All the NEWS that I could finish in 15 minutes (and then some)
Removed some attributions from the shorter entries in Changed Modules,
because that section is so long.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 226f9b1..ea2d21e 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@
the xml package, and i18n support through the gettext module); a list
of all new modules is included below. Lots of bugs have been fixed.
+The process for making major new changes to the language has changed
+since Python 1.6. Enhancements must now be documented by a Python
+Enhancement Proposal (PEP) before they can be accepted.
+
There are several important syntax enhancements, described in more
detail below:
@@ -59,6 +63,21 @@
- Optional collection of cyclical garbage
+Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP)
+---------------------------------
+
+PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal. A PEP is a design
+document providing information to the Python community, or describing
+a new feature for Python. The PEP should provide a concise technical
+specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature.
+
+We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new
+features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for
+documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python. The PEP
+author is responsible for building consensus within the community and
+documenting dissenting opinions.
+
+The PEPs are available at http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/.
Augmented Assignment
--------------------
@@ -127,7 +146,7 @@
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
List comprehensions originated as a patch set from Greg Ewing; Skip
-Montanaro and Thomas Wouters also contributed.
+Montanaro and Thomas Wouters also contributed. Described by PEP 202.
Extended Import Statement
@@ -157,7 +176,7 @@
context (this is only possible because the syntax for the import
statement doesn't involve expressions).
-Implemented by Thomas Wouters.
+Implemented by Thomas Wouters. Described by PEP 221.
Extended Print Statement
@@ -181,7 +200,7 @@
print "Hello world"
-Design and implementation by Barry Warsaw.
+Design and implementation by Barry Warsaw. Described by PEP 214.
Optional Collection of Cyclical Garbage
@@ -211,7 +230,7 @@
map(None, seq1, seq2, ...) when the sequences have the same length;
i.e. zip([1,2,3], [10,20,30]) returns [(1,10), (2,20), (3,30)]. When
the lists are not all the same length, the shortest list wins:
-zip([1,2,3], [10,20]) returns [(1,10), (2,20)].
+zip([1,2,3], [10,20]) returns [(1,10), (2,20)]. See PEP 201.
sys.version_info is a tuple (major, minor, micro, level, serial).
@@ -227,8 +246,11 @@
dict[key] = []
dict[key].append(item)
-New exceptions, TabError and IndentationError, thate are subclasses on
-SyntaxError. XXX
+There are two new variants of SyntaxError that are raised for
+indentation-related errors: IndentationError and TabError.
+
+Changed \x to consume exactly two hex digits; see PEP 223. Added \U
+escape that consumes exactly eight hex digits.
The limits on the size of expressions and file in Python source code
have been raised from 2**16 to 2**32. Previous versions of Python
@@ -271,6 +293,12 @@
Changed Modules
---------------
+array -- new methods for array objects: count, extend, index, pop, and
+remove
+
+binascii -- new functions b2a_hex and a2b_hex that convert between
+binary data and its hex representation
+
calendar -- Many new functions that support features including control
over which day of the week is the first day, returning strings instead
of printing them. Also new symbolic constants for days of week,
@@ -291,10 +319,17 @@
httplib -- New interfaces and support for HTTP/1.1 by Greg Stein. See
the module doc strings for details.
+locale -- implement getdefaultlocale for Win32 and Macintosh
+
+marshal -- no longer dumps core when marshaling deeply nested or
+recursive data structures
+
+os -- new functions isatty, seteuid, setegid, setreuid, setregid
+
os/popen2 -- popen2/popen3/popen4 support under Windows. popen2/popen3
support under Unix.
-os/pty -- support for openpty and forkpty by Thomas Wouters.
+os/pty -- support for openpty and forkpty
os.path -- fix semantics of os.path.commonprefix
@@ -306,12 +341,14 @@
The readline section of the library reference manual contains an
example.
+select -- add interface to poll system call
+
shutil -- new copyfileobj function
SimpleHTTPServer, CGIHTTPServer -- Fix problems with buffering in the
HTTP server.
-Tkinter -- flatten optimization by Fredrik Lundh
+Tkinter -- optimization of function flatten
urllib -- scans environment variables for proxy configuration,
e.g. http_proxy.
@@ -348,7 +385,8 @@
they are all included by Python.h.)
Trent Mick ensured portability to 64-bit platforms, under both Linux
-and Win64, especially for the new Intel Itanium processor.
+and Win64, especially for the new Intel Itanium processor. Mick also
+added large file support for Linux64 and Win64.
The C APIs to return an object's size have been update to consistently
use the form PyXXX_Size, e.g. PySequence_Size and PyDict_Size. In
@@ -357,7 +395,9 @@
e.g. PyObject_Length, are still available for backwards compatibility
at the API level, but are deprecated.
-PyOS_CheckStack - XXX
+The PyOS_CheckStack function has been implemented on Windows by
+Fredrik Lundh. It prevents Python from failing with a stack overflow
+on Windows.
The GC changes resulted in creation of two new slots on object,
tp_traverse and tp_clear. The augmented assignment changes result in
@@ -366,10 +406,16 @@
The GC API creates new requirements for container types implemented in
C extesion modules. See Include/objimpl.h for details.
-PyString_Decode / PyString_Encode. ???
+PyErr_Format has been updated to automatically calculate the size of
+the buffer needed to hold the formatted result string. This change
+prevents crashes caused by programmer error.
-Numerous new APIs were added, e.g.
+New C API calls: PyObject_AsFileDescriptor, PyErr_WriteUnraisable.
- XXX: Fill this out.
+PyRun_AnyFileEx, PyRun_SimpleFileEx, PyRun_FileEx -- New functions
+that are the same as their non-Ex counterparts except they take an
+extra flag argument that tells them to close the file when done.
+
+XXX There were other API changes that should be fleshed out here.
======================================================================