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Code Issues Releases Wiki Activity

Reordered the news to make it more accessible. Also removed some dups.

This commit is contained in:
Guido van Rossum 1998-08-11 18:42:26 +00:00
parent e528458155
commit 27b3bc3fbf
1 changed files with 228 additions and 194 deletions
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422
Misc/NEWS
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@ -32,6 +32,10 @@ Ctrl-Z) to exit.
- New and improved Misc/python-mode.el (Python mode for Emacs).
- Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag. It turned
out to be a bad idea.
Miscellaneous fixed bugs
------------------------
@ -44,19 +48,25 @@ __getattr__ method).
- Removed the only use of calloc(). This triggered an obscure bug on
multiprocessor Sparc Solaris 2.6.
- Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
(believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
- Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and some other cases).
Documentation
-------------
- Doc strings have been added to many extension modules: __builtin__,
errno, select, signal, socket, sys, thread, time. Also to methods of
list objects (try [].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now
automatically be propagated to an instance if the instance has methods
that are accessed in the usual way.
- The documentation has been expanded and the formatting improved.
(Remember that the documentation is now unbundled and has its own
release cycle though; see http://www.python.org/doc/.)
- Doc strings have been added to many modules: socket, signal, select,
time, thread, sys, __builtin__. Also to methods of list objects (try
[].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now automatically be
propagated to an instance if the instance has methods that are
accessed in the usual way.
- Added Misc/Porting -- a mini-FAQ on porting to a new platform.
Ports and build procedure
@ -73,28 +83,21 @@ Ports and build procedure
works, it won't also use -Olimit 1500 (which gives a warning for every
file). Also support the SGI_ABI environment variable better.
- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
Makefiles.
- The makesetup script now understands absolute pathnames ending in .o
in the module -- it assumes it's a file for which we have no source.
- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
Makefiles.
- The test suite now uses a different sound sample.
Built-in functions and exceptions
---------------------------------
Built-in functions
------------------
- Better checks for invalid input to int(), long(), string.atoi(),
string.atol(). (Formerly, a sign without digits would be accepted as
a legal ways to spell zero.)
- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError;
EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
filename argument now use this.
- Changes to map() and filter() to use the length of a sequence only
as a hint -- if an IndexError happens earlier, take that. (Formerly,
this was considered an error.)
@ -105,12 +108,31 @@ default (instead of raising AttributeError).
- Implement round() slightly different, so that for negative ndigits
no additional errors happen in the last step.
Built-in types and statements
-----------------------------
- The open() function now adds the filename to the exception when it
fails.
- Changes to comparisons: numbers now compare smaller than any other
type. This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < []
is true. As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
Built-in exceptions
-------------------
- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError.
EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
filename argument now use this.
Built-in types
--------------
- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
i. Also, the sort() method is faster again. Sorting is now also
safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
while the sort is going on (which could cause core dumps).
- Changes to comparisons: numbers are now smaller than any other type.
This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < [] is
true. As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
negative. This *shouldn't* affect any working code, but I've found
that the change caused several "sleeping" bugs to become active, so
beware!
@ -125,47 +147,52 @@ now allowed (with stringent type checks); also allow assignment to
__getattr__ etc. The cached values for __getattr__ etc. are
recomputed after such assignments (but not for derived classes :-( ).
- New, better performing sort() method for list objects.
- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
i. Also, the sort() method is faster again. Sorting is now also
safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
while the sort is going on (this could cause core dumps).
- Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and other spurious bugs).
- Allow assignment to some attributes of function objects: func_code,
func_defaults and func_doc / __doc__. (With type checks except for
__doc__ / func_doc .)
- Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
(believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
Library modules
Python services
---------------
- New tests (in Lib/test): reperf.py (regular expression benchmark),
sortperf.py (list sorting benchmark), test_MimeWriter.py (test case
for the MimeWriter module).
- New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames(). New
variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac. Do *not* use
this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
will always be '\n'!
- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
packages.
- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
stat return tuple.
- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
compliance, for picky servers.
- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
of regular file objects.
- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
IndexError when there are no more completions left.
- Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
input. (It's still not foolproof!)
- In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
"contains" for "sequenceincludes".
String Services
---------------
- In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
occurrences of a given substring.
- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
result in long integer values.
Miscellaneous services
----------------------
- In whrandom.py, added new method and function randrange(), same as
choice(range(start, stop, step)) but faster. This addresses the
@ -177,12 +204,73 @@ adding extra range and type checking to its arguments!
crash when invoked from separate threads; now the worst it can do is
give a duplicate result occasionally).
- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name. No
longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
- In getpass.py, don't use raw_input() to ask for the password -- we
don't want it to show up in the readline history! Also don't catch
interrupts (the try-finally already does all necessary cleanup).
- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
packages.
Generic OS Services
-------------------
- New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames(). New
variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac. Do *not* use
this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
will always be '\n'!
- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
stat return tuple.
- In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists. (This parses a
time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().) Also,
remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
formatting of some non-local times.
- In the socket module, added a new function gethostbyname_ex().
Also, don't use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some
platforms (and should exist everywhere).
Optional OS Services
--------------------
- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
of regular file objects. Also, it didn't work together with cPickle;
fixed that.
- In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
- In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
which module to use to open it. (The anydbm.error exception is now a
tuple.)
Unix Services
-------------
- In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
calling tcgetattr().
- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions to
the posix module (and thus to the os module): WEXITSTATUS(),
WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(), WTERMSIG().
- In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
(matching the docs).
Debugger
--------
- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
been loaded yet.
Internet Protocols and Support
------------------------------
- Changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote(). Fixed an
obscure bug in quote_plus(). Added urlencode(dict) -- convenience
@ -191,38 +279,6 @@ module to ask for a password. Rewrote the (test) main program so that
when used as a script, it can retrieve one or more URLs to stdout.
Use -t to run the self-test. Made the proxy code work again.
- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
been loaded yet.
- In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList. Also support a new
overridable method, isheader(). Also add a get() method similar to
dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it). Also, be smarter
about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
unread() method before trying seeks.
- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
occurrences of a given substring.
- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
long ago. Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
separator.
- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name. No
longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py.
- In cgi.py, treat "HEAD" the same as "GET", so that CGI scripts don't
fail when someone asks for their HEAD. Also, for POST, set the
default content-type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Also, in
@ -230,64 +286,38 @@ FieldStorage.__init__(), when method='GET', always get the query
string from environ['QUERY_STRING'] or sys.argv[1] -- ignore an
explicitly passed in fp.
- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
compliance, for picky servers.
- Improved imaplib.py.
- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
- In multifile.py, support a seekable flag.
- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py, which never worked.
- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
IndexError when there are no more completions left.
- In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
- The gzip.py module didn't work together with cPickle. Fixed.
- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py (it never worked).
- Fixed a small bug in CGIHTTPServer.py.
- In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
Internet Data handling
----------------------
- In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
which module to use to open it. (The anydbm.error exception is now a
tuple.)
- In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList. Also support a new
overridable method, isheader(). Also add a get() method similar to
dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it). Also, be smarter
about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
unread() method before trying seeks.
Extension modules
-----------------
- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
long ago. Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
separator.
- In the socket module: new function gethostbyname_ex(). Also, don't
use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some platforms
(and should exist everywhere).
- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py; support
a 'seekable' flag.
- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions:
WEXITSTATUS(), WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(),
WTERMSIG().
Restricted Execution
--------------------
- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
result in long integer values.
- In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
calling tcgetattr().
- In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists. (This parses a
time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().) Also,
remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
formatting of some non-local times.
- Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
input. (It's still not foolproof!)
- In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
"contains" for "sequenceincludes".
- In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
(matching the docs).
- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
Tkinter
-------
@ -330,48 +360,67 @@ extension that needs to make calls into the Tcl/Tk C API and needs to
get the address of the Tcl interpreter object. A simple cast of the
return value to (Tcl_Interp *) will do the trick.
Windows
-------
- The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be
resynchronized.
- The project files have been moved so they are distributed in the
same subdirectory (PCbuild) where they must be used; this avoids
confusion.
- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive.
Windows General
---------------
- Don't insist on proper case for module source files if the filename
is all uppercase (e.g. FOO.PY now matches foo; but FOO.py still
doesn't). This should address problems with this feature on
oldfashioned filesystems (Novell servers?).
Windows Library
---------------
- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive,
and the putenv() calls made as a side effect of changing os.environ
are case preserving.
- Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
wouldn't know how).
- Fixed os.pipe() so that it returns file descriptors acceptable to
os.read() and os.write() (like it does on Unix), rather than Windows
file handles.
- In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the heap.
- Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
- In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the
heap.
- The getpass module now raises KeyboardInterrupt when it sees ^C.
- Changes to os.py: os.environ now upcases keys before storing them on
Windows, DOS and OS/2.
- In mailbox.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
- In rfc822.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
- Several improvements to freeze (mostly, but not exclusively for
Windows).
- In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche(). Also fix a
bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
argument list.
- Moved the VC++ project files and the WISE installer script from PC
to PCbuild.
Windows Installer
-----------------
- The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be
resynchronized.
Windows Tools
-------------
- Several improvements to freeze specifically for Windows.
Windows Build Procedure
-----------------------
- The VC++ project files and the WISE installer have been moved to the
PCbuild subdirectory, so they are distributed in the same subdirectory
where they must be used. This avoids confusion.
- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
- The projects now use distinct filenames for the .exe, .dll, .lib and
.pyd files built in debug mode (by appending "_d" to the base name,
@ -380,27 +429,10 @@ and get the right versions. There's a pragma in config.h that directs
the linker to include the appropriate .lib file (so python15.lib no
longer needs to be explicit in your project).
- In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche(). Also fix a
bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
argument list.
- Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag. It turned
out to be a bad idea.
- The installer now installs more files (e.g. config.h). The idea is
that you shouldn't need the source distribution if you want build your
own extensions in C or C++.
- Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
- Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
- Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
wouldn't know how).
Tools and Demos
---------------
@ -429,18 +461,7 @@ Python/C API
- Added missing prototypes for PyEval_CallFunction() and
PyEval_CallMethod().
- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
your compiler supports it.
- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
etc. are sought).
- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_Lis(t) to use the
length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
- New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
- New macros to access object members for PyFunction, PyCFunction
objects.
@ -452,11 +473,12 @@ dynamically add one or many entries to the table of built-in modules.
Py_InitModule4() with appropriate arguments. (The -4 variant requires
you to pass an obscure version number constant which is always the same.)
- Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
many error checking bugs.
- New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface. (Used in
_tkinter.c, for example.)
- Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
your compiler supports it.
- PySequence_In() is now called PySequence_Contains().
(PySequence_In() is still supported for b/w compatibility; it is
@ -467,11 +489,23 @@ declared obsolete because its argument order is confusing.)
the error). This was necessary because there is lots of code out
there that already assumes this.
- New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface. (Used in
_tkinter.c, for example.)
- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_List() to use the
length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
- New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
- Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
many error checking bugs.
- Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
etc. are sought).
- Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
======================================================================