From d0b6d9d892d50301bd17101f3880c17431b104ae Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Andrew M. Kuchling" Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2004 15:35:00 +0000 Subject: More additions --- Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex | 43 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 36 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex index dfe509d..d488493 100644 --- a/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex +++ b/Doc/whatsnew/whatsnew24.tex @@ -6,6 +6,9 @@ % Feel free to add commented-out reminders of things that need % to be covered. --amk +% XXX pydoc can display links to module docs -- but when? +% + \title{What's New in Python 2.4} \release{0.0} \author{A.M.\ Kuchling} @@ -442,7 +445,7 @@ language. \item The \method{dict.update()} method now accepts the same argument forms as the \class{dict} constructor. This includes any -mapping, any iterable of key/value pairs, and/or keyword arguments. +mapping, any iterable of key/value pairs, and keyword arguments. \item The string methods, \method{ljust()}, \method{rjust()}, and \method{center()} now take an optional argument for specifying a @@ -547,6 +550,10 @@ yellow 5 \end{verbatim} +\item The \function{eval(\var{expr}, \var{globals}, \var{locals})} +function now accepts any mapping type for the \var{locals} argument. +Previously this had to be a regular Python dictionary. + \item The \function{zip()} built-in function and \function{itertools.izip()} now return an empty list instead of raising a \exception{TypeError} exception if called with no arguments. This makes them more @@ -624,6 +631,11 @@ details. \begin{itemize} +\item The \module{asyncore} module's \function{loop()} now has a + \var{count} parameter that lets you perform a limited number + of passes through the polling loop. The default is still to loop + forever. + \item The \module{curses} modules now supports the ncurses extension \function{use_default_colors()}. On platforms where the terminal supports transparency, this makes it possible to use a transparent @@ -683,7 +695,7 @@ improved performance: \module{Queue}, \module{mutex}, \module{shlex} tenfold improvement in speed makes the module suitable for handling high volumes of data. In addition, the module has two new functions \function{nlargest()} and \function{nsmallest()} that use heaps to - find the largest or smallest n values in a dataset without the + find the N largest or smallest values in a dataset without the expense of a full sort. \item The \module{imaplib} module now supports IMAP's THREAD command. @@ -760,10 +772,6 @@ If the separation is large, then it becomes preferable to use another, \function{tee()} is ideal. Possible applications include bookmarking, windowing, or lookahead iterators. -\item A new \function{getsid()} function was added to the -\module{posix} module that underlies the \module{os} module. -(Contributed by J. Raynor.) - \item The \module{operator} module gained two new functions, \function{attrgetter(\var{attr})} and \function{itemgetter(\var{index})}. Both functions return callables that take a single argument and return @@ -781,6 +789,15 @@ For example: [('d', 1), ('c', 2), ('b', 3), ('a', 4)] \end{verbatim} +\item A new \function{getsid()} function was added to the +\module{posix} module that underlies the \module{os} module. +(Contributed by J. Raynor.) + +\item The \module{poplib} module now supports POP over SSL. + +\item The \module{profile} module can now profile C extension functions. +% XXX more to say about this? + \item The \module{random} module has a new method called \method{getrandbits(N)} which returns an N-bit long integer. This method supports the existing \method{randrange()} method, making it possible to efficiently generate @@ -797,6 +814,9 @@ For example: \item The \module{weakref} module now supports a wider variety of objects including Python functions, class instances, sets, frozensets, deques, arrays, files, sockets, and regular expression pattern objects. + +\item The \module{xmlrpclib} module now supports a multi-call extension for +tranmitting multiple XML-RPC calls in a single HTTP operation. \end{itemize} @@ -846,7 +866,16 @@ Changes to Python's build process and to the C API include: \item A new method flag, \constant{METH_COEXISTS}, allows a function defined in slots to co-exist with a PyCFunction having the same name. This can halve the access to time to a method such as - \method{set.__contains__()} + \method{set.__contains__()}. + + \item Python can now be built with additional profiling for the interpreter + itself, useful if you're working on the Python core. + Providing \longprogramopt{--enable-profiling} to the + \program{configure} script will let you profile the interpreter with + \program{gprof}, and providing the \longprogramopt{--with-tsc} switch + enables profiling using the Pentium's Time-Stamp-Counter. + + \item The \ctype{tracebackobject} type has been renamed to \ctype{PyTracebackObject}. \end{itemize} -- cgit v0.12