diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | Misc/NEWS | 462 |
1 files changed, 446 insertions, 16 deletions
@@ -1,10 +1,246 @@ +XXX check that regsub.split / splitx are correctly documented. + ====================================== -==> Release 1.4 (sometime 3Q 1996) <== +==> Release 1.4beta3 (August 26 1996) <== ====================================== -What's new since 1.4 beta 1? ----------------------------- +XXX This needs to be reordered. + +What's new in 1.4beta3 (since beta2)? +------------------------------------- + +- 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. Ask Barry Warsaw +for a list of changes. 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. May John +Redford rot in hell. 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.) + +- 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) + +- Name mangling to support class-private variables: __spam is translated to +_ClassName__spam (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. @@ -12,16 +248,14 @@ What's new since 1.4 beta 1? meaningful value (a few things were botched in beta 1). Lib/dos_8x3 is now a standard part of the distribution (alas). -- Installation has been completely overhauled. Typing "make install" -now installs everything (not just the binary), inserts the version -number in the pathnames of almost everything installed, uses the -install-sh script to install each file, 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.) +- 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. +- New modules: errno, operator (XXX). - Changes for use with Numerical Python: builtin function slice() and Ellipses object, and corresponding syntax: @@ -59,7 +293,7 @@ with '__'. - New version of Fred Drake's parser module and associates (token, symbol, AST). -- New PYTHON_API_VERSION value, as well as .pyc file magic number. +- 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. @@ -76,9 +310,205 @@ avoid name conflicts. converted to new naming style. -What's new since Python release 1.3? ------------------------------------- +What's new in 1.4beta1 (since 1.3)? +----------------------------------- - Added sys.platform and sys.exec_platform for Bill Janssen. -XXX more... +- 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. |