Checkpointing news for 1.5.2a1... (Not all done.)
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Guido van Rossum
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Misc/NEWS
267
Misc/NEWS
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@ -14,6 +14,273 @@ credit, let me know and I'll add you to the list!
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======================================================================
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From 1.5.1 to 1.5.2a1
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=====================
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General/Miscellaneous
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---------------------
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- All patches on the patch page have been integrated. (But much more
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has been done!)
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- Several memory leaks plugged (e.g. the one for classes with a
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__getattr__ method).
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- Better checks for invalid input to int(), long(), string.atoi(),
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string.atol(). (Formerly, a sign without digits would be accepted as
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a legal ways to spell zero.)
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- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError;
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EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
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PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
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class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
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The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
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filename argument now use this.
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- When searching for the library, a landmark that is a compiled module
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(string.pyc or string.pyo) is also accepted.
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- Removed the only use of calloc(). This triggered an obscure bug on
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multiprocessor Sparc Solaris 2.6.
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- Changes to map() and filter() to use the length of a sequence only
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as a hint -- if an IndexError happens earlier, take that. (Formerly,
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this was considered an error.)
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- Instance methods may now have other callable objects than just
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Python functions as their im_func. Use new.instancemethod() or write
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your own C code to create them; new.instancemethod() may be called
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with None for the instance to create an unbound method.
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- Assignment to __dict__ or __bases__ of a class object is now
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allowed (with stringent type checks). The cached values for
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__getattr__ etc. are recomputed after such assignments (but not for
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derived classes :-( ).
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- New and improved Misc/python-mode.el (Python mode for Emacs).
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- New, better performing sort() method for list objects.
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- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
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and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at i.
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- Experimental feature in getattr(): a third argument can specify a
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default (instead of raising AttributeError).
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Documentation
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-------------
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- The documentation has been expanded and the formatting improved.
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(Remember that the documentation is now unbundled and has its own
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release cycle though; see http://www.python.org/doc/.)
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- Doc strings have been added to many modules: socket, signal, select,
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time, thread, sys, __builtin__. Also to methods of list objects (try
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[].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now automatically be
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propagated to an instance if the instance has methods that are
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accessed in the usual way.
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Ports
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-----
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- The BeOS port is now integrated. Courtesy Chris Herborth.
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- Symbol files for FreeBSD 2.x and 3.x have been contributed
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(Lib/plat-freebsd[23]/*).
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Windows
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-------
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- The project files have been moved so they are distributed in the
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same subdirectory (PCbuild) where they must be used; this avoids
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confusion.
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- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
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- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
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- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive.
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- Don't insist on proper case for module source files if the filename
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is all uppercase (e.g. FOO.PY now matches foo; but FOO.py still
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doesn't). This should address problems with this feature on
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oldfashioned filesystems (Novell servers?).
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Library modules
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---------------
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- New tests (in Lib/test): reperf.py (regular expression benchmark),
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sortperf.py (list sorting benchmark), test_MimeWriter.py (test case
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for the MimeWriter module).
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- Changes to os.py: os.environ now upcases keys before storing them on
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Windows, DOS and OS/2; new functions makedirs(), removedirs(),
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renames().
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- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
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getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
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stat return tuple.
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- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
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compliance, for picky servers.
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- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
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returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
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of regular file objects.
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- In whrandom.py, added new method and function randrange(), same as
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choice(range(start, stop, step)) but faster. This addresses the
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problem that randint() was accidentally defined as taking an inclusive
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range. Also, randint(a, b) is now redefined as randrange(a, b+1),
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adding extra range and type checking to its arguments!
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- In getpass.py, don't use raw_input() to ask for the password -- we
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don't want it to show up in the readline history!
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- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
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packages.
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- Some small changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote(),
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fixed an obscure bug in quote_plus(). Added urlencode(dict) --
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convenience function for sending a POST request with urlopen().
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Rewrote the (test) main program so that when used as a script, it can
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retrieve one or more URLs to stdout. Use -t to run the self-test.
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- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
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been loaded yet.
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- In rfc822.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode on
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Windows. Also add a new class AddressList.
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- In mailbox.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode on
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Windows.
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- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
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functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
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occurrences of a given substring.
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- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
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sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
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can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
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- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
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long ago.
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- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
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exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name, no
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longer add 'name' option to every section.
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- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
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- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
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- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py.
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- In cgi.py, treat "HEAD" the same as "GET", so that CGI scripts don't
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fail when someone asks for their HEAD.
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- Improved imaplib.py.
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- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
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PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
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- In multifile.py, support a seekable flag.
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- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py, which never worked.
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- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
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IndexError when there are no more completions left.
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Tkinter
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-------
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- New demos in Demo/tkinter/guido/: brownian.py, redemo.py, switch.py.
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- No longer register Tcl_finalize() as a low-level exit handler. It
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may call back into Python, and that's a bad idea.
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- On Unix, Tkinter can now safely be used from a multi-threaded
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application. (Formerly, no threads would make progress while
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Tkinter's mainloop() was active, because it didn't release the Python
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interpreter lock.) Unfortunately, on Windows, threads other than the
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main thread should not call update() or update_idletasks() because
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this will deadlock the application.
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- Allow binding of Tcl commands (given as a string).
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- Some minor speedups.
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Extension modules
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-----------------
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- In the socket module: new function gethostbyname_ex().
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- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions:
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WEXITSTATUS(), WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(),
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WTERMSIG().
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- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
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readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
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- On Windows, in select, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the
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heap.
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- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
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result in long integer values.
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Build procedure
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---------------
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- Finally fixed the configure script so that (on SGI) if -OPT:Olimit=0
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works, it won't also use -Olimit 1500 (which gives a warning for every
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file).
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- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script.
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Tools
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-----
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- Some improvements to the freeze script.
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- New tool ndiff.py: Tim Peters' text diffing tool.
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- The script texi2html.py (which was part of the Doc tree but is no
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longer used there) has been moved to the Tools/scripts subdirectory.
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- Some generalizations in the webchecker code. There's now a
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primnitive gui for websucker.py: wsgui.py. (In Tools/webchecker/.)
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- Some improvements to freeze (made it more robust on Windows).
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- The ftpmirror.py script now handles symbolic links properly.
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Python/C API
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------------
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- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
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your compiler supports it.
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- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
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instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
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Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
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change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
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etc. are sought).
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- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_List() to use the
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length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
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earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
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- New macros to access object members for PyFunction, PyCFunction
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objects.
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- New APIs PyImport_AppendInittab() an PyImport_ExtendInittab() to
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dynamically add one or many entries to the table of built-in modules.
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- New macro Py_InitModule3(name, methods, doc) which calls
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Py_InitModule4() with appropriate arguments. (The -4 variant requires
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you to pass an obscure version number constant which is always the same.)
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From 1.5 to 1.5.1
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=================
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