is used as before, to fit
13494
the result in memory :-)
13496
- The hash() function computes better hashes for several data types,
13497
including strings, floating point numbers, and complex numbers.
13500
New extension modules
13501
---------------------
13503
- New extension modules cStringIO.c and cPickle.c, written by Jim
13504
Fulton and other folks at Digital Creations. These are much more
13505
efficient than their Python counterparts StringIO.py and pickle.py,
13506
but don't support subclassing. cPickle.c clocks up to 1000 times
13507
faster than pickle.py; cStringIO.c's improvement is less dramatic but
13510
- New extension module zlibmodule.c, interfacing to the free zlib
13511
library (gzip compatible compression). There's also a module gzip.py
13512
which provides a higher level interface. Written by Andrew Kuchling
13515
- New module readline; see the "miscellaneous" section above.
13517
- New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides
13518
access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and
13519
related symbolic constants.
13521
- New extension puremodule.c, by Barry Warsaw, which interfaces to the
13522
Purify(TM) C API. See also the file Misc/PURIFY.README. It is also
13523
possible to enable Purify by simply setting the PURIFY Makefile
13524
variable in the Modules/Setup file.
13527
Changes in extension modules
13528
----------------------------
13530
- The struct extension module has several new features to control byte
13531
order and word size. It supports reading and writing IEEE floats even
13532
on platforms where this is not the native format. It uses uppercase
13533
format codes for unsigned integers of various sizes (always using
13534
Python long ints for 'I' and 'L'), 's' with a size prefix for strings,
13535
and 'p' for "Pascal strings" (with a leading length byte, included in
13536
the size; blame Hannu Krosing; new in 1.5a4). A prefix '>' forces
13537
big-endian data and '<' forces little-endian data; these also select
13538
standard data sizes and disable automatic alignment (use pad bytes as
13541
- The array module supports uppercase format codes for unsigned data
13542
formats (like the struct module).
13544
- The fcntl extension module now exports the needed symbolic
13545
constants. (Formerly these were in FCNTL.py which was not available
13546
or correct for all platforms.)
13548
- The extension modules dbm, gdbm and bsddb now check that the
13549
database is still open before making any new calls.
13551
- The dbhash module is no more. Use bsddb instead. (There's a third
13552
party interface for the BSD 2.x code somewhere on the web; support for
13553
bsddb will be deprecated.)
13555
- The gdbm module now supports a sync() method.
13557
- The socket module now has some new functions: getprotobyname(), and
13558
the set {ntoh,hton}{s,l}().
13560
- Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType,
13563
- The socket module's accept() method now returns unknown addresses as
13564
a tuple rather than raising an exception. (This can happen in
13565
promiscuous mode.) Theres' also a new function getprotobyname().
13567
- The pthread support for the thread module now works on most platforms.
13569
- STDWIN is now officially obsolete. Support for it will eventually
13570
be removed from the distribution.
13572
- The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged.
13573
(XXX Oops -- Fredrik Lundh promised me a uuencode fix that I never
13576
- audioop.c: added a ratecv() function; better handling of overflow in
13579
- posixmodule.c: now exports the O_* flags (O_APPEND etc.). On
13580
Windows, also O_TEXT and O_BINARY. The 'error' variable (the
13581
exception is raises) is renamed -- its string value is now "os.error",
13582
so newbies don't believe they have to import posix (or nt) to catch
13583
it when they see os.error reported as posix.error. The execve()
13584
function now accepts any mapping object for the environment.
13586
- A new version of the al (audio library) module for SGI was
13587
contributed by Sjoerd Mullender.
13589
- The regex module has a new function get_syntax() which retrieves the
13590
syntax setting set by set_syntax(). The code was also sanitized,
13591
removing worries about unclean error handling. See also below for its
13594
- The "new" module (which creates new objects of various types) once
13595
again has a fully functioning new.function() method. Dangerous as
13596
ever! Also, new.code() has several new arguments.
13598
- A problem has been fixed in the rotor module: on systems with signed
13599
characters, rotor-encoded data was not portable when the key contained
13600
8-bit characters. Also, setkey() now requires its argument rather
13601
than having broken code to default it.
13603
- The sys.builtin_module_names variable is now a tuple. Another new
13604
variables in sys is sys.executable (the full path to the Python
13607
- The specs for time.strftime() have undergone some revisions. It
13608
appears that not all format characters are supported in the same way
13609
on all platforms. Rather than reimplement it, we note these
13610
differences in the documentation, and emphasize the shared set of
13611
features. There's also a thorough test set (that occasionally finds
13612
problems in the C library implementation, e.g. on some Linuxes),
13613
thanks to Skip Montanaro.
13615
- The nis module seems broken when used with NIS+; unfortunately
13616
nobody knows how to fix it. It should still work with old NIS.
13619
New library modules
13620
-------------------
13622
- New (still experimental) Perl-style regular expression module,
13623
re.py, which uses a new interface for matching as well as a new
13624
syntax; the new interface avoids the thread-unsafety of the regex
13625
interface. This comes with a helper extension reopmodule.c and vastly
13626
rewritten regexpr.c. Most work on this was done by Jeffrey Ollie, Tim
13627
Peters, and Andrew Kuchling. See the documentation libre.tex. In
13628
1.5, the old regex module is still fully supported; in the future, it
13629
will become obsolete.
13631
- New module gzip.py; see zlib above.
13633
- New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in
13634
keywords. (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.)
13636
- New module pprint.py (with documentation) which supports
13637
pretty-printing of lists, tuples, & dictionaries recursively. By Fred
13640
- New module code.py. The function code.compile_command() can
13641
determine whether an interactively entered command is complete or not,
13642
distinguishing incomplete from invalid input. (XXX Unfortunately,
13643
this seems broken at this moment, and I don't have the time to fix
13644
it. It's probably better to add an explicit interface to the parser
13647
- There is now a library module xdrlib.py which can read and write the
13648
XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example. It uses the struct
13652
Changes in library modules
13653
--------------------------
13655
- Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete.
13657
- The pickle.py module has been updated to make it compatible with the
13658
new binary format that cPickle.c produces. By default it produces the
13659
old all-ASCII format compatible with the old pickle.py, still much
13660
faster than pickle.py; it will read both formats automatically. A few
13661
other updates have been made.
13663
- A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register extensions
13664
to the pickling code.
13666
- Revamped module tokenize.py is much more accurate and has an
13667
interface that makes it a breeze to write code to colorize Python
13668
source code. Contributed by Ka-Ping Yee.
13670
- In ihooks.py, ModuleLoader.load_module() now closes the file under
13673
- The tempfile.py module has a new class, TemporaryFile, which creates
13674
an open temporary file that will be deleted automatically when
13675
closed. This works on Windows and MacOS as well as on Unix. (Jim
13678
- Changes to the cgi.py module: Most imports are now done at the
13679
top of the module, which provides a speedup when using ni (Jim
13680
Fulton). The problem with file upload to a Windows platform is solved
13681
by using the new tempfile.TemporaryFile class; temporary files are now
13682
always opened in binary mode (Jim Fulton). The cgi.escape() function
13683
now takes an optional flag argument that quotes '"' to '"'. It
13684
is now possible to invoke cgi.py from a command line script, to test
13685
cgi scripts more easily outside an http server. There's an optional
13686
limit to the size of uploads to POST (Skip Montanaro). Added a
13687
'strict_parsing' option to all parsing functions (Jim Fulton). The
13688
function parse_qs() now uses urllib.unquote() on the name as well as
13689
the value of fields (Clarence Gardner). The FieldStorage class now
13690
has a __len__() method.
13692
- httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.*
13693
responses are now accepted; and it is now thread-safe (by not using
13696
- BaseHTTPModule.py: treat all HTTP/1.* versions the same.
13698
- The popen2.py module is now rewritten using a class, which makes
13699
access to the standard error stream and the process id of the
13700
subprocess possible.
13702
- Added timezone support to the rfc822.py module, in the form of a
13703
getdate_tz() method and a parsedate_tz() function; also a mktime_tz().
13704
Also added recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars
13705
Wirzenius, and RFC 850 dates (Chris Lawrence).
13707
- mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing
13708
of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess. Also
13709
added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius.
13711
- The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes). (Lars
13712
Wirzenius.) (Of course, you should be using cStringIO for performance.)
13714
- UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well.
13716
- Improvements for whrandom.py by Tim Peters: use 32-bit arithmetic to
13717
speed it up, and replace 0 seed values by 1 to avoid degeneration.
13718
A bug was fixed in the test for invalid arguments.
13720
- Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file (Fred
13721
Drake). Also added an ntransfercmd() method to the FTP class, which
13722
allows access to the expected size of a transfer when available, and a
13723
parse150() function to the module which parses the corresponding 150
13726
- urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries. Added
13727
quote_plus() and unquote_plus() functions which are like quote() and
13728
unquote() but also replace spaces with '+' or vice versa, for
13729
encoding/decoding CGI form arguments. Catch all errors from the ftp
13730
module. HTTP requests now add the Host: header line. The proxy
13731
variable names are now mapped to lower case, for Windows. The
13732
spliturl() function no longer erroneously throws away all data past
13733
the first newline. The basejoin() function now intereprets "../"
13734
correctly. I *believe* that the problems with "exception raised in
13735
__del__" under certain circumstances have been fixed (mostly by
13736
changes elsewher in the interpreter).
13738
- In urlparse.py, there is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse();
13739
its size limit is set to 20. Also, new URL schemes shttp, https, and
13740
snews are "supported".
13742
- shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available. Also added
13743
a sync() method, which calls the database's sync() method if there is
13746
- The mimetools.py module now uses the available Python modules for
13747
decoding quoted-printable, uuencode and base64 formats, rather than
13748
creating a subprocess.
13750
- The python debugger (pdb.py, and its base class bdb.py) now support
13751
conditional breakpoints. See the docs.
13753
- The modules base64.py, uu.py and quopri.py can now be used as simple
13754
command line utilities.
13756
- Various small fixes to the nntplib.py module that I can't bother to
13757
document in detail.
13759
- Sjoerd Mullender's mimify.py module now supports base64 encoding and
13760
includes functions to handle the funny encoding you sometimes see in mail
13761
headers. It is now documented.
13763
- mailbox.py: Added BabylMailbox. Improved the way the mailbox is
13764
gotten from the environment.
13766
- Many more modules now correctly open files in binary mode when this
13767
is necessary on non-Unix platforms.
13769
- The copying functions in the undocumented module shutil.py are
13772
- The Writer classes in the formatter.py module now have a flush()
13775
- The sgmllib.py module accepts hyphens and periods in the middle of
13776
attribute names. While this is against the SGML standard, there is
13777
some HTML out there that uses this...
13779
- The interface for the Python bytecode disassembler module, dis.py,
13780
has been enhanced quite a bit. There's now one main function,
13781
dis.dis(), which takes almost any kind of object (function, module,
13782
class, instance, method, code object) and disassembles it; without
13783
arguments it disassembles the last frame of the last traceback. The
13784
other functions have changed slightly, too.
13786
- The imghdr.py module recognizes new image types: BMP, PNG.
13788
- The string.py module has a new function replace(str, old, new,
13789
[maxsplit]) which does substring replacements. It is actually
13790
implemented in C in the strop module. The functions [r]find() an
13791
[r]index() have an optional 4th argument indicating the end of the
13792
substring to search, alsoo implemented by their strop counterparts.
13793
(Remember, never import strop -- import string uses strop when
13794
available with zero overhead.)
13796
- The string.join() function now accepts any sequence argument, not
13797
just lists and tuples.
13799
- The string.maketrans() requires its first two arguments to be
13800
present. The old version didn't require them, but there's not much
13801
point without them, and the documentation suggests that they are
13802
required, so we fixed the code to match the documentation.
13804
- The regsub.py module has a function clear_cache(), which clears its
13805
internal cache of compiled regular expressions. Also, the cache now
13806
takes the current syntax setting into account. (However, this module
13807
is now obsolete -- use the sub() or subn() functions or methods in the
13810
- The undocumented module Complex.py has been removed, now that Python
13811
has built-in complex numbers. A similar module remains as
13812
Demo/classes/Complex.py, as an example.
13815
Changes to the build process
13816
----------------------------
13818
- The way GNU readline is configured is totally different. The
13819
--with-readline configure option is gone. It is now an extension
13820
module, which may be loaded dynamically. You must enable it (and
13821
specify the correct libraries to link with) in the Modules/Setup file.
13822
Importing the module installs some hooks which enable command line
13823
editing. When the interpreter shell is invoked interactively, it
13824
attempts to import the readline module; when this fails, the default
13825
input mechanism is used. The hook variables are PyOS_InputHook and
13826
PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer. (Code contributed by Lee Busby, with
13827
ideas from William Magro.)
13829
- New build procedure: a single library, libpython1.5.a, is now built,
13830
which contains absolutely everything except for a one-line main()
13831
program (which calls Py_Main(argc, argv) to start the interpreter
13832
shell). This makes life much simpler for applications that need to
13833
embed Python. The serial number of the build is now included in the
13834
version string (sys.version).
13836
- As far as I can tell, neither gcc -Wall nor the Microsoft compiler
13837
emits a single warning any more when compiling Python.
13839
- A number of new Makefile variables have been added for special
13840
situations, e.g. LDLAST is appended to the link command. These are
13841
used by editing the Makefile or passing them on the make command
13844
- A set of patches from Lee Busby has been integrated that make it
13845
possible to catch floating point exceptions. Use the configure option
13846
--with-fpectl to enable the patches; the extension modules fpectl and
13847
fpetest provide control to enable/disable and test the feature,
13850
- The support for shared libraries under AIX is now simpler and more
13851
robust. Thanks to Vladimir Marangozov for revamping his own patches!
13853
- The Modules/makesetup script now reads a file Setup.local as well as
13854
a file Setup. Most changes to the Setup script can be done by editing
13855
Setup.local instead, which makes it easier to carry a particular setup
13856
over from one release to the next.
13858
- The Modules/makesetup script now copies any "include" lines it
13859
encounters verbatim into the output Makefile. It also recognizes .cxx
13860
and .cpp as C++ source files.
13862
- The configure script is smarter about C compiler options; e.g. with
13863
gcc it uses -O2 and -g when possible, and on some other platforms it
13864
uses -Olimit 1500 to avoid a warning from the optimizer about the main
13865
loop in ceval.c (which has more than 1000 basic blocks).
13867
- The configure script now detects whether malloc(0) returns a NULL
13868
pointer or a valid block (of length zero). This avoids the nonsense
13869
of always adding one byte to all malloc() arguments on most platforms.
13871
- The configure script has a new option, --with-dec-threads, to enable
13872
DEC threads on DEC Alpha platforms. Also, --with-threads is now an
13873
alias for --with-thread (this was the Most Common Typo in configure
13876
- Many changes in Doc/Makefile; amongst others, latex2html is now used
13877
to generate HTML from all latex documents.
13880
Change to the Python/C API
13881
--------------------------
13883
- Because some interfaces have changed, the PYTHON_API macro has been
13884
bumped. Most extensions built for the old API version will still run,
13885
but I can't guarantee this. Python prints a warning message on
13886
version mismatches; it dumps core when the version mismatch causes a
13887
serious problem :-)
13889
- I've completed the Grand Renaming, with the help of Roger Masse and
13890
Barry Warsaw. This makes reading or debugging the code much easier.
13891
Many other unrelated code reorganizations have also been carried out.
13892
The allobjects.h header file is gone; instead, you would have to
13893
include Python.h followed by rename2.h. But you're better off running
13894
Tools/scripts/fixcid.py -s Misc/RENAME on your source, so you can omit
13895
the rename2.h; it will disappear in the next release.
13897
- Various and sundry small bugs in the "abstract" interfaces have been
13898
fixed. Thanks to all the (involuntary) testers of the Python 1.4
13899
version! Some new functions have been added, e.g. PySequence_List(o),
13900
equivalent to list(o) in Python.
13902
- New API functions PyLong_FromUnsignedLong() and
13903
PyLong_AsUnsignedLong().
13905
- The API functions in the file cgensupport.c are no longer
13906
supported. This file has been moved to Modules and is only ever
13907
compiled when the SGI specific 'gl' module is built.
13909
- PyObject_Compare() can now raise an exception. Check with
13910
PyErr_Occurred(). The comparison function in an object type may also
13911
raise an exception.
13913
- The slice interface uses an upper bound of INT_MAX when no explicit
13914
upper bound is given (e.x. for a[1:]). It used to ask the object for
13915
its length and do the calculations.
13917
- Support for multiple independent interpreters. See Doc/api.tex,
13918
functions Py_NewInterpreter() and Py_EndInterpreter(). Since the
13919
documentation is incomplete, also see the new Demo/pysvr example
13920
(which shows how to use these in a threaded application) and the
13923
- There is now a Py_Finalize() function which "de-initializes"
13924
Python. It is possible to completely restart the interpreter
13925
repeatedly by calling Py_Finalize() followed by Py_Initialize(). A
13926
change of functionality in Py_Initialize() means that it is now a
13927
fatal error to call it while the interpreter is already initialized.
13928
The old, half-hearted Py_Cleanup() routine is gone. Use of Py_Exit()
13929
is deprecated (it is nothing more than Py_Finalize() followed by
13932
- There are no known memory leaks left. While Py_Finalize() doesn't
13933
free *all* allocated memory (some of it is hard to track down),
13934
repeated calls to Py_Finalize() and Py_Initialize() do not create
13935
unaccessible heap blocks.
13937
- There is now explicit per-thread state. (Inspired by, but not the
13938
same as, Greg Stein's free threading patches.)
13940
- There is now better support for threading C applications. There are
13941
now explicit APIs to manipulate the interpreter lock. Read the source
13942
or the Demo/pysvr example; the new functions are
13943
PyEval_{Acquire,Release}{Lock,Thread}().
13945
- The test macro DEBUG has changed to Py_DEBUG, to avoid interference
13946
with other libraries' DEBUG macros. Likewise for any other test
13947
macros that didn't yet start with Py_.
13949
- New wrappers around malloc() and friends: Py_Malloc() etc. call
13950
malloc() and call PyErr_NoMemory() when it fails; PyMem_Malloc() call
13951
just malloc(). Use of these wrappers could be essential if multiple
13952
memory allocators exist (e.g. when using certain DLL setups under
13953
Windows). (Idea by Jim Fulton.)
13955
- New C API PyImport_Import() which uses whatever __import__() hook
13956
that is installed for the current execution environment. By Jim
13959
- It is now possible for an extension module's init function to fail
13960
non-fatally, by calling one of the PyErr_* functions and returning.
13962
- The PyInt_AS_LONG() and PyFloat_AS_DOUBLE() macros now cast their
13963
argument to the proper type, like the similar PyString macros already
13964
did. (Suggestion by Marc-Andre Lemburg.) Similar for PyList_GET_SIZE
13965
and PyList_GET_ITEM.
13967
- Some of the Py_Get* function, like Py_GetVersion() (but not yet
13968
Py_GetPath()) are now declared as returning a const char *. (More
13971
- Changed the run-time library to check for exceptions after object
13972
comparisons. PyObject_Compare() can now return an exception; use
13973
PyErr_Occurred() to check (there is *no* special return value).
13975
- PyFile_WriteString() and Py_Flushline() now return error indicators
13976
instead of clearing exceptions. This fixes an obscure bug where using
13977
these would clear a pending exception, discovered by Just van Rossum.
13979
- There's a new function, PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(), which parses
13980
an argument list including keyword arguments. Contributed by Geoff
13983
- PyArg_GetInt() is gone.
13985
- It's no longer necessary to include graminit.h when calling one of
13986
the extended parser API functions. The three public grammar start
13987
symbols are now in Python.h as Py_single_input, Py_file_input, and
13990
- The CObject interface has a new function,
13991
PyCObject_Import(module, name). It calls PyCObject_AsVoidPtr()
13992
on the object referenced by "module.name".
13998
- On popular demand, _tkinter once again installs a hook for readline
13999
that processes certain Tk events while waiting for the user to type
14000
(using PyOS_InputHook).
14002
- A patch by Craig McPheeters plugs the most obnoxious memory leaks,
14003
caused by command definitions referencing widget objects beyond their
14006
- New standard dialog modules: tkColorChooser.py, tkCommonDialog.py,
14007
tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py, tkSimpleDialog.py These interface
14008
with the new Tk dialog scripts, and provide more "native platform"
14009
style file selection dialog boxes on some platforms. Contributed by
14012
- Tkinter.py: when the first Tk object is destroyed, it sets the
14013
hiddel global _default_root to None, so that when another Tk object is
14014
created it becomes the new default root. Other miscellaneous
14017
- The Image class now has a configure method.
14019
- Added a bunch of new winfo options to Tkinter.py; we should now be
14020
up to date with Tk 4.2. The new winfo options supported are:
14021
mananger, pointerx, pointerxy, pointery, server, viewable, visualid,
14024
- The broken bind() method on Canvas objects defined in the Canvas.py
14025
module has been fixed. The CanvasItem and Group classes now also have
14026
an unbind() method.
14028
- The problem with Tkinter.py falling back to trying to import
14029
"tkinter" when "_tkinter" is not found has been fixed -- it no longer
14030
tries "tkinter", ever. This makes diagnosing the problem "_tkinter
14031
not configured" much easier and will hopefully reduce the newsgroup
14032
traffic on this topic.
14034
- The ScrolledText module once again supports the 'cnf' parameter, to
14035
be compatible with the examples in Mark Lutz' book (I know, I know,
14038
- The _tkinter.c extension module has been revamped. It now support
14039
Tk versions 4.1 through 8.0; support for 4.0 has been dropped. It
14040
works well under Windows and Mac (with the latest Tk ports to those
14041
platforms). It also supports threading -- it is safe for one
14042
(Python-created) thread to be blocked in _tkinter.mainloop() while
14043
other threads modify widgets. To make the changes visible, those
14044
threads must use update_idletasks()method. (The patch for threading
14045
in 1.5a3 was broken; in 1.5a4, it is back in a different version,
14046
which requires access to the Tcl sources to get it to work -- hence it
14047
is disabled by default.)
14049
- A bug in _tkinter.c has been fixed, where Split() with a string
14050
containing an unmatched '"' could cause an exception or core dump.
14052
- Unfortunately, on Windows and Mac, Tk 8.0 no longer supports
14053
CreateFileHandler, so _tkinter.createfilehandler is not available on
14054
those platforms when using Tk 8.0 or later. I will have to rethink
14055
how to interface with Tcl's lower-level event mechanism, or with its
14056
channels (which are like Python's file-like objects). Jack Jansen has
14057
provided a fix for the Mac, so createfilehandler *is* actually
14058
supported there; maybe I can adapt his fix for Windows.
14064
- A new regression test suite is provided, which tests most of the
14065
standard and built-in modules. The regression test is run by invoking
14066
the script Lib/test/regrtest.py. Barry Warsaw wrote the test harnass;
14067
he and Roger Masse contributed most of the new tests.
14069
- New tool: faqwiz -- the CGI script that is used to maintain the
14070
Python FAQ (http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py). In
14073
- New tool: webchecker -- a simple extensible web robot that, when
14074
aimed at a web server, checks that server for dead links. Available
14075
are a command line utility as well as a Tkinter based GUI version. In
14076
Tools/webchecker. A simplified version of this program is dissected
14077
in my article in O'Reilly's WWW Journal, the issue on Scripting
14078
Languages (Vol 2, No 2); Scripting the Web with Python (pp 97-120).
14079
Includes a parser for robots.txt files by Skip Montanaro.
14081
- New small tools: cvsfiles.py (prints a list of all files under CVS
14082
n a particular directory tree), treesync.py (a rather Guido-specific
14083
script to synchronize two source trees, one on Windows NT, the other
14084
one on Unix under CVS but accessible from the NT box), and logmerge.py
14085
(sort a collection of RCS or CVS logs by date). In Tools/scripts.
14087
- The freeze script now also works under Windows (NT). Another
14088
feature allows the -p option to be pointed at the Python source tree
14089
instead of the installation prefix. This was loosely based on part of
14090
xfreeze by Sam Rushing and Bill Tutt.
14092
- New examples (Demo/extend) that show how to use the generic
14093
extension makefile (Misc/Makefile.pre.in).
14095
- Tools/scripts/h2py.py now supports C++ comments.
14097
- Tools/scripts/pystone.py script is upgraded to version 1.1; there
14098
was a bug in version 1.0 (distributed with Python 1.4) that leaked
14099
memory. Also, in 1.1, the LOOPS variable is incremented to 10000.
14101
- Demo/classes/Rat.py completely rewritten by Sjoerd Mullender.
14104
Windows (NT and 95)
14105
-------------------
14107
- New project files for Developer Studio (Visual C++) 5.0 for Windows
14108
NT (the old VC++ 4.2 Makefile is also still supported, but will
14109
eventually be withdrawn due to its bulkiness).
14111
- See the note on the new module search path in the "Miscellaneous" section
14114
- Support for Win32s (the 32-bit Windows API under Windows 3.1) is
14115
basically withdrawn. If it still works for you, you're lucky.
14117
- There's a new extension module, msvcrt.c, which provides various
14118
low-level operations defined in the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library.
14119
These include locking(), setmode(), get_osfhandle(), set_osfhandle(), and
14120
console I/O functions like kbhit(), getch() and putch().
14122
- The -u option not only sets the standard I/O streams to unbuffered
14123
status, but also sets them in binary mode. (This can also be done
14124
using msvcrt.setmode(), by the way.)
14126
- The, sys.prefix and sys.exec_prefix variables point to the directory
14127
where Python is installed, or to the top of the source tree, if it was run
14130
- The various os.path modules (posixpath, ntpath, macpath) now support
14131
passing more than two arguments to the join() function, so
14132
os.path.join(a, b, c) is the same as os.path.join(a, os.path.join(b,
14135
- The ntpath module (normally used as os.path) supports ~ to $HOME
14136
expansion in expanduser().
14138
- The freeze tool now works on Windows.
14140
- See also the Tkinter category for a sad note on
14141
_tkinter.createfilehandler().
14143
- The truncate() method for file objects now works on Windows.
14145
- Py_Initialize() is no longer called when the DLL is loaded. You
14146
must call it yourself.
14148
- The time module's clock() function now has good precision through
14149
the use of the Win32 API QueryPerformanceCounter().
14151
- Mark Hammond will release Python 1.5 versions of PythonWin and his
14152
other Windows specific code: the win32api extensions, COM/ActiveX
14153
support, and the MFC interface.
14159
- As always, the Macintosh port will be done by Jack Jansen. He will
14160
make a separate announcement for the Mac specific source code and the
14161
binary distribution(s) when these are ready.
14164
======================================================================
14167
=====================================
14168
==> Release 1.4 (October 25 1996) <==
14169
=====================================
14171
(Starting in reverse chronological order:)
14173
- Changed disclaimer notice.
14175
- Added SHELL=/bin/sh to Misc/Makefile.pre.in -- some Make versions
14176
default to the user's login shell.
14178
- In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, removed bogus binding of <Delete> in Text
14179
widget, and bogus bspace() function.
14181
- In Lib/cgi.py, bumped __version__ to 2.0 and restored a truncated
14184
- Fixed the NT Makefile (PC/vc40.mak) for VC 4.0 to set /MD for all
14185
subprojects, and to remove the (broken) experimental NumPy
14188
- In Lib/py_compile.py, cast mtime to long() so it will work on Mac
14189
(where os.stat() returns mtimes as floats.)
14190
- Set self.rfile unbuffered (like self.wfile) in SocketServer.py, to
14191
fix POST in CGIHTTPServer.py.
14193
- Version 2.83 of Misc/python-mode.el for Emacs is included.
14195
- In Modules/regexmodule.c, fixed symcomp() to correctly handle a new
14196
group starting immediately after a group tag.
14198
- In Lib/SocketServer.py, changed the mode for rfile to unbuffered.
14200
- In Objects/stringobject.c, fixed the compare function to do the
14201
first char comparison in unsigned mode, for consistency with the way
14202
other characters are compared by memcmp().
14204
- In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, fixed Scale.get() to support floats.
14206
- In Lib/urllib.py, fix another case where openedurl wasn't set.
14208
(XXX Sorry, the rest is in totally random order. No time to fix it.)
14210
- SyntaxError exceptions detected during code generation
14211
(e.g. assignment to an expression) now include a line number.
14213
- Don't leave trailing / or \ in script directory inserted in front of
14216
- Added a note to Tools/scripts/classfix.py abouts its historical
14219
- Added Misc/Makefile.pre.in, a universal Makefile for extensions
14220
built outside the distribution.
14222
- Rewritten Misc/faq2html.py, by Ka-Ping Yee.
14224
- Install shared modules with mode 555 (needed for performance on some
14227
- Some changes to standard library modules to avoid calling append()
14228
with more than one argument -- while supported, this should be
14229
outlawed, and I don't want to set a bad example.
14231
- bdb.py (and hence pdb.py) supports calling run() with a code object
14232
instead of a code string.
14234
- Fixed an embarrassing bug cgi.py which prevented correct uploading
14235
of binary files from Netscape (which doesn't distinguish between
14236
binary and text files). Also added dormant logging support, which
14237
makes it easier to debug the cgi module itself.
14239
- Added default writer to constructor of NullFormatter class.
14241
- Use binary mode for socket.makefile() calls in ftplib.py.
14243
- The ihooks module no longer "installs" itself upon import -- this
14244
was an experimental feature that helped ironing out some bugs but that
14245
slowed down code that imported it without the need to install it
14246
(e.g. the rexec module). Also close the file in some cases and add
14247
the __file__ attribute to loaded modules.
14249
- The test program for mailbox.py is now more useful.
14251
- Added getparamnames() to Message class in mimetools.py -- it returns
14252
the names of parameters to the content-type header.
14254
- Fixed a typo in ni that broke the loop stripping "__." from names.
14256
- Fix sys.path[0] for scripts run via pdb.py's new main program.
14258
- profile.py can now also run a script, like pdb.
14260
- Fix a small bug in pyclbr -- don't add names starting with _ when
14261
emulating from ... import *.
14263
- Fixed a series of embarrassing typos in rexec's handling of standard
14264
I/O redirection. Added some more "safe" built-in modules: cmath,
14267
- Fixed embarrassing typo in shelve.py.
14269
- Added SliceType and EllipsisType to types.py.
14271
- In urllib.py, added handling for error 301 (same as 302); added
14272
geturl() method to get the URL after redirection.
14274
- Fixed embarrassing typo in xdrlib.py. Also fixed typo in Setup.in
14275
for _xdrmodule.c and removed redundant #include from _xdrmodule.c.
14277
- Fixed bsddbmodule.c to add binary mode indicator on platforms that
14278
have it. This should make it working on Windows NT.
14280
- Changed last uses of #ifdef NT to #ifdef MS_WINDOWS or MS_WIN32,
14281
whatever applies. Also rationalized some other tests for various MS
14284
- Added the sources for the NT installer script used for Python
14285
1.4beta3. Not tested with this release, but better than nothing.
14287
- A compromise in pickle's defenses against Trojan horses: a
14288
user-defined function is now okay where a class is expected. A
14289
built-in function is not okay, to prevent pickling something that
14290
will execute os.system("rm -f *") when unpickling.
14292
- dis.py will print the name of local variables referenced by local
14293
load/store/delete instructions.
14295
- Improved portability of SimpleHTTPServer module to non-Unix
14298
- The thread.h interface adds an extra argument to down_sema(). This
14299
only affects other C code that uses thread.c; the Python thread module
14300
doesn't use semaphores (which aren't provided on all platforms where
14301
Python threads are supported). Note: on NT, this change is not
14304
- Fixed some typos in abstract.h; corrected signature of
14305
PyNumber_Coerce, added PyMapping_DelItem. Also fixed a bug in
14306
abstract.c's PyObject_CallMethod().
14308
- apply(classname, (), {}) now works even if the class has no
14311
- Implemented complex remainder and divmod() (these would dump core!).
14312
Conversion of complex numbers to int, long int or float now raises an
14313
exception, since there is no meaningful way to do it without losing
14316
- Fixed bug in built-in complex() function which gave the wrong result
14317
for two real arguments.
14319
- Change the hash algorithm for strings -- the multiplier is now
14320
1000003 instead of 3, which gives better spread for short strings.
14322
- New default path for Windows NT, the registry structure now supports
14323
default paths for different install packages. (Mark Hammond -- the
14324
next PythonWin release will use this.)
14326
- Added more symbols to the python_nt.def file.
14328
- When using GNU readline, set rl_readline_name to "python".
14330
- The Ellipses built-in name has been renamed to Ellipsis -- this is
14331
the correct singular form. Thanks to Ka-Ping Yee, who saved us from
14332
eternal embarrassment.
14334
- Bumped the PYTHON_API_VERSION to 1006, due to the Ellipses ->
14335
Ellipsis name change.
14337
- Updated the library reference manual. Added documentation of
14338
restricted mode (rexec, Bastion) and the formatter module (for use
14339
with the htmllib module). Fixed the documentation of htmllib
14342
- The reference manual is now maintained in FrameMaker.
14344
- Upgraded scripts Doc/partparse.py and Doc/texi2html.py.
14346
- Slight improvements to Doc/Makefile.
14348
- Added fcntl.lockf(). This should be used for Unix file locking
14349
instead of the posixfile module; lockf() is more portable.
14351
- The getopt module now supports long option names, thanks to Lars
14354
- Plenty of changes to Tkinter and Canvas, mostly due to Fred Drake
14355
and Nils Fischbeck.
14357
- Use more bits of time.time() in whrandom's default seed().
14359
- Performance hack for regex module's regs attribute.
14361
- Don't close already closed socket in socket module.
14363
- Correctly handle separators containing embedded nulls in
14364
strop.split, strop.find and strop.rfind. Also added more detail to
14365
error message for strop.atoi and friends.
14367
- Moved fallback definition for hypot() to Python/hypot.c.
14369
- Added fallback definition for strdup, in Python/strdup.c.
14371
- Fixed some bugs where a function would return 0 to indicate an error
14372
where it should return -1.
14374
- Test for error returned by time.localtime(), and rationalized its MS
14377
- Added Modules/Setup.local file, which is processed after Setup.
14379
- Corrected bug in toplevel Makefile.in -- execution of regen script
14380
would not use the right PATH and PYTHONPATH.
14382
- Various and sundry NeXT configuration changes (sigh).
14384
- Support systems where libreadline needs neither termcap nor curses.
14386
- Improved ld_so_aix script and python.exp file (for AIX).
14388
- More stringent test for working <stdarg.h> in configure script.
14390
- Removed Demo/www subdirectory -- it was totally out of date.
14392
- Improved demos and docs for Fred Drake's parser module; fixed one
14393
typo in the module itself.
14396
=========================================
14397
==> Release 1.4beta3 (August 26 1996) <==
14398
=========================================
14401
(XXX This is less readable that it should. I promise to restructure
14402
it for the final 1.4 release.)
14405
What's new in 1.4beta3 (since beta2)?
14406
-------------------------------------
14408
- Name mangling to implement a simple form of class-private variables.
14409
A name of the form "__spam" can't easily be used outside the class.
14410
(This was added in 1.4beta3, but left out of the 1.4beta3 release
14413
- In urllib.urlopen(): HTTP URLs containing user:passwd@host are now
14414
handled correctly when using a proxy server.
14416
- In ntpath.normpath(): don't truncate to 8+3 format.
14418
- In mimetools.choose_boundary(): don't die when getuid() or getpid()
14421
- Module urllib: some optimizations to (un)quoting.
14423
- New module MimeWriter for writing MIME documents.
14425
- More changes to formatter module.
14427
- The freeze script works once again and is much more robust (using
14428
sys.prefix etc.). It also supports a -o option to specify an
14431
- New module whichdb recognizes dbm, gdbm and bsddb/dbhash files.
14433
- The Doc/Makefile targets have been reorganized somewhat to remove the
14434
insistence on always generating PostScript.
14436
- The texinfo to html filter (Doc/texi2html.py) has been improved somewhat.
14438
- "errors.h" has been renamed to "pyerrors.h" to resolve a long-standing
14439
name conflict on the Mac.
14441
- Linking a module compiled with a different setting for Py_TRACE_REFS now
14442
generates a linker error rather than a core dump.
14444
- The cgi module has a new convenience function print_exception(), which
14445
formats a python exception using HTML. It also fixes a bug in the
14446
compatibility code and adds a dubious feature which makes it possible to
14447
have two query strings, one in the URL and one in the POST data.
14449
- A subtle change in the unpickling of class instances makes it possible
14450
to unpickle in restricted execution mode, where the __dict__ attribute is
14451
not available (but setattr() is).
14453
- Documentation for os.path.splitext() (== posixpath.splitext()) has been
14454
cleared up. It splits at the *last* dot.
14456
- posixfile locking is now also correctly supported on AIX.
14458
- The tempfile module once again honors an initial setting of tmpdir. It
14459
now works on Windows, too.
14461
- The traceback module has some new functions to extract, format and print
14464
- Some translation functions in the urllib module have been made a little
14467
- The addtag_* methods for Canvas widgets in Tkinter as well as in the
14468
separate Canvas class have been fixed so they actually do something
14471
- A tiny _test() function has been added to Tkinter.py.
14473
- A generic Makefile for dynamically loaded modules is provided in the Misc
14474
subdirectory (Misc/gMakefile).
14476
- A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs is provided. See
14477
http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for details. The
14478
separate file pyimenu.el is no longer needed, imenu support is folded
14479
into python-mode.el.
14481
- The configure script can finally correctly find the readline library in a
14482
non-standard location. The LDFLAGS variable is passed on the Makefiles
14483
from the configure script.
14485
- Shared libraries are now installed as programs (i.e. with executable
14486
permission). This is required on HP-UX and won't hurt on other systems.
14488
- The objc.c module is no longer part of the distribution. Objective-C
14489
support may become available as contributed software on the ftp site.
14491
- The sybase module is no longer part of the distribution. A much
14492
improved sybase module is available as contributed software from the
14495
- _tkinter is now compatible with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 patch1 on Windows and
14496
Mac (don't use unpatched Tcl/Tk!). The default line in the Setup.in file
14497
now links with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 rather than 7.4/4.0.
14499
- In Setup, you can now write "*shared*" instead of "*noconfig*", and you
14500
can use *.so and *.sl as shared libraries.
14502
- Some more fidgeting for AIX shared libraries.
14504
- The mpz module is now compatible with GMP 2.x. (Not tested by me.)
14505
(Note -- a complete replacement by Niels Mo"ller, called gpmodule, is
14506
available from the contrib directory on the ftp site.)
14508
- A warning is written to sys.stderr when a __del__ method raises an
14509
exception (formerly, such exceptions were completely ignored).
14511
- The configure script now defines HAVE_OLD_CPP if the C preprocessor is
14512
incapable of ANSI style token concatenation and stringification.
14514
- All source files (except a few platform specific modules) are once again
14515
compatible with K&R C compilers as well as ANSI compilers. In particular,
14516
ANSI-isms have been removed or made conditional in complexobject.c,
14517
getargs.c and operator.c.
14519
- The abstract object API has three new functions, PyObject_DelItem,
14520
PySequence_DelItem, and PySequence_DelSlice.
14522
- The operator module has new functions delitem and delslice, and the
14523
functions "or" and "and" are renamed to "or_" and "and_" (since "or" and
14524
"and" are reserved words). ("__or__" and "__and__" are unchanged.)
14526
- The environment module is no longer supported; putenv() is now a function
14527
in posixmodule (also under NT).
14529
- Error in filter(<function>, "") has been fixed.
14531
- Unrecognized keyword arguments raise TypeError, not KeyError.
14533
- Better portability, fewer bugs and memory leaks, fewer compiler warnings,
14534
some more documentation.
14536
- Bug in float power boundary case (0.0 to the negative integer power)
14539
- The test of negative number to the float power has been moved from the
14540
built-in pow() functin to floatobject.c (so complex numbers can yield the
14543
- The bug introduced in beta2 where shared libraries loaded (using
14544
dlopen()) from the current directory would fail, has been fixed.
14546
- Modules imported as shared libraries now also have a __file__ attribute,
14547
giving the filename from which they were loaded. The only modules without
14548
a __file__ attribute now are built-in modules.
14550
- On the Mac, dynamically loaded modules can end in either ".slb" or
14551
".<platform>.slb" where <platform> is either "CFM68K" or "ppc". The ".slb"
14552
extension should only be used for "fat" binaries.
14554
- C API addition: marshal.c now supports
14555
PyMarshal_WriteObjectToString(object).
14557
- C API addition: getargs.c now supports
14558
PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwdict, format, kwnames, ...)
14559
to parse keyword arguments.
14561
- The PC versioning scheme (sys.winver) has changed once again. the
14562
version number is now "<digit>.<digit>.<digit>.<apiversion>", where the
14563
first three <digit>s are the Python version (e.g. "1.4.0" for Python 1.4,
14564
"1.4.1" for Python 1.4.1 -- the beta level is not included) and
14565
<apiversion> is the four-digit PYTHON_API_VERSION (currently 1005).
14567
- h2py.py accepts whitespace before the # in CPP directives
14569
- On Solaris 2.5, it should now be possible to use either Posix threads or
14570
Solaris threads (XXX: how do you select which is used???). (Note: the
14571
Python pthreads interface doesn't fully support semaphores yet -- anyone
14574
- Thread support should now work on AIX, using either DCE threads or
14577
- New file Demo/sockets/unicast.py
14579
- Working Mac port, with CFM68K support, with Tk 4.1 support (though not
14582
- New project setup for PC port, now compatible with PythonWin, with
14583
_tkinter and NumPy support (XXX)
14585
- New module site.py (XXX)
14587
- New module xdrlib.py and optional support module _xdrmodule.c (XXX)
14589
- parser module adapted to new grammar, complete w/ Doc & Demo (XXX)
14591
- regen script fixed (XXX)
14593
- new machdep subdirectories Lib/{aix3,aix4,next3_3,freebsd2,linux2} (XXX)
14595
- testall now also tests math module (XXX)
14597
- string.atoi c.s. now raise an exception for an empty input string.
14599
- At last, it is no longer necessary to define HAVE_CONFIG_H in order to
14600
have config.h included at various places.
14602
- Unrecognized keyword arguments now raise TypeError rather than KeyError.
14604
- The makesetup script recognizes files with extension .so or .sl as
14605
(shared) libraries.
14607
- 'access' is no longer a reserved word, and all code related to its
14608
implementation is gone (or at least #ifdef'ed out). This should make
14609
Python a little speedier too!
14611
- Performance enhancements suggested by Sjoerd Mullender. This includes
14612
the introduction of two new optional function pointers in type object,
14613
getattro and setattro, which are like getattr and setattr but take a
14614
string object instead of a C string pointer.
14616
- New operations in string module: lstrip(s) and rstrip(s) strip whitespace
14617
only on the left or only on the right, A new optional third argument to
14618
split() specifies the maximum number of separators honored (so
14619
splitfields(s, sep, n) returns a list of at most n+1 elements). (Since
14620
1.3, splitfields(s, None) is totally equivalent to split(s).)
14621
string.capwords() has an optional second argument specifying the
14622
separator (which is passed to split()).
14624
- regsub.split() has the same addition as string.split(). regsub.splitx(s,
14625
sep, maxsep) implements the functionality that was regsub.split(s, 1) in
14626
1.4beta2 (return a list containing the delimiters as well as the words).
14628
- Final touch for AIX loading, rewritten Misc/AIX-NOTES.
14630
- In Modules/_tkinter.c, when using Tk 4.1 or higher, use className
14631
argument to _tkinter.create() to set Tcl's argv0 variable, so X
14632
resources use the right resource class again.
14634
- Add #undef fabs to Modules/mathmodule.c for macintosh.
14636
- Added some macro renames for AIX in Modules/operator.c.
14638
- Removed spurious 'E' from Doc/liberrno.tex.
14640
- Got rid of some cruft in Misc/ (dlMakefile, pyimenu.el); added new
14641
Misc/gMakefile and new version of Misc/python-mode.el.
14643
- Fixed typo in Lib/ntpath.py (islink has "return false" which gives a
14646
- Added missing "from types import *" to Lib/tkinter/Canvas.py.
14648
- Added hint about using default args for __init__ to pickle docs.
14650
- Corrected typo in Inclide/abstract.h: PySequence_Lenth ->
14653
- Some improvements to Doc/texi2html.py.
14655
- In Python/import.c, Cast unsigned char * in struct _frozen to char *
14656
in calls to rds_object().
14658
- In doc/ref4.tex, added note about scope of lambda bodies.
14660
What's new in 1.4beta2 (since beta1)?
14661
-------------------------------------
14663
- Portability bug in the md5.h header solved.
14665
- The PC build procedure now really works, and sets sys.platform to a
14666
meaningful value (a few things were botched in beta 1). Lib/dos_8x3
14667
is now a standard part of the distribution (alas).
14669
- More improvements to the installation procedure. Typing "make install"
14670
now inserts the version number in the pathnames of almost everything
14671
installed, and creates the machine dependent modules (FCNTL.py etc.) if not
14672
supplied by the distribution. (XXX There's still a problem with the latter
14673
because the "regen" script requires that Python is installed. Some manual
14674
intervention may still be required.) (This has been fixed in 1.4beta3.)
14676
- New modules: errno, operator (XXX).
14678
- Changes for use with Numerical Python: builtin function slice() and
14679
Ellipses object, and corresponding syntax:
14681
x[lo:hi:stride] == x[slice(lo, hi, stride)]
14682
x[a, ..., z] == x[(a, Ellipses, z)]
14684
- New documentation for errno and cgi modules.
14686
- The directory containing the script passed to the interpreter is
14687
inserted in from of sys.path; "." is no longer a default path
14690
- Optional third string argument to string.translate() specifies
14691
characters to delete. New function string.maketrans() creates a
14692
translation table for translate() or for regex.compile().
14694
- Module posix (and hence module os under Unix) now supports putenv().
14695
Moreover, module os is enhanced so that if putenv() is supported,
14696
assignments to os.environ entries make the appropriate putenv() call.
14697
(XXX the putenv() implementation can leak a small amount of memory per
14700
- pdb.py can now be invoked from the command line to debug a script:
14701
python pdb.py <script> <arg> ...
14703
- Much improved parseaddr() in rfc822.
14705
- In cgi.py, you can now pass an alternative value for environ to
14706
nearly all functions.
14708
- You can now assign to instance variables whose name begins and ends
14711
- New version of Fred Drake's parser module and associates (token,
14714
- New PYTHON_API_VERSION value and .pyc file magic number (again!).
14716
- The "complex" internal structure type is now called "Py_complex" to
14717
avoid name conflicts.
14719
- Numerous small bugs fixed.
14721
- Slight pickle speedups.
14723
- Some slight speedups suggested by Sjoerd (more coming in 1.4 final).
14725
- NeXT portability mods by Bill Bumgarner integrated.
14727
- Modules regexmodule.c, bsddbmodule.c and xxmodule.c have been
14728
converted to new naming style.
14731
What's new in 1.4beta1 (since 1.3)?
14732
-----------------------------------
14734
- Added sys.platform and sys.exec_platform for Bill Janssen.
14736
- Installation has been completely overhauled. "make install" now installs
14737
everything, not just the python binary. Installation uses the install-sh
14738
script (borrowed from X11) to install each file.
14740
- New functions in the posix module: mkfifo, plock, remove (== unlink),
14741
and ftruncate. More functions are also available under NT.
14743
- New function in the fcntl module: flock.
14745
- Shared library support for FreeBSD.
14747
- The --with-readline option can now be used without a DIRECTORY argument,
14748
for systems where libreadline.* is in one of the standard places. It is
14749
also possible for it to be a shared library.
14751
- The extension tkinter has been renamed to _tkinter, to avoid confusion
14752
with Tkinter.py oncase insensitive file systems. It now supports Tk 4.1 as
14755
- Author's change of address from CWI in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to
14756
CNRI in Reston, VA, USA.
14758
- The math.hypot() function is now always available (if it isn't found in
14759
the C math library, Python provides its own implementation).
14761
- The latex documentation is now compatible with latex2e, thanks to David
14764
- The expression x**y is now equivalent to pow(x, y).
14766
- The indexing expression x[a, b, c] is now equivalent to x[(a, b, c)].
14768
- Complex numbers are now supported. Imaginary constants are written with
14769
a 'j' or 'J' prefix, general complex numbers can be formed by adding a real
14770
part to an imaginary part, like 3+4j. Complex numbers are always stored in
14771
floating point form, so this is equivalent to 3.0+4.0j. It is also
14772
possible to create complex numbers with the new built-in function
14773
complex(re, [im]). For the footprint-conscious, complex number support can
14774
be disabled by defining the symbol WITHOUT_COMPLEX.
14776
- New built-in function list() is the long-awaited counterpart of tuple().
14778
- There's a new "cmath" module which provides the same functions as the
14779
"math" library but with complex arguments and results. (There are very
14780
good reasons why math.sqrt(-1) still raises an exception -- you have to use
14781
cmath.sqrt(-1) to get 1j for an answer.)
14783
- The Python.h header file (which is really the same as allobjects.h except
14784
it disables support for old style names) now includes several more files,
14785
so you have to have fewer #include statements in the average extension.
14787
- The NDEBUG symbol is no longer used. Code that used to be dependent on
14788
the presence of NDEBUG is now present on the absence of DEBUG. TRACE_REFS
14789
and REF_DEBUG have been renamed to Py_TRACE_REFS and Py_REF_DEBUG,
14790
respectively. At long last, the source actually compiles and links without
14791
errors when this symbol is defined.
14793
- Several symbols that didn't follow the new naming scheme have been
14794
renamed (usually by adding to rename2.h) to use a Py or _Py prefix. There
14795
are no external symbols left without a Py or _Py prefix, not even those
14796
defined by sources that were incorporated from elsewhere (regexpr.c,
14797
md5c.c). (Macros are a different story...)
14799
- There are now typedefs for the structures defined in config.c and
14802
- New PYTHON_API_VERSION value and .pyc file magic number.
14804
- New module Bastion. (XXX)
14806
- Improved performance of StringIO module.
14808
- UserList module now supports + and * operators.
14810
- The binhex and binascii modules now actually work.
14812
- The cgi module has been almost totally rewritten and documented.
14813
It now supports file upload and a new data type to handle forms more
14816
- The formatter module (for use with htmllib) has been overhauled (again).
14818
- The ftplib module now supports passive mode and has doc strings.
14820
- In (ideally) all places where binary files are read or written, the file
14821
is now correctly opened in binary mode ('rb' or 'wb') so the code will work
14824
- Dummy versions of os.path.expandvars() and expanduser() are now provided
14825
on non-Unix platforms.
14827
- Module urllib now has two new functions url2pathname and pathname2url
14828
which turn local filenames into "file:..." URLs using the same rules as
14829
Netscape (why be different). it also supports urlretrieve() with a
14830
pathname parameter, and honors the proxy environment variables (http_proxy
14831
etc.). The URL parsing has been improved somewhat, too.
14833
- Micro improvements to urlparse. Added urlparse.urldefrag() which
14834
removes a trailing ``#fragment'' if any.
14836
- The mailbox module now supports MH style message delimiters as well.
14838
- The mhlib module contains some new functionality: setcontext() to set the
14839
current folder and parsesequence() to parse a sequence as commonly passed
14840
to MH commands (e.g. 1-10 or last:5).
14842
- New module mimify for conversion to and from MIME format of email
14845
- Module ni now automatically installs itself when first imported -- this
14846
is against the normal rule that modules should define classes and functions
14847
but not invoke them, but appears more useful in the case that two
14848
different, independent modules want to use ni's features.
14850
- Some small performance enhancements in module pickle.
14852
- Small interface change to the profile.run*() family of functions -- more
14853
sensible handling of return values.
14855
- The officially registered Mac creator for Python files is 'Pyth'. This
14856
replaces 'PYTH' which was used before but never registered.
14858
- Added regsub.capwords(). (XXX)
14860
- Added string.capwords(), string.capitalize() and string.translate().
14863
- Fixed an interface bug in the rexec module: it was impossible to pass a
14864
hooks instance to the RExec class. rexec now also supports the dynamic
14865
loading of modules from shared libraries. Some other interfaces have been
14868
- Module rfc822 now caches the headers in a dictionary for more efficient
14871
- The sgmllib module now understands a limited number of SGML "shorthands"
14872
like <A/.../ for <A>...</A>. (It's not clear that this was a good idea...)
14874
- The tempfile module actually tries a number of different places to find a
14875
usable temporary directory. (This was prompted by certain Linux
14876
installations that appear to be missing a /usr/tmp directory.) [A bug in
14877
the implementation that would ignore a pre-existing tmpdir global has been
14880
- Much improved and enhanved FileDialog module for Tkinter.
14882
- Many small changes to Tkinter, to bring it more in line with Tk 4.0 (as
14885
- New socket interfaces include ntohs(), ntohl(), htons(), htonl(), and
14886
s.dup(). Sockets now work correctly on Windows. On Windows, the built-in
14887
extension is called _socket and a wrapper module win/socket.py provides
14888
"makefile()" and "dup()" functionality. On Windows, the select module
14889
works only with socket objects.
14891
- Bugs in bsddb module fixed (e.g. missing default argument values).
14893
- The curses extension now includes <ncurses.h> when available.
14895
- The gdbm module now supports opening databases in "fast" mode by
14896
specifying 'f' as the second character or the mode string.
14898
- new variables sys.prefix and sys.exec_prefix pass corresponding
14899
configuration options / Makefile variables to the Python programmer.
14901
- The ``new'' module now supports creating new user-defined classes as well
14902
as instances thereof.
14904
- The soundex module now sports get_soundex() to get the soundex value for an
14905
arbitrary string (formerly it would only do soundex-based string
14906
comparison) as well as doc strings.
14908
- New object type "cobject" to safely wrap void pointers for passing them
14909
between various extension modules.
14911
- More efficient computation of float**smallint.
14913
- The mysterious bug whereby "x.x" (two occurrences of the same
14914
one-character name) typed from the commandline would sometimes fail
14917
- The initialization of the readline function can now be invoked by a C
14918
extension through PyOS_ReadlineInit().
14920
- There's now an externally visible pointer PyImport_FrozenModules which
14921
can be changed by an embedding application.
14923
- The argument parsing functions now support a new format character 'D' to
14924
specify complex numbers.
14926
- Various memory leaks plugged and bugs fixed.
14928
- Improved support for posix threads (now that real implementations are
14929
beginning to apepar). Still no fully functioning semaphores.
14931
- Some various and sundry improvements and new entries in the Tools
14935
=====================================
14936
==> Release 1.3 (13 October 1995) <==
14937
=====================================
14942
Two words: Keyword Arguments. See the first section of Chapter 12 of
14945
(The rest of this file is textually the same as the remaining sections
14949
Changes to the WWW and Internet tools
14950
=====================================
14952
The "htmllib" module has been rewritten in an incompatible fashion.
14953
The new version is considerably more complete (HTML 2.0 except forms,
14954
but including all ISO-8859-1 entity definitions), and easy to use.
14955
Small changes to "sgmllib" have also been made, to better match the
14956
tokenization of HTML as recognized by other web tools.
14958
A new module "formatter" has been added, for use with the new
14961
The "urllib"and "httplib" modules have been changed somewhat to allow
14962
overriding unknown URL types and to support authentication. They now
14963
use "mimetools.Message" instead of "rfc822.Message" to parse headers.
14964
The "endrequest()" method has been removed from the HTTP class since
14965
it breaks the interaction with some servers.
14967
The "rfc822.Message" class has been changed to allow a flag to be
14968
passed in that says that the file is unseekable.
14970
The "ftplib" module has been fixed to be (hopefully) more robust on
14973
Several new operations that are optionally supported by servers have
14974
been added to "nntplib": "xover", "xgtitle", "xpath" and "date".
14976
Other Language Changes
14977
======================
14979
The "raise" statement now takes an optional argument which specifies
14980
the traceback to be used when printing the exception's stack trace.
14981
This must be a traceback object, such as found in "sys.exc_traceback".
14982
When omitted or given as "None", the old behavior (to generate a stack
14983
trace entry for the current stack frame) is used.
14985
The tokenizer is now more tolerant of alien whitespace. Control-L in
14986
the leading whitespace of a line resets the column number to zero,
14987
while Control-R just before the end of the line is ignored.
14989
Changes to Built-in Operations
14990
==============================
14992
For file objects, "f.read(0)" and "f.readline(0)" now return an empty
14993
string rather than reading an unlimited number of bytes. For the
14994
latter, omit the argument altogether or pass a negative value.
14996
A new system variable, "sys.platform", has been added. It specifies
14997
the current platform, e.g. "sunos5" or "linux1".
14999
The built-in functions "input()" and "raw_input()" now use the GNU
15000
readline library when it has been configured (formerly, only
15001
interactive input to the interpreter itself was read using GNU
15002
readline). The GNU readline library provides elaborate line editing
15003
and history. The Python debugger ("pdb") is the first beneficiary of
15006
Two new built-in functions, "globals()" and "locals()", provide access
15007
to dictionaries containming current global and local variables,
15008
respectively. (These augment rather than replace "vars()", which
15009
returns the current local variables when called without an argument,
15010
and a module's global variables when called with an argument of type
15013
The built-in function "compile()" now takes a third possible value for
15014
the kind of code to be compiled: specifying "'single'" generates code
15015
for a single interactive statement, which prints the output of
15016
expression statements that evaluate to something else than "None".
15021
There are new module "ni" and "ihooks" that support importing modules
15022
with hierarchical names such as "A.B.C". This is enabled by writing
15023
"import ni; ni.ni()" at the very top of the main program. These
15024
modules are amply documented in the Python source.
15026
The module "rexec" has been rewritten (incompatibly) to define a class
15027
and to use "ihooks".
15029
The "string.split()" and "string.splitfields()" functions are now the
15030
same function (the presence or absence of the second argument
15031
determines which operation is invoked); similar for "string.join()"
15032
and "string.joinfields()".
15034
The "Tkinter" module and its helper "Dialog" have been revamped to use
15035
keyword arguments. Tk 4.0 is now the standard. A new module
15036
"FileDialog" has been added which implements standard file selection
15039
The optional built-in modules "dbm" and "gdbm" are more coordinated
15040
--- their "open()" functions now take the same values for their "flag"
15041
argument, and the "flag" and "mode" argument have default values (to
15042
open the database for reading only, and to create the database with
15043
mode "0666" minuse the umask, respectively). The memory leaks have
15044
finally been fixed.
15046
A new dbm-like module, "bsddb", has been added, which uses the BSD DB
15047
package's hash method.
15049
A portable (though slow) dbm-clone, implemented in Python, has been
15050
added for systems where none of the above is provided. It is aptly
15053
The module "anydbm" provides a unified interface to "bsddb", "gdbm",
15054
"dbm", and "dumbdbm", choosing the first one available.
15056
A new extension module, "binascii", provides a variety of operations
15057
for conversion of text-encoded binary data.
15059
There are three new or rewritten companion modules implemented in
15060
Python that can encode and decode the most common such formats: "uu"
15061
(uuencode), "base64" and "binhex".
15063
A module to handle the MIME encoding quoted-printable has also been
15066
The parser module (which provides an interface to the Python parser's
15067
abstract syntax trees) has been rewritten (incompatibly) by Fred
15068
Drake. It now lets you change the parse tree and compile the result!
15070
The \code{syslog} module has been upgraded and documented.
15075
The dynamic module loader recognizes the fact that different filenames
15076
point to the same shared library and loads the library only once, so
15077
you can have a single shared library that defines multiple modules.
15078
(SunOS / SVR4 style shared libraries only.)
15080
Jim Fulton's ``abstract object interface'' has been incorporated into
15081
the run-time API. For more detailes, read the files
15082
"Include/abstract.h" and "Objects/abstract.c".
15084
The Macintosh version is much more robust now.
15086
Numerous things I have forgotten or that are so obscure no-one will
15087
notice them anyway :-)
15090
===================================
15091
==> Release 1.2 (13 April 1995) <==
15092
===================================
15094
- Changes to Misc/python-mode.el:
15095
- Wrapping and indentation within triple quote strings should work
15097
- `Standard' bug reporting mechanism (use C-c C-b)
15098
- py-mark-block was moved to C-c C-m
15099
- C-c C-v shows you the python-mode version
15100
- a basic python-font-lock-keywords has been added for Emacs 19
15101
font-lock colorizations.
15102
- proper interaction with pending-del and del-sel modes.
15103
- New py-electric-colon (:) command for improved outdenting. Also
15104
py-indent-line (TAB) should handle outdented lines better.
15105
- New commands py-outdent-left (C-c C-l) and py-indent-right (C-c C-r)
15107
- The Library Reference has been restructured, and many new and
15108
existing modules are now documented, in particular the debugger and
15109
the profiler, as well as the persistency and the WWW/Internet support
15112
- All known bugs have been fixed. For example the pow(2,2,3L) bug on
15113
Linux has been fixed. Also the re-entrancy problems with __del__ have
15116
- All known memory leaks have been fixed.
15118
- Phase 2 of the Great Renaming has been executed. The header files
15119
now use the new names (PyObject instead of object, etc.). The linker
15120
also sees the new names. Most source files still use the old names,
15121
by virtue of the rename2.h header file. If you include Python.h, you
15122
only see the new names. Dynamically linked modules have to be
15123
recompiled. (Phase 3, fixing the rest of the sources, will be
15124
executed gradually with the release later versions.)
15126
- The hooks for implementing "safe-python" (better called "restricted
15127
execution") are in place. Specifically, the import statement is
15128
implemented by calling the built-in function __import__, and the
15129
built-in names used in a particular scope are taken from the
15130
dictionary __builtins__ in that scope's global dictionary. See also
15131
the new (unsupported, undocumented) module rexec.py.
15133
- The import statement now supports the syntax "import a.b.c" and
15134
"from a.b.c import name". No officially supported implementation
15135
exists, but one can be prototyped by replacing the built-in __import__
15136
function. A proposal by Ken Manheimer is provided as newimp.py.
15138
- All machinery used by the import statement (or the built-in
15139
__import__ function) is now exposed through the new built-in module
15140
"imp" (see the library reference manual). All dynamic loading
15141
machinery is moved to the new file importdl.c.
15143
- Persistent storage is supported through the use of the modules
15144
"pickle" and "shelve" (implemented in Python). There's also a "copy"
15145
module implementing deepcopy and normal (shallow) copy operations.
15146
See the library reference manual.
15148
- Documentation strings for many objects types are accessible through
15149
the __doc__ attribute. Modules, classes and functions support special
15150
syntax to initialize the __doc__ attribute: if the first statement
15151
consists of just a string literal, that string literal becomes the
15152
value of the __doc__ attribute. The default __doc__ attribute is
15153
None. Documentation strings are also supported for built-in
15154
functions, types and modules; however this feature hasn't been widely
15155
used yet. See the 'new' module for an example. (Basically, the type
15156
object's tp_doc field contains the doc string for the type, and the
15157
4th member of the methodlist structure contains the doc string for the
15160
- The __coerce__ and __cmp__ methods for user-defined classes once
15161
again work as expected. As an example, there's a new standard class
15162
Complex in the library.
15164
- The functions posix.popen() and posix.fdopen() now have an optional
15165
third argument to specify the buffer size, and default their second
15166
(mode) argument to 'r' -- in analogy to the builtin open() function.
15167
The same applies to posixfile.open() and the socket method makefile().
15169
- The thread.exit_thread() function now raises SystemExit so that
15170
'finally' clauses are honored and a memory leak is plugged.
15172
- Improved X11 and Motif support, by Sjoerd Mullender. This extension
15173
is being maintained and distributed separately.
15175
- Improved support for the Apple Macintosh, in part by Jack Jansen,
15176
e.g. interfaces to (a few) resource mananger functions, get/set file
15177
type and creator, gestalt, sound manager, speech manager, MacTCP, comm
15178
toolbox, and the think C console library. This is being maintained
15179
and distributed separately.
15181
- Improved version for Windows NT, by Mark Hammond. This is being
15182
maintained and distributed separately.
15184
- Used autoconf 2.0 to generate the configure script. Adapted
15185
configure.in to use the new features in autoconf 2.0.
15187
- It now builds on the NeXT without intervention, even on the 3.3
15190
- Characters passed to isspace() and friends are masked to nonnegative
15193
- Correctly compute pow(-3.0, 3).
15195
- Fix portability problems with getopt (configure now checks for a
15198
- Don't add frozenmain.o to libPython.a.
15200
- Exceptions can now be classes. ALl built-in exceptions are still
15201
string objects, but this will change in the future.
15203
- The socket module exports a long list of socket related symbols.
15204
(More built-in modules will export their symbolic constants instead of
15205
relying on a separately generated Python module.)
15207
- When a module object is deleted, it clears out its own dictionary.
15208
This fixes a circularity in the references between functions and
15209
their global dictionary.
15211
- Changed the error handling by [new]getargs() e.g. for "O&".
15213
- Dynamic loading of modules using shared libraries is supported for
15214
several new platforms.
15216
- Support "O&", "[...]" and "{...}" in mkvalue().
15218
- Extension to findmethod(): findmethodinchain() (where a chain is a
15219
linked list of methodlist arrays). The calling interface for
15220
findmethod() has changed: it now gets a pointer to the (static!)
15221
methodlist structure rather than just to the function name -- this
15222
saves copying flags etc. into the (short-lived) method object.
15224
- The callable() function is now public.
15226
- Object types can define a few new operations by setting function
15227
pointers in the type object structure: tp_call defines how an object
15228
is called, and tp_str defines how an object's str() is computed.
15231
===================================
15232
==> Release 1.1.1 (10 Nov 1994) <==
15233
===================================
15235
This is a pure bugfix release again. See the ChangeLog file for details.
15237
One exception: a few new features were added to tkinter.
15240
=================================
15241
==> Release 1.1 (11 Oct 1994) <==
15242
=================================
15244
This release adds several new features, improved configuration and
15245
portability, and fixes more bugs than I can list here (including some
15248
The source compiles and runs out of the box on more platforms than
15249
ever -- including Windows NT. Makefiles or projects for a variety of
15250
non-UNIX platforms are provided.
15252
APOLOGY: some new features are badly documented or not at all. I had
15253
the choice -- postpone the new release indefinitely, or release it
15254
now, with working code but some undocumented areas. The problem with
15255
postponing the release is that people continue to suffer from existing
15256
bugs, and send me patches based on the previous release -- which I
15257
can't apply directly because my own source has changed. Also, some
15258
new modules (like signal) have been ready for release for quite some
15259
time, and people are anxiously waiting for them. In the case of
15260
signal, the interface is simple enough to figure out without
15261
documentation (if you're anxious enough :-). In this case it was not
15262
simple to release the module on its own, since it relies on many small
15263
patches elsewhere in the source.
15265
For most new Python modules, the source code contains comments that
15266
explain how to use them. Documentation for the Tk interface, written
15267
by Matt Conway, is available as tkinter-doc.tar.gz from the Python
15268
home and mirror ftp sites (see Misc/FAQ for ftp addresses). For the
15269
new operator overloading facilities, have a look at Demo/classes:
15270
Complex.py and Rat.py show how to implement a numeric type without and
15271
with __coerce__ method. Also have a look at the end of the Tutorial
15272
document (Doc/tut.tex). If you're still confused: use the newsgroup
15276
New language features:
15278
- More flexible operator overloading for user-defined classes
15279
(INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS!) See end of tutorial.
15281
- Classes can define methods named __getattr__, __setattr__ and
15282
__delattr__ to trap attribute accesses. See end of tutorial.
15284
- Classes can define method __call__ so instances can be called
15285
directly. See end of tutorial.
15288
New support facilities:
15290
- The Makefiles (for the base interpreter as well as for extensions)
15291
now support creating dynamically loadable modules if the platform
15292
supports shared libraries.
15294
- Passing the interpreter a .pyc file as script argument will execute
15295
the code in that file. (On the Mac such files can be double-clicked!)
15297
- New Freeze script, to create independently distributable "binaries"
15298
of Python programs -- look in Demo/freeze
15300
- Improved h2py script (in Demo/scripts) follows #includes and
15301
supports macros with one argument
15303
- New module compileall generates .pyc files for all modules in a
15304
directory (tree) without also executing them
15306
- Threads should work on more platforms
15309
New built-in modules:
15311
- tkinter (support for Tcl's Tk widget set) is now part of the base
15314
- signal allows catching or ignoring UNIX signals (unfortunately still
15315
undocumented -- any taker?)
15317
- termios provides portable access to POSIX tty settings
15319
- curses provides an interface to the System V curses library
15321
- syslog provides an interface to the (BSD?) syslog daemon
15323
- 'new' provides interfaces to create new built-in object types
15324
(e.g. modules and functions)
15326
- sybase provides an interface to SYBASE database
15329
New/obsolete built-in methods:
15331
- callable(x) tests whether x can be called
15333
- sockets now have a setblocking() method
15335
- sockets no longer have an allowbroadcast() method
15337
- socket methods send() and sendto() return byte count
15340
New standard library modules:
15342
- types.py defines standard names for built-in types, e.g. StringType
15344
- urlparse.py parses URLs according to the latest Internet draft
15346
- uu.py does uuencode/uudecode (not the fastest in the world, but
15347
quicker than installing uuencode on a non-UNIX machine :-)
15349
- New, faster and more powerful profile module.py
15351
- mhlib.py provides interface to MH folders and messages
15354
New facilities for extension writers (unfortunately still
15357
- newgetargs() supports optional arguments and improved error messages
15359
- O!, O& O? formats for getargs allow more versatile type checking of
15362
- can register pending asynchronous callback, to be called the next
15363
time the Python VM begins a new instruction (Py_AddPendingCall)
15365
- can register cleanup routines to be called when Python exits
15368
- makesetup script understands C++ files in Setup file (use file.C
15371
- Make variable OPT is passed on to sub-Makefiles
15373
- An init<module>() routine may signal an error by not entering
15374
the module in the module table and raising an exception instead
15376
- For long module names, instead of foobarbletchmodule.c you can
15379
- getintvalue() and getfloatvalue() try to convert any object
15380
instead of requiring an "intobject" or "floatobject"
15382
- All the [new]getargs() formats that retrieve an integer value
15383
will now also work if a float is passed
15385
- C function listtuple() converts list to tuple, fast
15387
- You should now call sigcheck() instead of intrcheck();
15388
sigcheck() also sets an exception when it returns nonzero
15391
====================================
15392
==> Release 1.0.3 (14 July 1994) <==
15393
====================================
15395
This release consists entirely of bug fixes to the C sources; see the
15396
head of ../ChangeLog for a complete list. Most important bugs fixed:
15398
- Sometimes the format operator (string%expr) would drop the last
15399
character of the format string
15401
- Tokenizer looped when last line did not end in \n
15403
- Bug when triple-quoted string ended in quote plus newline
15405
- Typo in socketmodule (listen) (== instead of =)
15407
- typing vars() at the >>> prompt would cause recursive output
15410
==================================
15411
==> Release 1.0.2 (4 May 1994) <==
15412
==================================
15414
Overview of the most visible changes. Bug fixes are not listed. See
15420
* String literals follow Standard C rules: they may be continued on
15421
the next line using a backslash; adjacent literals are concatenated
15424
* A new kind of string literals, surrounded by triple quotes (""" or
15425
'''), can be continued on the next line without a backslash.
15430
* Function arguments may have a default value, e.g. def f(a, b=1);
15431
defaults are evaluated at function definition time. This also applies
15434
* The try-except statement has an optional else clause, which is
15435
executed when no exception occurs in the try clause.
15440
* The result of a statement-level expression is no longer printed,
15441
except_ for expressions entered interactively. Consequently, the -k
15442
command line option is gone.
15444
* The result of the last printed interactive expression is assigned to
15447
* Access to implicit global variables has been speeded up by removing
15448
an always-failing dictionary lookup in the dictionary of local
15449
variables (mod suggested by Steve Makewski and Tim Peters).
15451
* There is a new command line option, -u, to force stdout and stderr
15454
* Incorporated Steve Majewski's mods to import.c for dynamic loading
15457
* Fewer chances of dumping core when trying to reload or re-import
15458
static built-in, dynamically loaded built-in, or frozen modules.
15460
* Loops over sequences now don't ask for the sequence's length when
15461
they start, but try to access items 0, 1, 2, and so on until they hit
15462
an IndexError. This makes it possible to create classes that generate
15463
infinite or indefinite sequences a la Steve Majewski. This affects
15464
for loops, the (not) in operator, and the built-in functions filter(),
15465
map(), max(), min(), reduce().
15467
Changed Built-in operations
15468
---------------------------
15470
* The '%' operator on strings (printf-style formatting) supports a new
15471
feature (adapted from a patch by Donald Beaudry) to allow
15472
'%(<key>)<format>' % {...} to take values from a dictionary by name
15473
instead of from a tuple by position (see also the new function
15476
* The '%s' formatting operator is changed to accept any type and
15477
convert it to a string using str().
15479
* Dictionaries with more than 20,000 entries can now be created
15480
(thanks to Steve Kirsch).
15482
New Built-in Functions
15483
----------------------
15485
* vars() returns a dictionary containing the local variables; vars(m)
15486
returns a dictionary containing the variables of module m. Note:
15487
dir(x) is now equivalent to vars(x).keys().
15489
Changed Built-in Functions
15490
--------------------------
15492
* open() has an optional third argument to specify the buffer size: 0
15493
for unbuffered, 1 for line buffered, >1 for explicit buffer size, <0
15496
* open()'s second argument is now optional; it defaults to "r".
15498
* apply() now checks that its second argument is indeed a tuple.
15500
New Built-in Modules
15501
--------------------
15503
Changed Built-in Modules
15504
------------------------
15506
The thread module no longer supports exit_prog().
15511
* Module addpack contains a standard interface to modify sys.path to
15512
find optional packages (groups of related modules).
15514
* Module urllib contains a number of functions to access
15515
World-Wide-Web files specified by their URL.
15517
* Module httplib implements the client side of the HTTP protocol used
15518
by World-Wide-Web servers.
15520
* Module gopherlib implements the client side of the Gopher protocol.
15522
* Module mailbox (by Jack Jansen) contains a parser for UNIX and MMDF
15523
style mailbox files.
15525
* Module random contains various random distributions, e.g. gauss().
15527
* Module lockfile locks and unlocks open files using fcntl (inspired
15528
by a similar module by Andy Bensky).
15530
* Module ntpath (by Jaap Vermeulen) implements path operations for
15533
* Module test_thread (in Lib/test) contains a small test set for the
15536
Changed Python Modules
15537
----------------------
15539
* The string module's expandvars() function is now documented and is
15540
implemented in Python (using regular expressions) instead of forking
15541
off a shell process.
15543
* Module rfc822 now supports accessing the header fields using the
15544
mapping/dictionary interface, e.g. h['subject'].
15546
* Module pdb now makes it possible to set a break on a function
15547
(syntax: break <expression>, where <expression> yields a function
15553
* The Demo/scripts/freeze.py script is working again (thanks to Jaap
15559
* Demo/threads/Generator.py is a proposed interface for restartable
15560
functions a la Tim Peters.
15562
* Demo/scripts/newslist.py, by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, generates a
15563
directory full of HTML pages which between them contain links to all
15564
the newsgroups available on your server.
15566
* Demo/dns contains a DNS (Domain Name Server) client.
15568
* Demo/lutz contains miscellaneous demos by Mark Lutz (e.g. psh.py, a
15569
nice enhanced Python shell!!!).
15571
* Demo/turing contains a Turing machine by Amrit Prem.
15576
* Documented new language features mentioned above (but not all new
15579
* Added a chapter to the Tutorial describing recent additions to
15582
* Clarified some sentences in the reference manual,
15583
e.g. break/continue, local/global scope, slice assignment.
15588
* Moved Include/tokenizer.h to Parser/tokenizer.h.
15590
* Added Python/getopt.c for systems that don't have it.
15595
* Indentation of continuated lines is done more intelligently;
15596
consequently the variable py-continuation-offset is gone.
15599
========================================
15600
==> Release 1.0.1 (15 February 1994) <==
15601
========================================
15603
* Many portability fixes should make it painless to build Python on
15604
several new platforms, e.g. NeXT, SEQUENT, WATCOM, DOS, and Windows.
15606
* Fixed test for <stdarg.h> -- this broke on some platforms.
15608
* Fixed test for shared library dynalic loading -- this broke on SunOS
15609
4.x using the GNU loader.
15611
* Changed order and number of SVR4 networking libraries (it is now
15612
-lsocket -linet -lnsl, if these libraries exist).
15614
* Installing the build intermediate stages with "make libainstall" now
15615
also installs config.c.in, Setup and makesetup, which are used by the
15616
new Extensions mechanism.
15618
* Improved README file contains more hints and new troubleshooting
15621
* The built-in module strop now defines fast versions of three more
15622
functions of the standard string module: atoi(), atol() and atof().
15623
The strop versions of atoi() and atol() support an optional second
15624
argument to specify the base (default 10). NOTE: you don't have to
15625
explicitly import strop to use the faster versions -- the string
15626
module contains code to let versions from stop override the default
15629
* There is now a working Lib/dospath.py for those who use Python under
15630
DOS (or Windows). Thanks, Jaap!
15632
* There is now a working Modules/dosmodule.c for DOS (or Windows)
15635
* Lib.os.py has been reorganized (making it ready for more operating
15638
* Lib/ospath.py is now obsolete (use os.path instead).
15640
* Many fixes to the tutorial to make it match Python 1.0. Thanks,
15643
* Fixed Doc/Makefile, Doc/README and various scripts there.
15645
* Added missing description of fdopen to Doc/libposix.tex.
15647
* Made cleanup() global, for the benefit of embedded applications.
15649
* Added parsing of addresses and dates to Lib/rfc822.py.
15651
* Small fixes to Lib/aifc.py, Lib/sunau.py, Lib/tzparse.py to make
15652
them usable at all.
15654
* New module Lib/wave.py reads RIFF (*.wav) audio files.
15656
* Module Lib/filewin.py moved to Lib/stdwin/filewin.py where it
15659
* New options and comments for Modules/makesetup (used by new
15660
Extension mechanism).
15662
* Misc/HYPE contains text of announcement of 1.0.0 in comp.lang.misc
15665
* Fixed coredump in filter(None, 'abcdefg').
15668
=======================================
15669
==> Release 1.0.0 (26 January 1994) <==
15670
=======================================
15672
As is traditional, so many things have changed that I can't pretend to
15673
be complete in these release notes, but I'll try anyway :-)
15675
Note that the very last section is labeled "remaining bugs".
15678
Source organization and build process
15679
-------------------------------------
15681
* The sources have finally been split: instead of a single src
15682
subdirectory there are now separate directories Include, Parser,
15683
Grammar, Objects, Python and Modules. Other directories also start
15684
with a capital letter: Misc, Doc, Lib, Demo.
15686
* A few extensions (notably Amoeba and X support) have been moved to a
15687
separate subtree Extensions, which is no longer in the core
15688
distribution, but separately ftp'able as extensions.tar.Z. (The
15689
distribution contains a placeholder Ext-dummy with a description of
15690
the Extensions subtree as well as the most recent versions of the
15691
scripts used there.)
15693
* A few large specialized demos (SGI video and www) have been
15694
moved to a separate subdirectory Demo2, which is no longer in the core
15695
distribution, but separately ftp'able as demo2.tar.Z.
15697
* Parts of the standard library have been moved to subdirectories:
15698
there are now standard subdirectories stdwin, test, sgi and sun4.
15700
* The configuration process has radically changed: I now use GNU
15701
autoconf. This makes it much easier to build on new Unix flavors, as
15702
well as fully supporting VPATH (if your Make has it). The scripts
15703
Configure.py and Addmodule.sh are no longer needed. Many source files
15704
have been adapted in order to work with the symbols that the configure
15705
script generated by autoconf defines (or not); the resulting source is
15706
much more portable to different C compilers and operating systems,
15707
even non Unix systems (a Mac port was done in an afternoon). See the
15708
toplevel README file for a description of the new build process.
15710
* GNU readline (a slightly newer version) is now a subdirectory of the
15711
Python toplevel. It is still not automatically configured (being
15712
totally autoconf-unaware :-). One problem has been solved: typing
15713
Control-C to a readline prompt will now work. The distribution no
15714
longer contains a "super-level" directory (above the python toplevel
15715
directory), and dl, dl-dld and GNU dld are no longer part of the
15716
Python distribution (you can still ftp them from
15717
ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/dynload).
15719
* The DOS functions have been taken out of posixmodule.c and moved
15720
into a separate file dosmodule.c.
15722
* There's now a separate file version.c which contains nothing but
15723
the version number.
15725
* The actual main program is now contained in config.c (unless NO_MAIN
15726
is defined); pythonmain.c now contains a function realmain() which is
15727
called from config.c's main().
15729
* All files needed to use the built-in module md5 are now contained in
15730
the distribution. The module has been cleaned up considerably.
15736
* The library manual has been split into many more small latex files,
15737
so it is easier to edit Doc/lib.tex file to create a custom library
15738
manual, describing only those modules supported on your system. (This
15739
is not automated though.)
15741
* A fourth manual has been added, titled "Extending and Embedding the
15742
Python Interpreter" (Doc/ext.tex), which collects information about
15743
the interpreter which was previously spread over several files in the
15746
* The entire documentation is now also available on-line for those who
15747
have a WWW browser (e.g. NCSA Mosaic). Point your browser to the URL
15748
"http://www.cwi.nl/~guido/Python.html".
15754
* Strings may now be enclosed in double quotes as well as in single
15755
quotes. There is no difference in interpretation. The repr() of
15756
string objects will use double quotes if the string contains a single
15757
quote and no double quotes. Thanks to Amrit Prem for these changes!
15759
* There is a new keyword 'exec'. This replaces the exec() built-in
15760
function. If a function contains an exec statement, local variable
15761
optimization is not performed for that particular function, thus
15762
making assignment to local variables in exec statements less
15763
confusing. (As a consequence, os.exec and python.exec have been
15766
* There is a new keyword 'lambda'. An expression of the form
15768
lambda <parameters> : <expression>
15770
yields an anonymous function. This is really only syntactic sugar;
15771
you can just as well define a local function using
15773
def some_temporary_name(<parameters>): return <expression>
15775
Lambda expressions are particularly useful in combination with map(),
15776
filter() and reduce(), described below. Thanks to Amrit Prem for
15777
submitting this code (as well as map(), filter(), reduce() and
15784
* The built-in module containing the built-in functions is called
15785
__builtin__ instead of builtin.
15787
* New built-in functions map(), filter() and reduce() perform standard
15788
functional programming operations (though not lazily):
15790
- map(f, seq) returns a new sequence whose items are the items from
15791
seq with f() applied to them.
15793
- filter(f, seq) returns a subsequence of seq consisting of those
15794
items for which f() is true.
15796
- reduce(f, seq, initial) returns a value computed as follows:
15798
for item in seq: acc = f(acc, item)
15801
* New function xrange() creates a "range object". Its arguments are
15802
the same as those of range(), and when used in a for loop a range
15803
objects also behaves identical. The advantage of xrange() over
15804
range() is that its representation (if the range contains many
15805
elements) is much more compact than that of range(). The disadvantage
15806
is that the result cannot be used to initialize a list object or for
15807
the "Python idiom" [RED, GREEN, BLUE] = range(3). On some modern
15808
architectures, benchmarks have shown that "for i in range(...): ..."
15809
actually executes *faster* than "for i in xrange(...): ...", but on
15810
memory starved machines like PCs running DOS range(100000) may be just
15811
too big to be represented at all...
15813
* Built-in function exec() has been replaced by the exec statement --
15820
* Syntax errors are now not printed to stderr by the parser, but
15821
rather the offending line and other relevant information are packed up
15822
in the SyntaxError exception argument. When the main loop catches a
15823
SyntaxError exception it will print the error in the same format as
15824
previously, but at the proper position in the stack traceback.
15826
* You can now set a maximum to the number of traceback entries
15827
printed by assigning to sys.tracebacklimit. The default is 1000.
15829
* The version number in .pyc files has changed yet again.
15831
* It is now possible to have a .pyc file without a corresponding .py
15832
file. (Warning: this may break existing installations if you have an
15833
old .pyc file lingering around somewhere on your module search path
15834
without a corresponding .py file, when there is a .py file for a
15835
module of the same name further down the path -- the new interpreter
15836
will find the first .pyc file and complain about it, while the old
15837
interpreter would ignore it and use the .py file further down.)
15839
* The list sys.builtin_module_names is now sorted and also contains
15840
the names of a few hardwired built-in modules (sys, __main__ and
15843
* A module can now find its own name by accessing the global variable
15844
__name__. Assigning to this variable essentially renames the module
15845
(it should also be stored under a different key in sys.modules).
15846
A neat hack follows from this: a module that wants to execute a main
15847
program when called as a script no longer needs to compare
15848
sys.argv[0]; it can simply do "if __name__ == '__main__': main()".
15850
* When an object is printed by the print statement, its implementation
15851
of str() is used. This means that classes can define __str__(self) to
15852
direct how their instances are printed. This is different from
15853
__repr__(self), which should define an unambigous string
15854
representation of the instance. (If __str__() is not defined, it
15855
defaults to __repr__().)
15857
* Functions and code objects can now be compared meaningfully.
15859
* On systems supporting SunOS or SVR4 style shared libraries, dynamic
15860
loading of modules using shared libraries is automatically configured.
15861
Thanks to Bill Jansen and Denis Severson for contributing this change!
15867
* File objects have acquired a new method writelines() which is the
15868
reverse of readlines(). (It does not actually write lines, just a
15869
list of strings, but the symmetry makes the choice of name OK.)
15875
* Socket objects no longer support the avail() method. Use the select
15876
module instead, or use this function to replace it:
15880
return f in select.select([f], [], [], 0)[0]
15882
* Initialization of stdwin is done differently. It actually modifies
15883
sys.argv (taking out the options the X version of stdwin recognizes)
15884
the first time it is imported.
15886
* A new built-in module parser provides a rudimentary interface to the
15887
python parser. Corresponding standard library modules token and symbol
15888
defines the numeric values of tokens and non-terminal symbols.
15890
* The posix module has aquired new functions setuid(), setgid(),
15891
execve(), and exec() has been renamed to execv().
15893
* The array module is extended with 8-byte object swaps, the 'i'
15894
format character, and a reverse() method. The read() and write()
15895
methods are renamed to fromfile() and tofile().
15897
* The rotor module has freed of portability bugs. This introduces a
15898
backward compatibility problem: strings encoded with the old rotor
15899
module can't be decoded by the new version.
15901
* For select.select(), a timeout (4th) argument of None means the same
15902
as leaving the timeout argument out.
15904
* Module strop (and hence standard library module string) has aquired
15905
a new function: rindex(). Thanks to Amrit Prem!
15907
* Module regex defines a new function symcomp() which uses an extended
15908
regular expression syntax: parenthesized subexpressions may be labeled
15909
using the form "\(<labelname>...\)", and the group() method can return
15910
sub-expressions by name. Thanks to Tracy Tims for these changes!
15912
* Multiple threads are now supported on Solaris 2. Thanks to Sjoerd
15916
Standard library modules
15917
------------------------
15919
* The library is now split in several subdirectories: all stuff using
15920
stdwin is in Lib/stdwin, all SGI specific (or SGI Indigo or GL) stuff
15921
is in Lib/sgi, all Sun Sparc specific stuff is in Lib/sun4, and all
15922
test modules are in Lib/test. The default module search path will
15923
include all relevant subdirectories by default.
15925
* Module os now knows about trying to import dos. It defines
15926
functions execl(), execle(), execlp() and execvp().
15928
* New module dospath (should be attacked by a DOS hacker though).
15930
* All modules defining classes now define __init__() constructors
15931
instead of init() methods. THIS IS AN INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE!
15933
* Some minor changes and bugfixes module ftplib (mostly Steve
15934
Majewski's suggestions); the debug() method is renamed to
15937
* Some new test modules (not run automatically by testall though):
15938
test_audioop, test_md5, test_rgbimg, test_select.
15940
* Module string now defines rindex() and rfind() in analogy of index()
15941
and find(). It also defines atof() and atol() (and corresponding
15942
exceptions) in analogy to atoi().
15944
* Added help() functions to modules profile and pdb.
15946
* The wdb debugger (now in Lib/stdwin) now shows class or instance
15947
variables on a double click. Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender!
15949
* The (undocumented) module lambda has gone -- you couldn't import it
15950
any more, and it was basically more a demo than a library module...
15953
Multimedia extensions
15954
---------------------
15956
* The optional built-in modules audioop and imageop are now standard
15957
parts of the interpreter. Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender and Jack Jansen
15958
for contributing this code!
15960
* There's a new operation in audioop: minmax().
15962
* There's a new built-in module called rgbimg which supports portable
15963
efficient reading of SGI RCG image files. Thanks also to Paul
15964
Haeberli for the original code! (Who will contribute a GIF reader?)
15966
* The module aifc is gone -- you should now always use aifc, which has
15967
received a facelift.
15969
* There's a new module sunau., for reading Sun (and NeXT) audio files.
15971
* There's a new module audiodev which provides a uniform interface to
15972
(SGI Indigo and Sun Sparc) audio hardware.
15974
* There's a new module sndhdr which recognizes various sound files by
15975
looking in their header and checking for various magic words.
15981
* Most optimizations below can be configured by compile-time flags.
15982
Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender for submitting these optimizations!
15984
* Small integers (default -1..99) are shared -- i.e. if two different
15985
functions compute the same value it is possible (but not
15986
guaranteed!!!) that they return the same *object*. Python programs
15987
can detect this but should *never* rely on it.
15989
* Empty tuples (which all compare equal) are shared in the same
15992
* Tuples of size up to 20 (default) are put in separate free lists
15995
* There is a compile-time option to cache a string's hash function,
15996
but this appeared to have a negligeable effect, and as it costs 4
15997
bytes per string it is disabled by default.
16003
* The initialization interface has been simplified somewhat. You now
16004
only call "initall()" to initialize the interpreter.
16006
* The previously announced renaming of externally visible identifiers
16007
has not been carried out. It will happen in a later release. Sorry.
16010
Miscellaneous bugs that have been fixed
16011
---------------------------------------
16013
* All known portability bugs.
16015
* Version 0.9.9 dumped core in <listobject>.sort() which has been
16016
fixed. Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen for fixing this and posting the fix
16017
on the mailing list while I was away!
16019
* Core dump on a format string ending in '%', e.g. in the expression
16022
* The array module yielded a bogus result for concatenation (a+b would
16025
* Some serious memory leaks in strop.split() and strop.splitfields().
16027
* Several problems with the nis module.
16029
* Subtle problem when copying a class method from another class
16030
through assignment (the method could not be called).
16036
* One problem with 64-bit machines remains -- since .pyc files are
16037
portable and use only 4 bytes to represent an integer object, 64-bit
16038
integer literals are silently truncated when written into a .pyc file.
16039
Work-around: use eval('123456789101112').
16041
* The freeze script doesn't work any more. A new and more portable
16042
one can probably be cooked up using tricks from Extensions/mkext.py.
16044
* The dos support hasn't been tested yet. (Really Soon Now we should
16045
have a PC with a working C compiler!)
16048
===================================
16049
==> Release 0.9.9 (29 Jul 1993) <==
16050
===================================
16052
I *believe* these are the main user-visible changes in this release,
16053
but there may be others. SGI users may scan the {src,lib}/ChangeLog
16054
files for improvements of some SGI specific modules, e.g. aifc and
16055
cl. Developers of extension modules should also read src/ChangeLog.
16058
Naming of C symbols used by the Python interpreter
16059
--------------------------------------------------
16061
* This is the last release using the current naming conventions. New
16062
naming conventions are explained in the file misc/NAMING.
16063
Summarizing, all externally visible symbols get (at least) a "Py"
16064
prefix, and most functions are renamed to the standard form
16065
PyModule_FunctionName.
16067
* Writers of extensions are urged to start using the new naming
16068
conventions. The next release will use the new naming conventions
16069
throughout (it will also have a different source directory
16072
* As a result of the preliminary work for the great renaming, many
16073
functions that were accidentally global have been made static.
16079
* There are now modules interfacing to the X11 Toolkit Intrinsics, the
16080
Athena widgets, and the Motif 1.1 widget set. These are not yet
16081
documented except through the examples and README file in the demo/x11
16082
directory. It is expected that this interface will be replaced by a
16083
more powerful and correct one in the future, which may or may not be
16084
backward compatible. In other words, this part of the code is at most
16085
BETA level software! (Note: the rest of Python is rock solid as ever!)
16087
* I understand that the above may be a bit of a disappointment,
16088
however my current schedule does not allow me to change this situation
16089
before putting the release out of the door. By releasing it
16090
undocumented and buggy, at least some of the (working!) demo programs,
16091
like itr (my Internet Talk Radio browser) become available to a larger
16094
* There are also modules interfacing to SGI's "Glx" widget (a GL
16095
window wrapped in a widget) and to NCSA's "HTML" widget (which can
16096
format HyperText Markup Language, the document format used by the
16099
* I've experienced some problems when building the X11 support. In
16100
particular, the Xm and Xaw widget sets don't go together, and it
16101
appears that using X11R5 is better than using X11R4. Also the threads
16102
module and its link time options may spoil things. My own strategy is
16103
to build two Python binaries: one for use with X11 and one without
16104
it, which can contain a richer set of built-in modules. Don't even
16105
*think* of loading the X11 modules dynamically...
16108
Environmental changes
16109
---------------------
16111
* Compiled files (*.pyc files) created by this Python version are
16112
incompatible with those created by the previous version. Both
16113
versions detect this and silently create a correct version, but it
16114
means that it is not a good idea to use the same library directory for
16115
an old and a new interpreter, since they will start to "fight" over
16118
* When a stack trace is printed, the exception is printed last instead
16119
of first. This means that if the beginning of the stack trace
16120
scrolled out of your window you can still see what exception caused
16123
* Sometimes interrupting a Python operation does not work because it
16124
hangs in a blocking system call. You can now kill the interpreter by
16125
interrupting it three times. The second time you interrupt it, a
16126
message will be printed telling you that the third interrupt will kill
16127
the interpreter. The "sys.exitfunc" feature still makes limited
16128
clean-up possible in this case.
16131
Changes to the command line interface
16132
-------------------------------------
16134
* The python usage message is now much more informative.
16136
* New option -i enters interactive mode after executing a script --
16137
useful for debugging.
16139
* New option -k raises an exception when an expression statement
16140
yields a value other than None.
16142
* For each option there is now also a corresponding environment
16146
Using Python as an embedded language
16147
------------------------------------
16149
* The distribution now contains (some) documentation on the use of
16150
Python as an "embedded language" in other applications, as well as a
16151
simple example. See the file misc/EMBEDDING and the directory embed/.
16157
* Function local variables are now generally stored in an array and
16158
accessed using an integer indexing operation, instead of through a
16159
dictionary lookup. (This compensates the somewhat slower dictionary
16160
lookup caused by the generalization of the dictionary module.)
16163
Changes to the syntax
16164
---------------------
16166
* Continuation lines can now *sometimes* be written without a
16167
backslash: if the continuation is contained within nesting (), [] or
16168
{} brackets the \ may be omitted. There's a much improved
16169
python-mode.el in the misc directory which knows about this as well.
16171
* You can no longer use an empty set of parentheses to define a class
16172
without base classes. That is, you no longer write this:
16174
class Foo(): # syntax error
16177
You must write this instead:
16182
This was already the preferred syntax in release 0.9.8 but many
16183
people seemed not to have picked it up. There's a Python script that
16184
fixes old code: demo/scripts/classfix.py.
16186
* There's a new reserved word: "access". The syntax and semantics are
16187
still subject of of research and debate (as well as undocumented), but
16188
the parser knows about the keyword so you must not use it as a
16189
variable, function, or attribute name.
16192
Changes to the semantics of the language proper
16193
-----------------------------------------------
16195
* The following compatibility hack is removed: if a function was
16196
defined with two or more arguments, and called with a single argument
16197
that was a tuple with just as many arguments, the items of this tuple
16198
would be used as the arguments. This is no longer supported.
16201
Changes to the semantics of classes and instances
16202
-------------------------------------------------
16204
* Class variables are now also accessible as instance variables for
16205
reading (assignment creates an instance variable which overrides the
16206
class variable of the same name though).
16208
* If a class attribute is a user-defined function, a new kind of
16209
object is returned: an "unbound method". This contains a pointer to
16210
the class and can only be called with a first argument which is a
16211
member of that class (or a derived class).
16213
* If a class defines a method __init__(self, arg1, ...) then this
16214
method is called when a class instance is created by the classname()
16215
construct. Arguments passed to classname() are passed to the
16216
__init__() method. The __init__() methods of base classes are not
16217
automatically called; the derived __init__() method must call these if
16218
necessary (this was done so the derived __init__() method can choose
16219
the call order and arguments for the base __init__() methods).
16221
* If a class defines a method __del__(self) then this method is called
16222
when an instance of the class is about to be destroyed. This makes it
16223
possible to implement clean-up of external resources attached to the
16224
instance. As with __init__(), the __del__() methods of base classes
16225
are not automatically called. If __del__ manages to store a reference
16226
to the object somewhere, its destruction is postponed; when the object
16227
is again about to be destroyed its __del__() method will be called
16230
* Classes may define a method __hash__(self) to allow their instances
16231
to be used as dictionary keys. This must return a 32-bit integer.
16237
* Function and class objects now know their name (the name given in
16238
the 'def' or 'class' statement that created them).
16240
* Class instances now know their class name.
16243
Additions to built-in operations
16244
--------------------------------
16246
* The % operator with a string left argument implements formatting
16247
similar to sprintf() in C. The right argument is either a single
16248
value or a tuple of values. All features of Standard C sprintf() are
16249
supported except %p.
16251
* Dictionaries now support almost any key type, instead of just
16252
strings. (The key type must be an immutable type or must be a class
16253
instance where the class defines a method __hash__(), in order to
16254
avoid losing track of keys whose value may change.)
16256
* Built-in methods are now compared properly: when comparing x.meth1
16257
and y.meth2, if x is equal to y and the methods are defined by the
16258
same function, x.meth1 compares equal to y.meth2.
16261
Additions to built-in functions
16262
-------------------------------
16264
* str(x) returns a string version of its argument. If the argument is
16265
a string it is returned unchanged, otherwise it returns `x`.
16267
* repr(x) returns the same as `x`. (Some users found it easier to
16268
have this as a function.)
16270
* round(x) returns the floating point number x rounded to an whole
16271
number, represented as a floating point number. round(x, n) returns x
16272
rounded to n digits.
16274
* hasattr(x, name) returns true when x has an attribute with the given
16277
* hash(x) returns a hash code (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
16278
immutable object's value.
16280
* id(x) returns a unique identifier (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
16283
* compile() compiles a string to a Python code object.
16285
* exec() and eval() now support execution of code objects.
16288
Changes to the documented part of the library (standard modules)
16289
----------------------------------------------------------------
16291
* os.path.normpath() (a.k.a. posixpath.normpath()) has been fixed so
16292
the border case '/foo/..' returns '/' instead of ''.
16294
* A new function string.find() is added with similar semantics to
16295
string.index(); however when it does not find the given substring it
16296
returns -1 instead of raising string.index_error.
16299
Changes to built-in modules
16300
---------------------------
16302
* New optional module 'array' implements operations on sequences of
16303
integers or floating point numbers of a particular size. This is
16304
useful to manipulate large numerical arrays or to read and write
16305
binary files consisting of numerical data.
16307
* Regular expression objects created by module regex now support a new
16308
method named group(), which returns one or more \(...\) groups by number.
16309
The number of groups is increased from 10 to 100.
16311
* Function compile() in module regex now supports an optional mapping
16312
argument; a variable casefold is added to the module which can be used
16313
as a standard uppercase to lowercase mapping.
16315
* Module time now supports many routines that are defined in the
16316
Standard C time interface (<time.h>): gmtime(), localtime(),
16317
asctime(), ctime(), mktime(), as well as these variables (taken from
16318
System V): timezone, altzone, daylight and tzname. (The corresponding
16319
functions in the undocumented module calendar have been removed; the
16320
undocumented and unfinished module tzparse is now obsolete and will
16321
disappear in a future release.)
16323
* Module strop (the fast built-in version of standard module string)
16324
now uses C's definition of whitespace instead of fixing it to space,
16325
tab and newline; in practice this usually means that vertical tab,
16326
form feed and return are now also considered whitespace. It exports
16327
the string of characters that are considered whitespace as well as the
16328
characters that are considered lowercase or uppercase.
16330
* Module sys now defines the variable builtin_module_names, a list of
16331
names of modules built into the current interpreter (including not
16332
yet imported, but excluding two special modules that always have to be
16333
defined -- sys and builtin).
16335
* Objects created by module sunaudiodev now also support flush() and
16338
* Socket objects created by module socket now support an optional
16339
flags argument for their methods sendto() and recvfrom().
16341
* Module marshal now supports dumping to and loading from strings,
16342
through the functions dumps() and loads().
16344
* Module stdwin now supports some new functionality. You may have to
16345
ftp the latest version: ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/stdwin/stdwinforviews.tar.Z.)
16351
* Fixed comparison of negative long integers.
16353
* The tokenizer no longer botches input lines longer than BUFSIZ.
16355
* Fixed several severe memory leaks in module select.
16357
* Fixed memory leaks in modules socket and sv.
16359
* Fixed memory leak in divmod() for long integers.
16361
* Problems with definition of floatsleep() on Suns fixed.
16363
* Many portability bugs fixed (and undoubtedly new ones added :-).
16366
Changes to the build procedure
16367
------------------------------
16369
* The Makefile supports some new targets: "make default" and "make
16370
all". Both are by normally equivalent to "make python".
16372
* The Makefile no longer uses $> since it's not supported by all
16375
* The header files now all contain #ifdef constructs designed to make
16376
it safe to include the same header file twice, as well as support for
16377
inclusion from C++ programs (automatic extern "C" { ... } added).
16380
Freezing Python scripts
16381
-----------------------
16383
* There is now some support for "freezing" a Python script as a
16384
stand-alone executable binary file. See the script
16385
demo/scripts/freeze.py. It will require some site-specific tailoring
16386
of the script to get this working, but is quite worthwhile if you write
16387
Python code for other who may not have built and installed Python.
16393
* A new MS-DOS port has been done, using MSC 6.0 (I believe). Thanks,
16394
Marcel van der Peijl! This requires fewer compatibility hacks in
16395
posixmodule.c. The executable is not yet available but will be soon
16396
(check the mailing list).
16398
* The default PYTHONPATH has changed.
16401
Changes for developers of extension modules
16402
-------------------------------------------
16404
* Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
16407
SGI specific changes
16408
--------------------
16410
* Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
16413
==================================
16414
==> Release 0.9.8 (9 Jan 1993) <==
16415
==================================
16417
I claim no completeness here, but I've tried my best to scan the log
16418
files throughout my source tree for interesting bits of news. A more
16419
complete account of the changes is to be found in the various
16420
ChangeLog files. See also "News for release 0.9.7beta" below if you're
16421
still using release 0.9.6, and the file HISTORY if you have an even
16427
Changes to the language proper
16428
------------------------------
16430
There's only one big change: the conformance checking for function
16431
argument lists (of user-defined functions only) is stricter. Earlier,
16432
you could get away with the following:
16434
(a) define a function of one argument and call it with any
16435
number of arguments; if the actual argument count wasn't
16436
one, the function would receive a tuple containing the
16437
arguments arguments (an empty tuple if there were none).
16439
(b) define a function of two arguments, and call it with more
16440
than two arguments; if there were more than two arguments,
16441
the second argument would be passed as a tuple containing
16442
the second and further actual arguments.
16444
(Note that an argument (formal or actual) that is a tuple is counted as
16445
one; these rules don't apply inside such tuples, only at the top level
16446
of the argument list.)
16448
Case (a) was needed to accommodate variable-length argument lists;
16449
there is now an explicit "varargs" feature (precede the last argument
16450
with a '*'). Case (b) was needed for compatibility with old class
16451
definitions: up to release 0.9.4 a method with more than one argument
16452
had to be declared as "def meth(self, (arg1, arg2, ...)): ...".
16453
Version 0.9.6 provide better ways to handle both casees, bot provided
16454
backward compatibility; version 0.9.8 retracts the compatibility hacks
16455
since they also cause confusing behavior if a function is called with
16456
the wrong number of arguments.
16458
There's a script that helps converting classes that still rely on (b),
16459
provided their methods' first argument is called "self":
16460
demo/scripts/methfix.py.
16462
If this change breaks lots of code you have developed locally, try
16463
#defining COMPAT_HACKS in ceval.c.
16465
(There's a third compatibility hack, which is the reverse of (a): if a
16466
function is defined with two or more arguments, and called with a
16467
single argument that is a tuple with just as many arguments, the items
16468
of this tuple will be used as the arguments. Although this can (and
16469
should!) be done using the built-in function apply() instead, it isn't
16473
One minor change: comparing instance methods works like expected, so
16474
that if x is an instance of a user-defined class and has a method m,
16475
then (x.m==x.m) yields 1.
16478
The following was already present in 0.9.7beta, but not explicitly
16479
mentioned in the NEWS file: user-defined classes can now define types
16480
that behave in almost allrespects like numbers. See
16481
demo/classes/Rat.py for a simple example.
16484
Changes to the build process
16485
----------------------------
16487
The Configure.py script and the Makefile has been made somewhat more
16488
bullet-proof, after reports of (minor) trouble on certain platforms.
16490
There is now a script to patch Makefile and config.c to add a new
16491
optional built-in module: Addmodule.sh. Read the script before using!
16493
Useing Addmodule.sh, all optional modules can now be configured at
16494
compile time using Configure.py, so there are no modules left that
16495
require dynamic loading.
16497
The Makefile has been fixed to make it easier to use with the VPATH
16498
feature of some Make versions (e.g. SunOS).
16501
Changes affecting portability
16502
-----------------------------
16504
Several minor portability problems have been solved, e.g. "malloc.h"
16505
has been renamed to "mymalloc.h", "strdup.c" is no longer used, and
16506
the system now tolerates malloc(0) returning 0.
16508
For dynamic loading on the SGI, Jack Jansen's dl 1.6 is now
16509
distributed with Python. This solves several minor problems, in
16510
particular scripts invoked using #! can now use dynamic loading.
16513
Changes to the interpreter interface
16514
------------------------------------
16516
On popular demand, there's finally a "profile" feature for interactive
16517
use of the interpreter. If the environment variable $PYTHONSTARTUP is
16518
set to the name of an existing file, Python statements in this file
16519
are executed when the interpreter is started in interactive mode.
16521
There is a new clean-up mechanism, complementing try...finally: if you
16522
assign a function object to sys.exitfunc, it will be called when
16523
Python exits or receives a SIGTERM or SIGHUP signal.
16525
The interpreter is now generally assumed to live in
16526
/usr/local/bin/python (as opposed to /usr/local/python). The script
16527
demo/scripts/fixps.py will update old scripts in place (you can easily
16528
modify it to do other similar changes).
16530
Most I/O that uses sys.stdin/stdout/stderr will now use any object
16531
assigned to those names as long as the object supports readline() or
16534
The parser stack has been increased to 500 to accommodate more
16535
complicated expressions (7 levels used to be the practical maximum,
16536
it's now about 38).
16538
The limit on the size of the *run-time* stack has completely been
16539
removed -- this means that tuple or list displays can contain any
16540
number of elements (formerly more than 50 would crash the
16544
Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
16545
--------------------------------------------------
16547
The built-in functions int(), long(), float(), oct() and hex() now
16548
also apply to class instalces that define corresponding methods
16552
New built-in functions
16553
----------------------
16555
The new functions str() and repr() convert any object to a string.
16556
The function repr(x) is in all respects equivalent to `x` -- some
16557
people prefer a function for this. The function str(x) does the same
16558
except if x is already a string -- then it returns x unchanged
16559
(repr(x) adds quotes and escapes "funny" characters as octal escapes).
16561
The new function cmp(x, y) returns -1 if x<y, 0 if x==y, 1 if x>y.
16564
Changes to general built-in modules
16565
-----------------------------------
16567
The time module's functions are more general: time() returns a
16568
floating point number and sleep() accepts one. Their accuracies
16569
depends on the precision of the system clock. Millisleep is no longer
16570
needed (although it still exists for now), but millitimer is still
16571
needed since on some systems wall clock time is only available with
16572
seconds precision, while a source of more precise time exists that
16573
isn't synchronized with the wall clock. (On UNIX systems that support
16574
the BSD gettimeofday() function, time.time() is as time.millitimer().)
16576
The string representation of a file object now includes an address:
16577
'<file 'filename', mode 'r' at #######>' where ###### is a hex number
16578
(the object's address) to make it unique.
16580
New functions added to posix: nice(), setpgrp(), and if your system
16581
supports them: setsid(), setpgid(), tcgetpgrp(), tcsetpgrp().
16583
Improvements to the socket module: socket objects have new methods
16584
getpeername() and getsockname(), and the {get,set}sockopt methods can
16585
now get/set any kind of option using strings built with the new struct
16586
module. And there's a new function fromfd() which creates a socket
16587
object given a file descriptor (useful for servers started by inetd,
16588
which have a socket connected to stdin and stdout).
16591
Changes to SGI-specific built-in modules
16592
----------------------------------------
16594
The FORMS library interface (fl) now requires FORMS 2.1a. Some new
16595
functions have been added and some bugs have been fixed.
16597
Additions to al (audio library interface): added getname(),
16598
getdefault() and getminmax().
16600
The gl modules doesn't call "foreground()" when initialized (this
16601
caused some problems) like it dit in 0.9.7beta (but not before).
16602
There's a new gl function 'gversion() which returns a version string.
16604
The interface to sv (Indigo video interface) has totally changed.
16605
(Sorry, still no documentation, but see the examples in
16606
demo/sgi/{sv,video}.)
16609
Changes to standard library modules
16610
-----------------------------------
16612
Most functions in module string are now much faster: they're actually
16613
implemented in C. The module containing the C versions is called
16614
"strop" but you should still import "string" since strop doesn't
16615
provide all the interfaces defined in string (and strop may be renamed
16616
to string when it is complete in a future release).
16618
string.index() now accepts an optional third argument giving an index
16619
where to start searching in the first argument, so you can find second
16620
and further occurrences (this is similar to the regular expression
16621
functions in regex).
16623
The definition of what string.splitfields(anything, '') should return
16624
is changed for the last time: it returns a singleton list containing
16625
its whole first argument unchanged. This is compatible with
16626
regsub.split() which also ignores empty delimiter matches.
16628
posixpath, macpath: added dirname() and normpath() (and basename() to
16631
The mainloop module (for use with stdwin) can now demultiplex input
16632
from other sources, as long as they can be polled with select().
16635
New built-in modules
16636
--------------------
16638
Module struct defines functions to pack/unpack values to/from strings
16639
representing binary values in native byte order.
16641
Module strop implements C versions of many functions from string (see
16644
Optional module fcntl defines interfaces to fcntl() and ioctl() --
16645
UNIX only. (Not yet properly documented -- see however src/fcntl.doc.)
16647
Optional module mpz defines an interface to an altaernative long
16648
integer implementation, the GNU MPZ library.
16650
Optional module md5 uses the GNU MPZ library to calculate MD5
16651
signatures of strings.
16653
There are also optional new modules specific to SGI machines: imageop
16654
defines some simple operations to images represented as strings; sv
16655
interfaces to the Indigo video board; cl interfaces to the (yet
16656
unreleased) compression library.
16659
New standard library modules
16660
----------------------------
16662
(Unfortunately the following modules are not all documented; read the
16663
sources to find out more about them!)
16665
autotest: run testall without showing any output unless it differs
16666
from the expected output
16668
bisect: use bisection to insert or find an item in a sorted list
16670
colorsys: defines conversions between various color systems (e.g. RGB
16673
nntplib: a client interface to NNTP servers
16675
pipes: utility to construct pipeline from templates, e.g. for
16676
conversion from one file format to another using several utilities.
16678
regsub: contains three functions that are more or less compatible with
16679
awk functions of the same name: sub() and gsub() do string
16680
substitution, split() splits a string using a regular expression to
16681
define how separators are define.
16683
test_types: test operations on the built-in types of Python
16685
toaiff: convert various audio file formats to AIFF format
16687
tzparse: parse the TZ environment parameter (this may be less general
16688
than it could be, let me know if you fix it).
16690
(Note that the obsolete module "path" no longer exists.)
16693
New SGI-specific library modules
16694
--------------------------------
16696
CL: constants for use with the built-in compression library interface (cl)
16698
Queue: a multi-producer, multi-consumer queue class implemented for
16699
use with the built-in thread module
16701
SOCKET: constants for use with built-in module socket, e.g. to set/get
16702
socket options. This is SGI-specific because the constants to be
16703
passed are system-dependent. You can generate a version for your own
16704
system by running the script demo/scripts/h2py.py with
16705
/usr/include/sys/socket.h as input.
16707
cddb: interface to the database used by the CD player
16709
torgb: convert various image file types to rgb format (requires pbmplus)
16715
There's an experimental interface to define Sun RPC clients and
16716
servers in demo/rpc.
16718
There's a collection of interfaces to WWW, WAIS and Gopher (both
16719
Python classes and program providing a user interface) in demo/www.
16720
This includes a program texi2html.py which converts texinfo files to
16721
HTML files (the format used hy WWW).
16723
The ibrowse demo has moved from demo/stdwin/ibrowse to demo/ibrowse.
16725
For SGI systems, there's a whole collection of programs and classes
16726
that make use of the Indigo video board in demo/sgi/{sv,video}. This
16727
represents a significant amount of work that we're giving away!
16729
There are demos "rsa" and "md5test" that exercise the mpz and md5
16730
modules, respectively. The rsa demo is a complete implementation of
16731
the RSA public-key cryptosystem!
16733
A bunch of games and examples submitted by Stoffel Erasmus have been
16734
included in demo/stoffel.
16736
There are miscellaneous new files in some existing demo
16737
subdirectories: classes/bitvec.py, scripts/{fixps,methfix}.py,
16738
sgi/al/cmpaf.py, sockets/{mcast,gopher}.py.
16740
There are also many minor changes to existing files, but I'm too lazy
16741
to run a diff and note the differences -- you can do this yourself if
16742
you save the old distribution's demos. One highlight: the
16743
stdwin/python.py demo is much improved!
16746
Changes to the documentation
16747
----------------------------
16749
The LaTeX source for the library uses different macros to enable it to
16750
be converted to texinfo, and from there to INFO or HTML format so it
16751
can be browsed as a hypertext. The net result is that you can now
16752
read the Python library documentation in Emacs info mode!
16755
Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
16756
----------------------------------------------------------
16758
The function strdup() no longer exists (it was used only in one places
16759
and is somewhat of a a portability problem sice some systems have the
16760
same function in their C library.
16762
The functions NEW() and RENEW() allocate one spare byte to guard
16763
against a NULL return from malloc(0) being taken for an error, but
16764
this should not be relied upon.
16767
=========================
16768
==> Release 0.9.7beta <==
16769
=========================
16772
Changes to the language proper
16773
------------------------------
16775
User-defined classes can now implement operations invoked through
16776
special syntax, such as x[i] or `x` by defining methods named
16777
__getitem__(self, i) or __repr__(self), etc.
16780
Changes to the build process
16781
----------------------------
16783
Instead of extensive manual editing of the Makefile to select
16784
compile-time options, you can now run a Configure.py script.
16785
The Makefile as distributed builds a minimal interpreter sufficient to
16786
run Configure.py. See also misc/BUILD
16788
The Makefile now includes more "utility" targets, e.g. install and
16791
Using the provided strtod.c and strtol.c are now separate options, as
16792
on the Sun the provided strtod.c dumps core :-(
16794
The regex module is now an option chosen by the Makefile, since some
16795
(old) C compilers choke on regexpr.c
16798
Changes affecting portability
16799
-----------------------------
16801
You need STDWIN version 0.9.7 (released 30 June 1992) for the stdwin
16804
Dynamic loading is now supported for Sun (and other non-COFF systems)
16805
throug dld-3.2.3, as well as for SGI (a new version of Jack Jansen's
16808
The system-dependent code for the use of the select() system call is
16809
moved to one file: myselect.h
16811
Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen, the code should now port cleanly to the
16815
Changes to the interpreter interface
16816
------------------------------------
16818
The interpretation of $PYTHONPATH in the environment is different: it
16819
is inserted in front of the default path instead of overriding it
16822
Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
16823
--------------------------------------------------
16825
List objects now support an optional argument to their sort() method,
16826
which is a comparison function similar to qsort(3) in C
16828
File objects now have a method fileno(), used by the new select module
16832
New built-in function
16833
---------------------
16835
coerce(x, y): take two numbers and return a tuple containing them
16836
both converted to a common type
16839
Changes to built-in modules
16840
---------------------------
16842
sys: fixed core dumps in settrace() and setprofile()
16844
socket: added socket methods setsockopt() and getsockopt(); and
16845
fileno(), used by the new select module (see below)
16847
stdwin: added fileno() == connectionnumber(), in support of new module
16850
posix: added get{eg,eu,g,u}id(); waitpid() is now a separate function.
16854
fl: added several new functions, fixed several obscure bugs, adapted
16858
Changes to standard modules
16859
---------------------------
16861
posixpath: changed implementation of ismount()
16863
string: atoi() no longer mistakes leading zero for octal number
16868
New built-in modules
16869
--------------------
16871
Modules marked "dynamic only" are not configured at compile time but
16872
can be loaded dynamically. You need to turn on the DL or DLD option in
16873
the Makefile for support dynamic loading of modules (this requires
16876
select: interfaces to the BSD select() system call
16878
dbm: interfaces to the (new) dbm library (dynamic only)
16880
nis: interfaces to some NIS functions (aka yellow pages)
16882
thread: limited form of multiple threads (sgi only)
16884
audioop: operations useful for audio programs, e.g. u-LAW and ADPCM
16885
coding (dynamic only)
16887
cd: interface to Indigo SCSI CDROM player audio library (sgi only)
16889
jpeg: read files in JPEG format (dynamic only, sgi only; needs
16892
imgfile: read SGI image files (dynamic only, sgi only)
16894
sunaudiodev: interface to sun's /dev/audio (dynamic only, sun only)
16896
sv: interface to Indigo video library (sgi only)
16898
pc: a minimal set of MS-DOS interfaces (MS-DOS only)
16900
rotor: encryption, by Lance Ellinghouse (dynamic only)
16903
New standard modules
16904
--------------------
16906
Not all these modules are documented. Read the source:
16907
lib/<modulename>.py. Sometimes a file lib/<modulename>.doc contains
16908
additional documentation.
16910
imghdr: recognizes image file headers
16912
sndhdr: recognizes sound file headers
16914
profile: print run-time statistics of Python code
16916
readcd, cdplayer: companion modules for built-in module cd (sgi only)
16918
emacs: interface to Emacs using py-connect.el (see below).
16920
SOCKET: symbolic constant definitions for socket options
16922
SUNAUDIODEV: symbolic constant definitions for sunaudiodef (sun only)
16924
SV: symbolic constat definitions for sv (sgi only)
16926
CD: symbolic constat definitions for cd (sgi only)
16932
scripts/pp.py: execute Python as a filter with a Perl-like command
16935
classes/: examples using the new class features
16937
threads/: examples using the new thread module
16939
sgi/cd/: examples using the new cd module
16942
Changes to the documentation
16943
----------------------------
16945
The last-minute syntax changes of release 0.9.6 are now reflected
16946
everywhere in the manuals
16948
The reference manual has a new section (3.2) on implementing new kinds
16949
of numbers, sequences or mappings with user classes
16951
Classes are now treated extensively in the tutorial (chapter 9)
16953
Slightly restructured the system-dependent chapters of the library
16956
The file misc/EXTENDING incorporates documentation for mkvalue() and
16957
a new section on error handling
16959
The files misc/CLASSES and misc/ERRORS are no longer necessary
16961
The doc/Makefile now creates PostScript files automatically
16964
Miscellaneous changes
16965
---------------------
16967
Incorporated Tim Peters' changes to python-mode.el, it's now version
16970
A python/Emacs bridge (provided by Terrence M. Brannon) lets a Python
16971
program running in an Emacs buffer execute Emacs lisp code. The
16972
necessary Python code is in lib/emacs.py. The Emacs code is
16973
misc/py-connect.el (it needs some external Emacs lisp code)
16976
Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
16977
----------------------------------------------------------
16979
New service function mkvalue() to construct a Python object from C
16980
values according to a "format" string a la getargs()
16982
Most functions from pythonmain.c moved to new pythonrun.c which is
16983
in libpython.a. This should make embedded versions of Python easier
16985
ceval.h is split in eval.h (which needs compile.h and only declares
16986
eval_code) and ceval.h (which doesn't need compile.hand declares the
16989
ceval.h defines macros BGN_SAVE / END_SAVE for use with threads (to
16990
improve the parallellism of multi-threaded programs by letting other
16991
Python code run when a blocking system call or something similar is
16994
In structmember.[ch], new member types BYTE, CHAR and unsigned
16995
variants have been added
16997
New file xxmodule.c is a template for new extension modules.
17000
==================================
17001
==> Release 0.9.6 (6 Apr 1992) <==
17002
==================================
17004
Misc news in 0.9.6:
17005
- Restructured the misc subdirectory
17006
- Reference manual completed, library manual much extended (with indexes!)
17007
- the GNU Readline library is now distributed standard with Python
17008
- the script "../demo/scripts/classfix.py" fixes Python modules using old
17010
- Emacs python-mode.el (was python.el) vastly improved (thanks, Tim!)
17011
- Because of the GNU copyleft business I am not using the GNU regular
17012
expression implementation but a free re-implementation by Tatu Ylonen
17013
that recently appeared in comp.sources.misc (Bravo, Tatu!)
17015
New features in 0.9.6:
17016
- stricter try stmt syntax: cannot mix except and finally clauses on 1 try
17017
- New module 'os' supplants modules 'mac' and 'posix' for most cases;
17018
module 'path' is replaced by 'os.path'
17019
- os.path.split() return value differs from that of old path.split()
17020
- sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback are set to the exception
17021
currently being handled
17022
- sys.last_type, sys.last_value, sys.last_traceback remember last unhandled
17024
- New function string.expandtabs() expands tabs in a string
17025
- Added times() interface to posix (user & sys time of process & children)
17026
- Added uname() interface to posix (returns OS type, hostname, etc.)
17027
- New built-in function execfile() is like exec() but from a file
17028
- Functions exec() and eval() are less picky about whitespace/newlines
17029
- New built-in functions getattr() and setattr() access arbitrary attributes
17030
- More generic argument handling in built-in functions (see "./EXTENDING")
17031
- Dynamic loading of modules written in C or C++ (see "./DYNLOAD")
17032
- Division and modulo for long and plain integers with negative operands
17033
have changed; a/b is now floor(float(a)/float(b)) and a%b is defined
17034
as a-(a/b)*b. So now the outcome of divmod(a,b) is the same as
17035
(a/b, a%b) for integers. For floats, % is also changed, but of course
17036
/ is unchanged, and divmod(x,y) does not yield (x/y, x%y)...
17037
- A function with explicit variable-length argument list can be declared
17038
like this: def f(*args): ...; or even like this: def f(a, b, *rest): ...
17039
- Code tracing and profiling features have been added, and two source
17040
code debuggers are provided in the library (pdb.py, tty-oriented,
17041
and wdb, window-oriented); you can now step through Python programs!
17042
See sys.settrace() and sys.setprofile(), and "../lib/pdb.doc"
17043
- '==' is now the only equality operator; "../demo/scripts/eqfix.py" is
17044
a script that fixes old Python modules
17045
- Plain integer right shift now uses sign extension
17046
- Long integer shift/mask operations now simulate 2's complement
17047
to give more useful results for negative operands
17048
- Changed/added range checks for long/plain integer shifts
17049
- Options found after "-c command" are now passed to the command in sys.argv
17050
(note subtle incompatiblity with "python -c command -- -options"!)
17051
- Module stdwin is better protected against touching objects after they've
17052
been closed; menus can now also be closed explicitly
17053
- Stdwin now uses its own exception (stdwin.error)
17055
New features in 0.9.5 (released as Macintosh application only, 2 Jan 1992):
17056
- dictionary objects can now be compared properly; e.g., {}=={} is true
17057
- new exception SystemExit causes termination if not caught;
17058
it is raised by sys.exit() so that 'finally' clauses can clean up,
17059
and it may even be caught. It does work interactively!
17060
- new module "regex" implements GNU Emacs style regular expressions;
17061
module "regexp" is rewritten in Python for backward compatibility
17062
- formal parameter lists may contain trailing commas
17064
Bugs fixed in 0.9.6:
17065
- assigning to or deleting a list item with a negative index dumped core
17066
- divmod(-10L,5L) returned (-3L, 5L) instead of (-2L, 0L)
17068
Bugs fixed in 0.9.5:
17069
- masking operations involving negative long integers gave wrong results
17072
===================================
17073
==> Release 0.9.4 (24 Dec 1991) <==
17074
===================================
17076
- new function argument handling (see below)
17077
- built-in apply(func, args) means func(args[0], args[1], ...)
17078
- new, more refined exceptions
17079
- new exception string values (NameError = 'NameError' etc.)
17080
- better checking for math exceptions
17081
- for sequences (string/tuple/list), x[-i] is now equivalent to x[len(x)-i]
17082
- fixed list assignment bug: "a[1:1] = a" now works correctly
17083
- new class syntax, without extraneous parentheses
17084
- new 'global' statement to assign global variables from within a function
17090
You can now declare a base class as follows:
17092
class B: # Was: class B():
17093
def some_method(self): ...
17096
and a derived class thusly:
17098
class D(B): # Was: class D() = B():
17099
def another_method(self, arg): ...
17101
Multiple inheritance looks like this:
17103
class M(B, D): # Was: class M() = B(), D():
17104
def this_or_that_method(self, arg): ...
17106
The old syntax is still accepted by Python 0.9.4, but will disappear
17107
in Python 1.0 (to be posted to comp.sources).
17110
New 'global' statement
17111
----------------------
17113
Every now and then you have a global variable in a module that you
17114
want to change from within a function in that module -- say, a count
17115
of calls to a function, or an option flag, etc. Until now this was
17116
not directly possible. While several kludges are known that
17117
circumvent the problem, and often the need for a global variable can
17118
be avoided by rewriting the module as a class, this does not always
17119
lead to clearer code.
17121
The 'global' statement solves this dilemma. Its occurrence in a
17122
function body means that, for the duration of that function, the
17123
names listed there refer to global variables. For instance:
17128
def add_to_total(amount):
17129
global total, count
17130
total = total + amount
17133
'global' must be repeated in each function where it is needed. The
17134
names listed in a 'global' statement must not be used in the function
17135
before the statement is reached.
17137
Remember that you don't need to use 'global' if you only want to *use*
17138
a global variable in a function; nor do you need ot for assignments to
17139
parts of global variables (e.g., list or dictionary items or
17140
attributes of class instances). This has not changed; in fact
17141
assignment to part of a global variable was the standard workaround.
17147
Several new exceptions have been defined, to distinguish more clearly
17148
between different types of errors.
17152
AttributeError reference to non-existing attribute NameError
17153
IOError unexpected I/O error RuntimeError
17154
ImportError import of non-existing module or name NameError
17155
IndexError invalid string, tuple or list index RuntimeError
17156
KeyError key not in dictionary RuntimeError
17157
OverflowError numeric overflow RuntimeError
17158
SyntaxError invalid syntax RuntimeError
17159
ValueError invalid argument value RuntimeError
17160
ZeroDivisionError division by zero RuntimeError
17162
The string value of each exception is now its name -- this makes it
17163
easier to experimentally find out which operations raise which
17166
>>> KeyboardInterrupt
17167
'KeyboardInterrupt'
17171
New argument passing semantics
17172
------------------------------
17174
Off-line discussions with Steve Majewski and Daniel LaLiberte have
17175
convinced me that Python's parameter mechanism could be changed in a
17176
way that made both of them happy (I hope), kept me happy, fixed a
17177
number of outstanding problems, and, given some backward compatibility
17178
provisions, would only break a very small amount of existing code --
17179
probably all mine anyway. In fact I suspect that most Python users
17180
will hardly notice the difference. And yet it has cost me at least
17181
one sleepless night to decide to make the change...
17183
Philosophically, the change is quite radical (to me, anyway): a
17184
function is no longer called with either zero or one argument, which
17185
is a tuple if there appear to be more arguments. Every function now
17186
has an argument list containing 0, 1 or more arguments. This list is
17187
always implemented as a tuple, and it is a (run-time) error if a
17188
function is called with a different number of arguments than expected.
17190
What's the difference? you may ask. The answer is, very little unless
17191
you want to write variadic functions -- functions that may be called
17192
with a variable number of arguments. Formerly, you could write a
17193
function that accepted one or more arguments with little trouble, but
17194
writing a function that could be called with either 0 or 1 argument
17195
(or more) was next to impossible. This is now a piece of cake: you
17196
can simply declare an argument that receives the entire argument
17197
tuple, and check its length -- it will be of size 0 if there are no
17200
Another anomaly of the old system was the way multi-argument methods
17201
(in classes) had to be declared, e.g.:
17204
def init(self, (x, y, color)): ...
17205
def setcolor(self, color): ...
17206
dev moveto(self, (x, y)): ...
17207
def draw(self): ...
17209
Using the new scheme there is no need to enclose the method arguments
17210
in an extra set of parentheses, so the above class could become:
17213
def init(self, x, y, color): ...
17214
def setcolor(self, color): ...
17215
dev moveto(self, x, y): ...
17216
def draw(self): ...
17218
That is, the equivalence rule between methods and functions has
17219
changed so that now p.moveto(x,y) is equivalent to Point.moveto(p,x,y)
17220
while formerly it was equivalent to Point.moveto(p,(x,y)).
17222
A special backward compatibility rule makes that the old version also
17223
still works: whenever a function with exactly two arguments (at the top
17224
level) is called with more than two arguments, the second and further
17225
arguments are packed into a tuple and passed as the second argument.
17226
This rule is invoked independently of whether the function is actually a
17227
method, so there is a slight chance that some erroneous calls of
17228
functions expecting two arguments with more than that number of
17229
arguments go undetected at first -- when the function tries to use the
17230
second argument it may find it is a tuple instead of what was expected.
17231
Note that this rule will be removed from future versions of the
17232
language; it is a backward compatibility provision *only*.
17234
Two other rules and a new built-in function handle conversion between
17235
tuples and argument lists:
17237
Rule (a): when a function with more than one argument is called with a
17238
single argument that is a tuple of the right size, the tuple's items
17239
are used as arguments.
17241
Rule (b): when a function with exactly one argument receives no
17242
arguments or more than one, that one argument will receive a tuple
17243
containing the arguments (the tuple will be empty if there were no
17247
A new built-in function, apply(), was added to support functions that
17248
need to call other functions with a constructed argument list. The call
17250
apply(function, tuple)
17254
function(tuple[0], tuple[1], ..., tuple[len(tuple)-1])
17257
While no new argument syntax was added in this phase, it would now be
17258
quite sensible to add explicit syntax to Python for default argument
17259
values (as in C++ or Modula-3), or a "rest" argument to receive the
17260
remaining arguments of a variable-length argument list.
17263
========================================================
17264
==> Release 0.9.3 (never made available outside CWI) <==
17265
========================================================
17267
- string sys.version shows current version (also printed on interactive entry)
17268
- more detailed exceptions, e.g., IOError, ZeroDivisionError, etc.
17269
- 'global' statement to declare module-global variables assigned in functions.
17270
- new class declaration syntax: class C(Base1, Base2, ...): suite
17271
(the old syntax is still accepted -- be sure to convert your classes now!)
17272
- C shifting and masking operators: << >> ~ & ^ | (for ints and longs).
17273
- C comparison operators: == != (the old = and <> remain valid).
17274
- floating point numbers may now start with a period (e.g., .14).
17275
- definition of integer division tightened (always truncates towards zero).
17276
- new builtins hex(x), oct(x) return hex/octal string from (long) integer.
17277
- new list method l.count(x) returns the number of occurrences of x in l.
17278
- new SGI module: al (Indigo and 4D/35 audio library).
17279
- the FORMS interface (modules fl and FL) now uses FORMS 2.0
17280
- module gl: added lrect{read,write}, rectzoom and pixmode;
17281
added (non-GL) functions (un)packrect.
17282
- new socket method: s.allowbroadcast(flag).
17283
- many objects support __dict__, __methods__ or __members__.
17284
- dir() lists anything that has __dict__.
17285
- class attributes are no longer read-only.
17286
- classes support __bases__, instances support __class__ (and __dict__).
17287
- divmod() now also works for floats.
17288
- fixed obscure bug in eval('1 ').
17291
===================================
17292
==> Release 0.9.2 (Autumn 1991) <==
17293
===================================
17298
- tutorial now (almost) complete; library reference reorganized
17299
- new syntax: continue statement; semicolons; dictionary constructors;
17300
restrictions on blank lines in source files removed
17301
- dramatically improved module load time through precompiled modules
17302
- arbitrary precision integers: compute 2 to the power 1000 and more...
17303
- arithmetic operators now accept mixed type operands, e.g., 3.14/4
17304
- more operations on list: remove, index, reverse; repetition
17305
- improved/new file operations: readlines, seek, tell, flush, ...
17306
- process management added to the posix module: fork/exec/wait/kill etc.
17307
- BSD socket operations (with example servers and clients!)
17308
- many new STDWIN features (color, fonts, polygons, ...)
17309
- new SGI modules: font manager and FORMS library interface
17312
Extended list of changes in 0.9.2
17313
---------------------------------
17315
Here is a summary of the most important user-visible changes in 0.9.2,
17316
in somewhat arbitrary order. Changes in later versions are listed in
17317
the "highlights" section above.
17320
1. Changes to the interpreter proper
17322
- Simple statements can now be separated by semicolons.
17323
If you write "if t: s1; s2", both s1 and s2 are executed
17325
- The 'continue' statement was added, with semantics as in C.
17326
- Dictionary displays are now allowed on input: {key: value, ...}.
17327
- Blank lines and lines bearing only a comment no longer need to
17328
be indented properly. (A completely empty line still ends a multi-
17329
line statement interactively.)
17330
- Mixed arithmetic is supported, 1 compares equal to 1.0, etc.
17331
- Option "-c command" to execute statements from the command line
17332
- Compiled versions of modules are cached in ".pyc" files, giving a
17333
dramatic improvement of start-up time
17334
- Other, smaller speed improvements, e.g., extracting characters from
17335
strings, looking up single-character keys, and looking up global
17337
- Interrupting a print operation raises KeyboardInterrupt instead of
17338
only cancelling the print operation
17339
- Fixed various portability problems (it now passes gcc with only
17340
warnings -- more Standard C compatibility will be provided in later
17342
- Source is prepared for porting to MS-DOS
17343
- Numeric constants are now checked for overflow (this requires
17344
standard-conforming strtol() and strtod() functions; a correct
17345
strtol() implementation is provided, but the strtod() provided
17346
relies on atof() for everything, including error checking
17349
2. Changes to the built-in types, functions and modules
17351
- New module socket: interface to BSD socket primitives
17352
- New modules pwd and grp: access the UNIX password and group databases
17353
- (SGI only:) New module "fm" interfaces to the SGI IRIX Font Manager
17354
- (SGI only:) New module "fl" interfaces to Mark Overmars' FORMS library
17355
- New numeric type: long integer, for unlimited precision
17356
- integer constants suffixed with 'L' or 'l' are long integers
17357
- new built-in function long(x) converts int or float to long
17358
- int() and float() now also convert from long integers
17359
- New built-in function:
17360
- pow(x, y) returns x to the power y
17361
- New operation and methods for lists:
17362
- l*n returns a new list consisting of n concatenated copies of l
17363
- l.remove(x) removes the first occurrence of the value x from l
17364
- l.index(x) returns the index of the first occurrence of x in l
17365
- l.reverse() reverses l in place
17366
- New operation for tuples:
17367
- t*n returns a tuple consisting of n concatenated copies of t
17368
- Improved file handling:
17369
- f.readline() no longer restricts the line length, is faster,
17370
and isn't confused by null bytes; same for raw_input()
17371
- f.read() without arguments reads the entire (rest of the) file
17372
- mixing of print and sys.stdout.write() has different effect
17373
- New methods for files:
17374
- f.readlines() returns a list containing the lines of the file,
17375
as read with f.readline()
17376
- f.flush(), f.tell(), f.seek() call their stdio counterparts
17377
- f.isatty() tests for "tty-ness"
17378
- New posix functions:
17379
- _exit(), exec(), fork(), getpid(), getppid(), kill(), wait()
17380
- popen() returns a file object connected to a pipe
17381
- utime() replaces utimes() (the latter is not a POSIX name)
17382
- New stdwin features, including:
17385
- scroll bars made optional
17387
- filled and xor shapes
17388
- text editing objects now have a 'settext' method
17391
3. Changes to the standard library
17393
- Name change: the functions path.cat and macpath.cat are now called
17394
path.join and macpath.join
17395
- Added new modules: formatter, mutex, persist, sched, mainloop
17396
- Added some modules and functionality to the "widget set" (which is
17397
still under development, so please bear with me):
17398
DirList, FormSplit, TextEdit, WindowSched
17399
- Fixed module testall to work non-interactively
17401
- added functions join() and joinfields()
17402
- fixed center() to work correct and make it "transitive"
17403
- Obsolete modules were removed: util, minmax
17404
- Some modules were moved to the demo directory
17407
4. Changes to the demonstration programs
17409
- Added new useful scipts: byteyears, eptags, fact, from, lfact,
17410
objgraph, pdeps, pi, primes, ptags, which
17411
- Added a bunch of socket demos
17412
- Doubled the speed of ptags
17413
- Added new stdwin demos: microedit, miniedit
17414
- Added a windowing interface to the Python interpreter: python (most
17416
- Added a browser for Emacs info files: demo/stdwin/ibrowse
17417
(yes, I plan to put all STDWIN and Python documentation in texinfo
17418
form in the future)
17421
5. Other changes to the distribution
17423
- An Emacs Lisp file "python.el" is provided to facilitate editing
17424
Python programs in GNU Emacs (slightly improved since posted to
17426
- Some info on writing an extension in C is provided
17427
- Some info on building Python on non-UNIX platforms is provided
17430
=====================================
17431
==> Release 0.9.1 (February 1991) <==
17432
=====================================
17434
- Micro changes only
17435
- Added file "patchlevel.h"
17438
=====================================
17439
==> Release 0.9.0 (February 1991) <==
17440
=====================================
17442
Original posting to alt.sources.