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Diffstat (limited to 'Misc')
| -rw-r--r-- | Misc/NEWS | 188 |
1 files changed, 188 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -1,3 +1,191 @@ +================================== +==> Release 1.0.2 (4 May 1994) <== +================================== + +Overview of the most visible changes. Bug fixes are not listed. See +also ChangeLog. + +Tokens +------ + +* String literals follow Standard C rules: they may be continued on +the next line using a backslash; adjacent literals are concatenated +at compile time. + +* A new kind of string literals, surrounded by triple quotes (""" or +'''), can be continued on the next line without a backslash. + +Syntax +------ + +* Function arguments may have a default value, e.g. def f(a, b=1); +defaults are evaluated at function definition time. This also applies +to lambda. + +* The try-except statement has an optional else clause, which is +executed when no exception occurs in the try clause. + +Interpreter +----------- + +* The result of a statement-level expression is no longer printed, +except_ for expressions entered interactively. Consequently, the -k +command line option is gone. + +* The result of the last printed interactive expression is assigned to +the variable '_'. + +* Access to implicit global variables has been speeded up by removing +an always-failing dictionary lookup in the dictionary of local +variables (mod suggested by Steve Makewski and Tim Peters). + +* There is a new command line option, -u, to force stdout and stderr +to be unbuffered. + +* Incorporated Steve Majewski's mods to import.c for dynamic loading +under AIX. + +* Fewer chances of dumping core when trying to reload or re-import +static built-in, dynamically loaded built-in, or frozen modules. + +* Loops over sequences now don't ask for the sequence's length when +they start, but try to access items 0, 1, 2, and so on until they hit +an IndexError. This makes it possible to create classes that generate +infinite or indefinite sequences a la Steve Majewski. This affects +for loops, the (not) in operator, and the built-in functions filter(), +map(), max(), min(), reduce(). + +Changed Built-in operations +--------------------------- + +* The '%' operator on strings (printf-style formatting) supports a new +feature (adapted from a patch by Donald Beaudry) to allow +'%(<key>)<format>' % {...} to take values from a dictionary by name +instead of from a tuple by position (see also the new function +vars()). + +* The '%s' formatting operator is changed to accept any type and +convert it to a string using str(). + +* Dictionaries with more than 20,000 entries can now be created +(thanks to Steve Kirsch). + +New Built-in Functions +---------------------- + +* vars() returns a dictionary containing the local variables; vars(m) +returns a dictionary containing the variables of module m. Note: +dir(x) is now equivalent to vars(x).keys(). + +Changed Built-in Functions +-------------------------- + +* open() has an optional third argument to specify the buffer size: 0 +for unbuffered, 1 for line buffered, >1 for explicit buffer size, <0 +for default. + +* open()'s second argument is now optional; it defaults to "r". + +* apply() now checks that its second argument is indeed a tuple. + +New Built-in Modules +-------------------- + +Changed Built-in Modules +------------------------ + +The thread module no longer supports exit_prog(). + +New Python Modules +------------------ + +* Module addpack contains a standard interface to modify sys.path to +find optional packages (groups of related modules). + +* Module urllib contains a number of functions to access +World-Wide-Web files specified by their URL. + +* Module httplib implements the client side of the HTTP protocol used +by World-Wide-Web servers. + +* Module gopherlib implements the client side of the Gopher protocol. + +* Module mailbox (by Jack Jansen) contains a parser for UNIX and MMDF +style mailbox files. + +* Module random contains various random distributions, e.g. gauss(). + +* Module lockfile locks and unlocks open files using fcntl (inspired +by a similar module by Andy Bensky). + +* Module ntpath (by Jaap Vermeulen) implements path operations for +Windows/NT. + +* Module test_thread (in Lib/test) contains a small test set for the +thread module. + +Changed Python Modules +---------------------- + +* The string module's expandvars() function is now documented and is +implemented in Python (using regular expressions) instead of forking +off a shell process. + +* Module rfc822 now supports accessing the header fields using the +mapping/dictionary interface, e.g. h['subject']. + +* Module pdb now makes it possible to set a break on a function +(syntax: break <expression>, where <expression> yields a function +object). + +Changed Demos +------------- + +* The Demo/scripts/freeze.py script is working again (thanks to Jaap +Vermeulen). + +New Demos +--------- + +* Demo/threads/Generator.py is a proposed interface for restartable +functions a la Tim Peters. + +* Demo/scripts/newslist.py, by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, generates a +directory full of HTML pages which between them contain links to all +the newsgroups available on your server. + +* Demo/dns contains a DNS (Domain Name Server) client. + +* Demo/lutz contains miscellaneous demos by Mark Lutz (e.g. psh.py, a +nice enhanced Python shell!!!). + +* Demo/turing contains a Turing machine by Amrit Prem. + +Documentation +------------- + +* Documented new language features mentioned above (but not all new +modules). + +* Added a chapter to the Tutorial describing recent additions to +Python. + +* Clarified some sentences in the reference manual, +e.g. break/continue, local/global scope, slice assignment. + +Source Structure +---------------- + +* Moved Include/tokenizer.h to Parser/tokenizer.h. + +* Added Python/getopt.c for systems that don't have it. + +Emacs mode +---------- + +* Indentation of continuated lines is done more intelligently; +consequently the variable py-continuation-offset is gone. + ======================================== ==> Release 1.0.1 (15 February 1994) <== ======================================== |