cpython/Doc/whatsnew/2.7.rst

****************************
  What's New in Python 2.7
****************************

:Author: A.M. Kuchling (amk at amk.ca)
:Release: |release|
:Date: |today|

.. $Id$
   Rules for maintenance:

   * Anyone can add text to this document.  Do not spend very much time
   on the wording of your changes, because your text will probably
   get rewritten to some degree.

   * The maintainer will go through Misc/NEWS periodically and add
   changes; it's therefore more important to add your changes to
   Misc/NEWS than to this file.

   * This is not a complete list of every single change; completeness
   is the purpose of Misc/NEWS.  Some changes I consider too small
   or esoteric to include.  If such a change is added to the text,
   I'll just remove it.  (This is another reason you shouldn't spend
   too much time on writing your addition.)

   * If you want to draw your new text to the attention of the
   maintainer, add 'XXX' to the beginning of the paragraph or
   section.

   * It's OK to just add a fragmentary note about a change.  For
   example: "XXX Describe the transmogrify() function added to the
   socket module."  The maintainer will research the change and
   write the necessary text.

   * You can comment out your additions if you like, but it's not
   necessary (especially when a final release is some months away).

   * Credit the author of a patch or bugfix.   Just the name is
   sufficient; the e-mail address isn't necessary.

   * It's helpful to add the bug/patch number in a parenthetical comment.

   XXX Describe the transmogrify() function added to the socket
   module.
   (Contributed by P.Y. Developer; :issue:`12345`.)

   This saves the maintainer some effort going through the SVN logs
   when researching a change.

This article explains the new features in Python 2.7.
No release schedule has been decided yet for 2.7.

.. Compare with previous release in 2 - 3 sentences here.
   add hyperlink when the documentation becomes available online.

.. ========================================================================
.. Large, PEP-level features and changes should be described here.
.. Should there be a new section here for 3k migration?
.. Or perhaps a more general section describing module changes/deprecation?
.. ========================================================================


Kristján Valur Jónsson, issue 4293
Py_AddPendingCall is now thread safe.  This allows any worker thread
to submit notifications to the python main thread.  This is particularly
useful for asynchronous IO operations.


Other Language Changes
======================

Some smaller changes made to the core Python language are:

* The :func:`int` and :func:`long` types gained a ``bit_length``
  method that returns the number of bits necessary to represent
  its argument in binary::

      >>> n = 37
      >>> bin(37)
      '0b100101'
      >>> n.bit_length()
      6
      >>> n = 2**123-1
      >>> n.bit_length()
      123
      >>> (n+1).bit_length()
      124

  (Contributed by Fredrik Johansson and Victor Stinner; :issue:`3439`.)


.. ======================================================================


Optimizations
-------------

To be written.

.. ======================================================================

New, Improved, and Deprecated Modules
=====================================

As in every release, Python's standard library received a number of
enhancements and bug fixes.  Here's a partial list of the most notable
changes, sorted alphabetically by module name. Consult the
:file:`Misc/NEWS` file in the source tree for a more complete list of
changes, or look through the Subversion logs for all the details.

* It is not mandatory anymore to store clear text passwords in the
  :file:`.pypirc` file when registering and uploading packages to PyPI. As long
  as the username is present in that file, the :mod:`distutils` package will
  prompt for the password if not present.  (Added by tarek, with the initial
  contribution of Nathan Van Gheem; :issue:`4394`.)

* The :mod:`pydoc` module now has help for the various symbols that Python
  uses.  You can now do ``help('<<')`` or ``help('@')``, for example.
  (Contributed by David Laban; :issue:`4739`.)

* A new function in the :mod:`subprocess` module,
  :func:`check_output`, runs a command with a specified set of arguments
  and returns the command's output as a string if the command runs without
  error, or raises a :exc:`CalledProcessError` exception otherwise.

  ::

    >>> subprocess.check_output(['df', '-h', '.'])
    'Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on\n
    /dev/disk0s2    52G    49G   3.0G    94%    /\n'

    >>> subprocess.check_output(['df', '-h', '/bogus'])
      ...
    subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['df', '-h', '/bogus']' returned non-zero exit status 1

  (Contributed by Gregory P. Smith.)

* The :func:`is_zipfile` function in the :mod:`zipfile` module will now
  accept a file object, in addition to the path names accepted in earlier
  versions.  (Contributed by Gabriel Genellina; :issue:`4756`.)

.. ======================================================================
.. whole new modules get described in subsections here

.. ======================================================================


Build and C API Changes
=======================

Changes to Python's build process and to the C API include:

* If you use the :file:`.gdbinit` file provided with Python,
  the "pyo" macro in the 2.7 version will now work when the thread being
  debugged doesn't hold the GIL; the macro will now acquire it before printing.
  (Contributed by haypo XXX; :issue:`3632`.)

.. ======================================================================

Port-Specific Changes: Windows
-----------------------------------

* The :mod:`msvcrt` module now contains some constants from
  the :file:`crtassem.h` header file:
  :data:`CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION`,
  :data:`VC_ASSEMBLY_PUBLICKEYTOKEN`,
  and :data:`LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX`.
  (Added by Martin von Loewis (XXX check); :issue:`4365`.)

.. ======================================================================

Port-Specific Changes: Mac OS X
-----------------------------------


.. ======================================================================

Porting to Python 2.7
=====================

This section lists previously described changes and other bugfixes
that may require changes to your code:

To be written.

.. ======================================================================


.. _acks27:

Acknowledgements
================

The author would like to thank the following people for offering
suggestions, corrections and assistance with various drafts of this
article: no one yet.