1566 lines
62 KiB
ReStructuredText
1566 lines
62 KiB
ReStructuredText
****************************
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What's New in Python 2.4
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****************************
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:Author: A.M. Kuchling
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.. |release| replace:: 1.02
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.. $Id: whatsnew24.tex 54632 2007-03-31 11:59:54Z georg.brandl $
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.. Don't write extensive text for new sections; I'll do that.
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.. Feel free to add commented-out reminders of things that need
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.. to be covered. --amk
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This article explains the new features in Python 2.4.1, released on March 30,
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2005.
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Python 2.4 is a medium-sized release. It doesn't introduce as many changes as
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the radical Python 2.2, but introduces more features than the conservative 2.3
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release. The most significant new language features are function decorators and
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generator expressions; most other changes are to the standard library.
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According to the CVS change logs, there were 481 patches applied and 502 bugs
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fixed between Python 2.3 and 2.4. Both figures are likely to be underestimates.
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This article doesn't attempt to provide a complete specification of every single
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new feature, but instead provides a brief introduction to each feature. For
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full details, you should refer to the documentation for Python 2.4, such as the
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Python Library Reference and the Python Reference Manual. Often you will be
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referred to the PEP for a particular new feature for explanations of the
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implementation and design rationale.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 218: Built-In Set Objects
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=============================
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Python 2.3 introduced the :mod:`sets` module. C implementations of set data
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types have now been added to the Python core as two new built-in types,
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``set(iterable)`` and ``frozenset(iterable)``. They provide high speed
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operations for membership testing, for eliminating duplicates from sequences,
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and for mathematical operations like unions, intersections, differences, and
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symmetric differences. ::
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>>> a = set('abracadabra') # form a set from a string
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>>> 'z' in a # fast membership testing
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False
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>>> a # unique letters in a
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set(['a', 'r', 'b', 'c', 'd'])
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>>> ''.join(a) # convert back into a string
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'arbcd'
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>>> b = set('alacazam') # form a second set
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>>> a - b # letters in a but not in b
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set(['r', 'd', 'b'])
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>>> a | b # letters in either a or b
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set(['a', 'c', 'r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'])
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>>> a & b # letters in both a and b
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set(['a', 'c'])
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>>> a ^ b # letters in a or b but not both
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set(['r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'])
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>>> a.add('z') # add a new element
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>>> a.update('wxy') # add multiple new elements
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>>> a
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set(['a', 'c', 'b', 'd', 'r', 'w', 'y', 'x', 'z'])
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>>> a.remove('x') # take one element out
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>>> a
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set(['a', 'c', 'b', 'd', 'r', 'w', 'y', 'z'])
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The :func:`frozenset` type is an immutable version of :func:`set`. Since it is
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immutable and hashable, it may be used as a dictionary key or as a member of
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another set.
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The :mod:`sets` module remains in the standard library, and may be useful if you
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wish to subclass the :class:`Set` or :class:`ImmutableSet` classes. There are
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currently no plans to deprecate the module.
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`218` - Adding a Built-In Set Object Type
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Originally proposed by Greg Wilson and ultimately implemented by Raymond
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Hettinger.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 237: Unifying Long Integers and Integers
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============================================
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The lengthy transition process for this PEP, begun in Python 2.2, takes another
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step forward in Python 2.4. In 2.3, certain integer operations that would
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behave differently after int/long unification triggered :exc:`FutureWarning`
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warnings and returned values limited to 32 or 64 bits (depending on your
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platform). In 2.4, these expressions no longer produce a warning and instead
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produce a different result that's usually a long integer.
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The problematic expressions are primarily left shifts and lengthy hexadecimal
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and octal constants. For example, ``2 << 32`` results in a warning in 2.3,
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evaluating to 0 on 32-bit platforms. In Python 2.4, this expression now returns
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the correct answer, 8589934592.
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`237` - Unifying Long Integers and Integers
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Original PEP written by Moshe Zadka and GvR. The changes for 2.4 were
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implemented by Kalle Svensson.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 289: Generator Expressions
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==============================
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The iterator feature introduced in Python 2.2 and the :mod:`itertools` module
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make it easier to write programs that loop through large data sets without
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having the entire data set in memory at one time. List comprehensions don't fit
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into this picture very well because they produce a Python list object containing
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all of the items. This unavoidably pulls all of the objects into memory, which
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can be a problem if your data set is very large. When trying to write a
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functionally-styled program, it would be natural to write something like::
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links = [link for link in get_all_links() if not link.followed]
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for link in links:
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...
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instead of ::
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for link in get_all_links():
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if link.followed:
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continue
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...
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The first form is more concise and perhaps more readable, but if you're dealing
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with a large number of link objects you'd have to write the second form to avoid
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having all link objects in memory at the same time.
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Generator expressions work similarly to list comprehensions but don't
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materialize the entire list; instead they create a generator that will return
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elements one by one. The above example could be written as::
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links = (link for link in get_all_links() if not link.followed)
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for link in links:
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...
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Generator expressions always have to be written inside parentheses, as in the
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above example. The parentheses signalling a function call also count, so if you
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want to create an iterator that will be immediately passed to a function you
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could write::
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print sum(obj.count for obj in list_all_objects())
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Generator expressions differ from list comprehensions in various small ways.
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Most notably, the loop variable (*obj* in the above example) is not accessible
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outside of the generator expression. List comprehensions leave the variable
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assigned to its last value; future versions of Python will change this, making
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list comprehensions match generator expressions in this respect.
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`289` - Generator Expressions
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Proposed by Raymond Hettinger and implemented by Jiwon Seo with early efforts
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steered by Hye-Shik Chang.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 292: Simpler String Substitutions
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=====================================
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Some new classes in the standard library provide an alternative mechanism for
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substituting variables into strings; this style of substitution may be better
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for applications where untrained users need to edit templates.
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The usual way of substituting variables by name is the ``%`` operator::
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>>> '%(page)i: %(title)s' % {'page':2, 'title': 'The Best of Times'}
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'2: The Best of Times'
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When writing the template string, it can be easy to forget the ``i`` or ``s``
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after the closing parenthesis. This isn't a big problem if the template is in a
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Python module, because you run the code, get an "Unsupported format character"
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:exc:`ValueError`, and fix the problem. However, consider an application such
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as Mailman where template strings or translations are being edited by users who
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aren't aware of the Python language. The format string's syntax is complicated
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to explain to such users, and if they make a mistake, it's difficult to provide
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helpful feedback to them.
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PEP 292 adds a :class:`Template` class to the :mod:`string` module that uses
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``$`` to indicate a substitution::
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>>> import string
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>>> t = string.Template('$page: $title')
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>>> t.substitute({'page':2, 'title': 'The Best of Times'})
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'2: The Best of Times'
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If a key is missing from the dictionary, the :meth:`substitute` method will
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raise a :exc:`KeyError`. There's also a :meth:`safe_substitute` method that
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ignores missing keys::
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>>> t = string.Template('$page: $title')
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>>> t.safe_substitute({'page':3})
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'3: $title'
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`292` - Simpler String Substitutions
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Written and implemented by Barry Warsaw.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 318: Decorators for Functions and Methods
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=============================================
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Python 2.2 extended Python's object model by adding static methods and class
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methods, but it didn't extend Python's syntax to provide any new way of defining
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static or class methods. Instead, you had to write a :keyword:`def` statement
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in the usual way, and pass the resulting method to a :func:`staticmethod` or
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:func:`classmethod` function that would wrap up the function as a method of the
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new type. Your code would look like this::
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class C:
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def meth (cls):
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...
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meth = classmethod(meth) # Rebind name to wrapped-up class method
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If the method was very long, it would be easy to miss or forget the
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:func:`classmethod` invocation after the function body.
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The intention was always to add some syntax to make such definitions more
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readable, but at the time of 2.2's release a good syntax was not obvious. Today
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a good syntax *still* isn't obvious but users are asking for easier access to
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the feature; a new syntactic feature has been added to meet this need.
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The new feature is called "function decorators". The name comes from the idea
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that :func:`classmethod`, :func:`staticmethod`, and friends are storing
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additional information on a function object; they're *decorating* functions with
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more details.
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The notation borrows from Java and uses the ``'@'`` character as an indicator.
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Using the new syntax, the example above would be written::
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class C:
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@classmethod
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def meth (cls):
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...
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The ``@classmethod`` is shorthand for the ``meth=classmethod(meth)`` assignment.
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More generally, if you have the following::
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@A
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@B
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@C
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def f ():
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...
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It's equivalent to the following pre-decorator code::
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def f(): ...
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f = A(B(C(f)))
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Decorators must come on the line before a function definition, one decorator per
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line, and can't be on the same line as the def statement, meaning that ``@A def
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f(): ...`` is illegal. You can only decorate function definitions, either at
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the module level or inside a class; you can't decorate class definitions.
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A decorator is just a function that takes the function to be decorated as an
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argument and returns either the same function or some new object. The return
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value of the decorator need not be callable (though it typically is), unless
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further decorators will be applied to the result. It's easy to write your own
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decorators. The following simple example just sets an attribute on the function
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object::
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>>> def deco(func):
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... func.attr = 'decorated'
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... return func
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...
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>>> @deco
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... def f(): pass
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...
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>>> f
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<function f at 0x402ef0d4>
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>>> f.attr
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'decorated'
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>>>
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As a slightly more realistic example, the following decorator checks that the
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supplied argument is an integer::
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def require_int (func):
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def wrapper (arg):
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assert isinstance(arg, int)
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return func(arg)
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return wrapper
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@require_int
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def p1 (arg):
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print arg
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@require_int
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def p2(arg):
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print arg*2
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An example in :pep:`318` contains a fancier version of this idea that lets you
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both specify the required type and check the returned type.
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Decorator functions can take arguments. If arguments are supplied, your
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decorator function is called with only those arguments and must return a new
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decorator function; this function must take a single function and return a
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function, as previously described. In other words, ``@A @B @C(args)`` becomes::
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def f(): ...
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_deco = C(args)
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f = A(B(_deco(f)))
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Getting this right can be slightly brain-bending, but it's not too difficult.
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A small related change makes the :attr:`func_name` attribute of functions
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writable. This attribute is used to display function names in tracebacks, so
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decorators should change the name of any new function that's constructed and
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returned.
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`318` - Decorators for Functions, Methods and Classes
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Written by Kevin D. Smith, Jim Jewett, and Skip Montanaro. Several people
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wrote patches implementing function decorators, but the one that was actually
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checked in was patch #979728, written by Mark Russell.
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https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary
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This Wiki page contains several examples of decorators.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 322: Reverse Iteration
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==========================
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A new built-in function, ``reversed(seq)``, takes a sequence and returns an
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iterator that loops over the elements of the sequence in reverse order. ::
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>>> for i in reversed(xrange(1,4)):
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... print i
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...
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3
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2
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1
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Compared to extended slicing, such as ``range(1,4)[::-1]``, :func:`reversed` is
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easier to read, runs faster, and uses substantially less memory.
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Note that :func:`reversed` only accepts sequences, not arbitrary iterators. If
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you want to reverse an iterator, first convert it to a list with :func:`list`.
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::
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>>> input = open('/etc/passwd', 'r')
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>>> for line in reversed(list(input)):
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... print line
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...
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root:*:0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/tcsh
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...
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`322` - Reverse Iteration
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Written and implemented by Raymond Hettinger.
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.. ======================================================================
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PEP 324: New subprocess Module
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==============================
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The standard library provides a number of ways to execute a subprocess, offering
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different features and different levels of complexity.
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``os.system(command)`` is easy to use, but slow (it runs a shell process
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which executes the command) and dangerous (you have to be careful about escaping
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the shell's metacharacters). The :mod:`popen2` module offers classes that can
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capture standard output and standard error from the subprocess, but the naming
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is confusing. The :mod:`subprocess` module cleans this up, providing a unified
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interface that offers all the features you might need.
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Instead of :mod:`popen2`'s collection of classes, :mod:`subprocess` contains a
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single class called :class:`Popen` whose constructor supports a number of
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different keyword arguments. ::
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class Popen(args, bufsize=0, executable=None,
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stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None,
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preexec_fn=None, close_fds=False, shell=False,
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cwd=None, env=None, universal_newlines=False,
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startupinfo=None, creationflags=0):
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*args* is commonly a sequence of strings that will be the arguments to the
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program executed as the subprocess. (If the *shell* argument is true, *args*
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can be a string which will then be passed on to the shell for interpretation,
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just as :func:`os.system` does.)
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*stdin*, *stdout*, and *stderr* specify what the subprocess's input, output, and
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error streams will be. You can provide a file object or a file descriptor, or
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you can use the constant ``subprocess.PIPE`` to create a pipe between the
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subprocess and the parent.
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.. index::
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single: universal newlines; What's new
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The constructor has a number of handy options:
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* *close_fds* requests that all file descriptors be closed before running the
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subprocess.
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* *cwd* specifies the working directory in which the subprocess will be executed
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(defaulting to whatever the parent's working directory is).
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* *env* is a dictionary specifying environment variables.
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* *preexec_fn* is a function that gets called before the child is started.
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* *universal_newlines* opens the child's input and output using Python's
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:term:`universal newlines` feature.
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Once you've created the :class:`Popen` instance, you can call its :meth:`wait`
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method to pause until the subprocess has exited, :meth:`poll` to check if it's
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exited without pausing, or ``communicate(data)`` to send the string *data*
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to the subprocess's standard input. ``communicate(data)`` then reads any
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data that the subprocess has sent to its standard output or standard error,
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returning a tuple ``(stdout_data, stderr_data)``.
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:func:`call` is a shortcut that passes its arguments along to the :class:`Popen`
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constructor, waits for the command to complete, and returns the status code of
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the subprocess. It can serve as a safer analog to :func:`os.system`::
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sts = subprocess.call(['dpkg', '-i', '/tmp/new-package.deb'])
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if sts == 0:
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# Success
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...
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else:
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# dpkg returned an error
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...
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The command is invoked without use of the shell. If you really do want to use
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the shell, you can add ``shell=True`` as a keyword argument and provide a string
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instead of a sequence::
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sts = subprocess.call('dpkg -i /tmp/new-package.deb', shell=True)
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The PEP takes various examples of shell and Python code and shows how they'd be
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translated into Python code that uses :mod:`subprocess`. Reading this section
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of the PEP is highly recommended.
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|
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.. seealso::
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:pep:`324` - subprocess - New process module
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|
Written and implemented by Peter Åstrand, with assistance from Fredrik Lundh and
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others.
|
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.. ======================================================================
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|
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PEP 327: Decimal Data Type
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==========================
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Python has always supported floating-point (FP) numbers, based on the underlying
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C :c:type:`double` type, as a data type. However, while most programming
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languages provide a floating-point type, many people (even programmers) are
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unaware that floating-point numbers don't represent certain decimal fractions
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accurately. The new :class:`Decimal` type can represent these fractions
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accurately, up to a user-specified precision limit.
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Why is Decimal needed?
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----------------------
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The limitations arise from the representation used for floating-point numbers.
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FP numbers are made up of three components:
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* The sign, which is positive or negative.
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* The mantissa, which is a single-digit binary number followed by a fractional
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part. For example, ``1.01`` in base-2 notation is ``1 + 0/2 + 1/4``, or 1.25 in
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decimal notation.
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* The exponent, which tells where the decimal point is located in the number
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represented.
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For example, the number 1.25 has positive sign, a mantissa value of 1.01 (in
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binary), and an exponent of 0 (the decimal point doesn't need to be shifted).
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The number 5 has the same sign and mantissa, but the exponent is 2 because the
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mantissa is multiplied by 4 (2 to the power of the exponent 2); 1.25 \* 4 equals
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5.
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Modern systems usually provide floating-point support that conforms to a
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standard called IEEE 754. C's :c:type:`double` type is usually implemented as a
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64-bit IEEE 754 number, which uses 52 bits of space for the mantissa. This
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means that numbers can only be specified to 52 bits of precision. If you're
|
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trying to represent numbers whose expansion repeats endlessly, the expansion is
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cut off after 52 bits. Unfortunately, most software needs to produce output in
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base 10, and common fractions in base 10 are often repeating decimals in binary.
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For example, 1.1 decimal is binary ``1.0001100110011 ...``; .1 = 1/16 + 1/32 +
|
|
1/256 plus an infinite number of additional terms. IEEE 754 has to chop off
|
|
that infinitely repeated decimal after 52 digits, so the representation is
|
|
slightly inaccurate.
|
|
|
|
Sometimes you can see this inaccuracy when the number is printed::
|
|
|
|
>>> 1.1
|
|
1.1000000000000001
|
|
|
|
The inaccuracy isn't always visible when you print the number because the FP-to-
|
|
decimal-string conversion is provided by the C library, and most C libraries try
|
|
to produce sensible output. Even if it's not displayed, however, the inaccuracy
|
|
is still there and subsequent operations can magnify the error.
|
|
|
|
For many applications this doesn't matter. If I'm plotting points and
|
|
displaying them on my monitor, the difference between 1.1 and 1.1000000000000001
|
|
is too small to be visible. Reports often limit output to a certain number of
|
|
decimal places, and if you round the number to two or three or even eight
|
|
decimal places, the error is never apparent. However, for applications where it
|
|
does matter, it's a lot of work to implement your own custom arithmetic
|
|
routines.
|
|
|
|
Hence, the :class:`Decimal` type was created.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The :class:`Decimal` type
|
|
-------------------------
|
|
|
|
A new module, :mod:`decimal`, was added to Python's standard library. It
|
|
contains two classes, :class:`Decimal` and :class:`Context`. :class:`Decimal`
|
|
instances represent numbers, and :class:`Context` instances are used to wrap up
|
|
various settings such as the precision and default rounding mode.
|
|
|
|
:class:`Decimal` instances are immutable, like regular Python integers and FP
|
|
numbers; once it's been created, you can't change the value an instance
|
|
represents. :class:`Decimal` instances can be created from integers or
|
|
strings::
|
|
|
|
>>> import decimal
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(1972)
|
|
Decimal("1972")
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal("1.1")
|
|
Decimal("1.1")
|
|
|
|
You can also provide tuples containing the sign, the mantissa represented as a
|
|
tuple of decimal digits, and the exponent::
|
|
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal((1, (1, 4, 7, 5), -2))
|
|
Decimal("-14.75")
|
|
|
|
Cautionary note: the sign bit is a Boolean value, so 0 is positive and 1 is
|
|
negative.
|
|
|
|
Converting from floating-point numbers poses a bit of a problem: should the FP
|
|
number representing 1.1 turn into the decimal number for exactly 1.1, or for 1.1
|
|
plus whatever inaccuracies are introduced? The decision was to dodge the issue
|
|
and leave such a conversion out of the API. Instead, you should convert the
|
|
floating-point number into a string using the desired precision and pass the
|
|
string to the :class:`Decimal` constructor::
|
|
|
|
>>> f = 1.1
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(str(f))
|
|
Decimal("1.1")
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal('%.12f' % f)
|
|
Decimal("1.100000000000")
|
|
|
|
Once you have :class:`Decimal` instances, you can perform the usual mathematical
|
|
operations on them. One limitation: exponentiation requires an integer
|
|
exponent::
|
|
|
|
>>> a = decimal.Decimal('35.72')
|
|
>>> b = decimal.Decimal('1.73')
|
|
>>> a+b
|
|
Decimal("37.45")
|
|
>>> a-b
|
|
Decimal("33.99")
|
|
>>> a*b
|
|
Decimal("61.7956")
|
|
>>> a/b
|
|
Decimal("20.64739884393063583815028902")
|
|
>>> a ** 2
|
|
Decimal("1275.9184")
|
|
>>> a**b
|
|
Traceback (most recent call last):
|
|
...
|
|
decimal.InvalidOperation: x ** (non-integer)
|
|
|
|
You can combine :class:`Decimal` instances with integers, but not with floating-
|
|
point numbers::
|
|
|
|
>>> a + 4
|
|
Decimal("39.72")
|
|
>>> a + 4.5
|
|
Traceback (most recent call last):
|
|
...
|
|
TypeError: You can interact Decimal only with int, long or Decimal data types.
|
|
>>>
|
|
|
|
:class:`Decimal` numbers can be used with the :mod:`math` and :mod:`cmath`
|
|
modules, but note that they'll be immediately converted to floating-point
|
|
numbers before the operation is performed, resulting in a possible loss of
|
|
precision and accuracy. You'll also get back a regular floating-point number
|
|
and not a :class:`Decimal`. ::
|
|
|
|
>>> import math, cmath
|
|
>>> d = decimal.Decimal('123456789012.345')
|
|
>>> math.sqrt(d)
|
|
351364.18288201344
|
|
>>> cmath.sqrt(-d)
|
|
351364.18288201344j
|
|
|
|
:class:`Decimal` instances have a :meth:`sqrt` method that returns a
|
|
:class:`Decimal`, but if you need other things such as trigonometric functions
|
|
you'll have to implement them. ::
|
|
|
|
>>> d.sqrt()
|
|
Decimal("351364.1828820134592177245001")
|
|
|
|
|
|
The :class:`Context` type
|
|
-------------------------
|
|
|
|
Instances of the :class:`Context` class encapsulate several settings for
|
|
decimal operations:
|
|
|
|
* :attr:`prec` is the precision, the number of decimal places.
|
|
|
|
* :attr:`rounding` specifies the rounding mode. The :mod:`decimal` module has
|
|
constants for the various possibilities: :const:`ROUND_DOWN`,
|
|
:const:`ROUND_CEILING`, :const:`ROUND_HALF_EVEN`, and various others.
|
|
|
|
* :attr:`traps` is a dictionary specifying what happens on encountering certain
|
|
error conditions: either an exception is raised or a value is returned. Some
|
|
examples of error conditions are division by zero, loss of precision, and
|
|
overflow.
|
|
|
|
There's a thread-local default context available by calling :func:`getcontext`;
|
|
you can change the properties of this context to alter the default precision,
|
|
rounding, or trap handling. The following example shows the effect of changing
|
|
the precision of the default context::
|
|
|
|
>>> decimal.getcontext().prec
|
|
28
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(1) / decimal.Decimal(7)
|
|
Decimal("0.1428571428571428571428571429")
|
|
>>> decimal.getcontext().prec = 9
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(1) / decimal.Decimal(7)
|
|
Decimal("0.142857143")
|
|
|
|
The default action for error conditions is selectable; the module can either
|
|
return a special value such as infinity or not-a-number, or exceptions can be
|
|
raised::
|
|
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(1) / decimal.Decimal(0)
|
|
Traceback (most recent call last):
|
|
...
|
|
decimal.DivisionByZero: x / 0
|
|
>>> decimal.getcontext().traps[decimal.DivisionByZero] = False
|
|
>>> decimal.Decimal(1) / decimal.Decimal(0)
|
|
Decimal("Infinity")
|
|
>>>
|
|
|
|
The :class:`Context` instance also has various methods for formatting numbers
|
|
such as :meth:`to_eng_string` and :meth:`to_sci_string`.
|
|
|
|
For more information, see the documentation for the :mod:`decimal` module, which
|
|
includes a quick-start tutorial and a reference.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. seealso::
|
|
|
|
:pep:`327` - Decimal Data Type
|
|
Written by Facundo Batista and implemented by Facundo Batista, Eric Price,
|
|
Raymond Hettinger, Aahz, and Tim Peters.
|
|
|
|
http://www.lahey.com/float.htm
|
|
The article uses Fortran code to illustrate many of the problems that floating-
|
|
point inaccuracy can cause.
|
|
|
|
http://speleotrove.com/decimal/
|
|
A description of a decimal-based representation. This representation is being
|
|
proposed as a standard, and underlies the new Python decimal type. Much of this
|
|
material was written by Mike Cowlishaw, designer of the Rexx language.
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
|
|
|
|
PEP 328: Multi-line Imports
|
|
===========================
|
|
|
|
One language change is a small syntactic tweak aimed at making it easier to
|
|
import many names from a module. In a ``from module import names`` statement,
|
|
*names* is a sequence of names separated by commas. If the sequence is very
|
|
long, you can either write multiple imports from the same module, or you can use
|
|
backslashes to escape the line endings like this::
|
|
|
|
from SimpleXMLRPCServer import SimpleXMLRPCServer,\
|
|
SimpleXMLRPCRequestHandler,\
|
|
CGIXMLRPCRequestHandler,\
|
|
resolve_dotted_attribute
|
|
|
|
The syntactic change in Python 2.4 simply allows putting the names within
|
|
parentheses. Python ignores newlines within a parenthesized expression, so the
|
|
backslashes are no longer needed::
|
|
|
|
from SimpleXMLRPCServer import (SimpleXMLRPCServer,
|
|
SimpleXMLRPCRequestHandler,
|
|
CGIXMLRPCRequestHandler,
|
|
resolve_dotted_attribute)
|
|
|
|
The PEP also proposes that all :keyword:`import` statements be absolute imports,
|
|
with a leading ``.`` character to indicate a relative import. This part of the
|
|
PEP was not implemented for Python 2.4, but was completed for Python 2.5.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. seealso::
|
|
|
|
:pep:`328` - Imports: Multi-Line and Absolute/Relative
|
|
Written by Aahz. Multi-line imports were implemented by Dima Dorfman.
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
|
|
|
|
PEP 331: Locale-Independent Float/String Conversions
|
|
====================================================
|
|
|
|
The :mod:`locale` modules lets Python software select various conversions and
|
|
display conventions that are localized to a particular country or language.
|
|
However, the module was careful to not change the numeric locale because various
|
|
functions in Python's implementation required that the numeric locale remain set
|
|
to the ``'C'`` locale. Often this was because the code was using the C
|
|
library's :c:func:`atof` function.
|
|
|
|
Not setting the numeric locale caused trouble for extensions that used third-
|
|
party C libraries, however, because they wouldn't have the correct locale set.
|
|
The motivating example was GTK+, whose user interface widgets weren't displaying
|
|
numbers in the current locale.
|
|
|
|
The solution described in the PEP is to add three new functions to the Python
|
|
API that perform ASCII-only conversions, ignoring the locale setting:
|
|
|
|
* ``PyOS_ascii_strtod(str, ptr)`` and ``PyOS_ascii_atof(str, ptr)``
|
|
both convert a string to a C :c:type:`double`.
|
|
|
|
* ``PyOS_ascii_formatd(buffer, buf_len, format, d)`` converts a
|
|
:c:type:`double` to an ASCII string.
|
|
|
|
The code for these functions came from the GLib library
|
|
(https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/), whose developers kindly
|
|
relicensed the relevant functions and donated them to the Python Software
|
|
Foundation. The :mod:`locale` module can now change the numeric locale,
|
|
letting extensions such as GTK+ produce the correct results.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. seealso::
|
|
|
|
:pep:`331` - Locale-Independent Float/String Conversions
|
|
Written by Christian R. Reis, and implemented by Gustavo Carneiro.
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other Language Changes
|
|
======================
|
|
|
|
Here are all of the changes that Python 2.4 makes to the core Python language.
|
|
|
|
* Decorators for functions and methods were added (:pep:`318`).
|
|
|
|
* Built-in :func:`set` and :func:`frozenset` types were added (:pep:`218`).
|
|
Other new built-ins include the ``reversed(seq)`` function (:pep:`322`).
|
|
|
|
* Generator expressions were added (:pep:`289`).
|
|
|
|
* Certain numeric expressions no longer return values restricted to 32 or 64
|
|
bits (:pep:`237`).
|
|
|
|
* You can now put parentheses around the list of names in a ``from module import
|
|
names`` statement (:pep:`328`).
|
|
|
|
* The :meth:`dict.update` method now accepts the same argument forms as the
|
|
:class:`dict` constructor. This includes any mapping, any iterable of key/value
|
|
pairs, and keyword arguments. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The string methods :meth:`ljust`, :meth:`rjust`, and :meth:`center` now take
|
|
an optional argument for specifying a fill character other than a space.
|
|
(Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* Strings also gained an :meth:`rsplit` method that works like the :meth:`split`
|
|
method but splits from the end of the string. (Contributed by Sean
|
|
Reifschneider.) ::
|
|
|
|
>>> 'www.python.org'.split('.', 1)
|
|
['www', 'python.org']
|
|
'www.python.org'.rsplit('.', 1)
|
|
['www.python', 'org']
|
|
|
|
* Three keyword parameters, *cmp*, *key*, and *reverse*, were added to the
|
|
:meth:`sort` method of lists. These parameters make some common usages of
|
|
:meth:`sort` simpler. All of these parameters are optional.
|
|
|
|
For the *cmp* parameter, the value should be a comparison function that takes
|
|
two parameters and returns -1, 0, or +1 depending on how the parameters compare.
|
|
This function will then be used to sort the list. Previously this was the only
|
|
parameter that could be provided to :meth:`sort`.
|
|
|
|
*key* should be a single-parameter function that takes a list element and
|
|
returns a comparison key for the element. The list is then sorted using the
|
|
comparison keys. The following example sorts a list case-insensitively::
|
|
|
|
>>> L = ['A', 'b', 'c', 'D']
|
|
>>> L.sort() # Case-sensitive sort
|
|
>>> L
|
|
['A', 'D', 'b', 'c']
|
|
>>> # Using 'key' parameter to sort list
|
|
>>> L.sort(key=lambda x: x.lower())
|
|
>>> L
|
|
['A', 'b', 'c', 'D']
|
|
>>> # Old-fashioned way
|
|
>>> L.sort(cmp=lambda x,y: cmp(x.lower(), y.lower()))
|
|
>>> L
|
|
['A', 'b', 'c', 'D']
|
|
|
|
The last example, which uses the *cmp* parameter, is the old way to perform a
|
|
case-insensitive sort. It works but is slower than using a *key* parameter.
|
|
Using *key* calls :meth:`lower` method once for each element in the list while
|
|
using *cmp* will call it twice for each comparison, so using *key* saves on
|
|
invocations of the :meth:`lower` method.
|
|
|
|
For simple key functions and comparison functions, it is often possible to avoid
|
|
a :keyword:`lambda` expression by using an unbound method instead. For example,
|
|
the above case-insensitive sort is best written as::
|
|
|
|
>>> L.sort(key=str.lower)
|
|
>>> L
|
|
['A', 'b', 'c', 'D']
|
|
|
|
Finally, the *reverse* parameter takes a Boolean value. If the value is true,
|
|
the list will be sorted into reverse order. Instead of ``L.sort();
|
|
L.reverse()``, you can now write ``L.sort(reverse=True)``.
|
|
|
|
The results of sorting are now guaranteed to be stable. This means that two
|
|
entries with equal keys will be returned in the same order as they were input.
|
|
For example, you can sort a list of people by name, and then sort the list by
|
|
age, resulting in a list sorted by age where people with the same age are in
|
|
name-sorted order.
|
|
|
|
(All changes to :meth:`sort` contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* There is a new built-in function ``sorted(iterable)`` that works like the
|
|
in-place :meth:`list.sort` method but can be used in expressions. The
|
|
differences are:
|
|
|
|
* the input may be any iterable;
|
|
|
|
* a newly formed copy is sorted, leaving the original intact; and
|
|
|
|
* the expression returns the new sorted copy
|
|
|
|
::
|
|
|
|
>>> L = [9,7,8,3,2,4,1,6,5]
|
|
>>> [10+i for i in sorted(L)] # usable in a list comprehension
|
|
[11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19]
|
|
>>> L # original is left unchanged
|
|
[9,7,8,3,2,4,1,6,5]
|
|
>>> sorted('Monty Python') # any iterable may be an input
|
|
[' ', 'M', 'P', 'h', 'n', 'n', 'o', 'o', 't', 't', 'y', 'y']
|
|
|
|
>>> # List the contents of a dict sorted by key values
|
|
>>> colormap = dict(red=1, blue=2, green=3, black=4, yellow=5)
|
|
>>> for k, v in sorted(colormap.iteritems()):
|
|
... print k, v
|
|
...
|
|
black 4
|
|
blue 2
|
|
green 3
|
|
red 1
|
|
yellow 5
|
|
|
|
(Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* Integer operations will no longer trigger an :exc:`OverflowWarning`. The
|
|
:exc:`OverflowWarning` warning will disappear in Python 2.5.
|
|
|
|
* The interpreter gained a new switch, :option:`-m`, that takes a name, searches
|
|
for the corresponding module on ``sys.path``, and runs the module as a script.
|
|
For example, you can now run the Python profiler with ``python -m profile``.
|
|
(Contributed by Nick Coghlan.)
|
|
|
|
* The ``eval(expr, globals, locals)`` and ``execfile(filename, globals,
|
|
locals)`` functions and the ``exec`` statement now accept any mapping type
|
|
for the *locals* parameter. Previously this had to be a regular Python
|
|
dictionary. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :func:`zip` built-in function and :func:`itertools.izip` now return an
|
|
empty list if called with no arguments. Previously they raised a
|
|
:exc:`TypeError` exception. This makes them more suitable for use with variable
|
|
length argument lists::
|
|
|
|
>>> def transpose(array):
|
|
... return zip(*array)
|
|
...
|
|
>>> transpose([(1,2,3), (4,5,6)])
|
|
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]
|
|
>>> transpose([])
|
|
[]
|
|
|
|
(Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* Encountering a failure while importing a module no longer leaves a partially-
|
|
initialized module object in ``sys.modules``. The incomplete module object left
|
|
behind would fool further imports of the same module into succeeding, leading to
|
|
confusing errors. (Fixed by Tim Peters.)
|
|
|
|
* :const:`None` is now a constant; code that binds a new value to the name
|
|
``None`` is now a syntax error. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
|
|
|
|
Optimizations
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
* The inner loops for list and tuple slicing were optimized and now run about
|
|
one-third faster. The inner loops for dictionaries were also optimized,
|
|
resulting in performance boosts for :meth:`keys`, :meth:`values`, :meth:`items`,
|
|
:meth:`iterkeys`, :meth:`itervalues`, and :meth:`iteritems`. (Contributed by
|
|
Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The machinery for growing and shrinking lists was optimized for speed and for
|
|
space efficiency. Appending and popping from lists now runs faster due to more
|
|
efficient code paths and less frequent use of the underlying system
|
|
:c:func:`realloc`. List comprehensions also benefit. :meth:`list.extend` was
|
|
also optimized and no longer converts its argument into a temporary list before
|
|
extending the base list. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* :func:`list`, :func:`tuple`, :func:`map`, :func:`filter`, and :func:`zip` now
|
|
run several times faster with non-sequence arguments that supply a
|
|
:meth:`__len__` method. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The methods :meth:`list.__getitem__`, :meth:`dict.__getitem__`, and
|
|
:meth:`dict.__contains__` are now implemented as :class:`method_descriptor`
|
|
objects rather than :class:`wrapper_descriptor` objects. This form of access
|
|
doubles their performance and makes them more suitable for use as arguments to
|
|
functionals: ``map(mydict.__getitem__, keylist)``. (Contributed by Raymond
|
|
Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* Added a new opcode, ``LIST_APPEND``, that simplifies the generated bytecode
|
|
for list comprehensions and speeds them up by about a third. (Contributed by
|
|
Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The peephole bytecode optimizer has been improved to produce shorter, faster
|
|
bytecode; remarkably, the resulting bytecode is more readable. (Enhanced by
|
|
Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* String concatenations in statements of the form ``s = s + "abc"`` and ``s +=
|
|
"abc"`` are now performed more efficiently in certain circumstances. This
|
|
optimization won't be present in other Python implementations such as Jython, so
|
|
you shouldn't rely on it; using the :meth:`join` method of strings is still
|
|
recommended when you want to efficiently glue a large number of strings
|
|
together. (Contributed by Armin Rigo.)
|
|
|
|
The net result of the 2.4 optimizations is that Python 2.4 runs the pystone
|
|
benchmark around 5% faster than Python 2.3 and 35% faster than Python 2.2.
|
|
(pystone is not a particularly good benchmark, but it's the most commonly used
|
|
measurement of Python's performance. Your own applications may show greater or
|
|
smaller benefits from Python 2.4.)
|
|
|
|
.. pystone is almost useless for comparing different versions of Python;
|
|
instead, it excels at predicting relative Python performance on different
|
|
machines. So, this section would be more informative if it used other tools
|
|
such as pybench and parrotbench. For a more application oriented benchmark,
|
|
try comparing the timings of test_decimal.py under 2.3 and 2.4.
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
|
|
|
|
New, Improved, and Deprecated Modules
|
|
=====================================
|
|
|
|
As usual, Python's standard library received a number of enhancements and bug
|
|
fixes. Here's a partial list of the most notable changes, sorted alphabetically
|
|
by module name. Consult the :file:`Misc/NEWS` file in the source tree for a more
|
|
complete list of changes, or look through the CVS logs for all the details.
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`asyncore` module's :func:`loop` function now has a *count* parameter
|
|
that lets you perform a limited number of passes through the polling loop. The
|
|
default is still to loop forever.
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`base64` module now has more complete RFC 3548 support for Base64,
|
|
Base32, and Base16 encoding and decoding, including optional case folding and
|
|
optional alternative alphabets. (Contributed by Barry Warsaw.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`bisect` module now has an underlying C implementation for improved
|
|
performance. (Contributed by Dmitry Vasiliev.)
|
|
|
|
* The CJKCodecs collections of East Asian codecs, maintained by Hye-Shik Chang,
|
|
was integrated into 2.4. The new encodings are:
|
|
|
|
* Chinese (PRC): gb2312, gbk, gb18030, big5hkscs, hz
|
|
|
|
* Chinese (ROC): big5, cp950
|
|
|
|
* Japanese: cp932, euc-jis-2004, euc-jp, euc-jisx0213, iso-2022-jp,
|
|
iso-2022-jp-1, iso-2022-jp-2, iso-2022-jp-3, iso-2022-jp-ext, iso-2022-jp-2004,
|
|
shift-jis, shift-jisx0213, shift-jis-2004
|
|
|
|
* Korean: cp949, euc-kr, johab, iso-2022-kr
|
|
|
|
* Some other new encodings were added: HP Roman8, ISO_8859-11, ISO_8859-16,
|
|
PCTP-154, and TIS-620.
|
|
|
|
* The UTF-8 and UTF-16 codecs now cope better with receiving partial input.
|
|
Previously the :class:`StreamReader` class would try to read more data, making
|
|
it impossible to resume decoding from the stream. The :meth:`read` method will
|
|
now return as much data as it can and future calls will resume decoding where
|
|
previous ones left off. (Implemented by Walter Dörwald.)
|
|
|
|
* There is a new :mod:`collections` module for various specialized collection
|
|
datatypes. Currently it contains just one type, :class:`deque`, a double-
|
|
ended queue that supports efficiently adding and removing elements from either
|
|
end::
|
|
|
|
>>> from collections import deque
|
|
>>> d = deque('ghi') # make a new deque with three items
|
|
>>> d.append('j') # add a new entry to the right side
|
|
>>> d.appendleft('f') # add a new entry to the left side
|
|
>>> d # show the representation of the deque
|
|
deque(['f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'])
|
|
>>> d.pop() # return and remove the rightmost item
|
|
'j'
|
|
>>> d.popleft() # return and remove the leftmost item
|
|
'f'
|
|
>>> list(d) # list the contents of the deque
|
|
['g', 'h', 'i']
|
|
>>> 'h' in d # search the deque
|
|
True
|
|
|
|
Several modules, such as the :mod:`Queue` and :mod:`threading` modules, now take
|
|
advantage of :class:`collections.deque` for improved performance. (Contributed
|
|
by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`ConfigParser` classes have been enhanced slightly. The :meth:`read`
|
|
method now returns a list of the files that were successfully parsed, and the
|
|
:meth:`set` method raises :exc:`TypeError` if passed a *value* argument that
|
|
isn't a string. (Contributed by John Belmonte and David Goodger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`curses` module now supports the ncurses extension
|
|
:func:`use_default_colors`. On platforms where the terminal supports
|
|
transparency, this makes it possible to use a transparent background.
|
|
(Contributed by Jörg Lehmann.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`difflib` module now includes an :class:`HtmlDiff` class that creates
|
|
an HTML table showing a side by side comparison of two versions of a text.
|
|
(Contributed by Dan Gass.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`email` package was updated to version 3.0, which dropped various
|
|
deprecated APIs and removes support for Python versions earlier than 2.3. The
|
|
3.0 version of the package uses a new incremental parser for MIME messages,
|
|
available in the :mod:`email.FeedParser` module. The new parser doesn't require
|
|
reading the entire message into memory, and doesn't raise exceptions if a
|
|
message is malformed; instead it records any problems in the :attr:`defect`
|
|
attribute of the message. (Developed by Anthony Baxter, Barry Warsaw, Thomas
|
|
Wouters, and others.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`heapq` module has been converted to C. The resulting tenfold
|
|
improvement in speed makes the module suitable for handling high volumes of
|
|
data. In addition, the module has two new functions :func:`nlargest` and
|
|
:func:`nsmallest` that use heaps to find the N largest or smallest values in a
|
|
dataset without the expense of a full sort. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`httplib` module now contains constants for HTTP status codes defined
|
|
in various HTTP-related RFC documents. Constants have names such as
|
|
:const:`OK`, :const:`CREATED`, :const:`CONTINUE`, and
|
|
:const:`MOVED_PERMANENTLY`; use pydoc to get a full list. (Contributed by
|
|
Andrew Eland.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`imaplib` module now supports IMAP's THREAD command (contributed by
|
|
Yves Dionne) and new :meth:`deleteacl` and :meth:`myrights` methods (contributed
|
|
by Arnaud Mazin).
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`itertools` module gained a ``groupby(iterable[, *func*])``
|
|
function. *iterable* is something that can be iterated over to return a stream
|
|
of elements, and the optional *func* parameter is a function that takes an
|
|
element and returns a key value; if omitted, the key is simply the element
|
|
itself. :func:`groupby` then groups the elements into subsequences which have
|
|
matching values of the key, and returns a series of 2-tuples containing the key
|
|
value and an iterator over the subsequence.
|
|
|
|
Here's an example to make this clearer. The *key* function simply returns
|
|
whether a number is even or odd, so the result of :func:`groupby` is to return
|
|
consecutive runs of odd or even numbers. ::
|
|
|
|
>>> import itertools
|
|
>>> L = [2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14]
|
|
>>> for key_val, it in itertools.groupby(L, lambda x: x % 2):
|
|
... print key_val, list(it)
|
|
...
|
|
0 [2, 4, 6]
|
|
1 [7]
|
|
0 [8]
|
|
1 [9, 11]
|
|
0 [12, 14]
|
|
>>>
|
|
|
|
:func:`groupby` is typically used with sorted input. The logic for
|
|
:func:`groupby` is similar to the Unix ``uniq`` filter which makes it handy for
|
|
eliminating, counting, or identifying duplicate elements::
|
|
|
|
>>> word = 'abracadabra'
|
|
>>> letters = sorted(word) # Turn string into a sorted list of letters
|
|
>>> letters
|
|
['a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'b', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'r', 'r']
|
|
>>> for k, g in itertools.groupby(letters):
|
|
... print k, list(g)
|
|
...
|
|
a ['a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a']
|
|
b ['b', 'b']
|
|
c ['c']
|
|
d ['d']
|
|
r ['r', 'r']
|
|
>>> # List unique letters
|
|
>>> [k for k, g in groupby(letters)]
|
|
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'r']
|
|
>>> # Count letter occurrences
|
|
>>> [(k, len(list(g))) for k, g in groupby(letters)]
|
|
[('a', 5), ('b', 2), ('c', 1), ('d', 1), ('r', 2)]
|
|
|
|
(Contributed by Hye-Shik Chang.)
|
|
|
|
* :mod:`itertools` also gained a function named ``tee(iterator, N)`` that
|
|
returns *N* independent iterators that replicate *iterator*. If *N* is omitted,
|
|
the default is 2. ::
|
|
|
|
>>> L = [1,2,3]
|
|
>>> i1, i2 = itertools.tee(L)
|
|
>>> i1,i2
|
|
(<itertools.tee object at 0x402c2080>, <itertools.tee object at 0x402c2090>)
|
|
>>> list(i1) # Run the first iterator to exhaustion
|
|
[1, 2, 3]
|
|
>>> list(i2) # Run the second iterator to exhaustion
|
|
[1, 2, 3]
|
|
|
|
Note that :func:`tee` has to keep copies of the values returned by the
|
|
iterator; in the worst case, it may need to keep all of them. This should
|
|
therefore be used carefully if the leading iterator can run far ahead of the
|
|
trailing iterator in a long stream of inputs. If the separation is large, then
|
|
you might as well use :func:`list` instead. When the iterators track closely
|
|
with one another, :func:`tee` is ideal. Possible applications include
|
|
bookmarking, windowing, or lookahead iterators. (Contributed by Raymond
|
|
Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* A number of functions were added to the :mod:`locale` module, such as
|
|
:func:`bind_textdomain_codeset` to specify a particular encoding and a family of
|
|
:func:`l\*gettext` functions that return messages in the chosen encoding.
|
|
(Contributed by Gustavo Niemeyer.)
|
|
|
|
* Some keyword arguments were added to the :mod:`logging` package's
|
|
:func:`basicConfig` function to simplify log configuration. The default
|
|
behavior is to log messages to standard error, but various keyword arguments can
|
|
be specified to log to a particular file, change the logging format, or set the
|
|
logging level. For example::
|
|
|
|
import logging
|
|
logging.basicConfig(filename='/var/log/application.log',
|
|
level=0, # Log all messages
|
|
format='%(levelname):%(process):%(thread):%(message)')
|
|
|
|
Other additions to the :mod:`logging` package include a ``log(level, msg)``
|
|
convenience method, as well as a :class:`TimedRotatingFileHandler` class that
|
|
rotates its log files at a timed interval. The module already had
|
|
:class:`RotatingFileHandler`, which rotated logs once the file exceeded a
|
|
certain size. Both classes derive from a new :class:`BaseRotatingHandler` class
|
|
that can be used to implement other rotating handlers.
|
|
|
|
(Changes implemented by Vinay Sajip.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`marshal` module now shares interned strings on unpacking a data
|
|
structure. This may shrink the size of certain pickle strings, but the primary
|
|
effect is to make :file:`.pyc` files significantly smaller. (Contributed by
|
|
Martin von Löwis.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`nntplib` module's :class:`NNTP` class gained :meth:`description` and
|
|
:meth:`descriptions` methods to retrieve newsgroup descriptions for a single
|
|
group or for a range of groups. (Contributed by Jürgen A. Erhard.)
|
|
|
|
* Two new functions were added to the :mod:`operator` module,
|
|
``attrgetter(attr)`` and ``itemgetter(index)``. Both functions return
|
|
callables that take a single argument and return the corresponding attribute or
|
|
item; these callables make excellent data extractors when used with :func:`map`
|
|
or :func:`sorted`. For example::
|
|
|
|
>>> L = [('c', 2), ('d', 1), ('a', 4), ('b', 3)]
|
|
>>> map(operator.itemgetter(0), L)
|
|
['c', 'd', 'a', 'b']
|
|
>>> map(operator.itemgetter(1), L)
|
|
[2, 1, 4, 3]
|
|
>>> sorted(L, key=operator.itemgetter(1)) # Sort list by second tuple item
|
|
[('d', 1), ('c', 2), ('b', 3), ('a', 4)]
|
|
|
|
(Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`optparse` module was updated in various ways. The module now passes
|
|
its messages through :func:`gettext.gettext`, making it possible to
|
|
internationalize Optik's help and error messages. Help messages for options can
|
|
now include the string ``'%default'``, which will be replaced by the option's
|
|
default value. (Contributed by Greg Ward.)
|
|
|
|
* The long-term plan is to deprecate the :mod:`rfc822` module in some future
|
|
Python release in favor of the :mod:`email` package. To this end, the
|
|
:func:`email.Utils.formatdate` function has been changed to make it usable as a
|
|
replacement for :func:`rfc822.formatdate`. You may want to write new e-mail
|
|
processing code with this in mind. (Change implemented by Anthony Baxter.)
|
|
|
|
* A new ``urandom(n)`` function was added to the :mod:`os` module, returning
|
|
a string containing *n* bytes of random data. This function provides access to
|
|
platform-specific sources of randomness such as :file:`/dev/urandom` on Linux or
|
|
the Windows CryptoAPI. (Contributed by Trevor Perrin.)
|
|
|
|
* Another new function: ``os.path.lexists(path)`` returns true if the file
|
|
specified by *path* exists, whether or not it's a symbolic link. This differs
|
|
from the existing ``os.path.exists(path)`` function, which returns false if
|
|
*path* is a symlink that points to a destination that doesn't exist.
|
|
(Contributed by Beni Cherniavsky.)
|
|
|
|
* A new :func:`getsid` function was added to the :mod:`posix` module that
|
|
underlies the :mod:`os` module. (Contributed by J. Raynor.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`poplib` module now supports POP over SSL. (Contributed by Hector
|
|
Urtubia.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`profile` module can now profile C extension functions. (Contributed
|
|
by Nick Bastin.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`random` module has a new method called ``getrandbits(N)`` that
|
|
returns a long integer *N* bits in length. The existing :meth:`randrange`
|
|
method now uses :meth:`getrandbits` where appropriate, making generation of
|
|
arbitrarily large random numbers more efficient. (Contributed by Raymond
|
|
Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The regular expression language accepted by the :mod:`re` module was extended
|
|
with simple conditional expressions, written as ``(?(group)A|B)``. *group* is
|
|
either a numeric group ID or a group name defined with ``(?P<group>...)``
|
|
earlier in the expression. If the specified group matched, the regular
|
|
expression pattern *A* will be tested against the string; if the group didn't
|
|
match, the pattern *B* will be used instead. (Contributed by Gustavo Niemeyer.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`re` module is also no longer recursive, thanks to a massive amount
|
|
of work by Gustavo Niemeyer. In a recursive regular expression engine, certain
|
|
patterns result in a large amount of C stack space being consumed, and it was
|
|
possible to overflow the stack. For example, if you matched a 30000-byte string
|
|
of ``a`` characters against the expression ``(a|b)+``, one stack frame was
|
|
consumed per character. Python 2.3 tried to check for stack overflow and raise
|
|
a :exc:`RuntimeError` exception, but certain patterns could sidestep the
|
|
checking and if you were unlucky Python could segfault. Python 2.4's regular
|
|
expression engine can match this pattern without problems.
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`signal` module now performs tighter error-checking on the parameters
|
|
to the :func:`signal.signal` function. For example, you can't set a handler on
|
|
the :const:`SIGKILL` signal; previous versions of Python would quietly accept
|
|
this, but 2.4 will raise a :exc:`RuntimeError` exception.
|
|
|
|
* Two new functions were added to the :mod:`socket` module. :func:`socketpair`
|
|
returns a pair of connected sockets and ``getservbyport(port)`` looks up the
|
|
service name for a given port number. (Contributed by Dave Cole and Barry
|
|
Warsaw.)
|
|
|
|
* The :func:`sys.exitfunc` function has been deprecated. Code should be using
|
|
the existing :mod:`atexit` module, which correctly handles calling multiple exit
|
|
functions. Eventually :func:`sys.exitfunc` will become a purely internal
|
|
interface, accessed only by :mod:`atexit`.
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`tarfile` module now generates GNU-format tar files by default.
|
|
(Contributed by Lars Gustäbel.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`threading` module now has an elegantly simple way to support
|
|
thread-local data. The module contains a :class:`local` class whose attribute
|
|
values are local to different threads. ::
|
|
|
|
import threading
|
|
|
|
data = threading.local()
|
|
data.number = 42
|
|
data.url = ('www.python.org', 80)
|
|
|
|
Other threads can assign and retrieve their own values for the :attr:`number`
|
|
and :attr:`url` attributes. You can subclass :class:`local` to initialize
|
|
attributes or to add methods. (Contributed by Jim Fulton.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`timeit` module now automatically disables periodic garbage
|
|
collection during the timing loop. This change makes consecutive timings more
|
|
comparable. (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`weakref` module now supports a wider variety of objects including
|
|
Python functions, class instances, sets, frozensets, deques, arrays, files,
|
|
sockets, and regular expression pattern objects. (Contributed by Raymond
|
|
Hettinger.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`xmlrpclib` module now supports a multi-call extension for
|
|
transmitting multiple XML-RPC calls in a single HTTP operation. (Contributed by
|
|
Brian Quinlan.)
|
|
|
|
* The :mod:`mpz`, :mod:`rotor`, and :mod:`xreadlines` modules have been
|
|
removed.
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
|
.. whole new modules get described in subsections here
|
|
.. =====================
|
|
|
|
|
|
cookielib
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
The :mod:`cookielib` library supports client-side handling for HTTP cookies,
|
|
mirroring the :mod:`Cookie` module's server-side cookie support. Cookies are
|
|
stored in cookie jars; the library transparently stores cookies offered by the
|
|
web server in the cookie jar, and fetches the cookie from the jar when
|
|
connecting to the server. As in web browsers, policy objects control whether
|
|
cookies are accepted or not.
|
|
|
|
In order to store cookies across sessions, two implementations of cookie jars
|
|
are provided: one that stores cookies in the Netscape format so applications can
|
|
use the Mozilla or Lynx cookie files, and one that stores cookies in the same
|
|
format as the Perl libwww library.
|
|
|
|
:mod:`urllib2` has been changed to interact with :mod:`cookielib`:
|
|
:class:`HTTPCookieProcessor` manages a cookie jar that is used when accessing
|
|
URLs.
|
|
|
|
This module was contributed by John J. Lee.
|
|
|
|
.. ==================
|
|
|
|
|
|
doctest
|
|
-------
|
|
|
|
The :mod:`doctest` module underwent considerable refactoring thanks to Edward
|
|
Loper and Tim Peters. Testing can still be as simple as running
|
|
:func:`doctest.testmod`, but the refactorings allow customizing the module's
|
|
operation in various ways
|
|
|
|
The new :class:`DocTestFinder` class extracts the tests from a given object's
|
|
docstrings::
|
|
|
|
def f (x, y):
|
|
""">>> f(2,2)
|
|
4
|
|
>>> f(3,2)
|
|
6
|
|
"""
|
|
return x*y
|
|
|
|
finder = doctest.DocTestFinder()
|
|
|
|
# Get list of DocTest instances
|
|
tests = finder.find(f)
|
|
|
|
The new :class:`DocTestRunner` class then runs individual tests and can produce
|
|
a summary of the results::
|
|
|
|
runner = doctest.DocTestRunner()
|
|
for t in tests:
|
|
tried, failed = runner.run(t)
|
|
|
|
runner.summarize(verbose=1)
|
|
|
|
The above example produces the following output::
|
|
|
|
1 items passed all tests:
|
|
2 tests in f
|
|
2 tests in 1 items.
|
|
2 passed and 0 failed.
|
|
Test passed.
|
|
|
|
:class:`DocTestRunner` uses an instance of the :class:`OutputChecker` class to
|
|
compare the expected output with the actual output. This class takes a number
|
|
of different flags that customize its behaviour; ambitious users can also write
|
|
a completely new subclass of :class:`OutputChecker`.
|
|
|
|
The default output checker provides a number of handy features. For example,
|
|
with the :const:`doctest.ELLIPSIS` option flag, an ellipsis (``...``) in the
|
|
expected output matches any substring, making it easier to accommodate outputs
|
|
that vary in minor ways::
|
|
|
|
def o (n):
|
|
""">>> o(1)
|
|
<__main__.C instance at 0x...>
|
|
>>>
|
|
"""
|
|
|
|
Another special string, ``<BLANKLINE>``, matches a blank line::
|
|
|
|
def p (n):
|
|
""">>> p(1)
|
|
<BLANKLINE>
|
|
>>>
|
|
"""
|
|
|
|
Another new capability is producing a diff-style display of the output by
|
|
specifying the :const:`doctest.REPORT_UDIFF` (unified diffs),
|
|
:const:`doctest.REPORT_CDIFF` (context diffs), or :const:`doctest.REPORT_NDIFF`
|
|
(delta-style) option flags. For example::
|
|
|
|
def g (n):
|
|
""">>> g(4)
|
|
here
|
|
is
|
|
a
|
|
lengthy
|
|
>>>"""
|
|
L = 'here is a rather lengthy list of words'.split()
|
|
for word in L[:n]:
|
|
print word
|
|
|
|
Running the above function's tests with :const:`doctest.REPORT_UDIFF` specified,
|
|
you get the following output:
|
|
|
|
.. code-block:: none
|
|
|
|
**********************************************************************
|
|
File "t.py", line 15, in g
|
|
Failed example:
|
|
g(4)
|
|
Differences (unified diff with -expected +actual):
|
|
@@ -2,3 +2,3 @@
|
|
is
|
|
a
|
|
-lengthy
|
|
+rather
|
|
**********************************************************************
|
|
|
|
.. ======================================================================
|
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Build and C API Changes
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=======================
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Some of the changes to Python's build process and to the C API are:
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* Three new convenience macros were added for common return values from
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extension functions: :c:macro:`Py_RETURN_NONE`, :c:macro:`Py_RETURN_TRUE`, and
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:c:macro:`Py_RETURN_FALSE`. (Contributed by Brett Cannon.)
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* Another new macro, :c:macro:`Py_CLEAR(obj)`, decreases the reference count of
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*obj* and sets *obj* to the null pointer. (Contributed by Jim Fulton.)
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* A new function, ``PyTuple_Pack(N, obj1, obj2, ..., objN)``, constructs
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tuples from a variable length argument list of Python objects. (Contributed by
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Raymond Hettinger.)
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* A new function, ``PyDict_Contains(d, k)``, implements fast dictionary
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lookups without masking exceptions raised during the look-up process.
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(Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)
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* The :c:macro:`Py_IS_NAN(X)` macro returns 1 if its float or double argument
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*X* is a NaN. (Contributed by Tim Peters.)
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* C code can avoid unnecessary locking by using the new
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:c:func:`PyEval_ThreadsInitialized` function to tell if any thread operations
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have been performed. If this function returns false, no lock operations are
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needed. (Contributed by Nick Coghlan.)
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* A new function, :c:func:`PyArg_VaParseTupleAndKeywords`, is the same as
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:c:func:`PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords` but takes a :c:type:`va_list` instead of a
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number of arguments. (Contributed by Greg Chapman.)
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* A new method flag, :const:`METH_COEXISTS`, allows a function defined in slots
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to co-exist with a :c:type:`PyCFunction` having the same name. This can halve
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the access time for a method such as :meth:`set.__contains__`. (Contributed by
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Raymond Hettinger.)
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* Python can now be built with additional profiling for the interpreter itself,
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intended as an aid to people developing the Python core. Providing
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:option:`!--enable-profiling` to the :program:`configure` script will let you
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profile the interpreter with :program:`gprof`, and providing the
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:option:`!--with-tsc` switch enables profiling using the Pentium's Time-Stamp-
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Counter register. Note that the :option:`!--with-tsc` switch is slightly
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misnamed, because the profiling feature also works on the PowerPC platform,
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though that processor architecture doesn't call that register "the TSC
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register". (Contributed by Jeremy Hylton.)
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* The :c:type:`tracebackobject` type has been renamed to
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:c:type:`PyTracebackObject`.
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.. ======================================================================
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Port-Specific Changes
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---------------------
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* The Windows port now builds under MSVC++ 7.1 as well as version 6.
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(Contributed by Martin von Löwis.)
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.. ======================================================================
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Porting to Python 2.4
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=====================
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This section lists previously described changes that may require changes to your
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code:
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* Left shifts and hexadecimal/octal constants that are too large no longer
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trigger a :exc:`FutureWarning` and return a value limited to 32 or 64 bits;
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instead they return a long integer.
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* Integer operations will no longer trigger an :exc:`OverflowWarning`. The
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:exc:`OverflowWarning` warning will disappear in Python 2.5.
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* The :func:`zip` built-in function and :func:`itertools.izip` now return an
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empty list instead of raising a :exc:`TypeError` exception if called with no
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arguments.
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* You can no longer compare the :class:`date` and :class:`datetime` instances
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provided by the :mod:`datetime` module. Two instances of different classes
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will now always be unequal, and relative comparisons (``<``, ``>``) will raise
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a :exc:`TypeError`.
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* :func:`dircache.listdir` now passes exceptions to the caller instead of
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returning empty lists.
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* :func:`LexicalHandler.startDTD` used to receive the public and system IDs in
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the wrong order. This has been corrected; applications relying on the wrong
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order need to be fixed.
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* :func:`fcntl.ioctl` now warns if the *mutate* argument is omitted and
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relevant.
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* The :mod:`tarfile` module now generates GNU-format tar files by default.
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* Encountering a failure while importing a module no longer leaves a partially-
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initialized module object in ``sys.modules``.
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* :const:`None` is now a constant; code that binds a new value to the name
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``None`` is now a syntax error.
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* The :func:`signals.signal` function now raises a :exc:`RuntimeError` exception
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for certain illegal values; previously these errors would pass silently. For
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example, you can no longer set a handler on the :const:`SIGKILL` signal.
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.. ======================================================================
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.. _24acks:
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Acknowledgements
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================
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The author would like to thank the following people for offering suggestions,
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corrections and assistance with various drafts of this article: Koray Can,
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Hye-Shik Chang, Michael Dyck, Raymond Hettinger, Brian Hurt, Hamish Lawson,
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Fredrik Lundh, Sean Reifschneider, Sadruddin Rejeb.
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