| Guido van Rossum | 061f182 | 1994-10-06 16:03:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | ================================ |
| 2 | ==> Release 1.1 (6 Oct 1994) <== |
| 3 | ================================ |
| 4 | |
| 5 | This release adds several new features, improved configuration and |
| 6 | portability, and more fixed bugs than I can list here (including some |
| 7 | memory leaks). |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The source compiles and runs out of the box on more platforms than |
| 10 | ever -- including Windows NT. Makefiles or projects for a variety of |
| 11 | non-UNIX platforms are provided. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Apology: many new features are badly documented or not at all. I had |
| 14 | the choice -- postpone the new release indefinitely, or release it |
| 15 | now, with working code but some undocumented areas... |
| 16 | |
| 17 | |
| 18 | New language features: |
| 19 | |
| 20 | - More flexible operator overloading for user-defined classes |
| 21 | (INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS!) See end of tutorial. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | - Classes can define methods named __getattr__, __setattr__ and |
| 24 | __delattr__ to trap attribute accesses. See end of tutorial. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | - Classes can define method __call__ so instances can be called |
| 27 | directly. See end of tutorial. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | |
| 30 | New support facilities: |
| 31 | |
| 32 | - The Makefiles (for the base interpreter as well as for extensions) |
| 33 | now support creating dynamically loadable modules if the platform |
| 34 | supports shared libraries. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | - Passing the interpreter a .pyc file as script argument will execute |
| 37 | the code in that file. (On the Mac such files can be double-clicked!) |
| 38 | |
| 39 | - New Freeze script, to create independently distributable "binaries" |
| 40 | of Python programs -- look in Demo/freeze |
| 41 | |
| 42 | - Improved h2py script (in Demo/scripts) follows #includes and |
| 43 | supports macros with one argument |
| 44 | |
| 45 | - New module compileall generates .pyc files for all modules in a |
| 46 | directory (tree) without also executing them |
| 47 | |
| 48 | - Threads should work on more platforms |
| 49 | |
| 50 | |
| 51 | New built-in modules: |
| 52 | |
| 53 | - tkinter (support for Tcl's Tk widget set) is now part of the base |
| 54 | distribution |
| 55 | |
| 56 | - signal allows catching or ignoring UNIX signals (unfortunately still |
| 57 | undocumented -- any taker?) |
| 58 | |
| 59 | - termios provides portable access to POSIX tty settings |
| 60 | |
| 61 | - curses provides an interface to the System V curses library |
| 62 | |
| 63 | - syslog provides an interface to the (BSD?) syslog daemon |
| 64 | |
| 65 | - 'new' provides interfaces to create new built-in object types |
| 66 | (e.g. modules and functions) |
| 67 | |
| 68 | - sybase provides an interface to SYBASE database |
| 69 | |
| 70 | |
| 71 | New/obsolete built-in methods: |
| 72 | |
| 73 | - callable(x) tests whether x can be called |
| 74 | |
| 75 | - sockets now have a setblocking() method |
| 76 | |
| 77 | - sockets no longer have an allowbroadcast() method |
| 78 | |
| 79 | - socket methods send() and sendto() return byte count |
| 80 | |
| 81 | |
| 82 | New standard library modules: |
| 83 | |
| 84 | - types.py defines standard names for built-in types, e.g. StringType |
| 85 | |
| 86 | - urlparse.py parses URLs according to the latest Internet draft |
| 87 | |
| 88 | - uu.py does uuencode/uudecode (not the fastest in the world, but |
| 89 | quicker than installing uuencode on a non-UNIX machine :-) |
| 90 | |
| 91 | - New, faster and more powerful profile module.py |
| 92 | |
| 93 | - mhlib.py provides interface to MH folders and messages |
| 94 | |
| 95 | |
| 96 | New facilities for extension writers (unfortunately still |
| 97 | undocumented): |
| 98 | |
| 99 | - newgetargs() supports optional arguments and improved error messages |
| 100 | |
| 101 | - O!, O& O? formats for getargs allow more versatile type checking of |
| 102 | non-standard types |
| 103 | |
| 104 | - can register pending asynchronous callback, to be called the next |
| 105 | time the Python VM begins a new instruction (Py_AddPendingCall) |
| 106 | |
| 107 | - can register cleanup routines to be called when Python exits |
| 108 | (Py_AtExit) |
| 109 | |
| 110 | - makesetup script understands C++ files in Setup file (use file.C |
| 111 | or file.cc) |
| 112 | |
| 113 | - Make variable OPT is passed on to sub-Makefiles |
| 114 | |
| 115 | - An init<module>() routine may signal an error by not entering |
| 116 | the module in the module table and raising an exception instead |
| 117 | |
| 118 | - For long module names, instead of foobarbletchmodule.c you can |
| 119 | use foobarbletch.c |
| 120 | |
| 121 | - getintvalue() and getfloatvalue() try to convert any object |
| 122 | instead of requiring an "intobject" or "floatobject" |
| 123 | |
| 124 | - All the [new]getargs() formats that retrieve an integer value |
| 125 | will now also work if a float is passed |
| 126 | |
| 127 | - C function listtuple() converts list to tuple, fast |
| 128 | |
| 129 | - You should now call sigcheck() instead of intrcheck(); |
| 130 | sigcheck() also sets an exception when it returns nonzero |
| 131 | |
| 132 | |
| Guido van Rossum | a85d053 | 1994-01-26 17:24:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 133 | --Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl> |
| 134 | URL: <http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Guido.van.Rossum.html> |