Devil merge!

Merged revisions 66561,66564,66580,66610,66614,66618,66624-66625,66628-66629,66643,66645,66660-66665 via svnmerge from
svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk

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  r66561 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-22 17:13:29 -0500 (Mon, 22 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  clean up docs for platform's linux_distribution and dist functions
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  r66564 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-23 08:32:46 -0500 (Tue, 23 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  mention how to override boolean evaluation
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  r66580 | georg.brandl | 2008-09-24 04:47:55 -0500 (Wed, 24 Sep 2008) | 2 lines

  Indentation normalization.
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  r66610 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-09-24 12:27:55 -0500 (Wed, 24 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  Improve wording
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  r66614 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-24 17:11:59 -0500 (Wed, 24 Sep 2008) | 4 lines

  #3950 fix missing scale factors in turtle.py

  reviewers: Georg, Benjamin
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  r66618 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-25 15:35:45 -0500 (Thu, 25 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  add a NEWs entry for r66614
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  r66624 | raymond.hettinger | 2008-09-25 18:31:52 -0500 (Thu, 25 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  Fix namedtuple bug reported by Glenn Linderman.  Template did not form correctly if the field names were input in Unicode.
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  r66625 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-25 21:58:36 -0500 (Thu, 25 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  add the beginnings of a C-API 2 -> 3 porting guide
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  r66628 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-26 15:52:06 -0500 (Fri, 26 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  add an 'other options' section
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  r66629 | georg.brandl | 2008-09-26 16:15:21 -0500 (Fri, 26 Sep 2008) | 2 lines

  typos.
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  r66643 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-09-27 09:12:33 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  Add a last bunch of items
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  r66645 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-27 11:23:55 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  2to3's api should be considered unstable
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  r66660 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-09-27 17:54:08 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  #3510: future-proof text
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  r66661 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-27 18:28:43 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  clarify a few things
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  r66662 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-09-27 19:15:27 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  #1579477: mention necessity to flush output before exec'ing
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  r66663 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-09-27 20:08:47 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  #1415508: Document two functions
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  r66664 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-27 20:51:36 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  better grammar
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  r66665 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-09-27 20:53:29 -0500 (Sat, 27 Sep 2008) | 1 line

  note the 2to3 -d could be useful for other refactoring
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1 files changed, 10 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/Doc/library/os.rst b/Doc/library/os.rst
index 221596c..9e14003 100644
--- a/Doc/library/os.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/os.rst
@@ -1215,7 +1215,13 @@ to be ignored.
    These functions all execute a new program, replacing the current process; they
    do not return.  On Unix, the new executable is loaded into the current process,
    and will have the same process id as the caller.  Errors will be reported as
-   :exc:`OSError` exceptions.
+   :exc:`OSError` exceptions.  
+
+   The current process is replaced immediately. Open file objects and
+   descriptors are not flushed, so if there may be data buffered
+   on these open files, you should flush them using
+   :func:`sys.stdout.flush` or :func:`os.fsync` before calling an
+   :func:`exec\*` function.
 
    The "l" and "v" variants of the :func:`exec\*` functions differ in how
    command-line arguments are passed.  The "l" variants are perhaps the easiest
@@ -1241,8 +1247,9 @@ to be ignored.
    used to define the environment variables for the new process (these are used
    instead of the current process' environment); the functions :func:`execl`,
    :func:`execlp`, :func:`execv`, and :func:`execvp` all cause the new process to
-   inherit the environment of the current process. Availability: Unix,
-   Windows.
+   inherit the environment of the current process. 
+
+   Availability: Unix, Windows.
 
 
 .. function:: _exit(n)