911 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
911 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
What's new in this release?
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===========================
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Below is a partial list of changes. This list is much more detailed than
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previous; however it is still not complete. I did go through my CVS logs
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but ran out of time. Some changes made beteen Oct 1996 and April 1997
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have not yet been noted.
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Miscellaneous
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-------------
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- The default module search path is now much saner. Both on Unix and
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Windows, it is essentially derived from the path to the executable
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(which can be overridden by setting the environment variable
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$PYTHONHOME). The value of $PYTHONPATH on Windows is now inserted in
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front of the default path, like in Unix (instead of overriding the
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default path). On Windows, the directory containing the executable is
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added to the end of the path.
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- On Unix, when using sys.argv[0] to insert the script directory in
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front of sys.path, expand a symbolic link. You can now install a
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program in a private directory and have a symbolic link to it in a
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public bin directory, and it will put the private directory in the
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module search path. Note that the symlink is expanded in sys.path[0]
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but not in sys.argv[0], so you can still tell the name by which you
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were invoked.
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- It is now recommended to use ``#!/usr/bin/env python'' instead of
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``#!/usr/local/bin/python'' at the start of executable scripts, except
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for CGI scripts. It has been determined that the use of /usr/bin/env
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is more portable than that of /usr/local/bin/python -- scripts almost
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never have to be edited when the Python interpreter lives in a
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non-standard place. Note that this doesn't work for CGI scripts since
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the python executable often doesn't live in the HTTP server's default
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search path.
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- The silly -s command line option and the corresponding
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PYTHONSUPPRESS environment variable (and the Py_SuppressPrint global
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flag in the Python/C API) are gone.
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- Most problems on 64-bit platforms should now be fixed. Andrew
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Kuchling helped. Some uncommon extension modules are still not
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clean (image and audio ops?).
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- Fixed a bug where multiple anonymous tuple arguments would be mixed up
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when using the debugger or profiler (reported by Just van Rossum).
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The simplest example is ``def f((a,b),(c,d)): print a,b,c,d''; this
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would print the wrong value when run under the debugger or profiler.
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- The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I
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wrote my own quicksort implementation, with help from Tim Peters.
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This solves a bug in dictionary comparisons on some Solaris versions
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when Python is built with threads, and makes sorting lists even
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faster.
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- The hacks that the dictionary implementation used to speed up
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repeated lookups of the same C string were removed; these were a
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source of subtle problems and don't seem to serve much of a purpose
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any longer.
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- All traces of support for the long dead access statement have been
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removed from the sources.
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- Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an
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interactive EOF.
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Performance
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-----------
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- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see
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Tools/scripts). See the entry on string interning below.
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- Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both
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the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers.
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- Big speedup by allocating frame objects with a single malloc() call.
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The Python/C API for frames is changed (you shouldn't be using this
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anyway).
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- Significant speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand
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types (e.g. i+i, i-i, and list[i]). Fredrik Lundh.
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- Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common
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objects (e.g. list.append is now first).
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- Big optimization to the read() method of file objects. A read()
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without arguments now attempts to use fstat to allocate a buffer of
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the right size; for pipes and sockets, it will fall back to doubling
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the buffer size. While that the improvement is real on all systems,
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it is most dramatic on Windows.
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Documentation
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-------------
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- Many new pieces of library documentation were contributed, mostly by
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Andrew Kuchling. Even cmath is now documented! There's also a
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chapter of the library manual, "libundoc.tex", which provides a
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listing of all undocumented modules, plus their status (e.g. internal,
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obsolete, or in need of documentation). Also contributions by Sue
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Williams, Skip Montanaro, and some module authors who succumbed to
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pressure to document their own contributed modules :-). Note that
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printing the documentation now kills fewer trees -- the margins have
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been reduced.
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- I have started documenting the Python/C API. Unfortunately this project
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hasn't been completed yet. It will be complete before the final release of
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Python 1.5, though. At the moment, it's better to read the LaTeX source
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than to attempt to run it through LaTeX and print the resulting dvi file.
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- The posix module (and hence os.py) now has doc strings! Thanks to Neil
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Schemenauer. I received a few other contributions of doc strings. In most
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other places, doc strings are still wishful thinking...
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Language changes
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----------------
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- Private variables with leading double underscore are now a permanent
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feature of the language. (These were experimental in release 1.4. I have
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favorable experience using them; I can't label them "experimental"
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forever.)
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- There's new string literal syntax for "raw strings". Prefixing a string
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literal with the letter r (or R) disables all escape processing in the
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string; for example, r'\n' is a two-character string consisting of a
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backslash followed by the letter n. This combines with all forms of string
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quotes; it is actually useful for triple quoted doc strings which might
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contain references to \n or \t. An embedded quote prefixed with a
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backslash does not terminate the string, but the backslash is still
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included in the string; for example, r'\'' is a two-character string
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consisting of a backslash and a quote. (Raw strings are also
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affectionately known as Robin strings, after their inventor, Robin
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Friedrich.)
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- There's a simple assert statement, and a new exception
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AssertionError. For example, ``assert foo > 0'' is equivalent to ``if
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not foo > 0: raise AssertionError''. Sorry, the text of the asserted
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condition is not available; it would be too generate code for this.
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However, the text is displayed as part of the traceback! There's also
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a -O option to the interpreter that removes SET_LINENO instructions,
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assert statements; it uses and produces .pyo files instead of .pyc
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files (the line numbers are still available in the .pyo file, as a
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separate table; but the removal of the SET_LINENO instructions means
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that the debugger can't set breakpoints on lines in -O mode). In the
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future it should be possible to write external bytecode optimizers
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that create better optimized .pyo files. Without -O, the assert
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statement actually generates code that first checks __debug__; if this
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variable is false, the assertion is not checked. __debug__ is a
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built-in variable whose value is initialized to track the -O flag
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(it's true iff -O is not specified). With -O, no code is generated
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for assert statements, nor for code of the form ``if __debug__:
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<something>''. Sorry, no further constant folding happens.
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Changes to builtin features
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---------------------------
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- There's a new exception FloatingPointError (used only by Lee Busby's
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patches to catch floating point exceptions, at the moment).
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- The obsolete exception ConflictError has been deleted.
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- There's a new function sys.exc_info() which returns the tuple
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(sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback) in a thread-safe way.
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- There's a new variable sys.executable, pointing to the executable file
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for the Python interpreter.
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- The semantics of try-except have changed subtly so that calling a
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function in an exception handler that itself raises and catches an
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exception no longer overwrites the sys.exc_* variables. This also
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alleviates the problem that objects referenced in a stack frame that
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caught an exception are kept alive until another exception is caught
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-- the sys.exc_* variables are restored to their previous value when
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returning from a function that caught an exception.
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- There's a new "buffer" interface. Certain objects (e.g. strings and
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arrays) now support the "buffer" protocol. Buffer objects are acceptable
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whenever formerly a string was required for a write operation; mutable
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buffer objects can be the target of a read operation using the call
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f.readinto(buffer). A cool feature is that regular expression matching now
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also work on array objects. Contribution by Jack Jansen. (Needs
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documentation.)
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- String interning: dictionary lookups are faster when the lookup
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string object is the same object as the key in the dictionary, not
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just a string with the same value. This is done by having a pool of
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"interned" strings. Most names generated by the interpreter are now
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automatically interned, and there's a new built-in function intern(s)
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that returns the interned version of a string. Interned strings are
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not a different object type, and interning is totally optional, but by
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interning most keys a speedup of about 15% was obtained for the
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pystone benchmark.
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- Dictionary objects have several new methods; clear() and copy() have
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the obvious semantics, while update(d) merges the contents of another
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dictionary d into this one, overriding existing keys. BTW, the
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dictionary implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than
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the confusing mappingobject.c.
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- The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__,
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__members__ and __methods__.
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- The intrinsic functions int(), long() and float() can now take a
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string argument and then do the same thing as string.atoi(),
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string.atol(), and string.atof(). No second 'base' argument is
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allowed, and complex() does not take a string (nobody cared enough).
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- When a module is deleted, its globals are now deleted in two phases.
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In the first phase, all variables whose name begins with exactly one
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underscore are replaced by None; in the second phase, all variables
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are deleted. This makes it possible to have global objects whose
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destructors depend on other globals. The deletion order within each
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phase is still random.
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- It is no longer an error for a function to be called without a
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global variable __builtins__ -- an empty directory will be provided
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by default.
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- Guido's corollary to the "Don Beaudry hack": it is now possible to do
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metaprogramming by using an instance as a base class. Not for the
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faint of heart; and undocumented as yet, but basically if a base class
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is an instance, its class will be instantiated to create the new
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class. Jim Fulton will love it -- it also works with instances of his
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"extension classes", since it is triggered by the presence of a
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__class__ attribute on the purported base class.
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- New optional parameter to the readlines() method of file objects.
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This indicates the number of bytes to read (the actual number of bytes
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read will be somewhat larger due to buffering reading until the end of
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the line). Some optimizations have also been made to speed it up (but
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not as much as read()).
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New extension modules
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---------------------
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- New extension modules cStringIO.c and cPickle.c, written by Jim
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Fulton and other folks at Digital Creations. These are much more
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efficient than their Python counterparts StringIO.py and pickle.py,
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but don't support subclassing. cPickle.c clocks up to 1000 times
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faster than pickle.py; cStringIO.c's improvement is less dramatic but
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still significant. The pickle.py module has been updated to make it
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compatible with the new binary format that cPickle.c produces (by
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default it produces the old all-ASCII format compatible with the old
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pickle.py, still much faster than pickle.py; it can read both
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formats). A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register
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extensions to the pickling code. (These are now identical to the
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release 0.3 from Digital Creations.)
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- New extension module zlibmodule.c, interfacing to the free zlib
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library (gzip compatible compression). There's also a module gzip.py
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which provides a higher level interface. Written by Andrew Kuchling
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and Jeremy Hylton.
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- New module readline; see the "miscellaneous" section above.
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- New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides
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access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and
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related symbolic constants.
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- New extension puremodule.c, by Barry Warsaw, which interfaces to the
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Purify(TM) C API. See also the file Misc/PURIFY.README. It is also
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possible to enable Purify by simply setting the PURIFY Makefile
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variable in the Modules/Setup file.
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Changes in extension modules
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----------------------------
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- The struct extension module has several new features to control byte
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order and word size. It supports reading and writing IEEE floats even
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on platforms where this is not the native format.
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- The fcntl extension module now exports the needed symbolic
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constants. (Formerly these were in FCNTL.py which was not available
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or correct for all platforms.)
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- The extension modules dbm, gdbm and bsddb now check that the
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database is still open before making any new calls.
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- Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType,
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array.ArrayType.
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- The socket module's accept() method now returns unknown addresses as
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a tuple rather than raising an exception. (This can happen in
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promiscuous mode.) Theres' also a new function getprotobyname().
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- The pthread support for the thread module now works on most platforms.
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- STDWIN is now officially obsolete. Support for it will eventually
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be removed from the distribution.
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- The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged. (XXX
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Oops -- Fredril Lundh promised me a fix that I never received.)
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- audioop.c: added a ratecv method
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- posixmodule.c: now exports the O_* flags (O_APPEND etc.). On
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Windows, also O_TEXT and O_BINARY. The 'error' variable (the
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exception is raises) is renamed -- its string value is now "os.error",
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so newbies don't believe they have to import posix (or nt) to catch
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it when they see os.error reported as posix.error.
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- A new version of the al (audio library) module for SGI was
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contributed by Sjoerd Mullender.
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- The regex module has a new function get_syntax() which retrieves the
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syntax setting set by set_syntax(). The code was also sanitized,
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removing worries about unclean error handling. See also below for its
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successor, re.py.
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- The "new" module (which creates new objects of various types) once
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again has a fully functioning new.function() method. Dangerous as
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ever!
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New library modules
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-------------------
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- New (still experimental) Perl-style regular expression module,
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re.py, which uses a new interface for matching as well as a new
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syntax; the new interface avoids the thread-unsafety of the regex
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interface. This comes with a helper extension reopmodule.c and vastly
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rewritten regexpr.c. Most work on this was done by Jeffrey Ollie, Tim
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Peters, and Andrew Kuchling. See the documentation libre.tex. In
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1.5, the old regex module is still fully supported; in the future, it
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will become obsolete.
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- New module gzip.py; see zlib above.
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- New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in
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keywords. (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.)
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- New module pprint.py (with documentation) which supports
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pretty-printing of lists, tuples, & dictionaries recursively. By Fred
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Drake.
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- New module code.py. The function code.compile_command() can
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determine whether an interactively entered command is complete or not,
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distinguishing incomplete from invalid input.
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- There is now a library module xdrlib.py which can read and write the
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XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example. It uses the struct
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module.
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Changes in library modules
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--------------------------
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- Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete.
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- Revamped module tokenize.py is much more accurate and has an
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interface that makes it a breeze to write code to colorize Python
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source code. Contributed by Ka-Ping Yee.
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- In ihooks.py, ModuleLoader.load_module() now closes the file under
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all circumstances.
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- The tempfile.py module has a new class, TemporaryFile, which creates
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an open temporary file that will be deleted automatically when
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closed. This works on Windows and MacOS as well as on Unix. (Jim
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Fulton.)
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- Changes to the cgi.py module: Most imports are now done at the
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top of the module, which provides a speedup when using ni (Jim
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Fulton). The problem with file upload to a Windows platform is solved
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by using the new tempfile.TemporaryFile class; temporary files are now
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always opened in binary mode (Jim Fulton). The cgi.escape() function
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now takes an optional flag argument that quotes '"' to '"'. It
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is now possible to invoke cgi.py from a command line script, to test
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cgi scripts more easily outside an http server. There's an optional
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limit to the size of uploads to POST (Skip Montanaro). Added a
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'strict_parsing' option to all parsing functions (Jim Fulton). The
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function parse_qs() now uses urllib.unquote() on the name as well as
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the value of fields (Clarence Gardner). The FieldStorage class now
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has a __len__() method.
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- httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.*
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versions are now treated the same; and it is now thread-safe (by not
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using the regex module).
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- BaseHTTPModule.py: treat all HTTP/1.* versions the same.
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- The popen2.py module is now rewritten using a class, which makes
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access to the standard error stream and the process id of the
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subprocess possible.
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- Added timezone support to the rfc822.py module, in the form of a
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getdate_tz() method and a parsedate_tz() function. Also added
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recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars Wirzenius.
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- mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing
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of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess. Also
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added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius.
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- The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes). (Lars
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Wirzenius.) (Of course, you should be using cStringIO for performance.)
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- UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well.
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- Improvements for whrandom.py by Tim Peters: use 32-bit arithmetic to
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speed it up, and replace 0 seed values by 1 to avoid degeneration.
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- Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file (Fred
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Drake). Also added an ntransfercmd() method to the FTP class, which
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allows access to the expected size of a transfer when available, and a
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parse150() function to the module which parses the corresponding 150
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response.
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- urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries. Added
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quote_plus() method which is like qupte() but also replaces spaces
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with '+', for encoding CGI form arguments. Catch all errors from the
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ftp module. HTTP requests now add the Host: header line. The proxy
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variable names are now mapped to lower case, for Windows. The
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spliturl() function no longer erroneously throws away all data past
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the first newline. The basejoin() function now intereprets "../"
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correctly.
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- shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available. Also added
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a sync() method, which calls the database's sync() method if there is
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one.
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- The mimetools.py module now uses the available Python modules for
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decoding quoted-printable, uuencode and base64 formats, rather than
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creating a subprocess.
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- The python debugger (pdb.py, and its base class bdb.py) now support
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conditional breakpoints. See the docs.
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- The modules base64.py, uu.py and quopri.py can now be used as simple
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command line utilities.
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- Various small fixes to the nntplib.py module that I can't bother to
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document in detail.
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- There is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse(); its size limit
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is set to 20 (not 2000 as it was in earlier alphas).
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- Sjoerd Mullender's mimify.py module now supports base64 encoding and
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includes functions to handle the funny encoding you sometimes see in mail
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headers. It is now documented.
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- mailbox.py: Added BabylMailbox. Improved the way the mailbox is
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gotten from the environment.
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- Many more modules now correctly open files in binary mode when this
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is necessary on non-Unix platforms.
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- The copying functions in the undocumented module shutil.py are
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smarter.
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- The Writer classes in the formatter.py module now have a flush()
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method.
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- The Python bytecode disassembler module, dis.py, has been enhanced
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quite a bit. There's now one main function, dis.dis(), which takes
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almost any kind of object (function, module, class, instance, method,
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code object) and disassembles it; without arguments it disassembles
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|
the last frame of the last traceback. The other functions have
|
|
changed slightly, too.
|
|
|
|
- The imghdr.py module recognizes new image types: BMP, PNG.
|
|
|
|
- The string module has a new function replace(str, old, new,
|
|
[maxsplit]) which does substring replacements. It is actually
|
|
implemented in C in the strop module. The functions [r]find() an
|
|
[r]index() have an optional 4th argument indicating the end of the
|
|
substring to search, alsoo implemented by their strop counterparts.
|
|
(Remember, never import strop -- import string uses strop when
|
|
available with zero overhead.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Changes to the build process
|
|
----------------------------
|
|
|
|
- The way GNU readline is configured is totally different. The
|
|
--with-readline configure option is gone. It is now an extension
|
|
module, which may be loaded dynamically. You must enable it (and
|
|
specify the correct linraries to link with) in the Modules/Setup file.
|
|
Importing the module installs some hooks which enable command line
|
|
editing. When the interpreter shell is invoked interactively, it
|
|
attempts to import the readline module; when this fails, the default
|
|
input mechanism is used. The hook variables are PyOS_InputHook and
|
|
PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer. (Code contributed by Lee Busby, with
|
|
ideas from William Magro.)
|
|
|
|
- New build procedure: a single library, libpython1.5.a, is now built,
|
|
which contains absolutely everything except for a one-line main()
|
|
program (which calls Py_Main(argc, argv) to start the interpreter
|
|
shell). This makes life much simpler for applications that need to
|
|
embed Python. The serial number of the build is now included in the
|
|
version string (sys.version).
|
|
|
|
- As far as I can tell, neither gcc -Wall nor the Microsoft compiler
|
|
emits a single warning any more when compiling Python.
|
|
|
|
- A set of patches from Lee Busby has been integrated that make it
|
|
possible to catch floating point exceptions. Use the configure option
|
|
--with-fpectl to enable the patches; the extension modules fpectl and
|
|
fpetest provide control to enable/disable and test the feature,
|
|
respectively.
|
|
|
|
- The support for shared libraries under AIX is now simpler and more
|
|
robust. Thanks to Vladimir Marangozov for revamping his own patches!
|
|
|
|
- The Modules/makesetup script now reads a file Setup.local as well as
|
|
a file Setup. Most changes to the Setup script can be done by editing
|
|
Setup.local instead, which makes it easier to carry a particular setup
|
|
over from one release to the next.
|
|
|
|
- The configure script is smarter about C compiler options; e.g. with
|
|
gcc it uses -O2 and -g when possible, and on some other platforms it
|
|
uses -Olimit 1500 to avoid a warning from the optimizer about the main
|
|
loop in ceval.c (which has more than 1000 basic blocks).
|
|
|
|
- The configure script now detects whether malloc(0) returns a NULL
|
|
pointer or a valid block (of length zero). This avoids the nonsense
|
|
of always adding one byte to all malloc() arguments on most platforms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change to the Python/C API
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
- I've completed the Grand Renaming, with the help of Roger Masse and
|
|
Barry Warsaw. This makes reading or debugging the code much easier.
|
|
Many other unrelated code reorganizations have also been carried out.
|
|
The allobjects.h header file is gone; instead, you would have to
|
|
include Python.h followed by rename2.h. But you're better off running
|
|
Tools/scripts/fixcid.py -s Misc/RENAME on your source, so you can omit
|
|
the rename2.h; it will disappear in the next release.
|
|
|
|
- The API functions in the file cgensupport.c are no longer
|
|
supported. This file has been moved to Modules and is only ever
|
|
compiled when the SGI specific 'gl' module is built.
|
|
|
|
- PyObject_Compare() can now raise an exception. Check with
|
|
PyErr_Occurred(). The comparison function in an object type may also
|
|
raise an exception.
|
|
|
|
- The slice interface uses an upper bound of INT_MAX when no explicit
|
|
upper bound is given (e.x. for a[1:]). It used to ask the object for
|
|
its length and do the calculations.
|
|
|
|
- Support for multiple independent interpreters. See Doc/api.tex,
|
|
functions Py_NewInterpreter() and Py_EndInterpreter(). Since the
|
|
documentation is incomplete, also see the new Demo/pysvr example
|
|
(which shows how to use these in a threaded application) and the
|
|
source code.
|
|
|
|
- There is now a Py_Finalize() function which "de-initializes"
|
|
Python. It is possible to completely restart the interpreter
|
|
repeatedly by calling Py_Finalize() followed by Py_Initialize(). A
|
|
change of functionality in Py_Initialize() means that it is now a
|
|
fatal error to call it while the interpreter is already initialized.
|
|
The old, half-hearted Py_Cleanup() routine is gone. Use of Py_Exit()
|
|
is deprecated (it is nothing more than Py_Finalize() followed by
|
|
exit()).
|
|
|
|
- There are no known memory leaks left. While Py_Finalize() doesn't
|
|
free *all* allocated memory (some of it is hard to track down),
|
|
repeated calls to Py_Finalize() and Py_Initialize() do not create
|
|
unaccessible heap blocks.
|
|
|
|
- There is now explicit per-thread state. (Inspired by, but not the
|
|
same as, Greg Stein's free threading patches.)
|
|
|
|
- There is now better support for threading C applications. There are
|
|
now explicit APIs to manipulate the interpreter lock. Read the source
|
|
or the Demo/pysvr example; the new functions are
|
|
PyEval_{Acquire,Release}{Lock,Thread}().
|
|
|
|
- New wrappers around malloc() and friends: Py_Malloc() etc. call
|
|
malloc() and call PyErr_NoMemory() when it fails; PyMem_Malloc() call
|
|
just malloc(). Use of these wrappers could be essential if multiple
|
|
memory allocators exist (e.g. when using certain DLL setups under
|
|
Windows). (Idea by Jim Fulton.)
|
|
|
|
- New C API PyImport_Import() which uses whatever __import__() hook
|
|
that is installed for the current execution environment. By Jim
|
|
Fulton.
|
|
|
|
- It is now possible for an extension module's init function to fail
|
|
non-fatally, by calling one of the PyErr_* functions and returning.
|
|
|
|
- The PyInt_AS_LONG() and PyFloat_AS_DOUBLE() macros now cast their
|
|
argument to the proper type, like the similar PyString macros already
|
|
did. (Suggestion by Marc-Andre Lemburg.)
|
|
|
|
- Some of the Py_Get* function, like Py_GetVersion() (but not yet
|
|
Py_GetPath()) are now declared as returning a const char *. (More
|
|
should follow.)
|
|
|
|
- Changed the run-time library to check for exceptions after object
|
|
comparisons. PyObject_Compare() can now return an exception; use
|
|
PyErr_Occurred() to check (there is *no* special return value).
|
|
|
|
- PyFile_WriteString() and Py_Flushline() now return error indicators
|
|
instead of clearing exceptions. This fixes an obscure bug where using
|
|
these would clear a pending exception, discovered by Just van Rossum.
|
|
|
|
- PyArg_GetInt() is gone.
|
|
|
|
- It's no longer necessary to include graminit.h when calling one of
|
|
the extended parser API functions. The three public grammar start
|
|
symbols are now in Python.h as Py_single_input, Py_file_input, and
|
|
Py_eval_input.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tkinter
|
|
-------
|
|
|
|
- On popular demand, _tkinter once again installs a hook for readline
|
|
that processes certain Tk events while waiting for the user to type
|
|
(using PyOS_InputHook).
|
|
|
|
- A patch by Craig McPheeters plugs the most obnoxious memory leaks,
|
|
caused by command definitions referencing widget objects beyond their
|
|
lifetime.
|
|
|
|
- New standard dialog modules: tkColorChooser.py, tkCommonDialog.py,
|
|
tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py, tkSimpleDialog.py These interface
|
|
with the new Tk dialog scripts. Contributed by Fredrik Lundh.
|
|
|
|
- Tkinter.py: when the first Tk object is destroyed, it sets the
|
|
hiddel global _default_root to None, so that when another Tk object is
|
|
created it becomes the new default root. Other miscellaneous
|
|
changes and fixes.
|
|
|
|
- The _tkinter.c extension module has been revamped. It now support
|
|
Tk versions 4.1 through 8.0; support for 4.0 has been dropped. It
|
|
works well under Windows and Mac (with the latest Tk ports to those
|
|
platforms). It also supports threading -- it is safe for one
|
|
(Python-created) thread to be blocked in _tkinter.mainloop() while
|
|
other threads modify widgets. (To make the changes visible, those
|
|
threads must use update_idletasks()method.) Unfortunately, on Windows
|
|
and Mac, Tk 8.0 no longer supports CreateFileHandler, so
|
|
_tkinter.createfilehandler is not available on those platforms. I
|
|
will have to rethink how to interface with Tcl's lower-level event
|
|
mechanism, or with its channels (which are like Python's file-like
|
|
objects).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tools and Demos
|
|
---------------
|
|
|
|
- A new regression test suite is provided, which tests most of the
|
|
standard and built-in modules. The regression test is run by invoking
|
|
the script Lib/test/regrtest.py. Barry Warsaw wrote the test harnass;
|
|
he and Roger Masse contributed most of the new tests.
|
|
|
|
- New tool: faqwiz -- the CGI script that is used to maintain the
|
|
Python FAQ (http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py). In
|
|
Tools/faqwiz.
|
|
|
|
- New tool: webchecker -- a simple extensible web robot that, when
|
|
aimed at a web server, checks that server for dead links. Available
|
|
are a command line utility as well as a Tkinter based GUI version. In
|
|
Tools/webchecker. A simplified version of this program is dissected
|
|
in my article in O'Reilly's WWW Journal, the issue on Scripting
|
|
Languages (Vol 2, No 2); Scripting the Web with Python (pp 97-120).
|
|
Includes a parser for robots.txt files by Skip Montanaro.
|
|
|
|
- New small tools: cvsfiles.py (prints a list of all files under CVS
|
|
in a particular directory tree), treesync.py (a rather Guido-specific
|
|
script to synchronize two source trees, one on Windows NT, the other
|
|
one on Unix under CVS but accessible from the NT box), and logmerge.py
|
|
(sort a collection of RCS or CVS logs by date). In Tools/scripts.
|
|
|
|
- The freeze script now also works under Windows (NT). Another
|
|
feature allows the -p option to be pointed at the Python source tree
|
|
instead of the installation prefix. This was loosely based on part of
|
|
xfreeze by Sam Rushing and Bill Tutt.
|
|
|
|
- New examples (Demo/extend) that show how to use the generic
|
|
extension makefile (Misc/Makefile.pre.in).
|
|
|
|
- Tools/scripts/h2py.py now supports C++ comments.
|
|
|
|
- Tools/scripts/pystone.py script is upgraded to version 1.1; there
|
|
was a bug in version 1.0 (distributed with Python 1.4) that leaked
|
|
memory. Also, in 1.1, the LOOPS variable is incremented to 10000.
|
|
|
|
- Demo/classes/Rat.py completely rewritten by Sjoerd Mullender.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows (NT and 95)
|
|
-------------------
|
|
|
|
- New project files for Developer Studio (Visual C++) 5.0 for Windows
|
|
NT (the old VC++ 4.2 Makefile is also still supported, but will
|
|
eventually be withdrawn due to its bulkiness).
|
|
|
|
- See the note on the new module search path in the "Miscellaneous" section
|
|
above.
|
|
|
|
- Support for Win32s (the 32-bit Windows API under Windows 3.1) is
|
|
basically withdrawn. If it still works for you, you're lucky.
|
|
|
|
- There's a new extension module, msvcrt.c, which provides various
|
|
low-level operations defined in the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library.
|
|
These include locking(), setmode(), get_osfhandle(), set_osfhandle(), and
|
|
console I/O functions like kbhit(), getch() and putch().
|
|
|
|
- The -u option not only sets the standard I/O streams to unbuffered
|
|
status, but also sets them in binary mode.
|
|
|
|
- The, sys.prefix and sys.exec_prefix variables point to the directory
|
|
where Python is installed, or to the top of the source tree, if it was run
|
|
from there.
|
|
|
|
- The ntpath module (normally used as os.path) supports ~ to $HOME
|
|
expansion in expanduser().
|
|
|
|
- The freeze tool now works on Windows.
|
|
|
|
- See also the Tkinter category for a sad note on
|
|
_tkinter.createfilehandler().
|
|
|
|
- The truncate() method for file objects now works on Windows.
|
|
|
|
- Py_Initialize() is no longer called when the DLL is loaded. You
|
|
must call it yourself. (And you can't call it twice -- it's a fatal
|
|
error to call it when Python is already initialized.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mac
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
- As always, the Macintosh port will be done by Jack Jansen. He will
|
|
make a separate announcement for the Mac specific source code and the
|
|
binary distribution(s) when these are ready.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fixed after 1.5a3 was released
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The following changes have been made to the source base after the
|
|
release of 1.5a3. These need to be merged into their respective
|
|
categories for the next release.
|
|
|
|
- faqwiz.py: version 0.8; Recognize https:// as URL; <html>...</html>
|
|
feature; better install instructions; removed faqmain.py (which was an
|
|
older version).
|
|
|
|
- nntplib.py: Fixed some bugs reported by Lars Wirzenius (to Debian)
|
|
about the treatment of lines starting with '.'. Added a minimal test
|
|
function.
|
|
|
|
- struct module: ignore most whitespace in format strings.
|
|
|
|
- urllib.py: close the socket and temp file in URLopener.retrieve() so
|
|
that multiple retrievals using the same connection work.
|
|
|
|
- Three new C API functions:
|
|
|
|
- int PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches(obj1, obj2)
|
|
|
|
Returns 1 if obj1 and obj2 are the same object, or if obj1 is an
|
|
instance of type obj2, or of a class derived from obj2
|
|
|
|
- int PyErr_ExceptionMatches(obj)
|
|
|
|
Higher level wrapper around PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches() which uses
|
|
PyErr_Occurred() as obj1. This will be the more commonly called
|
|
function.
|
|
|
|
- void PyErr_NormalizeException(typeptr, valptr, tbptr)
|
|
|
|
Normalizes exceptions, and places the normalized values in the
|
|
arguments. If type is not a class, this does nothing. If type is a
|
|
class, then it makes sure that value is an instance of the class by:
|
|
|
|
1. if instance is of the type, or a class derived from type, it does
|
|
nothing.
|
|
|
|
2. otherwise it instantiates the class, using the value as an
|
|
argument. If value is None, it uses an empty arg tuple, and if
|
|
the value is a tuple, it uses just that.
|
|
|
|
- Demo/metaclasses: new demo subdir explains metaclasses (read
|
|
index.html in a browser).
|
|
|
|
- core interpreter: remove the distinction between tuple and list
|
|
unpacking; allow an arbitrary sequence on the right hand side of any
|
|
unpack instruction. (UNPACK_LIST and UNPACK_TUPLE now do the same
|
|
thing, which should really be called UNPACK_SEQUENCE.)
|
|
|
|
- classes: Allow assignments to an instance's __dict__ or __class__,
|
|
so you can change ivars (including shared ivars -- shock horror) and
|
|
change classes dynamically. Also make the check on read-only
|
|
attributes of classes less draconic -- only the specials names
|
|
__dict__, __bases__, __name__ and __{get,set,del}attr__ can't be
|
|
assigned.
|
|
|
|
- Two new built-in functions: issubclass() and isinstance(). Both
|
|
take classes as their second arguments. The former takes a class as
|
|
the first argument and returns true iff first is second, or is a
|
|
subclass of second. The latter takes any object as the first argument
|
|
and returns true iff first is an instance of the second, or any
|
|
subclass of second.
|
|
|
|
- configure: Added configuration tests for presence of alarm(),
|
|
pause(), and getpwent().
|
|
|
|
- Doc/Makefile: changed latex2html targets.
|
|
|
|
- classes: Reverse the search order for the Don Beaudry hook so that
|
|
the first class with an applicable hook wins. Makes more sense.
|
|
|
|
- Changed the checks made in Py_Initialize() and Py_Finalize(). It is
|
|
now legal to call these more than once. The first call to
|
|
Py_Initialize() initializes, the first call to Py_Finalize()
|
|
finalizes. There's also a new API, Py_IsInitalized() which checks
|
|
whether we are already initialized (in case you want to leave things
|
|
as they were).
|
|
|
|
- Completely disable the declarations for malloc(), realloc() and
|
|
free(). Any 90's C compiler has these in header files, and the tests
|
|
to decide whether to suppress the declarations kept failing on some
|
|
platforms.
|
|
|
|
- *Before* (instead of after) signalmodule.o is added, remove both
|
|
intrcheck.o and sigcheck.o. This should get rid of warnings in ar or
|
|
ld on various systems.
|
|
|
|
- Added reop to PC/config.c
|
|
|
|
- configure: Decided to use -Aa -D_HPUX_SOURCE on HP-UX platforms.
|
|
Removed outdated HP-UX comments from README. Added Cray T3E comments.
|
|
|
|
- Various renames of statically defined functions that had name
|
|
conflicts on some systems, e.g. strndup (GNU libc), join (Cray),
|
|
roundup (sys/types.h).
|
|
|
|
- urllib.py: Interpret three slashes in file: URL as local file (for
|
|
Netscape on Windows/Mac).
|
|
|
|
- copy.py: Make sure the objects returned by __getinitargs__() are
|
|
kept alive (in the memo) to avoid a certain kind of nasty crash. (Not
|
|
easily reproducable because it requires a later call to
|
|
__getinitargs__() to return a tuple that happens to be allocated at
|
|
the same address.)
|
|
|
|
- Added definition of AR to toplevel Makefile. Renamed @buildno temp
|
|
file to buildno1.
|
|
|
|
- Moved Include/assert.h to Parser/assert.h, which seems to be the
|
|
only place where it's needed.
|
|
|
|
- Alas, the thread support for _tkinter didn't work. Withdrew it.
|
|
|
|
- Tweaked the dictionary lookup code again for some more speed
|
|
(Vladimir Marangozov).
|
|
|
|
- NT build: Changed the way python15.lib is included in the other
|
|
projects. Per Mark Hammond's suggestion, add it to the extra libs in
|
|
Settings instead of to the project's source files.
|
|
|
|
- regrtest.py: Change default verbosity so that there are only three
|
|
levels left: -q, default and -v. In default mode, the name of each
|
|
test is now printed. -v is the same as the old -vv. -q is more quiet
|
|
than the old default mode.
|
|
|
|
- Removed the old FAQ from the distribution. You now have to get it
|
|
from the web!
|
|
|
|
- Removed the PC/make_nt.in file from the distribution; it is no
|
|
longer needed.
|
|
|
|
- Changed the build sequence so that shared modules are built last.
|
|
This fixes things for AIX and doesn't hurt elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
- Improved test for GNU MP v1 in mpzmodule.c
|
|
|
|
- fileobject.c: ftell() on Linux discards all buffered data; changed
|
|
read() code to use lseek() instead to get the same effect
|
|
|
|
- configure.in, configure, importdl.c: NeXT sharedlib fixes
|
|
|
|
- tupleobject.c: PyTuple_SetItem asserts refcnt==1
|
|
|
|
- resource.c: Different strategy regarding whether to declare
|
|
getrusage() and getpagesize() -- #ifdef doesn't work, Linux has
|
|
conflicting decls in its headers. Choice: only declare the return
|
|
type, not the argument prototype, and not on Linux.
|
|
|
|
- importdl.c, configure*: set sharedlib extensions properly for NeXT
|
|
|
|
- configure*, Makefile.in, Modules/Makefile.pre.in: AIX shared libraries
|
|
fixed; moved addition of PURIFY to LINKCC to configure
|
|
|
|
- reopmodule.c, regexmodule.c, regexpr.c, zlibmodule.c: needed casts
|
|
added to shup up various compilers.
|
|
|
|
- _tkinter.c: removed buggy mac #ifndef
|
|
|
|
- Doc: various Mac documentation changes, added docs for 'ic' module
|
|
|
|
- PC/make_nt.in: deleted
|
|
|
|
- test_time.py, test_strftime.py: tweaks to catch %Z (which may return
|
|
"")
|
|
|
|
- test_rotor.py: print b -> print `b`
|
|
|
|
- Tkinter.py: (tagOrId) -> (tagOrId,)
|