executive summary:
Instead of typing 'apply(f, args, kwargs)' you can type 'f(*arg, **kwargs)'.
Some file-by-file details follow.
Grammar/Grammar:
simplify varargslist, replacing '*' '*' with '**'
add * & ** options to arglist
Include/opcode.h & Lib/dis.py:
define three new opcodes
CALL_FUNCTION_VAR
CALL_FUNCTION_KW
CALL_FUNCTION_VAR_KW
Python/ceval.c:
extend TypeError "keyword parameter redefined" message to include
the name of the offending keyword
reindent CALL_FUNCTION using four spaces
add handling of sequences and dictionaries using extend calls
fix function import_from to use PyErr_Format
dis() still disassembles the last frame of the lats stack trace.
dis(x) disassembles x, which may be a code object, function, or method.
disassemble(co, [lasti]) disassembles a code object; the lasti
argument is now optional.
disco(...) is an alias for disassemble(...), for backward compatibility.
negative start indices starting from the right.
* ftplib.py: debug() -> set_debuglevel(); change demo to use __init__().
* os.py: added execl, execlp, and execvp.
* lambda.py: removed (now that we have built-in map, reduce, bagof, lambda)
* test_b{1,2}.py, testall.out: added tests for bagof, lambda, map, reduce
* commands.py: use os, not posix
* test_grammar.py: make it easy to disable non-portable int overflow tests
* dis.py: don't abuse range()
Guido van Rossum
Jeremy Hylton