From c0328f014bd3563d5bc00d8d434fe2749872247c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Andrew M. Kuchling" Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 15:11:20 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Mention setting the default encoding Add IDLE section from MZ --- Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew20.tex | 60 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 45 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-) diff --git a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew20.tex b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew20.tex index 021455d5505..6e098ecfbef 100644 --- a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew20.tex +++ b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew20.tex @@ -56,13 +56,15 @@ by \code{\e 777}. Unicode strings, just like regular strings, are an immutable sequence type, so they can be indexed and sliced. They also have an -\method{encode( \optional{\var{encoding}} )} method that returns an 8-bit -string in the desired encoding. Encodings are named by strings, such -as \code{'ascii'}, \code{'utf-8'}, \code{'iso-8859-1'}, or whatever. -A codec API is defined for implementing and registering new encodings -that are then available throughout a Python program. If an encoding -isn't specified, the default encoding is always 7-bit ASCII. (XXX is -that the current default encoding?) +\method{encode( \optional{\var{encoding}} )} method that returns an +8-bit string in the desired encoding. Encodings are named by strings, +such as \code{'ascii'}, \code{'utf-8'}, \code{'iso-8859-1'}, or +whatever. A codec API is defined for implementing and registering new +encodings that are then available throughout a Python program. If an +encoding isn't specified, the default encoding is usually 7-bit ASCII, +though it can be changed for your Python installation by calling the +\function{sys.setdefaultencoding(\var{encoding})} function in a +customized version of \file{site.py}. Combining 8-bit and Unicode strings always coerces to Unicode, using the default ASCII encoding; the result of \code{'a' + u'bc'} is @@ -154,10 +156,11 @@ Unicode-aware regular expressions are available through the \module{re} module, which has a new underlying implementation called SRE written by Fredrik Lundh of Secret Labs AB. -(XXX M.A. Lemburg added a -U command line option, which causes the -Python compiler to interpret all "..." strings as u"..." (same with -r"..." and ur"..."). Is this just for experimenting/testing, or is it -actually a new feature?) +A \code{-U} command line option was added which causes the Python +compiler to interpret all string literals as Unicode string literals. +This is intended to be used in testing and future-proofing your Python +code, since some future version of Python may drop support for 8-bit +strings and provide only Unicode strings. % ====================================================================== \section{Distutils: Making Modules Easy to Install} @@ -560,7 +563,7 @@ particular module. \item{\module{filecmp}:} Supersedes the old \module{cmp} and \module{dircmp} modules, which have now become deprecated. -(Contributed by Moshe Zadka.) +(Contributed by Gordon MacMillan and Moshe Zadka.) \item{\module{linuxaudio}:} Support for the \file{/dev/audio} device on Linux, a twin to the existing \module{sunaudiodev} module. @@ -599,7 +602,6 @@ archives. These are archives produced by \program{PKZIP} on DOS/Windows or \program{zip} on Unix, not to be confused with \program{gzip}-format files (which are supported by the \module{gzip} module) - (Contributed by James C. Ahlstrom.) \end{itemize} @@ -607,8 +609,36 @@ module) % ====================================================================== \section{IDLE Improvements} -XXX IDLE -- complete overhaul. I don't use IDLE; can anyone tell me -what the changes are? +IDLE is the official Python cross-platform IDE, written using Tkinter. +Python 1.6 includes IDLE 0.6, which adds a number of new features and +improvements. A partial list: + +\begin{itemize} +\item UI improvements and optimizations, +especially in the area of syntax highlighting and auto-indentation. + +\item The class browser now shows more information, such as the top +level functions in a module (XXX did I interpret that right?). + +\item Tab width is now a user settable option. When opening an existing Python +file, IDLE automatically detects the indentation conventions, and adapts. + +\item There is now support for calling browsers on various platforms, +used to open the Python documentation in a browser. + +\item IDLE now has a command line, which is largely similar to +the vanilla Python interpreter. + +\item Call tips were added in many places. + +\item IDLE can now be installed as a package. + +\item In the editor window, there is now a line/column bar at the bottom. + +\item Three new keystroke commands: Check module (Alt-F5), Import +module (F5) and Run script (Ctrl-F5) + +\end{itemize} % ====================================================================== \section{Deleted and Deprecated Modules}