diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Misc')
| -rw-r--r-- | Misc/NEWS | 2513 |
1 files changed, 258 insertions, 2255 deletions
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@ What's new in this release? =========================== -Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.4. The most -recent changes are listed first. +Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.5.1. Older +changes are in the file HISTORY. The most recent changes are listed +first. A note on attributions: while I have sprinkled some names throughout here, I'm grateful to many more people who remain unnamed. You may @@ -13,6 +14,261 @@ credit, let me know and I'll add you to the list! ====================================================================== +From 1.5.2a2 to 1.5.2b1 +======================= + +Changes to intrinsics +--------------------- + +- New extension NotImplementedError, derived from RuntimeError. Not +used, but recommended use is for "abstract" methods to raise this. + +- The parser will now spit out a warning or error when -t or -tt is +used for parser input coming from a string, too. + +- The code generator now inserts extra SET_LINENO opcodes when +compiling multi-line argument lists. + +- When comparing bound methods, use identity test on the objects, not +equality test. + +New or improved ports +--------------------- + +- Chris Herborth has redone his BeOS port; it now works on PowerPC +(R3/R4) and x86 (R4 only). Threads work too in this port. + +Renaming +-------- + +- Thanks to Chris Herborth, the thread primitives now have proper Py* +names in the source code (they already had those for the linker, +through some smart macros; but the source still had the old, un-Py +names). + +Configuration/build changes +--------------------------- + +- Improved support for FreeBSD/3. + +- Check for pthread_detach instead of pthread_create in libc. + +- The makesetup script now searches EXECINCLUDEPY before INCLUDEPY. + +- Misc/Makefile.pre.in now also looks at Setup.thread and Setup.local. +Otherwise modules such as thread didn't get incorporated in extensions. + +New library modules +------------------- + +- codeop.py is a new module that contains the compile_command() +function that was previously in code.py. This is so that JPython can +provide its own version of this function, while still sharing the +higher-level classes in code.py. + +- turtle.py is a new module for simple turtle graphics. I'm still +working on it; let me know if you use this to teach Python to children +or other novices without prior programming experience. + +Obsoleted library modules +------------------------- + +- poly.py and zmod.py have been moved to Lib/lib-old to emphasize +their status of obsoleteness. They don't do a particularly good job +and don't seem particularly relevant to the Python core. + +New tools +--------- + +- I've added IDLE: my Integrated DeveLopment Environment for Python. +Requires Tcl/Tk (and Tkinter). Works on Windows and Unix (and should +work on Macintosh, but I haven't been able to test it there; it does +depend on new features in 1.5.2 and perhaps even new features in +1.5.2b1, especially the new code module). This is very much a work in +progress. I'd like to hear how people like it compared to PTUI (or +any other IDE they are familiar with). + +- New tools by Barry Warsaw: + + = audiopy: controls the Solaris Audio device + = pynche: The PYthonically Natural Color and Hue Editor + = world: Print mappings between country names and DNS country codes + +New demos +--------- + +- Demo/scripts/beer.py prints the lyrics to an arithmetic drinking +song. + +- Demo/tkinter/guido/optionmenu.py shows how to do an option menu in +Tkinter. (By Fredrik Lundh -- not by me!) + +Changes to the library +---------------------- + +- compileall.py now avoids recompiling .py files that haven't changed; +it adds a -f option to force recompilation. + +- New version of xmllib.py by Sjoerd Mullender (0.2 with latest +patches). + +- nntplib.py: statparse() no longer lowercases the message-id. + +- types.py: use type(__stdin__) for FileType. + +- urllib.py: fix translations for filenames with "funny" characters. + +- cgi.py: In read_multi, allow a subclass to override the class we +instantiate when we create a recursive instance, by setting the class +variable 'FieldStorageClass' to the desired class. By default, this +is set to None, in which case we use self.__class__ (as before). +Also, a patch by Jim Fulton to pass additional arguments to recursive +calls to the FieldStorage constructor from its read_multi method. + +- UserList.py: In __getslice__, use self.__class__ instead of +UserList. + +- In SimpleHTTPServer.py, the server specified in test() should be +BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer, in case the request handler should want to +reference the two attributes added by BaseHTTPServer.server_bind. (By +Jeff Rush, for Bobo). Also open the file in binary mode, so serving +images from a Windows box might actually work. + +- In CGIHTTPServer.py, the list of acceptable formats is -split- +on spaces but -joined- on commas, resulting in double commas +in the joined text. (By Jeff Rush.) + +- SocketServer.py, patch by Jeff Bauer: a minor change to declare two +new threaded versions of Unix Server classes, using the ThreadingMixIn +class: ThreadingUnixStreamServer, ThreadingUnixDatagramServer. + +- bdb.py: fix bomb on deleting a temporary breakpoint: there's no +method do_delete(); do_clear() was meant. By Greg Ward. + +- getopt.py: accept a non-list sequence for the long options (request +by Jack Jansen). Because it might be a common mistake to pass a +single string, this situation is treated separately. Also added +docstrings (copied from the library manual) and removed the (now +redundant) module comments. + +- tempfile.py: improvements to avoid security leaks. + +- code.py: moved compile_command() to new module codeop.py. + +- pickle.py: support pickle format 1.3 (binary float added). By Jim +Fulton. Also get rid of the undocumented obsolete Pickler dump_special +method. + +- uu.py: Move 'import sys' to top of module, as noted by Tim Peters. + +- imaplib.py: fix problem with some versions of IMAP4 servers that +choose to mix the case in their CAPABILITIES response. + +- cmp.py: use (f1, f2) as cache key instead of f1 + ' ' + f2. Noted +by Fredrik Lundh. + +Changes to extension modules +---------------------------- + +- More doc strings for several modules were contributed by Chris +Petrilli: math, cmath, fcntl. + +- Fixed a bug in zlibmodule.c that could cause core dumps on +decompression of rarely occurring input. + +- cPickle.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright +notice. Also, initialize self->safe_constructors early on to prevent +crash in early dealloc. + +- cStringIO.c: new version from Jim Fulton, with Open Source copyright +notice. Also fixed a core dump in cStringIO.c when doing seeks. + +- mpzmodule.c: fix signed character usage in mpz.mpz(stringobjecty). + +- readline.c: Bernard Herzog pointed out that rl_parse_and_bind +modifies its argument string (bad function!), so we make a temporary +copy. + +- sunaudiodev.c: Barry Warsaw added more smarts to get the device and +control pseudo-device, per audio(7I). + +Changes to tools +---------------- + +- New, improved version of Barry Warsaw's Misc/python-mode.el (editing +support for Emacs). + +- tabnanny.py: added a -q ('quiet') option to tabnanny, which causes +only the names of offending files to be printed. + +- freeze: when printing missing modules, also print the module they +were imported from. + +- untabify.py: patch by Detlef Lannert to implement -t option +(set tab size). + +Changes to Tkinter +------------------ + +- grid_bbox(): support new Tk API: grid bbox ?column row? ?column2 +row2? + +- _tkinter.c: RajGopal Srinivasan noted that the latest code (1.5.2a2) +doesn't work when running in a non-threaded environment. He added +some #ifdefs that fix this. + +Changes to the Python/C API +--------------------------- + +- Bumped API version number to 1008 -- enough things have changed! + +- There's a new macro, PyThreadState_GET(), which does the same work +as PyThreadState_Get() without the overhead of a function call (it +also avoids the error check). The two top calling locations of +PyThreadState_Get() have been changed to use this macro. + +- All symbols intended for export from a DLL or shared library are now +marked as such (with the DL_IMPORT() macro) in the header file that +declares them. This was needed for the BeOS port, and should also +make some other ports easier. The PC port no longer needs the file +with exported symbols (PC/python_nt.def). There's also a DL_EXPORT +macro which is only used for init methods in extension modules, and +for Py_Main(). + +Invisible changes to internals +------------------------------ + +- Fixed a bug in new_buffersize() in fileobject.c which could +return a buffer size that was way too large. + +- Use PySys_WriteStderr instead of fprintf in most places. + +- dictobject.c: remove dead code discovered by Vladimir Marangozov. + +- tupleobject.c: make tuples less hungry -- an extra item was +allocated but never used. Tip by Vladimir Marangozov. + +- mymath.h: Metrowerks PRO4 finally fixes the hypot snafu. (Jack +Jansen) + +- import.c: Jim Fulton fixes a reference count bug in +PyEval_GetGlobals. + +- glmodule.c: check in the changed version after running the stubber +again -- this solves the conflict with curses over the 'clear' entry +point much nicer. (Jack Jansen had checked in the changes to cstubs +eons ago, but I never regenrated glmodule.c :-( ) + +- frameobject.c: fix reference count bug in PyFrame_New. Vladimir +Marangozov. + +- stropmodule.c: add a missing DECREF in an error exit. Submitted by +Jonathan Giddy. + + +====================================================================== + + From 1.5.2a1 to 1.5.2a2 ======================= @@ -776,2256 +1032,3 @@ etc. are sought). ====================================================================== - - -From 1.5 to 1.5.1 -================= - -General -------- - -- The documentation is now unbundled. It has also been extensively -modified (mostly to implement a new and more uniform formatting -style). We figure that most people will prefer to download one of the -preformatted documentation sets (HTML, PostScript or PDF) and that -only a minority have a need for the LaTeX or FrameMaker sources. Of -course, the unbundled documentation sources still released -- just not -in the same archive file, and perhaps not on the same date. - -- All bugs noted on the errors page (and many unnoted) are fixed. All -new bugs take their places. - -- No longer a core dump when attempting to print (or repr(), or str()) -a list or dictionary that contains an instance of itself; instead, the -recursive entry is printed as [...] or {...}. See Py_ReprEnter() and -Py_ReprLeave() below. Comparisons of such objects still go beserk, -since this requires a different kind of fix; fortunately, this is a -less common scenario in practice. - -Syntax change -------------- - -- The raise statement can now be used without arguments, to re-raise -a previously set exception. This should be used after catching an -exception with an except clause only, either in the except clause or -later in the same function. - -Import and module handling --------------------------- - -- The implementation of import has changed to use a mutex (when -threading is supported). This means that when two threads -simultaneously import the same module, the import statements are -serialized. Recursive imports are not affected. - -- Rewrote the finalization code almost completely, to be much more -careful with the order in which modules are destroyed. Destructors -will now generally be able to reference built-in names such as None -without trouble. - -- Case-insensitive platforms such as Mac and Windows require the case -of a module's filename to match the case of the module name as -specified in the import statement (see below). - -- The code for figuring out the default path now distinguishes between -files, modules, executable files, and directories. When expecting a -module, we also look for the .pyc or .pyo file. - -Parser/tokenizer changes ------------------------- - -- The tokenizer can now warn you when your source code mixes tabs and -spaces for indentation in a manner that depends on how much a tab is -worth in spaces. Use "python -t" or "python -v" to enable this -option. Use "python -tt" to turn the warnings into errors. (See also -tabnanny.py and tabpolice.py below.) - -- Return unsigned characters from tok_nextc(), so '\377' isn't -mistaken for an EOF character. - -- Fixed two pernicious bugs in the tokenizer that only affected AIX. -One was actually a general bug that was triggered by AIX's smaller I/O -buffer size. The other was a bug in the AIX optimizer's loop -unrolling code; swapping two statements made the problem go away. - -Tools, demos and miscellaneous files ------------------------------------- - -- There's a new version of Misc/python-mode.el (the Emacs mode for -Python) which is much smarter about guessing the indentation style -used in a particular file. Lots of other cool features too! - -- There are two new tools in Tools/scripts: tabnanny.py and -tabpolice.py, implementing two different ways of checking whether a -file uses indentation in a way that is sensitive to the interpretation -of a tab. The preferred module is tabnanny.py (by Tim Peters). - -- Some new demo programs: - - Demo/tkinter/guido/paint.py -- Dave Mitchell - Demo/sockets/unixserver.py -- Piet van Oostrum - - -- Much better freeze support. The freeze script can now freeze -hierarchical module names (with a corresponding change to import.c), -and has a few extra options (e.g. to suppress freezing specific -modules). It also does much more on Windows NT. - -- Version 1.0 of the faq wizard is included (only very small changes -since version 0.9.0). - -- New feature for the ftpmirror script: when removing local files -(i.e., only when -r is used), do a recursive delete. - -Configuring and building Python -------------------------------- - -- Get rid of the check for -linet -- recent Sequent Dynix systems don't -need this any more and apparently it screws up their configuration. - -- Some changes because gcc on SGI doesn't support '-all'. - -- Changed the build rules to use $(LIBRARY) instead of - -L.. -lpython$(VERSION) -since the latter trips up the SunOS 4.1.x linker (sigh). - -- Fix the bug where the '# dgux is broken' comment in the Makefile -tripped over Make on some platforms. - -- Changes for AIX: install the python.exp file; properly use -$(srcdir); the makexp_aix script now removes C++ entries of the form -Class::method. - -- Deleted some Makefile targets only used by the (long obsolete) -gMakefile hacks. - -Extension modules ------------------ - -- Performance and threading improvements to the socket and bsddb -modules, by Christopher Lindblad of Infoseek. - -- Added operator.__not__ and operator.not_. - -- In the thread module, when a thread exits due to an unhandled -exception, don't store the exception information in sys.last_*; it -prevents proper calling of destructors of local variables. - -- Fixed a number of small bugs in the cPickle module. - -- Changed find() and rfind() in the strop module so that -find("x","",2) returns -1, matching the implementation in string.py. - -- In the time module, be more careful with the result of ctime(), and -test for HAVE_MKTIME before usinmg mktime(). - -- Doc strings contributed by Mitch Chapman to the termios, pwd, gdbm -modules. - -- Added the LOG_SYSLOG constant to the syslog module, if defined. - -Standard library modules ------------------------- - -- All standard library modules have been converted to an indentation -style using either only tabs or only spaces -- never a mixture -- if -they weren't already consistent according to tabnanny. This means -that the new -t option (see above) won't complain about standard -library modules. - -- New standard library modules: - - threading -- GvR and the thread-sig - Java style thread objects -- USE THIS!!! - - getpass -- Piers Lauder - simple utilities to prompt for a password and to - retrieve the current username - - imaplib -- Piers Lauder - interface for the IMAP4 protocol - - poplib -- David Ascher, Piers Lauder - interface for the POP3 protocol - - smtplib -- Dragon De Monsyne - interface for the SMTP protocol - -- Some obsolete modules moved to a separate directory (Lib/lib-old) -which is *not* in the default module search path: - - Para - addpack - codehack - fmt - lockfile - newdir - ni - rand - tb - -- New version of the PCRE code (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions -- -the re module and the supporting pcre extension) by Andrew Kuchling. -Incompatible new feature in re.sub(): the handling of escapes in the -replacement string has changed. - -- Interface change in the copy module: a __deepcopy__ method is now -called with the memo dictionary as an argument. - -- Feature change in the tokenize module: differentiate between NEWLINE -token (an official newline) and NL token (a newline that the grammar -ignores). - -- Several bugfixes to the urllib module. It is now truly thread-safe, -and several bugs and a portability problem have been fixed. New -features, all due to Sjoerd Mullender: When creating a temporary file, -it gives it an appropriate suffix. Support the "data:" URL scheme. -The open() method uses the tempcache. - -- New version of the xmllib module (this time with a test suite!) by -Sjoerd Mullender. - -- Added debugging code to the telnetlib module, to be able to trace -the actual traffic. - -- In the rfc822 module, added support for deleting a header (still no -support for adding headers, though). Also fixed a bug where an -illegal address would cause a crash in getrouteaddr(), fixed a -sign reversal in mktime_tz(), and use the local timezone by default -(the latter two due to Bill van Melle). - -- The normpath() function in the dospath and ntpath modules no longer -does case normalization -- for that, use the separate function -normcase() (which always existed); normcase() has been sped up and -fixed (it was the cause of a crash in Mark Hammond's installer in -certain locales). - -- New command supported by the ftplib module: rmd(); also fixed some -minor bugs. - -- The profile module now uses a different timer function by default -- -time.clock() is generally better than os.times(). This makes it work -better on Windows NT, too. - -- The tempfile module now recovers when os.getcwd() raises an -exception. - -- Fixed some bugs in the random module; gauss() was subtly wrong, and -vonmisesvariate() should return a full circle. Courtesy Mike Miller, -Lambert Meertens (gauss()), and Magnus Kessler (vonmisesvariate()). - -- Better default seed in the whrandom module, courtesy Andrew Kuchling. - -- Fix slow close() in shelve module. - -- The Unix mailbox class in the mailbox module is now more robust when -a line begins with the string "From " but is definitely not the start -of a new message. The pattern used can be changed by overriding a -method or class variable. - -- Added a rmtree() function to the copy module. - -- Fixed several typos in the pickle module. Also fixed problems when -unpickling in restricted execution environments. - -- Added docstrings and fixed a typo in the py_compile and compileall -modules. At Mark Hammond's repeated request, py_compile now append a -newline to the source if it needs one. Both modules support an extra -parameter to specify the purported source filename (to be used in -error messages). - -- Some performance tweaks by Jeremy Hylton to the gzip module. - -- Fixed a bug in the merge order of dictionaries in the ConfigParser -module. Courtesy Barry Warsaw. - -- In the multifile module, support the optional second parameter to -seek() when possible. - -- Several fixes to the gopherlib module by Lars Marius Garshol. Also, -urlparse now correctly handles Gopher URLs with query strings. - -- Fixed a tiny bug in format_exception() in the traceback module. -Also rewrite tb_lineno() to be compatible with JPython (and not -disturb the current exception!); by Jim Hugunin. - -- The httplib module is more robust when servers send a short response --- courtesy Tim O'Malley. - -Tkinter and friends -------------------- - -- Various typos and bugs fixed. - -- New module Tkdnd implements a drag-and-drop protocol (within one -application only). - -- The event_*() widget methods have been restructured slightly -- they -no longer use the default root. - -- The interfaces for the bind*() and unbind() widget methods have been -redesigned; the bind*() methods now return the name of the Tcl command -created for the callback, and this can be passed as a optional -argument to unbind() in order to delete the command (normally, such -commands are automatically unbound when the widget is destroyed, but -for some applications this isn't enough). - -- Variable objects now have trace methods to interface to Tcl's -variable tracing facilities. - -- Image objects now have an optional keyword argument, 'master', to -specify a widget (tree) to which they belong. The image_names() and -image_types() calls are now also widget methods. - -- There's a new global call, Tkinter.NoDefaultRoot(), which disables -all use of the default root by the Tkinter library. This is useful to -debug applications that are in the process of being converted from -relying on the default root to explicit specification of the root -widget. - -- The 'exit' command is deleted from the Tcl interpreter, since it -provided a loophole by which one could (accidentally) exit the Python -interpreter without invoking any cleanup code. - -- Tcl_Finalize() is now registered as a Python low-level exit handle, -so Tcl will be finalized when Python exits. - -The Python/C API ----------------- - -- New function PyThreadState_GetDict() returns a per-thread dictionary -intended for storing thread-local global variables. - -- New functions Py_ReprEnter() and Py_ReprLeave() use the per-thread -dictionary to allow recursive container types to detect recursion in -their repr(), str() and print implementations. - -- New function PyObject_Not(x) calculates (not x) according to Python's -standard rules (basically, it negates the outcome PyObject_IsTrue(x). - -- New function _PyModule_Clear(), which clears a module's dictionary -carefully without removing the __builtins__ entry. This is implied -when a module object is deallocated (this used to clear the dictionary -completely). - -- New function PyImport_ExecCodeModuleEx(), which extends -PyImport_ExecCodeModule() by adding an extra parameter to pass it the -true file. - -- New functions Py_GetPythonHome() and Py_SetPythonHome(), intended to -allow embedded applications to force a different value for PYTHONHOME. - -- New global flag Py_FrozenFlag is set when this is a "frozen" Python -binary; it suppresses warnings about not being able to find the -standard library directories. - -- New global flag Py_TabcheckFlag is incremented by the -t option and -causes the tokenizer to issue warnings or errors about inconsistent -mixing of tabs and spaces for indentation. - -Miscellaneous minor changes and bug fixes ------------------------------------------ - -- Improved the error message when an attribute of an attribute-less -object is requested -- include the name of the attribute and the type -of the object in the message. - -- Sped up int(), long(), float() a bit. - -- Fixed a bug in list.sort() that would occasionally dump core. - -- Fixed a bug in PyNumber_Power() that caused numeric arrays to fail -when taken tothe real power. - -- Fixed a number of bugs in the file reading code, at least one of -which could cause a core dump on NT, and one of which would -occasionally cause file.read() to return less than the full contents -of the file. - -- Performance hack by Vladimir Marangozov for stack frame creation. - -- Make sure setvbuf() isn't used unless HAVE_SETVBUF is defined. - -Windows 95/NT -------------- - -- The .lib files are now part of the distribution; they are collected -in the subdirectory "libs" of the installation directory. - -- The extension modules (.pyd files) are now collected in a separate -subdirectory of the installation directory named "DLLs". - -- The case of a module's filename must now match the case of the -module name as specified in the import statement. This is an -experimental feature -- if it turns out to break in too many -situations, it will be removed (or disabled by default) in the future. -It can be disabled on a per-case basis by setting the environment -variable PYTHONCASEOK (to any value). - - -====================================================================== - - -From 1.5b2 to 1.5 -================= - -- Newly documentated module: BaseHTTPServer.py, thanks to Greg Stein. - -- Added doc strings to string.py, stropmodule.c, structmodule.c, -thanks to Charles Waldman. - -- Many nits fixed in the manuals, thanks to Fred Drake and many others -(especially Rob Hooft and Andrew Kuchling). The HTML version now uses -HTML markup instead of inline GIF images for tables; only two images -are left (for obsure bits of math). The index of the HTML version has -also been much improved. Finally, it is once again possible to -generate an Emacs info file from the library manual (but I don't -commit to supporting this in future versions). - -- New module: telnetlib.py (a simple telnet client library). - -- New tool: Tools/versioncheck/, by Jack Jansen. - -- Ported zlibmodule.c and bsddbmodule.c to NT; The project file for MS -DevStudio 5.0 now includes new subprojects to build the zlib and bsddb -extension modules. - -- Many small changes again to Tkinter.py -- mostly bugfixes and adding -missing routines. Thanks to Greg McFarlane for reporting a bunch of -problems and proofreading my fixes. - -- The re module and its documentation are up to date with the latest -version released to the string-sig (Dec. 22). - -- Stop test_grp.py from failing when the /etc/group file is empty -(yes, this happens!). - -- Fix bug in integer conversion (mystrtoul.c) that caused -4294967296==0 to be true! - -- The VC++ 4.2 project file should be complete again. - -- In tempfile.py, use a better template on NT, and add a new optional -argument "suffix" with default "" to specify a specific extension for -the temporary filename (needed sometimes on NT but perhaps also handy -elsewhere). - -- Fixed some bugs in the FAQ wizard, and converted it to use re -instead of regex. - -- Fixed a mysteriously undetected error in dlmodule.c (it was using a -totally bogus routine name to raise an exception). - -- Fixed bug in import.c which wasn't using the new "dos-8x3" name yet. - -- Hopefully harmless changes to the build process to support shared -libraries on DG/UX. This adds a target to create -libpython$(VERSION).so; however this target is *only* for DG/UX. - -- Fixed a bug in the new format string error checking in getargs.c. - -- A simple fix for infinite recursion when printing __builtins__: -reset '_' to None before printing and set it to the printed variable -*after* printing (and only when printing is successful). - -- Fixed lib-tk/SimpleDialog.py to keep the dialog visible even if the -parent window is not (Skip Montanaro). - -- Fixed the two most annoying problems with ftp URLs in -urllib.urlopen(); an empty file now correctly raises an error, and it -is no longer required to explicitly close the returned "file" object -before opening another ftp URL to the same host and directory. - - -====================================================================== - - -From 1.5b1 to 1.5b2 -=================== - -- Fixed a bug in cPickle.c that caused it to crash right away because -the version string had a different format. - -- Changes in pickle.py and cPickle.c: when unpickling an instance of a -class that doesn't define the __getinitargs__() method, the __init__() -constructor is no longer called. This makes a much larger group of -classes picklable by default, but may occasionally change semantics. -To force calling __init__() on unpickling, define a __getinitargs__() -method. Other changes too, in particular cPickle now handles classes -defined in packages correctly. The same change applies to copying -instances with copy.py. The cPickle.c changes and some pickle.py -changes are courtesy Jim Fulton. - -- Locale support in he "re" (Perl regular expressions) module. Use -the flag re.L (or re.LOCALE) to enable locale-specific matching -rules for \w and \b. The in-line syntax for this flag is (?L). - -- The built-in function isinstance(x, y) now also succeeds when y is -a type object and type(x) is y. - -- repr() and str() of class and instance objects now reflect the -package/module in which the class is defined. - -- Module "ni" has been removed. (If you really need it, it's been -renamed to "ni1". Let me know if this causes any problems for you. -Package authors are encouraged to write __init__.py files that -support both ni and 1.5 package support, so the same version can be -used with Python 1.4 as well as 1.5.) - -- The thread module is now automatically included when threads are -configured. (You must remove it from your existing Setup file, -since it is now in its own Setup.thread file.) - -- New command line option "-x" to skip the first line of the script; -handy to make executable scripts on non-Unix platforms. - -- In importdl.c, add the RTLD_GLOBAL to the dlopen() flags. I -haven't checked how this affects things, but it should make symbols -in one shared library available to the next one. - -- The Windows installer now installs in the "Program Files" folder on -the proper volume by default. - -- The Windows configuration adds a new main program, "pythonw", and -registers a new extension, ".pyw" that invokes this. This is a -pstandard Python interpreter that does not pop up a console window; -handy for pure Tkinter applications. All output to the original -stdout and stderr is lost; reading from the original stdin yields -EOF. Also, both python.exe and pythonw.exe now have a pretty icon -(a green snake in a box, courtesy Mark Hammond). - -- Lots of improvements to emacs-mode.el again. See Barry's web page: -http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html. - -- Lots of improvements and additions to the library reference manual; -many by Fred Drake. - -- Doc strings for the following modules: rfc822.py, posixpath.py, -ntpath.py, httplib.py. Thanks to Mitch Chapman and Charles Waldman. - -- Some more regression testing. - -- An optional 4th (maxsplit) argument to strop.replace(). - -- Fixed handling of maxsplit in string.splitfields(). - -- Tweaked os.environ so it can be pickled and copied. - -- The portability problems caused by indented preprocessor commands -and C++ style comments should be gone now. - -- In random.py, added Pareto and Weibull distributions. - -- The crypt module is now disabled in Modules/Setup.in by default; it -is rarely needed and causes errors on some systems where users often -don't know how to deal with those. - -- Some improvements to the _tkinter build line suggested by Case Roole. - -- A full suite of platform specific files for NetBSD 1.x, submitted by -Anders Andersen. - -- New Solaris specific header STROPTS.py. - -- Moved a confusing occurrence of *shared* from the comments in -Modules/Setup.in (people would enable this one instead of the real -one, and get disappointing results). - -- Changed the default mode for directories to be group-writable when -the installation process creates them. - -- Check for pthread support in "-l_r" for FreeBSD/NetBSD, and support -shared libraries for both. - -- Support FreeBSD and NetBSD in posixfile.py. - -- Support for the "event" command, new in Tk 4.2. By Case Roole. - -- Add Tix_SafeInit() support to tkappinit.c. - -- Various bugs fixed in "re.py" and "pcre.c". - -- Fixed a bug (broken use of the syntax table) in the old "regexpr.c". - -- In frozenmain.c, stdin is made unbuffered too when PYTHONUNBUFFERED -is set. - -- Provide default blocksize for retrbinary in ftplib.py (Skip -Montanaro). - -- In NT, pick the username up from different places in user.py (Jeff -Bauer). - -- Patch to urlparse.urljoin() for ".." and "..#1", Marc Lemburg. - -- Many small improvements to Jeff Rush' OS/2 support. - -- ospath.py is gone; it's been obsolete for so many years now... - -- The reference manual is now set up to prepare better HTML (still -using webmaker, alas). - -- Add special handling to /Tools/freeze for Python modules that are -imported implicitly by the Python runtime: 'site' and 'exceptions'. - -- Tools/faqwiz 0.8.3 -- add an option to suppress URL processing -inside <PRE>, by "Scott". - -- Added ConfigParser.py, a generic parser for sectioned configuration -files. - -- In _localemodule.c, LC_MESSAGES is not always defined; put it -between #ifdefs. - -- Typo in resource.c: RUSAGE_CHILDERN -> RUSAGE_CHILDREN. - -- Demo/scripts/newslist.py: Fix the way the version number is gotten -out of the RCS revision. - -- PyArg_Parse[Tuple] now explicitly check for bad characters at the -end of the format string. - -- Revamped PC/example_nt to support VC++ 5.x. - -- <listobject>.sort() now uses a modified quicksort by Raymund Galvin, -after studying the GNU libg++ quicksort. This should be much faster -if there are lots of duplicates, and otherwise at least as good. - -- Added "uue" as an alias for "uuencode" to mimetools.py. (Hm, the -uudecode bug where it complaints about trailing garbage is still there -:-( ). - -- pickle.py requires integers in text mode to be in decimal notation -(it used to accept octal and hex, even though it would only generate -decimal numbers). - -- In string.atof(), don't fail when the "re" module is unavailable. -Plug the ensueing security leak by supplying an empty __builtins__ -directory to eval(). - -- A bunch of small fixes and improvements to Tkinter.py. - -- Fixed a buffer overrun in PC/getpathp.c. - - -====================================================================== - - -From 1.5a4 to 1.5b1 -=================== - -- The Windows NT/95 installer now includes full HTML of all manuals. -It also has a checkbox that lets you decide whether to install the -interpreter and library. The WISE installer script for the installer -is included in the source tree as PC/python15.wse, and so are the -icons used for Python files. The config.c file for the Windows build -is now complete with the pcre module. - -- sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 can now arbitrary objects; their str() is -evaluated for the prompt. - -- The reference manual is brought up to date (more or less -- it still -needs work, e.g. in the area of package import). - -- The icons used by latex2html are now included in the Doc -subdirectory (mostly so that tarring up the HTML files can be fully -automated). A simple index.html is also added to Doc (it only works -after you have successfully run latex2html). - -- For all you would-be proselytizers out there: a new version of -Misc/BLURB describes Python more concisely, and Misc/comparisons -compares Python to several other languages. Misc/BLURB.WINDOWS -contains a blurb specifically aimed at Windows programmers (by Mark -Hammond). - -- A new version of the Python mode for Emacs is included as -Misc/python-mode.el. There are too many new features to list here. -See http://www.python.org/ftp/emacs/pmdetails.html for more info. - -- New module fileinput makes iterating over the lines of a list of -files easier. (This still needs some more thinking to make it more -extensible.) - -- There's full OS/2 support, courtesy Jeff Rush. To build the OS/2 -version, see PC/readme.txt and PC/os2vacpp. This is for IBM's Visual -Age C++ compiler. I expect that Jeff will also provide a binary -release for this platform. - -- On Linux, the configure script now uses '-Xlinker -export-dynamic' -instead of '-rdynamic' to link the main program so that it exports its -symbols to shared libraries it loads dynamically. I hope this doesn't -break on older Linux versions; it is needed for mklinux and appears to -work on Linux 2.0.30. - -- Some Tkinter resstructuring: the geometry methods that apply to a -master are now properly usable on toplevel master widgets. There's a -new (internal) widget class, BaseWidget. New, longer "official" names -for the geometry manager methods have been added, -e.g. "grid_columnconfigure()" instead of "columnconfigure()". The old -shorter names still work, and where there's ambiguity, pack wins over -place wins over grid. Also, the bind_class method now returns its -value. - -- New, RFC-822 conformant parsing of email addresses and address lists -in the rfc822 module, courtesy Ben Escoto. - -- New, revamped tkappinit.c with support for popular packages (PIL, -TIX, BLT, TOGL). For the last three, you need to execute the Tcl -command "load {} Tix" (or Blt, or Togl) to gain access to them. -The Modules/Setup line for the _tkinter module has been rewritten -using the cool line-breaking feature of most Bourne shells. - -- New socket method connect_ex() returns the error code from connect() -instead of raising an exception on errors; this makes the logic -required for asynchronous connects simpler and more efficient. - -- New "locale" module with (still experimental) interface to the -standard C library locale interface, courtesy Martin von Loewis. This -does not repeat my mistake in 1.5a4 of always calling -setlocale(LC_ALL, ""). In fact, we've pretty much decided that -Python's standard numerical formatting operations should always use -the conventions for the C locale; the locale module contains utility -functions to format numbers according to the user specified locale. -(All this is accomplished by an explicit call to setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, -"C") after locale-changing calls.) See the library manual. (Alas, the -promised changes to the "re" module for locale support have not been -materialized yet. If you care, volunteer!) - -- Memory leak plugged in Py_BuildValue when building a dictionary. - -- Shared modules can now live inside packages (hierarchical module -namespaces). No changes to the shared module itself are needed. - -- Improved policy for __builtins__: this is a module in __main__ and a -dictionary everywhere else. - -- Python no longer catches SIGHUP and SIGTERM by default. This was -impossible to get right in the light of thread contexts. If you want -your program to clean up when a signal happens, use the signal module -to set up your own signal handler. - -- New Python/C API PyNumber_CoerceEx() does not return an exception -when no coercion is possible. This is used to fix a problem where -comparing incompatible numbers for equality would raise an exception -rather than return false as in Python 1.4 -- it once again will return -false. - -- The errno module is changed again -- the table of error messages -(errorstr) is removed. Instead, you can use os.strerror(). This -removes redundance and a potential locale dependency. - -- New module xmllib, to parse XML files. By Sjoerd Mullender. - -- New C API PyOS_AfterFork() is called after fork() in posixmodule.c. -It resets the signal module's notion of what the current process ID -and thread are, so that signal handlers will work after (and across) -calls to os.fork(). - -- Fixed most occurrences of fatal errors due to missing thread state. - -- For vgrind (a flexible source pretty printer) fans, there's a simple -Python definition in Misc/vgrindefs, courtesy Neale Pickett. - -- Fixed memory leak in exec statement. - -- The test.pystone module has a new function, pystones(loops=LOOPS), -which returns a (benchtime, stones) tuple. The main() function now -calls this and prints the report. - -- Package directories now *require* the presence of an __init__.py (or -__init__.pyc) file before they are considered as packages. This is -done to prevent accidental subdirectories with common names from -overriding modules with the same name. - -- Fixed some strange exceptions in __del__ methods in library modules -(e.g. urllib). This happens because the builtin names are already -deleted by the time __del__ is called. The solution (a hack, but it -works) is to set some instance variables to 0 instead of None. - -- The table of built-in module initializers is replaced by a pointer -variable. This makes it possible to switch to a different table at -run time, e.g. when a collection of modules is loaded from a shared -library. (No example code of how to do this is given, but it is -possible.) The table is still there of course, its name prefixed with -an underscore and used to initialize the pointer. - -- The warning about a thread still having a frame now only happens in -verbose mode. - -- Change the signal finialization so that it also resets the signal -handlers. After this has been called, our signal handlers are no -longer active! - -- New version of tokenize.py (by Ka-Ping Yee) recognizes raw string -literals. There's now also a test fort this module. - -- The copy module now also uses __dict__.update(state) instead of -going through individual attribute assignments, for class instances -without a __setstate__ method. - -- New module reconvert translates old-style (regex module) regular -expressions to new-style (re module, Perl-style) regular expressions. - -- Most modules that used to use the regex module now use the re -module. The grep module has a new pgrep() function which uses -Perl-style regular expressions. - -- The (very old, backwards compatibility) regexp.py module has been -deleted. - -- Restricted execution (rexec): added the pcre module (support for the -re module) to the list of trusted extension modules. - -- New version of Jim Fulton's CObject object type, adds -PyCObject_FromVoidPtrAndDesc() and PyCObject_GetDesc() APIs. - -- Some patches to Lee Busby's fpectl mods that accidentally didn't -make it into 1.5a4. - -- In the string module, add an optional 4th argument to count(), -matching find() etc. - -- Patch for the nntplib module by Charles Waldman to add optional user -and password arguments to NNTP.__init__(), for nntp servers that need -them. - -- The str() function for class objects now returns -"modulename.classname" instead of returning the same as repr(). - -- The parsing of \xXX escapes no longer relies on sscanf(). - -- The "sharedmodules" subdirectory of the installation is renamed to -"lib-dynload". (You may have to edit your Modules/Setup file to fix -this in an existing installation!) - -- Fixed Don Beaudry's mess-up with the OPT test in the configure -script. Certain SGI platforms will still issue a warning for each -compile; there's not much I can do about this since the compiler's -exit status doesn't indicate that I was using an obsolete option. - -- Fixed Barry's mess-up with {}.get(), and added test cases for it. - -- Shared libraries didn't quite work under AIX because of the change -in status of the GNU readline interface. Fix due to by Vladimir -Marangozov. - - -====================================================================== - - -From 1.5a3 to 1.5a4 -=================== - -- faqwiz.py: version 0.8; Recognize https:// as URL; <html>...</html> -feature; better install instructions; removed faqmain.py (which was an -older version). - -- nntplib.py: Fixed some bugs reported by Lars Wirzenius (to Debian) -about the treatment of lines starting with '.'. Added a minimal test -function. - -- struct module: ignore most whitespace in format strings. - -- urllib.py: close the socket and temp file in URLopener.retrieve() so -that multiple retrievals using the same connection work. - -- All standard exceptions are now classes by default; use -X to make -them strings (for backward compatibility only). - -- There's a new standard exception hierarchy, defined in the standard -library module exceptions.py (which you never need to import -explicitly). See -http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/stdexceptions.html for -more info. - -- Three new C API functions: - - - int PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches(obj1, obj2) - - Returns 1 if obj1 and obj2 are the same object, or if obj1 is an - instance of type obj2, or of a class derived from obj2 - - - int PyErr_ExceptionMatches(obj) - - Higher level wrapper around PyErr_GivenExceptionMatches() which uses - PyErr_Occurred() as obj1. This will be the more commonly called - function. - - - void PyErr_NormalizeException(typeptr, valptr, tbptr) - - Normalizes exceptions, and places the normalized values in the - arguments. If type is not a class, this does nothing. If type is a - class, then it makes sure that value is an instance of the class by: - - 1. if instance is of the type, or a class derived from type, it does - nothing. - - 2. otherwise it instantiates the class, using the value as an - argument. If value is None, it uses an empty arg tuple, and if - the value is a tuple, it uses just that. - -- Another new C API function: PyErr_NewException() creates a new -exception class derived from Exception; when -X is given, it creates a -new string exception. - -- core interpreter: remove the distinction between tuple and list -unpacking; allow an arbitrary sequence on the right hand side of any -unpack instruction. (UNPACK_LIST and UNPACK_TUPLE now do the same -thing, which should really be called UNPACK_SEQUENCE.) - -- classes: Allow assignments to an instance's __dict__ or __class__, -so you can change ivars (including shared ivars -- shock horror) and -change classes dynamically. Also make the check on read-only -attributes of classes less draconic -- only the specials names -__dict__, __bases__, __name__ and __{get,set,del}attr__ can't be -assigned. - -- Two new built-in functions: issubclass() and isinstance(). Both -take classes as their second arguments. The former takes a class as -the first argument and returns true iff first is second, or is a -subclass of second. The latter takes any object as the first argument -and returns true iff first is an instance of the second, or any -subclass of second. - -- configure: Added configuration tests for presence of alarm(), -pause(), and getpwent(). - -- Doc/Makefile: changed latex2html targets. - -- classes: Reverse the search order for the Don Beaudry hook so that -the first class with an applicable hook wins. Makes more sense. - -- Changed the checks made in Py_Initialize() and Py_Finalize(). It is -now legal to call these more than once. The first call to -Py_Initialize() initializes, the first call to Py_Finalize() -finalizes. There's also a new API, Py_IsInitalized() which checks -whether we are already initialized (in case you want to leave things -as they were). - -- Completely disable the declarations for malloc(), realloc() and -free(). Any 90's C compiler has these in header files, and the tests -to decide whether to suppress the declarations kept failing on some -platforms. - -- *Before* (instead of after) signalmodule.o is added, remove both -intrcheck.o and sigcheck.o. This should get rid of warnings in ar or -ld on various systems. - -- Added reop to PC/config.c - -- configure: Decided to use -Aa -D_HPUX_SOURCE on HP-UX platforms. -Removed outdated HP-UX comments from README. Added Cray T3E comments. - -- Various renames of statically defined functions that had name -conflicts on some systems, e.g. strndup (GNU libc), join (Cray), -roundup (sys/types.h). - -- urllib.py: Interpret three slashes in file: URL as local file (for -Netscape on Windows/Mac). - -- copy.py: Make sure the objects returned by __getinitargs__() are -kept alive (in the memo) to avoid a certain kind of nasty crash. (Not -easily reproducable because it requires a later call to -__getinitargs__() to return a tuple that happens to be allocated at -the same address.) - -- Added definition of AR to toplevel Makefile. Renamed @buildno temp -file to buildno1. - -- Moved Include/assert.h to Parser/assert.h, which seems to be the -only place where it's needed. - -- Tweaked the dictionary lookup code again for some more speed -(Vladimir Marangozov). - -- NT build: Changed the way python15.lib is included in the other -projects. Per Mark Hammond's suggestion, add it to the extra libs in -Settings instead of to the project's source files. - -- regrtest.py: Change default verbosity so that there are only three -levels left: -q, default and -v. In default mode, the name of each -test is now printed. -v is the same as the old -vv. -q is more quiet -than the old default mode. - -- Removed the old FAQ from the distribution. You now have to get it -from the web! - -- Removed the PC/make_nt.in file from the distribution; it is no -longer needed. - -- Changed the build sequence so that shared modules are built last. -This fixes things for AIX and doesn't hurt elsewhere. - -- Improved test for GNU MP v1 in mpzmodule.c - -- fileobject.c: ftell() on Linux discards all buffered data; changed -read() code to use lseek() instead to get the same effect - -- configure.in, configure, importdl.c: NeXT sharedlib fixes - -- tupleobject.c: PyTuple_SetItem asserts refcnt==1 - -- resource.c: Different strategy regarding whether to declare -getrusage() and getpagesize() -- #ifdef doesn't work, Linux has -conflicting decls in its headers. Choice: only declare the return -type, not the argument prototype, and not on Linux. - -- importdl.c, configure*: set sharedlib extensions properly for NeXT - -- configure*, Makefile.in, Modules/Makefile.pre.in: AIX shared libraries -fixed; moved addition of PURIFY to LINKCC to configure - -- reopmodule.c, regexmodule.c, regexpr.c, zlibmodule.c: needed casts -added to shup up various compilers. - -- _tkinter.c: removed buggy mac #ifndef - -- Doc: various Mac documentation changes, added docs for 'ic' module - -- PC/make_nt.in: deleted - -- test_time.py, test_strftime.py: tweaks to catch %Z (which may return -"") - -- test_rotor.py: print b -> print `b` - -- Tkinter.py: (tagOrId) -> (tagOrId,) - -- Tkinter.py: the Tk class now also has a configure() method and -friends (they have been moved to the Misc class to accomplish this). - -- dict.get(key[, default]) returns dict[key] if it exists, or default -if it doesn't. The default defaults to None. This is quicker for -some applications than using either has_key() or try:...except -KeyError:.... - -- Tools/webchecker/: some small changes to webchecker.py; added -websucker.py (a simple web site mirroring script). - -- Dictionary objects now have a get() method (also in UserDict.py). -dict.get(key, default) returns dict[key] if it exists and default -otherwise; default defaults to None. - -- Tools/scripts/logmerge.py: print the author, too. - -- Changes to import: support for "import a.b.c" is now built in. See -http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html -for more info. Most important deviations from "ni.py": __init__.py is -executed in the package's namespace instead of as a submodule; and -there's no support for "__" or "__domain__". Note that "ni.py" is not -changed to match this -- it is simply declared obsolete (while at the -same time, it is documented...:-( ). -Unfortunately, "ihooks.py" has not been upgraded (but see "knee.py" -for an example implementation of hierarchical module import written in -Python). - -- More changes to import: the site.py module is now imported by -default when Python is initialized; use -S to disable it. The site.py -module extends the path with several more directories: site-packages -inside the lib/python1.5/ directory, site-python in the lib/ -directory, and pathnames mentioned in *.pth files found in either of -those directories. See -http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/python/essays/packages.html -for more info. - -- Changes to standard library subdirectory names: those subdirectories -that are not packages have been renamed with a hypen in their name, -e.g. lib-tk, lib-stdwin, plat-win, plat-linux2, plat-sunos5, dos-8x3. -The test suite is now a package -- to run a test, you must now use -"import test.test_foo". - -- A completely new re.py module is provided (thanks to Andrew -Kuchling, Tim Peters and Jeffrey Ollie) which uses Philip Hazel's -"pcre" re compiler and engine. For a while, the "old" re.py (which -was new in 1.5a3!) will be kept around as re1.py. The "old" regex -module and underlying parser and engine are still present -- while -regex is now officially obsolete, it will probably take several major -release cycles before it can be removed. - -- The posix module now has a strerror() function which translates an -error code to a string. - -- The emacs.py module (which was long obsolete) has been removed. - -- The universal makefile Misc/Makefile.pre.in now features an -"install" target. By default, installed shared libraries go into -$exec_prefix/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages/. - -- The install-sh script is installed with the other configuration -specific files (in the config/ subdirectory). - -- It turns out whatsound.py and sndhdr.py were identical modules. -Since there's also an imghdr.py file, I propose to make sndhdr.py the -official one. For compatibility, whatsound.py imports * from -sndhdr.py. - -- Class objects have a new attribute, __module__, giving the name of -the module in which they were declared. This is useful for pickle and -for printing the full name of a class exception. - -- Many extension modules no longer issue a fatal error when their -initialization fails; the importing code now checks whether an error -occurred during module initialization, and correctly propagates the -exception to the import statement. - -- Most extension modules now raise class-based exceptions (except when --X is used). - -- Subtle changes to PyEval_{Save,Restore}Thread(): always swap the -thread state -- just don't manipulate the lock if it isn't there. - -- Fixed a bug in Python/getopt.c that made it do the wrong thing when -an option was a single '-'. Thanks to Andrew Kuchling. - -- New module mimetypes.py will guess a MIME type from a filename's -extension. - -- Windows: the DLL version is now settable via a resource rather than -being hardcoded. This can be used for "branding" a binary Python -distribution. - -- urllib.py is now threadsafe -- it now uses re instead of regex, and -sys.exc_info() instead of sys.exc_{type,value}. - -- Many other library modules that used to use -sys.exc_{type,value,traceback} are now more thread-safe by virtue of -using sys.exc_info(). - -- The functions in popen2 have an optional buffer size parameter. -Also, the command argument can now be either a string (passed to the -shell) or a list of arguments (passed directly to execv). - -- Alas, the thread support for _tkinter released with 1.5a3 didn't -work. It's been rewritten. The bad news is that it now requires a -modified version of a file in the standard Tcl distribution, which you -must compile with a -I option pointing to the standard Tcl source -tree. For this reason, the thread support is disabled by default. - -- The errno extension module adds two tables: errorcode maps errno -numbers to errno names (e.g. EINTR), and errorstr maps them to -message strings. (The latter is redundant because the new call -posix.strerror() now does the same, but alla...) (Marc-Andre Lemburg) - -- The readline extension module now provides some interfaces to -internal readline routines that make it possible to write a completer -in Python. An example completer, rlcompleter.py, is provided. - - When completing a simple identifier, it completes keywords, - built-ins and globals in __main__; when completing - NAME.NAME..., it evaluates (!) the expression up to the last - dot and completes its attributes. - - It's very cool to do "import string" type "string.", hit the - completion key (twice), and see the list of names defined by - the string module! - - Tip: to use the tab key as the completion key, call - - readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete") - -- The traceback.py module has a new function tb_lineno() by Marc-Andre -Lemburg which extracts the line number from the linenumber table in -the code object. Apparently the traceback object doesn't contains the -right linenumber when -O is used. Rather than guessing whether -O is -on or off, the module itself uses tb_lineno() unconditionally. - -- Fixed Demo/tkinter/matt/canvas-moving-or-creating.py: change bind() -to tag_bind() so it works again. - -- The pystone script is now a standard library module. Example use: -"import test.pystone; test.pystone.main()". - -- The import of the readline module in interactive mode is now also -attempted when -i is specified. (Yes, I know, giving in to Marc-Andre -Lemburg, who asked for this. :-) - -- rfc822.py: Entirely rewritten parseaddr() function by Sjoerd -Mullender, to be closer to the standard. This fixes the getaddr() -method. Unfortunately, getaddrlist() is as broken as ever, since it -splits on commas without regard for RFC 822 quoting conventions. - -- pprint.py: correctly emit trailing "," in singleton tuples. - -- _tkinter.c: export names for its type objects, TkappType and -TkttType. - -- pickle.py: use __module__ when defined; fix a particularly hard to -reproduce bug that confuses the memo when temporary objects are -returned by custom pickling interfaces; and a semantic change: when -unpickling the instance variables of an instance, use -inst.__dict__.update(value) instead of a for loop with setattr() over -the value.keys(). This is more consistent (the pickling doesn't use -getattr() either but pickles inst.__dict__) and avoids problems with -instances that have a __setattr__ hook. But it *is* a semantic change -(because the setattr hook is no longer used). So beware! - -- config.h is now installed (at last) in -$exec_prefix/include/python1.5/. For most sites, this means that it -is actually in $prefix/include/python1.5/, with all the other Python -include files, since $prefix and $exec_prefix are the same by -default. - -- The imp module now supports parts of the functionality to implement -import of hierarchical module names. It now supports find_module() -and load_module() for all types of modules. Docstrings have been -added for those functions in the built-in imp module that are still -relevant (some old interfaces are obsolete). For a sample -implementation of hierarchical module import in Python, see the new -library module knee.py. - -- The % operator on string objects now allows arbitrary nested parens -in a %(...)X style format. (Brad Howes) - -- Reverse the order in which Setup and Setup.local are passed to the -makesetup script. This allows variable definitions in Setup.local to -override definitions in Setup. (But you'll still have to edit Setup -if you want to disable modules that are enabled by default, or if such -modules need non-standard options.) - -- Added PyImport_ImportModuleEx(name, globals, locals, fromlist); this -is like PyImport_ImporModule(name) but receives the globals and locals -dict and the fromlist arguments as well. (The name is a char*; the -others are PyObject*s). - -- The 'p' format in the struct extension module alloded to above is -new in 1.5a4. - -- The types.py module now uses try-except in a few places to make it -more likely that it can be imported in restricted mode. Some type -names are undefined in that case, e.g. CodeType (inaccessible), -FileType (not always accessible), and TracebackType and FrameType -(inaccessible). - -- In urllib.py: added separate administration of temporary files -created y URLopener.retrieve() so cleanup() can properly remove them. -The old code removed everything in tempcache which was a bad idea if -the user had passed a non-temp file into it. Also, in basejoin(), -interpret relative paths starting in "../". This is necessary if the -server uses symbolic links. - -- The Windows build procedure and project files are now based on -Microsoft Visual C++ 5.x. The build now takes place in the PCbuild -directory. It is much more robust, and properly builds separate Debug -and Release versions. (The installer will be added shortly.) - -- Added casts and changed some return types in regexpr.c to avoid -compiler warnings or errors on some platforms. - -- The AIX build tools for shared libraries now supports VPATH. (Donn -Cave) - -- By default, disable the "portable" multimedia modules audioop, -imageop, and rgbimg, since they don't work on 64-bit platforms. - -- Fixed a nasty bug in cStringIO.c when code was actually using the -close() method (the destructors would try to free certain fields a -second time). - -- For those who think they need it, there's a "user.py" module. This -is *not* imported by default, but can be imported to run user-specific -setup commands, ~/.pythonrc.py. - -- Various speedups suggested by Fredrik Lundh, Marc-Andre Lemburg, -Vladimir Marangozov, and others. - -- Added os.altsep; this is '/' on DOS/Windows, and None on systems -with a sane filename syntax. - -- os.py: Write out the dynamic OS choice, to avoid exec statements. -Adding support for a new OS is now a bit more work, but I bet that -'dos' or 'nt' will cover most situations... - -- The obsolete exception AccessError is now really gone. - -- Tools/faqwiz/: New installation instructions show how to maintain -multiple FAQs. Removed bootstrap script from end of faqwiz.py module. -Added instructions to bootstrap script, too. Version bumped to 0.8.1. -Added <html>...</html> feature suggested by Skip Montanaro. Added -leading text for Roulette, default to 'Hit Reload ...'. Fix typo in -default SRCDIR. - -- Documentation for the relatively new modules "keyword" and "symbol" -has been added (to the end of the section on the parser extension -module). - -- In module bisect.py, but functions have two optional argument 'lo' -and 'hi' which allow you to specify a subsequence of the array to -operate on. - -- In ftplib.py, changed most methods to return their status (even when -it is always "200 OK") rather than swallowing it. - -- main() now calls setlocale(LC_ALL, ""), if setlocale() and -<locale.h> are defined. - -- Changes to configure.in, the configure script, and both -Makefile.pre.in files, to support SGI's SGI_ABI platform selection -environment variable. - - -====================================================================== - - -From 1.4 to 1.5a3 -================= - -Security --------- - -- If you are using the setuid script C wrapper (Misc/setuid-prog.c), -please use the new version. The old version has a huge security leak. - -Miscellaneous -------------- - -- Because of various (small) incompatible changes in the Python -bytecode interpreter, the magic number for .pyc files has changed -again. - -- 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. - -- A new version of python-mode.el for Emacs has been included. Also, -a new file ccpy-style.el has been added to configure Emacs cc-mode for -the preferred style in Python C sources. - -- On Unix, when using sys.argv[0] to insert the script directory in -front of sys.path, expand a symbolic link. You can now install a -program in a private directory and have a symbolic link to it in a -public bin directory, and it will put the private directory in the -module search path. Note that the symlink is expanded in sys.path[0] -but not in sys.argv[0], so you can still tell the name by which you -were invoked. - -- It is now recommended to use ``#!/usr/bin/env python'' instead of -``#!/usr/local/bin/python'' at the start of executable scripts, except -for CGI scripts. It has been determined that the use of /usr/bin/env -is more portable than that of /usr/local/bin/python -- scripts almost -never have to be edited when the Python interpreter lives in a -non-standard place. Note that this doesn't work for CGI scripts since -the python executable often doesn't live in the HTTP server's default -search path. - -- 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. - -- 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?). - -- 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. - -- The hacks that the dictionary implementation used to speed up -repeated lookups of the same C string were removed; these were a -source of subtle problems and don't seem to serve much of a purpose -any longer. - -- All traces of support for the long dead access statement have been -removed from the sources. - -- Plugged the two-byte memory leak in the tokenizer when reading an -interactive EOF. - -- There's a -O option to the interpreter that removes SET_LINENO -instructions and assert statements (see below); it uses and produces -.pyo files instead of .pyc files. The speedup is only a few percent -in most cases. The line numbers are still available in the .pyo file, -as a separate table (which is also available in .pyc files). However, -the removal of the SET_LINENO instructions means that the debugger -(pdb) can't set breakpoints on lines in -O mode. The traceback module -contains a function to extract a line number from the code object -referenced in a traceback object. In the future it should be possible -to write external bytecode optimizers that create better optimized -.pyo files, and there should be more control over optimization; -consider the -O option a "teaser". 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. - - -Performance ------------ - -- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see -Tools/scripts). See the entry on string interning below. - -- Some speedup by using separate free lists for method objects (both -the C and the Python variety) and for floating point numbers. - -- 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). - -- Significant speedup by inlining some common opcodes for common operand -types (e.g. i+i, i-i, and list[i]). Fredrik Lundh. - -- Small speedup by reordering the method tables of some common -objects (e.g. list.append is now first). - -- Big optimization to the read() method of file objects. A read() -without arguments now attempts to use fstat to allocate a buffer of -the right size; for pipes and sockets, it will fall back to doubling -the buffer size. While that the improvement is real on all systems, -it is most dramatic on Windows. - - -Documentation -------------- - -- 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. - -- 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 complicated to generate -code for this (since the code is generated from a parse tree). -However, the text is displayed as part of the traceback! - -- The raise statement has a new feature: when using "raise SomeClass, -somevalue" where somevalue is not an instance of SomeClass, it -instantiates SomeClass(somevalue). In 1.5a4, if somevalue is an -instance of a *derived* class of SomeClass, the exception class raised -is set to somevalue.__class__, and SomeClass is ignored after that. - -- Duplicate keyword arguments are now detected at compile time; -f(a=1,a=2) is now a syntax error. - - -Changes to builtin features ---------------------------- - -- There's a new exception FloatingPointError (used only by Lee Busby's -patches to catch floating point exceptions, at the moment). - -- The obsolete exception ConflictError (presumably used by the long -obsolete access statement) has been deleted. - -- 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. - -- There's a new variable sys.executable, pointing to the executable file -for the Python interpreter. - -- The sort() methods for lists no longer uses the C library qsort(); I -wrote my own quicksort implementation, with lots of help (in the form -of a kind of competition) 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. - -- The semantics of comparing two dictionaries have changed, to make -comparison of unequal dictionaries faster. A shorter dictionary is -always considered smaller than a larger dictionary. For dictionaries -of the same size, the smallest differing element determines the -outcome (which yields the same results as before in this case, without -explicit sorting). Thanks to Aaron Watters for suggesting something -like this. - -- 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'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.) - -- 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. - -- 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. The dictionary -implementation file is now called dictobject.c rather than the -confusing mappingobject.c. - -- The intrinsic function dir() is much smarter; it looks in __dict__, -__members__ and __methods__. - -- The intrinsic functions int(), long() and float() can now take a -string argument and then do the same thing as string.atoi(), -string.atol(), and string.atof(). No second 'base' argument is -allowed, and complex() does not take a string (nobody cared enough). - -- 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. - -- 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. - -- Guido's corollary to the "Don Beaudry hook": 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. See -Demo/metaclasses/index.html for an explanation and see that directory -for examples. - -- Another change is that the Don Beaudry hook is now invoked when -*any* base class is special. (Up to 1.5a3, the *last* special base -class is used; in 1.5a4, the more rational choice of the *first* -special base class is used.) - -- New optional parameter to the readlines() method of file objects. -This indicates the number of bytes to read (the actual number of bytes -read will be somewhat larger due to buffering reading until the end of -the line). Some optimizations have also been made to speed it up (but -not as much as read()). - -- Complex numbers no longer have the ".conj" pseudo attribute; use -z.conjugate() instead, or complex(z.real, -z.imag). Complex numbers -now *do* support the __members__ and __methods__ special attributes. - -- The complex() function now looks for a __complex__() method on class -instances before giving up. - -- Long integers now support arbitrary shift counts, so you can now -write 1L<<1000000, memory permitting. (Python 1.4 reports "outrageous -shift count for this.) - -- The hex() and oct() functions have been changed so that for regular -integers, they never emit a minus sign. For example, on a 32-bit -machine, oct(-1) now returns '037777777777' and hex(-1) returns -'0xffffffff'. While this may seem inconsistent, it is much more -useful. (For long integers, a minus sign is used as before, to fit -the result in memory :-) - -- The hash() function computes better hashes for several data types, -including strings, floating point numbers, and complex numbers. - - -New extension modules ---------------------- - -- 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; cStringIO.c's improvement is less dramatic but -still significant. - -- 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 readline; see the "miscellaneous" section above. - -- New Unix extension module resource.c, by Jeremy Hylton, provides -access to getrlimit(), getrusage(), setrusage(), getpagesize(), and -related symbolic constants. - -- 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. - - -Changes in extension modules ----------------------------- - -- 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. It uses uppercase -format codes for unsigned integers of various sizes (always using -Python long ints for 'I' and 'L'), 's' with a size prefix for strings, -and 'p' for "Pascal strings" (with a leading length byte, included in -the size; blame Hannu Krosing; new in 1.5a4). A prefix '>' forces -big-endian data and '<' forces little-endian data; these also select -standard data sizes and disable automatic alignment (use pad bytes as -needed). - -- The array module supports uppercase format codes for unsigned data -formats (like the struct module). - -- 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. - -- The dbhash module is no more. Use bsddb instead. (There's a third -party interface for the BSD 2.x code somewhere on the web; support for -bsddb will be deprecated.) - -- The gdbm module now supports a sync() method. - -- The socket module now has some new functions: getprotobyname(), and -the set {ntoh,hton}{s,l}(). - -- Various modules now export their type object: socket.SocketType, -array.ArrayType. - -- The socket module's accept() method now returns unknown addresses as -a tuple rather than raising an exception. (This can happen in -promiscuous mode.) Theres' also a new function getprotobyname(). - -- The pthread support for the thread module now works on most platforms. - -- STDWIN is now officially obsolete. Support for it will eventually -be removed from the distribution. - -- The binascii extension module is now hopefully fully debugged. -(XXX Oops -- Fredrik Lundh promised me a uuencode fix that I never -received.) - -- audioop.c: added a ratecv() function; better handling of overflow in -add(). - -- posixmodule.c: now exports the O_* flags (O_APPEND etc.). On -Windows, also O_TEXT and O_BINARY. The 'error' variable (the -exception is raises) is renamed -- its string value is now "os.error", -so newbies don't believe they have to import posix (or nt) to catch -it when they see os.error reported as posix.error. The execve() -function now accepts any mapping object for the environment. - -- A new version of the al (audio library) module for SGI was -contributed by Sjoerd Mullender. - -- The regex module has a new function get_syntax() which retrieves the -syntax setting set by set_syntax(). The code was also sanitized, -removing worries about unclean error handling. See also below for its -successor, re.py. - -- The "new" module (which creates new objects of various types) once -again has a fully functioning new.function() method. Dangerous as -ever! Also, new.code() has several new arguments. - -- A problem has been fixed in the rotor module: on systems with signed -characters, rotor-encoded data was not portable when the key contained -8-bit characters. Also, setkey() now requires its argument rather -than having broken code to default it. - -- The sys.builtin_module_names variable is now a tuple. Another new -variables in sys is sys.executable (the full path to the Python -binary, if known). - -- The specs for time.strftime() have undergone some revisions. It -appears that not all format characters are supported in the same way -on all platforms. Rather than reimplement it, we note these -differences in the documentation, and emphasize the shared set of -features. There's also a thorough test set (that occasionally finds -problems in the C library implementation, e.g. on some Linuxes), -thanks to Skip Montanaro. - -- The nis module seems broken when used with NIS+; unfortunately -nobody knows how to fix it. It should still work with old NIS. - - -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 -syntax; the new interface avoids the thread-unsafety of the regex -interface. This comes with a helper extension reopmodule.c and vastly -rewritten regexpr.c. Most work on this was done by Jeffrey Ollie, Tim -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 module gzip.py; see zlib above. - -- New module keyword.py exports knowledge about Python's built-in -keywords. (New version by Ka-Ping Yee.) - -- 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. (XXX Unfortunately, -this seems broken at this moment, and I don't have the time to fix -it. It's probably better to add an explicit interface to the parser -for this.) - -- There is now a library module xdrlib.py which can read and write the -XDR data format as used by Sun RPC, for example. It uses the struct -module. - - -Changes in library modules --------------------------- - -- Module codehack.py is now completely obsolete. - -- 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 will read both formats automatically. A few -other updates have been made. - -- A new helper module, copy_reg.py, is provided to register extensions -to the pickling code. - -- 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. - -- 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). The FieldStorage class now -has a __len__() method. - -- httplib.py: the socket object is no longer closed; all HTTP/1.* -responses are now accepted; 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, in the form of a -getdate_tz() method and a parsedate_tz() function; also a mktime_tz(). -Also added recognition of some non-standard date formats, by Lars -Wirzenius, and RFC 850 dates (Chris Lawrence). - -- mhlib.py: various enhancements, including almost compatible parsing -of message sequence specifiers without invoking a subprocess. Also -added a createmessage() method by Lars Wirzenius. - -- The StringIO.StringIO class now supports readline(nbytes). (Lars -Wirzenius.) (Of course, you should be using cStringIO for performance.) - -- UserDict.py supports the new dictionary methods as well. - -- 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. -A bug was fixed in the test for invalid arguments. - -- Module ftplib.py: added support for parsing a .netrc file (Fred -Drake). Also added an ntransfercmd() method to the FTP class, which -allows access to the expected size of a transfer when available, and a -parse150() function to the module which parses the corresponding 150 -response. - -- urllib.py: the ftp cache is now limited to 10 entries. Added -quote_plus() and unquote_plus() functions which are like quote() and -unquote() but also replace spaces with '+' or vice versa, for -encoding/decoding 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. The -spliturl() function no longer erroneously throws away all data past -the first newline. The basejoin() function now intereprets "../" -correctly. I *believe* that the problems with "exception raised in -__del__" under certain circumstances have been fixed (mostly by -changes elsewher in the interpreter). - -- In urlparse.py, there is a cache for results in urlparse.urlparse(); -its size limit is set to 20. Also, new URL schemes shttp, https, and -snews are "supported". - -- shelve.py: use cPickle and cStringIO when available. Also added -a sync() method, which calls the database's sync() method if there is -one. - -- 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. - -- 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. - -- mailbox.py: Added BabylMailbox. Improved the way the mailbox is -gotten from the environment. - -- Many more modules now correctly open files in binary mode when this -is necessary on non-Unix platforms. - -- The copying functions in the undocumented module shutil.py are -smarter. - -- The Writer classes in the formatter.py module now have a flush() -method. - -- The sgmllib.py module accepts hyphens and periods in the middle of -attribute names. While this is against the SGML standard, there is -some HTML out there that uses this... - -- The interface for the Python bytecode disassembler module, dis.py, -has been enhanced quite a bit. There's now one main function, -dis.dis(), which takes almost any kind of object (function, module, -class, instance, method, code object) and disassembles it; without -arguments it disassembles the last frame of the last traceback. The -other functions have changed slightly, too. - -- The imghdr.py module recognizes new image types: BMP, PNG. - -- The string.py module has a new function replace(str, old, new, -[maxsplit]) which does substring replacements. It is actually -implemented in C in the strop module. The functions [r]find() an -[r]index() have an optional 4th argument indicating the end of the -substring to search, alsoo implemented by their strop counterparts. -(Remember, never import strop -- import string uses strop when -available with zero overhead.) - -- The string.join() function now accepts any sequence argument, not -just lists and tuples. - -- The string.maketrans() requires its first two arguments to be -present. The old version didn't require them, but there's not much -point without them, and the documentation suggests that they are -required, so we fixed the code to match the documentation. - -- The regsub.py module has a function clear_cache(), which clears its -internal cache of compiled regular expressions. Also, the cache now -takes the current syntax setting into account. (However, this module -is now obsolete -- use the sub() or subn() functions or methods in the -re module.) - -- The undocumented module Complex.py has been removed, now that Python -has built-in complex numbers. A similar module remains as -Demo/classes/Complex.py, as an example. - - -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 -module, which may be loaded dynamically. You must enable it (and -specify the correct linraries to link with) in the Modules/Setup file. -Importing the module installs some hooks which enable command line -editing. When the interpreter shell is invoked interactively, it -attempts to import the readline module; when this fails, the default -input mechanism is used. The hook variables are PyOS_InputHook and -PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer. (Code contributed by Lee Busby, with -ideas from William Magro.) - -- 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 number of new Makefile variables have been added for special -situations, e.g. LDLAST is appended to the link command. These are -used by editing the Makefile or passing them on the make command -line. - -- 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 Modules/makesetup script now copies any "include" lines it -encounters verbatim into the output Makefile. It also recognizes .cxx -and .cpp as C++ source files. - -- 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. - -- The configure script has a new option, --with-dec-threads, to enable -DEC threads on DEC Alpha platforms. Also, --with-threads is now an -alias for --with-thread (this was the Most Common Typo in configure -arguments). - -- Many changes in Doc/Makefile; amongst others, latex2html is now used -to generate HTML from all latex documents. - - -Change to the Python/C API --------------------------- - -- Because some interfaces have changed, the PYTHON_API macro has been -bumped. Most extensions built for the old API version will still run, -but I can't guarantee this. Python prints a warning message on -version mismatches; it dumps core when the version mismatch causes a -serious problem :-) - -- 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. -The allobjects.h header file is gone; instead, you would have to -include Python.h followed by rename2.h. But you're better off running -Tools/scripts/fixcid.py -s Misc/RENAME on your source, so you can omit -the rename2.h; it will disappear in the next release. - -- Various and sundry small bugs in the "abstract" interfaces have been -fixed. Thanks to all the (involuntary) testers of the Python 1.4 -version! Some new functions have been added, e.g. PySequence_List(o), -equivalent to list(o) in Python. - -- New API functions PyLong_FromUnsignedLong() and -PyLong_AsUnsignedLong(). - -- The API functions in the file cgensupport.c are no longer -supported. This file has been moved to Modules and is only ever -compiled when the SGI specific 'gl' module is built. - -- 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 -documentation is incomplete, also see the new Demo/pysvr example -(which shows how to use these in a threaded application) and the -source code. - -- There is now a Py_Finalize() function which "de-initializes" -Python. It is possible to completely restart the interpreter -repeatedly by calling Py_Finalize() followed by Py_Initialize(). A -change of functionality in Py_Initialize() means that it is now a -fatal error to call it while the interpreter is already initialized. -The old, half-hearted Py_Cleanup() routine is gone. Use of Py_Exit() -is deprecated (it is nothing more than Py_Finalize() followed by -exit()). - -- There are no known memory leaks left. While Py_Finalize() doesn't -free *all* allocated memory (some of it is hard to track down), -repeated calls to Py_Finalize() and Py_Initialize() do not create -unaccessible heap blocks. - -- There is now explicit per-thread state. (Inspired by, but not the -same as, Greg Stein's free threading patches.) - -- There is now better support for threading C applications. There are -now explicit APIs to manipulate the interpreter lock. Read the source -or the Demo/pysvr example; the new functions are -PyEval_{Acquire,Release}{Lock,Thread}(). - -- The test macro DEBUG has changed to Py_DEBUG, to avoid interference -with other libraries' DEBUG macros. Likewise for any other test -macros that didn't yet start with Py_. - -- New wrappers around malloc() and friends: Py_Malloc() etc. call -malloc() and call PyErr_NoMemory() when it fails; PyMem_Malloc() call -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.) - -- New C API PyImport_Import() which uses whatever __import__() hook -that is installed for the current execution environment. By Jim -Fulton. - -- It is now possible for an extension module's init function to fail -non-fatally, by calling one of the PyErr_* functions and returning. - -- 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.) Similar for PyList_GET_SIZE -and PyList_GET_ITEM. - -- 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.) - -- 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). - -- 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's a new function, PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(), which parses -an argument list including keyword arguments. Contributed by Geoff -Philbrick. - -- PyArg_GetInt() is gone. - -- It's no longer necessary to include graminit.h when calling one of -the extended parser API functions. The three public grammar start -symbols are now in Python.h as Py_single_input, Py_file_input, and -Py_eval_input. - -- The CObject interface has a new function, -PyCObject_Import(module, name). It calls PyCObject_AsVoidPtr() -on the object referenced by "module.name". - - -Tkinter -------- - -- On popular demand, _tkinter once again installs a hook for readline -that processes certain Tk events while waiting for the user to type -(using PyOS_InputHook). - -- A patch by Craig McPheeters plugs the most obnoxious memory leaks, -caused by command definitions referencing widget objects beyond their -lifetime. - -- New standard dialog modules: tkColorChooser.py, tkCommonDialog.py, -tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py, tkSimpleDialog.py These interface -with the new Tk dialog scripts, and provide more "native platform" -style file selection dialog boxes on some platforms. Contributed by -Fredrik Lundh. - -- 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 Image class now has a configure method. - -- Added a bunch of new winfo options to Tkinter.py; we should now be -up to date with Tk 4.2. The new winfo options supported are: -mananger, pointerx, pointerxy, pointery, server, viewable, visualid, -visualsavailable. - -- The broken bind() method on Canvas objects defined in the Canvas.py -module has been fixed. The CanvasItem and Group classes now also have -an unbind() method. - -- The problem with Tkinter.py falling back to trying to import -"tkinter" when "_tkinter" is not found has been fixed -- it no longer -tries "tkinter", ever. This makes diagnosing the problem "_tkinter -not configured" much easier and will hopefully reduce the newsgroup -traffic on this topic. - -- The ScrolledText module once again supports the 'cnf' parameter, to -be compatible with the examples in Mark Lutz' book (I know, I know, -too late...) - -- 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 -works well under Windows and Mac (with the latest Tk ports to those -platforms). It also supports threading -- it is safe for one -(Python-created) thread to be blocked in _tkinter.mainloop() while -other threads modify widgets. To make the changes visible, those -threads must use update_idletasks()method. (The patch for threading -in 1.5a3 was broken; in 1.5a4, it is back in a different version, -which requires access to the Tcl sources to get it to work -- hence it -is disabled by default.) - -- A bug in _tkinter.c has been fixed, where Split() with a string -containing an unmatched '"' could cause an exception or core dump. - -- Unfortunately, on Windows and Mac, Tk 8.0 no longer supports -CreateFileHandler, so _tkinter.createfilehandler is not available on -those platforms when using Tk 8.0 or later. I 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). Jack Jansen has -provided a fix for the Mac, so createfilehandler *is* actually -supported there; maybe I can adapt his fix for Windows. - - -Tools and Demos ---------------- - -- 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. - -- 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 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. - -- New small tools: cvsfiles.py (prints a list of all files under CVS -n 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. - -- New examples (Demo/extend) that show how to use the generic -extension makefile (Misc/Makefile.pre.in). - -- Tools/scripts/h2py.py now supports C++ comments. - -- Tools/scripts/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. - -- Demo/classes/Rat.py completely rewritten by Sjoerd Mullender. - - -Windows (NT and 95) -------------------- - -- 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). - -- See the note on the new module search path in the "Miscellaneous" section -above. - -- Support for Win32s (the 32-bit Windows API under Windows 3.1) is -basically withdrawn. If it still works for you, you're lucky. - -- 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(). - -- The -u option not only sets the standard I/O streams to unbuffered -status, but also sets them in binary mode. (This can also be done -using msvcrt.setmode(), by the way.) - -- 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 various os.path modules (posixpath, ntpath, macpath) now support -passing more than two arguments to the join() function, so -os.path.join(a, b, c) is the same as os.path.join(a, os.path.join(b, -c)). - -- The ntpath module (normally used as os.path) supports ~ to $HOME -expansion in expanduser(). - -- The freeze tool now works on Windows. - -- See also the Tkinter category for a sad note on -_tkinter.createfilehandler(). - -- The truncate() method for file objects now works on Windows. - -- Py_Initialize() is no longer called when the DLL is loaded. You -must call it yourself. - -- The time module's clock() function now has good precision through -the use of the Win32 API QueryPerformanceCounter(). - -- Mark Hammond will release Python 1.5 versions of PythonWin and his -other Windows specific code: the win32api extensions, COM/ActiveX -support, and the MFC interface. - - -Mac ---- - -- As always, the Macintosh port will be done by Jack Jansen. He will -make a separate announcement for the Mac specific source code and the -binary distribution(s) when these are ready. - - -====================================================================== |