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			8194 lines
		
	
	
	
		
			305 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Text
		
	
	
	
	
	
| Python History
 | |
| --------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases.
 | |
| As you read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =======================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.6 (September 5, 2000) <==
 | |
| =======================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| What's new in release 1.6?
 | |
| ==========================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.5.2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Source Incompatibilities
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Several small incompatible library changes may trip you up:
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - The append() method for lists can no longer be invoked with more
 | |
|   than one argument.  This used to append a single tuple made out of
 | |
|   all arguments, but was undocumented.  To append a tuple, use
 | |
|   e.g. l.append((a, b, c)).
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - The connect(), connect_ex() and bind() methods for sockets require
 | |
|   exactly one argument.  Previously, you could call s.connect(host,
 | |
|   port), but this was undocumented. You must now write
 | |
|   s.connect((host, port)).
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - The str() and repr() functions are now different more often.  For
 | |
|   long integers, str() no longer appends a 'L'.  Thus, str(1L) == '1',
 | |
|   which used to be '1L'; repr(1L) is unchanged and still returns '1L'.
 | |
|   For floats, repr() now gives 17 digits of precision, to ensure no
 | |
|   precision is lost (on all current hardware).
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - The -X option is gone.  Built-in exceptions are now always
 | |
|   classes.  Many more library modules also have been converted to
 | |
|   class-based exceptions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Binary Incompatibilities
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Third party extensions built for Python 1.5.x cannot be used with
 | |
| Python 1.6; these extensions will have to be rebuilt for Python 1.6.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Windows, attempting to import a third party extension built for
 | |
| Python 1.5.x results in an immediate crash; there's not much we can do
 | |
| about this.  Check your PYTHONPATH environment variable!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Overview of Changes since 1.5.2
 | |
| -------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| For this overview, I have borrowed from the document "What's New in
 | |
| Python 2.0" by Andrew Kuchling and Moshe Zadka:
 | |
| http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/python/writing/new-python/.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are lots of new modules and lots of bugs have been fixed.  A
 | |
| list of all new modules is included below.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Probably the most pervasive change is the addition of Unicode support.
 | |
| We've added a new fundamental datatype, the Unicode string, a new
 | |
| build-in function unicode(), an numerous C APIs to deal with Unicode
 | |
| and encodings.  See the file Misc/unicode.txt for details, or
 | |
| http://starship.python.net/crew/lemburg/unicode-proposal.txt.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Two other big changes, related to the Unicode support, are the
 | |
| addition of string methods and (yet another) new regular expression
 | |
| engine.
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - String methods mean that you can now say s.lower() etc. instead of
 | |
|   importing the string module and saying string.lower(s) etc.  One
 | |
|   peculiarity is that the equivalent of string.join(sequence,
 | |
|   delimiter) is delimiter.join(sequence).  Use " ".join(sequence) for
 | |
|   the effect of string.join(sequence); to make this more readable, try
 | |
|   space=" " first.  Note that the maxsplit argument defaults in
 | |
|   split() and replace() have changed from 0 to -1.
 | |
| 
 | |
|   - The new regular expression engine, SRE by Fredrik Lundh, is fully
 | |
|   backwards compatible with the old engine, and is in fact invoked
 | |
|   using the same interface (the "re" module).  You can explicitly
 | |
|   invoke the old engine by import pre, or the SRE engine by importing
 | |
|   sre.  SRE is faster than pre, and supports Unicode (which was the
 | |
|   main reason to put effort in yet another new regular expression
 | |
|   engine -- this is at least the fourth!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Other Changes
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Other changes that won't break code but are nice to know about:
 | |
| 
 | |
| Deleting objects is now safe even for deeply nested data structures.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Long/int unifications: long integers can be used in seek() calls, as
 | |
| slice indexes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| String formatting (s % args) has a new formatting option, '%r', which
 | |
| acts like '%s' but inserts repr(arg) instead of str(arg). (Not yet in
 | |
| alpha 1.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Greg Ward's "distutils" package is included: this will make
 | |
| installing, building and distributing third party packages much
 | |
| simpler.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There's now special syntax that you can use instead of the apply()
 | |
| function.  f(*args, **kwds) is equivalent to apply(f, args, kwds).
 | |
| You can also use variations f(a1, a2, *args, **kwds) and you can leave
 | |
| one or the other out: f(*args), f(**kwds).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The built-ins int() and long() take an optional second argument to
 | |
| indicate the conversion base -- of course only if the first argument
 | |
| is a string.  This makes string.atoi() and string.atol() obsolete.
 | |
| (string.atof() was already obsolete).
 | |
| 
 | |
| When a local variable is known to the compiler but undefined when
 | |
| used, a new exception UnboundLocalError is raised.  This is a class
 | |
| derived from NameError so code catching NameError should still work.
 | |
| The purpose is to provide better diagnostics in the following example:
 | |
|   x = 1
 | |
|   def f():
 | |
|       print x
 | |
|       x = x+1
 | |
| This used to raise a NameError on the print statement, which confused
 | |
| even experienced Python programmers (especially if there are several
 | |
| hundreds of lines of code between the reference and the assignment to
 | |
| x :-).
 | |
| 
 | |
| You can now override the 'in' operator by defining a __contains__
 | |
| method.  Note that it has its arguments backwards: x in a causes
 | |
| a.__contains__(x) to be called.  That's why the name isn't __in__.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The exception AttributeError will have a more friendly error message,
 | |
| e.g.: <code>'Spam' instance has no attribute 'eggs'</code>.  This may
 | |
| <b>break code</b> that expects the message to be exactly the attribute
 | |
| name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New Modules in 1.6
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| UserString - base class for deriving from the string type.
 | |
| 
 | |
| distutils - tools for distributing Python modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| robotparser - parse a robots.txt file, for writing web spiders.
 | |
| (Moved from Tools/webchecker/.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| linuxaudiodev - audio for Linux.
 | |
| 
 | |
| mmap - treat a file as a memory buffer.  (Windows and Unix.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| sre - regular expressions (fast, supports unicode).  Currently, this
 | |
| code is very rough.  Eventually, the re module will be reimplemented
 | |
| using sre (without changes to the re API).
 | |
| 
 | |
| filecmp - supersedes the old cmp.py and dircmp.py modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| tabnanny - check Python sources for tab-width dependance.  (Moved from
 | |
| Tools/scripts/.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| urllib2 - new and improved but incompatible version of urllib (still
 | |
| experimental).
 | |
| 
 | |
| zipfile - read and write zip archives.
 | |
| 
 | |
| codecs - support for Unicode encoders/decoders.
 | |
| 
 | |
| unicodedata - provides access to the Unicode 3.0 database.
 | |
| 
 | |
| _winreg - Windows registry access.
 | |
| 
 | |
| encodings - package which provides a large set of standard codecs --
 | |
| currently only for the new Unicode support. It has a drop-in extension
 | |
| mechanism which allows you to add new codecs by simply copying them
 | |
| into the encodings package directory. Asian codec support will
 | |
| probably be made available as separate distribution package built upon
 | |
| this technique and the new distutils package.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Modules
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| readline, ConfigParser, cgi, calendar, posix, readline, xmllib, aifc,
 | |
| chunk, wave, random, shelve, nntplib - minor enhancements.
 | |
| 
 | |
| socket, httplib, urllib - optional OpenSSL support (Unix only).
 | |
| 
 | |
| _tkinter - support for 8.0 up to 8.3.  Support for versions older than
 | |
| 8.0 has been dropped.
 | |
| 
 | |
| string - most of this module is deprecated now that strings have
 | |
| methods.  This no longer uses the built-in strop module, but takes
 | |
| advantage of the new string methods to provide transparent support for
 | |
| both Unicode and ordinary strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes on Windows
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The installer no longer runs a separate Tcl/Tk installer; instead, it
 | |
| installs the needed Tcl/Tk files directly in the Python directory.  If
 | |
| you already have a Tcl/Tk installation, this wastes some disk space
 | |
| (about 4 Megs) but avoids problems with conflincting Tcl/Tk
 | |
| installations, and makes it much easier for Python to ensure that
 | |
| Tcl/Tk can find all its files.  Note: the alpha installers don't
 | |
| include the documentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Windows installer now installs by default in \Python16\ on the
 | |
| default volume, instead of \Program Files\Python-1.6\.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Tools
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| IDLE - complete overhaul.  See the <a href="../idle/">IDLE home
 | |
| page</a> for more information.  (Python 1.6 alpha 1 will come with
 | |
| IDLE 0.6.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tools/i18n/pygettext.py - Python equivalent of xgettext(1).  A message
 | |
| text extraction tool used for internationalizing applications written
 | |
| in Python.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Obsolete Modules
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| stdwin and everything that uses it.  (Get Python 1.5.2 if you need
 | |
| it. :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| soundex.  (Skip Montanaro has a version in Python but it won't be
 | |
| included in the Python release.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| cmp, cmpcache, dircmp.  (Replaced by filecmp.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| dump.  (Use pickle.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| find.  (Easily coded using os.walk().)
 | |
| 
 | |
| grep.  (Not very useful as a library module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| packmail.  (No longer has any use.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| poly, zmod.  (These were poor examples at best.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| strop.  (No longer needed by the string module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| util.  (This functionality was long ago built in elsewhere).
 | |
| 
 | |
| whatsound.  (Use sndhdr.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Detailed Changes from 1.6b1 to 1.6
 | |
| ----------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Slight changes to the CNRI license.  A copyright notice has been
 | |
| added; the requirement to indicate the nature of modifications now
 | |
| applies when making a derivative work available "to others" instead of
 | |
| just "to the public"; the version and date are updated.  The new
 | |
| license has a new handle.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added the Tools/compiler package.  This is a project led by Jeremy
 | |
| Hylton to write the Python bytecode generator in Python.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The function math.rint() is removed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Python.h, "#define _GNU_SOURCE 1" was added.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Version 0.9.1 of Greg Ward's distutils is included (instead of
 | |
| version 0.9).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new version of SRE is included.  It is more stable, and more
 | |
| compatible with the old RE module.  Non-matching ranges are indicated
 | |
| by -1, not None.  (The documentation said None, but the PRE
 | |
| implementation used -1; changing to None would break existing code.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The winreg module has been renamed to _winreg.  (There are plans for
 | |
| a higher-level API called winreg, but this has not yet materialized in
 | |
| a form that is acceptable to the experts.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The _locale module is enabled by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed the configuration line for the _curses module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A few crashes have been fixed, notably <file>.writelines() with a
 | |
| list containing non-string objects would crash, and there were
 | |
| situations where a lost SyntaxError could dump core.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The <list>.extend() method now accepts an arbitrary sequence
 | |
| argument.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - If __str__() or __repr__() returns a Unicode object, this is
 | |
| converted to an 8-bit string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Unicode string comparisons is no longer aware of UTF-16
 | |
| encoding peculiarities; it's a straight 16-bit compare.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Windows installer now installs the LICENSE file and no longer
 | |
| registers the Python DLL version in the registry (this is no longer
 | |
| needed).  It now uses Tcl/Tk 8.3.2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A few portability problems have been fixed, in particular a
 | |
| compilation error involving socklen_t.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The PC configuration is slightly friendlier to non-Microsoft
 | |
| compilers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.5.2 (April 13, 1999) <==
 | |
| ======================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.2c1 to 1.5.2 (final)
 | |
| =============================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Apr 13 15:44:49 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PCbuild/python15.wse: Bump version to 1.5.2 (final)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PCbuild/python15.dsp: Added shamodule.c
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PC/config.c: Added sha module!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README, Include/patchlevel.h: Prepare for final release.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/ACKS:
 | |
| 	More (Cameron Laird is honorary; the others are 1.5.2c1 testers).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/thread_solaris.h:
 | |
| 	While I can't really test this thoroughly, Pat Knight and the Solaris
 | |
| 	man pages suggest that the proper thing to do is to add THR_NEW_LWP to
 | |
| 	the flags on thr_create(), and that there really isn't a downside, so
 | |
| 	I'll do that.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/ACKS:
 | |
| 	Bunch of new names who helped iron out the last wrinkles of 1.5.2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PC/python_nt.rc:
 | |
| 	Bump the myusterious M$ version number from 1,5,2,1 to 1,5,2,3.
 | |
| 	(I can't even display this on NT, maybe Win/98 can?)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/pstats.py:
 | |
| 	Fix mysterious references to jprofile that were in the source since
 | |
| 	its creation.  I'm assuming these were once valid references to "Jim
 | |
| 	Roskind's profile"...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/Attic/threading_api.py:
 | |
| 	Removed; since long subsumed in Doc/lib/libthreading.tex
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Put back __osf__ support for gethostbyname_r(); the real bug was that
 | |
| 	it was being used even without threads.  This of course might be an
 | |
| 	all-platform problem so now we only use the _r variant when we are
 | |
| 	using threads.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Apr 12 22:51:20 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/cPickle.c:
 | |
| 	Fix accidentally reversed NULL test in load_mark().  Suggested by
 | |
| 	Tamito Kajiyama.  (This caused a bug only on platforms where malloc(0)
 | |
| 	returns NULL.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README:
 | |
| 	Add note about popen2 problem on Linux noticed by Pablo Bleyer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README: Add note about -D_REENTRANT for HP-UX 10.20.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/Makefile.pre.in: 'clean' target should remove hassignal.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PC/Attic/vc40.mak, PC/readme.txt:
 | |
| 	Remove all VC++ info (except VC 1.5) from readme.txt;
 | |
| 	remove the VC++ 4.0 project file; remove the unused _tkinter extern defs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README: Clarify PC build instructions (point to PCbuild).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/zlibmodule.c: Cast added by Jack Jansen (for Mac port).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/plat-sunos5/CDIO.py, Lib/plat-linux2/CDROM.py:
 | |
| 	Forgot to add this file.  CDROM device parameters.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/gzip.py: Two different changes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	1. Jack Jansen reports that on the Mac, the time may be negative, and
 | |
| 	solves this by adding a write32u() function that writes an unsigned
 | |
| 	long.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	2. On 64-bit platforms the CRC comparison fails; I've fixed this by
 | |
| 	casting both values to be compared to "unsigned long" i.e. modulo
 | |
| 	0x100000000L.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sat Apr 10 18:42:02 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PC/Attic/_tkinter.def: No longer needed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/ACKS: Correct missed character in Andrew Dalke's name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README: Add DEC Ultrix notes (from Donn Cave's email).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure: The usual
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in:
 | |
| 	Quote a bunch of shell variables used in test, related to long-long.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/fileobject.c, Modules/shamodule.c, Modules/regexpr.c:
 | |
| 	casts for picky compilers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c:
 | |
| 	3-arg gethostbyname_r doesn't really work on OSF/1.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PC/vc15_w31/_.c, PC/vc15_lib/_.c, Tools/pynche/__init__.py:
 | |
| 	Avoid totally empty files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Apr  9 14:56:35 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/scripts/fixps.py: Use re instead of regex.
 | |
| 	Don't rewrite the file in place.
 | |
| 	(Reported by Andy Dustman.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/netrc.py, Lib/shlex.py: Get rid of #! line
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Apr  8 23:13:37 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PCbuild/python15.wse: Use the Tcl 8.0.5 installer.
 | |
| 	Add a variable %_TCL_% that makes it easier to switch to a different version.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.2b2 to 1.5.2c1
 | |
| =======================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Apr  8 23:13:37 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PCbuild/python15.wse:
 | |
| 	Release 1.5.2c1.  Add IDLE and Uninstall to program group.
 | |
| 	Don't distribute zlib.dll.  Tweak some comments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* PCbuild/zlib.dsp: Now using static zlib 1.1.3
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/dos-8x3/userdict.py, Lib/dos-8x3/userlist.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_zli.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_use.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_pop.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_pic.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_ntp.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_gzi.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_fcn.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_cpi.py, Lib/dos-8x3/test_bsd.py, Lib/dos-8x3/posixfil.py, Lib/dos-8x3/mimetype.py, Lib/dos-8x3/nturl2pa.py, Lib/dos-8x3/compilea.py, Lib/dos-8x3/exceptio.py, Lib/dos-8x3/basehttp.py:
 | |
| 	The usual
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Include/patchlevel.h: Release 1.5.2c1
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* README: Release 1.5.2c1.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/NEWS: News for the 1.5.2c1 release.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_strftime.py:
 | |
| 	On Windows, we suddenly find, strftime() may return "" for an
 | |
| 	unsupported format string.  (I guess this is because the logic for
 | |
| 	deciding whether to reallocate the buffer or not has been improved.)
 | |
| 	This caused the test code to crash on result[0].  Fix this by assuming
 | |
| 	an empty result also means the format is not supported.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Demo/tkinter/matt/window-creation-w-location.py:
 | |
| 	This demo imported some private code from Matt.  Make it cripple along.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py:
 | |
| 	Delete an accidentally checked-in feature that actually broke more
 | |
| 	than was worth it: when deleting a canvas item, it would try to
 | |
| 	automatically delete the bindings for that item.  Since there's
 | |
| 	nothing that says you can't reuse the tag and still have the bindings,
 | |
| 	this is not correct.  Also, it broke at least one demo
 | |
| 	(Demo/tkinter/matt/rubber-band-box-demo-1.py).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/thread_wince.h: Win/CE thread support by Mark Hammond.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Apr  7 20:23:17 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Andrew Kuchling to unflush() (flush() for deflating).
 | |
| 	Without this, if inflate() returned Z_BUF_ERROR asking for more output
 | |
| 	space, we would report the error; now, we increase the buffer size and
 | |
| 	try again, just as for Z_OK.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_gzip.py: Use binary mode for all gzip files we open.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/ChangeLog: New change log.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/README.txt, Tools/idle/NEWS.txt: New version.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/pythonrun.c:
 | |
| 	Alas, get rid of the Win specific hack to ask the user to press Return
 | |
| 	before exiting when an error happened.  This didn't work right when
 | |
| 	Python is invoked from a daemon.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/idlever.py: Version bump awaiting impending new release.
 | |
| 	(Not much has changed :-( )
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py:
 | |
| 	lower, tkraise/lift hide Misc.lower, Misc.tkraise/lift,
 | |
| 	so the preferred name for them is tag_lower, tag_raise
 | |
| 	(similar to tag_bind, and similar to the Text widget);
 | |
| 	unfortunately can't delete the old ones yet (maybe in 1.6)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/thread.c, Python/strtod.c, Python/mystrtoul.c, Python/import.c, Python/ceval.c:
 | |
| 	Changes by Mark Hammond for Windows CE.  Mostly of the form
 | |
| 	  #ifdef DONT_HAVE_header_H ... #endif around #include <header.h>.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/bltinmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Remove unused variable from complex_from_string() code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Include/patchlevel.h:
 | |
| 	Add the possibility of a gamma release (release candidate).
 | |
| 	Add '+' to string version number to indicate we're beyond b2 now.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/posixmodule.c: Add extern decl for fsync() for SunOS 4.x.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/smtplib.py: Changes by Per Cederquist and The Dragon.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Per writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 	The application where Signum Support uses smtplib needs to be able to
 | |
| 	report good error messages to the user when sending email fails.  To
 | |
| 	help in diagnosing problems it is useful to be able to report the
 | |
| 	entire message sent by the server, not only the SMTP error code of the
 | |
| 	offending command.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	A lot of the functions in sendmail.py unfortunately discards the
 | |
| 	message, leaving only the code.  The enclosed patch fixes that
 | |
| 	problem.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The enclosed patch also introduces a base class for exceptions that
 | |
| 	include an SMTP error code and error message, and make the code and
 | |
| 	message available on separate attributes, so that surrounding code can
 | |
| 	deal with them in whatever way it sees fit.  I've also added some
 | |
| 	documentation to the exception classes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The constructor will now raise an exception if it cannot connect to
 | |
| 	the SMTP server.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The data() method will raise an SMTPDataError if it doesn't receive
 | |
| 	the expected 354 code in the middle of the exchange.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	According to section 5.2.10 of RFC 1123 a smtp client must accept "any
 | |
| 	text, including no text at all" after the error code.  If the response
 | |
| 	of a HELO command contains no text self.helo_resp will be set to the
 | |
| 	empty string ("").  The patch fixes the test in the sendmail() method
 | |
| 	so that helo_resp is tested against None; if it has the empty string
 | |
| 	as value the sendmail() method would invoke the helo() method again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The code no longer accepts a -1 reply from the ehlo() method in
 | |
| 	sendmail().
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	[Text about removing SMTPRecipientsRefused deleted --GvR]
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	and also:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 	smtplib.py appends an extra blank line to the outgoing mail if the
 | |
| 	`msg' argument to the sendmail method already contains a trailing
 | |
| 	newline.  This patch should fix the problem.
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The Dragon writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 		Mostly I just re-added the SMTPRecipientsRefused exception
 | |
| 	(the exeption object now has the appropriate info in it ) [Per had
 | |
| 	removed this in his patch --GvR] and tweaked the behavior of the
 | |
| 	sendmail method whence it throws the newly added SMTPHeloException (it
 | |
| 	was closing the connection, which it shouldn't.  whatever catches the
 | |
| 	exception should do that. )
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		I pondered the change of the return values to tuples all around,
 | |
| 	and after some thinking I decided that regularizing the return values was
 | |
| 	too much of the Right Thing (tm) to not do.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		My one concern is that code expecting an integer & getting a tuple
 | |
| 	may fail silently.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(i.e. if it's doing :
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	      x.somemethod() >= 400:
 | |
| 	expecting an integer, the expression will always be true if it gets a
 | |
| 	tuple instead. )
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		However, most smtplib code I've seen only really uses the
 | |
| 	sendmail() method, so this wouldn't bother it.  Usually code I've seen
 | |
| 	that calls the other methods usually only calls helo() and ehlo() for
 | |
| 	doing ESMTP, a feature which was not in the smtplib included with 1.5.1,
 | |
| 	and thus I would think not much code uses it yet.
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Apr  6 19:38:18 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_ntpath.py:
 | |
| 	Fix the tests now that splitdrive() no longer treats UNC paths special.
 | |
| 	(Some tests converted to splitunc() tests.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/ntpath.py:
 | |
| 	Withdraw the UNC support from splitdrive().  Instead, a new function
 | |
| 	splitunc() parses UNC paths.  The contributor of the UNC parsing in
 | |
| 	splitdrive() doesn't like it, but I haven't heard a good reason to
 | |
| 	keep it, and it causes some problems.  (I think there's a
 | |
| 	philosophical problem -- to me, the split*() functions are purely
 | |
| 	syntactical, and the fact that \\foo is not a valid path doesn't mean
 | |
| 	that it shouldn't be considered an absolute path.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Also (quite separately, but strangely related to the philosophical
 | |
| 	issue above) fix abspath() so that if win32api exists, it doesn't fail
 | |
| 	when the path doesn't actually exist -- if GetFullPathName() fails,
 | |
| 	fall back on the old strategy (join with getcwd() if neccessary, and
 | |
| 	then use normpath()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in, configure, config.h.in, acconfig.h:
 | |
| 	For BeOS PowerPC.  Chris Herborth.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Apr  5 21:54:14 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/timemodule.c:
 | |
| 	Jonathan Giddy notes, and Chris Lawrence agrees, that some comments on
 | |
| 	#else/#endif are wrong, and that #if HAVE_TM_ZONE should be #ifdef.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/ACKS:
 | |
| 	Bunch of new contributors, including 9 who contributed to the Docs,
 | |
| 	reported by Fred.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Apr  5 18:37:59 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/gzip.py:
 | |
| 	Oops, missed mode parameter to open().
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/gzip.py:
 | |
| 	Made the default mode 'rb' instead of 'r', for better cross-platform
 | |
| 	support.  (Based on comment on the documentation by Bernhard Reiter
 | |
| 	<bernhard@csd.uwm.edu>).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Apr  2 22:18:25 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/scripts/dutree.py:
 | |
| 	For reasons I dare not explain, this script should always execute
 | |
| 	main() when imported (in other words, it is not usable as a module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Apr  1 15:32:30 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_cpickle.py: Jonathan Giddy write:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	In test_cpickle.py, the module os got imported, but the line to remove
 | |
| 	the temp file has gone missing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar 30 20:17:31 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/BaseHTTPServer.py: Per Cederqvist writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	If you send something like "PUT / HTTP/1.0" to something derived from
 | |
| 	BaseHTTPServer that doesn't define do_PUT, you will get a response
 | |
| 	that begins like this:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		HTTP/1.0 501 Unsupported method ('do_PUT')
 | |
| 		Server: SimpleHTTP/0.3 Python/1.5
 | |
| 		Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 18:53:53 GMT
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The server should complain about 'PUT' instead of 'do_PUT'.  This
 | |
| 	patch should fix the problem.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 29 20:33:21 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/smtplib.py: Patch by Per Cederqvist, who writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 	 - It needlessly used the makefile() method for each response that is
 | |
| 	   read from the SMTP server.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	 - If the remote SMTP server closes the connection unexpectedly the
 | |
| 	   code raised an IndexError.  It now raises an SMTPServerDisconnected
 | |
| 	   exception instead.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	 - The code now checks that all lines in a multiline response actually
 | |
| 	   contains an error code.
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The Dragon approves.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 29 20:25:40 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/compileall.py:
 | |
| 	When run as a script, report failures in the exit code as well.
 | |
| 	Patch largely based on changes by Andrew Dalke, as discussed in the
 | |
| 	distutils-sig.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 29 20:23:41 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py:
 | |
| 	Hack so that if a 302 or 301 redirect contains a relative URL, the
 | |
| 	right thing "just happens" (basejoin() with old URL).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/cPickle.c:
 | |
| 	Protection against picling to/from closed (real) file.
 | |
| 	The problem was reported by Moshe Zadka.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_cpickle.py:
 | |
| 	Test protection against picling to/from closed (real) file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/timemodule.c: Chris Lawrence writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 	The GNU folks, in their infinite wisdom, have decided not to implement
 | |
| 	altzone in libc6; this would not be horrible, except that timezone
 | |
| 	(which is implemented) includes the current DST setting (i.e. timezone
 | |
| 	for Central is 18000 in summer and 21600 in winter).  So Python's
 | |
| 	timezone and altzone variables aren't set correctly during DST.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Here's a patch relative to 1.5.2b2 that (a) makes timezone and altzone
 | |
| 	show the "right" thing on Linux (by using the tm_gmtoff stuff
 | |
| 	available in BSD, which is how the GLIBC manual claims things should
 | |
| 	be done) and (b) should cope with the southern hemisphere.  In pursuit
 | |
| 	of (b), I also took the liberty of renaming the "summer" and "winter"
 | |
| 	variables to "july" and "jan".  This patch should also make certain
 | |
| 	time calculations on Linux actually work right (like the tz-aware
 | |
| 	functions in the rfc822 module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(It's hard to find DST that's currently being used in the southern
 | |
| 	hemisphere; I tested using Africa/Windhoek.)
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_gzip:
 | |
| 	Jonathan Giddy discovered this file was missing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/shamodule.c:
 | |
| 	Avoid warnings from AIX compiler.  Reported by Vladimir (AIX is my
 | |
| 	middlename) Marangozov, patch coded by Greg Stein.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/ScriptBinding.py, Tools/idle/PyShell.py:
 | |
| 	At Tim Peters' recommendation, add a dummy flush() method to PseudoFile.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sun Mar 28 17:55:32 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/scripts/ndiff.py: Tim Peters writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	I should have waited overnight <wink/sigh>.  Nothing wrong with the one I
 | |
| 	sent, but I couldn't resist going on to add new -r1 / -r2 cmdline options
 | |
| 	for recreating the original files from ndiff's output.  That's attached, if
 | |
| 	you're game!  Us Windows guys don't usually have a sed sitting around
 | |
| 	<wink>.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Sat Mar 27 13:34:01 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/scripts/ndiff.py: Tim Peters writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Attached is a cleaned-up version of ndiff (added useful module
 | |
| 	docstring, now echo'ed in case of cmd line mistake); added -q option
 | |
| 	to suppress initial file identification lines; + other minor cleanups,
 | |
| 	& a slightly faster match engine.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 26 22:36:00 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/scripts/dutree.py:
 | |
| 	During display, if EPIPE is raised, it's probably because a pager was
 | |
| 	killed.  Discard the error in that case, but propogate it otherwise.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 26 16:20:45 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_userlist, Lib/test/test_userlist.py:
 | |
| 	Test suite for UserList.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/UserList.py: Use isinstance() where appropriate.
 | |
| 	Reformatted with 4-space indent.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 26 16:11:40 1999  Barry Warsaw  <bwarsaw@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/pynche/PyncheWidget.py:
 | |
| 	Helpwin.__init__(): The text widget should get focus.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/pynche/pyColorChooser.py:
 | |
| 	Removed unnecessary import `from PyncheWidget import PyncheWidget'
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 26 15:32:05 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_userdict, Lib/test/test_userdict.py:
 | |
| 	Test suite for UserDict
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/UserDict.py: Improved a bunch of things.
 | |
| 	The constructor now takes an optional dictionary.
 | |
| 	Use isinstance() where appropriate.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 25 22:38:49 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_pickle, Lib/test/output/test_cpickle, Lib/test/test_pickle.py, Lib/test/test_cpickle.py:
 | |
| 	Basic regr tests for pickle/cPickle
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/pickle.py:
 | |
| 	Don't use "exec" in find_class().  It's slow, unnecessary, and (as AMK
 | |
| 	points out) it doesn't work in JPython Applets.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 25 21:50:27 1999  Andrew Kuchling  <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_gzip.py:
 | |
| 	Added a simple test suite for gzip.  It simply opens a temp file,
 | |
| 	writes a chunk of compressed data, closes it, writes another chunk, and
 | |
| 	reads the contents back to verify that they are the same.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/gzip.py:
 | |
| 	Based on a suggestion from bruce@hams.com, make a trivial change to
 | |
| 	allow using the 'a' flag as a mode for opening a GzipFile.  gzip
 | |
| 	files, surprisingly enough, can be concatenated and then decompressed;
 | |
| 	the effect is to concatenate the two chunks of data.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	If we support it on writing, it should also be supported on reading.
 | |
| 	This *wasn't* trivial, and required rearranging the code in the
 | |
| 	reading path, particularly the _read() method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Raise IOError instead of RuntimeError in two cases, 'Not a gzipped file'
 | |
| 	and 'Unknown compression method'
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 25 21:25:01 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_b1.py:
 | |
| 	Add tests for float() and complex() with string args (Nick/Stephanie
 | |
| 	Lockwood).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 25 21:21:08 1999  Andrew Kuchling  <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Add an .unused_data attribute to decompressor objects.  If .unused_data
 | |
| 	is not an empty string, this means that you have arrived at the
 | |
| 	end of the stream of compressed data, and the contents of .unused_data are
 | |
| 	whatever follows the compressed stream.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 25 21:16:07 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/bltinmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Nick and Stephanie Lockwood to implement complex() with a string
 | |
| 	argument.  This closes TODO item 2.19.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Mar 24 19:09:00 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/webchecker/wcnew.py: Added Samuel Bayer's new webchecker.
 | |
| 	Unfortunately his code breaks wcgui.py in a way that's not easy
 | |
| 	to fix.  I expect that this is a temporary situation --
 | |
| 	eventually Sam's changes will be merged back in.
 | |
| 	(The changes add a -t option to specify exceptions to the -x
 | |
| 	option, and explicit checking for #foo style fragment ids.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/dictobject.c:
 | |
| 	Vladimir Marangozov contributed updated comments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/bufferobject.c: Folded long lines.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_sha, Lib/test/test_sha.py:
 | |
| 	Added Jeremy's test code for the sha module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/shamodule.c, Modules/Setup.in:
 | |
| 	Added Greg Stein and Andrew Kuchling's sha module.
 | |
| 	Fix comments about zlib version and URL.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_bsddb.py: Remove the temp file when we're done.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Include/pythread.h: Conform to standard boilerplate.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in, configure, BeOS/linkmodule, BeOS/ar-fake:
 | |
| 	Chris Herborth: the new compiler in R4.1 needs some new options to work...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Implement two suggestions by Jonathan Giddy: (1) in AIX, clear the
 | |
| 	data struct before calling gethostby{name,addr}_r(); (2) ignore the
 | |
| 	3/5/6 args determinations made by the configure script and switch on
 | |
| 	platform identifiers instead:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	AIX, OSF have 3 args
 | |
| 	Sun, SGI have 5 args
 | |
| 	Linux has 6 args
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	On all other platforms, undef HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R altogether.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Vladimir Marangozov implements the AIX 3-arg gethostbyname_r code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/mailbox.py:
 | |
| 	Add readlines() to _Subfile class.  Not clear who would need it, but
 | |
| 	Chris Lawrence sent me a broken version; this one is a tad simpler and
 | |
| 	more conforming to the standard.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar 23 23:05:34 1999  Jeremy Hylton  <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/gzip.py: use struct instead of bit-manipulate in Python
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar 23 19:00:55 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/Makefile.pre.in:
 | |
| 	Add $(EXE) to various occurrences of python so it will work on Cygwin
 | |
| 	with egcs (after setting EXE=.exe).  Patch by Norman Vine.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure, configure.in:
 | |
| 	Ack!  It never defined HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R so that code was never tested!
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 22 22:25:39 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Include/thread.h:
 | |
| 	Adding thread.h -- unused but for b/w compatibility.
 | |
| 	As requested by Bill Janssen.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in, configure:
 | |
| 	Add code to test for all sorts of gethostbyname_r variants,
 | |
| 	donated by David Arnold.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* config.h.in, acconfig.h:
 | |
| 	Add symbols for gethostbyname_r variants (sigh).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c: Clean up pass for the previous patches.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	- Use HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R_6_ARG instead of testing for Linux and
 | |
| 	glibc2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	- If gethostbyname takes 3 args, undefine HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R --
 | |
| 	don't know what code should be used.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	- New symbol USE_GETHOSTBYNAME_LOCK defined iff the lock should be used.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	- Modify the gethostbyaddr() code to also hold on to the lock until
 | |
| 	after it is safe to release, overlapping with the Python lock.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(Note: I think that it could in theory be possible that Python code
 | |
| 	executed while gethostbyname_lock is held could attempt to reacquire
 | |
| 	the lock -- e.g. in a signal handler or destructor.  I will simply say
 | |
| 	"don't do that then.")
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c: Jonathan Giddy writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Here's a patch to fix the race condition, which wasn't fixed by Rob's
 | |
| 	patch.  It holds the gethostbyname lock until the results are copied out,
 | |
| 	which means that this lock and the Python global lock are held at the same
 | |
| 	time.  This shouldn't be a problem as long as the gethostbyname lock is
 | |
| 	always acquired when the global lock is not held.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 22 19:25:30 1999  Andrew Kuchling  <akuchlin@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/zlibmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Fixed the flush() method of compression objects; the test for
 | |
| 	    the end of loop was incorrect, and failed when the flushmode != Z_FINISH.
 | |
| 	    Logic cleaned up and commented.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_zlib.py:
 | |
| 	Added simple test for the flush() method of compression objects, trying the
 | |
| 	    different flush values Z_NO_FLUSH, Z_SYNC_FLUSH, Z_FULL_FLUSH.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 22 15:28:08 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/shlex.py:
 | |
| 	Bug reported by Tobias Thelen: missing "self." in assignment target.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 19 21:50:11 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/arraymodule.c:
 | |
| 	Use an unsigned cast to avoid a warning in VC++.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/dospath.py, Lib/ntpath.py:
 | |
| 	New code for split() by Tim Peters, behaves more like posixpath.split().
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/floatobject.c:
 | |
| 	Fix a problem with Vladimir's PyFloat_Fini code: clear the free list; if
 | |
| 	a block cannot be freed, add its free items back to the free list.
 | |
| 	This is necessary to avoid leaking when Python is reinitialized later.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/intobject.c:
 | |
| 	Fix a problem with Vladimir's PyInt_Fini code: clear the free list; if
 | |
| 	a block cannot be freed, add its free items back to the free list, and
 | |
| 	add its valid ints back to the small_ints array if they are in range.
 | |
| 	This is necessary to avoid leaking when Python is reinitialized later.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/types.py:
 | |
| 	Added BufferType, the type returned by the new builtin buffer().  Greg Stein.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/bltinmodule.c:
 | |
| 	New builtin buffer() creates a derived read-only buffer from any
 | |
| 	object that supports the buffer interface (e.g. strings, arrays).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/bufferobject.c:
 | |
| 	Added check for negative offset for PyBuffer_FromObject and check for
 | |
| 	negative size for PyBuffer_FromMemory.  Greg Stein.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 18 15:10:44 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urlparse.py: Sjoerd Mullender writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	If a filename on Windows starts with \\, it is converted to a URL
 | |
| 	which starts with ////.  If this URL is passed to urlparse.urlparse
 | |
| 	you get a path that starts with // (and an empty netloc).  If you pass
 | |
| 	the result back to urlparse.urlunparse, you get a URL that starts with
 | |
| 	//, which is parsed differently by urlparse.urlparse.  The fix is to
 | |
| 	add the (empty) netloc with accompanying slashes if the path in
 | |
| 	urlunparse starts with //.  Do this for all schemes that use a netloc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/nturl2path.py: Sjoerd Mullender writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Pathnames of files on other hosts in the same domain
 | |
| 	(\\host\path\to\file) are not translated correctly to URLs and back.
 | |
| 	The URL should be something like file:////host/path/to/file.
 | |
| 	Note that a combination of drive letter and remote host is not
 | |
| 	possible.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Mar 17 22:30:10 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urlparse.py:
 | |
| 	Delete non-standard-conforming code in urljoin() that would use the
 | |
| 	netloc from the base url as the default netloc for the resulting url
 | |
| 	even if the schemes differ.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Once upon a time, when the web was wild, this was a valuable hack
 | |
| 	because some people had a URL referencing an ftp server colocated with
 | |
| 	an http server without having the host in the ftp URL (so they could
 | |
| 	replicate it or change the hostname easily).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	More recently, after the file: scheme got added back to the list of
 | |
| 	schemes that accept a netloc, it turns out that this caused weirdness
 | |
| 	when joining an http: URL with a file: URL -- the resulting file: URL
 | |
| 	would always inherit the host from the http: URL because the file:
 | |
| 	scheme supports a netloc but in practice never has one.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	There are two reasons to get rid of the old, once-valuable hack,
 | |
| 	instead of removing the file: scheme from the uses_netloc list.  One,
 | |
| 	the RFC says that file: uses the netloc syntax, and does not endorse
 | |
| 	the old hack.  Two, neither netscape 4.5 nor IE 4.0 support the old
 | |
| 	hack.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Include/ceval.h, Include/abstract.h:
 | |
| 	Add DLL level b/w compat for PySequence_In and PyEval_CallObject
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar 16 21:54:50 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py: Bug reported by Jim Robinson:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	An attempt to execute grid_slaves with arguments (0,0) results in
 | |
| 	*all* of the slaves being returned, not just the slave associated with
 | |
| 	row 0, column 0.  This is because the test for arguments in the method
 | |
| 	does not test to see if row (and column) does not equal None, but
 | |
| 	rather just whether is evaluates to non-false.  A value of 0 fails
 | |
| 	this test.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar 16 14:17:48 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/cmathmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Docstring fix:  acosh() returns the hyperbolic arccosine, not the
 | |
| 	hyperbolic cosine.  Problem report via David Ascher by one of his
 | |
| 	students.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Mar 15 21:40:59 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in:
 | |
| 	Should test for gethost*by*name_r, not for gethostname_r (which
 | |
| 	doesn't exist and doesn't make sense).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/socketmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Rob Riggs for Linux -- glibc2 has a different argument
 | |
| 	converntion for gethostbyname_r() etc. than Solaris!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/thread_pthread.h: Rob Riggs wrote:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 	Spec says that on success pthread_create returns 0. It does not say
 | |
| 	that an error code will be < 0. Linux glibc2 pthread_create() returns
 | |
| 	ENOMEM (12) when one exceed process limits. (It looks like it should
 | |
| 	return EAGAIN, but that's another story.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	For reference, see:
 | |
| 	http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/pthread_create.html
 | |
| 	"""
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	[I have a feeling that similar bugs were fixed before; perhaps someone
 | |
| 	could check that all error checks no check for != 0?]
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/bgen/bgen/bgenObjectDefinition.py:
 | |
| 	New mixin class that defines cmp and hash that use
 | |
| 	the ob_itself pointer.  This allows (when using the mixin)
 | |
| 	different Python objects pointing to the same C object and
 | |
| 	behaving well as dictionary keys.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Or so sez Jack Jansen...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py: Yet another patch by Sjoerd Mullender:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Don't convert URLs to URLs using pathname2url.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Fri Mar 12 22:15:43 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/cmd.py: Patch by Michael Scharf.  He writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	    The module cmd requires for each do_xxx command a help_xxx
 | |
| 	    function. I think this is a little old fashioned.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	    Here is a patch: use the docstring as help if no help_xxx
 | |
| 	    function can be found.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	[I'm tempted to rip out all the help_* functions from pdb, but I'll
 | |
| 	resist it.  Any takers?  --Guido]
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/freeze/freeze.py: Bug submitted by Wayne Knowles, who writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	   Under Windows, python freeze.py -o hello hello.py
 | |
| 	   creates all the correct files in the hello subdirectory, but the
 | |
| 	   Makefile has the directory prefix in it for frozen_extensions.c
 | |
| 	   nmake fails because it tries to locate hello/frozen_extensions.c
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(His fix adds a call to os.path.basename() in the appropriate place.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/floatobject.c, Objects/intobject.c:
 | |
| 	Vladimir has restructured his code somewhat so that the blocks are now
 | |
| 	represented by an explicit structure.  (There are still too many casts
 | |
| 	in the code, but that may be unavoidable.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Also added code so that with -vv it is very chatty about what it does.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Demo/zlib/zlibdemo.py, Demo/zlib/minigzip.py:
 | |
| 	Change #! line to modern usage; also chmod +x
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Demo/pdist/rrcs, Demo/pdist/rcvs, Demo/pdist/rcsbump:
 | |
| 	Change #! line to modern usage
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/nturl2path.py, Lib/urllib.py: From: Sjoerd Mullender
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	The filename to URL conversion didn't properly quote special
 | |
| 	characters.
 | |
| 	The URL to filename didn't properly unquote special chatacters.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/floatobject.c:
 | |
| 	OK, try again.  Vladimir gave me a fix for the alignment bus error,
 | |
| 	so here's his patch again.  This time it works (at least on Solaris,
 | |
| 	Linux and Irix).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 11 23:21:23 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
 | |
| 	Don't crash when sys.path contains an empty string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
 | |
| 	- Don't crash in the case where a superclass is a string instead of a
 | |
| 	pyclbr.Class object; this can happen when the superclass is
 | |
| 	unrecognizable (to pyclbr), e.g. when module renaming is used.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	- Show a watch cursor when calling pyclbr (since it may take a while
 | |
| 	recursively parsing imported modules!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 11 16:04:04 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/mimetypes.py:
 | |
| 	Added .rdf and .xsl as application/xml types.  (.rdf is for the
 | |
| 	Resource Description Framework, a metadata encoding, and .xsl is for
 | |
| 	the Extensible Stylesheet Language.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Mar 11 13:26:23 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/output/test_popen2, Lib/test/test_popen2.py:
 | |
| 	Test for popen2 module, by Chris Tismer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/floatobject.c:
 | |
| 	Alas, Vladimir's patch caused a bus error (probably double
 | |
| 	alignment?), and I didn't test it.  Withdrawing it for now.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Mar 10 22:55:47 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/floatobject.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Vladimir Marangoz to allow freeing of the allocated blocks of
 | |
| 	floats on finalization.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Objects/intobject.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Vladimir Marangoz to allow freeing of the allocated blocks of
 | |
| 	integers on finalization.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/EditorWindow.py, Tools/idle/Bindings.py:
 | |
| 	Add PathBrowser to File module
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/PathBrowser.py:
 | |
| 	"Path browser" - 4 scrolled lists displaying:
 | |
| 	    directories on sys.path
 | |
| 	    modules in selected directory
 | |
| 	    classes in selected module
 | |
| 	    methods of selected class
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Sinlge clicking in a directory, module or class item updates the next
 | |
| 	column with info about the selected item.  Double clicking in a
 | |
| 	module, class or method item opens the file (and selects the clicked
 | |
| 	item if it is a class or method).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	I guess eventually I should be using a tree widget for this, but the
 | |
| 	ones I've seen don't work well enough, so for now I use the old
 | |
| 	Smalltalk or NeXT style multi-column hierarchical browser.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/MultiScrolledLists.py:
 | |
| 	New utility: multiple scrolled lists in parallel
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/idle/ScrolledList.py: - White background.
 | |
| 	- Display "(None)" (or text of your choosing) when empty.
 | |
| 	- Don't set the focus.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Mar  9 19:31:21 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py:
 | |
| 	open_http also had the 'data is None' test backwards.  don't call with the
 | |
| 	extra argument if data is None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Demo/embed/demo.c:
 | |
| 	Call Py_SetProgramName() instead of redefining getprogramname(),
 | |
| 	reflecting changes in the runtime around 1.5 or earlier.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/ceval.c:
 | |
| 	Always test for an error return (usually NULL or -1) without setting
 | |
| 	an exception.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/timemodule.c: Patch by Chris Herborth for BeOS code.
 | |
| 	He writes:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	I had an off-by-1000 error in floatsleep(),
 | |
| 	and the problem with time.clock() is that it's not implemented properly
 | |
| 	on QNX... ANSI says it's supposed to return _CPU_ time used by the
 | |
| 	process, but on QNX it returns the amount of real time used... so I was
 | |
| 	confused.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Tools/bgen/bgen/macsupport.py: Small change by Jack Jansen.
 | |
| 	Test for self.returntype behaving like OSErr rather than being it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Feb 25 16:14:58 1999  Jeremy Hylton  <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py:
 | |
| 	http_error had the 'data is None' test backwards.  don't call with the
 | |
| 	extra argument if data is None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py: change indentation from 8 spaces to 4 spaces
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py: pleasing the tabnanny
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Feb 25 14:26:02 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/colorsys.py:
 | |
| 	Oops, one more "x, y, z" to convert...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/colorsys.py:
 | |
| 	Adjusted comment at the top to be less confusing, following Fredrik
 | |
| 	Lundh's example.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Converted comment to docstring.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Feb 24 18:49:15 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/toaiff.py:
 | |
| 	Use sndhdr instead of the obsolete whatsound module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Feb 24 18:42:38 1999  Jeremy Hylton  <jhylton@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py:
 | |
| 	When performing a POST request, i.e. when the second argument to
 | |
| 	urlopen is used to specify form data, make sure the second argument is
 | |
| 	threaded through all of the http_error_NNN calls.  This allows error
 | |
| 	handlers like the redirect and authorization handlers to properly
 | |
| 	re-start the connection.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Feb 24 16:25:17 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/mhlib.py: Patch by Lars Wirzenius:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		o the initial comment is wrong: creating messages is already
 | |
| 		  implemented
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		o Message.getbodytext: if the mail or it's part contains an
 | |
| 		  empty content-transfer-encoding header, the code used to
 | |
| 		  break; the change below treats an empty encoding value the same
 | |
| 		  as the other types that do not need decoding
 | |
| 
 | |
| 		o SubMessage.getbodytext was missing the decode argument; the
 | |
| 		  change below adds it; I also made it unconditionally return
 | |
| 		  the raw text if decoding was not desired, because my own
 | |
| 		  routines needed that (and it was easier than rewriting my
 | |
| 		  own routines ;-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Wed Feb 24 00:35:43 1999  Barry Warsaw  <bwarsaw@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/bltinmodule.c (initerrors):
 | |
| 	Make sure that the exception tuples ("base-classes" when
 | |
| 	string-based exceptions are used) reflect the real class hierarchy,
 | |
| 	i.e. that SystemExit derives from Exception not StandardError.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/exceptions.py:
 | |
| 	Document the correct class hierarchy for SystemExit.  It is not an
 | |
| 	error and so it derives from Exception and not SystemError.  The
 | |
| 	docstring was incorrect but the implementation was fine.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tue Feb 23 23:07:51 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/shutil.py:
 | |
| 	Add import sys, needed by reference to sys.exc_info() in rmtree().
 | |
| 	Discovered by Mitch Chapman.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* config.h.in:
 | |
| 	Now that we don't have AC_CHECK_LIB(m, pow), the HAVE_LIBM symbol
 | |
| 	disappears.  It wasn't used anywhere anyway...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/arraymodule.c:
 | |
| 	Carefully check for overflow when allocating the memory for fromfile
 | |
| 	-- someone tried to pass in sys.maxint and got bitten by the bogus
 | |
| 	calculations.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* configure.in:
 | |
| 	Get rid of AC_CHECK_LIB(m, pow) since this is taken care of later with
 | |
| 	LIBM (from --with-libm=...); this actually broke the customizability
 | |
| 	offered by the latter option.  Thanks go to Clay Spence for reporting
 | |
| 	this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_dl.py:
 | |
| 	1. Print the error message (carefully) when a dl.open() fails in verbose mode.
 | |
| 	2. When no test case worked, raise ImportError instead of failing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Python/bltinmodule.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Tim Peters to improve the range checks for range() and
 | |
| 	xrange(), especially for platforms where int and long are different
 | |
| 	sizes (so sys.maxint isn't actually the theoretical limit for the
 | |
| 	length of a list, but the largest C int is -- sys.maxint is the
 | |
| 	largest Python int, which is actually a C long).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Makefile.in:
 | |
| 	1. Augment the DG/UX rule so it doesn't break the BeOS build.
 | |
| 	2. Add $(EXE) to various occurrences of python so it will work on
 | |
| 	   Cygwin with egcs (after setting EXE=.exe).  These patches by
 | |
| 	   Norman Vine.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/posixfile.py:
 | |
| 	According to Jeffrey Honig, bsd/os 2.0 - 4.0 should be added to the
 | |
| 	list (of bsd variants that have a different lock structure).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/test/test_fcntl.py:
 | |
| 	According to Jeffrey Honig, bsd/os 4.0 should be added to the list.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/timemodule.c:
 | |
| 	Patch by Tadayoshi Funaba (with some changes) to be smarter about
 | |
| 	guessing what happened when strftime() returns 0.  Is it buffer
 | |
| 	overflow or was the result simply 0 bytes long?  (This happens for an
 | |
| 	empty format string, or when the format string is a single %Z and the
 | |
| 	timezone is unknown.)  if the buffer is at least 256 times as long as
 | |
| 	the format, assume the latter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Feb 22 19:01:42 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urllib.py:
 | |
| 	As Des Barry points out, we need to call pathname2url(file) in two
 | |
| 	calls to addinfourl() in open_file().
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/Setup.in: Document *static* -- in two places!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/timemodule.c:
 | |
| 	We don't support leap seconds, so the seconds field of a time 9-tuple
 | |
| 	should be in the range [0-59].  Noted by Tadayoshi Funaba.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/stropmodule.c:
 | |
| 	In atoi(), don't use isxdigit() to test whether the last character
 | |
| 	converted was a "digit" -- use isalnum().  This test is there only to
 | |
| 	guard against "+" or "-" being interpreted as a valid int literal.
 | |
| 	Reported by Takahiro Nakayama.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/os.py:
 | |
| 	As Finn Bock points out, _P_WAIT etc. don't have a leading underscore
 | |
| 	so they don't need to be treated specially here.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Feb 22 15:38:58 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Misc/NEWS:
 | |
| 	Typo:  "apparentlt" --> "apparently"
 | |
| 
 | |
| Mon Feb 22 15:38:46 1999  Guido van Rossum  <guido@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/urlparse.py: Steve Clift pointed out that 'file' allows a netloc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Modules/posixmodule.c:
 | |
| 	The docstring for ttyname(..) claims a second "mode" argument. The
 | |
| 	actual code does not allow such an argument.  (Finn Bock.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/lib-old/poly.py:
 | |
| 	Dang.  Even though this is obsolete code, somebody found a bug, and I
 | |
| 	fix it.  Oh well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thu Feb 18 20:51:50 1999  Fred Drake  <fdrake@eric.cnri.reston.va.us>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	* Lib/pyclbr.py:
 | |
| 	Bow to font-lock at the end of the docstring, since it throws stuff
 | |
| 	off.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Make sure the path paramter to readmodule() is a list before adding it
 | |
| 	with sys.path, or the addition could fail.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.2b1 to 1.5.2b2
 | |
| =======================
 | |
| 
 | |
| General
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many memory leaks fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many small bugs fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Command line option -OO (or -O -O) suppresses inclusion of doc
 | |
| strings in resulting bytecode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows-specific changes
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New built-in module winsound provides an interface to the Win32
 | |
| PlaySound() call.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Re-enable the audioop module in the config.c file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Windows, support spawnv() and associated P_* symbols.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed the conversion of times() return values on Windows.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Removed freeze from the installer -- it doesn't work without the
 | |
| source tree.  (See FAQ 8.11.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Windows 95/98, the Tkinter module now is smart enough to find
 | |
| Tcl/Tk even when the PATH environment variable hasn't been set -- when
 | |
| the import of _tkinter fails, it searches in a standard locations,
 | |
| patches os.environ["PATH"], and tries again.  When it still fails, a
 | |
| clearer error message is produced.  This should avoid most
 | |
| installation problems with Tkinter use (e.g. in IDLE).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The -i option doesn't make any calls to set[v]buf() for stdin --
 | |
| this apparently screwed up _kbhit() and the _tkinter main loop.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ntpath module (and hence, os.path on Windows) now parses out UNC
 | |
| paths (e.g. \\host\mountpoint\dir\file) as "drive letters", so that
 | |
| splitdrive() will \\host\mountpoint as the drive and \dir\file as the
 | |
| path.  ** EXPERIMENTAL **
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a hack to the exit code so that if (1) the exit status is
 | |
| nonzero and (2) we think we have our own DOS box (i.e. we're not
 | |
| started from a command line shell), we print a message and wait for
 | |
| the user to hit a key before the DOS box is closed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Updated the installer to WISE 5.0g.  Added a dialog warning about
 | |
| the imminent Tcl installation.  Added a dialog to specify the program
 | |
| group name in the start menu.  Upgraded the Tcl installer to Tcl
 | |
| 8.0.4.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to intrinsics
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The repr() or str() of a module object now shows the __file__
 | |
| attribute (i.e., the file which it was loaded), or the string
 | |
| "(built-in)" if there is no __file__ attribute.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The range() function now avoids overflow during its calculations (if
 | |
| at all possible).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New info string sys.hexversion, which is an integer encoding the
 | |
| version in hexadecimal.  In other words, hex(sys.hexversion) ==
 | |
| 0x010502b2 for Python 1.5.2b2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New or improved ports
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support for Nextstep descendants (future Mac systems).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved BeOS support.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support dynamic loading of shared libraries on NetBSD platforms that 
 | |
| use ELF (i.e., MIPS and Alpha systems).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Configuration/build changes
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Lib/test directory is no longer included in the default module
 | |
| search path (sys.path) -- "test" has been a package ever since 1.5.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Now using autoconf 2.13.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New library modules
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New library modules asyncore and asynchat: these form Sam Rushing's
 | |
| famous asynchronous socket library.  Sam has gracefully allowed me to
 | |
| incorporate these in the standard Python library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module statvfs contains indexing constants for [f]statvfs()
 | |
| return tuple.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the library
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The wave module (platform-independent support for Windows sound
 | |
| files) has been fixed to actually make it work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sunau module (platform-independent support for Sun/NeXT sound
 | |
| files) has been fixed to work across platforms.  Also, a weird
 | |
| encoding bug in the header of the audio test data file has been
 | |
| corrected.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix a bug in the urllib module that occasionally tripped up
 | |
| webchecker and other ftp retrieves.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - ConfigParser's get() method now accepts an optional keyword argument
 | |
| (vars) that is substituted on top of the defaults that were setup in
 | |
| __init__.  You can now also have recusive references in your
 | |
| configuration file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some improvements to the Queue module, including a put_nowait()
 | |
| module and an optional "block" second argument, to get() and put(),
 | |
| defaulting to 1.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The updated xmllib module is once again compatible with the version
 | |
| present in Python 1.5.1 (this was accidentally broken in 1.5.2b1).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The bdb module (base class for the debugger) now supports
 | |
| canonicalizing pathnames used in breakpoints.  The derived class must
 | |
| override the new canonical() method for this to work.  Also changed
 | |
| clear_break() to the backwards compatible old signature, and added
 | |
| clear_bpbynumber() for the new functionality.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In sgmllib (and hence htmllib), recognize attributes even if they
 | |
| don't have space in front of them.  I.e.  '<a
 | |
| name="foo"href="bar.html">' will now have two attributes recognized.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the debugger (pdb), change clear syntax to support three
 | |
| alternatives: clear; clear file:line; clear bpno bpno ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The os.path module now pretends to be a submodule within the os
 | |
| "package", so you can do things like "from os.path import exists".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The standard exceptions now have doc strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the smtplib module, exceptions are now classes.  Also avoid
 | |
| inserting a non-standard space after "TO" in rcpt() command.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The rfc822 module's getaddrlist() method now uses all occurrences of
 | |
| the specified header instead of just the first.  Some other bugfixes
 | |
| too (to handle more weird addresses found in a very large test set,
 | |
| and to avoid crashes on certain invalid dates), and a small test
 | |
| module has been added.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed bug in urlparse in the common-case code for HTTP URLs; it
 | |
| would lose the query, fragment, and/or parameter information.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sndhdr module no longer supports whatraw() -- it depended on a
 | |
| rare extenral program.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The UserList module/class now supports the extend() method, like
 | |
| real list objects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The uu module now deals better with trailing garbage generated by
 | |
| some broke uuencoders.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The telnet module now has an my_interact() method which uses threads
 | |
| instead of select.  The interact() method uses this by default on
 | |
| Windows (where the single-threaded version doesn't work).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add a class to mailbox.py for dealing with qmail directory
 | |
| mailboxes.  The test code was extended to notice these being used as
 | |
| well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to extension modules
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support for the [f]statvfs() system call, where it exists.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some bugs in cPickle where bad input could cause it to dump
 | |
| core.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed cStringIO to make the writelines() function actually work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added strop.expandtabs() so string.expandtabs() is now much faster.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added fsync() and fdatasync(), if they appear to exist.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support for "long files" (64-bit seek pointers).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in the zlib module's flush() function.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added access() system call.  It returns 1 if access granted, 0 if
 | |
| not.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The curses module implements an optional nlines argument to
 | |
| w.scroll().  (It then calls wscrl(win, nlines) instead of scoll(win).)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to tools
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some changes to IDLE; see Tools/idle/NEWS.txt.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Latest version of Misc/python-mode.el included.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to Tkinter
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Avoid tracebacks when an image is deleted after its root has been
 | |
| destroyed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the Python/C API
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When parentheses are used in a PyArg_Parse[Tuple]() call, any
 | |
| sequence is now accepted, instead of requiring a tuple.  This is in
 | |
| line with the general trend towards accepting arbitrary sequences.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added PyModule_GetFilename().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In PyNumber_Power(), remove unneeded and even harmful test for float
 | |
| to the negative power (which is already and better done in
 | |
| floatobject.c).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version identification symbols; read patchlevel.h for info.  The
 | |
| version numbers are now exported by Python.h.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Rolled back the API version change -- it's back to 1007!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The frozenmain.c function calls PyInitFrozenExtensions().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added 'N' format character to Py_BuildValue -- like 'O' but doesn't
 | |
| INCREF.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.2a2 to 1.5.2b1
 | |
| =======================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to intrinsics
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New extension NotImplementedError, derived from RuntimeError.  Not
 | |
| used, but recommended use is for "abstract" methods to raise this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The parser will now spit out a warning or error when -t or -tt is
 | |
| used for parser input coming from a string, too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The code generator now inserts extra SET_LINENO opcodes when
 | |
| compiling multi-line argument lists.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When comparing bound methods, use identity test on the objects, not
 | |
| equality test.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New or improved ports
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Chris Herborth has redone his BeOS port; it now works on PowerPC
 | |
| (R3/R4) and x86 (R4 only).  Threads work too in this port.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Renaming
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Thanks to Chris Herborth, the thread primitives now have proper Py*
 | |
| names in the source code (they already had those for the linker,
 | |
| through some smart macros; but the source still had the old, un-Py
 | |
| names).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Configuration/build changes
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved support for FreeBSD/3.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Check for pthread_detach instead of pthread_create in libc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The makesetup script now searches EXECINCLUDEPY before INCLUDEPY.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Misc/Makefile.pre.in now also looks at Setup.thread and Setup.local.
 | |
| Otherwise modules such as thread didn't get incorporated in extensions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New library modules
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - shlex.py by Eric Raymond provides a lexical analyzer class for
 | |
| simple shell-like syntaxes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - netrc.py by Eric Raymond provides a parser for .netrc files.  (The
 | |
| undocumented Netrc class in ftplib.py is now obsolete.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - codeop.py is a new module that contains the compile_command()
 | |
| function that was previously in code.py.  This is so that JPython can
 | |
| provide its own version of this function, while still sharing the
 | |
| higher-level classes in code.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - turtle.py is a new module for simple turtle graphics.  I'm still
 | |
| working on it; let me know if you use this to teach Python to children 
 | |
| or other novices without prior programming experience.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Obsoleted library modules
 | |
| -------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - poly.py and zmod.py have been moved to Lib/lib-old to emphasize
 | |
| their status of obsoleteness.  They don't do a particularly good job
 | |
| and don't seem particularly relevant to the Python core.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New tools
 | |
| ---------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - I've added IDLE: my Integrated DeveLopment Environment for Python.
 | |
| Requires Tcl/Tk (and Tkinter).  Works on Windows and Unix (and should
 | |
| work on Macintosh, but I haven't been able to test it there; it does
 | |
| depend on new features in 1.5.2 and perhaps even new features in
 | |
| 1.5.2b1, especially the new code module).  This is very much a work in
 | |
| progress.  I'd like to hear how people like it compared to PTUI (or
 | |
| any other IDE they are familiar with).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New tools by Barry Warsaw:
 | |
| 
 | |
|   = audiopy: controls the Solaris Audio device
 | |
|   = pynche:  The PYthonically Natural Color and Hue Editor
 | |
|   = world:   Print mappings between country names and DNS country codes
 | |
| 
 | |
| New demos
 | |
| ---------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Demo/scripts/beer.py prints the lyrics to an arithmetic drinking
 | |
| song.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Demo/tkinter/guido/optionmenu.py shows how to do an option menu in
 | |
| Tkinter.  (By Fredrik Lundh -- not by me!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the library
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - compileall.py now avoids recompiling .py files that haven't changed;
 | |
| it adds a -f option to force recompilation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of xmllib.py by Sjoerd Mullender (0.2 with latest
 | |
| patches).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - nntplib.py: statparse() no longer lowercases the message-id.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - types.py: use type(__stdin__) for FileType.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - urllib.py: fix translations for filenames with "funny" characters.
 | |
| Patch by Sjoerd Mullender.  Note that if you subclass one of the
 | |
| URLopener classes, and you have copied code from the old urllib.py,
 | |
| your subclass may stop working.  A long-term solution is to provide
 | |
| more methods so that you don't have to copy code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - cgi.py: In read_multi, allow a subclass to override the class we
 | |
| instantiate when we create a recursive instance, by setting the class
 | |
| variable 'FieldStorageClass' to the desired class.  By default, this
 | |
| is set to None, in which case we use self.__class__ (as before).
 | |
| Also, a patch by Jim Fulton to pass additional arguments to recursive
 | |
| calls to the FieldStorage constructor from its read_multi method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - UserList.py: In __getslice__, use self.__class__ instead of
 | |
| UserList.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In SimpleHTTPServer.py, the server specified in test() should be
 | |
| BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer, in case the request handler should want to
 | |
| reference the two attributes added by BaseHTTPServer.server_bind.  (By
 | |
| Jeff Rush, for Bobo).  Also open the file in binary mode, so serving
 | |
| images from a Windows box might actually work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In CGIHTTPServer.py, the list of acceptable formats is -split-
 | |
| on spaces but -joined- on commas, resulting in double commas
 | |
| in the joined text.  (By Jeff Rush.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - SocketServer.py, patch by Jeff Bauer: a minor change to declare two
 | |
| new threaded versions of Unix Server classes, using the ThreadingMixIn
 | |
| class: ThreadingUnixStreamServer, ThreadingUnixDatagramServer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - bdb.py: fix bomb on deleting a temporary breakpoint: there's no
 | |
| method do_delete(); do_clear() was meant.  By Greg Ward.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - getopt.py: accept a non-list sequence for the long options (request
 | |
| by Jack Jansen).  Because it might be a common mistake to pass a
 | |
| single string, this situation is treated separately.  Also added
 | |
| docstrings (copied from the library manual) and removed the (now
 | |
| redundant) module comments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - tempfile.py: improvements to avoid security leaks.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - code.py: moved compile_command() to new module codeop.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pickle.py: support pickle format 1.3 (binary float added).  By Jim
 | |
| Fulton. Also get rid of the undocumented obsolete Pickler dump_special
 | |
| method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - uu.py: Move 'import sys' to top of module, as noted by Tim Peters.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - imaplib.py: fix problem with some versions of IMAP4 servers that
 | |
| choose to mix the case in their CAPABILITIES response.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - cmp.py: use (f1, f2) as cache key instead of f1 + ' ' + f2.  Noted
 | |
| by Fredrik Lundh.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to extension modules
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More doc strings for several modules were contributed by Chris
 | |
| Petrilli: math, cmath, fcntl.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in zlibmodule.c that could cause core dumps on
 | |
| decompression of rarely occurring input.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - cPickle.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright
 | |
| notice.  Also, initialize self->safe_constructors early on to prevent
 | |
| crash in early dealloc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - cStringIO.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright
 | |
| notice.  Also fixed a core dump in cStringIO.c when doing seeks.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - mpzmodule.c: fix signed character usage in mpz.mpz(stringobjecty).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - readline.c: Bernard Herzog pointed out that rl_parse_and_bind
 | |
| modifies its argument string (bad function!), so we make a temporary
 | |
| copy.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - sunaudiodev.c: Barry Warsaw added more smarts to get the device and
 | |
| control pseudo-device, per audio(7I).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to tools
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New, improved version of Barry Warsaw's Misc/python-mode.el (editing 
 | |
| support for Emacs).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - tabnanny.py: added a -q ('quiet') option to tabnanny, which causes
 | |
| only the names of offending files to be printed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - freeze: when printing missing modules, also print the module they
 | |
| were imported from.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - untabify.py: patch by Detlef Lannert to implement -t option
 | |
| (set tab size).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to Tkinter
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - grid_bbox(): support new Tk API: grid bbox ?column row? ?column2
 | |
| row2?
 | |
| 
 | |
| - _tkinter.c: RajGopal Srinivasan noted that the latest code (1.5.2a2)
 | |
| doesn't work when running in a non-threaded environment.  He added
 | |
| some #ifdefs that fix this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the Python/C API
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bumped API version number to 1008 -- enough things have changed!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new macro, PyThreadState_GET(), which does the same work
 | |
| as PyThreadState_Get() without the overhead of a function call (it
 | |
| also avoids the error check).  The two top calling locations of
 | |
| PyThreadState_Get() have been changed to use this macro.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All symbols intended for export from a DLL or shared library are now
 | |
| marked as such (with the DL_IMPORT() macro) in the header file that
 | |
| declares them.  This was needed for the BeOS port, and should also
 | |
| make some other ports easier.  The PC port no longer needs the file
 | |
| with exported symbols (PC/python_nt.def).  There's also a DL_EXPORT
 | |
| macro which is only used for init methods in extension modules, and
 | |
| for Py_Main().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Invisible changes to internals
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in new_buffersize() in fileobject.c which could
 | |
| return a buffer size that was way too large.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Use PySys_WriteStderr instead of fprintf in most places.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - dictobject.c: remove dead code discovered by Vladimir Marangozov.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - tupleobject.c: make tuples less hungry -- an extra item was
 | |
| allocated but never used.  Tip by Vladimir Marangozov.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - mymath.h: Metrowerks PRO4 finally fixes the hypot snafu.  (Jack
 | |
| Jansen)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - import.c: Jim Fulton fixes a reference count bug in
 | |
| PyEval_GetGlobals.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - glmodule.c: check in the changed version after running the stubber
 | |
| again -- this solves the conflict with curses over the 'clear' entry
 | |
| point much nicer.  (Jack Jansen had checked in the changes to cstubs
 | |
| eons ago, but I never regenrated glmodule.c :-( )
 | |
| 
 | |
| - frameobject.c: fix reference count bug in PyFrame_New.  Vladimir
 | |
| Marangozov.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - stropmodule.c: add a missing DECREF in an error exit.  Submitted by
 | |
| Jonathan Giddy.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.2a1 to 1.5.2a2
 | |
| =======================
 | |
| 
 | |
| General
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It is now a syntax error to have a function argument without a
 | |
| default following one with a default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - __file__ is now set to the .py file if it was parsed (it used to
 | |
| always be the .pyc/.pyo file).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Don't exit with a fatal error during initialization when there's a
 | |
| problem with the exceptions.py module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New environment variable PYTHONOPTIMIZE can be used to set -O.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of python-mode.el for Emacs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous fixed bugs
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - No longer print the (confusing) error message about stack underflow
 | |
| while compiling.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some threading and locking bugs fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When errno is zero, report "Error", not "Success".
 | |
| 
 | |
| Documentation
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Documentation will be released separately.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Doc strings added to array and md5 modules by Chris Petrilli.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Ports and build procedure
 | |
| -------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Stop installing when a move or copy fails.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of the OS/2 port code by Jeff Rush.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The makesetup script handles absolute filenames better.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The 'new' module is now enabled by default in the Setup file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - I *think* I've solved the problem with the Linux build blowing up
 | |
| sometimes due to a conflict between sigcheck/intrcheck and
 | |
| signalmodule.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in functions
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The second argument to apply() can now be any sequence, not just a
 | |
| tuple.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in types
 | |
| --------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Lists have a new method: L1.extend(L2) is equivalent to the common
 | |
| idiom L1[len(L1):] = L2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Better error messages when a sequence is indexed with a non-integer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bettter error message when calling a non-callable object (include
 | |
| the type in the message).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Python services
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of cPickle.c fixes some bugs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pickle.py: improved instantiation error handling.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - code.py: reworked quite a bit.  New base class
 | |
| InteractiveInterpreter and derived class InteractiveConsole.  Fixed
 | |
| several problems in compile_command().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - py_compile.py: print error message and continue on syntax errors.
 | |
| Also fixed an old bug with the fstat code (it was never used).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pyclbr.py: support submodules of packages.
 | |
| 
 | |
| String Services
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - StringIO.py: raise the right exception (ValueError) for attempted
 | |
| I/O on closed StringIO objects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - re.py: fixed a bug in subn(), which caused .groups() to fail inside
 | |
| the replacement function called by sub().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The struct module has a new format 'P': void * in native mode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Generic OS Services
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module time: Y2K robustness.  2-digit year acceptance depends on
 | |
| value of time.accept2dyear, initialized from env var PYTHONY2K,
 | |
| default 0.  Years 00-68 mean 2000-2068, while 69-99 mean 1969-1999
 | |
| (POSIX or X/Open recommendation).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - os.path: normpath(".//x") should return "x", not "/x".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - getpass.py: fall back on default_getpass() when sys.stdin.fileno()
 | |
| doesn't work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - tempfile.py: regenerate the template after a fork() call.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optional OS Services
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the signal module, disable restarting interrupted system calls
 | |
| when we have siginterrupt().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Debugger
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - No longer set __args__; this feature is no longer supported and can
 | |
| affect the debugged code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - cmd.py, pdb.py and bdb.py have been overhauled by Richard Wolff, who
 | |
| added aliases and some other useful new features, e.g. much better
 | |
| breakpoint support: temporary breakpoint, disabled breakpoints,
 | |
| breakpoints with ignore counts, and conditions; breakpoints can be set
 | |
| on a file before it is loaded.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Profiler
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes so that JPython can use it.  Also fix the calibration code
 | |
| so it actually works again
 | |
| .
 | |
| Internet Protocols and Support
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - imaplib.py: new version from Piers Lauder.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - smtplib.py: change sendmail() method to accept a single string or a
 | |
| list or strings as the destination (commom newbie mistake).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - poplib.py: LIST with a msg argument fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - urlparse.py: some optimizations for common case (http).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - urllib.py: support content-length in info() for ftp protocol;
 | |
| support for a progress meter through a third argument to
 | |
| urlretrieve(); commented out gopher test (the test site is dead).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Internet Data handling
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - sgmllib.py: support tags with - or . in their name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - mimetypes.py: guess_type() understands 'data' URLs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Restricted Execution
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The classes rexec.RModuleLoader and rexec.RModuleImporter no
 | |
| longer exist.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tkinter
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When reporting an exception, store its info in sys.last_*.  Also,
 | |
| write all of it to stderr.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added NS, EW, and NSEW constants, for grid's sticky option.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed last-minute bug in 1.5.2a1 release: need to include "mytime.h".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Make bind variants without a sequence return a tuple of sequences
 | |
| (formerly it returned a string, which wasn't very convenient).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add image commands to the Text widget (these are new in Tk 8.0).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added new listbox and canvas methods: {xview,yview}_{scroll,moveto}.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved the thread code (but you still can't call update() from
 | |
| another thread on Windows).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed unnecessary references to _default_root in the new dialog
 | |
| modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Miscellaneous problems fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows General
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Call LoadLibraryEx(..., ..., LOAD_WITH_ALTERED_SEARCH_PATH) to
 | |
| search for dependent dlls in the directory containing the .pyd.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In debugging mode, call DebugBreak() in Py_FatalError().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows Installer
 | |
| -----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Install zlib.dll in the DLLs directory instead of in the win32
 | |
| system directory, to avoid conflicts with other applications that have 
 | |
| their own zlib.dll.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Test Suite
 | |
| ----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - test_long.py: new test for long integers, by Tim Peters.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - regrtest.py: improved so it can be used for other test suites as
 | |
| well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - test_strftime.py: use re to compare test results, to support legal
 | |
| variants (e.g. on Linux).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tools and Demos
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Four new scripts in Tools/scripts: crlf.py and lfcr.py (to
 | |
| remove/add Windows style '\r\n' line endings), untabify.py (to remove
 | |
| tabs), and rgrep.yp (reverse grep).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improvements to Tools/freeze/.  Each Python module is now written to
 | |
| its own C file.  This prevents some compilers or assemblers from
 | |
| blowing up on large frozen programs, and saves recompilation time if
 | |
| only a few modules are changed.  Other changes too, e.g. new command
 | |
| line options -x and -i.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Much improved (and smaller!) version of Tools/scripts/mailerdaemon.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Python/C API
 | |
| ------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New mechanism to support extensions of the type object while
 | |
| remaining backward compatible with extensions compiled for previous
 | |
| versions of Python 1.5.  A flags field indicates presence of certain
 | |
| fields.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Addition to the buffer API to differentiate access to bytes and
 | |
| 8-bit characters (in anticipation of Unicode characters).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New argument parsing format t# ("text") to indicate 8-bit
 | |
| characters; s# simply means 8-bit bytes, for backwards compatibility.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New object type, bufferobject.c is an example and can be used to
 | |
| create buffers from memory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some support for 64-bit longs, including some MS platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many calls to fprintf(stderr, ...) have been replaced with calls to
 | |
| PySys_WriteStderr(...).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The calling context for PyOS_Readline() has changed: it must now be
 | |
| called with the interpreter lock held!  It releases the lock around
 | |
| the call to the function pointed to by PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer
 | |
| (default PyOS_StdioReadline()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New APIs PyLong_FromVoidPtr() and PyLong_AsVoidPtr().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Renamed header file "thread.h" to "pythread.h".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The code string of code objects may now be anything that supports the
 | |
| buffer API.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5.1 to 1.5.2a1
 | |
| =====================
 | |
| 
 | |
| General
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When searching for the library, a landmark that is a compiled module
 | |
| (string.pyc or string.pyo) is also accepted.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When following symbolic links to the python executable, use a loop
 | |
| so that a symlink to a symlink can work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a hack so that when you type 'quit' or 'exit' at the
 | |
| interpreter, you get a friendly explanation of how to press Ctrl-D (or 
 | |
| Ctrl-Z) to exit.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New and improved Misc/python-mode.el (Python mode for Emacs).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
 | |
| revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag.  It turned
 | |
| out to be a bad idea.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous fixed bugs
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All patches on the patch page have been integrated.  (But much more
 | |
| has been done!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Several memory leaks plugged (e.g. the one for classes with a
 | |
| __getattr__ method).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Removed the only use of calloc().  This triggered an obscure bug on
 | |
| multiprocessor Sparc Solaris 2.6.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
 | |
| (believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
 | |
| a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and some other cases).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Documentation
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Doc strings have been added to many extension modules: __builtin__,
 | |
| errno, select, signal, socket, sys, thread, time.  Also to methods of
 | |
| list objects (try [].append.__doc__).  A doc string on a type will now
 | |
| automatically be propagated to an instance if the instance has methods
 | |
| that are accessed in the usual way.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The documentation has been expanded and the formatting improved.
 | |
| (Remember that the documentation is now unbundled and has its own
 | |
| release cycle though; see http://www.python.org/doc/.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added Misc/Porting -- a mini-FAQ on porting to a new platform.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Ports and build procedure
 | |
| -------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The BeOS port is now integrated.  Courtesy Chris Herborth.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Symbol files for FreeBSD 2.x and 3.x have been contributed
 | |
| (Lib/plat-freebsd[23]/*).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support HPUX 10.20 DCE threads.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Finally fixed the configure script so that (on SGI) if -OPT:Olimit=0
 | |
| works, it won't also use -Olimit 1500 (which gives a warning for every
 | |
| file).  Also support the SGI_ABI environment variable better.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The makesetup script now understands absolute pathnames ending in .o
 | |
| in the module -- it assumes it's a file for which we have no source.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
 | |
| Makefiles.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The test suite now uses a different sound sample.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in functions
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Better checks for invalid input to int(), long(), string.atoi(),
 | |
| string.atol().  (Formerly, a sign without digits would be accepted as
 | |
| a legal ways to spell zero.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to map() and filter() to use the length of a sequence only
 | |
| as a hint -- if an IndexError happens earlier, take that.  (Formerly,
 | |
| this was considered an error.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Experimental feature in getattr(): a third argument can specify a
 | |
| default (instead of raising AttributeError).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Implement round() slightly different, so that for negative ndigits
 | |
| no additional errors happen in the last step.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The open() function now adds the filename to the exception when it
 | |
| fails.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in exceptions
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError.
 | |
| EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
 | |
| PosixError is the same as os.error.  All this so that either exception
 | |
| class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
 | |
| The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
 | |
| filename argument now use this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in types
 | |
| --------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
 | |
| and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
 | |
| i.  Also, the sort() method is faster again.  Sorting is now also
 | |
| safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
 | |
| while the sort is going on (which could cause core dumps).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to comparisons: numbers are now smaller than any other type.
 | |
| This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < [] is
 | |
| true.  As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
 | |
| negative.  This *shouldn't* affect any working code, but I've found
 | |
| that the change caused several "sleeping" bugs to become active, so
 | |
| beware!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Instance methods may now have other callable objects than just
 | |
| Python functions as their im_func.  Use new.instancemethod() or write
 | |
| your own C code to create them; new.instancemethod() may be called
 | |
| with None for the instance to create an unbound method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Assignment to __name__, __dict__ or __bases__ of a class object is
 | |
| now allowed (with stringent type checks); also allow assignment to
 | |
| __getattr__ etc.  The cached values for __getattr__ etc. are
 | |
| recomputed after such assignments (but not for derived classes :-( ).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Allow assignment to some attributes of function objects: func_code,
 | |
| func_defaults and func_doc / __doc__.  (With type checks except for
 | |
| __doc__ / func_doc .)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Python services
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New tests (in Lib/test): reperf.py (regular expression benchmark),
 | |
| sortperf.py (list sorting benchmark), test_MimeWriter.py (test case
 | |
| for the MimeWriter module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
 | |
| packages.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
 | |
| PythonInterpreter class.  The interact() function now uses this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
 | |
| IndexError when there are no more completions left.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
 | |
| input.  (It's still not foolproof!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
 | |
| "contains" for "sequenceincludes".
 | |
| 
 | |
| String Services
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
 | |
| empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
 | |
| functions.  Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
 | |
| occurrences of a given substring.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
 | |
| readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
 | |
| result in long integer values.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous services
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In whrandom.py, added new method and function randrange(), same as
 | |
| choice(range(start, stop, step)) but faster.  This addresses the
 | |
| problem that randint() was accidentally defined as taking an inclusive
 | |
| range.  Also, randint(a, b) is now redefined as randrange(a, b+1),
 | |
| adding extra range and type checking to its arguments!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add some semi-thread-safety to random.gauss() (it used to be able to 
 | |
| crash when invoked from separate threads; now the worst it can do is
 | |
| give a duplicate result occasionally).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new 
 | |
| exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name.  No
 | |
| longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In getpass.py, don't use raw_input() to ask for the password -- we
 | |
| don't want it to show up in the readline history!  Also don't catch
 | |
| interrupts (the try-finally already does all necessary cleanup).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Generic OS Services
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames().  New
 | |
| variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
 | |
| i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac.  Do *not* use
 | |
| this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
 | |
| will always be '\n'!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
 | |
| getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
 | |
| stat return tuple.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists.  (This parses a
 | |
| time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().)  Also,
 | |
| remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
 | |
| formatting of some non-local times.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the socket module, added a new function gethostbyname_ex().
 | |
| Also, don't use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some
 | |
| platforms (and should exist everywhere).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optional OS Services
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some fixes to gzip.py.  In particular, the readlines() method now
 | |
| returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
 | |
| of regular file objects.  Also, it didn't work together with cPickle;
 | |
| fixed that.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
 | |
| which module to use to open it.  (The anydbm.error exception is now a
 | |
| tuple.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Unix Services
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
 | |
| calling tcgetattr().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions to
 | |
| the posix module (and thus to the os module): WEXITSTATUS(),
 | |
| WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(), WTERMSIG().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
 | |
| (matching the docs).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Debugger
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
 | |
| been loaded yet.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Internet Protocols and Support
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote().  Fixed an
 | |
| obscure bug in quote_plus().  Added urlencode(dict) -- convenience
 | |
| function for sending a POST request with urlopen().  Use the getpass
 | |
| module to ask for a password.  Rewrote the (test) main program so that
 | |
| when used as a script, it can retrieve one or more URLs to stdout.
 | |
| Use -t to run the self-test.  Made the proxy code work again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In cgi.py, treat "HEAD" the same as "GET", so that CGI scripts don't
 | |
| fail when someone asks for their HEAD.  Also, for POST, set the
 | |
| default content-type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded.  Also, in
 | |
| FieldStorage.__init__(), when method='GET', always get the query
 | |
| string from environ['QUERY_STRING'] or sys.argv[1] -- ignore an
 | |
| explicitly passed in fp.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
 | |
| compliance, for picky servers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved imaplib.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py (it never worked).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a small bug in CGIHTTPServer.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Internet Data handling
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList.  Also support a new
 | |
| overridable method, isheader().  Also add a get() method similar to
 | |
| dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it).  Also, be smarter
 | |
| about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
 | |
| unread() method before trying seeks.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
 | |
| long ago.  Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
 | |
| instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
 | |
| separator.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py; support
 | |
| a 'seekable' flag.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Restricted Execution
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
 | |
| sys.exc_info().  Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
 | |
| can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tkinter
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Unix, Tkinter can now safely be used from a multi-threaded
 | |
| application.  (Formerly, no threads would make progress while
 | |
| Tkinter's mainloop() was active, because it didn't release the Python
 | |
| interpreter lock.)  Unfortunately, on Windows, threads other than the
 | |
| main thread should not call update() or update_idletasks() because
 | |
| this will deadlock the application.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - An interactive interpreter that uses readline and Tkinter no longer
 | |
| uses up all available CPU time.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Even if readline is not used, Tk windows created in an interactive
 | |
| interpreter now get continuously updated.  (This even works in Windows
 | |
| as long as you don't hit a key.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New demos in Demo/tkinter/guido/: brownian.py, redemo.py, switch.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - No longer register Tcl_finalize() as a low-level exit handler.  It
 | |
| may call back into Python, and that's a bad idea.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Allow binding of Tcl commands (given as a string).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some minor speedups; replace explicitly coded getint() with int() in
 | |
| most places.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In FileDialog.py, remember the directory of the selected file, if
 | |
| given.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Change the names of all methods in the Wm class: they are now
 | |
| wm_title(), etc.  The old names (title() etc.) are still defined as
 | |
| aliases.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add a new method of interpreter objects, interpaddr().  This returns
 | |
| the address of the Tcl interpreter object, as an integer.  Not very
 | |
| useful for the Python programmer, but this can be called by another C
 | |
| extension that needs to make calls into the Tcl/Tk C API and needs to
 | |
| get the address of the Tcl interpreter object.  A simple cast of the
 | |
| return value to (Tcl_Interp *) will do the trick.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows General
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Don't insist on proper case for module source files if the filename
 | |
| is all uppercase (e.g. FOO.PY now matches foo; but FOO.py still
 | |
| doesn't).  This should address problems with this feature on
 | |
| oldfashioned filesystems (Novell servers?).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows Library
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive,
 | |
| and the putenv() calls made as a side effect of changing os.environ
 | |
| are case preserving.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
 | |
| ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
 | |
| wouldn't know how).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed os.pipe() so that it returns file descriptors acceptable to
 | |
| os.read() and os.write() (like it does on Unix), rather than Windows
 | |
| file handles.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the
 | |
| heap.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The getpass module now raises KeyboardInterrupt when it sees ^C.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In mailbox.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In rfc822.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
 | |
| calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche().  Also fix a
 | |
| bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
 | |
| argument list.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows Installer
 | |
| -----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
 | |
| versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be 
 | |
| resynchronized.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows Tools
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Several improvements to freeze specifically for Windows.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows Build Procedure
 | |
| -----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The VC++ project files and the WISE installer have been moved to the
 | |
| PCbuild subdirectory, so they are distributed in the same subdirectory
 | |
| where they must be used.  This avoids confusion.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The projects now use distinct filenames for the .exe, .dll, .lib and
 | |
| .pyd files built in debug mode (by appending "_d" to the base name,
 | |
| before the extension).  This makes it easier to switch between the two
 | |
| and get the right versions.  There's a pragma in config.h that directs
 | |
| the linker to include the appropriate .lib file (so python15.lib no
 | |
| longer needs to be explicit in your project).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The installer now installs more files (e.g. config.h).  The idea is
 | |
| that you shouldn't need the source distribution if you want build your
 | |
| own extensions in C or C++.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tools and Demos
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New script nm2def.py by Marc-Andre Lemburg, to construct
 | |
| PC/python_nt.def automatically (some hand editing still required).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New tool ndiff.py: Tim Peters' text diffing tool.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various and sundry improvements to the freeze script.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The script texi2html.py (which was part of the Doc tree but is no
 | |
| longer used there) has been moved to the Tools/scripts subdirectory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some generalizations in the webchecker code.  There's now a
 | |
| primnitive gui for websucker.py: wsgui.py.  (In Tools/webchecker/.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ftpmirror.py script now handles symbolic links properly, and
 | |
| also files with multiple spaces in their names.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The 1.5.1 tabnanny.py suffers an assert error if fed a script whose
 | |
| last line is both indented and lacks a newline.  This is now fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Python/C API
 | |
| ------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added missing prototypes for PyEval_CallFunction() and
 | |
| PyEval_CallMethod().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New macros to access object members for PyFunction, PyCFunction
 | |
| objects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New APIs PyImport_AppendInittab() an PyImport_ExtendInittab() to
 | |
| dynamically add one or many entries to the table of built-in modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New macro Py_InitModule3(name, methods, doc) which calls
 | |
| Py_InitModule4() with appropriate arguments.  (The -4 variant requires 
 | |
| you to pass an obscure version number constant which is always the same.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
 | |
| sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface.  (Used in
 | |
| _tkinter.c, for example.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
 | |
| your compiler supports it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - PySequence_In() is now called PySequence_Contains().
 | |
| (PySequence_In() is still supported for b/w compatibility; it is
 | |
| declared obsolete because its argument order is confusing.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - PyDict_GetItem() and PyDict_GetItemString() are changed so that they
 | |
| *never* raise an exception -- (even if the hash() fails, simply clear
 | |
| the error).  This was necessary because there is lots of code out
 | |
| there that already assumes this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_List() to use the
 | |
| length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
 | |
| earlier, take that.  (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
 | |
| many error checking bugs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
 | |
| object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
 | |
| instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME").  This, together with the new API
 | |
| Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
 | |
| change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
 | |
| etc. are sought).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ========================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.5.1 (October 31, 1998) <==
 | |
| ========================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5 to 1.5.1
 | |
| =================
 | |
| 
 | |
| General
 | |
| -------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The documentation is now unbundled.  It has also been extensively
 | |
| modified (mostly to implement a new and more uniform formatting
 | |
| style).  We figure that most people will prefer to download one of the
 | |
| preformatted documentation sets (HTML, PostScript or PDF) and that
 | |
| only a minority have a need for the LaTeX or FrameMaker sources.  Of
 | |
| course, the unbundled documentation sources still released -- just not
 | |
| in the same archive file, and perhaps not on the same date.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All bugs noted on the errors page (and many unnoted) are fixed.  All
 | |
| new bugs take their places.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - No longer a core dump when attempting to print (or repr(), or str())
 | |
| a list or dictionary that contains an instance of itself; instead, the
 | |
| recursive entry is printed as [...] or {...}.  See Py_ReprEnter() and
 | |
| Py_ReprLeave() below.  Comparisons of such objects still go beserk,
 | |
| since this requires a different kind of fix; fortunately, this is a
 | |
| less common scenario in practice.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Syntax change
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The raise statement can now be used without arguments, to re-raise 
 | |
| a previously set exception.  This should be used after catching an
 | |
| exception with an except clause only, either in the except clause or
 | |
| later in the same function.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Import and module handling
 | |
| --------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The implementation of import has changed to use a mutex (when
 | |
| threading is supported).  This means that when two threads
 | |
| simultaneously import the same module, the import statements are
 | |
| serialized.  Recursive imports are not affected.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Rewrote the finalization code almost completely, to be much more
 | |
| careful with the order in which modules are destroyed.  Destructors
 | |
| will now generally be able to reference built-in names such as None
 | |
| without trouble.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Case-insensitive platforms such as Mac and Windows require the case
 | |
| of a module's filename to match the case of the module name as
 | |
| specified in the import statement (see below).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The code for figuring out the default path now distinguishes between
 | |
| files, modules, executable files, and directories.  When expecting a
 | |
| module, we also look for the .pyc or .pyo file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Parser/tokenizer changes
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The tokenizer can now warn you when your source code mixes tabs and
 | |
| spaces for indentation in a manner that depends on how much a tab is
 | |
| worth in spaces.  Use "python -t" or "python -v" to enable this
 | |
| option.  Use "python -tt" to turn the warnings into errors.  (See also
 | |
| tabnanny.py and tabpolice.py below.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Return unsigned characters from tok_nextc(), so '\377' isn't
 | |
| mistaken for an EOF character.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed two pernicious bugs in the tokenizer that only affected AIX.
 | |
| One was actually a general bug that was triggered by AIX's smaller I/O
 | |
| buffer size.  The other was a bug in the AIX optimizer's loop
 | |
| unrolling code; swapping two statements made the problem go away.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tools, demos and miscellaneous files
 | |
| ------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new version of Misc/python-mode.el (the Emacs mode for
 | |
| Python) which is much smarter about guessing the indentation style
 | |
| used in a particular file.  Lots of other cool features too!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There are two new tools in Tools/scripts: tabnanny.py and
 | |
| tabpolice.py, implementing two different ways of checking whether a
 | |
| file uses indentation in a way that is sensitive to the interpretation
 | |
| of a tab.  The preferred module is tabnanny.py (by Tim Peters).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some new demo programs:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Demo/tkinter/guido/paint.py -- Dave Mitchell
 | |
| 	Demo/sockets/unixserver.py -- Piet van Oostrum
 | |
| 	
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Much better freeze support.  The freeze script can now freeze
 | |
| hierarchical module names (with a corresponding change to import.c),
 | |
| and has a few extra options (e.g. to suppress freezing specific
 | |
| modules).  It also does much more on Windows NT.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Version 1.0 of the faq wizard is included (only very small changes
 | |
| since version 0.9.0).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New feature for the ftpmirror script: when removing local files
 | |
| (i.e., only when -r is used), do a recursive delete.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Configuring and building Python
 | |
| -------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Get rid of the check for -linet -- recent Sequent Dynix systems don't
 | |
| need this any more and apparently it screws up their configuration.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some changes because gcc on SGI doesn't support '-all'.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed the build rules to use $(LIBRARY) instead of
 | |
|   -L.. -lpython$(VERSION)
 | |
| since the latter trips up the SunOS 4.1.x linker (sigh).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix the bug where the '# dgux is broken' comment in the Makefile
 | |
| tripped over Make on some platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes for AIX: install the python.exp file; properly use
 | |
| $(srcdir); the makexp_aix script now removes C++ entries of the form
 | |
| Class::method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Deleted some Makefile targets only used by the (long obsolete)
 | |
| gMakefile hacks.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Extension modules
 | |
| -----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Performance and threading improvements to the socket and bsddb
 | |
| modules, by Christopher Lindblad of Infoseek.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added operator.__not__ and operator.not_.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the thread module, when a thread exits due to an unhandled
 | |
| exception, don't store the exception information in sys.last_*; it
 | |
| prevents proper calling of destructors of local variables.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a number of small bugs in the cPickle module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed find() and rfind() in the strop module so that
 | |
| find("x","",2) returns -1, matching the implementation in string.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the time module, be more careful with the result of ctime(), and
 | |
| test for HAVE_MKTIME before usinmg mktime().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Doc strings contributed by Mitch Chapman to the termios, pwd, gdbm
 | |
| modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added the LOG_SYSLOG constant to the syslog module, if defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Standard library modules
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All standard library modules have been converted to an indentation
 | |
| style using either only tabs or only spaces -- never a mixture -- if
 | |
| they weren't already consistent according to tabnanny.  This means
 | |
| that the new -t option (see above) won't complain about standard
 | |
| library modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New standard library modules:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	threading -- GvR and the thread-sig
 | |
| 		Java style thread objects -- USE THIS!!!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	getpass -- Piers Lauder
 | |
| 		simple utilities to prompt for a password and to
 | |
| 		retrieve the current username
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	imaplib -- Piers Lauder
 | |
| 		interface for the IMAP4 protocol
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	poplib -- David Ascher, Piers Lauder
 | |
| 		interface for the POP3 protocol
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	smtplib -- Dragon De Monsyne
 | |
| 		interface for the SMTP protocol
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some obsolete modules moved to a separate directory (Lib/lib-old)
 | |
| which is *not* in the default module search path:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Para
 | |
| 	addpack
 | |
| 	codehack
 | |
| 	fmt
 | |
| 	lockfile
 | |
| 	newdir
 | |
| 	ni
 | |
| 	rand
 | |
| 	tb
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of the PCRE code (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions --
 | |
| the re module and the supporting pcre extension) by Andrew Kuchling.
 | |
| Incompatible new feature in re.sub(): the handling of escapes in the
 | |
| replacement string has changed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Interface change in the copy module: a __deepcopy__ method is now
 | |
| called with the memo dictionary as an argument.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Feature change in the tokenize module: differentiate between NEWLINE
 | |
| token (an official newline) and NL token (a newline that the grammar
 | |
| ignores).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Several bugfixes to the urllib module.  It is now truly thread-safe,
 | |
| and several bugs and a portability problem have been fixed.  New
 | |
| features, all due to Sjoerd Mullender: When creating a temporary file,
 | |
| it gives it an appropriate suffix.  Support the "data:" URL scheme.
 | |
| The open() method uses the tempcache.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of the xmllib module (this time with a test suite!) by
 | |
| Sjoerd Mullender.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added debugging code to the telnetlib module, to be able to trace
 | |
| the actual traffic.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the rfc822 module, added support for deleting a header (still no
 | |
| support for adding headers, though).  Also fixed a bug where an
 | |
| illegal address would cause a crash in getrouteaddr(), fixed a
 | |
| sign reversal in mktime_tz(), and use the local timezone by default
 | |
| (the latter two due to Bill van Melle).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The normpath() function in the dospath and ntpath modules no longer
 | |
| does case normalization -- for that, use the separate function
 | |
| normcase() (which always existed); normcase() has been sped up and
 | |
| fixed (it was the cause of a crash in Mark Hammond's installer in
 | |
| certain locales).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New command supported by the ftplib module: rmd(); also fixed some
 | |
| minor bugs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The profile module now uses a different timer function by default -- 
 | |
| time.clock() is generally better than os.times().  This makes it work
 | |
| better on Windows NT, too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The tempfile module now recovers when os.getcwd() raises an
 | |
| exception.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some bugs in the random module; gauss() was subtly wrong, and
 | |
| vonmisesvariate() should return a full circle.  Courtesy Mike Miller,
 | |
| Lambert Meertens (gauss()), and Magnus Kessler (vonmisesvariate()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Better default seed in the whrandom module, courtesy Andrew Kuchling.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix slow close() in shelve module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Unix mailbox class in the mailbox module is now more robust when
 | |
| a line begins with the string "From " but is definitely not the start
 | |
| of a new message.  The pattern used can be changed by overriding a
 | |
| method or class variable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a rmtree() function to the copy module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed several typos in the pickle module.  Also fixed problems when
 | |
| unpickling in restricted execution environments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added docstrings and fixed a typo in the py_compile and compileall
 | |
| modules.  At Mark Hammond's repeated request, py_compile now append a
 | |
| newline to the source if it needs one.  Both modules support an extra
 | |
| parameter to specify the purported source filename (to be used in
 | |
| error messages).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some performance tweaks by Jeremy Hylton to the gzip module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in the merge order of dictionaries in the ConfigParser
 | |
| module.  Courtesy Barry Warsaw.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the multifile module, support the optional second parameter to
 | |
| seek() when possible.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Several fixes to the gopherlib module by Lars Marius Garshol.  Also, 
 | |
| urlparse now correctly handles Gopher URLs with query strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a tiny bug in format_exception() in the traceback module.
 | |
| Also rewrite tb_lineno() to be compatible with JPython (and not
 | |
| disturb the current exception!); by Jim Hugunin.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The httplib module is more robust when servers send a short response 
 | |
| -- courtesy Tim O'Malley.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tkinter and friends
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various typos and bugs fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module Tkdnd implements a drag-and-drop protocol (within one
 | |
| application only).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The event_*() widget methods have been restructured slightly -- they
 | |
| no longer use the default root.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The interfaces for the bind*() and unbind() widget methods have been
 | |
| redesigned; the bind*() methods now return the name of the Tcl command 
 | |
| created for the callback, and this can be passed as a optional
 | |
| argument to unbind() in order to delete the command (normally, such
 | |
| commands are automatically unbound when the widget is destroyed, but
 | |
| for some applications this isn't enough).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Variable objects now have trace methods to interface to Tcl's
 | |
| variable tracing facilities.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Image objects now have an optional keyword argument, 'master', to
 | |
| specify a widget (tree) to which they belong.  The image_names() and
 | |
| image_types() calls are now also widget methods.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new global call, Tkinter.NoDefaultRoot(), which disables
 | |
| all use of the default root by the Tkinter library.  This is useful to
 | |
| debug applications that are in the process of being converted from
 | |
| relying on the default root to explicit specification of the root
 | |
| widget.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The 'exit' command is deleted from the Tcl interpreter, since it
 | |
| provided a loophole by which one could (accidentally) exit the Python
 | |
| interpreter without invoking any cleanup code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tcl_Finalize() is now registered as a Python low-level exit handle,
 | |
| so Tcl will be finalized when Python exits.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Python/C API
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New function PyThreadState_GetDict() returns a per-thread dictionary
 | |
| intended for storing thread-local global variables.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New functions Py_ReprEnter() and Py_ReprLeave() use the per-thread
 | |
| dictionary to allow recursive container types to detect recursion in
 | |
| their repr(), str() and print implementations.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New function PyObject_Not(x) calculates (not x) according to Python's 
 | |
| standard rules (basically, it negates the outcome PyObject_IsTrue(x).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New function _PyModule_Clear(), which clears a module's dictionary
 | |
| carefully without removing the __builtins__ entry.  This is implied
 | |
| when a module object is deallocated (this used to clear the dictionary
 | |
| completely).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New function PyImport_ExecCodeModuleEx(), which extends
 | |
| PyImport_ExecCodeModule() by adding an extra parameter to pass it the
 | |
| true file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New functions Py_GetPythonHome() and Py_SetPythonHome(), intended to
 | |
| allow embedded applications to force a different value for PYTHONHOME.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New global flag Py_FrozenFlag is set when this is a "frozen" Python
 | |
| binary; it suppresses warnings about not being able to find the
 | |
| standard library directories.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New global flag Py_TabcheckFlag is incremented by the -t option and
 | |
| causes the tokenizer to issue warnings or errors about inconsistent
 | |
| mixing of tabs and spaces for indentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous minor changes and bug fixes
 | |
| -----------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved the error message when an attribute of an attribute-less
 | |
| object is requested -- include the name of the attribute and the type
 | |
| of the object in the message.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Sped up int(), long(), float() a bit.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in list.sort() that would occasionally dump core.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in PyNumber_Power() that caused numeric arrays to fail
 | |
| when taken tothe real power.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a number of bugs in the file reading code, at least one of
 | |
| which could cause a core dump on NT, and one of which would
 | |
| occasionally cause file.read() to return less than the full contents
 | |
| of the file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Performance hack by Vladimir Marangozov for stack frame creation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Make sure setvbuf() isn't used unless HAVE_SETVBUF is defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Windows 95/NT
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The .lib files are now part of the distribution; they are collected
 | |
| in the subdirectory "libs" of the installation directory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The extension modules (.pyd files) are now collected in a separate
 | |
| subdirectory of the installation directory named "DLLs".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The case of a module's filename must now match the case of the
 | |
| module name as specified in the import statement.  This is an
 | |
| experimental feature -- if it turns out to break in too many
 | |
| situations, it will be removed (or disabled by default) in the future.
 | |
| It can be disabled on a per-case basis by setting the environment
 | |
| variable PYTHONCASEOK (to any value).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.5 (January 3, 1998) <==
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5b2 to 1.5
 | |
| =================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Newly documentated module: BaseHTTPServer.py, thanks to Greg Stein.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added doc strings to string.py, stropmodule.c, structmodule.c,
 | |
| thanks to Charles Waldman.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many nits fixed in the manuals, thanks to Fred Drake and many others
 | |
| (especially Rob Hooft and Andrew Kuchling).  The HTML version now uses
 | |
| HTML markup instead of inline GIF images for tables; only two images
 | |
| are left (for obsure bits of math).  The index of the HTML version has
 | |
| also been much improved.  Finally, it is once again possible to
 | |
| generate an Emacs info file from the library manual (but I don't
 | |
| commit to supporting this in future versions).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module: telnetlib.py (a simple telnet client library).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New tool: Tools/versioncheck/, by Jack Jansen.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Ported zlibmodule.c and bsddbmodule.c to NT; The project file for MS
 | |
| DevStudio 5.0 now includes new subprojects to build the zlib and bsddb
 | |
| extension modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many small changes again to Tkinter.py -- mostly bugfixes and adding
 | |
| missing routines.  Thanks to Greg McFarlane for reporting a bunch of
 | |
| problems and proofreading my fixes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The re module and its documentation are up to date with the latest
 | |
| version released to the string-sig (Dec. 22).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Stop test_grp.py from failing when the /etc/group file is empty
 | |
| (yes, this happens!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix bug in integer conversion (mystrtoul.c) that caused
 | |
| 4294967296==0 to be true!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The VC++ 4.2 project file should be complete again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In tempfile.py, use a better template on NT, and add a new optional
 | |
| argument "suffix" with default "" to specify a specific extension for
 | |
| the temporary filename (needed sometimes on NT but perhaps also handy
 | |
| elsewhere).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some bugs in the FAQ wizard, and converted it to use re
 | |
| instead of regex.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a mysteriously undetected error in dlmodule.c (it was using a
 | |
| totally bogus routine name to raise an exception).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed bug in import.c which wasn't using the new "dos-8x3" name yet.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Hopefully harmless changes to the build process to support shared
 | |
| libraries on DG/UX.  This adds a target to create
 | |
| libpython$(VERSION).so; however this target is *only* for DG/UX.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in the new format string error checking in getargs.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A simple fix for infinite recursion when printing __builtins__:
 | |
| reset '_' to None before printing and set it to the printed variable
 | |
| *after* printing (and only when printing is successful).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed lib-tk/SimpleDialog.py to keep the dialog visible even if the
 | |
| parent window is not (Skip Montanaro).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed the two most annoying problems with ftp URLs in
 | |
| urllib.urlopen(); an empty file now correctly raises an error, and it
 | |
| is no longer required to explicitly close the returned "file" object
 | |
| before opening another ftp URL to the same host and directory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5b1 to 1.5b2
 | |
| ===================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in cPickle.c that caused it to crash right away because
 | |
| the version string had a different format.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes in pickle.py and cPickle.c: when unpickling an instance of a
 | |
| class that doesn't define the __getinitargs__() method, the __init__()
 | |
| constructor is no longer called.  This makes a much larger group of
 | |
| classes picklable by default, but may occasionally change semantics.
 | |
| To force calling __init__() on unpickling, define a __getinitargs__()
 | |
| method.  Other changes too, in particular cPickle now handles classes
 | |
| defined in packages correctly.  The same change applies to copying
 | |
| instances with copy.py.  The cPickle.c changes and some pickle.py
 | |
| changes are courtesy Jim Fulton.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Locale support in he "re" (Perl regular expressions) module.  Use 
 | |
| the flag re.L (or re.LOCALE) to enable locale-specific matching
 | |
| rules for \w and \b.  The in-line syntax for this flag is (?L).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The built-in function isinstance(x, y) now also succeeds when y is
 | |
| a type object and type(x) is y.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - repr() and str() of class and instance objects now reflect the
 | |
| package/module in which the class is defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module "ni" has been removed.  (If you really need it, it's been
 | |
| renamed to "ni1".  Let me know if this causes any problems for you.
 | |
| Package authors are encouraged to write __init__.py files that
 | |
| support both ni and 1.5 package support, so the same version can be
 | |
| used with Python 1.4 as well as 1.5.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The thread module is now automatically included when threads are
 | |
| configured.  (You must remove it from your existing Setup file,
 | |
| since it is now in its own Setup.thread file.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New command line option "-x" to skip the first line of the script;
 | |
| handy to make executable scripts on non-Unix platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In importdl.c, add the RTLD_GLOBAL to the dlopen() flags.  I
 | |
| haven't checked how this affects things, but it should make symbols
 | |
| in one shared library available to the next one.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Windows installer now installs in the "Program Files" folder on
 | |
| the proper volume by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Windows configuration adds a new main program, "pythonw", and
 | |
| registers a new extension, ".pyw" that invokes this.  This is a
 | |
| pstandard Python interpreter that does not pop up a console window;
 | |
| handy for pure Tkinter applications.  All output to the original
 | |
| stdout and stderr is lost; reading from the original stdin yields
 | |
| EOF.  Also, both python.exe and pythonw.exe now have a pretty icon
 | |
| (a green snake in a box, courtesy Mark Hammond).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Lots of improvements to emacs-mode.el again.  See Barry's web page:
 | |
| http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Lots of improvements and additions to the library reference manual;
 | |
| many by Fred Drake.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Doc strings for the following modules: rfc822.py, posixpath.py,
 | |
| ntpath.py, httplib.py.  Thanks to Mitch Chapman and Charles Waldman.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some more regression testing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - An optional 4th (maxsplit) argument to strop.replace().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed handling of maxsplit in string.splitfields().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tweaked os.environ so it can be pickled and copied.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The portability problems caused by indented preprocessor commands
 | |
| and C++ style comments should be gone now.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In random.py, added Pareto and Weibull distributions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The crypt module is now disabled in Modules/Setup.in by default; it
 | |
| is rarely needed and causes errors on some systems where users often
 | |
| don't know how to deal with those.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some improvements to the _tkinter build line suggested by Case Roole.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A full suite of platform specific files for NetBSD 1.x, submitted by 
 | |
| Anders Andersen.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New Solaris specific header STROPTS.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Moved a confusing occurrence of *shared* from the comments in
 | |
| Modules/Setup.in (people would enable this one instead of the real
 | |
| one, and get disappointing results).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed the default mode for directories to be group-writable when
 | |
| the installation process creates them.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Check for pthread support in "-l_r" for FreeBSD/NetBSD, and support
 | |
| shared libraries for both.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support FreeBSD and NetBSD in posixfile.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support for the "event" command, new in Tk 4.2.  By Case Roole.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add Tix_SafeInit() support to tkappinit.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various bugs fixed in "re.py" and "pcre.c".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug (broken use of the syntax table) in the old "regexpr.c".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In frozenmain.c, stdin is made unbuffered too when PYTHONUNBUFFERED
 | |
| is set.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Provide default blocksize for retrbinary in ftplib.py (Skip
 | |
| Montanaro).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In NT, pick the username up from different places in user.py (Jeff
 | |
| Bauer).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Patch to urlparse.urljoin() for ".." and "..#1", Marc Lemburg.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many small improvements to Jeff Rush' OS/2 support.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - ospath.py is gone; it's been obsolete for so many years now...
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The reference manual is now set up to prepare better HTML (still
 | |
| using webmaker, alas).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add special handling to /Tools/freeze for Python modules that are
 | |
| imported implicitly by the Python runtime: 'site' and 'exceptions'.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tools/faqwiz 0.8.3 -- add an option to suppress URL processing
 | |
| inside <PRE>, by "Scott".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added ConfigParser.py, a generic parser for sectioned configuration
 | |
| files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In _localemodule.c, LC_MESSAGES is not always defined; put it
 | |
| between #ifdefs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Typo in resource.c: RUSAGE_CHILDERN -> RUSAGE_CHILDREN.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Demo/scripts/newslist.py: Fix the way the version number is gotten
 | |
| out of the RCS revision.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - PyArg_Parse[Tuple] now explicitly check for bad characters at the
 | |
| end of the format string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Revamped PC/example_nt to support VC++ 5.x.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - <listobject>.sort() now uses a modified quicksort by Raymund Galvin,
 | |
| after studying the GNU libg++ quicksort.  This should be much faster
 | |
| if there are lots of duplicates, and otherwise at least as good.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added "uue" as an alias for "uuencode" to mimetools.py.  (Hm, the
 | |
| uudecode bug where it complaints about trailing garbage is still there 
 | |
| :-( ).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pickle.py requires integers in text mode to be in decimal notation
 | |
| (it used to accept octal and hex, even though it would only generate
 | |
| decimal numbers).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In string.atof(), don't fail when the "re" module is unavailable.
 | |
| Plug the ensueing security leak by supplying an empty __builtins__
 | |
| directory to eval().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A bunch of small fixes and improvements to Tkinter.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a buffer overrun in PC/getpathp.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5a4 to 1.5b1
 | |
| ===================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Windows NT/95 installer now includes full HTML of all manuals.
 | |
| It also has a checkbox that lets you decide whether to install the
 | |
| interpreter and library.  The WISE installer script for the installer
 | |
| is included in the source tree as PC/python15.wse, and so are the
 | |
| icons used for Python files.  The config.c file for the Windows build
 | |
| is now complete with the pcre module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 can now arbitrary objects; their str() is
 | |
| evaluated for the prompt.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The reference manual is brought up to date (more or less -- it still
 | |
| needs work, e.g. in the area of package import).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The icons used by latex2html are now included in the Doc
 | |
| subdirectory (mostly so that tarring up the HTML files can be fully
 | |
| automated).  A simple index.html is also added to Doc (it only works
 | |
| after you have successfully run latex2html).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - For all you would-be proselytizers out there: a new version of
 | |
| Misc/BLURB describes Python more concisely, and Misc/comparisons
 | |
| compares Python to several other languages.  Misc/BLURB.WINDOWS
 | |
| contains a blurb specifically aimed at Windows programmers (by Mark
 | |
| Hammond).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new version of the Python mode for Emacs is included as
 | |
| Misc/python-mode.el.  There are too many new features to list here.
 | |
| See http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for more info.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module fileinput makes iterating over the lines of a list of
 | |
| files easier.  (This still needs some more thinking to make it more
 | |
| extensible.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's full OS/2 support, courtesy Jeff Rush.  To build the OS/2
 | |
| version, see PC/readme.txt and PC/os2vacpp.  This is for IBM's Visual
 | |
| Age C++ compiler.  I expect that Jeff will also provide a binary
 | |
| release for this platform.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Linux, the configure script now uses '-Xlinker -export-dynamic'
 | |
| instead of '-rdynamic' to link the main program so that it exports its
 | |
| symbols to shared libraries it loads dynamically.  I hope this doesn't
 | |
| break on older Linux versions; it is needed for mklinux and appears to
 | |
| work on Linux 2.0.30.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some Tkinter resstructuring: the geometry methods that apply to a
 | |
| master are now properly usable on toplevel master widgets.  There's a
 | |
| new (internal) widget class, BaseWidget.  New, longer "official" names
 | |
| for the geometry manager methods have been added,
 | |
| e.g. "grid_columnconfigure()" instead of "columnconfigure()".  The old
 | |
| shorter names still work, and where there's ambiguity, pack wins over
 | |
| place wins over grid.  Also, the bind_class method now returns its
 | |
| value.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New, RFC-822 conformant parsing of email addresses and address lists
 | |
| in the rfc822 module, courtesy Ben Escoto.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New, revamped tkappinit.c with support for popular packages (PIL,
 | |
| TIX, BLT, TOGL).  For the last three, you need to execute the Tcl
 | |
| command "load {} Tix" (or Blt, or Togl) to gain access to them.
 | |
| The Modules/Setup line for the _tkinter module has been rewritten
 | |
| using the cool line-breaking feature of most Bourne shells.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New socket method connect_ex() returns the error code from connect()
 | |
| instead of raising an exception on errors; this makes the logic
 | |
| required for asynchronous connects simpler and more efficient.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New "locale" module with (still experimental) interface to the
 | |
| standard C library locale interface, courtesy Martin von Loewis.  This
 | |
| does not repeat my mistake in 1.5a4 of always calling
 | |
| setlocale(LC_ALL, "").  In fact, we've pretty much decided that
 | |
| Python's standard numerical formatting operations should always use
 | |
| the conventions for the C locale; the locale module contains utility
 | |
| functions to format numbers according to the user specified locale.
 | |
| (All this is accomplished by an explicit call to setlocale(LC_NUMERIC,
 | |
| "C") after locale-changing calls.)  See the library manual. (Alas, the
 | |
| promised changes to the "re" module for locale support have not been
 | |
| materialized yet.  If you care, volunteer!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Memory leak plugged in Py_BuildValue when building a dictionary.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Shared modules can now live inside packages (hierarchical module
 | |
| namespaces).  No changes to the shared module itself are needed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved policy for __builtins__: this is a module in __main__ and a
 | |
| dictionary everywhere else.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Python no longer catches SIGHUP and SIGTERM by default.  This was
 | |
| impossible to get right in the light of thread contexts.  If you want
 | |
| your program to clean up when a signal happens, use the signal module
 | |
| to set up your own signal handler.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New Python/C API PyNumber_CoerceEx() does not return an exception
 | |
| when no coercion is possible.  This is used to fix a problem where
 | |
| comparing incompatible numbers for equality would raise an exception
 | |
| rather than return false as in Python 1.4 -- it once again will return
 | |
| false.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The errno module is changed again -- the table of error messages
 | |
| (errorstr) is removed.  Instead, you can use os.strerror().  This
 | |
| removes redundance and a potential locale dependency.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module xmllib, to parse XML files.  By Sjoerd Mullender.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New C API PyOS_AfterFork() is called after fork() in posixmodule.c.
 | |
| It resets the signal module's notion of what the current process ID
 | |
| and thread are, so that signal handlers will work after (and across)
 | |
| calls to os.fork().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed most occurrences of fatal errors due to missing thread state.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - For vgrind (a flexible source pretty printer) fans, there's a simple
 | |
| Python definition in Misc/vgrindefs, courtesy Neale Pickett.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed memory leak in exec statement.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The test.pystone module has a new function, pystones(loops=LOOPS),
 | |
| which returns a (benchtime, stones) tuple.  The main() function now
 | |
| calls this and prints the report.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Package directories now *require* the presence of an __init__.py (or
 | |
| __init__.pyc) file before they are considered as packages.  This is
 | |
| done to prevent accidental subdirectories with common names from
 | |
| overriding modules with the same name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some strange exceptions in __del__ methods in library modules
 | |
| (e.g. urllib).  This happens because the builtin names are already
 | |
| deleted by the time __del__ is called.  The solution (a hack, but it
 | |
| works) is to set some instance variables to 0 instead of None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The table of built-in module initializers is replaced by a pointer
 | |
| variable.  This makes it possible to switch to a different table at
 | |
| run time, e.g. when a collection of modules is loaded from a shared
 | |
| library.  (No example code of how to do this is given, but it is
 | |
| possible.)  The table is still there of course, its name prefixed with
 | |
| an underscore and used to initialize the pointer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The warning about a thread still having a frame now only happens in
 | |
| verbose mode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Change the signal finialization so that it also resets the signal
 | |
| handlers.  After this has been called, our signal handlers are no
 | |
| longer active!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of tokenize.py (by Ka-Ping Yee) recognizes raw string
 | |
| literals.  There's now also a test fort this module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The copy module now also uses __dict__.update(state) instead of
 | |
| going through individual attribute assignments, for class instances
 | |
| without a __setstate__ method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module reconvert translates old-style (regex module) regular
 | |
| expressions to new-style (re module, Perl-style) regular expressions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Most modules that used to use the regex module now use the re
 | |
| module.  The grep module has a new pgrep() function which uses
 | |
| Perl-style regular expressions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The (very old, backwards compatibility) regexp.py module has been
 | |
| deleted.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Restricted execution (rexec): added the pcre module (support for the
 | |
| re module) to the list of trusted extension modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of Jim Fulton's CObject object type, adds
 | |
| PyCObject_FromVoidPtrAndDesc() and PyCObject_GetDesc() APIs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some patches to Lee Busby's fpectl mods that accidentally didn't
 | |
| make it into 1.5a4.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In the string module, add an optional 4th argument to count(),
 | |
| matching find() etc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Patch for the nntplib module by Charles Waldman to add optional user
 | |
| and password arguments to NNTP.__init__(), for nntp servers that need
 | |
| them.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The str() function for class objects now returns
 | |
| "modulename.classname" instead of returning the same as repr().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The parsing of \xXX escapes no longer relies on sscanf().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The "sharedmodules" subdirectory of the installation is renamed to
 | |
| "lib-dynload".  (You may have to edit your Modules/Setup file to fix
 | |
| this in an existing installation!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed Don Beaudry's mess-up with the OPT test in the configure
 | |
| script.  Certain SGI platforms will still issue a warning for each
 | |
| compile; there's not much I can do about this since the compiler's
 | |
| exit status doesn't indicate that I was using an obsolete option.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed Barry's mess-up with {}.get(), and added test cases for it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Shared libraries didn't quite work under AIX because of the change
 | |
| in status of the GNU readline interface.  Fix due to by Vladimir
 | |
| Marangozov.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.5a3 to 1.5a4
 | |
| ===================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All standard exceptions are now classes by default; use -X to make
 | |
| them strings (for backward compatibility only).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new standard exception hierarchy, defined in the standard
 | |
| library module exceptions.py (which you never need to import
 | |
| explicitly).  See
 | |
| http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/stdexceptions.html for
 | |
| more info.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Another new C API function: PyErr_NewException() creates a new
 | |
| exception class derived from Exception; when -X is given, it creates a
 | |
| new string exception.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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,)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tkinter.py: the Tk class now also has a configure() method and
 | |
| friends (they have been moved to the Misc class to accomplish this).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - dict.get(key[, default]) returns dict[key] if it exists, or default
 | |
| if it doesn't.  The default defaults to None.  This is quicker for
 | |
| some applications than using either has_key() or try:...except
 | |
| KeyError:....
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tools/webchecker/: some small changes to webchecker.py; added
 | |
| websucker.py (a simple web site mirroring script).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Dictionary objects now have a get() method (also in UserDict.py).
 | |
| dict.get(key, default) returns dict[key] if it exists and default
 | |
| otherwise; default defaults to None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tools/scripts/logmerge.py: print the author, too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to import: support for "import a.b.c" is now built in.  See
 | |
| http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html
 | |
| for more info.  Most important deviations from "ni.py": __init__.py is
 | |
| executed in the package's namespace instead of as a submodule; and
 | |
| there's no support for "__" or "__domain__".  Note that "ni.py" is not
 | |
| changed to match this -- it is simply declared obsolete (while at the
 | |
| same time, it is documented...:-( ).
 | |
| Unfortunately, "ihooks.py" has not been upgraded (but see "knee.py"
 | |
| for an example implementation of hierarchical module import written in
 | |
| Python).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More changes to import: the site.py module is now imported by
 | |
| default when Python is initialized; use -S to disable it.  The site.py
 | |
| module extends the path with several more directories: site-packages
 | |
| inside the lib/python1.5/ directory, site-python in the lib/
 | |
| directory, and pathnames mentioned in *.pth files found in either of
 | |
| those directories.  See
 | |
| http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html
 | |
| for more info.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to standard library subdirectory names: those subdirectories
 | |
| that are not packages have been renamed with a hypen in their name,
 | |
| e.g. lib-tk, lib-stdwin, plat-win, plat-linux2, plat-sunos5, dos-8x3.
 | |
| The test suite is now a package -- to run a test, you must now use
 | |
| "import test.test_foo".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A completely new re.py module is provided (thanks to Andrew
 | |
| Kuchling, Tim Peters and Jeffrey Ollie) which uses Philip Hazel's
 | |
| "pcre" re compiler and engine.  For a while, the "old" re.py (which
 | |
| was new in 1.5a3!) will be kept around as re1.py.  The "old" regex
 | |
| module and underlying parser and engine are still present -- while
 | |
| regex is now officially obsolete, it will probably take several major
 | |
| release cycles before it can be removed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The posix module now has a strerror() function which translates an
 | |
| error code to a string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The emacs.py module (which was long obsolete) has been removed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The universal makefile Misc/Makefile.pre.in now features an
 | |
| "install" target.  By default, installed shared libraries go into
 | |
| $exec_prefix/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages/.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The install-sh script is installed with the other configuration
 | |
| specific files (in the config/ subdirectory).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It turns out whatsound.py and sndhdr.py were identical modules.
 | |
| Since there's also an imghdr.py file, I propose to make sndhdr.py the
 | |
| official one.  For compatibility, whatsound.py imports * from
 | |
| sndhdr.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Class objects have a new attribute, __module__, giving the name of
 | |
| the module in which they were declared.  This is useful for pickle and
 | |
| for printing the full name of a class exception.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many extension modules no longer issue a fatal error when their
 | |
| initialization fails; the importing code now checks whether an error
 | |
| occurred during module initialization, and correctly propagates the
 | |
| exception to the import statement.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Most extension modules now raise class-based exceptions (except when
 | |
| -X is used).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Subtle changes to PyEval_{Save,Restore}Thread(): always swap the
 | |
| thread state -- just don't manipulate the lock if it isn't there.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug in Python/getopt.c that made it do the wrong thing when
 | |
| an option was a single '-'.  Thanks to Andrew Kuchling.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module mimetypes.py will guess a MIME type from a filename's
 | |
| extension.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Windows: the DLL version is now settable via a resource rather than
 | |
| being hardcoded.  This can be used for "branding" a binary Python
 | |
| distribution.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - urllib.py is now threadsafe -- it now uses re instead of regex, and
 | |
| sys.exc_info() instead of sys.exc_{type,value}.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many other library modules that used to use
 | |
| sys.exc_{type,value,traceback} are now more thread-safe by virtue of
 | |
| using sys.exc_info().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The functions in popen2 have an optional buffer size parameter.
 | |
| Also, the command argument can now be either a string (passed to the
 | |
| shell) or a list of arguments (passed directly to execv).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Alas, the thread support for _tkinter released with 1.5a3 didn't
 | |
| work.  It's been rewritten.  The bad news is that it now requires a
 | |
| modified version of a file in the standard Tcl distribution, which you
 | |
| must compile with a -I option pointing to the standard Tcl source
 | |
| tree.  For this reason, the thread support is disabled by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The errno extension module adds two tables: errorcode maps errno
 | |
| numbers to errno names (e.g. EINTR), and errorstr maps them to
 | |
| message strings.  (The latter is redundant because the new call
 | |
| posix.strerror() now does the same, but alla...)  (Marc-Andre Lemburg)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The readline extension module now provides some interfaces to
 | |
| internal readline routines that make it possible to write a completer
 | |
| in Python.  An example completer, rlcompleter.py, is provided.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	When completing a simple identifier, it completes keywords,
 | |
| 	built-ins and globals in __main__; when completing
 | |
| 	NAME.NAME..., it evaluates (!) the expression up to the last
 | |
| 	dot and completes its attributes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	It's very cool to do "import string" type "string.", hit the
 | |
| 	completion key (twice), and see the list of names defined by
 | |
| 	the string module!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	Tip: to use the tab key as the completion key, call
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	    readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The traceback.py module has a new function tb_lineno() by Marc-Andre
 | |
| Lemburg which extracts the line number from the linenumber table in
 | |
| the code object.  Apparently the traceback object doesn't contains the
 | |
| right linenumber when -O is used.  Rather than guessing whether -O is
 | |
| on or off, the module itself uses tb_lineno() unconditionally.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed Demo/tkinter/matt/canvas-moving-or-creating.py: change bind()
 | |
| to tag_bind() so it works again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The pystone script is now a standard library module.  Example use:
 | |
| "import test.pystone; test.pystone.main()".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The import of the readline module in interactive mode is now also
 | |
| attempted when -i is specified.  (Yes, I know, giving in to Marc-Andre
 | |
| Lemburg, who asked for this. :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - rfc822.py: Entirely rewritten parseaddr() function by Sjoerd
 | |
| Mullender, to be closer to the standard.  This fixes the getaddr()
 | |
| method.  Unfortunately, getaddrlist() is as broken as ever, since it
 | |
| splits on commas without regard for RFC 822 quoting conventions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pprint.py: correctly emit trailing "," in singleton tuples.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - _tkinter.c: export names for its type objects, TkappType and
 | |
| TkttType.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pickle.py: use __module__ when defined; fix a particularly hard to
 | |
| reproduce bug that confuses the memo when temporary objects are
 | |
| returned by custom pickling interfaces; and a semantic change: when
 | |
| unpickling the instance variables of an instance, use
 | |
| inst.__dict__.update(value) instead of a for loop with setattr() over
 | |
| the value.keys().  This is more consistent (the pickling doesn't use
 | |
| getattr() either but pickles inst.__dict__) and avoids problems with
 | |
| instances that have a __setattr__ hook.  But it *is* a semantic change
 | |
| (because the setattr hook is no longer used).  So beware!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - config.h is now installed (at last) in
 | |
| $exec_prefix/include/python1.5/.  For most sites, this means that it
 | |
| is actually in $prefix/include/python1.5/, with all the other Python
 | |
| include files, since $prefix and $exec_prefix are the same by
 | |
| default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The imp module now supports parts of the functionality to implement
 | |
| import of hierarchical module names.  It now supports find_module()
 | |
| and load_module() for all types of modules.  Docstrings have been
 | |
| added for those functions in the built-in imp module that are still
 | |
| relevant (some old interfaces are obsolete).  For a sample
 | |
| implementation of hierarchical module import in Python, see the new
 | |
| library module knee.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The % operator on string objects now allows arbitrary nested parens
 | |
| in a %(...)X style format.  (Brad Howes)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Reverse the order in which Setup and Setup.local are passed to the
 | |
| makesetup script.  This allows variable definitions in Setup.local to
 | |
| override definitions in Setup.  (But you'll still have to edit Setup
 | |
| if you want to disable modules that are enabled by default, or if such
 | |
| modules need non-standard options.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added PyImport_ImportModuleEx(name, globals, locals, fromlist); this
 | |
| is like PyImport_ImporModule(name) but receives the globals and locals
 | |
| dict and the fromlist arguments as well.  (The name is a char*; the
 | |
| others are PyObject*s).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The 'p' format in the struct extension module alloded to above is
 | |
| new in 1.5a4.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The types.py module now uses try-except in a few places to make it
 | |
| more likely that it can be imported in restricted mode.  Some type
 | |
| names are undefined in that case, e.g. CodeType (inaccessible),
 | |
| FileType (not always accessible), and TracebackType and FrameType
 | |
| (inaccessible).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In urllib.py: added separate administration of temporary files
 | |
| created y URLopener.retrieve() so cleanup() can properly remove them.
 | |
| The old code removed everything in tempcache which was a bad idea if
 | |
| the user had passed a non-temp file into it.  Also, in basejoin(),
 | |
| interpret relative paths starting in "../".  This is necessary if the
 | |
| server uses symbolic links.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Windows build procedure and project files are now based on
 | |
| Microsoft Visual C++ 5.x.  The build now takes place in the PCbuild
 | |
| directory.  It is much more robust, and properly builds separate Debug
 | |
| and Release versions.  (The installer will be added shortly.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added casts and changed some return types in regexpr.c to avoid
 | |
| compiler warnings or errors on some platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The AIX build tools for shared libraries now supports VPATH.  (Donn
 | |
| Cave)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - By default, disable the "portable" multimedia modules audioop,
 | |
| imageop, and rgbimg, since they don't work on 64-bit platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a nasty bug in cStringIO.c when code was actually using the
 | |
| close() method (the destructors would try to free certain fields a
 | |
| second time).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - For those who think they need it, there's a "user.py" module.  This
 | |
| is *not* imported by default, but can be imported to run user-specific
 | |
| setup commands, ~/.pythonrc.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various speedups suggested by Fredrik Lundh, Marc-Andre Lemburg,
 | |
| Vladimir Marangozov, and others.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added os.altsep; this is '/' on DOS/Windows, and None on systems
 | |
| with a sane filename syntax.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - os.py: Write out the dynamic OS choice, to avoid exec statements.
 | |
| Adding support for a new OS is now a bit more work, but I bet that
 | |
| 'dos' or 'nt' will cover most situations...
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The obsolete exception AccessError is now really gone.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tools/faqwiz/: New installation instructions show how to maintain
 | |
| multiple FAQs.  Removed bootstrap script from end of faqwiz.py module.
 | |
| Added instructions to bootstrap script, too.  Version bumped to 0.8.1.
 | |
| Added <html>...</html> feature suggested by Skip Montanaro.  Added
 | |
| leading text for Roulette, default to 'Hit Reload ...'.  Fix typo in
 | |
| default SRCDIR.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Documentation for the relatively new modules "keyword" and "symbol"
 | |
| has been added (to the end of the section on the parser extension
 | |
| module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In module bisect.py, but functions have two optional argument 'lo'
 | |
| and 'hi' which allow you to specify a subsequence of the array to
 | |
| operate on.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In ftplib.py, changed most methods to return their status (even when
 | |
| it is always "200 OK") rather than swallowing it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - main() now calls setlocale(LC_ALL, ""), if setlocale() and
 | |
| <locale.h> are defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to configure.in, the configure script, and both
 | |
| Makefile.pre.in files, to support SGI's SGI_ABI platform selection
 | |
| environment variable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| From 1.4 to 1.5a3
 | |
| =================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Security
 | |
| --------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - If you are using the setuid script C wrapper (Misc/setuid-prog.c),
 | |
| please use the new version.  The old version has a huge security leak.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Because of various (small) incompatible changes in the Python
 | |
| bytecode interpreter, the magic number for .pyc files has changed
 | |
| again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The default module search path is now much saner.  Both on Unix and
 | |
| Windows, it is essentially derived from the path to the executable
 | |
| (which can be overridden by setting the environment variable
 | |
| $PYTHONHOME).  The value of $PYTHONPATH on Windows is now inserted in
 | |
| front of the default path, like in Unix (instead of overriding the
 | |
| default path).  On Windows, the directory containing the executable is
 | |
| added to the end of the path.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs has been included.  Also,
 | |
| a new file ccpy-style.el has been added to configure Emacs cc-mode for
 | |
| the preferred style in Python C sources.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Unix, when using sys.argv[0] to insert the script directory in
 | |
| front of sys.path, expand a symbolic link.  You can now install a
 | |
| program in a private directory and have a symbolic link to it in a
 | |
| public bin directory, and it will put the private directory in the
 | |
| module search path.  Note that the symlink is expanded in sys.path[0]
 | |
| but not in sys.argv[0], so you can still tell the name by which you
 | |
| were invoked.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It is now recommended to use ``#!/usr/bin/env python'' instead of
 | |
| ``#!/usr/local/bin/python'' at the start of executable scripts, except
 | |
| for CGI scripts.  It has been determined that the use of /usr/bin/env
 | |
| is more portable than that of /usr/local/bin/python -- scripts almost
 | |
| never have to be edited when the Python interpreter lives in a
 | |
| non-standard place.  Note that this doesn't work for CGI scripts since
 | |
| the python executable often doesn't live in the HTTP server's default
 | |
| search path.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The silly -s command line option and the corresponding
 | |
| PYTHONSUPPRESS environment variable (and the Py_SuppressPrint global
 | |
| flag in the Python/C API) are gone.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Most problems on 64-bit platforms should now be fixed.  Andrew
 | |
| Kuchling helped.  Some uncommon extension modules are still not
 | |
| clean (image and audio ops?).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a bug where multiple anonymous tuple arguments would be mixed up
 | |
| when using the debugger or profiler (reported by Just van Rossum).
 | |
| The simplest example is ``def f((a,b),(c,d)): print a,b,c,d''; this
 | |
| would print the wrong value when run under the debugger or profiler.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The hacks that the dictionary implementation used to speed up
 | |
| repeated lookups of the same C string were removed; these were a
 | |
| source of subtle problems and don't seem to serve much of a purpose
 | |
| any longer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All traces of support for the long dead access statement have been
 | |
| removed from the sources.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an
 | |
| interactive EOF.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a -O option to the interpreter that removes SET_LINENO
 | |
| instructions and assert statements (see below); it uses and produces
 | |
| .pyo files instead of .pyc files.  The speedup is only a few percent
 | |
| in most cases.  The line numbers are still available in the .pyo file,
 | |
| as a separate table (which is also available in .pyc files).  However,
 | |
| the removal of the SET_LINENO instructions means that the debugger
 | |
| (pdb) can't set breakpoints on lines in -O mode.  The traceback module
 | |
| contains a function to extract a line number from the code object
 | |
| referenced in a traceback object.  In the future it should be possible
 | |
| to write external bytecode optimizers that create better optimized
 | |
| .pyo files, and there should be more control over optimization;
 | |
| consider the -O option a "teaser".  Without -O, the assert statement
 | |
| actually generates code that first checks __debug__; if this variable
 | |
| is false, the assertion is not checked.  __debug__ is a built-in
 | |
| variable whose value is initialized to track the -O flag (it's true
 | |
| iff -O is not specified).  With -O, no code is generated for assert
 | |
| statements, nor for code of the form ``if __debug__: <something>''.
 | |
| Sorry, no further constant folding happens.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Performance
 | |
| -----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see
 | |
| Tools/scripts).  See the entry on string interning below.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both
 | |
| the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Big speedup by allocating frame objects with a single malloc() call.
 | |
| The Python/C API for frames is changed (you shouldn't be using this
 | |
| anyway).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Significant speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand 
 | |
| types (e.g.  i+i, i-i, and list[i]).  Fredrik Lundh.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common
 | |
| objects (e.g. list.append is now first).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Big optimization to the read() method of file objects.  A read()
 | |
| without arguments now attempts to use fstat to allocate a buffer of
 | |
| the right size; for pipes and sockets, it will fall back to doubling
 | |
| the buffer size.  While that the improvement is real on all systems,
 | |
| it is most dramatic on Windows.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Documentation
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many new pieces of library documentation were contributed, mostly by
 | |
| Andrew Kuchling.  Even cmath is now documented!  There's also a
 | |
| chapter of the library manual, "libundoc.tex", which provides a
 | |
| listing of all undocumented modules, plus their status (e.g. internal,
 | |
| obsolete, or in need of documentation).  Also contributions by Sue
 | |
| Williams, Skip Montanaro, and some module authors who succumbed to
 | |
| pressure to document their own contributed modules :-).  Note that
 | |
| printing the documentation now kills fewer trees -- the margins have
 | |
| been reduced.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - I have started documenting the Python/C API. Unfortunately this project 
 | |
| hasn't been completed yet.  It will be complete before the final release of 
 | |
| Python 1.5, though.  At the moment, it's better to read the LaTeX source 
 | |
| than to attempt to run it through LaTeX and print the resulting dvi file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The posix module (and hence os.py) now has doc strings!  Thanks to Neil 
 | |
| Schemenauer.  I received a few other contributions of doc strings.  In most 
 | |
| other places, doc strings are still wishful thinking...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Language changes
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Private variables with leading double underscore are now a permanent 
 | |
| feature of the language.  (These were experimental in release 1.4.  I have 
 | |
| favorable experience using them; I can't label them "experimental" 
 | |
| forever.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's new string literal syntax for "raw strings".  Prefixing a string 
 | |
| literal with the letter r (or R) disables all escape processing in the 
 | |
| string; for example, r'\n' is a two-character string consisting of a 
 | |
| backslash followed by the letter n.  This combines with all forms of string 
 | |
| quotes; it is actually useful for triple quoted doc strings which might 
 | |
| contain references to \n or \t.  An embedded quote prefixed with a 
 | |
| backslash does not terminate the string, but the backslash is still 
 | |
| included in the string; for example, r'\'' is a two-character string 
 | |
| consisting of a backslash and a quote.  (Raw strings are also 
 | |
| affectionately known as Robin strings, after their inventor, Robin 
 | |
| Friedrich.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a simple assert statement, and a new exception
 | |
| AssertionError.  For example, ``assert foo > 0'' is equivalent to ``if
 | |
| not foo > 0: raise AssertionError''.  Sorry, the text of the asserted
 | |
| condition is not available; it would be too complicated to generate
 | |
| code for this (since the code is generated from a parse tree).
 | |
| However, the text is displayed as part of the traceback!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The raise statement has a new feature: when using "raise SomeClass,
 | |
| somevalue" where somevalue is not an instance of SomeClass, it
 | |
| instantiates SomeClass(somevalue).  In 1.5a4, if somevalue is an
 | |
| instance of a *derived* class of SomeClass, the exception class raised
 | |
| is set to somevalue.__class__, and SomeClass is ignored after that.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Duplicate keyword arguments are now detected at compile time;
 | |
| f(a=1,a=2) is now a syntax error.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to builtin features
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new exception FloatingPointError (used only by Lee Busby's
 | |
| patches to catch floating point exceptions, at the moment).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The obsolete exception ConflictError (presumably used by the long
 | |
| obsolete access statement) has been deleted.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new function sys.exc_info() which returns the tuple 
 | |
| (sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback) in a thread-safe way.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new variable sys.executable, pointing to the executable file 
 | |
| for the Python interpreter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I
 | |
| wrote my own quicksort implementation, with lots of help (in the form
 | |
| of a kind of competition) from Tim Peters.  This solves a bug in
 | |
| dictionary comparisons on some Solaris versions when Python is built
 | |
| with threads, and makes sorting lists even faster.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The semantics of comparing two dictionaries have changed, to make
 | |
| comparison of unequal dictionaries faster.  A shorter dictionary is
 | |
| always considered smaller than a larger dictionary.  For dictionaries
 | |
| of the same size, the smallest differing element determines the
 | |
| outcome (which yields the same results as before in this case, without
 | |
| explicit sorting).  Thanks to Aaron Watters for suggesting something
 | |
| like this.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The semantics of try-except have changed subtly so that calling a
 | |
| function in an exception handler that itself raises and catches an
 | |
| exception no longer overwrites the sys.exc_* variables.  This also
 | |
| alleviates the problem that objects referenced in a stack frame that
 | |
| caught an exception are kept alive until another exception is caught
 | |
| -- the sys.exc_* variables are restored to their previous value when
 | |
| returning from a function that caught an exception.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new "buffer" interface.  Certain objects (e.g. strings and
 | |
| arrays) now support the "buffer" protocol.  Buffer objects are acceptable 
 | |
| whenever formerly a string was required for a write operation; mutable 
 | |
| buffer objects can be the target of a read operation using the call
 | |
| f.readinto(buffer).  A cool feature is that regular expression matching now 
 | |
| also work on array objects.  Contribution by Jack Jansen.  (Needs 
 | |
| documentation.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - String interning: dictionary lookups are faster when the lookup
 | |
| string object is the same object as the key in the dictionary, not
 | |
| just a string with the same value.  This is done by having a pool of
 | |
| "interned" strings.  Most names generated by the interpreter are now
 | |
| automatically interned, and there's a new built-in function intern(s)
 | |
| that returns the interned version of a string.  Interned strings are
 | |
| not a different object type, and interning is totally optional, but by
 | |
| interning most keys a speedup of about 15% was obtained for the
 | |
| pystone benchmark.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Dictionary objects have several new methods; clear() and copy() have
 | |
| the obvious semantics, while update(d) merges the contents of another
 | |
| dictionary d into this one, overriding existing keys.  The dictionary
 | |
| implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than the
 | |
| confusing mappingobject.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__,
 | |
| __members__ and __methods__.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The intrinsic functions int(), long() and float() can now take a
 | |
| string argument and then do the same thing as string.atoi(),
 | |
| string.atol(), and string.atof().  No second 'base' argument is
 | |
| allowed, and complex() does not take a string (nobody cared enough).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When a module is deleted, its globals are now deleted in two phases.
 | |
| In the first phase, all variables whose name begins with exactly one
 | |
| underscore are replaced by None; in the second phase, all variables
 | |
| are deleted.  This makes it possible to have global objects whose
 | |
| destructors depend on other globals.  The deletion order within each
 | |
| phase is still random.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It is no longer an error for a function to be called without a
 | |
| global variable __builtins__ -- an empty directory will be provided
 | |
| by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Guido's corollary to the "Don Beaudry hook": it is now possible to
 | |
| do metaprogramming by using an instance as a base class.  Not for the
 | |
| faint of heart; and undocumented as yet, but basically if a base class
 | |
| is an instance, its class will be instantiated to create the new
 | |
| class.  Jim Fulton will love it -- it also works with instances of his
 | |
| "extension classes", since it is triggered by the presence of a
 | |
| __class__ attribute on the purported base class.  See
 | |
| Demo/metaclasses/index.html for an explanation and see that directory
 | |
| for examples.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Another change is that the Don Beaudry hook is now invoked when
 | |
| *any* base class is special.  (Up to 1.5a3, the *last* special base
 | |
| class is used; in 1.5a4, the more rational choice of the *first*
 | |
| special base class is used.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New optional parameter to the readlines() method of file objects.
 | |
| This indicates the number of bytes to read (the actual number of bytes
 | |
| read will be somewhat larger due to buffering reading until the end of
 | |
| the line).  Some optimizations have also been made to speed it up (but
 | |
| not as much as read()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Complex numbers no longer have the ".conj" pseudo attribute; use
 | |
| z.conjugate() instead, or complex(z.real, -z.imag).  Complex numbers
 | |
| now *do* support the __members__ and __methods__ special attributes.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The complex() function now looks for a __complex__() method on class
 | |
| instances before giving up.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Long integers now support arbitrary shift counts, so you can now
 | |
| write 1L<<1000000, memory permitting.  (Python 1.4 reports "outrageous
 | |
| shift count for this.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The hex() and oct() functions have been changed so that for regular
 | |
| integers, they never emit a minus sign.  For example, on a 32-bit
 | |
| machine, oct(-1) now returns '037777777777' and hex(-1) returns
 | |
| '0xffffffff'.  While this may seem inconsistent, it is much more
 | |
| useful.  (For long integers, a minus sign is used as before, to fit
 | |
| the result in memory :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The hash() function computes better hashes for several data types,
 | |
| including strings, floating point numbers, and complex numbers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New extension modules
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New extension modules cStringIO.c and cPickle.c, written by Jim
 | |
| Fulton and other folks at Digital Creations.  These are much more
 | |
| efficient than their Python counterparts StringIO.py and pickle.py,
 | |
| but don't support subclassing.  cPickle.c clocks up to 1000 times
 | |
| faster than pickle.py; cStringIO.c's improvement is less dramatic but
 | |
| still significant.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New extension module zlibmodule.c, interfacing to the free zlib
 | |
| library (gzip compatible compression).  There's also a module gzip.py
 | |
| which provides a higher level interface.  Written by Andrew Kuchling
 | |
| and Jeremy Hylton.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module readline; see the "miscellaneous" section above.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides
 | |
| access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and
 | |
| related symbolic constants.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New extension puremodule.c, by Barry Warsaw, which interfaces to the
 | |
| Purify(TM) C API.  See also the file Misc/PURIFY.README.  It is also
 | |
| possible to enable Purify by simply setting the PURIFY Makefile
 | |
| variable in the Modules/Setup file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes in extension modules
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The struct extension module has several new features to control byte
 | |
| order and word size.  It supports reading and writing IEEE floats even
 | |
| on platforms where this is not the native format.  It uses uppercase
 | |
| format codes for unsigned integers of various sizes (always using
 | |
| Python long ints for 'I' and 'L'), 's' with a size prefix for strings,
 | |
| and 'p' for "Pascal strings" (with a leading length byte, included in
 | |
| the size; blame Hannu Krosing; new in 1.5a4).  A prefix '>' forces
 | |
| big-endian data and '<' forces little-endian data; these also select
 | |
| standard data sizes and disable automatic alignment (use pad bytes as
 | |
| needed).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The array module supports uppercase format codes for unsigned data
 | |
| formats (like the struct module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The fcntl extension module now exports the needed symbolic
 | |
| constants.  (Formerly these were in FCNTL.py which was not available
 | |
| or correct for all platforms.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The extension modules dbm, gdbm and bsddb now check that the
 | |
| database is still open before making any new calls.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The dbhash module is no more.  Use bsddb instead.  (There's a third
 | |
| party interface for the BSD 2.x code somewhere on the web; support for
 | |
| bsddb will be deprecated.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The gdbm module now supports a sync() method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The socket module now has some new functions: getprotobyname(), and
 | |
| the set {ntoh,hton}{s,l}().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType,
 | |
| array.ArrayType.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The socket module's accept() method now returns unknown addresses as
 | |
| a tuple rather than raising an exception.  (This can happen in
 | |
| promiscuous mode.)  Theres' also a new function getprotobyname().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The pthread support for the thread module now works on most platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - STDWIN is now officially obsolete.  Support for it will eventually
 | |
| be removed from the distribution.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged.
 | |
| (XXX Oops -- Fredrik Lundh promised me a uuencode fix that I never
 | |
| received.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - audioop.c: added a ratecv() function; better handling of overflow in
 | |
| add().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - posixmodule.c: now exports the O_* flags (O_APPEND etc.).  On
 | |
| Windows, also O_TEXT and O_BINARY.  The 'error' variable (the
 | |
| exception is raises) is renamed -- its string value is now "os.error",
 | |
| so newbies don't believe they have to import posix (or nt) to catch
 | |
| it when they see os.error reported as posix.error.  The execve()
 | |
| function now accepts any mapping object for the environment.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new version of the al (audio library) module for SGI was
 | |
| contributed by Sjoerd Mullender.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The regex module has a new function get_syntax() which retrieves the
 | |
| syntax setting set by set_syntax().  The code was also sanitized,
 | |
| removing worries about unclean error handling.  See also below for its
 | |
| successor, re.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The "new" module (which creates new objects of various types) once
 | |
| again has a fully functioning new.function() method.  Dangerous as
 | |
| ever!  Also, new.code() has several new arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A problem has been fixed in the rotor module: on systems with signed
 | |
| characters, rotor-encoded data was not portable when the key contained
 | |
| 8-bit characters.  Also, setkey() now requires its argument rather
 | |
| than having broken code to default it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sys.builtin_module_names variable is now a tuple.  Another new
 | |
| variables in sys is sys.executable (the full path to the Python
 | |
| binary, if known).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The specs for time.strftime() have undergone some revisions.  It
 | |
| appears that not all format characters are supported in the same way
 | |
| on all platforms.  Rather than reimplement it, we note these
 | |
| differences in the documentation, and emphasize the shared set of
 | |
| features.  There's also a thorough test set (that occasionally finds
 | |
| problems in the C library implementation, e.g. on some Linuxes),
 | |
| thanks to Skip Montanaro.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The nis module seems broken when used with NIS+; unfortunately
 | |
| nobody knows how to fix it.  It should still work with old NIS.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New library modules
 | |
| -------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New (still experimental) Perl-style regular expression module,
 | |
| re.py, which uses a new interface for matching as well as a new
 | |
| syntax; the new interface avoids the thread-unsafety of the regex
 | |
| interface.  This comes with a helper extension reopmodule.c and vastly
 | |
| rewritten regexpr.c.  Most work on this was done by Jeffrey Ollie, Tim
 | |
| Peters, and Andrew Kuchling.  See the documentation libre.tex.  In
 | |
| 1.5, the old regex module is still fully supported; in the future, it
 | |
| will become obsolete.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module gzip.py; see zlib above.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in
 | |
| keywords.  (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module pprint.py (with documentation) which supports
 | |
| pretty-printing of lists, tuples, & dictionaries recursively.  By Fred
 | |
| Drake.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module code.py.  The function code.compile_command() can
 | |
| determine whether an interactively entered command is complete or not,
 | |
| distinguishing incomplete from invalid input.  (XXX Unfortunately,
 | |
| this seems broken at this moment, and I don't have the time to fix
 | |
| it.  It's probably better to add an explicit interface to the parser
 | |
| for this.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There is now a library module xdrlib.py which can read and write the
 | |
| XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example.  It uses the struct
 | |
| module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes in library modules
 | |
| --------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The pickle.py module has been updated to make it compatible with the
 | |
| new binary format that cPickle.c produces.  By default it produces the
 | |
| old all-ASCII format compatible with the old pickle.py, still much
 | |
| faster than pickle.py; it will read both formats automatically.  A few
 | |
| other updates have been made.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register extensions
 | |
| to the pickling code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Revamped module tokenize.py is much more accurate and has an
 | |
| interface that makes it a breeze to write code to colorize Python
 | |
| source code.  Contributed by Ka-Ping Yee.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In ihooks.py, ModuleLoader.load_module() now closes the file under
 | |
| all circumstances.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The tempfile.py module has a new class, TemporaryFile, which creates
 | |
| an open temporary file that will be deleted automatically when
 | |
| closed.  This works on Windows and MacOS as well as on Unix.  (Jim
 | |
| Fulton.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to the cgi.py module: Most imports are now done at the
 | |
| top of the module, which provides a speedup when using ni (Jim
 | |
| Fulton).  The problem with file upload to a Windows platform is solved
 | |
| by using the new tempfile.TemporaryFile class; temporary files are now
 | |
| always opened in binary mode (Jim Fulton).  The cgi.escape() function
 | |
| now takes an optional flag argument that quotes '"' to '"'.  It
 | |
| is now possible to invoke cgi.py from a command line script, to test
 | |
| cgi scripts more easily outside an http server.  There's an optional
 | |
| limit to the size of uploads to POST (Skip Montanaro).  Added a
 | |
| 'strict_parsing' option to all parsing functions (Jim Fulton).  The
 | |
| function parse_qs() now uses urllib.unquote() on the name as well as
 | |
| the value of fields (Clarence Gardner).  The FieldStorage class now
 | |
| has a __len__() method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.*
 | |
| responses are now accepted; and it is now thread-safe (by not using
 | |
| the regex module).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - BaseHTTPModule.py: treat all HTTP/1.* versions the same.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The popen2.py module is now rewritten using a class, which makes
 | |
| access to the standard error stream and the process id of the
 | |
| subprocess possible.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added timezone support to the rfc822.py module, in the form of a
 | |
| getdate_tz() method and a parsedate_tz() function; also a mktime_tz().
 | |
| Also added recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars
 | |
| Wirzenius, and RFC 850 dates (Chris Lawrence).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing
 | |
| of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess.  Also
 | |
| added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes).  (Lars 
 | |
| Wirzenius.)  (Of course, you should be using cStringIO for performance.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improvements for whrandom.py by Tim Peters: use 32-bit arithmetic to
 | |
| speed it up, and replace 0 seed values by 1 to avoid degeneration.
 | |
| A bug was fixed in the test for invalid arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file (Fred
 | |
| Drake).  Also added an ntransfercmd() method to the FTP class, which
 | |
| allows access to the expected size of a transfer when available, and a
 | |
| parse150() function to the module which parses the corresponding 150
 | |
| response.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries.  Added
 | |
| quote_plus() and unquote_plus() functions which are like quote() and
 | |
| unquote() but also replace spaces with '+' or vice versa, for
 | |
| encoding/decoding CGI form arguments.  Catch all errors from the ftp
 | |
| module.  HTTP requests now add the Host: header line.  The proxy
 | |
| variable names are now mapped to lower case, for Windows.  The
 | |
| spliturl() function no longer erroneously throws away all data past
 | |
| the first newline.  The basejoin() function now intereprets "../"
 | |
| correctly.  I *believe* that the problems with "exception raised in
 | |
| __del__" under certain circumstances have been fixed (mostly by
 | |
| changes elsewher in the interpreter).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In urlparse.py, there is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse();
 | |
| its size limit is set to 20.  Also, new URL schemes shttp, https, and
 | |
| snews are "supported".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available.  Also added
 | |
| a sync() method, which calls the database's sync() method if there is
 | |
| one.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The mimetools.py module now uses the available Python modules for
 | |
| decoding quoted-printable, uuencode and base64 formats, rather than
 | |
| creating a subprocess.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The python debugger (pdb.py, and its base class bdb.py) now support
 | |
| conditional breakpoints.  See the docs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The modules base64.py, uu.py and quopri.py can now be used as simple
 | |
| command line utilities.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various small fixes to the nntplib.py module that I can't bother to
 | |
| document in detail.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Sjoerd Mullender's mimify.py module now supports base64 encoding and 
 | |
| includes functions to handle the funny encoding you sometimes see in mail 
 | |
| headers.  It is now documented.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - mailbox.py: Added BabylMailbox.  Improved the way the mailbox is
 | |
| gotten from the environment.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many more modules now correctly open files in binary mode when this
 | |
| is necessary on non-Unix platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The copying functions in the undocumented module shutil.py are
 | |
| smarter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Writer classes in the formatter.py module now have a flush()
 | |
| method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sgmllib.py module accepts hyphens and periods in the middle of
 | |
| attribute names.  While this is against the SGML standard, there is
 | |
| some HTML out there that uses this...
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The interface for the Python bytecode disassembler module, dis.py,
 | |
| has been enhanced quite a bit.  There's now one main function,
 | |
| dis.dis(), which takes almost any kind of object (function, module,
 | |
| class, instance, method, code object) and disassembles it; without
 | |
| arguments it disassembles 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.py 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.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The string.join() function now accepts any sequence argument, not
 | |
| just lists and tuples.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The string.maketrans() requires its first two arguments to be
 | |
| present.  The old version didn't require them, but there's not much
 | |
| point without them, and the documentation suggests that they are
 | |
| required, so we fixed the code to match the documentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The regsub.py module has a function clear_cache(), which clears its
 | |
| internal cache of compiled regular expressions.  Also, the cache now
 | |
| takes the current syntax setting into account.  (However, this module
 | |
| is now obsolete -- use the sub() or subn() functions or methods in the
 | |
| re module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The undocumented module Complex.py has been removed, now that Python
 | |
| has built-in complex numbers.  A similar module remains as
 | |
| Demo/classes/Complex.py, as an example.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 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 number of new Makefile variables have been added for special
 | |
| situations, e.g. LDLAST is appended to the link command.  These are
 | |
| used by editing the Makefile or passing them on the make command
 | |
| line.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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 Modules/makesetup script now copies any "include" lines it
 | |
| encounters verbatim into the output Makefile.  It also recognizes .cxx
 | |
| and .cpp as C++ source files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The configure script has a new option, --with-dec-threads, to enable
 | |
| DEC threads on DEC Alpha platforms.  Also, --with-threads is now an
 | |
| alias for --with-thread (this was the Most Common Typo in configure
 | |
| arguments).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many changes in Doc/Makefile; amongst others, latex2html is now used
 | |
| to generate HTML from all latex documents.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Change to the Python/C API
 | |
| --------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Because some interfaces have changed, the PYTHON_API macro has been
 | |
| bumped.  Most extensions built for the old API version will still run,
 | |
| but I can't guarantee this.  Python prints a warning message on
 | |
| version mismatches; it dumps core when the version mismatch causes a
 | |
| serious problem :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various and sundry small bugs in the "abstract" interfaces have been
 | |
| fixed.  Thanks to all the (involuntary) testers of the Python 1.4
 | |
| version!  Some new functions have been added, e.g. PySequence_List(o),
 | |
| equivalent to list(o) in Python.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New API functions PyLong_FromUnsignedLong() and
 | |
| PyLong_AsUnsignedLong().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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}().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The test macro DEBUG has changed to Py_DEBUG, to avoid interference
 | |
| with other libraries' DEBUG macros.  Likewise for any other test
 | |
| macros that didn't yet start with Py_.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.)  Similar for PyList_GET_SIZE
 | |
| and PyList_GET_ITEM.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new function, PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(), which parses
 | |
| an argument list including keyword arguments.  Contributed by Geoff
 | |
| Philbrick.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The CObject interface has a new function,
 | |
| PyCObject_Import(module, name).  It calls PyCObject_AsVoidPtr()
 | |
| on the object referenced by "module.name".
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 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, and provide more "native platform"
 | |
| style file selection dialog boxes on some platforms.  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 Image class now has a configure method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a bunch of new winfo options to Tkinter.py; we should now be
 | |
| up to date with Tk 4.2.  The new winfo options supported are:
 | |
| mananger, pointerx, pointerxy, pointery, server, viewable, visualid,
 | |
| visualsavailable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The broken bind() method on Canvas objects defined in the Canvas.py
 | |
| module has been fixed.  The CanvasItem and Group classes now also have
 | |
| an unbind() method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The problem with Tkinter.py falling back to trying to import
 | |
| "tkinter" when "_tkinter" is not found has been fixed -- it no longer
 | |
| tries "tkinter", ever.  This makes diagnosing the problem "_tkinter
 | |
| not configured" much easier and will hopefully reduce the newsgroup
 | |
| traffic on this topic.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ScrolledText module once again supports the 'cnf' parameter, to
 | |
| be compatible with the examples in Mark Lutz' book (I know, I know,
 | |
| too late...)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.  (The patch for threading
 | |
| in 1.5a3 was broken; in 1.5a4, it is back in a different version,
 | |
| which requires access to the Tcl sources to get it to work -- hence it
 | |
| is disabled by default.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A bug in _tkinter.c has been fixed, where Split() with a string
 | |
| containing an unmatched '"' could cause an exception or core dump.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Unfortunately, on Windows and Mac, Tk 8.0 no longer supports
 | |
| CreateFileHandler, so _tkinter.createfilehandler is not available on
 | |
| those platforms when using Tk 8.0 or later.  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).  Jack Jansen has
 | |
| provided a fix for the Mac, so createfilehandler *is* actually
 | |
| supported there; maybe I can adapt his fix for Windows.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 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
 | |
| n 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.  (This can also be done
 | |
| using msvcrt.setmode(), by the way.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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 various os.path modules (posixpath, ntpath, macpath) now support
 | |
| passing more than two arguments to the join() function, so
 | |
| os.path.join(a, b, c) is the same as os.path.join(a, os.path.join(b,
 | |
| c)).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The time module's clock() function now has good precision through
 | |
| the use of the Win32 API QueryPerformanceCounter().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Mark Hammond will release Python 1.5 versions of PythonWin and his
 | |
| other Windows specific code: the win32api extensions, COM/ActiveX
 | |
| support, and the MFC interface.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 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.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ======================================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.4 (October 25 1996) <==
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| (Starting in reverse chronological order:)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed disclaimer notice.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added SHELL=/bin/sh to Misc/Makefile.pre.in -- some Make versions
 | |
| default to the user's login shell.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, removed bogus binding of <Delete> in Text
 | |
| widget, and bogus bspace() function.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/cgi.py, bumped __version__ to 2.0 and restored a truncated
 | |
| paragraph.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed the NT Makefile (PC/vc40.mak) for VC 4.0 to set /MD for all
 | |
| subprojects, and to remove the (broken) experimental NumPy
 | |
| subprojects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/py_compile.py, cast mtime to long() so it will work on Mac
 | |
| (where os.stat() returns mtimes as floats.)
 | |
| - Set self.rfile unbuffered (like self.wfile) in SocketServer.py, to
 | |
| fix POST in CGIHTTPServer.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Version 2.83 of Misc/python-mode.el for Emacs is included.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Modules/regexmodule.c, fixed symcomp() to correctly handle a new
 | |
| group starting immediately after a group tag.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/SocketServer.py, changed the mode for rfile to unbuffered.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Objects/stringobject.c, fixed the compare function to do the
 | |
| first char comparison in unsigned mode, for consistency with the way
 | |
| other characters are compared by memcmp().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, fixed Scale.get() to support floats.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Lib/urllib.py, fix another case where openedurl wasn't set.
 | |
| 
 | |
| (XXX Sorry, the rest is in totally random order.  No time to fix it.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - SyntaxError exceptions detected during code generation
 | |
| (e.g. assignment to an expression) now include a line number.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Don't leave trailing / or \ in script directory inserted in front of
 | |
| sys.path.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added a note to Tools/scripts/classfix.py abouts its historical
 | |
| importance.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added Misc/Makefile.pre.in, a universal Makefile for extensions
 | |
| built outside the distribution.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Rewritten Misc/faq2html.py, by Ka-Ping Yee.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Install shared modules with mode 555 (needed for performance on some
 | |
| platforms).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some changes to standard library modules to avoid calling append()
 | |
| with more than one argument -- while supported, this should be
 | |
| outlawed, and I don't want to set a bad example.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - bdb.py (and hence pdb.py) supports calling run() with a code object
 | |
| instead of a code string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed an embarrassing bug cgi.py which prevented correct uploading
 | |
| of binary files from Netscape (which doesn't distinguish between
 | |
| binary and text files).  Also added dormant logging support, which
 | |
| makes it easier to debug the cgi module itself.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added default writer to constructor of NullFormatter class.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Use binary mode for socket.makefile() calls in ftplib.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ihooks module no longer "installs" itself upon import -- this
 | |
| was an experimental feature that helped ironing out some bugs but that
 | |
| slowed down code that imported it without the need to install it
 | |
| (e.g. the rexec module).  Also close the file in some cases and add
 | |
| the __file__ attribute to loaded modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The test program for mailbox.py is now more useful.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added getparamnames() to Message class in mimetools.py -- it returns
 | |
| the names of parameters to the content-type header.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a typo in ni that broke the loop stripping "__." from names.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix sys.path[0] for scripts run via pdb.py's new main program.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - profile.py can now also run a script, like pdb.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix a small bug in pyclbr -- don't add names starting with _ when
 | |
| emulating from ... import *.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed a series of embarrassing typos in rexec's handling of standard
 | |
| I/O redirection.  Added some more "safe" built-in modules: cmath,
 | |
| errno, operator.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed embarrassing typo in shelve.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added SliceType and EllipsisType to types.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In urllib.py, added handling for error 301 (same as 302); added
 | |
| geturl() method to get the URL after redirection.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed embarrassing typo in xdrlib.py.  Also fixed typo in Setup.in
 | |
| for _xdrmodule.c and removed redundant #include from _xdrmodule.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed bsddbmodule.c to add binary mode indicator on platforms that
 | |
| have it.  This should make it working on Windows NT.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed last uses of #ifdef NT to #ifdef MS_WINDOWS or MS_WIN32,
 | |
| whatever applies.  Also rationalized some other tests for various MS
 | |
| platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added the sources for the NT installer script used for Python
 | |
| 1.4beta3.  Not tested with this release, but better than nothing.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A compromise in pickle's defenses against Trojan horses: a
 | |
| user-defined function is now okay where a class is expected.  A
 | |
| built-in function is not okay, to prevent pickling something that
 | |
| will execute os.system("rm -f *") when unpickling.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - dis.py will print the name of local variables referenced by local
 | |
| load/store/delete instructions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved portability of SimpleHTTPServer module to non-Unix
 | |
| platform.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The thread.h interface adds an extra argument to down_sema().  This
 | |
| only affects other C code that uses thread.c; the Python thread module
 | |
| doesn't use semaphores (which aren't provided on all platforms where
 | |
| Python threads are supported).  Note: on NT, this change is not
 | |
| implemented.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some typos in abstract.h; corrected signature of
 | |
| PyNumber_Coerce, added PyMapping_DelItem.  Also fixed a bug in
 | |
| abstract.c's PyObject_CallMethod().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - apply(classname, (), {}) now works even if the class has no
 | |
| __init__() method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Implemented complex remainder and divmod() (these would dump core!).
 | |
| Conversion of complex numbers to int, long int or float now raises an
 | |
| exception, since there is no meaningful way to do it without losing
 | |
| information.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed bug in built-in complex() function which gave the wrong result
 | |
| for two real arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Change the hash algorithm for strings -- the multiplier is now
 | |
| 1000003 instead of 3, which gives better spread for short strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New default path for Windows NT, the registry structure now supports
 | |
| default paths for different install packages.  (Mark Hammond -- the
 | |
| next PythonWin release will use this.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added more symbols to the python_nt.def file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When using GNU readline, set rl_readline_name to "python".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Ellipses built-in name has been renamed to Ellipsis -- this is
 | |
| the correct singular form.  Thanks to Ka-Ping Yee, who saved us from
 | |
| eternal embarrassment.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bumped the PYTHON_API_VERSION to 1006, due to the Ellipses ->
 | |
| Ellipsis name change.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Updated the library reference manual.  Added documentation of
 | |
| restricted mode (rexec, Bastion) and the formatter module (for use
 | |
| with the htmllib module).  Fixed the documentation of htmllib
 | |
| (finally).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The reference manual is now maintained in FrameMaker.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Upgraded scripts Doc/partparse.py and Doc/texi2html.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Slight improvements to Doc/Makefile.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added fcntl.lockf(). This should be used for Unix file locking
 | |
| instead of the posixfile module; lockf() is more portable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The getopt module now supports long option names, thanks to Lars
 | |
| Wizenius.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Plenty of changes to Tkinter and Canvas, mostly due to Fred Drake
 | |
| and Nils Fischbeck.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Use more bits of time.time() in whrandom's default seed().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Performance hack for regex module's regs attribute.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Don't close already closed socket in socket module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Correctly handle separators containing embedded nulls in
 | |
| strop.split, strop.find and strop.rfind.  Also added more detail to
 | |
| error message for strop.atoi and friends.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Moved fallback definition for hypot() to Python/hypot.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added fallback definition for strdup, in Python/strdup.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed some bugs where a function would return 0 to indicate an error
 | |
| where it should return -1.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Test for error returned by time.localtime(), and rationalized its MS
 | |
| tests.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added Modules/Setup.local file, which is processed after Setup.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Corrected bug in toplevel Makefile.in -- execution of regen script
 | |
| would not use the right PATH and PYTHONPATH.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various and sundry NeXT configuration changes (sigh).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support systems where libreadline needs neither termcap nor curses.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved ld_so_aix script and python.exp file (for AIX).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More stringent test for working <stdarg.h> in configure script.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Removed Demo/www subdirectory -- it was totally out of date.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved demos and docs for Fred Drake's parser module; fixed one
 | |
| typo in the module itself.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =========================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.4beta3 (August 26 1996) <==
 | |
| =========================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| (XXX This is less readable that it should.  I promise to restructure
 | |
| it for the final 1.4 release.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| What's new in 1.4beta3 (since beta2)?
 | |
| -------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Name mangling to implement a simple form of class-private variables.
 | |
| A name of the form "__spam" can't easily be used outside the class.
 | |
| (This was added in 1.4beta3, but left out of the 1.4beta3 release
 | |
| message.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In urllib.urlopen(): HTTP URLs containing user:passwd@host are now
 | |
| handled correctly when using a proxy server.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In ntpath.normpath(): don't truncate to 8+3 format.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In mimetools.choose_boundary(): don't die when getuid() or getpid()
 | |
| aren't defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module urllib: some optimizations to (un)quoting.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module MimeWriter for writing MIME documents.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More changes to formatter module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The freeze script works once again and is much more robust (using
 | |
| sys.prefix etc.).  It also supports a -o option to specify an
 | |
| output directory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module whichdb recognizes dbm, gdbm and bsddb/dbhash files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Doc/Makefile targets have been reorganized somewhat to remove the 
 | |
| insistence on always generating PostScript.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The texinfo to html filter (Doc/texi2html.py) has been improved somewhat.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - "errors.h" has been renamed to "pyerrors.h" to resolve a long-standing 
 | |
| name conflict on the Mac.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Linking a module compiled with a different setting for Py_TRACE_REFS now 
 | |
| generates a linker error rather than a core dump.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The cgi module has a new convenience function print_exception(), which 
 | |
| formats a python exception using HTML.  It also fixes a bug in the 
 | |
| compatibility code and adds a dubious feature which makes it possible to 
 | |
| have two query strings, one in the URL and one in the POST data.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A subtle change in the unpickling of class instances makes it possible 
 | |
| to unpickle in restricted execution mode, where the __dict__ attribute is 
 | |
| not available (but setattr() is).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Documentation for os.path.splitext() (== posixpath.splitext()) has been 
 | |
| cleared up.  It splits at the *last* dot.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - posixfile locking is now also correctly supported on AIX.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The tempfile module once again honors an initial setting of tmpdir.  It 
 | |
| now works on Windows, too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The traceback module has some new functions to extract, format and print 
 | |
| the active stack.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some translation functions in the urllib module have been made a little 
 | |
| less sluggish.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The addtag_* methods for Canvas widgets in Tkinter as well as in the 
 | |
| separate Canvas class have been fixed so they actually do something 
 | |
| meaningful.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A tiny _test() function has been added to Tkinter.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A generic Makefile for dynamically loaded modules is provided in the Misc 
 | |
| subdirectory (Misc/gMakefile).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs is provided.  See
 | |
| http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for details.  The
 | |
| separate file pyimenu.el is no longer needed, imenu support is folded
 | |
| into python-mode.el.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The configure script can finally correctly find the readline library in a 
 | |
| non-standard location.  The LDFLAGS variable is passed on the the Makefiles 
 | |
| from the configure script.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Shared libraries are now installed as programs (i.e. with executable 
 | |
| permission).  This is required on HP-UX and won't hurt on other systems.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The objc.c module is no longer part of the distribution.  Objective-C 
 | |
| support may become available as contributed software on the ftp site.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sybase module is no longer part of the distribution.  A much
 | |
| improved sybase module is available as contributed software from the
 | |
| ftp site.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - _tkinter is now compatible with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 patch1 on Windows and 
 | |
| Mac (don't use unpatched Tcl/Tk!).  The default line in the Setup.in file 
 | |
| now links with Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1 rather than 7.4/4.0.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Setup, you can now write "*shared*" instead of "*noconfig*", and you 
 | |
| can use *.so and *.sl as shared libraries.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some more fidgeting for AIX shared libraries.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The mpz module is now compatible with GMP 2.x.  (Not tested by me.)
 | |
| (Note -- a complete replacement by Niels Mo"ller, called gpmodule, is
 | |
| available from the contrib directory on the ftp site.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - A warning is written to sys.stderr when a __del__ method raises an 
 | |
| exception (formerly, such exceptions were completely ignored).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The configure script now defines HAVE_OLD_CPP if the C preprocessor is 
 | |
| incapable of ANSI style token concatenation and stringification.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All source files (except a few platform specific modules) are once again 
 | |
| compatible with K&R C compilers as well as ANSI compilers.  In particular,
 | |
| ANSI-isms have been removed or made conditional in complexobject.c, 
 | |
| getargs.c and operator.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The abstract object API has three new functions, PyObject_DelItem, 
 | |
| PySequence_DelItem, and PySequence_DelSlice.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The operator module has new functions delitem and delslice, and the 
 | |
| functions "or" and "and" are renamed to "or_" and "and_" (since "or" and 
 | |
| "and" are reserved words).  ("__or__" and "__and__" are unchanged.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The environment module is no longer supported; putenv() is now a function 
 | |
| in posixmodule (also under NT).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Error in filter(<function>, "") has been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Unrecognized keyword arguments raise TypeError, not KeyError.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Better portability, fewer bugs and memory leaks, fewer compiler warnings, 
 | |
| some more documentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bug in float power boundary case (0.0 to the negative integer power) 
 | |
| fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The test of negative number to the float power has been moved from the 
 | |
| built-in pow() functin to floatobject.c (so complex numbers can yield the 
 | |
| correct result).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The bug introduced in beta2 where shared libraries loaded (using 
 | |
| dlopen()) from the current directory would fail, has been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Modules imported as shared libraries now also have a __file__ attribute, 
 | |
| giving the filename from which they were loaded.  The only modules without 
 | |
| a __file__ attribute now are built-in modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On the Mac, dynamically loaded modules can end in either ".slb" or 
 | |
| ".<platform>.slb" where <platform> is either "CFM68K" or "ppc".  The ".slb" 
 | |
| extension should only be used for "fat" binaries.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - C API addition: marshal.c now supports 
 | |
| PyMarshal_WriteObjectToString(object).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - C API addition: getargs.c now supports
 | |
| PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwdict, format, kwnames, ...)
 | |
| to parse keyword arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The PC versioning scheme (sys.winver) has changed once again.  the 
 | |
| version number is now "<digit>.<digit>.<digit>.<apiversion>", where the 
 | |
| first three <digit>s are the Python version (e.g. "1.4.0" for Python 1.4, 
 | |
| "1.4.1" for Python 1.4.1 -- the beta level is not included) and 
 | |
| <apiversion> is the four-digit PYTHON_API_VERSION (currently 1005).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - h2py.py accepts whitespace before the # in CPP directives
 | |
| 
 | |
| - On Solaris 2.5, it should now be possible to use either Posix threads or 
 | |
| Solaris threads (XXX: how do you select which is used???).  (Note: the 
 | |
| Python pthreads interface doesn't fully support semaphores yet -- anyone 
 | |
| care to fix this?)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Thread support should now work on AIX, using either DCE threads or 
 | |
| pthreads.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New file Demo/sockets/unicast.py
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Working Mac port, with CFM68K support, with Tk 4.1 support (though not 
 | |
| both) (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New project setup for PC port, now compatible with PythonWin, with 
 | |
| _tkinter and NumPy support (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module site.py (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module xdrlib.py and optional support module _xdrmodule.c (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - parser module adapted to new grammar, complete w/ Doc & Demo (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - regen script fixed (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - new machdep subdirectories Lib/{aix3,aix4,next3_3,freebsd2,linux2} (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - testall now also tests math module (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - string.atoi c.s. now raise an exception for an empty input string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - At last, it is no longer necessary to define HAVE_CONFIG_H in order to 
 | |
| have config.h included at various places.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Unrecognized keyword arguments now raise TypeError rather than KeyError.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The makesetup script recognizes files with extension .so or .sl as
 | |
| (shared) libraries.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - 'access' is no longer a reserved word, and all code related to its 
 | |
| implementation is gone (or at least #ifdef'ed out).  This should make 
 | |
| Python a little speedier too!
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Performance enhancements suggested by Sjoerd Mullender.  This includes 
 | |
| the introduction of two new optional function pointers in type object, 
 | |
| getattro and setattro, which are like getattr and setattr but take a 
 | |
| string object instead of a C string pointer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New operations in string module: lstrip(s) and rstrip(s) strip whitespace 
 | |
| only on the left or only on the right, A new optional third argument to 
 | |
| split() specifies the maximum number of separators honored (so 
 | |
| splitfields(s, sep, n) returns a list of at most n+1 elements).  (Since 
 | |
| 1.3, splitfields(s, None) is totally equivalent to split(s).)
 | |
| string.capwords() has an optional second argument specifying the 
 | |
| separator (which is passed to split()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - regsub.split() has the same addition as string.split().  regsub.splitx(s, 
 | |
| sep, maxsep) implements the functionality that was regsub.split(s, 1) in 
 | |
| 1.4beta2 (return a list containing the delimiters as well as the words).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Final touch for AIX loading, rewritten Misc/AIX-NOTES.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Modules/_tkinter.c, when using Tk 4.1 or higher, use className
 | |
| argument to _tkinter.create() to set Tcl's argv0 variable, so X
 | |
| resources use the right resource class again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Add #undef fabs to Modules/mathmodule.c for macintosh.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added some macro renames for AIX in Modules/operator.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Removed spurious 'E' from Doc/liberrno.tex.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Got rid of some cruft in Misc/ (dlMakefile, pyimenu.el); added new
 | |
| Misc/gMakefile and new version of Misc/python-mode.el.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed typo in Lib/ntpath.py (islink has "return false" which gives a
 | |
| NameError).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added missing "from types import *" to Lib/tkinter/Canvas.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added hint about using default args for __init__ to pickle docs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Corrected typo in Inclide/abstract.h: PySequence_Lenth ->
 | |
| PySequence_Length.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some improvements to Doc/texi2html.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In Python/import.c, Cast unsigned char * in struct _frozen to char *
 | |
| in calls to rds_object().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In doc/ref4.tex, added note about scope of lambda bodies.
 | |
| 
 | |
| What's new in 1.4beta2 (since beta1)?
 | |
| -------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Portability bug in the md5.h header solved.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The PC build procedure now really works, and sets sys.platform to a
 | |
| meaningful value (a few things were botched in beta 1).  Lib/dos_8x3
 | |
| is now a standard part of the distribution (alas).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More improvements to the installation procedure.  Typing "make install" 
 | |
| now inserts the version number in the pathnames of almost everything 
 | |
| installed, and creates the machine dependent modules (FCNTL.py etc.) if not 
 | |
| supplied by the distribution.  (XXX There's still a problem with the latter 
 | |
| because the "regen" script requires that Python is installed.  Some manual 
 | |
| intervention may still be required.) (This has been fixed in 1.4beta3.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New modules: errno, operator (XXX).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes for use with Numerical Python: builtin function slice() and
 | |
| Ellipses object, and corresponding syntax:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	x[lo:hi:stride]		==	x[slice(lo, hi, stride)]
 | |
| 	x[a, ..., z]		==	x[(a, Ellipses, z)]
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New documentation for errno and cgi mdoules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The directory containing the script passed to the interpreter is
 | |
| inserted in from of sys.path; "." is no longer a default path
 | |
| component.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Optional third string argument to string.translate() specifies
 | |
| characters to delete.  New function string.maketrans() creates a
 | |
| translation table for translate() or for regex.compile().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module posix (and hence module os under Unix) now supports putenv().
 | |
| Moreover, module os is enhanced so that if putenv() is supported,
 | |
| assignments to os.environ entries make the appropriate putenv() call.
 | |
| (XXX the putenv() implementation can leak a small amount of memory per
 | |
| call.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - pdb.py can now be invoked from the command line to debug a script:
 | |
| python pdb.py <script> <arg> ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Much improved parseaddr() in rfc822.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In cgi.py, you can now pass an alternative value for environ to
 | |
| nearly all functions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - You can now assign to instance variables whose name begins and ends
 | |
| with '__'.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New version of Fred Drake's parser module and associates (token,
 | |
| symbol, AST).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New PYTHON_API_VERSION value and .pyc file magic number (again!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The "complex" internal structure type is now called "Py_complex" to
 | |
| avoid name conflicts.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Numerous small bugs fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Slight pickle speedups.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some slight speedups suggested by Sjoerd (more coming in 1.4 final).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - NeXT portability mods by Bill Bumgarner integrated.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Modules regexmodule.c, bsddbmodule.c and xxmodule.c have been
 | |
| converted to new naming style.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| What's new in 1.4beta1 (since 1.3)?
 | |
| -----------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added sys.platform and sys.exec_platform for Bill Janssen.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Installation has been completely overhauled.  "make install" now installs 
 | |
| everything, not just the python binary.  Installation uses the install-sh 
 | |
| script (borrowed from X11) to install each file.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New functions in the posix module: mkfifo, plock, remove (== unlink),
 | |
| and ftruncate.  More functions are also available under NT.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New function in the fcntl module: flock.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Shared library support for FreeBSD.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The --with-readline option can now be used without a DIRECTORY argument, 
 | |
| for systems where libreadline.* is in one of the standard places.  It is 
 | |
| also possible for it to be a shared library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The extension tkinter has been renamed to _tkinter, to avoid confusion 
 | |
| with Tkinter.py oncase insensitive file systems.  It now supports Tk 4.1 as 
 | |
| well as 4.0.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Author's change of address from CWI in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to 
 | |
| CNRI in Reston, VA, USA.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The math.hypot() function is now always available (if it isn't found in 
 | |
| the C math library, Python provides its own implementation).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The latex documentation is now compatible with latex2e, thanks to David 
 | |
| Ascher.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The expression x**y is now equivalent to pow(x, y).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The indexing expression x[a, b, c] is now equivalent to x[(a, b, c)].
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Complex numbers are now supported.  Imaginary constants are written with 
 | |
| a 'j' or 'J' prefix, general complex numbers can be formed by adding a real 
 | |
| part to an imaginary part, like 3+4j.  Complex numbers are always stored in 
 | |
| floating point form, so this is equivalent to 3.0+4.0j.  It is also 
 | |
| possible to create complex numbers with the new built-in function 
 | |
| complex(re, [im]).  For the footprint-conscious, complex number support can 
 | |
| be disabled by defining the symbol WITHOUT_COMPLEX.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New built-in function list() is the long-awaited counterpart of tuple().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's a new "cmath" module which provides the same functions as the 
 | |
| "math" library but with complex arguments and results.  (There are very 
 | |
| good reasons why math.sqrt(-1) still raises an exception -- you have to use 
 | |
| cmath.sqrt(-1) to get 1j for an answer.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Python.h header file (which is really the same as allobjects.h except 
 | |
| it disables support for old style names) now includes several more files, 
 | |
| so you have to have fewer #include statements in the average extension.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The NDEBUG symbol is no longer used.  Code that used to be dependent on 
 | |
| the presence of NDEBUG is now present on the absence of DEBUG.  TRACE_REFS 
 | |
| and REF_DEBUG have been renamed to Py_TRACE_REFS and Py_REF_DEBUG, 
 | |
| respectively.  At long last, the source actually compiles and links without 
 | |
| errors when this symbol is defined.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Several symbols that didn't follow the new naming scheme have been 
 | |
| renamed (usually by adding to rename2.h) to use a Py or _Py prefix.  There 
 | |
| are no external symbols left without a Py or _Py prefix, not even those 
 | |
| defined by sources that were incorporated from elsewhere (regexpr.c, 
 | |
| md5c.c).  (Macros are a different story...)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There are now typedefs for the structures defined in config.c and 
 | |
| frozen.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New PYTHON_API_VERSION value and .pyc file magic number.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module Bastion.  (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved performance of StringIO module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - UserList module now supports + and * operators.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The binhex and binascii modules now actually work.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The cgi module has been almost totally rewritten and documented.
 | |
| It now supports file upload and a new data type to handle forms more 
 | |
| flexibly.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The formatter module (for use with htmllib) has been overhauled (again).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ftplib module now supports passive mode and has doc strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - In (ideally) all places where binary files are read or written, the file 
 | |
| is now correctly opened in binary mode ('rb' or 'wb') so the code will work 
 | |
| on Mac or PC.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Dummy versions of os.path.expandvars() and expanduser() are now provided 
 | |
| on non-Unix platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module urllib now has two new functions url2pathname and pathname2url 
 | |
| which turn local filenames into "file:..." URLs using the same rules as 
 | |
| Netscape (why be different).  it also supports urlretrieve() with a 
 | |
| pathname parameter, and honors the proxy environment variables (http_proxy 
 | |
| etc.).  The URL parsing has been improved somewhat, too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Micro improvements to urlparse.  Added urlparse.urldefrag() which 
 | |
| removes a trailing ``#fragment'' if any.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The mailbox module now supports MH style message delimiters as well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The mhlib module contains some new functionality: setcontext() to set the 
 | |
| current folder and parsesequence() to parse a sequence as commonly passed 
 | |
| to MH commands (e.g. 1-10 or last:5).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module mimify for conversion to and from MIME format of email 
 | |
| messages.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module ni now automatically installs itself when first imported -- this 
 | |
| is against the normal rule that modules should define classes and functions 
 | |
| but not invoke them, but appears more useful in the case that two 
 | |
| different, independent modules want to use ni's features.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some small performance enhancements in module pickle.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Small interface change to the profile.run*() family of functions -- more 
 | |
| sensible handling of return values.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The officially registered Mac creator for Python files is 'Pyth'.  This 
 | |
| replaces 'PYTH' which was used before but never registered.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added regsub.capwords().  (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added string.capwords(), string.capitalize() and string.translate().  
 | |
| (XXX)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fixed an interface bug in the rexec module: it was impossible to pass a 
 | |
| hooks instance to the RExec class.  rexec now also supports the dynamic 
 | |
| loading of modules from shared libraries.  Some other interfaces have been 
 | |
| added too.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Module rfc822 now caches the headers in a dictionary for more efficient 
 | |
| lookup.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The sgmllib module now understands a limited number of SGML "shorthands" 
 | |
| like <A/.../ for <A>...</A>.  (It's not clear that this was a good idea...)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The tempfile module actually tries a number of different places to find a 
 | |
| usable temporary directory.  (This was prompted by certain Linux 
 | |
| installations that appear to be missing a /usr/tmp directory.) [A bug in 
 | |
| the implementation that would ignore a pre-existing tmpdir global has been 
 | |
| fixed in beta3.]
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Much improved and enhanved FileDialog module for Tkinter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Many small changes to Tkinter, to bring it more in line with Tk 4.0 (as 
 | |
| well as Tk 4.1).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New socket interfaces include ntohs(), ntohl(), htons(), htonl(), and 
 | |
| s.dup().  Sockets now work correctly on Windows.  On Windows, the built-in 
 | |
| extension is called _socket and a wrapper module win/socket.py provides 
 | |
| "makefile()" and "dup()" functionality.  On Windows, the select module 
 | |
| works only with socket objects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bugs in bsddb module fixed (e.g. missing default argument values).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The curses extension now includes <ncurses.h> when available.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The gdbm module now supports opening databases in "fast" mode by 
 | |
| specifying 'f' as the second character or the mode string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - new variables sys.prefix and sys.exec_prefix pass corresponding 
 | |
| configuration options / Makefile variables to the Python programmer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The ``new'' module now supports creating new user-defined classes as well 
 | |
| as instances thereof.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The soundex module now sports get_soundex() to get the soundex value for an 
 | |
| arbitrary string (formerly it would only do soundex-based string 
 | |
| comparison) as well as doc strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New object type "cobject" to safely wrap void pointers for passing them 
 | |
| between various extension modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - More efficient computation of float**smallint.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The mysterious bug whereby "x.x" (two occurrences of the same 
 | |
| one-character name) typed from the commandline would sometimes fail 
 | |
| mysteriously.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The initialization of the readline function can now be invoked by a C 
 | |
| extension through PyOS_ReadlineInit().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - There's now an externally visible pointer PyImport_FrozenModules which 
 | |
| can be changed by an embedding application.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The argument parsing functions now support a new format character 'D' to 
 | |
| specify complex numbers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Various memory leaks plugged and bugs fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved support for posix threads (now that real implementations are 
 | |
| beginning to apepar).  Still no fully functioning semaphores.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Some various and sundry improvements and new entries in the Tools 
 | |
| directory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.3 (13 October 1995) <==
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Major change
 | |
| ============
 | |
| 
 | |
| Two words: Keyword Arguments.  See the first section of Chapter 12 of
 | |
| the Tutorial.
 | |
| 
 | |
| (The rest of this file is textually the same as the remaining sections
 | |
| of that chapter.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the WWW and Internet tools
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "htmllib" module has been rewritten in an incompatible fashion.
 | |
| The new version is considerably more complete (HTML 2.0 except forms,
 | |
| but including all ISO-8859-1 entity definitions), and easy to use.
 | |
| Small changes to "sgmllib" have also been made, to better match the
 | |
| tokenization of HTML as recognized by other web tools.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A new module "formatter" has been added, for use with the new
 | |
| "htmllib" module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "urllib"and "httplib" modules have been changed somewhat to allow
 | |
| overriding unknown URL types and to support authentication.  They now
 | |
| use "mimetools.Message" instead of "rfc822.Message" to parse headers.
 | |
| The "endrequest()" method has been removed from the HTTP class since
 | |
| it breaks the interaction with some servers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "rfc822.Message" class has been changed to allow a flag to be
 | |
| passed in that says that the file is unseekable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "ftplib" module has been fixed to be (hopefully) more robust on
 | |
| Linux.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Several new operations that are optionally supported by servers have
 | |
| been added to "nntplib": "xover", "xgtitle", "xpath" and "date".
 | |
| 
 | |
| Other Language Changes
 | |
| ======================
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "raise" statement now takes an optional argument which specifies
 | |
| the traceback to be used when printing the exception's stack trace.
 | |
| This must be a traceback object, such as found in "sys.exc_traceback".
 | |
| When omitted or given as "None", the old behavior (to generate a stack
 | |
| trace entry for the current stack frame) is used.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The tokenizer is now more tolerant of alien whitespace.  Control-L in
 | |
| the leading whitespace of a line resets the column number to zero,
 | |
| while Control-R just before the end of the line is ignored.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to Built-in Operations
 | |
| ==============================
 | |
| 
 | |
| For file objects, "f.read(0)" and "f.readline(0)" now return an empty
 | |
| string rather than reading an unlimited number of bytes.  For the
 | |
| latter, omit the argument altogether or pass a negative value.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A new system variable, "sys.platform", has been added.  It specifies
 | |
| the current platform, e.g. "sunos5" or "linux1".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The built-in functions "input()" and "raw_input()" now use the GNU
 | |
| readline library when it has been configured (formerly, only
 | |
| interactive input to the interpreter itself was read using GNU
 | |
| readline).  The GNU readline library provides elaborate line editing
 | |
| and history.  The Python debugger ("pdb") is the first beneficiary of
 | |
| this change.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Two new built-in functions, "globals()" and "locals()", provide access
 | |
| to dictionaries containming current global and local variables,
 | |
| respectively.  (These augment rather than replace "vars()", which
 | |
| returns the current local variables when called without an argument,
 | |
| and a module's global variables when called with an argument of type
 | |
| module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| The built-in function "compile()" now takes a third possible value for
 | |
| the kind of code to be compiled: specifying "'single'" generates code
 | |
| for a single interactive statement, which prints the output of
 | |
| expression statements that evaluate to something else than "None".
 | |
| 
 | |
| Library Changes
 | |
| ===============
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are new module "ni" and "ihooks" that support importing modules
 | |
| with hierarchical names such as "A.B.C".  This is enabled by writing
 | |
| "import ni; ni.ni()" at the very top of the main program.  These
 | |
| modules are amply documented in the Python source.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The module "rexec" has been rewritten (incompatibly) to define a class
 | |
| and to use "ihooks".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "string.split()" and "string.splitfields()" functions are now the
 | |
| same function (the presence or absence of the second argument
 | |
| determines which operation is invoked); similar for "string.join()"
 | |
| and "string.joinfields()".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The "Tkinter" module and its helper "Dialog" have been revamped to use
 | |
| keyword arguments.  Tk 4.0 is now the standard.  A new module
 | |
| "FileDialog" has been added which implements standard file selection
 | |
| dialogs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The optional built-in modules "dbm" and "gdbm" are more coordinated
 | |
| --- their "open()" functions now take the same values for their "flag"
 | |
| argument, and the "flag" and "mode" argument have default values (to
 | |
| open the database for reading only, and to create the database with
 | |
| mode "0666" minuse the umask, respectively).  The memory leaks have
 | |
| finally been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A new dbm-like module, "bsddb", has been added, which uses the BSD DB
 | |
| package's hash method.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A portable (though slow) dbm-clone, implemented in Python, has been
 | |
| added for systems where none of the above is provided.  It is aptly
 | |
| dubbed "dumbdbm".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The module "anydbm" provides a unified interface to "bsddb", "gdbm",
 | |
| "dbm", and "dumbdbm", choosing the first one available.
 | |
| 
 | |
| A new extension module, "binascii", provides a variety of operations
 | |
| for conversion of text-encoded binary data.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are three new or rewritten companion modules implemented in
 | |
| Python that can encode and decode the most common such formats: "uu"
 | |
| (uuencode), "base64" and "binhex".
 | |
| 
 | |
| A module to handle the MIME encoding quoted-printable has also been
 | |
| added: "quopri".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The parser module (which provides an interface to the Python parser's
 | |
| abstract syntax trees) has been rewritten (incompatibly) by Fred
 | |
| Drake.  It now lets you change the parse tree and compile the result!
 | |
| 
 | |
| The \code{syslog} module has been upgraded and documented.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Other Changes
 | |
| =============
 | |
| 
 | |
| The dynamic module loader recognizes the fact that different filenames
 | |
| point to the same shared library and loads the library only once, so
 | |
| you can have a single shared library that defines multiple modules.
 | |
| (SunOS / SVR4 style shared libraries only.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Jim Fulton's ``abstract object interface'' has been incorporated into
 | |
| the run-time API.  For more detailes, read the files
 | |
| "Include/abstract.h" and "Objects/abstract.c".
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Macintosh version is much more robust now.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Numerous things I have forgotten or that are so obscure no-one will
 | |
| notice them anyway :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.2 (13 April 1995) <==
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changes to Misc/python-mode.el:
 | |
|   - Wrapping and indentation within triple quote strings should work
 | |
|     properly now.
 | |
|   - `Standard' bug reporting mechanism (use C-c C-b)
 | |
|   - py-mark-block was moved to C-c C-m
 | |
|   - C-c C-v shows you the python-mode version
 | |
|   - a basic python-font-lock-keywords has been added for Emacs 19
 | |
|     font-lock colorizations.
 | |
|   - proper interaction with pending-del and del-sel modes.
 | |
|   - New py-electric-colon (:) command for improved outdenting.  Also
 | |
|     py-indent-line (TAB) should handle outdented lines better.
 | |
|   - New commands py-outdent-left (C-c C-l) and py-indent-right (C-c C-r)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The Library Reference has been restructured, and many new and
 | |
| existing modules are now documented, in particular the debugger and
 | |
| the profiler, as well as the persistency and the WWW/Internet support
 | |
| modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All known bugs have been fixed.  For example the pow(2,2,3L) bug on
 | |
| Linux has been fixed.  Also the re-entrancy problems with __del__ have
 | |
| been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All known memory leaks have been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Phase 2 of the Great Renaming has been executed.  The header files
 | |
| now use the new names (PyObject instead of object, etc.).  The linker
 | |
| also sees the new names.  Most source files still use the old names,
 | |
| by virtue of the rename2.h header file.  If you include Python.h, you
 | |
| only see the new names.  Dynamically linked modules have to be
 | |
| recompiled.  (Phase 3, fixing the rest of the sources, will be
 | |
| executed gradually with the release later versions.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The hooks for implementing "safe-python" (better called "restricted
 | |
| execution") are in place.  Specifically, the import statement is
 | |
| implemented by calling the built-in function __import__, and the
 | |
| built-in names used in a particular scope are taken from the
 | |
| dictionary __builtins__ in that scope's global dictionary.  See also
 | |
| the new (unsupported, undocumented) module rexec.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The import statement now supports the syntax "import a.b.c" and
 | |
| "from a.b.c import name".  No officially supported implementation
 | |
| exists, but one can be prototyped by replacing the built-in __import__
 | |
| function.  A proposal by Ken Manheimer is provided as newimp.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - All machinery used by the import statement (or the built-in
 | |
| __import__ function) is now exposed through the new built-in module
 | |
| "imp" (see the library reference manual).  All dynamic loading
 | |
| machinery is moved to the new file importdl.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Persistent storage is supported through the use of the modules
 | |
| "pickle" and "shelve" (implemented in Python).  There's also a "copy"
 | |
| module implementing deepcopy and normal (shallow) copy operations.
 | |
| See the library reference manual.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Documentation strings for many objects types are accessible through
 | |
| the __doc__ attribute.  Modules, classes and functions support special
 | |
| syntax to initialize the __doc__ attribute: if the first statement
 | |
| consists of just a string literal, that string literal becomes the
 | |
| value of the __doc__ attribute.  The default __doc__ attribute is
 | |
| None.  Documentation strings are also supported for built-in
 | |
| functions, types and modules; however this feature hasn't been widely
 | |
| used yet.  See the 'new' module for an example.  (Basically, the type
 | |
| object's tp_doc field contains the doc string for the type, and the
 | |
| 4th member of the methodlist structure contains the doc string for the
 | |
| method.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The __coerce__ and __cmp__ methods for user-defined classes once
 | |
| again work as expected.  As an example, there's a new standard class
 | |
| Complex in the library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The functions posix.popen() and posix.fdopen() now have an optional
 | |
| third argument to specify the buffer size, and default their second
 | |
| (mode) argument to 'r' -- in analogy to the builtin open() function.
 | |
| The same applies to posixfile.open() and the socket method makefile().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The thread.exit_thread() function now raises SystemExit so that
 | |
| 'finally' clauses are honored and a memory leak is plugged.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved X11 and Motif support, by Sjoerd Mullender.  This extension
 | |
| is being maintained and distributed separately.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved support for the Apple Macintosh, in part by Jack Jansen,
 | |
| e.g. interfaces to (a few) resource mananger functions, get/set file
 | |
| type and creator, gestalt, sound manager, speech manager, MacTCP, comm
 | |
| toolbox, and the think C console library.  This is being maintained
 | |
| and distributed separately.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Improved version for Windows NT, by Mark Hammond.  This is being
 | |
| maintained and distributed separately.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Used autoconf 2.0 to generate the configure script.  Adapted
 | |
| configure.in to use the new features in autoconf 2.0.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - It now builds on the NeXT without intervention, even on the 3.3
 | |
| Sparc pre-release.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Characters passed to isspace() and friends are masked to nonnegative
 | |
| values.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Correctly compute pow(-3.0, 3).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Fix portability problems with getopt (configure now checks for a
 | |
| non-GNU getopt).
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Don't add frozenmain.o to libPython.a.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Exceptions can now be classes.  ALl built-in exceptions are still
 | |
| string objects, but this will change in the future.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The socket module exports a long list of socket related symbols.
 | |
| (More built-in modules will export their symbolic constants instead of
 | |
| relying on a separately generated Python module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - When a module object is deleted, it clears out its own dictionary.
 | |
| This fixes a circularity in the references between functions and
 | |
| their global dictionary.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Changed the error handling by [new]getargs() e.g. for "O&".
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Dynamic loading of modules using shared libraries is supported for
 | |
| several new platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Support "O&", "[...]" and "{...}" in mkvalue().
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Extension to findmethod(): findmethodinchain() (where a chain is a
 | |
| linked list of methodlist arrays).  The calling interface for
 | |
| findmethod() has changed: it now gets a pointer to the (static!)
 | |
| methodlist structure rather than just to the function name -- this
 | |
| saves copying flags etc. into the (short-lived) method object.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - The callable() function is now public.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Object types can define a few new operations by setting function
 | |
| pointers in the type object structure: tp_call defines how an object
 | |
| is called, and tp_str defines how an object's str() is computed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.1.1 (10 Nov 1994) <==
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| This is a pure bugfix release again.  See the ChangeLog file for details.
 | |
| 
 | |
| One exception: a few new features were added to tkinter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.1 (11 Oct 1994) <==
 | |
| =================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| This release adds several new features, improved configuration and
 | |
| portability, and fixes more bugs than I can list here (including some
 | |
| memory leaks).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The source compiles and runs out of the box on more platforms than
 | |
| ever -- including Windows NT.  Makefiles or projects for a variety of
 | |
| non-UNIX platforms are provided.
 | |
| 
 | |
| APOLOGY: some new features are badly documented or not at all.  I had
 | |
| the choice -- postpone the new release indefinitely, or release it
 | |
| now, with working code but some undocumented areas.  The problem with
 | |
| postponing the release is that people continue to suffer from existing
 | |
| bugs, and send me patches based on the previous release -- which I
 | |
| can't apply directly because my own source has changed.  Also, some
 | |
| new modules (like signal) have been ready for release for quite some
 | |
| time, and people are anxiously waiting for them.  In the case of
 | |
| signal, the interface is simple enough to figure out without
 | |
| documentation (if you're anxious enough :-).  In this case it was not
 | |
| simple to release the module on its own, since it relies on many small
 | |
| patches elsewhere in the source.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For most new Python modules, the source code contains comments that
 | |
| explain how to use them.  Documentation for the Tk interface, written
 | |
| by Matt Conway, is available as tkinter-doc.tar.gz from the Python
 | |
| home and mirror ftp sites (see Misc/FAQ for ftp addresses).  For the
 | |
| new operator overloading facilities, have a look at Demo/classes:
 | |
| Complex.py and Rat.py show how to implement a numeric type without and
 | |
| with __coerce__ method.  Also have a look at the end of the Tutorial
 | |
| document (Doc/tut.tex).  If you're still confused: use the newsgroup
 | |
| or mailing list.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New language features:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - More flexible operator overloading for user-defined classes
 | |
|     (INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS!)  See end of tutorial.
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Classes can define methods named __getattr__, __setattr__ and
 | |
|     __delattr__ to trap attribute accesses.  See end of tutorial.
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Classes can define method __call__ so instances can be called
 | |
|     directly.  See end of tutorial.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New support facilities:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - The Makefiles (for the base interpreter as well as for extensions)
 | |
|     now support creating dynamically loadable modules if the platform
 | |
|     supports shared libraries.
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Passing the interpreter a .pyc file as script argument will execute
 | |
|     the code in that file.  (On the Mac such files can be double-clicked!)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - New Freeze script, to create independently distributable "binaries"
 | |
|     of Python programs -- look in Demo/freeze
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Improved h2py script (in Demo/scripts) follows #includes and
 | |
|     supports macros with one argument
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - New module compileall generates .pyc files for all modules in a
 | |
|     directory (tree) without also executing them
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Threads should work on more platforms
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New built-in modules:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - tkinter (support for Tcl's Tk widget set) is now part of the base
 | |
|     distribution
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - signal allows catching or ignoring UNIX signals (unfortunately still
 | |
|     undocumented -- any taker?)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - termios provides portable access to POSIX tty settings
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - curses provides an interface to the System V curses library
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - syslog provides an interface to the (BSD?) syslog daemon
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - 'new' provides interfaces to create new built-in object types
 | |
|     (e.g. modules and functions)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - sybase provides an interface to SYBASE database
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New/obsolete built-in methods:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - callable(x) tests whether x can be called
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - sockets now have a setblocking() method
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - sockets no longer have an allowbroadcast() method
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - socket methods send() and sendto() return byte count
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New standard library modules:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - types.py defines standard names for built-in types, e.g. StringType
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - urlparse.py parses URLs according to the latest Internet draft
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - uu.py does uuencode/uudecode (not the fastest in the world, but
 | |
|     quicker than installing uuencode on a non-UNIX machine :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - New, faster and more powerful profile module.py
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - mhlib.py provides interface to MH folders and messages
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New facilities for extension writers (unfortunately still
 | |
| undocumented):
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - newgetargs() supports optional arguments and improved error messages
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - O!, O& O? formats for getargs allow more versatile type checking of
 | |
|     non-standard types
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - can register pending asynchronous callback, to be called the next
 | |
|     time the Python VM begins a new instruction (Py_AddPendingCall)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - can register cleanup routines to be called when Python exits
 | |
|     (Py_AtExit)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - makesetup script understands C++ files in Setup file (use file.C
 | |
|     or file.cc)
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - Make variable OPT is passed on to sub-Makefiles
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - An init<module>() routine may signal an error by not entering
 | |
|     the module in the module table and raising an exception instead
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - For long module names, instead of foobarbletchmodule.c you can
 | |
|     use foobarbletch.c
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - getintvalue() and getfloatvalue() try to convert any object
 | |
|     instead of requiring an "intobject" or "floatobject"
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - All the [new]getargs() formats that retrieve an integer value
 | |
|     will now also work if a float is passed
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - C function listtuple() converts list to tuple, fast
 | |
| 
 | |
|     - You should now call sigcheck() instead of intrcheck();
 | |
|     sigcheck() also sets an exception when it returns nonzero
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.0.3 (14 July 1994) <==
 | |
| ====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| This release consists entirely of bug fixes to the C sources; see the
 | |
| head of ../ChangeLog for a complete list.  Most important bugs fixed:
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Sometimes the format operator (string%expr) would drop the last
 | |
| character of the format string
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Tokenizer looped when last line did not end in \n
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Bug when triple-quoted string ended in quote plus newline
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Typo in socketmodule (listen) (== instead of =)
 | |
| 
 | |
| - typing vars() at the >>> prompt would cause recursive output
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.0.2 (4 May 1994) <==
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Overview of the most visible changes.  Bug fixes are not listed.  See
 | |
| also ChangeLog.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Tokens
 | |
| ------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * String literals follow Standard C rules: they may be continued on
 | |
| the next line using a backslash; adjacent literals are concatenated
 | |
| at compile time.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A new kind of string literals, surrounded by triple quotes (""" or
 | |
| '''), can be continued on the next line without a backslash.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Syntax
 | |
| ------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Function arguments may have a default value, e.g. def f(a, b=1);
 | |
| defaults are evaluated at function definition time.  This also applies
 | |
| to lambda.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The try-except statement has an optional else clause, which is
 | |
| executed when no exception occurs in the try clause.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Interpreter
 | |
| -----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The result of a statement-level expression is no longer printed,
 | |
| except_ for expressions entered interactively.  Consequently, the -k
 | |
| command line option is gone.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The result of the last printed interactive expression is assigned to
 | |
| the variable '_'.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Access to implicit global variables has been speeded up by removing
 | |
| an always-failing dictionary lookup in the dictionary of local
 | |
| variables (mod suggested by Steve Makewski and Tim Peters).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is a new command line option, -u, to force stdout and stderr
 | |
| to be unbuffered.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Incorporated Steve Majewski's mods to import.c for dynamic loading
 | |
| under AIX.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fewer chances of dumping core when trying to reload or re-import
 | |
| static built-in, dynamically loaded built-in, or frozen modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Loops over sequences now don't ask for the sequence's length when
 | |
| they start, but try to access items 0, 1, 2, and so on until they hit
 | |
| an IndexError.  This makes it possible to create classes that generate
 | |
| infinite or indefinite sequences a la Steve Majewski.  This affects
 | |
| for loops, the (not) in operator, and the built-in functions filter(),
 | |
| map(), max(), min(), reduce().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Built-in operations
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The '%' operator on strings (printf-style formatting) supports a new
 | |
| feature (adapted from a patch by Donald Beaudry) to allow
 | |
| '%(<key>)<format>' % {...} to take values from a dictionary by name
 | |
| instead of from a tuple by position (see also the new function
 | |
| vars()).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The '%s' formatting operator is changed to accept any type and
 | |
| convert it to a string using str().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Dictionaries with more than 20,000 entries can now be created
 | |
| (thanks to Steve Kirsch).
 | |
| 
 | |
| New Built-in Functions
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * vars() returns a dictionary containing the local variables; vars(m)
 | |
| returns a dictionary containing the variables of module m.  Note:
 | |
| dir(x) is now equivalent to vars(x).keys().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Built-in Functions
 | |
| --------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * open() has an optional third argument to specify the buffer size: 0
 | |
| for unbuffered, 1 for line buffered, >1 for explicit buffer size, <0
 | |
| for default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * open()'s second argument is now optional; it defaults to "r".
 | |
| 
 | |
| * apply() now checks that its second argument is indeed a tuple.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New Built-in Modules
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Built-in Modules
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The thread module no longer supports exit_prog().
 | |
| 
 | |
| New Python Modules
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module addpack contains a standard interface to modify sys.path to
 | |
| find optional packages (groups of related modules).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module urllib contains a number of functions to access
 | |
| World-Wide-Web files specified by their URL.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module httplib implements the client side of the HTTP protocol used
 | |
| by World-Wide-Web servers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module gopherlib implements the client side of the Gopher protocol.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module mailbox (by Jack Jansen) contains a parser for UNIX and MMDF
 | |
| style mailbox files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module random contains various random distributions, e.g. gauss().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module lockfile locks and unlocks open files using fcntl (inspired
 | |
| by a similar module by Andy Bensky).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module ntpath (by Jaap Vermeulen) implements path operations for
 | |
| Windows/NT.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module test_thread (in Lib/test) contains a small test set for the
 | |
| thread module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Python Modules
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The string module's expandvars() function is now documented and is
 | |
| implemented in Python (using regular expressions) instead of forking
 | |
| off a shell process.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module rfc822 now supports accessing the header fields using the
 | |
| mapping/dictionary interface, e.g. h['subject'].
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module pdb now makes it possible to set a break on a function
 | |
| (syntax: break <expression>, where <expression> yields a function
 | |
| object).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changed Demos
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The Demo/scripts/freeze.py script is working again (thanks to Jaap
 | |
| Vermeulen).
 | |
| 
 | |
| New Demos
 | |
| ---------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Demo/threads/Generator.py is a proposed interface for restartable
 | |
| functions a la Tim Peters.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Demo/scripts/newslist.py, by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, generates a
 | |
| directory full of HTML pages which between them contain links to all
 | |
| the newsgroups available on your server.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Demo/dns contains a DNS (Domain Name Server) client.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Demo/lutz contains miscellaneous demos by Mark Lutz (e.g. psh.py, a
 | |
| nice enhanced Python shell!!!).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Demo/turing contains a Turing machine by Amrit Prem.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Documentation
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Documented new language features mentioned above (but not all new
 | |
| modules).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Added a chapter to the Tutorial describing recent additions to
 | |
| Python.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Clarified some sentences in the reference manual,
 | |
| e.g. break/continue, local/global scope, slice assignment.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Source Structure
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Moved Include/tokenizer.h to Parser/tokenizer.h.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Added Python/getopt.c for systems that don't have it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Emacs mode
 | |
| ----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Indentation of continuated lines is done more intelligently;
 | |
| consequently the variable py-continuation-offset is gone.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ========================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.0.1 (15 February 1994) <==
 | |
| ========================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Many portability fixes should make it painless to build Python on
 | |
| several new platforms, e.g. NeXT, SEQUENT, WATCOM, DOS, and Windows.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed test for <stdarg.h> -- this broke on some platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed test for shared library dynalic loading -- this broke on SunOS
 | |
| 4.x using the GNU loader.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Changed order and number of SVR4 networking libraries (it is now
 | |
| -lsocket -linet -lnsl, if these libraries exist).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Installing the build intermediate stages with "make libainstall" now
 | |
| also installs config.c.in, Setup and makesetup, which are used by the
 | |
| new Extensions mechanism.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Improved README file contains more hints and new troubleshooting
 | |
| section.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The built-in module strop now defines fast versions of three more
 | |
| functions of the standard string module: atoi(), atol() and atof().
 | |
| The strop versions of atoi() and atol() support an optional second
 | |
| argument to specify the base (default 10).  NOTE: you don't have to
 | |
| explicitly import strop to use the faster versions -- the string
 | |
| module contains code to let versions from stop override the default
 | |
| versions.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is now a working Lib/dospath.py for those who use Python under
 | |
| DOS (or Windows).  Thanks, Jaap!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is now a working Modules/dosmodule.c for DOS (or Windows)
 | |
| system calls.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Lib.os.py has been reorganized (making it ready for more operating
 | |
| systems).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Lib/ospath.py is now obsolete (use os.path instead).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Many fixes to the tutorial to make it match Python 1.0.  Thanks,
 | |
| Tim!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed Doc/Makefile, Doc/README and various scripts there.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Added missing description of fdopen to Doc/libposix.tex.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Made cleanup() global, for the benefit of embedded applications.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Added parsing of addresses and dates to Lib/rfc822.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Small fixes to Lib/aifc.py, Lib/sunau.py, Lib/tzparse.py to make
 | |
| them usable at all.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New module Lib/wave.py reads RIFF (*.wav) audio files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module Lib/filewin.py moved to Lib/stdwin/filewin.py where it
 | |
| belongs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New options and comments for Modules/makesetup (used by new
 | |
| Extension mechanism).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Misc/HYPE contains text of announcement of 1.0.0 in comp.lang.misc
 | |
| and elsewhere.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed coredump in filter(None, 'abcdefg').
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =======================================
 | |
| ==> Release 1.0.0 (26 January 1994) <==
 | |
| =======================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| As is traditional, so many things have changed that I can't pretend to
 | |
| be complete in these release notes, but I'll try anyway :-)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Note that the very last section is labeled "remaining bugs".
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Source organization and build process
 | |
| -------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The sources have finally been split: instead of a single src
 | |
| subdirectory there are now separate directories Include, Parser,
 | |
| Grammar, Objects, Python and Modules.  Other directories also start
 | |
| with a capital letter: Misc, Doc, Lib, Demo.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A few extensions (notably Amoeba and X support) have been moved to a
 | |
| separate subtree Extensions, which is no longer in the core
 | |
| distribution, but separately ftp'able as extensions.tar.Z.  (The
 | |
| distribution contains a placeholder Ext-dummy with a description of
 | |
| the Extensions subtree as well as the most recent versions of the
 | |
| scripts used there.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A few large specialized demos (SGI video and www) have been
 | |
| moved to a separate subdirectory Demo2, which is no longer in the core
 | |
| distribution, but separately ftp'able as demo2.tar.Z.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Parts of the standard library have been moved to subdirectories:
 | |
| there are now standard subdirectories stdwin, test, sgi and sun4.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The configuration process has radically changed: I now use GNU
 | |
| autoconf.  This makes it much easier to build on new Unix flavors, as
 | |
| well as fully supporting VPATH (if your Make has it).  The scripts
 | |
| Configure.py and Addmodule.sh are no longer needed.  Many source files
 | |
| have been adapted in order to work with the symbols that the configure
 | |
| script generated by autoconf defines (or not); the resulting source is
 | |
| much more portable to different C compilers and operating systems,
 | |
| even non Unix systems (a Mac port was done in an afternoon).  See the
 | |
| toplevel README file for a description of the new build process.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * GNU readline (a slightly newer version) is now a subdirectory of the
 | |
| Python toplevel.  It is still not automatically configured (being
 | |
| totally autoconf-unaware :-).  One problem has been solved: typing
 | |
| Control-C to a readline prompt will now work.  The distribution no
 | |
| longer contains a "super-level" directory (above the python toplevel
 | |
| directory), and dl, dl-dld and GNU dld are no longer part of the
 | |
| Python distribution (you can still ftp them from
 | |
| ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/dynload).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The DOS functions have been taken out of posixmodule.c and moved
 | |
| into a separate file dosmodule.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's now a separate file version.c which contains nothing but
 | |
| the version number.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The actual main program is now contained in config.c (unless NO_MAIN
 | |
| is defined); pythonmain.c now contains a function realmain() which is
 | |
| called from config.c's main().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * All files needed to use the built-in module md5 are now contained in
 | |
| the distribution.  The module has been cleaned up considerably.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Documentation
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The library manual has been split into many more small latex files,
 | |
| so it is easier to edit Doc/lib.tex file to create a custom library
 | |
| manual, describing only those modules supported on your system.  (This
 | |
| is not automated though.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A fourth manual has been added, titled "Extending and Embedding the
 | |
| Python Interpreter" (Doc/ext.tex), which collects information about
 | |
| the interpreter which was previously spread over several files in the
 | |
| misc subdirectory.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The entire documentation is now also available on-line for those who
 | |
| have a WWW browser (e.g. NCSA Mosaic).  Point your browser to the URL
 | |
| "http://www.cwi.nl/~guido/Python.html".
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Syntax
 | |
| ------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Strings may now be enclosed in double quotes as well as in single
 | |
| quotes.  There is no difference in interpretation.  The repr() of
 | |
| string objects will use double quotes if the string contains a single
 | |
| quote and no double quotes.  Thanks to Amrit Prem for these changes!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is a new keyword 'exec'.  This replaces the exec() built-in
 | |
| function.  If a function contains an exec statement, local variable
 | |
| optimization is not performed for that particular function, thus
 | |
| making assignment to local variables in exec statements less
 | |
| confusing.  (As a consequence, os.exec and python.exec have been
 | |
| renamed to execv.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is a new keyword 'lambda'.  An expression of the form
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	lambda <parameters> : <expression>
 | |
| 
 | |
| yields an anonymous function.  This is really only syntactic sugar;
 | |
| you can just as well define a local function using
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	def some_temporary_name(<parameters>): return <expression>
 | |
| 
 | |
| Lambda expressions are particularly useful in combination with map(),
 | |
| filter() and reduce(), described below.  Thanks to Amrit Prem for
 | |
| submitting this code (as well as map(), filter(), reduce() and
 | |
| xrange())!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in functions
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The built-in module containing the built-in functions is called
 | |
| __builtin__ instead of builtin.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New built-in functions map(), filter() and reduce() perform standard
 | |
| functional programming operations (though not lazily):
 | |
| 
 | |
| - map(f, seq) returns a new sequence whose items are the items from
 | |
| seq with f() applied to them.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - filter(f, seq) returns a subsequence of seq consisting of those
 | |
| items for which f() is true.
 | |
| 
 | |
| - reduce(f, seq, initial) returns a value computed as follows:
 | |
| 	acc = initial
 | |
| 	for item in seq: acc = f(acc, item)
 | |
| 	return acc
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New function xrange() creates a "range object".  Its arguments are
 | |
| the same as those of range(), and when used in a for loop a range
 | |
| objects also behaves identical.  The advantage of xrange() over
 | |
| range() is that its representation (if the range contains many
 | |
| elements) is much more compact than that of range().  The disadvantage
 | |
| is that the result cannot be used to initialize a list object or for
 | |
| the "Python idiom" [RED, GREEN, BLUE] = range(3).  On some modern
 | |
| architectures, benchmarks have shown that "for i in range(...): ..."
 | |
| actually executes *faster* than "for i in xrange(...): ...", but on
 | |
| memory starved machines like PCs running DOS range(100000) may be just
 | |
| too big to be represented at all...
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Built-in function exec() has been replaced by the exec statement --
 | |
| see above.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| The interpreter
 | |
| ---------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Syntax errors are now not printed to stderr by the parser, but
 | |
| rather the offending line and other relevant information are packed up
 | |
| in the SyntaxError exception argument.  When the main loop catches a
 | |
| SyntaxError exception it will print the error in the same format as
 | |
| previously, but at the proper position in the stack traceback.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * You can now set a maximum to the number of traceback entries
 | |
| printed by assigning to sys.tracebacklimit.  The default is 1000.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The version number in .pyc files has changed yet again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * It is now possible to have a .pyc file without a corresponding .py
 | |
| file.  (Warning: this may break existing installations if you have an
 | |
| old .pyc file lingering around somewhere on your module search path
 | |
| without a corresponding .py file, when there is a .py file for a
 | |
| module of the same name further down the path -- the new interpreter
 | |
| will find the first .pyc file and complain about it, while the old
 | |
| interpreter would ignore it and use the .py file further down.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The list sys.builtin_module_names is now sorted and also contains
 | |
| the names of a few hardwired built-in modules (sys, __main__ and
 | |
| __builtin__).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A module can now find its own name by accessing the global variable
 | |
| __name__.  Assigning to this variable essentially renames the module
 | |
| (it should also be stored under a different key in sys.modules).
 | |
| A neat hack follows from this: a module that wants to execute a main
 | |
| program when called as a script no longer needs to compare
 | |
| sys.argv[0]; it can simply do "if __name__ == '__main__': main()".
 | |
| 
 | |
| * When an object is printed by the print statement, its implementation
 | |
| of str() is used.  This means that classes can define __str__(self) to
 | |
| direct how their instances are printed.  This is different from
 | |
| __repr__(self), which should define an unambigous string
 | |
| representation of the instance.  (If __str__() is not defined, it
 | |
| defaults to __repr__().)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Functions and code objects can now be compared meaningfully.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * On systems supporting SunOS or SVR4 style shared libraries, dynamic
 | |
| loading of modules using shared libraries is automatically configured.
 | |
| Thanks to Bill Jansen and Denis Severson for contributing this change!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in objects
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * File objects have acquired a new method writelines() which is the
 | |
| reverse of readlines().  (It does not actually write lines, just a
 | |
| list of strings, but the symmetry makes the choice of name OK.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Built-in modules
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Socket objects no longer support the avail() method.  Use the select
 | |
| module instead, or use this function to replace it:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	def avail(f):
 | |
| 		import select
 | |
| 		return f in select.select([f], [], [], 0)[0]
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Initialization of stdwin is done differently.  It actually modifies
 | |
| sys.argv (taking out the options the X version of stdwin recognizes)
 | |
| the first time it is imported.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A new built-in module parser provides a rudimentary interface to the
 | |
| python parser.  Corresponding standard library modules token and symbol
 | |
| defines the numeric values of tokens and non-terminal symbols.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The posix module has aquired new functions setuid(), setgid(),
 | |
| execve(), and exec() has been renamed to execv().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The array module is extended with 8-byte object swaps, the 'i'
 | |
| format character, and a reverse() method.  The read() and write()
 | |
| methods are renamed to fromfile() and tofile().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The rotor module has freed of portability bugs.  This introduces a
 | |
| backward compatibility problem: strings encoded with the old rotor
 | |
| module can't be decoded by the new version.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * For select.select(), a timeout (4th) argument of None means the same
 | |
| as leaving the timeout argument out.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module strop (and hence standard library module string) has aquired
 | |
| a new function: rindex().  Thanks to Amrit Prem!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module regex defines a new function symcomp() which uses an extended
 | |
| regular expression syntax: parenthesized subexpressions may be labeled
 | |
| using the form "\(<labelname>...\)", and the group() method can return
 | |
| sub-expressions by name.  Thanks to Tracy Tims for these changes!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Multiple threads are now supported on Solaris 2.  Thanks to Sjoerd
 | |
| Mullender!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Standard library modules
 | |
| ------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The library is now split in several subdirectories: all stuff using
 | |
| stdwin is in Lib/stdwin, all SGI specific (or SGI Indigo or GL) stuff
 | |
| is in Lib/sgi, all Sun Sparc specific stuff is in Lib/sun4, and all
 | |
| test modules are in Lib/test.  The default module search path will
 | |
| include all relevant subdirectories by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module os now knows about trying to import dos.  It defines
 | |
| functions execl(), execle(), execlp() and execvp().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New module dospath (should be attacked by a DOS hacker though).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * All modules defining classes now define __init__() constructors
 | |
| instead of init() methods.  THIS IS AN INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Some minor changes and bugfixes module ftplib (mostly Steve
 | |
| Majewski's suggestions); the debug() method is renamed to
 | |
| set_debuglevel().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Some new test modules (not run automatically by testall though):
 | |
| test_audioop, test_md5, test_rgbimg, test_select.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module string now defines rindex() and rfind() in analogy of index()
 | |
| and find().  It also defines atof() and atol() (and corresponding
 | |
| exceptions) in analogy to atoi().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Added help() functions to modules profile and pdb.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The wdb debugger (now in Lib/stdwin) now shows class or instance
 | |
| variables on a double click.  Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The (undocumented) module lambda has gone -- you couldn't import it
 | |
| any more, and it was basically more a demo than a library module...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Multimedia extensions
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The optional built-in modules audioop and imageop are now standard
 | |
| parts of the interpreter.  Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender and Jack Jansen
 | |
| for contributing this code!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new operation in audioop: minmax().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new built-in module called rgbimg which supports portable
 | |
| efficient reading of SGI RCG image files.  Thanks also to Paul
 | |
| Haeberli for the original code!  (Who will contribute a GIF reader?)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The module aifc is gone -- you should now always use aifc, which has
 | |
| received a facelift.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new module sunau., for reading Sun (and NeXT) audio files.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new module audiodev which provides a uniform interface to
 | |
| (SGI Indigo and Sun Sparc) audio hardware.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new module sndhdr which recognizes various sound files by
 | |
| looking in their header and checking for various magic words.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optimizations
 | |
| -------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Most optimizations below can be configured by compile-time flags.
 | |
| Thanks to Sjoerd Mullender for submitting these optimizations!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Small integers (default -1..99) are shared -- i.e. if two different
 | |
| functions compute the same value it is possible (but not
 | |
| guaranteed!!!) that they return the same *object*.  Python programs
 | |
| can detect this but should *never* rely on it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Empty tuples (which all compare equal) are shared in the same
 | |
| manner.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Tuples of size up to 20 (default) are put in separate free lists
 | |
| when deallocated.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is a compile-time option to cache a string's hash function,
 | |
| but this appeared to have a negligeable effect, and as it costs 4
 | |
| bytes per string it is disabled by default.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Embedding Python
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The initialization interface has been simplified somewhat.  You now
 | |
| only call "initall()" to initialize the interpreter.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The previously announced renaming of externally visible identifiers
 | |
| has not been carried out.  It will happen in a later release.  Sorry.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous bugs that have been fixed
 | |
| ---------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * All known portability bugs.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Version 0.9.9 dumped core in <listobject>.sort() which has been
 | |
| fixed.  Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen for fixing this and posting the fix
 | |
| on the mailing list while I was away!
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Core dump on a format string ending in '%', e.g. in the expression
 | |
| '%' % None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The array module yielded a bogus result for concatenation (a+b would
 | |
| yield a+a).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Some serious memory leaks in strop.split() and strop.splitfields().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Several problems with the nis module.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Subtle problem when copying a class method from another class
 | |
| through assignment (the method could not be called).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Remaining bugs
 | |
| --------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * One problem with 64-bit machines remains -- since .pyc files are
 | |
| portable and use only 4 bytes to represent an integer object, 64-bit
 | |
| integer literals are silently truncated when written into a .pyc file.
 | |
| Work-around: use eval('123456789101112').
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The freeze script doesn't work any more.  A new and more portable
 | |
| one can probably be cooked up using tricks from Extensions/mkext.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The dos support hasn't been tested yet.  (Really Soon Now we should
 | |
| have a PC with a working C compiler!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.9 (29 Jul 1993) <==
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| I *believe* these are the main user-visible changes in this release,
 | |
| but there may be others.  SGI users may scan the {src,lib}/ChangeLog
 | |
| files for improvements of some SGI specific modules, e.g. aifc and
 | |
| cl.  Developers of extension modules should also read src/ChangeLog.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Naming of C symbols used by the Python interpreter
 | |
| --------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * This is the last release using the current naming conventions.  New
 | |
| naming conventions are explained in the file misc/NAMING.
 | |
| Summarizing, all externally visible symbols get (at least) a "Py"
 | |
| prefix, and most functions are renamed to the standard form
 | |
| PyModule_FunctionName.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Writers of extensions are urged to start using the new naming
 | |
| conventions.  The next release will use the new naming conventions
 | |
| throughout (it will also have a different source directory
 | |
| structure).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * As a result of the preliminary work for the great renaming, many
 | |
| functions that were accidentally global have been made static.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| BETA X11 support
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There are now modules interfacing to the X11 Toolkit Intrinsics, the
 | |
| Athena widgets, and the Motif 1.1 widget set.  These are not yet
 | |
| documented except through the examples and README file in the demo/x11
 | |
| directory.  It is expected that this interface will be replaced by a
 | |
| more powerful and correct one in the future, which may or may not be
 | |
| backward compatible.  In other words, this part of the code is at most
 | |
| BETA level software!  (Note: the rest of Python is rock solid as ever!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * I understand that the above may be a bit of a disappointment,
 | |
| however my current schedule does not allow me to change this situation
 | |
| before putting the release out of the door.  By releasing it
 | |
| undocumented and buggy, at least some of the (working!) demo programs,
 | |
| like itr (my Internet Talk Radio browser) become available to a larger
 | |
| audience.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There are also modules interfacing to SGI's "Glx" widget (a GL
 | |
| window wrapped in a widget) and to NCSA's "HTML" widget (which can
 | |
| format HyperText Markup Language, the document format used by the
 | |
| World Wide Web).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * I've experienced some problems when building the X11 support.  In
 | |
| particular, the Xm and Xaw widget sets don't go together, and it
 | |
| appears that using X11R5 is better than using X11R4.  Also the threads
 | |
| module and its link time options may spoil things.  My own strategy is
 | |
| to build two Python binaries: one for use with X11 and one without
 | |
| it, which can contain a richer set of built-in modules.  Don't even
 | |
| *think* of loading the X11 modules dynamically...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Environmental changes
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Compiled files (*.pyc files) created by this Python version are
 | |
| incompatible with those created by the previous version.  Both
 | |
| versions detect this and silently create a correct version, but it
 | |
| means that it is not a good idea to use the same library directory for
 | |
| an old and a new interpreter, since they will start to "fight" over
 | |
| the *.pyc files...
 | |
| 
 | |
| * When a stack trace is printed, the exception is printed last instead
 | |
| of first.  This means that if the beginning of the stack trace
 | |
| scrolled out of your window you can still see what exception caused
 | |
| it.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Sometimes interrupting a Python operation does not work because it
 | |
| hangs in a blocking system call.  You can now kill the interpreter by
 | |
| interrupting it three times.  The second time you interrupt it, a
 | |
| message will be printed telling you that the third interrupt will kill
 | |
| the interpreter.  The "sys.exitfunc" feature still makes limited
 | |
| clean-up possible in this case.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the command line interface
 | |
| -------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The python usage message is now much more informative.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New option -i enters interactive mode after executing a script --
 | |
| useful for debugging.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New option -k raises an exception when an expression statement
 | |
| yields a value other than None.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * For each option there is now also a corresponding environment
 | |
| variable.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Using Python as an embedded language
 | |
| ------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The distribution now contains (some) documentation on the use of
 | |
| Python as an "embedded language" in other applications, as well as a
 | |
| simple example.  See the file misc/EMBEDDING and the directory embed/.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Speed improvements
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Function local variables are now generally stored in an array and
 | |
| accessed using an integer indexing operation, instead of through a
 | |
| dictionary lookup.  (This compensates the somewhat slower dictionary
 | |
| lookup caused by the generalization of the dictionary module.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the syntax
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Continuation lines can now *sometimes* be written without a
 | |
| backslash: if the continuation is contained within nesting (), [] or
 | |
| {} brackets the \ may be omitted.  There's a much improved
 | |
| python-mode.el in the misc directory which knows about this as well.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * You can no longer use an empty set of parentheses to define a class
 | |
| without base classes.  That is, you no longer write this:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class Foo(): # syntax error
 | |
| 		...
 | |
| 
 | |
| You must write this instead:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class Foo:
 | |
| 		...
 | |
| 
 | |
| This was already the preferred syntax in release 0.9.8 but many
 | |
| people seemed not to have picked it up.  There's a Python script that
 | |
| fixes old code: demo/scripts/classfix.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There's a new reserved word: "access".  The syntax and semantics are
 | |
| still subject of of research and debate (as well as undocumented), but
 | |
| the parser knows about the keyword so you must not use it as a
 | |
| variable, function, or attribute name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the semantics of the language proper
 | |
| -----------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The following compatibility hack is removed: if a function was
 | |
| defined with two or more arguments, and called with a single argument
 | |
| that was a tuple with just as many arguments, the items of this tuple
 | |
| would be used as the arguments.  This is no longer supported.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the semantics of classes and instances
 | |
| -------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Class variables are now also accessible as instance variables for
 | |
| reading (assignment creates an instance variable which overrides the
 | |
| class variable of the same name though).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * If a class attribute is a user-defined function, a new kind of
 | |
| object is returned: an "unbound method".  This contains a pointer to
 | |
| the class and can only be called with a first argument which is a
 | |
| member of that class (or a derived class).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * If a class defines a method __init__(self, arg1, ...) then this
 | |
| method is called when a class instance is created by the classname()
 | |
| construct.  Arguments passed to classname() are passed to the
 | |
| __init__() method.  The __init__() methods of base classes are not
 | |
| automatically called; the derived __init__() method must call these if
 | |
| necessary (this was done so the derived __init__() method can choose
 | |
| the call order and arguments for the base __init__() methods).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * If a class defines a method __del__(self) then this method is called
 | |
| when an instance of the class is about to be destroyed.  This makes it
 | |
| possible to implement clean-up of external resources attached to the
 | |
| instance.  As with __init__(), the __del__() methods of base classes
 | |
| are not automatically called.  If __del__ manages to store a reference
 | |
| to the object somewhere, its destruction is postponed; when the object
 | |
| is again about to be destroyed its __del__() method will be called
 | |
| again.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Classes may define a method __hash__(self) to allow their instances
 | |
| to be used as dictionary keys.  This must return a 32-bit integer.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Minor improvements
 | |
| ------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Function and class objects now know their name (the name given in
 | |
| the 'def' or 'class' statement that created them).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Class instances now know their class name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Additions to built-in operations
 | |
| --------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The % operator with a string left argument implements formatting
 | |
| similar to sprintf() in C.  The right argument is either a single
 | |
| value or a tuple of values.  All features of Standard C sprintf() are
 | |
| supported except %p.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Dictionaries now support almost any key type, instead of just
 | |
| strings.  (The key type must be an immutable type or must be a class
 | |
| instance where the class defines a method __hash__(), in order to
 | |
| avoid losing track of keys whose value may change.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Built-in methods are now compared properly: when comparing x.meth1
 | |
| and y.meth2, if x is equal to y and the methods are defined by the
 | |
| same function, x.meth1 compares equal to y.meth2.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Additions to built-in functions
 | |
| -------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * str(x) returns a string version of its argument.  If the argument is
 | |
| a string it is returned unchanged, otherwise it returns `x`.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * repr(x) returns the same as `x`.  (Some users found it easier to
 | |
| have this as a function.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * round(x) returns the floating point number x rounded to an whole
 | |
| number, represented as a floating point number.  round(x, n) returns x
 | |
| rounded to n digits.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * hasattr(x, name) returns true when x has an attribute with the given
 | |
| name.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * hash(x) returns a hash code (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
 | |
| immutable object's value.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * id(x) returns a unique identifier (32-bit integer) of an arbitrary
 | |
| object.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * compile() compiles a string to a Python code object.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * exec() and eval() now support execution of code objects.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the documented part of the library (standard modules)
 | |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * os.path.normpath() (a.k.a. posixpath.normpath()) has been fixed so
 | |
| the border case '/foo/..' returns '/' instead of ''.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A new function string.find() is added with similar semantics to
 | |
| string.index(); however when it does not find the given substring it
 | |
| returns -1 instead of raising string.index_error.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to built-in modules
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * New optional module 'array' implements operations on sequences of
 | |
| integers or floating point numbers of a particular size.  This is
 | |
| useful to manipulate large numerical arrays or to read and write
 | |
| binary files consisting of numerical data.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Regular expression objects created by module regex now support a new
 | |
| method named group(), which returns one or more \(...\) groups by number.
 | |
| The number of groups is increased from 10 to 100.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Function compile() in module regex now supports an optional mapping
 | |
| argument; a variable casefold is added to the module which can be used
 | |
| as a standard uppercase to lowercase mapping.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module time now supports many routines that are defined in the
 | |
| Standard C time interface (<time.h>): gmtime(), localtime(),
 | |
| asctime(), ctime(), mktime(), as well as these variables (taken from
 | |
| System V): timezone, altzone, daylight and tzname.  (The corresponding
 | |
| functions in the undocumented module calendar have been removed; the
 | |
| undocumented and unfinished module tzparse is now obsolete and will
 | |
| disappear in a future release.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module strop (the fast built-in version of standard module string)
 | |
| now uses C's definition of whitespace instead of fixing it to space,
 | |
| tab and newline; in practice this usually means that vertical tab,
 | |
| form feed and return are now also considered whitespace.  It exports
 | |
| the string of characters that are considered whitespace as well as the
 | |
| characters that are considered lowercase or uppercase.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module sys now defines the variable builtin_module_names, a list of
 | |
| names of modules built into the current interpreter (including not
 | |
| yet imported, but excluding two special modules that always have to be
 | |
| defined -- sys and builtin).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Objects created by module sunaudiodev now also support flush() and
 | |
| close() methods.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Socket objects created by module socket now support an optional
 | |
| flags argument for their methods sendto() and recvfrom().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module marshal now supports dumping to and loading from strings,
 | |
| through the functions dumps() and loads().
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Module stdwin now supports some new functionality.  You may have to
 | |
| ftp the latest version: ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/stdwin/stdwinforviews.tar.Z.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Bugs fixed
 | |
| ----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed comparison of negative long integers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The tokenizer no longer botches input lines longer than BUFSIZ.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed several severe memory leaks in module select.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed memory leaks in modules socket and sv.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Fixed memory leak in divmod() for long integers.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Problems with definition of floatsleep() on Suns fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Many portability bugs fixed (and undoubtedly new ones added :-).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the build procedure
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The Makefile supports some new targets: "make default" and "make
 | |
| all".  Both are by normally equivalent to "make python".
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The Makefile no longer uses $> since it's not supported by all
 | |
| versions of Make.
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The header files now all contain #ifdef constructs designed to make
 | |
| it safe to include the same header file twice, as well as support for
 | |
| inclusion from C++ programs (automatic extern "C" { ... } added).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Freezing Python scripts
 | |
| -----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * There is now some support for "freezing" a Python script as a
 | |
| stand-alone executable binary file.  See the script
 | |
| demo/scripts/freeze.py.  It will require some site-specific tailoring
 | |
| of the script to get this working, but is quite worthwhile if you write
 | |
| Python code for other who may not have built and installed Python.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| MS-DOS
 | |
| ------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * A new MS-DOS port has been done, using MSC 6.0 (I believe).  Thanks,
 | |
| Marcel van der Peijl!  This requires fewer compatibility hacks in
 | |
| posixmodule.c.  The executable is not yet available but will be soon
 | |
| (check the mailing list).
 | |
| 
 | |
| * The default PYTHONPATH has changed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes for developers of extension modules
 | |
| -------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| SGI specific changes
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| * Read src/ChangeLog for full details.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.8 (9 Jan 1993) <==
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| I claim no completeness here, but I've tried my best to scan the log
 | |
| files throughout my source tree for interesting bits of news.  A more
 | |
| complete account of the changes is to be found in the various
 | |
| ChangeLog files. See also "News for release 0.9.7beta" below if you're
 | |
| still using release 0.9.6, and the file HISTORY if you have an even
 | |
| older release.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	--Guido
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the language proper
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| There's only one big change: the conformance checking for function
 | |
| argument lists (of user-defined functions only) is stricter.  Earlier,
 | |
| you could get away with the following:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(a) define a function of one argument and call it with any
 | |
| 	    number of arguments; if the actual argument count wasn't
 | |
| 	    one, the function would receive a tuple containing the
 | |
| 	    arguments arguments (an empty tuple if there were none).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	(b) define a function of two arguments, and call it with more
 | |
| 	    than two arguments; if there were more than two arguments,
 | |
| 	    the second argument would be passed as a tuple containing
 | |
| 	    the second and further actual arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| (Note that an argument (formal or actual) that is a tuple is counted as
 | |
| one; these rules don't apply inside such tuples, only at the top level
 | |
| of the argument list.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Case (a) was needed to accommodate variable-length argument lists;
 | |
| there is now an explicit "varargs" feature (precede the last argument
 | |
| with a '*').  Case (b) was needed for compatibility with old class
 | |
| definitions: up to release 0.9.4 a method with more than one argument
 | |
| had to be declared as "def meth(self, (arg1, arg2, ...)): ...".
 | |
| Version 0.9.6 provide better ways to handle both casees, bot provided
 | |
| backward compatibility; version 0.9.8 retracts the compatibility hacks
 | |
| since they also cause confusing behavior if a function is called with
 | |
| the wrong number of arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There's a script that helps converting classes that still rely on (b),
 | |
| provided their methods' first argument is called "self":
 | |
| demo/scripts/methfix.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| If this change breaks lots of code you have developed locally, try
 | |
| #defining COMPAT_HACKS in ceval.c.
 | |
| 
 | |
| (There's a third compatibility hack, which is the reverse of (a): if a
 | |
| function is defined with two or more arguments, and called with a
 | |
| single argument that is a tuple with just as many arguments, the items
 | |
| of this tuple will be used as the arguments.  Although this can (and
 | |
| should!) be done using the built-in function apply() instead, it isn't
 | |
| withdrawn yet.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| One minor change: comparing instance methods works like expected, so
 | |
| that if x is an instance of a user-defined class and has a method m,
 | |
| then (x.m==x.m) yields 1.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| The following was already present in 0.9.7beta, but not explicitly
 | |
| mentioned in the NEWS file: user-defined classes can now define types
 | |
| that behave in almost allrespects like numbers.  See
 | |
| demo/classes/Rat.py for a simple example.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the build process
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Configure.py script and the Makefile has been made somewhat more
 | |
| bullet-proof, after reports of (minor) trouble on certain platforms.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There is now a script to patch Makefile and config.c to add a new
 | |
| optional built-in module: Addmodule.sh.  Read the script before using!
 | |
| 
 | |
| Useing Addmodule.sh, all optional modules can now be configured at
 | |
| compile time using Configure.py, so there are no modules left that
 | |
| require dynamic loading.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Makefile has been fixed to make it easier to use with the VPATH
 | |
| feature of some Make versions (e.g. SunOS).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes affecting portability
 | |
| -----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Several minor portability problems have been solved, e.g. "malloc.h"
 | |
| has been renamed to "mymalloc.h", "strdup.c" is no longer used, and
 | |
| the system now tolerates malloc(0) returning 0.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For dynamic loading on the SGI, Jack Jansen's dl 1.6 is now
 | |
| distributed with Python.  This solves several minor problems, in
 | |
| particular scripts invoked using #! can now use dynamic loading.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the interpreter interface
 | |
| ------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| On popular demand, there's finally a "profile" feature for interactive
 | |
| use of the interpreter.  If the environment variable $PYTHONSTARTUP is
 | |
| set to the name of an existing file, Python statements in this file
 | |
| are executed when the interpreter is started in interactive mode.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There is a new clean-up mechanism, complementing try...finally: if you
 | |
| assign a function object to sys.exitfunc, it will be called when
 | |
| Python exits or receives a SIGTERM or SIGHUP signal.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The interpreter is now generally assumed to live in
 | |
| /usr/local/bin/python (as opposed to /usr/local/python).  The script
 | |
| demo/scripts/fixps.py will update old scripts in place (you can easily
 | |
| modify it to do other similar changes).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Most I/O that uses sys.stdin/stdout/stderr will now use any object
 | |
| assigned to those names as long as the object supports readline() or
 | |
| write() methods.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The parser stack has been increased to 500 to accommodate more
 | |
| complicated expressions (7 levels used to be the practical maximum,
 | |
| it's now about 38).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The limit on the size of the *run-time* stack has completely been
 | |
| removed -- this means that tuple or list displays can contain any
 | |
| number of elements (formerly more than 50 would crash the
 | |
| interpreter). 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
 | |
| --------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The built-in functions int(), long(), float(), oct() and hex() now
 | |
| also apply to class instalces that define corresponding methods
 | |
| (__int__ etc.).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New built-in functions
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The new functions str() and repr() convert any object to a string.
 | |
| The function repr(x) is in all respects equivalent to `x` -- some
 | |
| people prefer a function for this.  The function str(x) does the same
 | |
| except if x is already a string -- then it returns x unchanged
 | |
| (repr(x) adds quotes and escapes "funny" characters as octal escapes).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The new function cmp(x, y) returns -1 if x<y, 0 if x==y, 1 if x>y.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to general built-in modules
 | |
| -----------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The time module's functions are more general: time() returns a
 | |
| floating point number and sleep() accepts one.  Their accuracies
 | |
| depends on the precision of the system clock.  Millisleep is no longer
 | |
| needed (although it still exists for now), but millitimer is still
 | |
| needed since on some systems wall clock time is only available with
 | |
| seconds precision, while a source of more precise time exists that
 | |
| isn't synchronized with the wall clock.  (On UNIX systems that support
 | |
| the BSD gettimeofday() function, time.time() is as time.millitimer().)
 | |
| 
 | |
| The string representation of a file object now includes an address:
 | |
| '<file 'filename', mode 'r' at #######>' where ###### is a hex number
 | |
| (the object's address) to make it unique.
 | |
| 
 | |
| New functions added to posix: nice(), setpgrp(), and if your system
 | |
| supports them: setsid(), setpgid(), tcgetpgrp(), tcsetpgrp().
 | |
| 
 | |
| Improvements to the socket module: socket objects have new methods
 | |
| getpeername() and getsockname(), and the {get,set}sockopt methods can
 | |
| now get/set any kind of option using strings built with the new struct
 | |
| module.  And there's a new function fromfd() which creates a socket
 | |
| object given a file descriptor (useful for servers started by inetd,
 | |
| which have a socket connected to stdin and stdout).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to SGI-specific built-in modules
 | |
| ----------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The FORMS library interface (fl) now requires FORMS 2.1a.  Some new
 | |
| functions have been added and some bugs have been fixed.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Additions to al (audio library interface): added getname(),
 | |
| getdefault() and getminmax().
 | |
| 
 | |
| The gl modules doesn't call "foreground()" when initialized (this
 | |
| caused some problems) like it dit in 0.9.7beta (but not before).
 | |
| There's a new gl function 'gversion() which returns a version string.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The interface to sv (Indigo video interface) has totally changed.
 | |
| (Sorry, still no documentation, but see the examples in
 | |
| demo/sgi/{sv,video}.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to standard library modules
 | |
| -----------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Most functions in module string are now much faster: they're actually
 | |
| implemented in C.  The module containing the C versions is called
 | |
| "strop" but you should still import "string" since strop doesn't
 | |
| provide all the interfaces defined in string (and strop may be renamed
 | |
| to string when it is complete in a future release).
 | |
| 
 | |
| string.index() now accepts an optional third argument giving an index
 | |
| where to start searching in the first argument, so you can find second
 | |
| and further occurrences (this is similar to the regular expression
 | |
| functions in regex).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The definition of what string.splitfields(anything, '') should return
 | |
| is changed for the last time: it returns a singleton list containing
 | |
| its whole first argument unchanged.  This is compatible with
 | |
| regsub.split() which also ignores empty delimiter matches.
 | |
| 
 | |
| posixpath, macpath: added dirname() and normpath() (and basename() to
 | |
| macpath).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The mainloop module (for use with stdwin) can now demultiplex input
 | |
| from other sources, as long as they can be polled with select().
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New built-in modules
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Module struct defines functions to pack/unpack values to/from strings
 | |
| representing binary values in native byte order.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Module strop implements C versions of many functions from string (see
 | |
| above).
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optional module fcntl defines interfaces to fcntl() and ioctl() --
 | |
| UNIX only.  (Not yet properly documented -- see however src/fcntl.doc.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optional module mpz defines an interface to an altaernative long
 | |
| integer implementation, the GNU MPZ library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Optional module md5 uses the GNU MPZ library to calculate MD5
 | |
| signatures of strings.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are also optional new modules specific to SGI machines: imageop
 | |
| defines some simple operations to images represented as strings; sv
 | |
| interfaces to the Indigo video board; cl interfaces to the (yet
 | |
| unreleased) compression library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New standard library modules
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| (Unfortunately the following modules are not all documented; read the
 | |
| sources to find out more about them!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| autotest: run testall without showing any output unless it differs
 | |
| from the expected output
 | |
| 
 | |
| bisect: use bisection to insert or find an item in a sorted list
 | |
| 
 | |
| colorsys: defines conversions between various color systems (e.g. RGB
 | |
| <-> YUV)
 | |
| 
 | |
| nntplib: a client interface to NNTP servers
 | |
| 
 | |
| pipes: utility to construct pipeline from templates, e.g. for
 | |
| conversion from one file format to another using several utilities.
 | |
| 
 | |
| regsub: contains three functions that are more or less compatible with
 | |
| awk functions of the same name: sub() and gsub() do string
 | |
| substitution, split() splits a string using a regular expression to
 | |
| define how separators are define.
 | |
| 
 | |
| test_types: test operations on the built-in types of Python
 | |
| 
 | |
| toaiff: convert various audio file formats to AIFF format
 | |
| 
 | |
| tzparse: parse the TZ environment parameter (this may be less general
 | |
| than it could be, let me know if you fix it).
 | |
| 
 | |
| (Note that the obsolete module "path" no longer exists.)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New SGI-specific library modules
 | |
| --------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| CL: constants for use with the built-in compression library interface (cl)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Queue: a multi-producer, multi-consumer queue class implemented for
 | |
| use with the built-in thread module
 | |
| 
 | |
| SOCKET: constants for use with built-in module socket, e.g. to set/get
 | |
| socket options.  This is SGI-specific because the constants to be
 | |
| passed are system-dependent.  You can generate a version for your own
 | |
| system by running the script demo/scripts/h2py.py with
 | |
| /usr/include/sys/socket.h as input.
 | |
| 
 | |
| cddb: interface to the database used the the CD player
 | |
| 
 | |
| torgb: convert various image file types to rgb format (requires pbmplus)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New demos
 | |
| ---------
 | |
| 
 | |
| There's an experimental interface to define Sun RPC clients and
 | |
| servers in demo/rpc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There's a collection of interfaces to WWW, WAIS and Gopher (both
 | |
| Python classes and program providing a user interface) in demo/www.
 | |
| This includes a program texi2html.py which converts texinfo files to
 | |
| HTML files (the format used hy WWW).
 | |
| 
 | |
| The ibrowse demo has moved from demo/stdwin/ibrowse to demo/ibrowse.
 | |
| 
 | |
| For SGI systems, there's a whole collection of programs and classes
 | |
| that make use of the Indigo video board in demo/sgi/{sv,video}.  This
 | |
| represents a significant amount of work that we're giving away!
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are demos "rsa" and "md5test" that exercise the mpz and md5
 | |
| modules, respectively.  The rsa demo is a complete implementation of
 | |
| the RSA public-key cryptosystem!
 | |
| 
 | |
| A bunch of games and examples submitted by Stoffel Erasmus have been
 | |
| included in demo/stoffel.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are miscellaneous new files in some existing demo
 | |
| subdirectories: classes/bitvec.py, scripts/{fixps,methfix}.py,
 | |
| sgi/al/cmpaf.py, sockets/{mcast,gopher}.py.
 | |
| 
 | |
| There are also many minor changes to existing files, but I'm too lazy
 | |
| to run a diff and note the differences -- you can do this yourself if
 | |
| you save the old distribution's demos.  One highlight: the
 | |
| stdwin/python.py demo is much improved!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the documentation
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The LaTeX source for the library uses different macros to enable it to
 | |
| be converted to texinfo, and from there to INFO or HTML format so it
 | |
| can be browsed as a hypertext.  The net result is that you can now
 | |
| read the Python library documentation in Emacs info mode!
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
 | |
| ----------------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The function strdup() no longer exists (it was used only in one places
 | |
| and is somewhat of a a portability problem sice some systems have the
 | |
| same function in their C library.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The functions NEW() and RENEW() allocate one spare byte to guard
 | |
| against a NULL return from malloc(0) being taken for an error, but
 | |
| this should not be relied upon.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =========================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.7beta <==
 | |
| =========================
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the language proper
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| User-defined classes can now implement operations invoked through
 | |
| special syntax, such as x[i] or `x` by defining methods named
 | |
| __getitem__(self, i) or __repr__(self), etc.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the build process
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Instead of extensive manual editing of the Makefile to select
 | |
| compile-time options, you can now run a Configure.py script.
 | |
| The Makefile as distributed builds a minimal interpreter sufficient to
 | |
| run Configure.py.  See also misc/BUILD
 | |
| 
 | |
| The Makefile now includes more "utility" targets, e.g. install and
 | |
| tags/TAGS
 | |
| 
 | |
| Using the provided strtod.c and strtol.c are now separate options, as
 | |
| on the Sun the provided strtod.c dumps core :-(
 | |
| 
 | |
| The regex module is now an option chosen by the Makefile, since some
 | |
| (old) C compilers choke on regexpr.c
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes affecting portability
 | |
| -----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| You need STDWIN version 0.9.7 (released 30 June 1992) for the stdwin
 | |
| interface
 | |
| 
 | |
| Dynamic loading is now supported for Sun (and other non-COFF systems)
 | |
| throug dld-3.2.3, as well as for SGI (a new version of Jack Jansen's
 | |
| DL is out, 1.4)
 | |
| 
 | |
| The system-dependent code for the use of the select() system call is
 | |
| moved to one file: myselect.h
 | |
| 
 | |
| Thanks to Jaap Vermeulen, the code should now port cleanly to the
 | |
| SEQUENT
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the interpreter interface
 | |
| ------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The interpretation of $PYTHONPATH in the environment is different: it
 | |
| is inserted in front of the default path instead of overriding it
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to existing built-in functions and methods
 | |
| --------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| List objects now support an optional argument to their sort() method,
 | |
| which is a comparison function similar to qsort(3) in C
 | |
| 
 | |
| File objects now have a method fileno(), used by the new select module
 | |
| (see below)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New built-in function
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| coerce(x, y): take two numbers and return a tuple containing them
 | |
| both converted to a common type
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to built-in modules
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| sys: fixed core dumps in settrace() and setprofile()
 | |
| 
 | |
| socket: added socket methods setsockopt() and getsockopt(); and
 | |
| fileno(), used by the new select module (see below)
 | |
| 
 | |
| stdwin: added fileno() == connectionnumber(), in support of new module
 | |
| select (see below)
 | |
| 
 | |
| posix: added get{eg,eu,g,u}id(); waitpid() is now a separate function.
 | |
| 
 | |
| gl: added qgetfd()
 | |
| 
 | |
| fl: added several new functions, fixed several obscure bugs, adapted
 | |
| to FORMS 2.1
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to standard modules
 | |
| ---------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| posixpath: changed implementation of ismount()
 | |
| 
 | |
| string: atoi() no longer mistakes leading zero for octal number
 | |
| 
 | |
| ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New built-in modules
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Modules marked "dynamic only" are not configured at compile time but
 | |
| can be loaded dynamically.  You need to turn on the DL or DLD option in
 | |
| the Makefile for support dynamic loading of modules (this requires
 | |
| external code).
 | |
| 
 | |
| select: interfaces to the BSD select() system call
 | |
| 
 | |
| dbm: interfaces to the (new) dbm library (dynamic only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| nis: interfaces to some NIS functions (aka yellow pages)
 | |
| 
 | |
| thread: limited form of multiple threads (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| audioop: operations useful for audio programs, e.g. u-LAW and ADPCM
 | |
| coding (dynamic only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| cd: interface to Indigo SCSI CDROM player audio library (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| jpeg: read files in JPEG format (dynamic only, sgi only; needs
 | |
| external code)
 | |
| 
 | |
| imgfile: read SGI image files (dynamic only, sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| sunaudiodev: interface to sun's /dev/audio (dynamic only, sun only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| sv: interface to Indigo video library (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| pc: a minimal set of MS-DOS interfaces (MS-DOS only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| rotor: encryption, by Lance Ellinghouse (dynamic only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New standard modules
 | |
| --------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Not all these modules are documented.  Read the source:
 | |
| lib/<modulename>.py.  Sometimes a file lib/<modulename>.doc contains
 | |
| additional documentation.
 | |
| 
 | |
| imghdr: recognizes image file headers
 | |
| 
 | |
| sndhdr: recognizes sound file headers
 | |
| 
 | |
| profile: print run-time statistics of Python code
 | |
| 
 | |
| readcd, cdplayer: companion modules for built-in module cd (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| emacs: interface to Emacs using py-connect.el (see below).
 | |
| 
 | |
| SOCKET: symbolic constant definitions for socket options
 | |
| 
 | |
| SUNAUDIODEV: symbolic constant definitions for sunaudiodef (sun only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| SV: symbolic constat definitions for sv (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| CD: symbolic constat definitions for cd (sgi only)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New demos
 | |
| ---------
 | |
| 
 | |
| scripts/pp.py: execute Python as a filter with a Perl-like command
 | |
| line interface
 | |
| 
 | |
| classes/: examples using the new class features
 | |
| 
 | |
| threads/: examples using the new thread module
 | |
| 
 | |
| sgi/cd/: examples using the new cd module
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the documentation
 | |
| ----------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| The last-minute syntax changes of release 0.9.6 are now reflected
 | |
| everywhere in the manuals
 | |
| 
 | |
| The reference manual has a new section (3.2) on implementing new kinds
 | |
| of numbers, sequences or mappings with user classes
 | |
| 
 | |
| Classes are now treated extensively in the tutorial (chapter 9)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Slightly restructured the system-dependent chapters of the library
 | |
| manual
 | |
| 
 | |
| The file misc/EXTENDING incorporates documentation for mkvalue() and
 | |
| a new section on error handling
 | |
| 
 | |
| The files misc/CLASSES and misc/ERRORS are no longer necessary
 | |
| 
 | |
| The doc/Makefile now creates PostScript files automatically
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Miscellaneous changes
 | |
| ---------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Incorporated Tim Peters' changes to python-mode.el, it's now version
 | |
| 1.06
 | |
| 
 | |
| A python/Emacs bridge (provided by Terrence M. Brannon) lets a Python
 | |
| program running in an Emacs buffer execute Emacs lisp code.  The
 | |
| necessary Python code is in lib/emacs.py.  The Emacs code is
 | |
| misc/py-connect.el (it needs some external Emacs lisp code)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Changes to the source code that affect C extension writers
 | |
| ----------------------------------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| New service function mkvalue() to construct a Python object from C
 | |
| values according to a "format" string a la getargs()
 | |
| 
 | |
| Most functions from pythonmain.c moved to new pythonrun.c which is
 | |
| in libpython.a.  This should make embedded versions of Python easier
 | |
| 
 | |
| ceval.h is split in eval.h (which needs compile.h and only declares
 | |
| eval_code) and ceval.h (which doesn't need compile.hand declares the
 | |
| rest)
 | |
| 
 | |
| ceval.h defines macros BGN_SAVE / END_SAVE for use with threads (to
 | |
| improve the parallellism of multi-threaded programs by letting other
 | |
| Python code run when a blocking system call or something similar is
 | |
| made)
 | |
| 
 | |
| In structmember.[ch], new member types BYTE, CHAR and unsigned
 | |
| variants have been added
 | |
| 
 | |
| New file xxmodule.c is a template for new extension modules.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.6 (6 Apr 1992) <==
 | |
| ==================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Misc news in 0.9.6:
 | |
| - Restructured the misc subdirectory
 | |
| - Reference manual completed, library manual much extended (with indexes!)
 | |
| - the GNU Readline library is now distributed standard with Python
 | |
| - the script "../demo/scripts/classfix.py" fixes Python modules using old
 | |
|   class syntax
 | |
| - Emacs python-mode.el (was python.el) vastly improved (thanks, Tim!)
 | |
| - Because of the GNU copyleft business I am not using the GNU regular
 | |
|   expression implementation but a free re-implementation by Tatu Ylonen
 | |
|   that recently appeared in comp.sources.misc (Bravo, Tatu!)
 | |
| 
 | |
| New features in 0.9.6:
 | |
| - stricter try stmt syntax: cannot mix except and finally clauses on 1 try
 | |
| - New module 'os' supplants modules 'mac' and 'posix' for most cases;
 | |
|   module 'path' is replaced by 'os.path'
 | |
| - os.path.split() return value differs from that of old path.split()
 | |
| - sys.exc_type, sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback are set to the exception
 | |
|   currently being handled
 | |
| - sys.last_type, sys.last_value, sys.last_traceback remember last unhandled
 | |
|   exception
 | |
| - New function string.expandtabs() expands tabs in a string
 | |
| - Added times() interface to posix (user & sys time of process & children)
 | |
| - Added uname() interface to posix (returns OS type, hostname, etc.)
 | |
| - New built-in function execfile() is like exec() but from a file
 | |
| - Functions exec() and eval() are less picky about whitespace/newlines
 | |
| - New built-in functions getattr() and setattr() access arbitrary attributes
 | |
| - More generic argument handling in built-in functions (see "./EXTENDING")
 | |
| - Dynamic loading of modules written in C or C++ (see "./DYNLOAD")
 | |
| - Division and modulo for long and plain integers with negative operands
 | |
|   have changed; a/b is now floor(float(a)/float(b)) and a%b is defined
 | |
|   as a-(a/b)*b.  So now the outcome of divmod(a,b) is the same as
 | |
|   (a/b, a%b) for integers.  For floats, % is also changed, but of course
 | |
|   / is unchanged, and divmod(x,y) does not yield (x/y, x%y)...
 | |
| - A function with explicit variable-length argument list can be declared
 | |
|   like this: def f(*args): ...; or even like this: def f(a, b, *rest): ...
 | |
| - Code tracing and profiling features have been added, and two source
 | |
|   code debuggers are provided in the library (pdb.py, tty-oriented,
 | |
|   and wdb, window-oriented); you can now step through Python programs!
 | |
|   See sys.settrace() and sys.setprofile(), and "../lib/pdb.doc"
 | |
| - '==' is now the only equality operator; "../demo/scripts/eqfix.py" is
 | |
|   a script that fixes old Python modules
 | |
| - Plain integer right shift now uses sign extension
 | |
| - Long integer shift/mask operations now simulate 2's complement
 | |
|   to give more useful results for negative operands
 | |
| - Changed/added range checks for long/plain integer shifts
 | |
| - Options found after "-c command" are now passed to the command in sys.argv
 | |
|   (note subtle incompatiblity with "python -c command -- -options"!)
 | |
| - Module stdwin is better protected against touching objects after they've
 | |
|   been closed; menus can now also be closed explicitly
 | |
| - Stdwin now uses its own exception (stdwin.error)
 | |
| 
 | |
| New features in 0.9.5 (released as Macintosh application only, 2 Jan 1992):
 | |
| - dictionary objects can now be compared properly; e.g., {}=={} is true
 | |
| - new exception SystemExit causes termination if not caught;
 | |
|   it is raised by sys.exit() so that 'finally' clauses can clean up,
 | |
|   and it may even be caught.  It does work interactively!
 | |
| - new module "regex" implements GNU Emacs style regular expressions;
 | |
|   module "regexp" is rewritten in Python for backward compatibility
 | |
| - formal parameter lists may contain trailing commas
 | |
| 
 | |
| Bugs fixed in 0.9.6:
 | |
| - assigning to or deleting a list item with a negative index dumped core
 | |
| - divmod(-10L,5L) returned (-3L, 5L) instead of (-2L, 0L)
 | |
| 
 | |
| Bugs fixed in 0.9.5:
 | |
| - masking operations involving negative long integers gave wrong results
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.4 (24 Dec 1991) <==
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - new function argument handling (see below)
 | |
| - built-in apply(func, args) means func(args[0], args[1], ...)
 | |
| - new, more refined exceptions
 | |
| - new exception string values (NameError = 'NameError' etc.)
 | |
| - better checking for math exceptions
 | |
| - for sequences (string/tuple/list), x[-i] is now equivalent to x[len(x)-i]
 | |
| - fixed list assignment bug: "a[1:1] = a" now works correctly
 | |
| - new class syntax, without extraneous parentheses
 | |
| - new 'global' statement to assign global variables from within a function
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New class syntax
 | |
| ----------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| You can now declare a base class as follows:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class B:			# Was: class B():
 | |
| 		def some_method(self): ...
 | |
| 		...
 | |
| 
 | |
| and a derived class thusly:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class D(B):			# Was: class D() = B():
 | |
| 		def another_method(self, arg): ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| Multiple inheritance looks like this:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class M(B, D):			# Was: class M() = B(), D():
 | |
| 		def this_or_that_method(self, arg): ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| The old syntax is still accepted by Python 0.9.4, but will disappear
 | |
| in Python 1.0 (to be posted to comp.sources).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New 'global' statement
 | |
| ----------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Every now and then you have a global variable in a module that you
 | |
| want to change from within a function in that module -- say, a count
 | |
| of calls to a function, or an option flag, etc.  Until now this was
 | |
| not directly possible.  While several kludges are known that
 | |
| circumvent the problem, and often the need for a global variable can
 | |
| be avoided by rewriting the module as a class, this does not always
 | |
| lead to clearer code.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The 'global' statement solves this dilemma.  Its occurrence in a
 | |
| function body means that, for the duration of that function, the
 | |
| names listed there refer to global variables.  For instance:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	total = 0.0
 | |
| 	count = 0
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	def add_to_total(amount):
 | |
| 		global total, count
 | |
| 		total = total + amount
 | |
| 		count = count + 1
 | |
| 
 | |
| 'global' must be repeated in each function where it is needed.  The
 | |
| names listed in a 'global' statement must not be used in the function
 | |
| before the statement is reached.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Remember that you don't need to use 'global' if you only want to *use*
 | |
| a global variable in a function; nor do you need ot for assignments to
 | |
| parts of global variables (e.g., list or dictionary items or
 | |
| attributes of class instances).  This has not changed; in fact
 | |
| assignment to part of a global variable was the standard workaround.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New exceptions
 | |
| --------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Several new exceptions have been defined, to distinguish more clearly
 | |
| between different types of errors.
 | |
| 
 | |
| name			meaning					was
 | |
| 
 | |
| AttributeError		reference to non-existing attribute	NameError
 | |
| IOError			unexpected I/O error			RuntimeError
 | |
| ImportError		import of non-existing module or name	NameError
 | |
| IndexError		invalid string, tuple or list index	RuntimeError
 | |
| KeyError		key not in dictionary			RuntimeError
 | |
| OverflowError		numeric overflow			RuntimeError
 | |
| SyntaxError		invalid syntax				RuntimeError
 | |
| ValueError		invalid argument value			RuntimeError
 | |
| ZeroDivisionError	division by zero			RuntimeError
 | |
| 
 | |
| The string value of each exception is now its name -- this makes it
 | |
| easier to experimentally find out which operations raise which
 | |
| exceptions; e.g.:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	>>> KeyboardInterrupt
 | |
| 	'KeyboardInterrupt'
 | |
| 	>>>
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| New argument passing semantics
 | |
| ------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Off-line discussions with Steve Majewski and Daniel LaLiberte have
 | |
| convinced me that Python's parameter mechanism could be changed in a
 | |
| way that made both of them happy (I hope), kept me happy, fixed a
 | |
| number of outstanding problems, and, given some backward compatibility
 | |
| provisions, would only break a very small amount of existing code --
 | |
| probably all mine anyway.  In fact I suspect that most Python users
 | |
| will hardly notice the difference.  And yet it has cost me at least
 | |
| one sleepless night to decide to make the change...
 | |
| 
 | |
| Philosophically, the change is quite radical (to me, anyway): a
 | |
| function is no longer called with either zero or one argument, which
 | |
| is a tuple if there appear to be more arguments.  Every function now
 | |
| has an argument list containing 0, 1 or more arguments.  This list is
 | |
| always implemented as a tuple, and it is a (run-time) error if a
 | |
| function is called with a different number of arguments than expected.
 | |
| 
 | |
| What's the difference? you may ask.  The answer is, very little unless
 | |
| you want to write variadic functions -- functions that may be called
 | |
| with a variable number of arguments.  Formerly, you could write a
 | |
| function that accepted one or more arguments with little trouble, but
 | |
| writing a function that could be called with either 0 or 1 argument
 | |
| (or more) was next to impossible.  This is now a piece of cake: you
 | |
| can simply declare an argument that receives the entire argument
 | |
| tuple, and check its length -- it will be of size 0 if there are no
 | |
| arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Another anomaly of the old system was the way multi-argument methods
 | |
| (in classes) had to be declared, e.g.:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class Point():
 | |
| 		def init(self, (x, y, color)): ...
 | |
| 		def setcolor(self, color): ...
 | |
| 		dev moveto(self, (x, y)): ...
 | |
| 		def draw(self): ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| Using the new scheme there is no need to enclose the method arguments
 | |
| in an extra set of parentheses, so the above class could become:
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	class Point:
 | |
| 		def init(self, x, y, color): ...
 | |
| 		def setcolor(self, color): ...
 | |
| 		dev moveto(self, x, y): ...
 | |
| 		def draw(self): ...
 | |
| 
 | |
| That is, the equivalence rule between methods and functions has
 | |
| changed so that now p.moveto(x,y) is equivalent to Point.moveto(p,x,y)
 | |
| while formerly it was equivalent to Point.moveto(p,(x,y)).
 | |
| 
 | |
| A special backward compatibility rule makes that the old version also
 | |
| still works: whenever a function with exactly two arguments (at the top
 | |
| level) is called with more than two arguments, the second and further
 | |
| arguments are packed into a tuple and passed as the second argument.
 | |
| This rule is invoked independently of whether the function is actually a
 | |
| method, so there is a slight chance that some erroneous calls of
 | |
| functions expecting two arguments with more than that number of
 | |
| arguments go undetected at first -- when the function tries to use the
 | |
| second argument it may find it is a tuple instead of what was expected.
 | |
| Note that this rule will be removed from future versions of the
 | |
| language; it is a backward compatibility provision *only*.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Two other rules and a new built-in function handle conversion between
 | |
| tuples and argument lists:
 | |
| 
 | |
| Rule (a): when a function with more than one argument is called with a
 | |
| single argument that is a tuple of the right size, the tuple's items
 | |
| are used as arguments.
 | |
| 
 | |
| Rule (b): when a function with exactly one argument receives no
 | |
| arguments or more than one, that one argument will receive a tuple
 | |
| containing the arguments (the tuple will be empty if there were no
 | |
| arguments).
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| A new built-in function, apply(), was added to support functions that
 | |
| need to call other functions with a constructed argument list.  The call
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	apply(function, tuple)
 | |
| 
 | |
| is equivalent to
 | |
| 
 | |
| 	function(tuple[0], tuple[1], ..., tuple[len(tuple)-1])
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| While no new argument syntax was added in this phase, it would now be
 | |
| quite sensible to add explicit syntax to Python for default argument
 | |
| values (as in C++ or Modula-3), or a "rest" argument to receive the
 | |
| remaining arguments of a variable-length argument list.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ========================================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.3 (never made available outside CWI) <==
 | |
| ========================================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - string sys.version shows current version (also printed on interactive entry)
 | |
| - more detailed exceptions, e.g., IOError, ZeroDivisionError, etc.
 | |
| - 'global' statement to declare module-global variables assigned in functions.
 | |
| - new class declaration syntax: class C(Base1, Base2, ...): suite
 | |
|   (the old syntax is still accepted -- be sure to convert your classes now!)
 | |
| - C shifting and masking operators: << >> ~ & ^ | (for ints and longs).
 | |
| - C comparison operators: == != (the old = and <> remain valid).
 | |
| - floating point numbers may now start with a period (e.g., .14).
 | |
| - definition of integer division tightened (always truncates towards zero).
 | |
| - new builtins hex(x), oct(x) return hex/octal string from (long) integer.
 | |
| - new list method l.count(x) returns the number of occurrences of x in l.
 | |
| - new SGI module: al (Indigo and 4D/35 audio library).
 | |
| - the FORMS interface (modules fl and FL) now uses FORMS 2.0
 | |
| - module gl: added lrect{read,write}, rectzoom and pixmode;
 | |
|   added (non-GL) functions (un)packrect.
 | |
| - new socket method: s.allowbroadcast(flag).
 | |
| - many objects support __dict__, __methods__ or __members__.
 | |
| - dir() lists anything that has __dict__.
 | |
| - class attributes are no longer read-only.
 | |
| - classes support __bases__, instances support __class__ (and __dict__).
 | |
| - divmod() now also works for floats.
 | |
| - fixed obscure bug in eval('1            ').
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.2 (Autumn 1991) <==
 | |
| ===================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Highlights
 | |
| ----------
 | |
| 
 | |
| - tutorial now (almost) complete; library reference reorganized
 | |
| - new syntax: continue statement; semicolons; dictionary constructors;
 | |
|   restrictions on blank lines in source files removed
 | |
| - dramatically improved module load time through precompiled modules
 | |
| - arbitrary precision integers: compute 2 to the power 1000 and more...
 | |
| - arithmetic operators now accept mixed type operands, e.g., 3.14/4
 | |
| - more operations on list: remove, index, reverse; repetition
 | |
| - improved/new file operations: readlines, seek, tell, flush, ...
 | |
| - process management added to the posix module: fork/exec/wait/kill etc.
 | |
| - BSD socket operations (with example servers and clients!)
 | |
| - many new STDWIN features (color, fonts, polygons, ...)
 | |
| - new SGI modules: font manager and FORMS library interface
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| Extended list of changes in 0.9.2
 | |
| ---------------------------------
 | |
| 
 | |
| Here is a summary of the most important user-visible changes in 0.9.2,
 | |
| in somewhat arbitrary order.  Changes in later versions are listed in
 | |
| the "highlights" section above.
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 1. Changes to the interpreter proper
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Simple statements can now be separated by semicolons.
 | |
|   If you write "if t: s1; s2", both s1 and s2 are executed
 | |
|   conditionally.
 | |
| - The 'continue' statement was added, with semantics as in C.
 | |
| - Dictionary displays are now allowed on input: {key: value, ...}.
 | |
| - Blank lines and lines bearing only a comment no longer need to
 | |
|   be indented properly.  (A completely empty line still ends a multi-
 | |
|   line statement interactively.)
 | |
| - Mixed arithmetic is supported, 1 compares equal to 1.0, etc.
 | |
| - Option "-c command" to execute statements from the command line
 | |
| - Compiled versions of modules are cached in ".pyc" files, giving a
 | |
|   dramatic improvement of start-up time
 | |
| - Other, smaller speed improvements, e.g., extracting characters from
 | |
|   strings, looking up single-character keys, and looking up global
 | |
|   variables
 | |
| - Interrupting a print operation raises KeyboardInterrupt instead of
 | |
|   only cancelling the print operation
 | |
| - Fixed various portability problems (it now passes gcc with only
 | |
|   warnings -- more Standard C compatibility will be provided in later
 | |
|   versions)
 | |
| - Source is prepared for porting to MS-DOS
 | |
| - Numeric constants are now checked for overflow (this requires
 | |
|   standard-conforming strtol() and strtod() functions; a correct
 | |
|   strtol() implementation is provided, but the strtod() provided
 | |
|   relies on atof() for everything, including error checking
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 2. Changes to the built-in types, functions and modules
 | |
| 
 | |
| - New module socket: interface to BSD socket primitives
 | |
| - New modules pwd and grp: access the UNIX password and group databases
 | |
| - (SGI only:) New module "fm" interfaces to the SGI IRIX Font Manager
 | |
| - (SGI only:) New module "fl" interfaces to Mark Overmars' FORMS library
 | |
| - New numeric type: long integer, for unlimited precision
 | |
| 	- integer constants suffixed with 'L' or 'l' are long integers
 | |
| 	- new built-in function long(x) converts int or float to long
 | |
| 	- int() and float() now also convert from long integers
 | |
| - New built-in function:
 | |
| 	- pow(x, y) returns x to the power y
 | |
| - New operation and methods for lists:
 | |
| 	- l*n returns a new list consisting of n concatenated copies of l
 | |
| 	- l.remove(x) removes the first occurrence of the value x from l
 | |
| 	- l.index(x) returns the index of the first occurrence of x in l
 | |
| 	- l.reverse() reverses l in place
 | |
| - New operation for tuples:
 | |
| 	- t*n returns a tuple consisting of n concatenated copies of t
 | |
| - Improved file handling:
 | |
| 	- f.readline() no longer restricts the line length, is faster,
 | |
| 	  and isn't confused by null bytes; same for raw_input()
 | |
| 	- f.read() without arguments reads the entire (rest of the) file
 | |
| 	- mixing of print and sys.stdout.write() has different effect
 | |
| - New methods for files:
 | |
| 	- f.readlines() returns a list containing the lines of the file,
 | |
| 	  as read with f.readline()
 | |
| 	- f.flush(), f.tell(), f.seek() call their stdio counterparts
 | |
| 	- f.isatty() tests for "tty-ness"
 | |
| - New posix functions:
 | |
| 	- _exit(), exec(), fork(), getpid(), getppid(), kill(), wait()
 | |
| 	- popen() returns a file object connected to a pipe
 | |
| 	- utime() replaces utimes() (the latter is not a POSIX name)
 | |
| - New stdwin features, including:
 | |
| 	- font handling
 | |
| 	- color drawing
 | |
| 	- scroll bars made optional
 | |
| 	- polygons
 | |
| 	- filled and xor shapes
 | |
| 	- text editing objects now have a 'settext' method
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 3. Changes to the standard library
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Name change: the functions path.cat and macpath.cat are now called
 | |
|   path.join and macpath.join
 | |
| - Added new modules: formatter, mutex, persist, sched, mainloop
 | |
| - Added some modules and functionality to the "widget set" (which is
 | |
|   still under development, so please bear with me):
 | |
| 	DirList, FormSplit, TextEdit, WindowSched
 | |
| - Fixed module testall to work non-interactively
 | |
| - Module string:
 | |
| 	- added functions join() and joinfields()
 | |
| 	- fixed center() to work correct and make it "transitive"
 | |
| - Obsolete modules were removed: util, minmax
 | |
| - Some modules were moved to the demo directory
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 4. Changes to the demonstration programs
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Added new useful scipts: byteyears, eptags, fact, from, lfact,
 | |
|   objgraph, pdeps, pi, primes, ptags, which
 | |
| - Added a bunch of socket demos
 | |
| - Doubled the speed of ptags
 | |
| - Added new stdwin demos: microedit, miniedit
 | |
| - Added a windowing interface to the Python interpreter: python (most
 | |
|   useful on the Mac)
 | |
| - Added a browser for Emacs info files: demo/stdwin/ibrowse
 | |
|   (yes, I plan to put all STDWIN and Python documentation in texinfo
 | |
|   form in the future)
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| 5. Other changes to the distribution
 | |
| 
 | |
| - An Emacs Lisp file "python.el" is provided to facilitate editing
 | |
|   Python programs in GNU Emacs (slightly improved since posted to
 | |
|   gnu.emacs.sources)
 | |
| - Some info on writing an extension in C is provided
 | |
| - Some info on building Python on non-UNIX platforms is provided
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.1 (February 1991) <==
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| - Micro changes only
 | |
| - Added file "patchlevel.h"
 | |
| 
 | |
| 
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| ==> Release 0.9.0 (February 1991) <==
 | |
| =====================================
 | |
| 
 | |
| Original posting to alt.sources.
 | 
