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Diffstat (limited to 'Misc/NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | Misc/NEWS | 893 |
1 files changed, 466 insertions, 427 deletions
@@ -1,154 +1,247 @@ +What's new in this release? +=========================== +Below is a partial list of changes. This list is much more detailed than +previous; however it is still not complete. I did go through my CVS logs +but ran out of time. I believe that at least all major changes are +actually noted here. Note that I have not placed -New since 1.5a2 ---------------- - -The following items are only relevant if you previously used Python -1.5a2: - -- The strftime test should now succeed on Windows and Mac platforms, -too. It still fails on some Linux platforms; I believe that this is a -problem in the C library on those platforms. - - - -What's new in this release? ---------------------------- +Miscellaneous +------------- -I haven't kept track closely, so here are just a few highlights. For -the final release, I will go through all my RCS logs and distill a -complete list. Note that the biggest unfinished project is -documentation. +- 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. -XXX To be expanded: +- 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. -- Tools/webchecker +- 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?). -- Lee Busby's SIGFPE mods and modules fpectl, fpetest +- 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. -- formatter.*Writer.flush +- Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an +interactive EOF. -- dis.{cmp_op, hascompare} -- ftplib: FTP.ntransfercmd, Netrc, parse150 +Performance +----------- -- httplib.HTTP_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED +- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see Tools/scripts). -- new module keyword +- Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both +the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers. -- imghdr recognizes bmp, png +- 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). -- mhlib, parsesequence improved +- Significant speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand +types (e.g. i+i, i-i, and list[i]). Fredrik Lundh. -- mimify base64 support +- Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common +objects (e.g. list.append is now first). -- new.function revived -- popen2.popen3 added +Documentation +------------- -- new module pprint +- 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. -- cgi.FieldStorage: __len__ added +- 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 generate code for this. However, the text is +displayed as part of the traceback! There's also a -O option to the +interpreter that removes SET_LINENO instructions, assert statements; it +uses and produces .pyo files instead of .pyc files. In the future it +should be possible to write external bytecode optimizers that create better +optimized .pyo files. 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. + + +Changes to builtin features +--------------------------- -New exceptions: - FloatingPointError -Deleted exception: - ConflictError +- 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. -> audioop.ratecv +- There's a new variable sys.executable, pointing to the executable file +for the Python interpreter. -> posix.O_APPEND -> posix.O_CREAT -> posix.O_DSYNC -> posix.O_EXCL -> posix.O_NDELAY -> posix.O_NOCTTY -> posix.O_NONBLOCK -> posix.O_RDONLY -> posix.O_RDWR -> posix.O_RSYNC -> posix.O_SYNC -> posix.O_TRUNC -> posix.O_WRONLY - posix.O_TEXT - posix.O_BINARY -(also in os, of course) +- 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. -> regex.get_syntax +- 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.) -> socket.getprotobyname +- 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. -> strop.replace -Also string.replace +- 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. BTW, the +dictionary implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than +the confusing mappingobject.c. -- Jack's buffer interface! - - supported by regex module! +- The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I +wrote my own quicksort implementation, with help 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. -- improved dir() semantics +- The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__, +__members__ and __methods__. -- posix.error, nt.error renamed to os.error +- 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. -- rfc822 getdate_tz and parsedate_tz +- 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. -- shelve.*.sync +- Guido's corollary to the "Don Beaudry hack": 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. -- shutil improved interface -- socket.getprotobynameo +New extension modules +--------------------- -- _xdrmodule is gone (in favor of structmodule) +- 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. 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 can read both +formats). A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register +extensions to the pickling code. (These are now identical to the +release 0.3 from Digital Creations.) -- xdrlib.Unpacker.get_buffer +- 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. -- much improved structmodule +- New module readline; see the "miscellaneous" section above. -- Tkinter upgraded (as always) +- New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides +access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and +related symbolic constants. -- new al module for SGI +- 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. -- file object readinto methods -- tktrace??? +Changes in extension modules +---------------------------- -Obsolete: cgensupport.[ch] are now in Modules and only linked with glmodule.c. +- 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. -- much faster file.read() and readlines() on windows +- 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. -- PyObject_Compare() can now raise an exception. Check with -PyErr_Occurred(). The comparison function in an object type may also -raise an exception. +- Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType, +array.ArrayType. -- 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. +- The pthread support for the thread module now works on most platforms. -- I've completed the Grand Renaming, with the help of Roger Masse and -Barry Warsaw. Many other unrelated code reorganizations have also -been carried out. +- STDWIN is now officially obsolete. Support for it will eventually +be removed from the distribution. -- As far as I can tell, neither gcc -Wall nor the Microsoft compiler -emits a single warning any more when compiling Python. +- The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged. (XXX +Oops -- Fredril Lundh promised me a fix that I never received.) -- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see Tools/scripts.) -- Unless I hear a lot of protest, private variables with leading -double underscore are now a permanent feature of the language. I -can't label them "experimental" forever. - -- 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. 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 can read both -formats). A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register -extensions to the pickling code. (These are now identical to the -release 0.3 from Digital Creations.) +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 @@ -159,94 +252,113 @@ 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 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. 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. +- New module gzip.py; see zlib above. -- 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). +- New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in +keywords. (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.) -- 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 pprint.py (with documentation) which supports +pretty-printing of lists, tuples, & dictionaries recursively. By Fred +Drake. -- 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 module code.py. The function code.compile_command() can +determine whether an interactively entered command is complete or not, +distinguishing incomplete from invalid input. -- 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. +- There is now a library module xdr.py which can read and write the +XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example. It uses the struct +module. -- New small tools: cvsfiles.py (prints a list of all files under CVS -in 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. +Changes in library modules +-------------------------- -- 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. +- Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete. -- New standard dialog modules for Tkinter: tkColorChooser.py, -tkCommonDialog.py, tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py, tkSimpleDialog.py -These interface with the new Tk dialog scripts. Contributed by -Fredrik Lundh. +- 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. -- 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. +- In ihooks.py, ModuleLoader.load_module() now closes the file under +all circumstances. -- 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. +- 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). + +- httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.* +versions are now treated the same; 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; also added +recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars Wirzenius. + +- mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing +of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess. Also +added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius. -- 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. +- The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes). (Lars +Wirzenius.) (Of course, you should be using cStringIO for performance.) -- The mimify.py module now has documentation, and includes functions -to handle the funny encoding you sometimes see in mail headers. +- UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well. -- The default module search path is now much saner. Both on Unix and -Windows, it is essentially derived from the path to the executable -($PYTHONHOME can be used to override). The value of $PYTHONPATH on -Windows is now inserted in front of the default path, like in Unix -(instead of overriding the default path). +- 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. -- Support for Win32S (the 32-bit Windows API under Windows 3.1) is -basically withdrawn. If it works for you, you're lucky. +- Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file. Fred +Drake. -- On Win32 platforms (Windows NT and 95), 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(). +- urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries. Added +quote_plus() method which is like qupte() but also replaces spaces +with '+', for encoding 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. + +- shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available. + +- 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. + +- There is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse(); its size limit +is set to 20 (not 2000 as it was in earlier alphas). + +- 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. + + +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 @@ -259,9 +371,54 @@ input mechanism is used. The hook variables are PyOS_InputHook and PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer. (Code contributed by Lee Busby, with ideas from William Magro.) -- New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides -access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and -related symbolic constants. +- 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 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 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. + + +Change to the Python/C API +-------------------------- + +- 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. + +- 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 @@ -283,17 +440,6 @@ exit()). calls to Py_Finalize() and Py_Initialize() do not create unaccessible heap blocks. -- New function sys.exc_info() returns the tuple (sys.exc_type, -sys.exc_value, sys.exc_traceback) in a thread-safe way. - -- 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 is now explicit per-thread state. (Inspired by, but not the same as, Greg Stein's free threading patches.) @@ -308,78 +454,42 @@ 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.) -- Numerous source cleanups. - -- There's a simple assert statement, and a new exception -AssertionError, and a built-in variable __debug__. For example, -``assert foo > 0'' is equivalent to ``if __debug__ and not foo > 0: -raise AssertionError''. Sorry, the text of the asserted condition is -not available; it would be too generate code for this. However, the -text is displayed as part of the traceback! There's also a -O option -to the interpreter that squeezes SET_LINENO instructions, assert -statements and ``if __debug__'' code; it uses and produces .pyo files -instead of .pyc files. In the future it should be possible to write -external bytecode optimizers that create better optimized .pyo files. - -- 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). - -- New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in -keywords. (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.) - -- New examples (Demo/extend) that show how to use the generic -extension makefile (Misc/Makefile.pre.in). - -- 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. - -- Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete. +- New C API PyImport_Import() which uses whatever __import__() hook +that is installed for the current execution environment. By Jim +Fulton. -- 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. +- It is now possible for an extension module's init function to fail +non-fatally, by calling one of the PyErr_* functions and returning. -- As always, the Macintosh port was done by Jack Jansen. See his -separate announcement for the Mac specific source code and the binary -distribution(s). +- 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.) -- 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. +- 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.) -- 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. +- 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). -- 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. +- 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 is now a library module xdr.py which can read and write the -XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example. It uses the struct -module. -- Tools/scripts/h2py.py now supports C++ comments. +Tkinter +------- -- The 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. +- New standard dialog modules for Tkinter: tkColorChooser.py, +tkCommonDialog.py, tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py, tkSimpleDialog.py +These interface with the new Tk dialog scripts. Contributed by +Fredrik Lundh. -- New C API PyImport_Import() which uses whatever __import__() hook -that is installed for the current execution environment. By Jim -Fulton. +- 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 _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 @@ -394,225 +504,154 @@ 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). -- New "buffer" interface. Certain objects (e.g. strings, 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 -f.readinto(buffer). Contribution bty Jack Jansen. (Needs -documentation.) - -- 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). -- 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. - -- httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.* -versions are now treated the same; 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. - -- The support for shared libraries under AIX is now simpler and more -robust. Thanks to Vladimir Marangozov for revamping his own patches! +Tools and Demos +--------------- -- 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. +- 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. -- 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. +- 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. -- 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. +- 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. -- Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both -the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers. +- New small tools: cvsfiles.py (prints a list of all files under CVS +in 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. -- 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). +- 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. -- It is now possible for an extension module's init function to fail -non-fatally, by calling one of the PyErr_* functions and returning. +- New examples (Demo/extend) that show how to use the generic +extension makefile (Misc/Makefile.pre.in). -- 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.) +- Tools/scripts/h2py.py now supports C++ comments. -- 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 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. -- Guido's corollary of the Don Beaudry hack: 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. -- Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an -interactive EOF. +Windows (NT and 95) +------------------- -- Added timezone support to the rfc822.py module; also added -recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars Wirzenius. +- 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). -- mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing -of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess. Also -added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius. +- See the note on the new module search path in the "Miscellaneous" section +above. -- The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes). (Lars -Wirzenius.) +- Support for Win32s (the 32-bit Windows API under Windows 3.1) is +basically withdrawn. If it still works for you, you're lucky. -- 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. BTW, the -dictionary implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than -the confusing mappingobject.c. +- 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(). -- UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well. +- The -u option not only sets the standard I/O streams to unbuffered +status, but also sets them in binary mode. -- The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__, -__members__ and __methods__. +- 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 silly -s command line option and the corresponding -PYTHONSUPPRESS environment variable and the Py_SuppressPrint global -flag are gone. +- The ntpath module (normally used as os.path) supports ~ to $HOME +expansion in expanduser(). -- On Windows, -u not only sets the standard I/O streams to unbuffered -status, but also sets them in binary mode. +- The freeze tool now works on Windows. -- 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.) +- See also the Tkinter category for a note on _tkinter.createfilehandler(). -- Speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand types -(e.g. i+i, i-i, and list[i]). Fredrik Lundh. -- The extension modules dbm, gdbm and bsddb now check that the -database is still open before making any new calls. +Mac +--- -- Various small fixes to the nntplib.py module that I can't bother to -document in detail. +- As always, the Macintosh port was done by Jack Jansen. See his +separate announcement for the Mac specific source code and the binary +distribution(s). -- There is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse(); its size limit -is set to 20 (not 2000 as it was in earlier alphas). -- Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common -objects (e.g. list.append is now first). +More +---- -- The modules base64.py, uu.py and quopri.py can now be used as simple -command line utilities. +The following items should be expanded upon: -- The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged. (XXX -Oops -- Fredril Lundh promised me a fix that I never received.) +- formatter.*Writer.flush -- The mimetools.py module now uses the available Python modules for -decoding quoted-printable, uuencode and base64 formats, rather than -creating a subprocess. +- dis.{cmp_op, hascompare} -- The python debugger (pdb.py, and its base class bdb.py) now support -conditional breakpoints. See the docs. +- ftplib: FTP.ntransfercmd, parse150 -- 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. +- imghdr recognizes bmp, png -- 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. +- mimify base64 support -- Fix 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. +- new.function revived -- Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file. Fred -Drake. +- cgi.FieldStorage: __len__ added -- urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries. Added -quote_plus() method which is like qupte() but also replaces spaces -with '+', for encoding 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. +New exceptions: + FloatingPointError +Deleted exception: + ConflictError -- The posix module (and hence os.py!) now has doc strings! Thanks to -Neil Schemenauer. +> audioop.ratecv -- shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available. +> posix.O_APPEND +> posix.O_CREAT +> posix.O_DSYNC +> posix.O_EXCL +> posix.O_NDELAY +> posix.O_NOCTTY +> posix.O_NONBLOCK +> posix.O_RDONLY +> posix.O_RDWR +> posix.O_RSYNC +> posix.O_SYNC +> posix.O_TRUNC +> posix.O_WRONLY + posix.O_TEXT + posix.O_BINARY +(also in os, of course) -- Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType, -array.ArrayType. +> regex.get_syntax -- ntpath.py supports ~ to $HOME expansion in expanduser(). +> socket.getprotobyname -- The pthread support now works on most platforms. +> strop.replace +Also string.replace -- New variable sys.executable points to the executable file for the -Python interpreter, if known. +- Jack's buffer interface! + - supported by regex module! -- On Windows, sys.prefix and sys.exec_prefix point to the directory -where Python is installed, or to the top of the source tree, if it was -run from there. +- posix.error, nt.error renamed to os.error -- The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I -wrote my own quicksort implementation, with help 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. +- rfc822 getdate_tz and parsedate_tz -- STDWIN is now officially obsolete. Support for it will eventually -be removed from the distribution. +- shelve.*.sync -- 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). +- shutil improved interface -- 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). +- socket.getprotobynameo -- 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. +- new al module for SGI -- 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?). +Obsolete: cgensupport.[ch] are now in Modules and only linked with glmodule.c. +- much faster file.read() and readlines() on windows |