diff --git a/Misc/HISTORY b/Misc/HISTORY index a36a5f8d603..0e28df4cb41 100644 --- a/Misc/HISTORY +++ b/Misc/HISTORY @@ -6,6 +6,774 @@ This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history. +===================================== +==> Release 1.4 (October 25 1996) <== +===================================== + +(Starting in reverse chronological order:) + +- Changed disclaimer notice. + +- Added SHELL=/bin/sh to Misc/Makefile.pre.in -- some Make versions +default to the user's login shell. + +- In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, removed bogus binding of in Text +widget, and bogus bspace() function. + +- In Lib/cgi.py, bumped __version__ to 2.0 and restored a truncated +paragraph. + +- Fixed the NT Makefile (PC/vc40.mak) for VC 4.0 to set /MD for all +subprojects, and to remove the (broken) experimental NumPy +subprojects. + +- In Lib/py_compile.py, cast mtime to long() so it will work on Mac +(where os.stat() returns mtimes as floats.) +- Set self.rfile unbuffered (like self.wfile) in SocketServer.py, to +fix POST in CGIHTTPServer.py. + +- Version 2.83 of Misc/python-mode.el for Emacs is included. + +- In Modules/regexmodule.c, fixed symcomp() to correctly handle a new +group starting immediately after a group tag. + +- In Lib/SocketServer.py, changed the mode for rfile to unbuffered. + +- In Objects/stringobject.c, fixed the compare function to do the +first char comparison in unsigned mode, for consistency with the way +other characters are compared by memcmp(). + +- In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, fixed Scale.get() to support floats. + +- In Lib/urllib.py, fix another case where openedurl wasn't set. + +(XXX Sorry, the rest is in totally random order. No time to fix it.) + +- SyntaxError exceptions detected during code generation +(e.g. assignment to an expression) now include a line number. + +- Don't leave trailing / or \ in script directory inserted in front of +sys.path. + +- Added a note to Tools/scripts/classfix.py abouts its historical +importance. + +- Added Misc/Makefile.pre.in, a universal Makefile for extensions +built outside the distribution. + +- Rewritten Misc/faq2html.py, by Ka-Ping Yee. + +- Install shared modules with mode 555 (needed for performance on some +platforms). + +- Some changes to standard library modules to avoid calling append() +with more than one argument -- while supported, this should be +outlawed, and I don't want to set a bad example. + +- bdb.py (and hence pdb.py) supports calling run() with a code object +instead of a code string. + +- Fixed an embarrassing bug cgi.py which prevented correct uploading +of binary files from Netscape (which doesn't distinguish between +binary and text files). Also added dormant logging support, which +makes it easier to debug the cgi module itself. + +- Added default writer to constructor of NullFormatter class. + +- Use binary mode for socket.makefile() calls in ftplib.py. + +- The ihooks module no longer "installs" itself upon import -- this +was an experimental feature that helped ironing out some bugs but that +slowed down code that imported it without the need to install it +(e.g. the rexec module). Also close the file in some cases and add +the __file__ attribute to loaded modules. + +- The test program for mailbox.py is now more useful. + +- Added getparamnames() to Message class in mimetools.py -- it returns +the names of parameters to the content-type header. + +- Fixed a typo in ni that broke the loop stripping "__." from names. + +- Fix sys.path[0] for scripts run via pdb.py's new main program. + +- profile.py can now also run a script, like pdb. + +- Fix a small bug in pyclbr -- don't add names starting with _ when +emulating from ... import *. + +- Fixed a series of embarrassing typos in rexec's handling of standard +I/O redirection. Added some more "safe" built-in modules: cmath, +errno, operator. + +- Fixed embarrassing typo in shelve.py. + +- Added SliceType and EllipsisType to types.py. + +- In urllib.py, added handling for error 301 (same as 302); added +geturl() method to get the URL after redirection. + +- Fixed embarrassing typo in xdrlib.py. Also fixed typo in Setup.in +for _xdrmodule.c and removed redundant #include from _xdrmodule.c. + +- Fixed bsddbmodule.c to add binary mode indicator on platforms that +have it. This should make it working on Windows NT. + +- Changed last uses of #ifdef NT to #ifdef MS_WINDOWS or MS_WIN32, +whatever applies. Also rationalized some other tests for various MS +platforms. + +- Added the sources for the NT installer script used for Python +1.4beta3. Not tested with this release, but better than nothing. + +- A compromise in pickle's defenses against Trojan horses: a +user-defined function is now okay where a class is expected. A +built-in function is not okay, to prevent pickling something that +will execute os.system("rm -f *") when unpickling. + +- dis.py will print the name of local variables referenced by local +load/store/delete instructions. + +- Improved portability of SimpleHTTPServer module to non-Unix +platform. + +- The thread.h interface adds an extra argument to down_sema(). This +only affects other C code that uses thread.c; the Python thread module +doesn't use semaphores (which aren't provided on all platforms where +Python threads are supported). Note: on NT, this change is not +implemented. + +- Fixed some typos in abstract.h; corrected signature of +PyNumber_Coerce, added PyMapping_DelItem. Also fixed a bug in +abstract.c's PyObject_CallMethod(). + +- apply(classname, (), {}) now works even if the class has no +__init__() method. + +- Implemented complex remainder and divmod() (these would dump core!). +Conversion of complex numbers to int, long int or float now raises an +exception, since there is no meaningful way to do it without losing +information. + +- Fixed bug in built-in complex() function which gave the wrong result +for two real arguments. + +- Change the hash algorithm for strings -- the multiplier is now +1000003 instead of 3, which gives better spread for short strings. + +- New default path for Windows NT, the registry structure now supports +default paths for different install packages. (Mark Hammond -- the +next PythonWin release will use this.) + +- Added more symbols to the python_nt.def file. + +- When using GNU readline, set rl_readline_name to "python". + +- The Ellipses built-in name has been renamed to Ellipsis -- this is +the correct singular form. Thanks to Ka-Ping Yee, who saved us from +eternal embarrassment. + +- Bumped the PYTHON_API_VERSION to 1006, due to the Ellipses -> +Ellipsis name change. + +- Updated the library reference manual. Added documentation of +restricted mode (rexec, Bastion) and the formatter module (for use +with the htmllib module). Fixed the documentation of htmllib +(finally). + +- The reference manual is now maintained in FrameMaker. + +- Upgraded scripts Doc/partparse.py and Doc/texi2html.py. + +- Slight improvements to Doc/Makefile. + +- Added fcntl.lockf(). This should be used for Unix file locking +instead of the posixfile module; lockf() is more portable. + +- The getopt module now supports long option names, thanks to Lars +Wizenius. + +- Plenty of changes to Tkinter and Canvas, mostly due to Fred Drake +and Nils Fischbeck. + +- Use more bits of time.time() in whrandom's default seed(). + +- Performance hack for regex module's regs attribute. + +- Don't close already closed socket in socket module. + +- Correctly handle separators containing embedded nulls in +strop.split, strop.find and strop.rfind. Also added more detail to +error message for strop.atoi and friends. + +- Moved fallback definition for hypot() to Python/hypot.c. + +- Added fallback definition for strdup, in Python/strdup.c. + +- Fixed some bugs where a function would return 0 to indicate an error +where it should return -1. + +- Test for error returned by time.localtime(), and rationalized its MS +tests. + +- Added Modules/Setup.local file, which is processed after Setup. + +- Corrected bug in toplevel Makefile.in -- execution of regen script +would not use the right PATH and PYTHONPATH. + +- Various and sundry NeXT configuration changes (sigh). + +- Support systems where libreadline needs neither termcap nor curses. + +- Improved ld_so_aix script and python.exp file (for AIX). + +- More stringent test for working in configure script. + +- Removed Demo/www subdirectory -- it was totally out of date. + +- Improved demos and docs for Fred Drake's parser module; fixed one +typo in the module itself. + + +========================================= +==> Release 1.4beta3 (August 26 1996) <== +========================================= + + +(XXX This is less readable that it should. I promise to restructure +it for the final 1.4 release.) + + +What's new in 1.4beta3 (since beta2)? +------------------------------------- + +- Name mangling to implement a simple form of class-private variables. +A name of the form "__spam" can't easily be used outside the class. +(This was added in 1.4beta3, but left out of the 1.4beta3 release +message.) + +- In urllib.urlopen(): HTTP URLs containing user:passwd@host are now +handled correctly when using a proxy server. + +- In ntpath.normpath(): don't truncate to 8+3 format. + +- In mimetools.choose_boundary(): don't die when getuid() or getpid() +aren't defined. + +- Module urllib: some optimizations to (un)quoting. + +- New module MimeWriter for writing MIME documents. + +- More changes to formatter module. + +- The freeze script works once again and is much more robust (using +sys.prefix etc.). It also supports a -o option to specify an +output directory. + +- New module whichdb recognizes dbm, gdbm and bsddb/dbhash files. + +- The Doc/Makefile targets have been reorganized somewhat to remove the +insistence on always generating PostScript. + +- The texinfo to html filter (Doc/texi2html.py) has been improved somewhat. + +- "errors.h" has been renamed to "pyerrors.h" to resolve a long-standing +name conflict on the Mac. + +- Linking a module compiled with a different setting for Py_TRACE_REFS now +generates a linker error rather than a core dump. + +- The cgi module has a new convenience function print_exception(), which +formats a python exception using HTML. It also fixes a bug in the +compatibility code and adds a dubious feature which makes it possible to +have two query strings, one in the URL and one in the POST data. + +- A subtle change in the unpickling of class instances makes it possible +to unpickle in restricted execution mode, where the __dict__ attribute is +not available (but setattr() is). + +- Documentation for os.path.splitext() (== posixpath.splitext()) has been +cleared up. It splits at the *last* dot. + +- posixfile locking is now also correctly supported on AIX. + +- The tempfile module once again honors an initial setting of tmpdir. It +now works on Windows, too. + +- The traceback module has some new functions to extract, format and print +the active stack. + +- Some translation functions in the urllib module have been made a little +less sluggish. + +- The addtag_* methods for Canvas widgets in Tkinter as well as in the +separate Canvas class have been fixed so they actually do something +meaningful. + +- A tiny _test() function has been added to Tkinter.py. + +- A generic Makefile for dynamically loaded modules is provided in the Misc +subdirectory (Misc/gMakefile). + +- A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs is provided. See +http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for details. The +separate file pyimenu.el is no longer needed, imenu support is folded +into python-mode.el. + +- The configure script can finally correctly find the readline library in a +non-standard location. The LDFLAGS variable is passed on the the Makefiles +from the configure script. + +- Shared libraries are now installed as programs (i.e. with executable +permission). This is required on HP-UX and won't hurt on other systems. + +- The objc.c module is no longer part of the distribution. Objective-C +support may become available as contributed software on the ftp site. + +- The sybase module is no longer part of the distribution. A much +improved sybase module is available as contributed software from the +ftp site. + +- _tkinter is now compatible with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 patch1 on Windows and +Mac (don't use unpatched Tcl/Tk!). The default line in the Setup.in file +now links with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 rather than 7.4/4.0. + +- In Setup, you can now write "*shared*" instead of "*noconfig*", and you +can use *.so and *.sl as shared libraries. + +- Some more fidgeting for AIX shared libraries. + +- The mpz module is now compatible with GMP 2.x. (Not tested by me.) +(Note -- a complete replacement by Niels Mo"ller, called gpmodule, is +available from the contrib directory on the ftp site.) + +- A warning is written to sys.stderr when a __del__ method raises an +exception (formerly, such exceptions were completely ignored). + +- The configure script now defines HAVE_OLD_CPP if the C preprocessor is +incapable of ANSI style token concatenation and stringification. + +- All source files (except a few platform specific modules) are once again +compatible with K&R C compilers as well as ANSI compilers. In particular, +ANSI-isms have been removed or made conditional in complexobject.c, +getargs.c and operator.c. + +- The abstract object API has three new functions, PyObject_DelItem, +PySequence_DelItem, and PySequence_DelSlice. + +- The operator module has new functions delitem and delslice, and the +functions "or" and "and" are renamed to "or_" and "and_" (since "or" and +"and" are reserved words). ("__or__" and "__and__" are unchanged.) + +- The environment module is no longer supported; putenv() is now a function +in posixmodule (also under NT). + +- Error in filter(, "") has been fixed. + +- Unrecognized keyword arguments raise TypeError, not KeyError. + +- Better portability, fewer bugs and memory leaks, fewer compiler warnings, +some more documentation. + +- Bug in float power boundary case (0.0 to the negative integer power) +fixed. + +- The test of negative number to the float power has been moved from the +built-in pow() functin to floatobject.c (so complex numbers can yield the +correct result). + +- The bug introduced in beta2 where shared libraries loaded (using +dlopen()) from the current directory would fail, has been fixed. + +- Modules imported as shared libraries now also have a __file__ attribute, +giving the filename from which they were loaded. The only modules without +a __file__ attribute now are built-in modules. + +- On the Mac, dynamically loaded modules can end in either ".slb" or +"..slb" where is either "CFM68K" or "ppc". The ".slb" +extension should only be used for "fat" binaries. + +- C API addition: marshal.c now supports +PyMarshal_WriteObjectToString(object). + +- C API addition: getargs.c now supports +PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwdict, format, kwnames, ...) +to parse keyword arguments. + +- The PC versioning scheme (sys.winver) has changed once again. the +version number is now "...", where the +first three s are the Python version (e.g. "1.4.0" for Python 1.4, +"1.4.1" for Python 1.4.1 -- the beta level is not included) and + is the four-digit PYTHON_API_VERSION (currently 1005). + +- h2py.py accepts whitespace before the # in CPP directives + +- On Solaris 2.5, it should now be possible to use either Posix threads or +Solaris threads (XXX: how do you select which is used???). (Note: the +Python pthreads interface doesn't fully support semaphores yet -- anyone +care to fix this?) + +- Thread support should now work on AIX, using either DCE threads or +pthreads. + +- New file Demo/sockets/unicast.py + +- Working Mac port, with CFM68K support, with Tk 4.1 support (though not +both) (XXX) + +- New project setup for PC port, now compatible with PythonWin, with +_tkinter and NumPy support (XXX) + +- New module site.py (XXX) + +- New module xdrlib.py and optional support module _xdrmodule.c (XXX) + +- parser module adapted to new grammar, complete w/ Doc & Demo (XXX) + +- regen script fixed (XXX) + +- new machdep subdirectories Lib/{aix3,aix4,next3_3,freebsd2,linux2} (XXX) + +- testall now also tests math module (XXX) + +- string.atoi c.s. now raise an exception for an empty input string. + +- At last, it is no longer necessary to define HAVE_CONFIG_H in order to +have config.h included at various places. + +- Unrecognized keyword arguments now raise TypeError rather than KeyError. + +- The makesetup script recognizes files with extension .so or .sl as +(shared) libraries. + +- 'access' is no longer a reserved word, and all code related to its +implementation is gone (or at least #ifdef'ed out). This should make +Python a little speedier too! + +- Performance enhancements suggested by Sjoerd Mullender. This includes +the introduction of two new optional function pointers in type object, +getattro and setattro, which are like getattr and setattr but take a +string object instead of a C string pointer. + +- New operations in string module: lstrip(s) and rstrip(s) strip whitespace +only on the left or only on the right, A new optional third argument to +split() specifies the maximum number of separators honored (so +splitfields(s, sep, n) returns a list of at most n+1 elements). (Since +1.3, splitfields(s, None) is totally equivalent to split(s).) +string.capwords() has an optional second argument specifying the +separator (which is passed to split()). + +- regsub.split() has the same addition as string.split(). regsub.splitx(s, +sep, maxsep) implements the functionality that was regsub.split(s, 1) in +1.4beta2 (return a list containing the delimiters as well as the words). + +- Final touch for AIX loading, rewritten Misc/AIX-NOTES. + +- In Modules/_tkinter.c, when using Tk 4.1 or higher, use className +argument to _tkinter.create() to set Tcl's argv0 variable, so X +resources use the right resource class again. + +- Add #undef fabs to Modules/mathmodule.c for macintosh. + +- Added some macro renames for AIX in Modules/operator.c. + +- Removed spurious 'E' from Doc/liberrno.tex. + +- Got rid of some cruft in Misc/ (dlMakefile, pyimenu.el); added new +Misc/gMakefile and new version of Misc/python-mode.el. + +- Fixed typo in Lib/ntpath.py (islink has "return false" which gives a +NameError). + +- Added missing "from types import *" to Lib/tkinter/Canvas.py. + +- Added hint about using default args for __init__ to pickle docs. + +- Corrected typo in Inclide/abstract.h: PySequence_Lenth -> +PySequence_Length. + +- Some improvements to Doc/texi2html.py. + +- In Python/import.c, Cast unsigned char * in struct _frozen to char * +in calls to rds_object(). + +- In doc/ref4.tex, added note about scope of lambda bodies. + +What's new in 1.4beta2 (since beta1)? +------------------------------------- + +- Portability bug in the md5.h header solved. + +- The PC build procedure now really works, and sets sys.platform to a +meaningful value (a few things were botched in beta 1). Lib/dos_8x3 +is now a standard part of the distribution (alas). + +- More improvements to the installation procedure. Typing "make install" +now inserts the version number in the pathnames of almost everything +installed, and creates the machine dependent modules (FCNTL.py etc.) if not +supplied by the distribution. (XXX There's still a problem with the latter +because the "regen" script requires that Python is installed. Some manual +intervention may still be required.) (This has been fixed in 1.4beta3.) + +- New modules: errno, operator (XXX). + +- Changes for use with Numerical Python: builtin function slice() and +Ellipses object, and corresponding syntax: + + x[lo:hi:stride] == x[slice(lo, hi, stride)] + x[a, ..., z] == x[(a, Ellipses, z)] + +- New documentation for errno and cgi mdoules. + +- The directory containing the script passed to the interpreter is +inserted in from of sys.path; "." is no longer a default path +component. + +- Optional third string argument to string.translate() specifies +characters to delete. New function string.maketrans() creates a +translation table for translate() or for regex.compile(). + +- Module posix (and hence module os under Unix) now supports putenv(). +Moreover, module os is enhanced so that if putenv() is supported, +assignments to os.environ entries make the appropriate putenv() call. +(XXX the putenv() implementation can leak a small amount of memory per +call.) + +- pdb.py can now be invoked from the command line to debug a script: +python pdb.py