mirror of https://github.com/python/cpython
2060 lines
75 KiB
Plaintext
2060 lines
75 KiB
Plaintext
Python history
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--------------
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This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases
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(slightly edited to adapt them to the format of this file). As you
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read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history.
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====================================
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==> Release 1.0.3 (14 July 1994) <==
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====================================
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This release consists entirely of bug fixes to the C sources; see the
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head of ../ChangeLog for a complete list. Most important bugs fixed:
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- Sometimes the format operator (string%expr) would drop the last
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character of the format string
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- Tokenizer looped when last line did not end in \n
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- Bug when triple-quoted string ended in quote plus newline
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- Typo in socketmodule (listen) (== instead of =)
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- typing vars() at the >>> prompt would cause recursive output
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==================================
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==> Release 1.0.2 (4 May 1994) <==
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==================================
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Overview of the most visible changes. Bug fixes are not listed. See
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also ChangeLog.
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Tokens
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------
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* String literals follow Standard C rules: they may be continued on
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the next line using a backslash; adjacent literals are concatenated
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at compile time.
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* A new kind of string literals, surrounded by triple quotes (""" or
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'''), can be continued on the next line without a backslash.
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Syntax
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------
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* Function arguments may have a default value, e.g. def f(a, b=1);
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defaults are evaluated at function definition time. This also applies
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to lambda.
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* The try-except statement has an optional else clause, which is
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executed when no exception occurs in the try clause.
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Interpreter
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-----------
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* The result of a statement-level expression is no longer printed,
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except_ for expressions entered interactively. Consequently, the -k
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command line option is gone.
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* The result of the last printed interactive expression is assigned to
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the variable '_'.
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* Access to implicit global variables has been speeded up by removing
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an always-failing dictionary lookup in the dictionary of local
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variables (mod suggested by Steve Makewski and Tim Peters).
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* There is a new command line option, -u, to force stdout and stderr
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to be unbuffered.
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* Incorporated Steve Majewski's mods to import.c for dynamic loading
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under AIX.
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* Fewer chances of dumping core when trying to reload or re-import
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static built-in, dynamically loaded built-in, or frozen modules.
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* Loops over sequences now don't ask for the sequence's length when
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they start, but try to access items 0, 1, 2, and so on until they hit
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an IndexError. This makes it possible to create classes that generate
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infinite or indefinite sequences a la Steve Majewski. This affects
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for loops, the (not) in operator, and the built-in functions filter(),
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map(), max(), min(), reduce().
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Changed Built-in operations
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---------------------------
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* The '%' operator on strings (printf-style formatting) supports a new
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feature (adapted from a patch by Donald Beaudry) to allow
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'%(<key>)<format>' % {...} to take values from a dictionary by name
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instead of from a tuple by position (see also the new function
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vars()).
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* The '%s' formatting operator is changed to accept any type and
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convert it to a string using str().
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* Dictionaries with more than 20,000 entries can now be created
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(thanks to Steve Kirsch).
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New Built-in Functions
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----------------------
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* vars() returns a dictionary containing the local variables; vars(m)
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returns a dictionary containing the variables of module m. Note:
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dir(x) is now equivalent to vars(x).keys().
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Changed Built-in Functions
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--------------------------
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* open() has an optional third argument to specify the buffer size: 0
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for unbuffered, 1 for line buffered, >1 for explicit buffer size, <0
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for default.
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* open()'s second argument is now optional; it defaults to "r".
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* apply() now checks that its second argument is indeed a tuple.
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New Built-in Modules
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--------------------
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Changed Built-in Modules
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------------------------
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The thread module no longer supports exit_prog().
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New Python Modules
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------------------
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* Module addpack contains a standard interface to modify sys.path to
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find optional packages (groups of related modules).
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* Module urllib contains a number of functions to access
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World-Wide-Web files specified by their URL.
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* Module httplib implements the client side of the HTTP protocol used
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by World-Wide-Web servers.
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* Module gopherlib implements the client side of the Gopher protocol.
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* Module mailbox (by Jack Jansen) contains a parser for UNIX and MMDF
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style mailbox files.
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* Module random contains various random distributions, e.g. gauss().
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* Module lockfile locks and unlocks open files using fcntl (inspired
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by a similar module by Andy Bensky).
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* Module ntpath (by Jaap Vermeulen) implements path operations for
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Windows/NT.
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* Module test_thread (in Lib/test) contains a small test set for the
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thread module.
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Changed Python Modules
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----------------------
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* The string module's expandvars() function is now documented and is
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implemented in Python (using regular expressions) instead of forking
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off a shell process.
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* Module rfc822 now supports accessing the header fields using the
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mapping/dictionary interface, e.g. h['subject'].
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* Module pdb now makes it possible to set a break on a function
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(syntax: break <expression>, where <expression> yields a function
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object).
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Changed Demos
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-------------
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* The Demo/scripts/freeze.py script is working again (thanks to Jaap
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Vermeulen).
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New Demos
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---------
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* Demo/threads/Generator.py is a proposed interface for restartable
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functions a la Tim Peters.
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* Demo/scripts/newslist.py, by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, generates a
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directory full of HTML pages which between them contain links to all
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the newsgroups available on your server.
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* Demo/dns contains a DNS (Domain Name Server) client.
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* Demo/lutz contains miscellaneous demos by Mark Lutz (e.g. psh.py, a
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nice enhanced Python shell!!!).
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* Demo/turing contains a Turing machine by Amrit Prem.
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Documentation
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-------------
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* Documented new language features mentioned above (but not all new
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modules).
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* Added a chapter to the Tutorial describing recent additions to
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Python.
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* Clarified some sentences in the reference manual,
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e.g. break/continue, local/global scope, slice assignment.
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Source Structure
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----------------
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* Moved Include/tokenizer.h to Parser/tokenizer.h.
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* Added Python/getopt.c for systems that don't have it.
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Emacs mode
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----------
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* Indentation of continuated lines is done more intelligently;
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consequently the variable py-continuation-offset is gone.
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========================================
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==> Release 1.0.1 (15 February 1994) <==
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========================================
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* Many portability fixes should make it painless to build Python on
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several new platforms, e.g. NeXT, SEQUENT, WATCOM, DOS, and Windows.
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* Fixed test for <stdarg.h> -- this broke on some platforms.
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* Fixed test for shared library dynalic loading -- this broke on SunOS
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4.x using the GNU loader.
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* Changed order and number of SVR4 networking libraries (it is now
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-lsocket -linet -lnsl, if these libraries exist).
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* Installing the build intermediate stages with "make libainstall" now
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also installs config.c.in, Setup and makesetup, which are used by the
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new Extensions mechanism.
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* Improved README file contains more hints and new troubleshooting
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section.
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* The built-in module strop now defines fast versions of three more
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functions of the standard string module: atoi(), atol() and atof().
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The strop versions of atoi() and atol() support an optional second
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argument to specify the base (default 10). NOTE: you don't have to
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explicitly import strop to use the faster versions -- the string
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module contains code to let versions from stop override the default
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versions.
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* There is now a working Lib/dospath.py for those who use Python under
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DOS (or Windows). Thanks, Jaap!
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* There is now a working Modules/dosmodule.c for DOS (or Windows)
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system calls.
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* Lib.os.py has been reorganized (making it ready for more operating
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systems).
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* Lib/ospath.py is now obsolete (use os.path instead).
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* Many fixes to the tutorial to make it match Python 1.0. Thanks,
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Tim!
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* Fixed Doc/Makefile, Doc/README and various scripts there.
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* Added missing description of fdopen to Doc/libposix.tex.
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* Made cleanup() global, for the benefit of embedded applications.
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* Added parsing of addresses and dates to Lib/rfc822.py.
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* Small fixes to Lib/aifc.py, Lib/sunau.py, Lib/tzparse.py to make
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them usable at all.
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* New module Lib/wave.py reads RIFF (*.wav) audio files.
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* Module Lib/filewin.py moved to Lib/stdwin/filewin.py where it
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belongs.
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* New options and comments for Modules/makesetup (used by new
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Extension mechanism).
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* Misc/HYPE contains text of announcement of 1.0.0 in comp.lang.misc
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and elsewhere.
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* Fixed coredump in filter(None, 'abcdefg').
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=======================================
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==> Release 1.0.0 (26 January 1994) <==
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=======================================
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As is traditional, so many things have changed that I can't pretend to
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be complete in these release notes, but I'll try anyway :-)
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Note that the very last section is labeled "remaining bugs".
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Source organization and build process
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-------------------------------------
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* The sources have finally been split: instead of a single src
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subdirectory there are now separate directories Include, Parser,
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Grammar, Objects, Python and Modules. Other directories also start
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with a capital letter: Misc, Doc, Lib, Demo.
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* A few extensions (notably Amoeba and X support) have been moved to a
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separate subtree Extensions, which is no longer in the core
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distribution, but separately ftp'able as extensions.tar.Z. (The
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distribution contains a placeholder Ext-dummy with a description of
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the Extensions subtree as well as the most recent versions of the
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scripts used there.)
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* A few large specialized demos (SGI video and www) have been
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moved to a separate subdirectory Demo2, which is no longer in the core
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distribution, but separately ftp'able as demo2.tar.Z.
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* Parts of the standard library have been moved to subdirectories:
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there are now standard subdirectories stdwin, test, sgi and sun4.
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* The configuration process has radically changed: I now use GNU
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autoconf. This makes it much easier to build on new Unix flavors, as
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well as fully supporting VPATH (if your Make has it). The scripts
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Configure.py and Addmodule.sh are no longer needed. Many source files
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have been adapted in order to work with the symbols that the configure
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script generated by autoconf defines (or not); the resulting source is
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much more portable to different C compilers and operating systems,
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even non Unix systems (a Mac port was done in an afternoon). See the
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toplevel README file for a description of the new build process.
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* GNU readline (a slightly newer version) is now a subdirectory of the
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Python toplevel. It is still not automatically configured (being
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totally autoconf-unaware :-). One problem has been solved: typing
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Control-C to a readline prompt will now work. The distribution no
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longer contains a "super-level" directory (above the python toplevel
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directory), and dl, dl-dld and GNU dld are no longer part of the
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Python distribution (you can still ftp them from
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ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/dynload).
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* The DOS functions have been taken out of posixmodule.c and moved
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into a separate file dosmodule.c.
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* There's now a separate file version.c which contains nothing but
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the version number.
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* The actual main program is now contained in config.c (unless NO_MAIN
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is defined); pythonmain.c now contains a function realmain() which is
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called from config.c's main().
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* All files needed to use the built-in module md5 are now contained in
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the distribution. The module has been cleaned up considerably.
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Documentation
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-------------
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* The library manual has been split into many more small latex files,
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so it is easier to edit Doc/lib.tex file to create a custom library
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manual, describing only those modules supported on your system. (This
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is not automated though.)
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* A fourth manual has been added, titled "Extending and Embedding the
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Python Interpreter" (Doc/ext.tex), which collects information about
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the interpreter which was previously spread over several files in the
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misc subdirectory.
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* The entire documentation is now also available on-line for those who
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have a WWW browser (e.g. NCSA Mosaic). Point your browser to the URL
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"http://www.cwi.nl/~guido/Python.html".
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Syntax
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------
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* Strings may now be enclosed in double quotes as well as in single
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quotes. There is no difference in interpretation. The repr() of
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string objects will use double quotes if the string contains a single
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quote and no double quotes. Thanks to Amrit Prem for these changes!
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* There is a new keyword 'exec'. This replaces the exec() built-in
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function. If a function contains an exec statement, local variable
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optimization is not performed for that particular function, thus
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making assignment to local variables in exec statements less
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confusing. (As a consequence, os.exec and python.exec have been
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renamed to execv.)
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* There is a new keyword 'lambda'. An expression of the form
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lambda <parameters> : <expression>
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yields an anonymous function. This is really only syntactic sugar;
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you can just as well define a local function using
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def some_temporary_name(<parameters>): return <expression>
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Lambda expressions are particularly useful in combination with map(),
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filter() and reduce(), described below. Thanks to Amrit Prem for
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submitting this code (as well as map(), filter(), reduce() and
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xrange())!
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Built-in functions
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------------------
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* The built-in module containing the built-in functions is called
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__builtin__ instead of builtin.
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* New built-in functions map(), filter() and reduce() perform standard
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functional programming operations (though not lazily):
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- map(f, seq) returns a new sequence whose items are the items from
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seq with f() applied to them.
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- filter(f, seq) returns a subsequence of seq consisting of those
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items for which f() is true.
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- reduce(f, seq, initial) returns a value computed as follows:
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acc = initial
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for item in seq: acc = f(acc, item)
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return acc
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* New function xrange() creates a "range object". Its arguments are
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the same as those of range(), and when used in a for loop a range
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objects also behaves identical. The advantage of xrange() over
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range() is that its representation (if the range contains many
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elements) is much more compact than that of range(). The disadvantage
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is that the result cannot be used to initialize a list object or for
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the "Python idiom" [RED, GREEN, BLUE] = range(3). On some modern
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architectures, benchmarks have shown that "for i in range(...): ..."
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actually executes *faster* than "for i in xrange(...): ...", but on
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memory starved machines like PCs running DOS range(100000) may be just
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too big to be represented at all...
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* Built-in function exec() has been replaced by the exec statement --
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see above.
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The interpreter
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---------------
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* Syntax errors are now not printed to stderr by the parser, but
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rather the offending line and other relevant information are packed up
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in the SyntaxError exception argument. When the main loop catches a
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SyntaxError exception it will print the error in the same format as
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previously, but at the proper position in the stack traceback.
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* You can now set a maximum to the number of traceback entries
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printed by assigning to sys.tracebacklimit. The default is 1000.
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* The version number in .pyc files has changed yet again.
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* It is now possible to have a .pyc file without a corresponding .py
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file. (Warning: this may break existing installations if you have an
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old .pyc file lingering around somewhere on your module search path
|
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without a corresponding .py file, when there is a .py file for a
|
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module of the same name further down the path -- the new interpreter
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will find the first .pyc file and complain about it, while the old
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interpreter would ignore it and use the .py file further down.)
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* The list sys.builtin_module_names is now sorted and also contains
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the names of a few hardwired built-in modules (sys, __main__ and
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__builtin__).
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* A module can now find its own name by accessing the global variable
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__name__. Assigning to this variable essentially renames the module
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(it should also be stored under a different key in sys.modules).
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A neat hack follows from this: a module that wants to execute a main
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program when called as a script no longer needs to compare
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sys.argv[0]; it can simply do "if __name__ == '__main__': main()".
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* When an object is printed by the print statement, its implementation
|
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of str() is used. This means that classes can define __str__(self) to
|
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direct how their instances are printed. This is different from
|
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__repr__(self), which should define an unambigous string
|
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representation of the instance. (If __str__() is not defined, it
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defaults to __repr__().)
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* Functions and code objects can now be compared meaningfully.
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* On systems supporting SunOS or SVR4 style shared libraries, dynamic
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loading of modules using shared libraries is automatically configured.
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|
Thanks to Bill Jansen and Denis Severson for contributing this change!
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Built-in objects
|
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----------------
|
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* File objects have acquired a new method writelines() which is the
|
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reverse of readlines(). (It does not actually write lines, just a
|
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list of strings, but the symmetry makes the choice of name OK.)
|
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|
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Built-in modules
|
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----------------
|
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* Socket objects no longer support the avail() method. Use the select
|
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module instead, or use this function to replace it:
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def avail(f):
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import select
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return f in select.select([f], [], [], 0)[0]
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* Initialization of stdwin is done differently. It actually modifies
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sys.argv (taking out the options the X version of stdwin recognizes)
|
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the first time it is imported.
|
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* A new built-in module parser provides a rudimentary interface to the
|
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python parser. Corresponding standard library modules token and symbol
|
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defines the numeric values of tokens and non-terminal symbols.
|
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* The posix module has aquired new functions setuid(), setgid(),
|
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execve(), and exec() has been renamed to execv().
|
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* The array module is extended with 8-byte object swaps, the 'i'
|
|
format character, and a reverse() method. The read() and write()
|
|
methods are renamed to fromfile() and tofile().
|
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|
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* The rotor module has freed of portability bugs. This introduces a
|
|
backward compatibility problem: strings encoded with the old rotor
|
|
module can't be decoded by the new version.
|
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* For select.select(), a timeout (4th) argument of None means the same
|
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as leaving the timeout argument out.
|
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|
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* Module strop (and hence standard library module string) has aquired
|
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a new function: rindex(). Thanks to Amrit Prem!
|
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|
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* Module regex defines a new function symcomp() which uses an extended
|
|
regular expression syntax: parenthesized subexpressions may be labeled
|
|
using the form "\(<labelname>...\)", and the group() method can return
|
|
sub-expressions by name. Thanks to Tracy Tims for these changes!
|
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|
|
* Multiple threads are now supported on Solaris 2. Thanks to Sjoerd
|
|
Mullender!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Standard library modules
|
|
------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The library is now split in several subdirectories: all stuff using
|
|
stdwin is in Lib/stdwin, all SGI specific (or SGI Indigo or GL) stuff
|
|
is in Lib/sgi, all Sun Sparc specific stuff is in Lib/sun4, and all
|
|
test modules are in Lib/test. The default module search path will
|
|
include all relevant subdirectories by default.
|
|
|
|
* Module os now knows about trying to import dos. It defines
|
|
functions execl(), execle(), execlp() and execvp().
|
|
|
|
* New module dospath (should be attacked by a DOS hacker though).
|
|
|
|
* All modules defining classes now define __init__() constructors
|
|
instead of init() methods. THIS IS AN INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE!
|
|
|
|
* Some minor changes and bugfixes module ftplib (mostly Steve
|
|
Majewski's suggestions); the debug() method is renamed to
|
|
set_debuglevel().
|
|
|
|
* Some new test modules (not run automatically by testall though):
|
|
test_audioop, test_md5, test_rgbimg, test_select.
|
|
|
|
* Module string now defines rindex() and rfind() in analogy of index()
|
|
and find(). It also defines atof() and atol() (and corresponding
|
|
exceptions) in analogy to atoi().
|
|
|
|
* Added help() functions to modules profile and pdb.
|
|
|
|
* The wdb debugger (now in Lib/stdwin) now shows class or instance
|
|
variables on a double click. Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender!
|
|
|
|
* The (undocumented) module lambda has gone -- you couldn't import it
|
|
any more, and it was basically more a demo than a library module...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Multimedia extensions
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
* The optional built-in modules audioop and imageop are now standard
|
|
parts of the interpreter. Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender and Jack Jansen
|
|
for contributing this code!
|
|
|
|
* There's a new operation in audioop: minmax().
|
|
|
|
* There's a new built-in module called rgbimg which supports portable
|
|
efficient reading of SGI RCG image files. Thanks also to Paul
|
|
Haeberli for the original code! (Who will contribute a GIF reader?)
|
|
|
|
* The module aifc is gone -- you should now always use aifc, which has
|
|
received a facelift.
|
|
|
|
* There's a new module sunau., for reading Sun (and NeXT) audio files.
|
|
|
|
* There's a new module audiodev which provides a uniform interface to
|
|
(SGI Indigo and Sun Sparc) audio hardware.
|
|
|
|
* There's a new module sndhdr which recognizes various sound files by
|
|
looking in their header and checking for various magic words.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Optimizations
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
* Most optimizations below can be configured by compile-time flags.
|
|
Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender for submitting these optimizations!
|
|
|
|
* Small integers (default -1..99) are shared -- i.e. if two different
|
|
functions compute the same value it is possible (but not
|
|
guaranteed!!!) that they return the same *object*. Python programs
|
|
can detect this but should *never* rely on it.
|
|
|
|
* Empty tuples (which all compare equal) are shared in the same
|
|
manner.
|
|
|
|
* Tuples of size up to 20 (default) are put in separate free lists
|
|
when deallocated.
|
|
|
|
* There is a compile-time option to cache a string's hash function,
|
|
but this appeared to have a negligeable effect, and as it costs 4
|
|
bytes per string it is disabled by default.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Embedding Python
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
* The initialization interface has been simplified somewhat. You now
|
|
only call "initall()" to initialize the interpreter.
|
|
|
|
* The previously announced renaming of externally visible identifiers
|
|
has not been carried out. It will happen in a later release. Sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miscellaneous bugs that have been fixed
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* All known portability bugs.
|
|
|
|
* Version 0.9.9 dumped core in <listobject>.sort() which has been
|
|
fixed. Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen for fixing this and posting the fix
|
|
on the mailing list while I was away!
|
|
|
|
* Core dump on a format string ending in '%', e.g. in the expression
|
|
'%' % None.
|
|
|
|
* The array module yielded a bogus result for concatenation (a+b would
|
|
yield a+a).
|
|
|
|
* Some serious memory leaks in strop.split() and strop.splitfields().
|
|
|
|
* Several problems with the nis module.
|
|
|
|
* Subtle problem when copying a class method from another class
|
|
through assignment (the method could not be called).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remaining bugs
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
* One problem with 64-bit machines remains -- since .pyc files are
|
|
portable and use only 4 bytes to represent an integer object, 64-bit
|
|
integer literals are silently truncated when written into a .pyc file.
|
|
Work-around: use eval('123456789101112').
|
|
|
|
* The freeze script doesn't work any more. A new and more portable
|
|
one can probably be cooked up using tricks from Extensions/mkext.py.
|
|
|
|
* The dos support hasn't been tested yet. (Really Soon Now we should
|
|
have a PC with a working C compiler!)
|
|
|
|
|
|
===================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.9 (29 Jul 1993) <==
|
|
===================================
|
|
|
|
I *believe* these are the main user-visible changes in this release,
|
|
but there may be others. SGI users may scan the {src,lib}/ChangeLog
|
|
files for improvements of some SGI specific modules, e.g. aifc and
|
|
cl. Developers of extension modules should also read src/ChangeLog.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Naming of C symbols used by the Python interpreter
|
|
--------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* This is the last release using the current naming conventions. New
|
|
naming conventions are explained in the file misc/NAMING.
|
|
Summarizing, all externally visible symbols get (at least) a "Py"
|
|
prefix, and most functions are renamed to the standard form
|
|
PyModule_FunctionName.
|
|
|
|
* Writers of extensions are urged to start using the new naming
|
|
conventions. The next release will use the new naming conventions
|
|
throughout (it will also have a different source directory
|
|
structure).
|
|
|
|
* As a result of the preliminary work for the great renaming, many
|
|
functions that were accidentally global have been made static.
|
|
|
|
|
|
BETA X11 support
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
* There are now modules interfacing to the X11 Toolkit Intrinsics, the
|
|
Athena widgets, and the Motif 1.1 widget set. These are not yet
|
|
documented except through the examples and README file in the demo/x11
|
|
directory. It is expected that this interface will be replaced by a
|
|
more powerful and correct one in the future, which may or may not be
|
|
backward compatible. In other words, this part of the code is at most
|
|
BETA level software! (Note: the rest of Python is rock solid as ever!)
|
|
|
|
* I understand that the above may be a bit of a disappointment,
|
|
however my current schedule does not allow me to change this situation
|
|
before putting the release out of the door. By releasing it
|
|
undocumented and buggy, at least some of the (working!) demo programs,
|
|
like itr (my Internet Talk Radio browser) become available to a larger
|
|
audience.
|
|
|
|
* There are also modules interfacing to SGI's "Glx" widget (a GL
|
|
window wrapped in a widget) and to NCSA's "HTML" widget (which can
|
|
format HyperText Markup Language, the document format used by the
|
|
World Wide Web).
|
|
|
|
* I've experienced some problems when building the X11 support. In
|
|
particular, the Xm and Xaw widget sets don't go together, and it
|
|
appears that using X11R5 is better than using X11R4. Also the threads
|
|
module and its link time options may spoil things. My own strategy is
|
|
to build two Python binaries: one for use with X11 and one without
|
|
it, which can contain a richer set of built-in modules. Don't even
|
|
*think* of loading the X11 modules dynamically...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Environmental changes
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
* Compiled files (*.pyc files) created by this Python version are
|
|
incompatible with those created by the previous version. Both
|
|
versions detect this and silently create a correct version, but it
|
|
means that it is not a good idea to use the same library directory for
|
|
an old and a new interpreter, since they will start to "fight" over
|
|
the *.pyc files...
|
|
|
|
* When a stack trace is printed, the exception is printed last instead
|
|
of first. This means that if the beginning of the stack trace
|
|
scrolled out of your window you can still see what exception caused
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
* Sometimes interrupting a Python operation does not work because it
|
|
hangs in a blocking system call. You can now kill the interpreter by
|
|
interrupting it three times. The second time you interrupt it, a
|
|
message will be printed telling you that the third interrupt will kill
|
|
the interpreter. The "sys.exitfunc" feature still makes limited
|
|
clean-up possible in this case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the command line interface
|
|
-------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The python usage message is now much more informative.
|
|
|
|
* New option -i enters interactive mode after executing a script --
|
|
useful for debugging.
|
|
|
|
* New option -k raises an exception when an expression statement
|
|
yields a value other than None.
|
|
|
|
* For each option there is now also a corresponding environment
|
|
variable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Using Python as an embedded language
|
|
------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The distribution now contains (some) documentation on the use of
|
|
Python as an "embedded language" in other applications, as well as a
|
|
simple example. See the file misc/EMBEDDING and the directory embed/.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Speed improvements
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
* Function local variables are now generally stored in an array and
|
|
accessed using an integer indexing operation, instead of through a
|
|
dictionary lookup. (This compensates the somewhat slower dictionary
|
|
lookup caused by the generalization of the dictionary module.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the syntax
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
* Continuation lines can now *sometimes* be written without a
|
|
backslash: if the continuation is contained within nesting (), [] or
|
|
{} brackets the \ may be omitted. There's a much improved
|
|
python-mode.el in the misc directory which knows about this as well.
|
|
|
|
* You can no longer use an empty set of parentheses to define a class
|
|
without base classes. That is, you no longer write this:
|
|
|
|
class Foo(): # syntax error
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
You must write this instead:
|
|
|
|
class Foo:
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
This was already the preferred syntax in release 0.9.8 but many
|
|
people seemed not to have picked it up. There's a Python script that
|
|
fixes old code: demo/scripts/classfix.py.
|
|
|
|
* There's a new reserved word: "access". The syntax and semantics are
|
|
still subject of of research and debate (as well as undocumented), but
|
|
the parser knows about the keyword so you must not use it as a
|
|
variable, function, or attribute name.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the semantics of the language proper
|
|
-----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The following compatibility hack is removed: if a function was
|
|
defined with two or more arguments, and called with a single argument
|
|
that was a tuple with just as many arguments, the items of this tuple
|
|
would be used as the arguments. This is no longer supported.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the semantics of classes and instances
|
|
-------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* Class variables are now also accessible as instance variables for
|
|
reading (assignment creates an instance variable which overrides the
|
|
class variable of the same name though).
|
|
|
|
* If a class attribute is a user-defined function, a new kind of
|
|
object is returned: an "unbound method". This contains a pointer to
|
|
the class and can only be called with a first argument which is a
|
|
member of that class (or a derived class).
|
|
|
|
* If a class defines a method __init__(self, arg1, ...) then this
|
|
method is called when a class instance is created by the classname()
|
|
construct. Arguments passed to classname() are passed to the
|
|
__init__() method. The __init__() methods of base classes are not
|
|
automatically called; the derived __init__() method must call these if
|
|
necessary (this was done so the derived __init__() method can choose
|
|
the call order and arguments for the base __init__() methods).
|
|
|
|
* If a class defines a method __del__(self) then this method is called
|
|
when an instance of the class is about to be destroyed. This makes it
|
|
possible to implement clean-up of external resources attached to the
|
|
instance. As with __init__(), the __del__() methods of base classes
|
|
are not automatically called. If __del__ manages to store a reference
|
|
to the object somewhere, its destruction is postponed; when the object
|
|
is again about to be destroyed its __del__() method will be called
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
* Classes may define a method __hash__(self) to allow their instances
|
|
to be used as dictionary keys. This must return a 32-bit integer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Minor improvements
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
* Function and class objects now know their name (the name given in
|
|
the 'def' or 'class' statement that created them).
|
|
|
|
* Class instances now know their class name.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Additions to built-in operations
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The % operator with a string left argument implements formatting
|
|
similar to sprintf() in C. The right argument is either a single
|
|
value or a tuple of values. All features of Standard C sprintf() are
|
|
supported except %p.
|
|
|
|
* Dictionaries now support almost any key type, instead of just
|
|
strings. (The key type must be an immutable type or must be a class
|
|
instance where the class defines a method __hash__(), in order to
|
|
avoid losing track of keys whose value may change.)
|
|
|
|
* Built-in methods are now compared properly: when comparing x.meth1
|
|
and y.meth2, if x is equal to y and the methods are defined by the
|
|
same function, x.meth1 compares equal to y.meth2.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Additions to built-in functions
|
|
-------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* str(x) returns a string version of its argument. If the argument is
|
|
a string it is returned unchanged, otherwise it returns `x`.
|
|
|
|
* repr(x) returns the same as `x`. (Some users found it easier to
|
|
have this as a function.)
|
|
|
|
* round(x) returns the floating point number x rounded to an whole
|
|
number, represented as a floating point number. round(x, n) returns x
|
|
rounded to n digits.
|
|
|
|
* hasattr(x, name) returns true when x has an attribute with the given
|
|
name.
|
|
|
|
* hash(x) returns a hash code (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
|
|
immutable object's value.
|
|
|
|
* id(x) returns a unique identifier (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
|
|
object.
|
|
|
|
* compile() compiles a string to a Python code object.
|
|
|
|
* exec() and eval() now support execution of code objects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the documented part of the library (standard modules)
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* os.path.normpath() (a.k.a. posixpath.normpath()) has been fixed so
|
|
the border case '/foo/..' returns '/' instead of ''.
|
|
|
|
* A new function string.find() is added with similar semantics to
|
|
string.index(); however when it does not find the given substring it
|
|
returns -1 instead of raising string.index_error.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to built-in modules
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
* New optional module 'array' implements operations on sequences of
|
|
integers or floating point numbers of a particular size. This is
|
|
useful to manipulate large numerical arrays or to read and write
|
|
binary files consisting of numerical data.
|
|
|
|
* Regular expression objects created by module regex now support a new
|
|
method named group(), which returns one or more \(...\) groups by number.
|
|
The number of groups is increased from 10 to 100.
|
|
|
|
* Function compile() in module regex now supports an optional mapping
|
|
argument; a variable casefold is added to the module which can be used
|
|
as a standard uppercase to lowercase mapping.
|
|
|
|
* Module time now supports many routines that are defined in the
|
|
Standard C time interface (<time.h>): gmtime(), localtime(),
|
|
asctime(), ctime(), mktime(), as well as these variables (taken from
|
|
System V): timezone, altzone, daylight and tzname. (The corresponding
|
|
functions in the undocumented module calendar have been removed; the
|
|
undocumented and unfinished module tzparse is now obsolete and will
|
|
disappear in a future release.)
|
|
|
|
* Module strop (the fast built-in version of standard module string)
|
|
now uses C's definition of whitespace instead of fixing it to space,
|
|
tab and newline; in practice this usually means that vertical tab,
|
|
form feed and return are now also considered whitespace. It exports
|
|
the string of characters that are considered whitespace as well as the
|
|
characters that are considered lowercase or uppercase.
|
|
|
|
* Module sys now defines the variable builtin_module_names, a list of
|
|
names of modules built into the current interpreter (including not
|
|
yet imported, but excluding two special modules that always have to be
|
|
defined -- sys and builtin).
|
|
|
|
* Objects created by module sunaudiodev now also support flush() and
|
|
close() methods.
|
|
|
|
* Socket objects created by module socket now support an optional
|
|
flags argument for their methods sendto() and recvfrom().
|
|
|
|
* Module marshal now supports dumping to and loading from strings,
|
|
through the functions dumps() and loads().
|
|
|
|
* Module stdwin now supports some new functionality. You may have to
|
|
ftp the latest version: ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/stdwin/stdwinforviews.tar.Z.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bugs fixed
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
* Fixed comparison of negative long integers.
|
|
|
|
* The tokenizer no longer botches input lines longer than BUFSIZ.
|
|
|
|
* Fixed several severe memory leaks in module select.
|
|
|
|
* Fixed memory leaks in modules socket and sv.
|
|
|
|
* Fixed memory leak in divmod() for long integers.
|
|
|
|
* Problems with definition of floatsleep() on Suns fixed.
|
|
|
|
* Many portability bugs fixed (and undoubtedly new ones added :-).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the build procedure
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* The Makefile supports some new targets: "make default" and "make
|
|
all". Both are by normally equivalent to "make python".
|
|
|
|
* The Makefile no longer uses $> since it's not supported by all
|
|
versions of Make.
|
|
|
|
* The header files now all contain #ifdef constructs designed to make
|
|
it safe to include the same header file twice, as well as support for
|
|
inclusion from C++ programs (automatic extern "C" { ... } added).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Freezing Python scripts
|
|
-----------------------
|
|
|
|
* There is now some support for "freezing" a Python script as a
|
|
stand-alone executable binary file. See the script
|
|
demo/scripts/freeze.py. It will require some site-specific tailoring
|
|
of the script to get this working, but is quite worthwhile if you write
|
|
Python code for other who may not have built and installed Python.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MS-DOS
|
|
------
|
|
|
|
* A new MS-DOS port has been done, using MSC 6.0 (I believe). Thanks,
|
|
Marcel van der Peijl! This requires fewer compatibility hacks in
|
|
posixmodule.c. The executable is not yet available but will be soon
|
|
(check the mailing list).
|
|
|
|
* The default PYTHONPATH has changed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes for developers of extension modules
|
|
-------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
* Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SGI specific changes
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
* Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.8 (9 Jan 1993) <==
|
|
==================================
|
|
|
|
I claim no completeness here, but I've tried my best to scan the log
|
|
files throughout my source tree for interesting bits of news. A more
|
|
complete account of the changes is to be found in the various
|
|
ChangeLog files. See also "News for release 0.9.7beta" below if you're
|
|
still using release 0.9.6, and the file HISTORY if you have an even
|
|
older release.
|
|
|
|
--Guido
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the language proper
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
There's only one big change: the conformance checking for function
|
|
argument lists (of user-defined functions only) is stricter. Earlier,
|
|
you could get away with the following:
|
|
|
|
(a) define a function of one argument and call it with any
|
|
number of arguments; if the actual argument count wasn't
|
|
one, the function would receive a tuple containing the
|
|
arguments arguments (an empty tuple if there were none).
|
|
|
|
(b) define a function of two arguments, and call it with more
|
|
than two arguments; if there were more than two arguments,
|
|
the second argument would be passed as a tuple containing
|
|
the second and further actual arguments.
|
|
|
|
(Note that an argument (formal or actual) that is a tuple is counted as
|
|
one; these rules don't apply inside such tuples, only at the top level
|
|
of the argument list.)
|
|
|
|
Case (a) was needed to accommodate variable-length argument lists;
|
|
there is now an explicit "varargs" feature (precede the last argument
|
|
with a '*'). Case (b) was needed for compatibility with old class
|
|
definitions: up to release 0.9.4 a method with more than one argument
|
|
had to be declared as "def meth(self, (arg1, arg2, ...)): ...".
|
|
Version 0.9.6 provide better ways to handle both casees, bot provided
|
|
backward compatibility; version 0.9.8 retracts the compatibility hacks
|
|
since they also cause confusing behavior if a function is called with
|
|
the wrong number of arguments.
|
|
|
|
There's a script that helps converting classes that still rely on (b),
|
|
provided their methods' first argument is called "self":
|
|
demo/scripts/methfix.py.
|
|
|
|
If this change breaks lots of code you have developed locally, try
|
|
#defining COMPAT_HACKS in ceval.c.
|
|
|
|
(There's a third compatibility hack, which is the reverse of (a): if a
|
|
function is defined with two or more arguments, and called with a
|
|
single argument that is a tuple with just as many arguments, the items
|
|
of this tuple will be used as the arguments. Although this can (and
|
|
should!) be done using the built-in function apply() instead, it isn't
|
|
withdrawn yet.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
One minor change: comparing instance methods works like expected, so
|
|
that if x is an instance of a user-defined class and has a method m,
|
|
then (x.m==x.m) yields 1.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The following was already present in 0.9.7beta, but not explicitly
|
|
mentioned in the NEWS file: user-defined classes can now define types
|
|
that behave in almost allrespects like numbers. See
|
|
demo/classes/Rat.py for a simple example.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the build process
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
The Configure.py script and the Makefile has been made somewhat more
|
|
bullet-proof, after reports of (minor) trouble on certain platforms.
|
|
|
|
There is now a script to patch Makefile and config.c to add a new
|
|
optional built-in module: Addmodule.sh. Read the script before using!
|
|
|
|
Useing Addmodule.sh, all optional modules can now be configured at
|
|
compile time using Configure.py, so there are no modules left that
|
|
require dynamic loading.
|
|
|
|
The Makefile has been fixed to make it easier to use with the VPATH
|
|
feature of some Make versions (e.g. SunOS).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes affecting portability
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
Several minor portability problems have been solved, e.g. "malloc.h"
|
|
has been renamed to "mymalloc.h", "strdup.c" is no longer used, and
|
|
the system now tolerates malloc(0) returning 0.
|
|
|
|
For dynamic loading on the SGI, Jack Jansen's dl 1.6 is now
|
|
distributed with Python. This solves several minor problems, in
|
|
particular scripts invoked using #! can now use dynamic loading.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the interpreter interface
|
|
------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
On popular demand, there's finally a "profile" feature for interactive
|
|
use of the interpreter. If the environment variable $PYTHONSTARTUP is
|
|
set to the name of an existing file, Python statements in this file
|
|
are executed when the interpreter is started in interactive mode.
|
|
|
|
There is a new clean-up mechanism, complementing try...finally: if you
|
|
assign a function object to sys.exitfunc, it will be called when
|
|
Python exits or receives a SIGTERM or SIGHUP signal.
|
|
|
|
The interpreter is now generally assumed to live in
|
|
/usr/local/bin/python (as opposed to /usr/local/python). The script
|
|
demo/scripts/fixps.py will update old scripts in place (you can easily
|
|
modify it to do other similar changes).
|
|
|
|
Most I/O that uses sys.stdin/stdout/stderr will now use any object
|
|
assigned to those names as long as the object supports readline() or
|
|
write() methods.
|
|
|
|
The parser stack has been increased to 500 to accommodate more
|
|
complicated expressions (7 levels used to be the practical maximum,
|
|
it's now about 38).
|
|
|
|
The limit on the size of the *run-time* stack has completely been
|
|
removed -- this means that tuple or list displays can contain any
|
|
number of elements (formerly more than 50 would crash the
|
|
interpreter).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
|
|
--------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The built-in functions int(), long(), float(), oct() and hex() now
|
|
also apply to class instalces that define corresponding methods
|
|
(__int__ etc.).
|
|
|
|
|
|
New built-in functions
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
The new functions str() and repr() convert any object to a string.
|
|
The function repr(x) is in all respects equivalent to `x` -- some
|
|
people prefer a function for this. The function str(x) does the same
|
|
except if x is already a string -- then it returns x unchanged
|
|
(repr(x) adds quotes and escapes "funny" characters as octal escapes).
|
|
|
|
The new function cmp(x, y) returns -1 if x<y, 0 if x==y, 1 if x>y.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to general built-in modules
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The time module's functions are more general: time() returns a
|
|
floating point number and sleep() accepts one. Their accuracies
|
|
depends on the precision of the system clock. Millisleep is no longer
|
|
needed (although it still exists for now), but millitimer is still
|
|
needed since on some systems wall clock time is only available with
|
|
seconds precision, while a source of more precise time exists that
|
|
isn't synchronized with the wall clock. (On UNIX systems that support
|
|
the BSD gettimeofday() function, time.time() is as time.millitimer().)
|
|
|
|
The string representation of a file object now includes an address:
|
|
'<file 'filename', mode 'r' at #######>' where ###### is a hex number
|
|
(the object's address) to make it unique.
|
|
|
|
New functions added to posix: nice(), setpgrp(), and if your system
|
|
supports them: setsid(), setpgid(), tcgetpgrp(), tcsetpgrp().
|
|
|
|
Improvements to the socket module: socket objects have new methods
|
|
getpeername() and getsockname(), and the {get,set}sockopt methods can
|
|
now get/set any kind of option using strings built with the new struct
|
|
module. And there's a new function fromfd() which creates a socket
|
|
object given a file descriptor (useful for servers started by inetd,
|
|
which have a socket connected to stdin and stdout).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to SGI-specific built-in modules
|
|
----------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The FORMS library interface (fl) now requires FORMS 2.1a. Some new
|
|
functions have been added and some bugs have been fixed.
|
|
|
|
Additions to al (audio library interface): added getname(),
|
|
getdefault() and getminmax().
|
|
|
|
The gl modules doesn't call "foreground()" when initialized (this
|
|
caused some problems) like it dit in 0.9.7beta (but not before).
|
|
There's a new gl function 'gversion() which returns a version string.
|
|
|
|
The interface to sv (Indigo video interface) has totally changed.
|
|
(Sorry, still no documentation, but see the examples in
|
|
demo/sgi/{sv,video}.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to standard library modules
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Most functions in module string are now much faster: they're actually
|
|
implemented in C. The module containing the C versions is called
|
|
"strop" but you should still import "string" since strop doesn't
|
|
provide all the interfaces defined in string (and strop may be renamed
|
|
to string when it is complete in a future release).
|
|
|
|
string.index() now accepts an optional third argument giving an index
|
|
where to start searching in the first argument, so you can find second
|
|
and further occurrences (this is similar to the regular expression
|
|
functions in regex).
|
|
|
|
The definition of what string.splitfields(anything, '') should return
|
|
is changed for the last time: it returns a singleton list containing
|
|
its whole first argument unchanged. This is compatible with
|
|
regsub.split() which also ignores empty delimiter matches.
|
|
|
|
posixpath, macpath: added dirname() and normpath() (and basename() to
|
|
macpath).
|
|
|
|
The mainloop module (for use with stdwin) can now demultiplex input
|
|
from other sources, as long as they can be polled with select().
|
|
|
|
|
|
New built-in modules
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
Module struct defines functions to pack/unpack values to/from strings
|
|
representing binary values in native byte order.
|
|
|
|
Module strop implements C versions of many functions from string (see
|
|
above).
|
|
|
|
Optional module fcntl defines interfaces to fcntl() and ioctl() --
|
|
UNIX only. (Not yet properly documented -- see however src/fcntl.doc.)
|
|
|
|
Optional module mpz defines an interface to an altaernative long
|
|
integer implementation, the GNU MPZ library.
|
|
|
|
Optional module md5 uses the GNU MPZ library to calculate MD5
|
|
signatures of strings.
|
|
|
|
There are also optional new modules specific to SGI machines: imageop
|
|
defines some simple operations to images represented as strings; sv
|
|
interfaces to the Indigo video board; cl interfaces to the (yet
|
|
unreleased) compression library.
|
|
|
|
|
|
New standard library modules
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
(Unfortunately the following modules are not all documented; read the
|
|
sources to find out more about them!)
|
|
|
|
autotest: run testall without showing any output unless it differs
|
|
from the expected output
|
|
|
|
bisect: use bisection to insert or find an item in a sorted list
|
|
|
|
colorsys: defines conversions between various color systems (e.g. RGB
|
|
<-> YUV)
|
|
|
|
nntplib: a client interface to NNTP servers
|
|
|
|
pipes: utility to construct pipeline from templates, e.g. for
|
|
conversion from one file format to another using several utilities.
|
|
|
|
regsub: contains three functions that are more or less compatible with
|
|
awk functions of the same name: sub() and gsub() do string
|
|
substitution, split() splits a string using a regular expression to
|
|
define how separators are define.
|
|
|
|
test_types: test operations on the built-in types of Python
|
|
|
|
toaiff: convert various audio file formats to AIFF format
|
|
|
|
tzparse: parse the TZ environment parameter (this may be less general
|
|
than it could be, let me know if you fix it).
|
|
|
|
(Note that the obsolete module "path" no longer exists.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
New SGI-specific library modules
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
CL: constants for use with the built-in compression library interface (cl)
|
|
|
|
Queue: a multi-producer, multi-consumer queue class implemented for
|
|
use with the built-in thread module
|
|
|
|
SOCKET: constants for use with built-in module socket, e.g. to set/get
|
|
socket options. This is SGI-specific because the constants to be
|
|
passed are system-dependent. You can generate a version for your own
|
|
system by running the script demo/scripts/h2py.py with
|
|
/usr/include/sys/socket.h as input.
|
|
|
|
cddb: interface to the database used the the CD player
|
|
|
|
torgb: convert various image file types to rgb format (requires pbmplus)
|
|
|
|
|
|
New demos
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
There's an experimental interface to define Sun RPC clients and
|
|
servers in demo/rpc.
|
|
|
|
There's a collection of interfaces to WWW, WAIS and Gopher (both
|
|
Python classes and program providing a user interface) in demo/www.
|
|
This includes a program texi2html.py which converts texinfo files to
|
|
HTML files (the format used hy WWW).
|
|
|
|
The ibrowse demo has moved from demo/stdwin/ibrowse to demo/ibrowse.
|
|
|
|
For SGI systems, there's a whole collection of programs and classes
|
|
that make use of the Indigo video board in demo/sgi/{sv,video}. This
|
|
represents a significant amount of work that we're giving away!
|
|
|
|
There are demos "rsa" and "md5test" that exercise the mpz and md5
|
|
modules, respectively. The rsa demo is a complete implementation of
|
|
the RSA public-key cryptosystem!
|
|
|
|
A bunch of games and examples submitted by Stoffel Erasmus have been
|
|
included in demo/stoffel.
|
|
|
|
There are miscellaneous new files in some existing demo
|
|
subdirectories: classes/bitvec.py, scripts/{fixps,methfix}.py,
|
|
sgi/al/cmpaf.py, sockets/{mcast,gopher}.py.
|
|
|
|
There are also many minor changes to existing files, but I'm too lazy
|
|
to run a diff and note the differences -- you can do this yourself if
|
|
you save the old distribution's demos. One highlight: the
|
|
stdwin/python.py demo is much improved!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the documentation
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
The LaTeX source for the library uses different macros to enable it to
|
|
be converted to texinfo, and from there to INFO or HTML format so it
|
|
can be browsed as a hypertext. The net result is that you can now
|
|
read the Python library documentation in Emacs info mode!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The function strdup() no longer exists (it was used only in one places
|
|
and is somewhat of a a portability problem sice some systems have the
|
|
same function in their C library.
|
|
|
|
The functions NEW() and RENEW() allocate one spare byte to guard
|
|
against a NULL return from malloc(0) being taken for an error, but
|
|
this should not be relied upon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
=========================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.7beta <==
|
|
=========================
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the language proper
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
User-defined classes can now implement operations invoked through
|
|
special syntax, such as x[i] or `x` by defining methods named
|
|
__getitem__(self, i) or __repr__(self), etc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the build process
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
Instead of extensive manual editing of the Makefile to select
|
|
compile-time options, you can now run a Configure.py script.
|
|
The Makefile as distributed builds a minimal interpreter sufficient to
|
|
run Configure.py. See also misc/BUILD
|
|
|
|
The Makefile now includes more "utility" targets, e.g. install and
|
|
tags/TAGS
|
|
|
|
Using the provided strtod.c and strtol.c are now separate options, as
|
|
on the Sun the provided strtod.c dumps core :-(
|
|
|
|
The regex module is now an option chosen by the Makefile, since some
|
|
(old) C compilers choke on regexpr.c
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes affecting portability
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
You need STDWIN version 0.9.7 (released 30 June 1992) for the stdwin
|
|
interface
|
|
|
|
Dynamic loading is now supported for Sun (and other non-COFF systems)
|
|
throug dld-3.2.3, as well as for SGI (a new version of Jack Jansen's
|
|
DL is out, 1.4)
|
|
|
|
The system-dependent code for the use of the select() system call is
|
|
moved to one file: myselect.h
|
|
|
|
Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen, the code should now port cleanly to the
|
|
SEQUENT
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the interpreter interface
|
|
------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The interpretation of $PYTHONPATH in the environment is different: it
|
|
is inserted in front of the default path instead of overriding it
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
|
|
--------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
List objects now support an optional argument to their sort() method,
|
|
which is a comparison function similar to qsort(3) in C
|
|
|
|
File objects now have a method fileno(), used by the new select module
|
|
(see below)
|
|
|
|
|
|
New built-in function
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
coerce(x, y): take two numbers and return a tuple containing them
|
|
both converted to a common type
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to built-in modules
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
sys: fixed core dumps in settrace() and setprofile()
|
|
|
|
socket: added socket methods setsockopt() and getsockopt(); and
|
|
fileno(), used by the new select module (see below)
|
|
|
|
stdwin: added fileno() == connectionnumber(), in support of new module
|
|
select (see below)
|
|
|
|
posix: added get{eg,eu,g,u}id(); waitpid() is now a separate function.
|
|
|
|
gl: added qgetfd()
|
|
|
|
fl: added several new functions, fixed several obscure bugs, adapted
|
|
to FORMS 2.1
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to standard modules
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
posixpath: changed implementation of ismount()
|
|
|
|
string: atoi() no longer mistakes leading zero for octal number
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
|
|
New built-in modules
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
Modules marked "dynamic only" are not configured at compile time but
|
|
can be loaded dynamically. You need to turn on the DL or DLD option in
|
|
the Makefile for support dynamic loading of modules (this requires
|
|
external code).
|
|
|
|
select: interfaces to the BSD select() system call
|
|
|
|
dbm: interfaces to the (new) dbm library (dynamic only)
|
|
|
|
nis: interfaces to some NIS functions (aka yellow pages)
|
|
|
|
thread: limited form of multiple threads (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
audioop: operations useful for audio programs, e.g. u-LAW and ADPCM
|
|
coding (dynamic only)
|
|
|
|
cd: interface to Indigo SCSI CDROM player audio library (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
jpeg: read files in JPEG format (dynamic only, sgi only; needs
|
|
external code)
|
|
|
|
imgfile: read SGI image files (dynamic only, sgi only)
|
|
|
|
sunaudiodev: interface to sun's /dev/audio (dynamic only, sun only)
|
|
|
|
sv: interface to Indigo video library (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
pc: a minimal set of MS-DOS interfaces (MS-DOS only)
|
|
|
|
rotor: encryption, by Lance Ellinghouse (dynamic only)
|
|
|
|
|
|
New standard modules
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
Not all these modules are documented. Read the source:
|
|
lib/<modulename>.py. Sometimes a file lib/<modulename>.doc contains
|
|
additional documentation.
|
|
|
|
imghdr: recognizes image file headers
|
|
|
|
sndhdr: recognizes sound file headers
|
|
|
|
profile: print run-time statistics of Python code
|
|
|
|
readcd, cdplayer: companion modules for built-in module cd (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
emacs: interface to Emacs using py-connect.el (see below).
|
|
|
|
SOCKET: symbolic constant definitions for socket options
|
|
|
|
SUNAUDIODEV: symbolic constant definitions for sunaudiodef (sun only)
|
|
|
|
SV: symbolic constat definitions for sv (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
CD: symbolic constat definitions for cd (sgi only)
|
|
|
|
|
|
New demos
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
scripts/pp.py: execute Python as a filter with a Perl-like command
|
|
line interface
|
|
|
|
classes/: examples using the new class features
|
|
|
|
threads/: examples using the new thread module
|
|
|
|
sgi/cd/: examples using the new cd module
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the documentation
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
The last-minute syntax changes of release 0.9.6 are now reflected
|
|
everywhere in the manuals
|
|
|
|
The reference manual has a new section (3.2) on implementing new kinds
|
|
of numbers, sequences or mappings with user classes
|
|
|
|
Classes are now treated extensively in the tutorial (chapter 9)
|
|
|
|
Slightly restructured the system-dependent chapters of the library
|
|
manual
|
|
|
|
The file misc/EXTENDING incorporates documentation for mkvalue() and
|
|
a new section on error handling
|
|
|
|
The files misc/CLASSES and misc/ERRORS are no longer necessary
|
|
|
|
The doc/Makefile now creates PostScript files automatically
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miscellaneous changes
|
|
---------------------
|
|
|
|
Incorporated Tim Peters' changes to python-mode.el, it's now version
|
|
1.06
|
|
|
|
A python/Emacs bridge (provided by Terrence M. Brannon) lets a Python
|
|
program running in an Emacs buffer execute Emacs lisp code. The
|
|
necessary Python code is in lib/emacs.py. The Emacs code is
|
|
misc/py-connect.el (it needs some external Emacs lisp code)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
|
|
----------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
New service function mkvalue() to construct a Python object from C
|
|
values according to a "format" string a la getargs()
|
|
|
|
Most functions from pythonmain.c moved to new pythonrun.c which is
|
|
in libpython.a. This should make embedded versions of Python easier
|
|
|
|
ceval.h is split in eval.h (which needs compile.h and only declares
|
|
eval_code) and ceval.h (which doesn't need compile.hand declares the
|
|
rest)
|
|
|
|
ceval.h defines macros BGN_SAVE / END_SAVE for use with threads (to
|
|
improve the parallellism of multi-threaded programs by letting other
|
|
Python code run when a blocking system call or something similar is
|
|
made)
|
|
|
|
In structmember.[ch], new member types BYTE, CHAR and unsigned
|
|
variants have been added
|
|
|
|
New file xxmodule.c is a template for new extension modules.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==================================
|
|
==> RELEASE 0.9.6 (6 Apr 1992) <==
|
|
==================================
|
|
|
|
Misc news in 0.9.6:
|
|
- Restructured the misc subdirectory
|
|
- Reference manual completed, library manual much extended (with indexes!)
|
|
- the GNU Readline library is now distributed standard with Python
|
|
- the script "../demo/scripts/classfix.py" fixes Python modules using old
|
|
class syntax
|
|
- Emacs python-mode.el (was python.el) vastly improved (thanks, Tim!)
|
|
- Because of the GNU copyleft business I am not using the GNU regular
|
|
expression implementation but a free re-implementation by Tatu Ylonen
|
|
that recently appeared in comp.sources.misc (Bravo, Tatu!)
|
|
|
|
New features in 0.9.6:
|
|
- stricter try stmt syntax: cannot mix except and finally clauses on 1 try
|
|
- New module 'os' supplants modules 'mac' and 'posix' for most cases;
|
|
module 'path' is replaced by 'os.path'
|
|
- os.path.split() return value differs from that of old path.split()
|
|
- sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback are set to the exception
|
|
currently being handled
|
|
- sys.last_type, sys.last_value, sys.last_traceback remember last unhandled
|
|
exception
|
|
- New function string.expandtabs() expands tabs in a string
|
|
- Added times() interface to posix (user & sys time of process & children)
|
|
- Added uname() interface to posix (returns OS type, hostname, etc.)
|
|
- New built-in function execfile() is like exec() but from a file
|
|
- Functions exec() and eval() are less picky about whitespace/newlines
|
|
- New built-in functions getattr() and setattr() access arbitrary attributes
|
|
- More generic argument handling in built-in functions (see "./EXTENDING")
|
|
- Dynamic loading of modules written in C or C++ (see "./DYNLOAD")
|
|
- Division and modulo for long and plain integers with negative operands
|
|
have changed; a/b is now floor(float(a)/float(b)) and a%b is defined
|
|
as a-(a/b)*b. So now the outcome of divmod(a,b) is the same as
|
|
(a/b, a%b) for integers. For floats, % is also changed, but of course
|
|
/ is unchanged, and divmod(x,y) does not yield (x/y, x%y)...
|
|
- A function with explicit variable-length argument list can be declared
|
|
like this: def f(*args): ...; or even like this: def f(a, b, *rest): ...
|
|
- Code tracing and profiling features have been added, and two source
|
|
code debuggers are provided in the library (pdb.py, tty-oriented,
|
|
and wdb, window-oriented); you can now step through Python programs!
|
|
See sys.settrace() and sys.setprofile(), and "../lib/pdb.doc"
|
|
- '==' is now the only equality operator; "../demo/scripts/eqfix.py" is
|
|
a script that fixes old Python modules
|
|
- Plain integer right shift now uses sign extension
|
|
- Long integer shift/mask operations now simulate 2's complement
|
|
to give more useful results for negative operands
|
|
- Changed/added range checks for long/plain integer shifts
|
|
- Options found after "-c command" are now passed to the command in sys.argv
|
|
(note subtle incompatiblity with "python -c command -- -options"!)
|
|
- Module stdwin is better protected against touching objects after they've
|
|
been closed; menus can now also be closed explicitly
|
|
- Stdwin now uses its own exception (stdwin.error)
|
|
|
|
New features in 0.9.5 (released as Macintosh application only, 2 Jan 1992):
|
|
- dictionary objects can now be compared properly; e.g., {}=={} is true
|
|
- new exception SystemExit causes termination if not caught;
|
|
it is raised by sys.exit() so that 'finally' clauses can clean up,
|
|
and it may even be caught. It does work interactively!
|
|
- new module "regex" implements GNU Emacs style regular expressions;
|
|
module "regexp" is rewritten in Python for backward compatibility
|
|
- formal parameter lists may contain trailing commas
|
|
|
|
Bugs fixed in 0.9.6:
|
|
- assigning to or deleting a list item with a negative index dumped core
|
|
- divmod(-10L,5L) returned (-3L, 5L) instead of (-2L, 0L)
|
|
|
|
Bugs fixed in 0.9.5:
|
|
- masking operations involving negative long integers gave wrong results
|
|
|
|
|
|
===================================
|
|
==> RELEASE 0.9.4 (24 Dec 1991) <==
|
|
===================================
|
|
|
|
- new function argument handling (see below)
|
|
- built-in apply(func, args) means func(args[0], args[1], ...)
|
|
- new, more refined exceptions
|
|
- new exception string values (NameError = 'NameError' etc.)
|
|
- better checking for math exceptions
|
|
- for sequences (string/tuple/list), x[-i] is now equivalent to x[len(x)-i]
|
|
- fixed list assignment bug: "a[1:1] = a" now works correctly
|
|
- new class syntax, without extraneous parentheses
|
|
- new 'global' statement to assign global variables from within a function
|
|
|
|
|
|
New class syntax
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
You can now declare a base class as follows:
|
|
|
|
class B: # Was: class B():
|
|
def some_method(self): ...
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
and a derived class thusly:
|
|
|
|
class D(B): # Was: class D() = B():
|
|
def another_method(self, arg): ...
|
|
|
|
Multiple inheritance looks like this:
|
|
|
|
class M(B, D): # Was: class M() = B(), D():
|
|
def this_or_that_method(self, arg): ...
|
|
|
|
The old syntax is still accepted by Python 0.9.4, but will disappear
|
|
in Python 1.0 (to be posted to comp.sources).
|
|
|
|
|
|
New 'global' statement
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
Every now and then you have a global variable in a module that you
|
|
want to change from within a function in that module -- say, a count
|
|
of calls to a function, or an option flag, etc. Until now this was
|
|
not directly possible. While several kludges are known that
|
|
circumvent the problem, and often the need for a global variable can
|
|
be avoided by rewriting the module as a class, this does not always
|
|
lead to clearer code.
|
|
|
|
The 'global' statement solves this dilemma. Its occurrence in a
|
|
function body means that, for the duration of that function, the
|
|
names listed there refer to global variables. For instance:
|
|
|
|
total = 0.0
|
|
count = 0
|
|
|
|
def add_to_total(amount):
|
|
global total, count
|
|
total = total + amount
|
|
count = count + 1
|
|
|
|
'global' must be repeated in each function where it is needed. The
|
|
names listed in a 'global' statement must not be used in the function
|
|
before the statement is reached.
|
|
|
|
Remember that you don't need to use 'global' if you only want to *use*
|
|
a global variable in a function; nor do you need ot for assignments to
|
|
parts of global variables (e.g., list or dictionary items or
|
|
attributes of class instances). This has not changed; in fact
|
|
assignment to part of a global variable was the standard workaround.
|
|
|
|
|
|
New exceptions
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
Several new exceptions have been defined, to distinguish more clearly
|
|
between different types of errors.
|
|
|
|
name meaning was
|
|
|
|
AttributeError reference to non-existing attribute NameError
|
|
IOError unexpected I/O error RuntimeError
|
|
ImportError import of non-existing module or name NameError
|
|
IndexError invalid string, tuple or list index RuntimeError
|
|
KeyError key not in dictionary RuntimeError
|
|
OverflowError numeric overflow RuntimeError
|
|
SyntaxError invalid syntax RuntimeError
|
|
ValueError invalid argument value RuntimeError
|
|
ZeroDivisionError division by zero RuntimeError
|
|
|
|
The string value of each exception is now its name -- this makes it
|
|
easier to experimentally find out which operations raise which
|
|
exceptions; e.g.:
|
|
|
|
>>> KeyboardInterrupt
|
|
'KeyboardInterrupt'
|
|
>>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
New argument passing semantics
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Off-line discussions with Steve Majewski and Daniel LaLiberte have
|
|
convinced me that Python's parameter mechanism could be changed in a
|
|
way that made both of them happy (I hope), kept me happy, fixed a
|
|
number of outstanding problems, and, given some backward compatibility
|
|
provisions, would only break a very small amount of existing code --
|
|
probably all mine anyway. In fact I suspect that most Python users
|
|
will hardly notice the difference. And yet it has cost me at least
|
|
one sleepless night to decide to make the change...
|
|
|
|
Philosophically, the change is quite radical (to me, anyway): a
|
|
function is no longer called with either zero or one argument, which
|
|
is a tuple if there appear to be more arguments. Every function now
|
|
has an argument list containing 0, 1 or more arguments. This list is
|
|
always implemented as a tuple, and it is a (run-time) error if a
|
|
function is called with a different number of arguments than expected.
|
|
|
|
What's the difference? you may ask. The answer is, very little unless
|
|
you want to write variadic functions -- functions that may be called
|
|
with a variable number of arguments. Formerly, you could write a
|
|
function that accepted one or more arguments with little trouble, but
|
|
writing a function that could be called with either 0 or 1 argument
|
|
(or more) was next to impossible. This is now a piece of cake: you
|
|
can simply declare an argument that receives the entire argument
|
|
tuple, and check its length -- it will be of size 0 if there are no
|
|
arguments.
|
|
|
|
Another anomaly of the old system was the way multi-argument methods
|
|
(in classes) had to be declared, e.g.:
|
|
|
|
class Point():
|
|
def init(self, (x, y, color)): ...
|
|
def setcolor(self, color): ...
|
|
dev moveto(self, (x, y)): ...
|
|
def draw(self): ...
|
|
|
|
Using the new scheme there is no need to enclose the method arguments
|
|
in an extra set of parentheses, so the above class could become:
|
|
|
|
class Point:
|
|
def init(self, x, y, color): ...
|
|
def setcolor(self, color): ...
|
|
dev moveto(self, x, y): ...
|
|
def draw(self): ...
|
|
|
|
That is, the equivalence rule between methods and functions has
|
|
changed so that now p.moveto(x,y) is equivalent to Point.moveto(p,x,y)
|
|
while formerly it was equivalent to Point.moveto(p,(x,y)).
|
|
|
|
A special backward compatibility rule makes that the old version also
|
|
still works: whenever a function with exactly two arguments (at the top
|
|
level) is called with more than two arguments, the second and further
|
|
arguments are packed into a tuple and passed as the second argument.
|
|
This rule is invoked independently of whether the function is actually a
|
|
method, so there is a slight chance that some erroneous calls of
|
|
functions expecting two arguments with more than that number of
|
|
arguments go undetected at first -- when the function tries to use the
|
|
second argument it may find it is a tuple instead of what was expected.
|
|
Note that this rule will be removed from future versions of the
|
|
language; it is a backward compatibility provision *only*.
|
|
|
|
Two other rules and a new built-in function handle conversion between
|
|
tuples and argument lists:
|
|
|
|
Rule (a): when a function with more than one argument is called with a
|
|
single argument that is a tuple of the right size, the tuple's items
|
|
are used as arguments.
|
|
|
|
Rule (b): when a function with exactly one argument receives no
|
|
arguments or more than one, that one argument will receive a tuple
|
|
containing the arguments (the tuple will be empty if there were no
|
|
arguments).
|
|
|
|
|
|
A new built-in function, apply(), was added to support functions that
|
|
need to call other functions with a constructed argument list. The call
|
|
|
|
apply(function, tuple)
|
|
|
|
is equivalent to
|
|
|
|
function(tuple[0], tuple[1], ..., tuple[len(tuple)-1])
|
|
|
|
|
|
While no new argument syntax was added in this phase, it would now be
|
|
quite sensible to add explicit syntax to Python for default argument
|
|
values (as in C++ or Modula-3), or a "rest" argument to receive the
|
|
remaining arguments of a variable-length argument list.
|
|
|
|
|
|
========================================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.3 (never made available outside CWI) <==
|
|
========================================================
|
|
|
|
- string sys.version shows current version (also printed on interactive entry)
|
|
- more detailed exceptions, e.g., IOError, ZeroDivisionError, etc.
|
|
- 'global' statement to declare module-global variables assigned in functions.
|
|
- new class declaration syntax: class C(Base1, Base2, ...): suite
|
|
(the old syntax is still accepted -- be sure to convert your classes now!)
|
|
- C shifting and masking operators: << >> ~ & ^ | (for ints and longs).
|
|
- C comparison operators: == != (the old = and <> remain valid).
|
|
- floating point numbers may now start with a period (e.g., .14).
|
|
- definition of integer division tightened (always truncates towards zero).
|
|
- new builtins hex(x), oct(x) return hex/octal string from (long) integer.
|
|
- new list method l.count(x) returns the number of occurrences of x in l.
|
|
- new SGI module: al (Indigo and 4D/35 audio library).
|
|
- the FORMS interface (modules fl and FL) now uses FORMS 2.0
|
|
- module gl: added lrect{read,write}, rectzoom and pixmode;
|
|
added (non-GL) functions (un)packrect.
|
|
- new socket method: s.allowbroadcast(flag).
|
|
- many objects support __dict__, __methods__ or __members__.
|
|
- dir() lists anything that has __dict__.
|
|
- class attributes are no longer read-only.
|
|
- classes support __bases__, instances support __class__ (and __dict__).
|
|
- divmod() now also works for floats.
|
|
- fixed obscure bug in eval('1 ').
|
|
|
|
|
|
===================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.2 (Autumn 1991) <==
|
|
===================================
|
|
|
|
Highlights
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
- tutorial now (almost) complete; library reference reorganized
|
|
- new syntax: continue statement; semicolons; dictionary constructors;
|
|
restrictions on blank lines in source files removed
|
|
- dramatically improved module load time through precompiled modules
|
|
- arbitrary precision integers: compute 2 to the power 1000 and more...
|
|
- arithmetic operators now accept mixed type operands, e.g., 3.14/4
|
|
- more operations on list: remove, index, reverse; repetition
|
|
- improved/new file operations: readlines, seek, tell, flush, ...
|
|
- process management added to the posix module: fork/exec/wait/kill etc.
|
|
- BSD socket operations (with example servers and clients!)
|
|
- many new STDWIN features (color, fonts, polygons, ...)
|
|
- new SGI modules: font manager and FORMS library interface
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extended list of changes in 0.9.2
|
|
---------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Here is a summary of the most important user-visible changes in 0.9.2,
|
|
in somewhat arbitrary order. Changes in later versions are listed in
|
|
the "highlights" section above.
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Changes to the interpreter proper
|
|
|
|
- Simple statements can now be separated by semicolons.
|
|
If you write "if t: s1; s2", both s1 and s2 are executed
|
|
conditionally.
|
|
- The 'continue' statement was added, with semantics as in C.
|
|
- Dictionary displays are now allowed on input: {key: value, ...}.
|
|
- Blank lines and lines bearing only a comment no longer need to
|
|
be indented properly. (A completely empty line still ends a multi-
|
|
line statement interactively.)
|
|
- Mixed arithmetic is supported, 1 compares equal to 1.0, etc.
|
|
- Option "-c command" to execute statements from the command line
|
|
- Compiled versions of modules are cached in ".pyc" files, giving a
|
|
dramatic improvement of start-up time
|
|
- Other, smaller speed improvements, e.g., extracting characters from
|
|
strings, looking up single-character keys, and looking up global
|
|
variables
|
|
- Interrupting a print operation raises KeyboardInterrupt instead of
|
|
only cancelling the print operation
|
|
- Fixed various portability problems (it now passes gcc with only
|
|
warnings -- more Standard C compatibility will be provided in later
|
|
versions)
|
|
- Source is prepared for porting to MS-DOS
|
|
- Numeric constants are now checked for overflow (this requires
|
|
standard-conforming strtol() and strtod() functions; a correct
|
|
strtol() implementation is provided, but the strtod() provided
|
|
relies on atof() for everything, including error checking
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Changes to the built-in types, functions and modules
|
|
|
|
- New module socket: interface to BSD socket primitives
|
|
- New modules pwd and grp: access the UNIX password and group databases
|
|
- (SGI only:) New module "fm" interfaces to the SGI IRIX Font Manager
|
|
- (SGI only:) New module "fl" interfaces to Mark Overmars' FORMS library
|
|
- New numeric type: long integer, for unlimited precision
|
|
- integer constants suffixed with 'L' or 'l' are long integers
|
|
- new built-in function long(x) converts int or float to long
|
|
- int() and float() now also convert from long integers
|
|
- New built-in function:
|
|
- pow(x, y) returns x to the power y
|
|
- New operation and methods for lists:
|
|
- l*n returns a new list consisting of n concatenated copies of l
|
|
- l.remove(x) removes the first occurrence of the value x from l
|
|
- l.index(x) returns the index of the first occurrence of x in l
|
|
- l.reverse() reverses l in place
|
|
- New operation for tuples:
|
|
- t*n returns a tuple consisting of n concatenated copies of t
|
|
- Improved file handling:
|
|
- f.readline() no longer restricts the line length, is faster,
|
|
and isn't confused by null bytes; same for raw_input()
|
|
- f.read() without arguments reads the entire (rest of the) file
|
|
- mixing of print and sys.stdout.write() has different effect
|
|
- New methods for files:
|
|
- f.readlines() returns a list containing the lines of the file,
|
|
as read with f.readline()
|
|
- f.flush(), f.tell(), f.seek() call their stdio counterparts
|
|
- f.isatty() tests for "tty-ness"
|
|
- New posix functions:
|
|
- _exit(), exec(), fork(), getpid(), getppid(), kill(), wait()
|
|
- popen() returns a file object connected to a pipe
|
|
- utime() replaces utimes() (the latter is not a POSIX name)
|
|
- New stdwin features, including:
|
|
- font handling
|
|
- color drawing
|
|
- scroll bars made optional
|
|
- polygons
|
|
- filled and xor shapes
|
|
- text editing objects now have a 'settext' method
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. Changes to the standard library
|
|
|
|
- Name change: the functions path.cat and macpath.cat are now called
|
|
path.join and macpath.join
|
|
- Added new modules: formatter, mutex, persist, sched, mainloop
|
|
- Added some modules and functionality to the "widget set" (which is
|
|
still under development, so please bear with me):
|
|
DirList, FormSplit, TextEdit, WindowSched
|
|
- Fixed module testall to work non-interactively
|
|
- Module string:
|
|
- added functions join() and joinfields()
|
|
- fixed center() to work correct and make it "transitive"
|
|
- Obsolete modules were removed: util, minmax
|
|
- Some modules were moved to the demo directory
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. Changes to the demonstration programs
|
|
|
|
- Added new useful scipts: byteyears, eptags, fact, from, lfact,
|
|
objgraph, pdeps, pi, primes, ptags, which
|
|
- Added a bunch of socket demos
|
|
- Doubled the speed of ptags
|
|
- Added new stdwin demos: microedit, miniedit
|
|
- Added a windowing interface to the Python interpreter: python (most
|
|
useful on the Mac)
|
|
- Added a browser for Emacs info files: demo/stdwin/ibrowse
|
|
(yes, I plan to put all STDWIN and Python documentation in texinfo
|
|
form in the future)
|
|
|
|
|
|
5. Other changes to the distribution
|
|
|
|
- An Emacs Lisp file "python.el" is provided to facilitate editing
|
|
Python programs in GNU Emacs (slightly improved since posted to
|
|
gnu.emacs.sources)
|
|
- Some info on writing an extension in C is provided
|
|
- Some info on building Python on non-UNIX platforms is provided
|
|
|
|
|
|
=====================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.1 (February 1991) <==
|
|
=====================================
|
|
|
|
- Micro changes only
|
|
- Added file "patchlevel.h"
|
|
|
|
|
|
=====================================
|
|
==> Release 0.9.0 (February 1991) <==
|
|
=====================================
|
|
|
|
Original posting to alt.sources.
|