summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Misc/NEWS
blob: a8e2e20aa9450b7fa9f66f875dd5bb06eca1b305 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
================================
==> Release 1.1 (6 Oct 1994) <==
================================

This release adds several new features, improved configuration and
portability, and more fixed bugs than I can list here (including some
memory leaks).

The source compiles and runs out of the box on more platforms than
ever -- including Windows NT.  Makefiles or projects for a variety of
non-UNIX platforms are provided.

Apology: many new features are badly documented or not at all.  I had
the choice -- postpone the new release indefinitely, or release it
now, with working code but some undocumented areas...


New language features:

    - More flexible operator overloading for user-defined classes
    (INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS!)  See end of tutorial.

    - Classes can define methods named __getattr__, __setattr__ and
    __delattr__ to trap attribute accesses.  See end of tutorial.

    - Classes can define method __call__ so instances can be called
    directly.  See end of tutorial.


New support facilities:

    - The Makefiles (for the base interpreter as well as for extensions)
    now support creating dynamically loadable modules if the platform
    supports shared libraries.

    - Passing the interpreter a .pyc file as script argument will execute
    the code in that file.  (On the Mac such files can be double-clicked!)

    - New Freeze script, to create independently distributable "binaries"
    of Python programs -- look in Demo/freeze

    - Improved h2py script (in Demo/scripts) follows #includes and
    supports macros with one argument

    - New module compileall generates .pyc files for all modules in a
    directory (tree) without also executing them

    - Threads should work on more platforms


New built-in modules:

    - tkinter (support for Tcl's Tk widget set) is now part of the base
    distribution

    - signal allows catching or ignoring UNIX signals (unfortunately still
    undocumented -- any taker?)

    - termios provides portable access to POSIX tty settings

    - curses provides an interface to the System V curses library

    - syslog provides an interface to the (BSD?) syslog daemon

    - 'new' provides interfaces to create new built-in object types
    (e.g. modules and functions)

    - sybase provides an interface to SYBASE database


New/obsolete built-in methods:

    - callable(x) tests whether x can be called

    - sockets now have a setblocking() method

    - sockets no longer have an allowbroadcast() method

    - socket methods send() and sendto() return byte count


New standard library modules:

    - types.py defines standard names for built-in types, e.g. StringType

    - urlparse.py parses URLs according to the latest Internet draft

    - uu.py does uuencode/uudecode (not the fastest in the world, but
    quicker than installing uuencode on a non-UNIX machine :-)

    - New, faster and more powerful profile module.py

    - mhlib.py provides interface to MH folders and messages


New facilities for extension writers (unfortunately still
undocumented):

    - newgetargs() supports optional arguments and improved error messages

    - O!, O& O? formats for getargs allow more versatile type checking of
    non-standard types

    - can register pending asynchronous callback, to be called the next
    time the Python VM begins a new instruction (Py_AddPendingCall)

    - can register cleanup routines to be called when Python exits
    (Py_AtExit)

    - makesetup script understands C++ files in Setup file (use file.C
    or file.cc)

    - Make variable OPT is passed on to sub-Makefiles

    - An init<module>() routine may signal an error by not entering
    the module in the module table and raising an exception instead

    - For long module names, instead of foobarbletchmodule.c you can
    use foobarbletch.c

    - getintvalue() and getfloatvalue() try to convert any object
    instead of requiring an "intobject" or "floatobject"

    - All the [new]getargs() formats that retrieve an integer value
    will now also work if a float is passed

    - C function listtuple() converts list to tuple, fast

    - You should now call sigcheck() instead of intrcheck();
    sigcheck() also sets an exception when it returns nonzero


--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl>
URL:  <http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Guido.van.Rossum.html>