Merged revisions 62386-62387,62389-62393,62396,62400-62402,62407,62409-62410,62412-62414,62418-62419 via svnmerge from

svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk

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  r62386 | christian.heimes | 2008-04-19 04:23:57 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  Added kill, terminate and send_signal to subprocess.Popen
  The bits and pieces for the Windows side were already in place. The POSIX side is trivial (as usual) and uses os.kill().
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  r62387 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 10:23:59 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  Fix-up docs for revision 62386.
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  r62389 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 18:57:43 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  #2369: clarify that copyfile() doesn't take a target directory.
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  r62390 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 18:58:28 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  #2634: clarify meaning of env parameter to spawn/exec*e.
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  r62391 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 18:58:49 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  #2633: clarify meaning of env parameter.
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  r62392 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 18:59:16 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  #2631: clarify IMPORT_NAME semantics.
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  r62393 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 19:00:14 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  :func: et al. should *not* include the parens.
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  r62396 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-19 20:51:48 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 5 lines

  Additional tests for math.pow, and extra special-case
  handling code in math.pow, in the hope of making all
  tests pass on the alpha Tru64 buildbot.
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  r62400 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-19 21:41:52 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 3 lines

  Additional special-case handling for math.pow.
  Windows/VS2008 doesn't like (-1)**(+-inf).
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  r62401 | benjamin.peterson | 2008-04-19 21:47:34 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  Complete documentation for errors argument of io's open and TextIOWrapper
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  r62402 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-19 22:31:16 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  Document updates to math and cmath modules.
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  r62407 | georg.brandl | 2008-04-19 23:28:38 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 2 lines

  Update template for newest Sphinx.
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  r62409 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-19 23:35:35 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 5 lines

  Correct documentation for math.pow;
  0**nan is nan, not 0.  (But nan**0 and 1**nan are 1.)

  Also fix minor typo: 'quite NaN' -> 'quiet NaN'
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  r62410 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-19 23:49:22 +0200 (Sat, 19 Apr 2008) | 4 lines

  Move asinh documentation to the proper place.
  Remove meaningless 'in radians' from inverse
  hyperbolic functions.
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  r62412 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-20 03:22:30 +0200 (Sun, 20 Apr 2008) | 5 lines

  Report additional diagnostic information in
  test_math, to help track down debian-alpha
  buildbot failure.
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  r62413 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-20 03:39:24 +0200 (Sun, 20 Apr 2008) | 3 lines

  FreeBSD doesn't follow C99 for modf(inf); so add explicit
  special-value handling to math.modf code.
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  r62414 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-20 06:13:13 +0200 (Sun, 20 Apr 2008) | 5 lines

  Yet more explicit special case handling to make
  math.pow behave on alpha Tru64.  All IEEE 754
  special values are now handled directly; only
  the finite**finite case is handled by libm.
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  r62418 | mark.dickinson | 2008-04-20 18:13:17 +0200 (Sun, 20 Apr 2008) | 7 lines

  Issue 2662: Initialize special value tables dynamically (i.e. when
  cmath module is loaded) instead of statically. This fixes compile-time
  problems on platforms where HUGE_VAL is an extern variable rather than
  a constant.

  Thanks Hirokazu Yamamoto for the patch.
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  r62419 | andrew.kuchling | 2008-04-20 18:54:02 +0200 (Sun, 20 Apr 2008) | 1 line

  Move description of math module changes; various edits to description of cmath changes
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1 files changed, 70 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/Doc/whatsnew/2.6.rst b/Doc/whatsnew/2.6.rst
index fa51221..eb5d4b2 100644
--- a/Doc/whatsnew/2.6.rst
+++ b/Doc/whatsnew/2.6.rst
@@ -1292,11 +1292,42 @@ Here are all of the changes that Python 2.6 makes to the core Python language.
   :func:`isnan`, return true if their floating-point argument is
   infinite or Not A Number.  (:issue:`1640`)
 
-  The ``math.copysign(x, y)`` function
-  copies the sign bit of an IEEE 754 number, returning the absolute
-  value of *x* combined with the sign bit of *y*.  For example,
-  ``math.copysign(1, -0.0)`` returns -1.0.  (Contributed by Christian
-  Heimes.)
+* The :mod:`math` module has seven new functions, and the existing
+  functions have been improved to give more consistent behaviour
+  across platforms, especially with respect to handling of
+  floating-point exceptions and IEEE 754 special values.
+  The new functions are: 
+
+  * :func:`isinf` and :func:`isnan` determine whether a given float is
+    a (positive or negative) infinity or a NaN (Not a Number),
+    respectively. 
+
+  * ``copysign(x, y)`` copies the sign bit of an IEEE 754 number,
+    returning the absolute value of *x* combined with the sign bit of
+    *y*.  For example, ``math.copysign(1, -0.0)`` returns -1.0.
+    (Contributed by Christian Heimes.)
+
+  * The inverse hyperbolic functions :func:`acosh`, :func:`asinh` and
+    :func:`atanh`.
+
+  * The function :func:`log1p`, returning the natural logarithm of
+    *1+x* (base *e*).
+
+  There's also a new :func:`trunc` function as a result of the
+  backport of `PEP 3141's type hierarchy for numbers <#pep-3141>`__.
+
+  The existing math functions have been modified to follow the
+  recommendations of the C99 standard with respect to special values
+  whenever possible.  For example, ``sqrt(-1.)`` should now give a
+  :exc:`ValueError` across (nearly) all platforms, while
+  ``sqrt(float('NaN'))`` should return a NaN on all IEEE 754
+  platforms.  Where Annex 'F' of the C99 standard recommends signaling
+  'divide-by-zero' or 'invalid', Python will raise :exc:`ValueError`.
+  Where Annex 'F' of the C99 standard recommends signaling 'overflow',
+  Python will raise :exc:`OverflowError`.  (See :issue:`711019`,
+  :issue:`1640`.)
+
+  (Contributed by Christian Heimes and Mark Dickinson.)
 
 * Changes to the :class:`Exception` interface
   as dictated by :pep:`352` continue to be made.  For 2.6, 
@@ -1415,6 +1446,40 @@ complete list of changes, or look through the CVS logs for all the details.
   available, instead of restricting itself to protocol 1.
   (Contributed by W. Barnes; :issue:`1551443`.)
 
+* The :mod:`cmath` module underwent an extensive set of revisions,
+  thanks to Mark Dickinson and Christian Heimes, that added some new
+  features and greatly improved the accuracy of the computations.
+
+  Five new functions were added: 
+
+  * :func:`polar` converts a complex number to polar form, returning
+    the modulus and argument of that complex number. 
+
+  * :func:`rect` does the opposite, turning a (modulus, argument) pair
+    back into the corresponding complex number.
+
+  * :func:`phase` returns the phase or argument of a complex number.  
+
+  * :func:`isnan` returns True if either
+    the real or imaginary part of its argument is a NaN.  
+
+  * :func:`isinf` returns True if either the real or imaginary part of
+    its argument is infinite.
+
+  The revisions also improved the numerical soundness of the
+  :mod:`cmath` module.  For all functions, the real and imaginary
+  parts of the results are accurate to within a few units of least
+  precision (ulps) whenever possible.  See :issue:`1381` for the
+  details.  The branch cuts for :func:`asinh`, :func:`atanh`: and
+  :func:`atan` have also been corrected.
+
+  The tests for the module have been greatly expanded; nearly 2000 new
+  test cases exercise the algebraic functions.
+
+  On IEEE 754 platforms, the :mod:`cmath` module now handles IEEE 754
+  special values and floating-point exceptions in a manner consistent
+  with Annex 'G' of the C99 standard.
+
 * A new data type in the :mod:`collections` module: :class:`namedtuple(typename,
   fieldnames)` is a factory function that creates subclasses of the standard tuple
   whose fields are accessible by name as well as index.  For example::