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authorAndrew M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca>2004-07-04 15:35:00 (GMT)
committerAndrew M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca>2004-07-04 15:35:00 (GMT)
commitd0b6d9d892d50301bd17101f3880c17431b104ae (patch)
tree7c2cdf4d1373891f3bfc8fb648fb34b163731227
parent0ea241e9e2d2accb625c4b1d3af6dd1f8df23a75 (diff)
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More additions
-rw-r--r--Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex43
1 files changed, 36 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex
index dfe509d..d488493 100644
--- a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex
+++ b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
% Feel free to add commented-out reminders of things that need
% to be covered. --amk
+% XXX pydoc can display links to module docs -- but when?
+%
+
\title{What's New in Python 2.4}
\release{0.0}
\author{A.M.\ Kuchling}
@@ -442,7 +445,7 @@ language.
\item The \method{dict.update()} method now accepts the same
argument forms as the \class{dict} constructor. This includes any
-mapping, any iterable of key/value pairs, and/or keyword arguments.
+mapping, any iterable of key/value pairs, and keyword arguments.
\item The string methods, \method{ljust()}, \method{rjust()}, and
\method{center()} now take an optional argument for specifying a
@@ -547,6 +550,10 @@ yellow 5
\end{verbatim}
+\item The \function{eval(\var{expr}, \var{globals}, \var{locals})}
+function now accepts any mapping type for the \var{locals} argument.
+Previously this had to be a regular Python dictionary.
+
\item The \function{zip()} built-in function and \function{itertools.izip()}
now return an empty list instead of raising a \exception{TypeError}
exception if called with no arguments. This makes them more
@@ -624,6 +631,11 @@ details.
\begin{itemize}
+\item The \module{asyncore} module's \function{loop()} now has a
+ \var{count} parameter that lets you perform a limited number
+ of passes through the polling loop. The default is still to loop
+ forever.
+
\item The \module{curses} modules now supports the ncurses extension
\function{use_default_colors()}. On platforms where the terminal
supports transparency, this makes it possible to use a transparent
@@ -683,7 +695,7 @@ improved performance: \module{Queue}, \module{mutex}, \module{shlex}
tenfold improvement in speed makes the module suitable for handling
high volumes of data. In addition, the module has two new functions
\function{nlargest()} and \function{nsmallest()} that use heaps to
- find the largest or smallest n values in a dataset without the
+ find the N largest or smallest values in a dataset without the
expense of a full sort.
\item The \module{imaplib} module now supports IMAP's THREAD command.
@@ -760,10 +772,6 @@ If the separation is large, then it becomes preferable to use
another, \function{tee()} is ideal. Possible applications include
bookmarking, windowing, or lookahead iterators.
-\item A new \function{getsid()} function was added to the
-\module{posix} module that underlies the \module{os} module.
-(Contributed by J. Raynor.)
-
\item The \module{operator} module gained two new functions,
\function{attrgetter(\var{attr})} and \function{itemgetter(\var{index})}.
Both functions return callables that take a single argument and return
@@ -781,6 +789,15 @@ For example:
[('d', 1), ('c', 2), ('b', 3), ('a', 4)]
\end{verbatim}
+\item A new \function{getsid()} function was added to the
+\module{posix} module that underlies the \module{os} module.
+(Contributed by J. Raynor.)
+
+\item The \module{poplib} module now supports POP over SSL.
+
+\item The \module{profile} module can now profile C extension functions.
+% XXX more to say about this?
+
\item The \module{random} module has a new method called \method{getrandbits(N)}
which returns an N-bit long integer. This method supports the existing
\method{randrange()} method, making it possible to efficiently generate
@@ -797,6 +814,9 @@ For example:
\item The \module{weakref} module now supports a wider variety of objects
including Python functions, class instances, sets, frozensets, deques,
arrays, files, sockets, and regular expression pattern objects.
+
+\item The \module{xmlrpclib} module now supports a multi-call extension for
+tranmitting multiple XML-RPC calls in a single HTTP operation.
\end{itemize}
@@ -846,7 +866,16 @@ Changes to Python's build process and to the C API include:
\item A new method flag, \constant{METH_COEXISTS}, allows a function
defined in slots to co-exist with a PyCFunction having the same name.
This can halve the access to time to a method such as
- \method{set.__contains__()}
+ \method{set.__contains__()}.
+
+ \item Python can now be built with additional profiling for the interpreter
+ itself, useful if you're working on the Python core.
+ Providing \longprogramopt{--enable-profiling} to the
+ \program{configure} script will let you profile the interpreter with
+ \program{gprof}, and providing the \longprogramopt{--with-tsc} switch
+ enables profiling using the Pentium's Time-Stamp-Counter.
+
+ \item The \ctype{tracebackobject} type has been renamed to \ctype{PyTracebackObject}.
\end{itemize}