Merged revisions 80605-80609,80642-80646,80651-80652,80674,80684-80686,80748,80852,80854,80870,80872-80873,80907,80915-80916,80951-80952,80976-80977,80985,81038-81040,81042,81053,81070,81104-81105,81114,81125,81245,81285,81402,81463,81516,81562-81563,81567,81593,81635,81680-81681,81684,81801,81888,81931-81933,81939-81942,81963,81984,81991,82120,82188,82264-82267 via svnmerge from
svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk

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  r80605 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-28 19:22:16 -0500 (Wed, 28 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Add various items
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  r80606 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-28 20:44:30 -0500 (Wed, 28 Apr 2010) | 6 lines

  Fix doubled 'the'.
  Markup fixes to use :exc:, :option: in a few places.
    (Glitch: unittest.main's -c ends up a link to the Python
    interpreter's -c option.  Should we skip using :option: for that
    switch, or disable the auto-linking somehow?)
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  r80607 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-28 20:45:41 -0500 (Wed, 28 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Add various unittest items
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  r80608 | benjamin.peterson | 2010-04-28 22:18:05 -0500 (Wed, 28 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  update pypy description
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  r80609 | benjamin.peterson | 2010-04-28 22:30:59 -0500 (Wed, 28 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  update pypy url
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  r80642 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-29 19:49:09 -0500 (Thu, 29 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Always add space after RFC; reword paragraph
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  r80643 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-29 19:52:31 -0500 (Thu, 29 Apr 2010) | 6 lines

  Reword paragraph to make its meaning clearer.

  Antoine Pitrou: is my version of the paragraph still correct?

  R. David Murray: is this more understandable than the previous version?
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  r80644 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-29 20:02:15 -0500 (Thu, 29 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Fix typos
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  r80645 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-29 20:32:47 -0500 (Thu, 29 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Markup fix; clarify by adding 'in that order'
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  r80646 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-29 20:33:40 -0500 (Thu, 29 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Add various items; rearrange unittest section a bit
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  r80651 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-30 08:46:55 -0500 (Fri, 30 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Minor grammar re-wording
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  r80652 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-30 08:47:34 -0500 (Fri, 30 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Add item
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  r80674 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-04-30 20:19:16 -0500 (Fri, 30 Apr 2010) | 1 line

  Add various items
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  r80684 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-01 07:05:52 -0500 (Sat, 01 May 2010) | 1 line

  Minor grammar fix
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  r80685 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-01 07:06:51 -0500 (Sat, 01 May 2010) | 1 line

  Describe memoryview
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  r80686 | antoine.pitrou | 2010-05-01 07:16:39 -0500 (Sat, 01 May 2010) | 4 lines

  Fix attribution. Travis didn't do much and he did a bad work.
  (yes, this is a sensitive subject, sorry)
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  r80748 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-03 20:24:22 -0500 (Mon, 03 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add some more items; the urlparse change is added twice
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  r80852 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-05 20:09:47 -0500 (Wed, 05 May 2010) | 1 line

  Reword paragraph; fix filename, which should be pyconfig.h
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  r80854 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-05 20:10:56 -0500 (Wed, 05 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add various items
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  r80870 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-06 09:14:09 -0500 (Thu, 06 May 2010) | 1 line

  Describe ElementTree 1.3; rearrange new-module sections; describe dict views as sets; small edits and items
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  r80872 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-06 12:21:59 -0500 (Thu, 06 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add 2 items; record ideas for two initial sections; clarify wording
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  r80873 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-06 12:27:57 -0500 (Thu, 06 May 2010) | 1 line

  Change section title; point to unittest2
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  r80907 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-06 20:45:14 -0500 (Thu, 06 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add a new section on the development plan; add an item
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  r80915 | antoine.pitrou | 2010-05-07 05:15:51 -0500 (Fri, 07 May 2010) | 3 lines

  Fix some markup and a class name. Also, wrap a long line.
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  r80916 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-07 06:30:47 -0500 (Fri, 07 May 2010) | 1 line

  Re-word text
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  r80951 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-07 20:15:26 -0500 (Fri, 07 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add two items
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  r80952 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-07 20:35:55 -0500 (Fri, 07 May 2010) | 1 line

  Get accents correct
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  r80976 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-08 08:28:03 -0500 (Sat, 08 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add logging.dictConfig example; give up on writing a Ttk example
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  r80977 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-08 08:29:46 -0500 (Sat, 08 May 2010) | 1 line

  Markup fixes
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  r80985 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-08 10:39:46 -0500 (Sat, 08 May 2010) | 7 lines

  Write summary of the 2.7 release; rewrite the future section some more;
  mention PYTHONWARNINGS env. var; tweak some examples for readability.

  And with this commit, the "What's New" is done... except for a
  complete read-through to polish the text, and fixing any reported errors,
  but those tasks can easily wait until after beta2.
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  r81038 | benjamin.peterson | 2010-05-09 16:09:40 -0500 (Sun, 09 May 2010) | 1 line

  finish clause
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  r81039 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-10 09:18:27 -0500 (Mon, 10 May 2010) | 1 line

  Markup fix; re-word a sentence
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  r81040 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-10 09:20:12 -0500 (Mon, 10 May 2010) | 1 line

  Use title case
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  r81042 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-10 10:03:35 -0500 (Mon, 10 May 2010) | 1 line

  Link to unittest2 article
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  r81053 | florent.xicluna | 2010-05-10 14:59:22 -0500 (Mon, 10 May 2010) | 2 lines

  Add a link on maketrans().
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  r81070 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-10 18:13:41 -0500 (Mon, 10 May 2010) | 1 line

  Fix typo
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  r81104 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-11 19:38:44 -0500 (Tue, 11 May 2010) | 1 line

  Revision pass: lots of edits, typo fixes, rearrangements
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  r81105 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-11 19:40:47 -0500 (Tue, 11 May 2010) | 1 line

  Let's call this done
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  r81114 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-12 08:56:07 -0500 (Wed, 12 May 2010) | 1 line

  Grammar fix
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  r81125 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-12 13:56:48 -0500 (Wed, 12 May 2010) | 1 line

  #8696: add documentation for logging.config.dictConfig (PEP 391)
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  r81245 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-16 18:31:16 -0500 (Sun, 16 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add cross-reference to later section
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  r81285 | vinay.sajip | 2010-05-18 03:16:27 -0500 (Tue, 18 May 2010) | 1 line

  Fixed minor typo in ReST markup.
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  r81402 | vinay.sajip | 2010-05-21 12:41:34 -0500 (Fri, 21 May 2010) | 1 line

  Updated logging documentation with more dictConfig information.
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  r81463 | georg.brandl | 2010-05-22 03:17:23 -0500 (Sat, 22 May 2010) | 1 line

  #8785: less confusing description of regex.find*.
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  r81516 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-25 08:34:08 -0500 (Tue, 25 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add three items
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  r81562 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-27 08:22:53 -0500 (Thu, 27 May 2010) | 1 line

  Rewrite wxWidgets section
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  r81563 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-27 08:30:09 -0500 (Thu, 27 May 2010) | 1 line

  Remove top-level 'General Questions' section, pushing up the questions it contains
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  r81567 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-05-27 16:29:59 -0500 (Thu, 27 May 2010) | 1 line

  Add item
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  r81593 | georg.brandl | 2010-05-29 03:46:18 -0500 (Sat, 29 May 2010) | 1 line

  #8616: add new turtle demo "nim".
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  r81635 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-01 02:25:23 -0500 (Tue, 01 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Put docs for RegexObject.search() before RegexObject.match() to mirror re.search() and re.match() order.
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  r81680 | vinay.sajip | 2010-06-03 17:34:42 -0500 (Thu, 03 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Issue #8890: Documentation changed to avoid reference to temporary files.
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  r81681 | sean.reifschneider | 2010-06-03 20:51:26 -0500 (Thu, 03 Jun 2010) | 2 lines

  Issue8810: Clearing up docstring for tzinfo.utcoffset.
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  r81684 | vinay.sajip | 2010-06-04 08:41:02 -0500 (Fri, 04 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Issue #8890: Documentation changed to avoid reference to temporary files - other cases covered.
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  r81801 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-06-07 08:38:40 -0500 (Mon, 07 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  #8875: Remove duplicated paragraph
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  r81888 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-06-10 20:54:58 -0500 (Thu, 10 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Add a few more items
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  r81931 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 01:26:54 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Fix punctuation.
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  r81932 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 01:28:58 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Document that an existing directory raises in mkdir().
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  r81933 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 01:45:33 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Update version in README.
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  r81939 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 04:45:01 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Use newer toctree syntax.
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  r81940 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 04:45:28 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Add document on how to build.
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  r81941 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 04:45:58 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Fix gratuitous indentation.
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  r81942 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-12 04:46:03 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Update README.
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  r81963 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-06-12 15:00:55 -0500 (Sat, 12 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Grammar fix
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  r81984 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-14 10:58:39 -0500 (Mon, 14 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  #8993: fix reference.
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  r81991 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-06-14 19:38:58 -0500 (Mon, 14 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Add another bunch of items
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  r82120 | andrew.kuchling | 2010-06-20 16:45:45 -0500 (Sun, 20 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Note that Python 3.x isn't covered; add forward ref. for UTF-8; note error in 2.5 and up
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  r82188 | benjamin.peterson | 2010-06-23 19:02:46 -0500 (Wed, 23 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  remove reverted changed
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  r82264 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-27 05:47:47 -0500 (Sun, 27 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Confusing punctuation.
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  r82265 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-27 05:49:23 -0500 (Sun, 27 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Use designated syntax for optional grammar element.
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  r82266 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-27 05:51:44 -0500 (Sun, 27 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Fix URL.
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  r82267 | georg.brandl | 2010-06-27 05:55:38 -0500 (Sun, 27 Jun 2010) | 1 line

  Two typos.
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diff --git a/Doc/library/logging.rst b/Doc/library/logging.rst
index d3d1d5f..1a5d7eb 100644
--- a/Doc/library/logging.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/logging.rst
@@ -53,10 +53,12 @@
 
 Most applications are probably going to want to log to a file, so let's start
 with that case. Using the :func:`basicConfig` function, we can set up the
-default handler so that debug messages are written to a file::
+default handler so that debug messages are written to a file (in the example,
+we assume that you have the appropriate permissions to create a file called
+*example.log* in the current directory)::
 
    import logging
-   LOG_FILENAME = '/tmp/logging_example.out'
+   LOG_FILENAME = 'example.log'
    logging.basicConfig(filename=LOG_FILENAME,level=logging.DEBUG)
 
    logging.debug('This message should go to the log file')
@@ -75,7 +77,7 @@
    import logging
    import logging.handlers
 
-   LOG_FILENAME = '/tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out'
+   LOG_FILENAME = 'logging_rotatingfile_example.out'
 
    # Set up a specific logger with our desired output level
    my_logger = logging.getLogger('MyLogger')
@@ -100,14 +102,14 @@
 The result should be 6 separate files, each with part of the log history for the
 application::
 
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out.1
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out.2
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out.3
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out.4
-   /tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out.5
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.1
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.2
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.3
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.4
+   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.5
 
-The most current file is always :file:`/tmp/logging_rotatingfile_example.out`,
+The most current file is always :file:`logging_rotatingfile_example.out`,
 and each time it reaches the size limit it is renamed with the suffix
 ``.1``. Each of the existing backup files is renamed to increment the suffix
 (``.1`` becomes ``.2``, etc.)  and the ``.6`` file is erased.
@@ -321,24 +323,34 @@
 Configuring Logging
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
-Programmers can configure logging either by creating loggers, handlers, and
-formatters explicitly in a main module with the configuration methods listed
-above (using Python code), or by creating a logging config file.  The following
-code is an example of configuring a very simple logger, a console handler, and a
-simple formatter in a Python module::
+Programmers can configure logging in three ways:
+
+1. Creating loggers, handlers, and formatters explicitly using Python
+   code that calls the configuration methods listed above.
+2. Creating a logging config file and reading it using the :func:`fileConfig`
+   function.
+3. Creating a dictionary of configuration information and passing it
+   to the :func:`dictConfig` function.
+
+The following example configures a very simple logger, a console
+handler, and a simple formatter using Python code::
 
     import logging
 
     # create logger
     logger = logging.getLogger("simple_example")
     logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
+
     # create console handler and set level to debug
     ch = logging.StreamHandler()
     ch.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
+
     # create formatter
     formatter = logging.Formatter("%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s")
+
     # add formatter to ch
     ch.setFormatter(formatter)
+
     # add ch to logger
     logger.addHandler(ch)
 
@@ -428,6 +440,45 @@
 class defined in package `mypackage` and module `mymodule`, where `mypackage`
 is available on the Python import path).
 
+.. versionchanged:: 2.7
+
+In Python 2.7, a new means of configuring logging has been introduced, using
+dictionaries to hold configuration information. This provides a superset of the
+functionality of the config-file-based approach outlined above, and is the
+recommended configuration method for new applications and deployments. Because
+a Python dictionary is used to hold configuration information, and since you
+can populate that dictionary using different means, you have more options for
+configuration. For example, you can use a configuration file in JSON format,
+or, if you have access to YAML processing functionality, a file in YAML
+format, to populate the configuration dictionary. Or, of course, you can
+construct the dictionary in Python code, receive it in pickled form over a
+socket, or use whatever approach makes sense for your application.
+
+Here's an example of the same configuration as above, in YAML format for
+the new dictionary-based approach::
+
+    version: 1
+    formatters:
+      simple:
+        format: format=%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s
+    handlers:
+      console:
+        class: logging.StreamHandler
+        level: DEBUG
+        formatter: simple
+        stream: ext://sys.stdout
+    loggers:
+      simpleExample:
+        level: DEBUG
+        handlers: [console]
+        propagate: no
+    root:
+        level: DEBUG
+        handlers: [console]
+
+For more information about logging using a dictionary, see
+:ref:`logging-config-api`.
+
 .. _library-config:
 
 Configuring Logging for a Library
@@ -1065,14 +1116,14 @@
 
    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,
                        format='%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(message)s',
-                       filename='/tmp/myapp.log',
+                       filename='myapp.log',
                        filemode='w')
    logging.debug('A debug message')
    logging.info('Some information')
    logging.warning('A shot across the bows')
 
 The :meth:`basicConfig` method is used to change the configuration defaults,
-which results in output (written to ``/tmp/myapp.log``) which should look
+which results in output (written to ``myapp.log``) which should look
 something like the following::
 
    2004-07-02 13:00:08,743 DEBUG A debug message
@@ -2553,19 +2604,57 @@
 in :mod:`logging` itself) and defining handlers which are declared either in
 :mod:`logging` or :mod:`logging.handlers`.
 
+.. function:: dictConfig(config)
 
-.. function:: fileConfig(fname, defaults=None, disable_existing_loggers=True)
+    Takes the logging configuration from a dictionary.  The contents of
+    this dictionary are described in :ref:`logging-config-dictschema`
+    below.
+
+    If an error is encountered during configuration, this function will
+    raise a :exc:`ValueError`, :exc:`TypeError`, :exc:`AttributeError`
+    or :exc:`ImportError` with a suitably descriptive message.  The
+    following is a (possibly incomplete) list of conditions which will
+    raise an error:
+
+    * A ``level`` which is not a string or which is a string not
+      corresponding to an actual logging level.
+    * A ``propagate`` value which is not a boolean.
+    * An id which does not have a corresponding destination.
+    * A non-existent handler id found during an incremental call.
+    * An invalid logger name.
+    * Inability to resolve to an internal or external object.
+
+    Parsing is performed by the :class:`DictConfigurator` class, whose
+    constructor is passed the dictionary used for configuration, and
+    has a :meth:`configure` method.  The :mod:`logging.config` module
+    has a callable attribute :attr:`dictConfigClass`
+    which is initially set to :class:`DictConfigurator`.
+    You can replace the value of :attr:`dictConfigClass` with a
+    suitable implementation of your own.
+
+    :func:`dictConfig` calls :attr:`dictConfigClass` passing
+    the specified dictionary, and then calls the :meth:`configure` method on
+    the returned object to put the configuration into effect::
+
+          def dictConfig(config):
+              dictConfigClass(config).configure()
+
+    For example, a subclass of :class:`DictConfigurator` could call
+    ``DictConfigurator.__init__()`` in its own :meth:`__init__()`, then
+    set up custom prefixes which would be usable in the subsequent
+    :meth:`configure` call. :attr:`dictConfigClass` would be bound to
+    this new subclass, and then :func:`dictConfig` could be called exactly as
+    in the default, uncustomized state.
+
+.. function:: fileConfig(fname[, defaults])
 
    Reads the logging configuration from a :mod:`configparser`\-format file named
    *fname*. This function can be called several times from an application,
-   allowing an end user the ability to select from various pre-canned
+   allowing an end user to select from various pre-canned
    configurations (if the developer provides a mechanism to present the choices
    and load the chosen configuration). Defaults to be passed to the ConfigParser
    can be specified in the *defaults* argument.
 
-   If *disable_existing_loggers* is true, any existing loggers that are not
-   children of named loggers will be disabled.
-
 
 .. function:: listen(port=DEFAULT_LOGGING_CONFIG_PORT)
 
@@ -2589,6 +2678,402 @@
    :func:`listen`.
 
 
+.. _logging-config-dictschema:
+
+Configuration dictionary schema
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Describing a logging configuration requires listing the various
+objects to create and the connections between them; for example, you
+may create a handler named "console" and then say that the logger
+named "startup" will send its messages to the "console" handler.
+These objects aren't limited to those provided by the :mod:`logging`
+module because you might write your own formatter or handler class.
+The parameters to these classes may also need to include external
+objects such as ``sys.stderr``.  The syntax for describing these
+objects and connections is defined in :ref:`logging-config-dict-connections`
+below.
+
+Dictionary Schema Details
+"""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+The dictionary passed to :func:`dictConfig` must contain the following
+keys:
+
+* `version` - to be set to an integer value representing the schema
+  version.  The only valid value at present is 1, but having this key
+  allows the schema to evolve while still preserving backwards
+  compatibility.
+
+All other keys are optional, but if present they will be interpreted
+as described below.  In all cases below where a 'configuring dict' is
+mentioned, it will be checked for the special ``'()'`` key to see if a
+custom instantiation is required.  If so, the mechanism described in
+:ref:`logging-config-dict-userdef` below is used to create an instance;
+otherwise, the context is used to determine what to instantiate.
+
+* `formatters` - the corresponding value will be a dict in which each
+  key is a formatter id and each value is a dict describing how to
+  configure the corresponding Formatter instance.
+
+  The configuring dict is searched for keys ``format`` and ``datefmt``
+  (with defaults of ``None``) and these are used to construct a
+  :class:`logging.Formatter` instance.
+
+* `filters` - the corresponding value will be a dict in which each key
+  is a filter id and each value is a dict describing how to configure
+  the corresponding Filter instance.
+
+  The configuring dict is searched for the key ``name`` (defaulting to the
+  empty string) and this is used to construct a :class:`logging.Filter`
+  instance.
+
+* `handlers` - the corresponding value will be a dict in which each
+  key is a handler id and each value is a dict describing how to
+  configure the corresponding Handler instance.
+
+  The configuring dict is searched for the following keys:
+
+  * ``class`` (mandatory).  This is the fully qualified name of the
+    handler class.
+
+  * ``level`` (optional).  The level of the handler.
+
+  * ``formatter`` (optional).  The id of the formatter for this
+    handler.
+
+  * ``filters`` (optional).  A list of ids of the filters for this
+    handler.
+
+  All *other* keys are passed through as keyword arguments to the
+  handler's constructor.  For example, given the snippet::
+
+      handlers:
+        console:
+          class : logging.StreamHandler
+          formatter: brief
+          level   : INFO
+          filters: [allow_foo]
+          stream  : ext://sys.stdout
+        file:
+          class : logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler
+          formatter: precise
+          filename: logconfig.log
+          maxBytes: 1024
+          backupCount: 3
+
+  the handler with id ``console`` is instantiated as a
+  :class:`logging.StreamHandler`, using ``sys.stdout`` as the underlying
+  stream.  The handler with id ``file`` is instantiated as a
+  :class:`logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler` with the keyword arguments
+  ``filename='logconfig.log', maxBytes=1024, backupCount=3``.
+
+* `loggers` - the corresponding value will be a dict in which each key
+  is a logger name and each value is a dict describing how to
+  configure the corresponding Logger instance.
+
+  The configuring dict is searched for the following keys:
+
+  * ``level`` (optional).  The level of the logger.
+
+  * ``propagate`` (optional).  The propagation setting of the logger.
+
+  * ``filters`` (optional).  A list of ids of the filters for this
+    logger.
+
+  * ``handlers`` (optional).  A list of ids of the handlers for this
+    logger.
+
+  The specified loggers will be configured according to the level,
+  propagation, filters and handlers specified.
+
+* `root` - this will be the configuration for the root logger.
+  Processing of the configuration will be as for any logger, except
+  that the ``propagate`` setting will not be applicable.
+
+* `incremental` - whether the configuration is to be interpreted as
+  incremental to the existing configuration.  This value defaults to
+  ``False``, which means that the specified configuration replaces the
+  existing configuration with the same semantics as used by the
+  existing :func:`fileConfig` API.
+
+  If the specified value is ``True``, the configuration is processed
+  as described in the section on :ref:`logging-config-dict-incremental`.
+
+* `disable_existing_loggers` - whether any existing loggers are to be
+  disabled. This setting mirrors the parameter of the same name in
+  :func:`fileConfig`. If absent, this parameter defaults to ``True``.
+  This value is ignored if `incremental` is ``True``.
+
+.. _logging-config-dict-incremental:
+
+Incremental Configuration
+"""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+It is difficult to provide complete flexibility for incremental
+configuration.  For example, because objects such as filters
+and formatters are anonymous, once a configuration is set up, it is
+not possible to refer to such anonymous objects when augmenting a
+configuration.
+
+Furthermore, there is not a compelling case for arbitrarily altering
+the object graph of loggers, handlers, filters, formatters at
+run-time, once a configuration is set up; the verbosity of loggers and
+handlers can be controlled just by setting levels (and, in the case of
+loggers, propagation flags).  Changing the object graph arbitrarily in
+a safe way is problematic in a multi-threaded environment; while not
+impossible, the benefits are not worth the complexity it adds to the
+implementation.
+
+Thus, when the ``incremental`` key of a configuration dict is present
+and is ``True``, the system will completely ignore any ``formatters`` and
+``filters`` entries, and process only the ``level``
+settings in the ``handlers`` entries, and the ``level`` and
+``propagate`` settings in the ``loggers`` and ``root`` entries.
+
+Using a value in the configuration dict lets configurations to be sent
+over the wire as pickled dicts to a socket listener. Thus, the logging
+verbosity of a long-running application can be altered over time with
+no need to stop and restart the application.
+
+.. _logging-config-dict-connections:
+
+Object connections
+""""""""""""""""""
+
+The schema describes a set of logging objects - loggers,
+handlers, formatters, filters - which are connected to each other in
+an object graph.  Thus, the schema needs to represent connections
+between the objects.  For example, say that, once configured, a
+particular logger has attached to it a particular handler.  For the
+purposes of this discussion, we can say that the logger represents the
+source, and the handler the destination, of a connection between the
+two.  Of course in the configured objects this is represented by the
+logger holding a reference to the handler.  In the configuration dict,
+this is done by giving each destination object an id which identifies
+it unambiguously, and then using the id in the source object's
+configuration to indicate that a connection exists between the source
+and the destination object with that id.
+
+So, for example, consider the following YAML snippet::
+
+    formatters:
+      brief:
+        # configuration for formatter with id 'brief' goes here
+      precise:
+        # configuration for formatter with id 'precise' goes here
+    handlers:
+      h1: #This is an id
+       # configuration of handler with id 'h1' goes here
+       formatter: brief
+      h2: #This is another id
+       # configuration of handler with id 'h2' goes here
+       formatter: precise
+    loggers:
+      foo.bar.baz:
+        # other configuration for logger 'foo.bar.baz'
+        handlers: [h1, h2]
+
+(Note: YAML used here because it's a little more readable than the
+equivalent Python source form for the dictionary.)
+
+The ids for loggers are the logger names which would be used
+programmatically to obtain a reference to those loggers, e.g.
+``foo.bar.baz``.  The ids for Formatters and Filters can be any string
+value (such as ``brief``, ``precise`` above) and they are transient,
+in that they are only meaningful for processing the configuration
+dictionary and used to determine connections between objects, and are
+not persisted anywhere when the configuration call is complete.
+
+The above snippet indicates that logger named ``foo.bar.baz`` should
+have two handlers attached to it, which are described by the handler
+ids ``h1`` and ``h2``. The formatter for ``h1`` is that described by id
+``brief``, and the formatter for ``h2`` is that described by id
+``precise``.
+
+
+.. _logging-config-dict-userdef:
+
+User-defined objects
+""""""""""""""""""""
+
+The schema supports user-defined objects for handlers, filters and
+formatters.  (Loggers do not need to have different types for
+different instances, so there is no support in this configuration
+schema for user-defined logger classes.)
+
+Objects to be configured are described by dictionaries
+which detail their configuration.  In some places, the logging system
+will be able to infer from the context how an object is to be
+instantiated, but when a user-defined object is to be instantiated,
+the system will not know how to do this.  In order to provide complete
+flexibility for user-defined object instantiation, the user needs
+to provide a 'factory' - a callable which is called with a
+configuration dictionary and which returns the instantiated object.
+This is signalled by an absolute import path to the factory being
+made available under the special key ``'()'``.  Here's a concrete
+example::
+
+    formatters:
+      brief:
+        format: '%(message)s'
+      default:
+        format: '%(asctime)s %(levelname)-8s %(name)-15s %(message)s'
+        datefmt: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
+      custom:
+          (): my.package.customFormatterFactory
+          bar: baz
+          spam: 99.9
+          answer: 42
+
+The above YAML snippet defines three formatters.  The first, with id
+``brief``, is a standard :class:`logging.Formatter` instance with the
+specified format string.  The second, with id ``default``, has a
+longer format and also defines the time format explicitly, and will
+result in a :class:`logging.Formatter` initialized with those two format
+strings.  Shown in Python source form, the ``brief`` and ``default``
+formatters have configuration sub-dictionaries::
+
+    {
+      'format' : '%(message)s'
+    }
+
+and::
+
+    {
+      'format' : '%(asctime)s %(levelname)-8s %(name)-15s %(message)s',
+      'datefmt' : '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
+    }
+
+respectively, and as these dictionaries do not contain the special key
+``'()'``, the instantiation is inferred from the context: as a result,
+standard :class:`logging.Formatter` instances are created.  The
+configuration sub-dictionary for the third formatter, with id
+``custom``, is::
+
+  {
+    '()' : 'my.package.customFormatterFactory',
+    'bar' : 'baz',
+    'spam' : 99.9,
+    'answer' : 42
+  }
+
+and this contains the special key ``'()'``, which means that
+user-defined instantiation is wanted.  In this case, the specified
+factory callable will be used. If it is an actual callable it will be
+used directly - otherwise, if you specify a string (as in the example)
+the actual callable will be located using normal import mechanisms.
+The callable will be called with the **remaining** items in the
+configuration sub-dictionary as keyword arguments.  In the above
+example, the formatter with id ``custom`` will be assumed to be
+returned by the call::
+
+    my.package.customFormatterFactory(bar='baz', spam=99.9, answer=42)
+
+The key ``'()'`` has been used as the special key because it is not a
+valid keyword parameter name, and so will not clash with the names of
+the keyword arguments used in the call.  The ``'()'`` also serves as a
+mnemonic that the corresponding value is a callable.
+
+
+.. _logging-config-dict-externalobj:
+
+Access to external objects
+""""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+There are times where a configuration needs to refer to objects
+external to the configuration, for example ``sys.stderr``.  If the
+configuration dict is constructed using Python code, this is
+straightforward, but a problem arises when the configuration is
+provided via a text file (e.g. JSON, YAML).  In a text file, there is
+no standard way to distinguish ``sys.stderr`` from the literal string
+``'sys.stderr'``.  To facilitate this distinction, the configuration
+system looks for certain special prefixes in string values and
+treat them specially.  For example, if the literal string
+``'ext://sys.stderr'`` is provided as a value in the configuration,
+then the ``ext://`` will be stripped off and the remainder of the
+value processed using normal import mechanisms.
+
+The handling of such prefixes is done in a way analogous to protocol
+handling: there is a generic mechanism to look for prefixes which
+match the regular expression ``^(?P<prefix>[a-z]+)://(?P<suffix>.*)$``
+whereby, if the ``prefix`` is recognised, the ``suffix`` is processed
+in a prefix-dependent manner and the result of the processing replaces
+the string value.  If the prefix is not recognised, then the string
+value will be left as-is.
+
+
+.. _logging-config-dict-internalobj:
+
+Access to internal objects
+""""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+As well as external objects, there is sometimes also a need to refer
+to objects in the configuration.  This will be done implicitly by the
+configuration system for things that it knows about.  For example, the
+string value ``'DEBUG'`` for a ``level`` in a logger or handler will
+automatically be converted to the value ``logging.DEBUG``, and the
+``handlers``, ``filters`` and ``formatter`` entries will take an
+object id and resolve to the appropriate destination object.
+
+However, a more generic mechanism is needed for user-defined
+objects which are not known to the :mod:`logging` module.  For
+example, consider :class:`logging.handlers.MemoryHandler`, which takes
+a ``target`` argument which is another handler to delegate to. Since
+the system already knows about this class, then in the configuration,
+the given ``target`` just needs to be the object id of the relevant
+target handler, and the system will resolve to the handler from the
+id.  If, however, a user defines a ``my.package.MyHandler`` which has
+an ``alternate`` handler, the configuration system would not know that
+the ``alternate`` referred to a handler.  To cater for this, a generic
+resolution system allows the user to specify::
+
+    handlers:
+      file:
+        # configuration of file handler goes here
+
+      custom:
+        (): my.package.MyHandler
+        alternate: cfg://handlers.file
+
+The literal string ``'cfg://handlers.file'`` will be resolved in an
+analogous way to strings with the ``ext://`` prefix, but looking
+in the configuration itself rather than the import namespace.  The
+mechanism allows access by dot or by index, in a similar way to
+that provided by ``str.format``.  Thus, given the following snippet::
+
+    handlers:
+      email:
+        class: logging.handlers.SMTPHandler
+        mailhost: localhost
+        fromaddr: my_app@domain.tld
+        toaddrs:
+          - support_team@domain.tld
+          - dev_team@domain.tld
+        subject: Houston, we have a problem.
+
+in the configuration, the string ``'cfg://handlers'`` would resolve to
+the dict with key ``handlers``, the string ``'cfg://handlers.email``
+would resolve to the dict with key ``email`` in the ``handlers`` dict,
+and so on.  The string ``'cfg://handlers.email.toaddrs[1]`` would
+resolve to ``'dev_team.domain.tld'`` and the string
+``'cfg://handlers.email.toaddrs[0]'`` would resolve to the value
+``'support_team@domain.tld'``. The ``subject`` value could be accessed
+using either ``'cfg://handlers.email.subject'`` or, equivalently,
+``'cfg://handlers.email[subject]'``.  The latter form only needs to be
+used if the key contains spaces or non-alphanumeric characters.  If an
+index value consists only of decimal digits, access will be attempted
+using the corresponding integer value, falling back to the string
+value if needed.
+
+Given a string ``cfg://handlers.myhandler.mykey.123``, this will
+resolve to ``config_dict['handlers']['myhandler']['mykey']['123']``.
+If the string is specified as ``cfg://handlers.myhandler.mykey[123]``,
+the system will attempt to retrieve the value from
+``config_dict['handlers']['myhandler']['mykey'][123]``, and fall back
+to ``config_dict['handlers']['myhandler']['mykey']['123']`` if that
+fails.
+
 .. _logging-config-fileformat:
 
 Configuration file format