Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | +++++++++++ |
| 2 | Python News |
| 3 | +++++++++++ |
| 4 | |
Skip Montanaro | 4a38583 | 2002-09-20 17:08:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 5 | (editors: check NEWS.help for information about editing NEWS using ReST.) |
| 6 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 7 | What's New in Python 2.3 alpha 1? |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 8 | ================================= |
| 9 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 10 | *XXX Release date: DD-MMM-2002 XXX* |
| 11 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 12 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 13 | -------------------------------------------- |
Guido van Rossum | 8b1e74b | 2002-11-23 16:28:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 14 | |
Michael W. Hudson | 96bc3b4 | 2002-11-26 14:48:23 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 15 | - One can now assign to __bases__ and __name__ of new-style classes. |
| 16 | |
Guido van Rossum | 8b1e74b | 2002-11-23 16:28:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 17 | - dict() now accepts keyword arguments so that dict(one=1, two=2) |
| 18 | is the equivalent of {"one": 1, "two": 2}. Accordingly, |
Just van Rossum | a797d81 | 2002-11-23 09:45:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 19 | the existing (but undocumented) 'items' keyword argument has |
Guido van Rossum | 8b1e74b | 2002-11-23 16:28:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 20 | been eliminated. This means that dict(items=someMapping) now has |
Just van Rossum | a797d81 | 2002-11-23 09:45:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 21 | a different meaning than before. |
| 22 | |
Walter Dörwald | f171540 | 2002-11-19 20:49:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 23 | - int() now returns a long object if the argument is outside the |
| 24 | integer range, so int("4"*1000), int(1e200) and int(1L<<1000) will |
| 25 | all return long objects instead of raising an OverflowError. |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 26 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | e0373f8 | 2002-11-15 14:42:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 27 | - Assignment to __class__ is disallowed if either the old or the new |
Guido van Rossum | e343878 | 2002-08-12 03:42:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 28 | class is a statically allocated type object (such as defined by an |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 29 | extension module). This prevents anomalies like 2.__class__ = bool. |
Guido van Rossum | e343878 | 2002-08-12 03:42:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 30 | |
| 31 | - New-style object creation and deallocation have been sped up |
| 32 | significantly; they are now faster than classic instance creation |
| 33 | and deallocation. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | - The __slots__ variable can now mention "private" names, and the |
| 36 | right thing will happen (e.g. __slots__ = ["__foo"]). |
| 37 | |
| 38 | - The built-ins slice() and buffer() are now callable types. The |
| 39 | types classobj (formerly class), code, function, instance, and |
| 40 | instancemethod (formerly instance-method), which have no built-in |
| 41 | names but are accessible through the types module, are now also |
| 42 | callable. The type dict-proxy is renamed to dictproxy. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | - Cycles going through the __class__ link of a new-style instance are |
| 45 | now detected by the garbage collector. |
| 46 | |
| 47 | - Classes using __slots__ are now properly garbage collected. |
| 48 | [SF bug 519621] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | - Tightened the __slots__ rules: a slot name must be a valid Python |
| 51 | identifier. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | - The constructor for the module type now requires a name argument and |
| 54 | takes an optional docstring argument. Previously, this constructor |
| 55 | ignored its arguments. As a consequence, deriving a class from a |
| 56 | module (not from the module type) is now illegal; previously this |
| 57 | created an unnamed module, just like invoking the module type did. |
| 58 | [SF bug 563060] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | - A new type object, 'basestring', is added. This is a common base type |
| 61 | for 'str' and 'unicode', and can be used instead of |
| 62 | types.StringTypes, e.g. to test whether something is "a string": |
| 63 | isinstance(x, basestring) is True for Unicode and 8-bit strings. This |
| 64 | is an abstract base class and cannot be instantiated directly. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | - Changed new-style class instantiation so that when C's __new__ |
| 67 | method returns something that's not a C instance, its __init__ is |
| 68 | not called. [SF bug #537450] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | - Fixed super() to work correctly with class methods. [SF bug #535444] |
| 71 | |
| 72 | - If you try to pickle an instance of a class that has __slots__ but |
| 73 | doesn't define or override __getstate__, a TypeError is now raised. |
| 74 | This is done by adding a bozo __getstate__ to the class that always |
| 75 | raises TypeError. (Before, this would appear to be pickled, but the |
| 76 | state of the slots would be lost.) |
| 77 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 78 | Core and builtins |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 79 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 80 | |
Guido van Rossum | a3b8953 | 2002-12-30 22:59:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 81 | - Import from zipfiles is now supported. The name of a zipfile placed |
| 82 | on sys.path causes the import statement to look for importable |
| 83 | Python modules (with .py, pyc and .pyo extensions) and packages |
| 84 | inside the zipfile. To support this, several new variables have |
| 85 | been added to the sys module: sys.meta_path, sys.path_hooks, and |
| 86 | sys.path_importer_cache; these make extending the import statement |
| 87 | much more convenient than overriding the __import__ built-in |
| 88 | function. For a description of these, see PEP 302. The zipfile |
| 89 | import follows the specification (though not the sample |
| 90 | implementation) of PEP 273. The semantics of __path__ are |
| 91 | compatible with those that have been implemented in Jython since |
| 92 | Jython 2.1. |
| 93 | |
Michael W. Hudson | cfd3884 | 2002-12-17 16:15:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 94 | - A frame object's f_lineno attribute can now be written to from a |
| 95 | trace function to change which line will execute next. A command to |
| 96 | exploit this from pdb has been added. [SF patch #643835] |
| 97 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 20b9135 | 2002-12-12 18:01:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 98 | - The _codecs support module for codecs.py was turned into a builtin |
| 99 | module to assure that at least the builtin codecs are available |
| 100 | to the Python parser for source code decoding according to PEP 263. |
| 101 | |
Walter Dörwald | d9a6ad3 | 2002-12-12 16:41:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 102 | - issubclass now supports a tuple as the second argument, just like |
| 103 | isinstance does. ``issubclass(X, (A, B))`` is equivalent to |
| 104 | ``issubclass(X, A) or issubclass(X, B)``. |
| 105 | |
Tim Peters | b9099c3 | 2002-11-12 22:08:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 106 | - Thanks to Armin Rigo, the last known way to provoke a system crash |
| 107 | by cleverly arranging for a comparison function to mutate a list |
| 108 | during a list.sort() operation has been fixed. The effect of |
| 109 | attempting to mutate a list, or even to inspect its contents or |
| 110 | length, while a sort is in progress, is not defined by the language. |
| 111 | The C implementation of Python 2.3 attempts to detect mutations, |
| 112 | and raise ValueError if one occurs, but there's no guarantee that |
| 113 | all mutations will be caught, or that any will be caught across |
| 114 | releases or implementations. |
| 115 | |
Martin v. Löwis | a844f2d | 2002-10-05 09:46:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 116 | - Unicode file name processing for Windows (PEP 277) is implemented. |
Mark Hammond | 8696ebc | 2002-10-08 02:44:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 117 | All platforms now have an os.path.supports_unicode_filenames attribute, |
| 118 | which is set to True on Windows NT/2000/XP, and False elsewhere. |
Martin v. Löwis | a844f2d | 2002-10-05 09:46:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 119 | |
Walter Dörwald | 3aeb632 | 2002-09-02 13:14:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 120 | - Codec error handling callbacks (PEP 293) are implemented. |
| 121 | Error handling in unicode.encode or str.decode can now be customized. |
| 122 | |
Guido van Rossum | 45ec02a | 2002-08-19 21:43:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 123 | - A subtle change to the semantics of the built-in function intern(): |
| 124 | interned strings are no longer immortal. You must keep a reference |
| 125 | to the return value intern() around to get the benefit. |
| 126 | |
Guido van Rossum | f808b89 | 2002-08-16 03:38:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 127 | - Use of 'None' as a variable, argument or attribute name now |
| 128 | issues a SyntaxWarning. In the future, None may become a keyword. |
| 129 | |
Michael W. Hudson | dd32a91 | 2002-08-15 14:59:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 130 | - SET_LINENO is gone. co_lnotab is now consulted to determine when to |
| 131 | call the trace function. C code that accessed f_lineno should call |
Michael W. Hudson | cfd3884 | 2002-12-17 16:15:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 132 | PyCode_Addr2Line instead (f_lineno is still there, but only kept up |
| 133 | to date when there is a trace function set). |
Michael W. Hudson | dd32a91 | 2002-08-15 14:59:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 134 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9be8946 | 2002-08-14 16:11:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 135 | - There's a new warning category, FutureWarning. This is used to warn |
| 136 | about a number of situations where the value or sign of an integer |
| 137 | result will change in Python 2.4 as a result of PEP 237 (integer |
| 138 | unification). The warnings implement stage B0 mentioned in that |
| 139 | PEP. The warnings are about the following situations: |
| 140 | |
| 141 | - Octal and hex literals without 'L' prefix in the inclusive range |
| 142 | [0x80000000..0xffffffff]; these are currently negative ints, but |
| 143 | in Python 2.4 they will be positive longs with the same bit |
| 144 | pattern. |
| 145 | |
| 146 | - Left shifts on integer values that cause the outcome to lose |
| 147 | bits or have a different sign than the left operand. To be |
| 148 | precise: x<<n where this currently doesn't yield the same value |
| 149 | as long(x)<<n; in Python 2.4, the outcome will be long(x)<<n. |
| 150 | |
| 151 | - Conversions from ints to string that show negative values as |
| 152 | unsigned ints in the inclusive range [0x80000000..0xffffffff]; |
| 153 | this affects the functions hex() and oct(), and the string |
| 154 | formatting codes %u, %o, %x, and %X. In Python 2.4, these will |
| 155 | show signed values (e.g. hex(-1) currently returns "0xffffffff"; |
| 156 | in Python 2.4 it will return "-0x1"). |
| 157 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9a2eda5 | 2002-12-31 02:12:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame^] | 158 | - The bits manipulated under the cover by sys.setcheckinterval() have |
| 159 | been changed. Both the check interval and the ticker used to be |
| 160 | per-thread values. They are now just a pair of global variables. |
| 161 | In addition, the default check interval was boosted from 10 to 100 |
| 162 | bytecode instructions. This may have some effect on systems that |
| 163 | relied on the old default value. In particular, in multi-threaded |
| 164 | applications which try to be highly responsive, response time will |
| 165 | increase by some (perhaps imperceptible) amount. |
Skip Montanaro | 979c74b | 2002-09-03 21:25:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 166 | |
Tim Peters | d64c1de | 2002-08-12 17:36:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 167 | - When multiplying very large integers, a version of the so-called |
| 168 | Karatsuba algorithm is now used. This is most effective if the |
| 169 | inputs have roughly the same size. If they both have about N digits, |
| 170 | Karatsuba multiplication has O(N**1.58) runtime (the exponent is |
| 171 | log_base_2(3)) instead of the previous O(N**2). Measured results may |
Tim Peters | 012c0a3 | 2002-08-16 03:40:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 172 | be better or worse than that, depending on platform quirks. Besides |
| 173 | the O() improvement in raw instruction count, the Karatsuba algorithm |
| 174 | appears to have much better cache behavior on extremely large integers |
| 175 | (starting in the ballpark of a million bits). Note that this is a |
| 176 | simple implementation, and there's no intent here to compete with, |
| 177 | e.g., GMP. It gives a very nice speedup when it applies, but a package |
| 178 | devoted to fast large-integer arithmetic should run circles around it. |
Tim Peters | 5af4e6c | 2002-08-12 02:31:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 179 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | cc8764c | 2002-08-11 12:23:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 180 | - u'%c' will now raise a ValueError in case the argument is an |
| 181 | integer outside the valid range of Unicode code point ordinals. |
| 182 | |
Guido van Rossum | deb0936 | 2002-08-09 17:16:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 183 | - The tempfile module has been overhauled for enhanced security. The |
| 184 | mktemp() function is now deprecated; new, safe replacements are |
| 185 | mkstemp() (for files) and mkdtemp() (for directories), and the |
| 186 | higher-level functions NamedTemporaryFile() and TemporaryFile(). |
| 187 | Use of some global variables in this module is also deprecated; the |
| 188 | new functions have keyword arguments to provide the same |
| 189 | functionality. All Lib, Tools and Demo modules that used the unsafe |
| 190 | interfaces have been updated to use the safe replacements. Thanks |
| 191 | to Zack Weinberg! |
| 192 | |
Guido van Rossum | d81a983 | 2002-08-09 15:57:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 193 | - When x is an object whose class implements __mul__ and __rmul__, |
| 194 | 1.0*x would correctly invoke __rmul__, but 1*x would erroneously |
| 195 | invoke __mul__. This was due to the sequence-repeat code in the int |
| 196 | type. This has been fixed now. |
| 197 | |
Barry Warsaw | d79f683 | 2002-08-06 17:01:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 198 | - Previously, "str1 in str2" required str1 to be a string of length 1. |
| 199 | This restriction has been relaxed to allow str1 to be a string of |
| 200 | any length. Thus "'el' in 'hello world'" returns True now. |
| 201 | |
Guido van Rossum | b57089c | 2002-08-06 16:20:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 202 | - File objects are now their own iterators. For a file f, iter(f) now |
| 203 | returns f (unless f is closed), and f.next() is similar to |
| 204 | f.readline() when EOF is not reached; however, f.next() uses a |
| 205 | readahead buffer that messes up the file position, so mixing |
| 206 | f.next() and f.readline() (or other methods) doesn't work right. |
| 207 | Calling f.seek() drops the readahead buffer, but other operations |
| 208 | don't. It so happens that this gives a nice additional speed boost |
| 209 | to "for line in file:"; the xreadlines method and corresponding |
Guido van Rossum | bffb2ef | 2002-08-09 17:17:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 210 | module are now obsolete. Thanks to Oren Tirosh! |
Guido van Rossum | b57089c | 2002-08-06 16:20:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 211 | |
Guido van Rossum | de392d3 | 2002-08-05 14:17:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 212 | - Encoding declarations (PEP 263, phase 1) have been implemented. A |
| 213 | comment of the form "# -*- coding: <encodingname> -*-" in the first |
| 214 | or second line of a Python source file indicates the encoding. |
Martin v. Löwis | 00f1e3f | 2002-08-04 17:29:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 215 | |
Tim Peters | f47630f | 2002-08-01 02:34:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 216 | - list.sort() has a new implementation. While cross-platform results |
| 217 | may vary, and in data-dependent ways, this is much faster on many |
| 218 | kinds of partially ordered lists than the previous implementation, |
| 219 | and reported to be just as fast on randomly ordered lists on |
| 220 | several major platforms. This sort is also stable (if A==B and A |
| 221 | precedes B in the list at the start, A precedes B after the sort too), |
| 222 | although the language definition does not guarantee stability. A |
| 223 | potential drawback is that list.sort() may require temp space of |
Skip Montanaro | a2a07bc | 2002-09-30 15:23:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 224 | len(list)*2 bytes (``*4`` on a 64-bit machine). It's therefore possible |
Tim Peters | f47630f | 2002-08-01 02:34:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 225 | for list.sort() to raise MemoryError now, even if a comparison function |
| 226 | does not. See <http://www.python.org/sf/587076> for full details. |
| 227 | |
Guido van Rossum | 2d5389c | 2002-07-23 03:44:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 228 | - All standard iterators now ensure that, once StopIteration has been |
| 229 | raised, all future calls to next() on the same iterator will also |
| 230 | raise StopIteration. There used to be various counterexamples to |
| 231 | this behavior, which could caused confusion or subtle program |
| 232 | breakage, without any benefits. (Note that this is still an |
| 233 | iterator's responsibility; the iterator framework does not enforce |
| 234 | this.) |
| 235 | |
Mark Hammond | c0e3515 | 2002-07-16 01:32:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 236 | - Ctrl+C handling on Windows has been made more consistent with |
| 237 | other platforms. KeyboardInterrupt can now reliably be caught, |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 238 | and Ctrl+C at an interactive prompt no longer terminates the |
Mark Hammond | c0e3515 | 2002-07-16 01:32:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 239 | process under NT/2k/XP (it never did under Win9x). Ctrl+C will |
Tim Peters | 5af4e6c | 2002-08-12 02:31:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 240 | interrupt time.sleep() in the main thread, and any child processes |
| 241 | created via the popen family (on win2k; we can't make win9x work |
Mark Hammond | 8f3afc7 | 2002-08-10 06:26:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 242 | reliably) are also interrupted (as generally happens on for Linux/Unix.) |
| 243 | [SF bugs 231273, 439992 and 581232] |
Mark Hammond | c0e3515 | 2002-07-16 01:32:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 244 | |
Mark Hammond | 8696ebc | 2002-10-08 02:44:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 245 | - sys.getwindowsversion() has been added on Windows. This |
| 246 | returns a tuple with information about the version of Windows |
| 247 | currently running. |
| 248 | |
Raymond Hettinger | 5a04aec | 2002-06-25 00:25:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 249 | - Slices and repetitions of buffer objects now consistently return |
| 250 | a string. Formerly, strings would be returned most of the time, |
| 251 | but a buffer object would be returned when the repetition count |
| 252 | was one or when the slice range was all inclusive. |
| 253 | |
Walter Dörwald | 3430d70 | 2002-06-17 10:43:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 254 | - Unicode objects in sys.path are no longer ignored but treated |
| 255 | as directory names. |
| 256 | |
Neal Norwitz | 1f68fc7 | 2002-06-14 00:50:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 257 | - Fixed string.startswith and string.endswith builtin methods |
| 258 | so they accept negative indices. [SF bug 493951] |
| 259 | |
Guido van Rossum | c5fe5eb | 2002-06-12 03:45:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 260 | - Fixed a bug with a continue inside a try block and a yield in the |
| 261 | finally clause. [SF bug 567538] |
| 262 | |
Michael W. Hudson | 5efaf7e | 2002-06-11 10:55:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 263 | - Most builtin sequences now support "extended slices", i.e. slices |
Guido van Rossum | 2e82e71 | 2002-06-13 11:41:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 264 | with a third "stride" parameter. For example, "hello world"[::-1] |
| 265 | gives "dlrow olleh". |
Michael W. Hudson | 5efaf7e | 2002-06-11 10:55:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 266 | |
Neal Norwitz | d68f517 | 2002-05-29 15:54:55 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 267 | - A new warning PendingDeprecationWarning was added to provide |
| 268 | direction on features which are in the process of being deprecated. |
| 269 | The warning will not be printed by default. To see the pending |
| 270 | deprecations, use -Walways::PendingDeprecationWarning:: |
| 271 | as a command line option or warnings.filterwarnings() in code. |
| 272 | |
Fred Drake | d0ba636 | 2002-05-02 21:28:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 273 | - Deprecated features of xrange objects have been removed as |
| 274 | promised. The start, stop, and step attributes and the tolist() |
| 275 | method no longer exist. xrange repetition and slicing have been |
| 276 | removed. |
| 277 | |
Guido van Rossum | 7dab242 | 2002-04-26 19:40:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 278 | - New builtin function enumerate(x), from PEP 279. Example: |
| 279 | enumerate("abc") is an iterator returning (0,"a"), (1,"b"), (2,"c"). |
| 280 | The argument can be an arbitrary iterable object. |
| 281 | |
Neil Schemenauer | 89e3ee0 | 2002-04-26 01:58:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 282 | - The assert statement no longer tests __debug__ at runtime. This means |
| 283 | that assert statements cannot be disabled by assigning a false value |
| 284 | to __debug__. |
| 285 | |
Walter Dörwald | 068325e | 2002-04-15 13:36:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 286 | - A method zfill() was added to str and unicode, that fills a numeric |
| 287 | string to the left with zeros. For example, |
| 288 | "+123".zfill(6) -> "+00123". |
| 289 | |
Guido van Rossum | 862fe3c | 2002-04-15 12:36:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 290 | - Complex numbers supported divmod() and the // and % operators, but |
| 291 | these make no sense. Since this was documented, they're being |
| 292 | deprecated now. |
| 293 | |
Guido van Rossum | 26dd830 | 2002-04-26 20:11:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 294 | - String and unicode methods lstrip(), rstrip() and strip() now take |
| 295 | an optional argument that specifies the characters to strip. For |
| 296 | example, "Foo!!!?!?!?".rstrip("?!") -> "Foo". |
Guido van Rossum | 4904204 | 2002-04-13 00:59:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 297 | |
Guido van Rossum | c0d3f4e | 2002-11-27 13:10:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 298 | - There's a new dictionary constructor (a class method of the dict |
| 299 | class), dict.fromkeys(iterable, value=None). It constructs a |
| 300 | dictionary with keys taken from the iterable and all values set to a |
| 301 | single value. It can be used for building sets and for removing |
| 302 | duplicates from sequences. |
Raymond Hettinger | e33d3df | 2002-11-27 07:29:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 303 | |
Guido van Rossum | c69343b | 2002-04-12 19:22:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 304 | - Added a new dict method pop(key). This removes and returns the |
| 305 | value corresponding to key. [SF patch #539949] |
| 306 | |
Guido van Rossum | 4783446 | 2002-04-04 15:21:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 307 | - A new built-in type, bool, has been added, as well as built-in |
| 308 | names for its two values, True and False. Comparisons and sundry |
| 309 | other operations that return a truth value have been changed to |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 310 | return a bool instead. Read PEP 285 for an explanation of why this |
Guido van Rossum | 4783446 | 2002-04-04 15:21:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 311 | is backward compatible. |
| 312 | |
Guido van Rossum | 95b62a6 | 2002-03-29 01:07:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 313 | - Fixed two bugs reported as SF #535905: under certain conditions, |
| 314 | deallocating a deeply nested structure could cause a segfault in the |
| 315 | garbage collector, due to interaction with the "trashcan" code; |
| 316 | access to the current frame during destruction of a local variable |
| 317 | could access a pointer to freed memory. |
| 318 | |
Guido van Rossum | fe0ca4a | 2002-06-18 21:20:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 319 | - The optional object allocator ("pymalloc") has been enabled by |
| 320 | default. The recommended practice for memory allocation and |
| 321 | deallocation has been streamlined. A header file is included, |
| 322 | Misc/pymemcompat.h, which can be bundled with 3rd party extensions |
| 323 | and lets them use the same API with Python versions from 1.5.2 |
| 324 | onwards. |
Neil Schemenauer | 9d50d13 | 2002-03-22 17:06:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 325 | |
Martin v. Löwis | cfeb3b6 | 2002-03-03 21:30:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 326 | - PyErr_Display will provide file and line information for all exceptions |
| 327 | that have an attribute print_file_and_line, not just SyntaxErrors. |
| 328 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | e92e0a9 | 2002-02-09 11:28:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 329 | - The UTF-8 codec will now encode and decode Unicode surrogates |
| 330 | correctly and without raising exceptions for unpaired ones. |
| 331 | |
Guido van Rossum | add8806 | 2002-08-15 14:01:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 332 | - Universal newlines (PEP 278) is implemented. Briefly, using 'U' |
| 333 | instead of 'r' when opening a text file for reading changes the line |
| 334 | ending convention so that any of '\r', '\r\n', and '\n' is |
| 335 | recognized (even mixed in one file); all three are converted to |
| 336 | '\n', the standard Python line end character. |
| 337 | |
Neal Norwitz | 649b759 | 2002-01-01 19:07:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 338 | - file.xreadlines() now raises a ValueError if the file is closed: |
| 339 | Previously, an xreadlines object was returned which would raise |
| 340 | a ValueError when the xreadlines.next() method was called. |
| 341 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 342 | - sys.exit() inadvertently allowed more than one argument. |
Neal Norwitz | 0c766a0 | 2002-03-27 13:03:09 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 343 | An exception will now be raised if more than one argument is used. |
| 344 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 17c5a33 | 2002-12-16 14:09:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 345 | - Changed evaluation order of dictionary literals to conform to the |
| 346 | general left to right evaluation order rule. Now {f1(): f2()} will |
| 347 | evaluate f1 first. |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 78429a6 | 2002-12-16 13:54:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 348 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 786ddb2 | 2002-12-16 18:12:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 349 | - Fixed bug #521782: when a file was in non-blocking mode, file.read() |
| 350 | could silently lose data or wrongly throw an unknown error. |
| 351 | |
Neil Schemenauer | b983aa0 | 2002-12-30 20:22:23 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 352 | - The sq_repeat, sq_inplace_repeat, sq_concat and sq_inplace_concat |
| 353 | slots are now always tried after trying the corresponding nb_* slots. |
| 354 | This fixes a number of minor bugs (see bug #624807). |
| 355 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 356 | Extension modules |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 357 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 358 | |
Guido van Rossum | a3b8953 | 2002-12-30 22:59:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 359 | - A module zipimport exists to support importing code from zip |
| 360 | archives. |
| 361 | |
Tim Peters | e820cb6 | 2002-12-16 20:57:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 362 | - The new datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and |
| 363 | times. The basic design came from the Zope "fishbowl process", and |
| 364 | favors practical commercial applications over calendar esoterica. See |
| 365 | |
| 366 | http://www.zope.org/Members/fdrake/DateTimeWiki/FrontPage |
| 367 | |
Martin v. Löwis | ffad633 | 2002-11-26 09:28:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 368 | - _tkinter now returns Tcl objects, instead of strings. Objects which |
| 369 | have Python equivalents are converted to Python objects, other objects |
| 370 | are wrapped. This can be configured through the wantobjects method, |
Martin v. Löwis | 8c8aa5d | 2002-11-26 21:39:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 371 | or Tkinter.wantobjects. |
Martin v. Löwis | ffad633 | 2002-11-26 09:28:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 372 | |
Barry Warsaw | c27f4bd | 2002-12-30 21:03:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 373 | - The PyBSDDB wrapper around the Sleepycat Berkeley DB library has |
| 374 | been added as the package bsddb. The traditional bsddb module is |
| 375 | still available in source code, but not built automatically anymore, |
| 376 | and is now named bsddb185. This supports Berkeley DB versions from |
| 377 | 3.0 to 4.1. |
Martin v. Löwis | ef546b3 | 2002-11-19 08:12:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 378 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 677bde2 | 2002-11-23 22:08:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 379 | - unicodedata was updated to Unicode 3.2. It supports normalization |
| 380 | and names for Hangul syllables and CJK unified ideographs. |
Martin v. Löwis | 7d41e29 | 2002-11-23 12:22:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 381 | |
Neal Norwitz | 94a83fd | 2002-11-02 17:46:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 382 | - resource.getrlimit() now returns longs instead of ints. |
| 383 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 080689c | 2002-10-26 14:42:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 384 | - readline now dynamically adjusts its input/output stream if |
| 385 | sys.stdin/stdout changes. |
| 386 | |
Guido van Rossum | ba60297 | 2002-10-01 18:18:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 387 | - The _tkinter module (and hence Tkinter) has dropped support for |
| 388 | Tcl/Tk 8.0 and 8.1. Only Tcl/Tk versions 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 are |
| 389 | supported. |
| 390 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 658009a | 2002-09-16 17:26:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 391 | - cPickle.BadPickleGet is now a class. |
| 392 | |
Martin v. Löwis | a19bfe0 | 2002-10-16 18:28:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 393 | - The time stamps in os.stat_result are floating point numbers |
| 394 | after stat_float_times has been called. |
Martin v. Löwis | 94717ed | 2002-09-09 14:24:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 395 | |
Neal Norwitz | b567392 | 2002-09-05 21:48:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 396 | - If the size passed to mmap.mmap() is larger than the length of the |
| 397 | file on non-Windows platforms, a ValueError is raised. [SF bug 585792] |
| 398 | |
Guido van Rossum | b57089c | 2002-08-06 16:20:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 399 | - The xreadlines module is slated for obsolescence. |
| 400 | |
Guido van Rossum | 79f0a10 | 2002-07-23 03:32:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 401 | - The strptime function in the time module is now always available (a |
| 402 | Python implementation is used when the C library doesn't define it). |
| 403 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9562bcf | 2002-06-14 21:31:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 404 | - The 'new' module is no longer an extension, but a Python module that |
| 405 | only exists for backwards compatibility. Its contents are no longer |
| 406 | functions but callable type objects. |
| 407 | |
Tim Peters | 81b9251 | 2002-04-29 01:37:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 408 | - The bsddb.*open functions can now take 'None' as a filename. |
Anthony Baxter | 8388895 | 2002-04-23 02:11:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 409 | This will create a temporary in-memory bsddb that won't be |
Tim Peters | 81b9251 | 2002-04-29 01:37:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 410 | written to disk. |
Anthony Baxter | 8388895 | 2002-04-23 02:11:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 411 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 0cec0ff | 2002-07-28 16:33:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 412 | - posix.lchown, posix.killpg, posix.mknod, and posix.getpgid have been |
| 413 | added where available. |
Martin v. Löwis | 06a83e9 | 2002-04-14 10:19:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 414 | |
Martin v. Löwis | f0a4668 | 2002-11-03 17:20:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 415 | - The locale module now exposes the C library's gettext interface. It |
| 416 | also has a new function getpreferredencoding. |
Martin v. Löwis | 2e64c34 | 2002-03-27 18:49:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 417 | |
Tim Peters | fbf74f2 | 2002-03-14 19:06:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 418 | - A security hole ("double free") was found in zlib-1.1.3, a popular |
| 419 | third party compression library used by some Python modules. The |
| 420 | hole was quickly plugged in zlib-1.1.4, and the Windows build of |
| 421 | Python now ships with zlib-1.1.4. |
| 422 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 688357e | 2002-04-08 21:28:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 423 | - pwd, grp, and resource return enhanced tuples now, with symbolic |
| 424 | field names. |
Martin v. Löwis | 29001ff | 2002-03-01 10:47:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 425 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 9986633 | 2002-03-01 10:27:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 426 | - array.array is now a type object. A new format character |
| 427 | 'u' indicates Py_UNICODE arrays. For those, .tounicode and |
| 428 | .fromunicode methods are available. Arrays now support __iadd__ |
| 429 | and __imul__. |
| 430 | |
Neal Norwitz | e790eae | 2002-01-01 21:14:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 431 | - dl now builds on every system that has dlfcn.h. Failure in case |
Martin v. Löwis | 9322727 | 2002-01-01 20:18:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 432 | of sizeof(int)!=sizeof(long)!=sizeof(void*) is delayed until dl.open |
| 433 | is called. |
| 434 | |
Michael W. Hudson | 34f20ea | 2002-05-27 15:08:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 435 | - signal.sigpending, signal.sigprocmask and signal.sigsuspend have |
| 436 | been added where available. |
| 437 | |
Skip Montanaro | 8e790e7 | 2002-09-03 13:25:17 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 438 | - The sys module acquired a new attribute, api_version, which evaluates |
| 439 | to the value of the PYTHON_API_VERSION macro with which the |
| 440 | interpreter was compiled. |
| 441 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 4e7be06 | 2002-11-06 14:06:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 442 | - Fixed bug #470582: sre module would return a tuple (None, 'a', 'ab') |
| 443 | when applying the regular expression '^((a)c)?(ab)$' on 'ab'. It now |
| 444 | returns (None, None, 'ab'), as expected. Also fixed handling of |
Gustavo Niemeyer | fbceb01 | 2002-11-06 18:44:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 445 | lastindex/lastgroup match attributes in similar cases. For example, |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 4e7be06 | 2002-11-06 14:06:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 446 | when running the expression r'(a)(b)?b' over 'ab', lastindex must be |
| 447 | 1, not 2. |
| 448 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | c523b04 | 2002-11-07 03:28:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 449 | - Fixed bug #581080: sre scanner was not checking the buffer limit |
| 450 | before increasing the current pointer. This was creating an infinite |
| 451 | loop in the search function, once the pointer exceeded the buffer |
| 452 | limit. |
| 453 | |
Thomas Heller | 95cb7e4 | 2002-11-07 16:23:55 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 454 | - The os.fdopen function now enforces a file mode starting with the |
| 455 | letter 'r', 'w' or 'a', otherwise a ValueError is raised. This fixes |
| 456 | bug #623464. |
| 457 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 458 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 459 | ------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 460 | |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 461 | - unittest.py now has two additional methods called assertAlmostEqual() |
| 462 | and failIfAlmostEqual(). They implement an approximate comparision |
| 463 | by rounding the difference between the two arguments and comparing |
| 464 | the result to zero. Approximate comparision is essential for |
| 465 | unit tests of floating point results. |
| 466 | |
Raymond Hettinger | e11b510 | 2002-12-25 16:37:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 467 | - calendar.py now depends on the new datetime module rather than |
| 468 | the time module. As a result, the range of allowable dates |
| 469 | has been increased. |
| 470 | |
Michael W. Hudson | cfd3884 | 2002-12-17 16:15:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 471 | - pdb has a new 'j(ump)' command to select the next line to be |
| 472 | executed. |
| 473 | |
Thomas Heller | 1b3b49d | 2002-12-12 19:13:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 474 | - The distutils created windows installers now can run a |
| 475 | postinstallation script. |
| 476 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 4581cfa | 2002-11-22 08:23:09 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 477 | - doctest.testmod can now be called without argument, which means to |
| 478 | test the current module. |
| 479 | |
Martin v. Löwis | f86e8ef | 2002-11-22 08:08:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 480 | - When cancelling a server that implemented threading with a keyboard |
| 481 | interrupt, the server would shut down but not terminate (waiting on |
| 482 | client threads). A new member variable, daemon_threads, was added to |
| 483 | the ThreadingMixIn class in SocketServer.py to make it explicit that |
| 484 | this behavior needs to be controlled. |
| 485 | |
Guido van Rossum | 545c250 | 2002-11-15 13:19:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 486 | - A new module, optparse, provides a fancy alternative to getopt for |
Andrew M. Kuchling | e0373f8 | 2002-11-15 14:42:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 487 | command line parsing. It is a slightly modified version of Greg |
Guido van Rossum | 545c250 | 2002-11-15 13:19:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 488 | Ward's Optik package. |
| 489 | |
Raymond Hettinger | 7994716 | 2002-11-15 06:46:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 490 | - UserDict.py now defines a DictMixin class which defines all dictionary |
| 491 | methods for classes that already have a minimum mapping interface. |
| 492 | This greatly simplifies writing classes that need to be substitutable |
| 493 | for dictionaries (such as the shelve module). |
| 494 | |
| 495 | - shelve.py now subclasses from UserDict.DictMixin. Now shelve supports |
| 496 | all dictionary methods. This eases the transition to persistent |
Andrew M. Kuchling | e0373f8 | 2002-11-15 14:42:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 497 | storage for scripts originally written with dictionaries in mind. |
Raymond Hettinger | 7994716 | 2002-11-15 06:46:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 498 | |
Skip Montanaro | 3bf99e3 | 2002-12-08 18:36:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 499 | - shelve.open and the various classes in shelve.py now accept an optional |
| 500 | binary flag, which defaults to False. If True, the values stored in the |
| 501 | shelf are binary pickles. |
| 502 | |
Guido van Rossum | fda0674 | 2002-11-13 16:29:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 503 | - A new package, logging, implements the logging API defined by PEP |
| 504 | 282. The code is written by Vinay Sajip. |
| 505 | |
Walter Dörwald | 4dbf192 | 2002-11-06 16:53:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 506 | - StreamReader, StreamReaderWriter and StreamRecoder in the codecs |
| 507 | modules are iterators now. |
| 508 | |
Tim Peters | 9288f95 | 2002-11-05 20:38:55 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 509 | - gzip.py now handles files exceeding 2GB. Files over 4GB also work |
| 510 | now (provided the OS supports it, and Python is configured with large |
| 511 | file support), but in that case the underlying gzip file format can |
| 512 | record only the least-significant 32 bits of the file size, so that |
| 513 | some tools working with gzipped files may report an incorrect file |
| 514 | size. |
Tim Peters | fb0ea52 | 2002-11-04 19:50:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 515 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 74b51ac | 2002-10-26 14:50:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 516 | - xml.sax.saxutils.unescape has been added, to replace entity references |
| 517 | with their entity value. |
| 518 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 77ac429 | 2002-10-15 15:11:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 519 | - Queue.Queue.{put,get} now support an optional timeout argument. |
| 520 | |
Martin v. Löwis | b24e347 | 2002-10-13 10:28:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 521 | - Various features of Tk 8.4 are exposed in Tkinter.py. The multiple |
| 522 | option of tkFileDialog is exposed as function askopenfile{,name}s. |
Martin v. Löwis | 2ec3627 | 2002-10-13 10:22:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 523 | |
Martin v. Löwis | b24e347 | 2002-10-13 10:28:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 524 | - Various configure methods of Tkinter have been stream-lined, so that |
| 525 | tag_configure, image_configure, window_configure now return a |
Tim Peters | fb0ea52 | 2002-11-04 19:50:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 526 | dictionary when invoked with no argument. |
Martin v. Löwis | 6ce1315 | 2002-10-10 14:36:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 527 | |
Guido van Rossum | 2b492b6 | 2002-10-09 21:40:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 528 | - Importing the readline module now no longer has the side effect of |
| 529 | calling setlocale(LC_CTYPE, ""). The initial "C" locale, or |
| 530 | whatever locale is explicitly set by the user, is preserved. If you |
| 531 | want repr() of 8-bit strings in your preferred encoding to preserve |
| 532 | all printable characters of that encoding, you have to add the |
| 533 | following code to your $PYTHONSTARTUP file or to your application's |
| 534 | main(): |
| 535 | |
| 536 | import locale |
| 537 | locale.setlocale(locale.LC_CTYPE, "") |
| 538 | |
Martin v. Löwis | e9ce0b0 | 2002-10-07 13:23:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 539 | - shutil.move was added. shutil.copytree now reports errors as an |
| 540 | exception at the end, instead of printing error messages. |
| 541 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 97047e2 | 2002-10-04 11:55:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 542 | - Encoding name normalization was generalized to not only |
| 543 | replace hyphens with underscores, but also all other non-alphanumeric |
| 544 | characters (with the exception of the dot which is used for Python |
| 545 | package names during lookup). The aliases.py mapping was updated |
| 546 | to the new standard. |
| 547 | |
Walter Dörwald | 5ccaf8f | 2002-09-06 16:15:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 548 | - mimetypes has two new functions: guess_all_extensions() which |
| 549 | returns a list of all known extensions for a mime type, and |
| 550 | add_type() which adds one mapping between a mime type and |
| 551 | an extension to the database. |
| 552 | |
Guido van Rossum | d8ab35c | 2002-08-19 16:25:46 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 553 | - New module: sets, defines the class Set that implements a mutable |
| 554 | set type using the keys of a dict to represent the set. There's |
| 555 | also a class ImmutableSet which is useful when you need sets of sets |
| 556 | or when you need to use sets as dict keys, and a class BaseSet which |
Raymond Hettinger | ef8b9c6 | 2002-12-09 08:56:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 557 | is the base class of the two. |
Guido van Rossum | d8ab35c | 2002-08-19 16:25:46 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 558 | |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 559 | - Added operator.pow(a,b) which is equivalent to a**b. |
| 560 | |
Raymond Hettinger | f24eb35 | 2002-11-12 17:41:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 561 | - Added random.sample(population,k) for random sampling without replacement. |
Tim Peters | b9099c3 | 2002-11-12 22:08:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 562 | Returns a k length list of unique elements chosen from the population. |
Raymond Hettinger | f24eb35 | 2002-11-12 17:41:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 563 | |
Tim Peters | 012c0a3 | 2002-08-16 03:40:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 564 | - random.randrange(-sys.maxint-1, sys.maxint) no longer raises |
| 565 | OverflowError. That is, it now accepts any combination of 'start' |
| 566 | and 'stop' arguments so long as each is in the range of Python's |
| 567 | bounded integers. |
| 568 | |
Raymond Hettinger | 40f6217 | 2002-12-29 23:03:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 569 | - Thanks to Raymond Hettinger, random.random() now uses a new core |
| 570 | generator. The Mersenne Twister algorithm is implemented in C, |
| 571 | threadsafe, faster than the previous generator, has an astronomically |
| 572 | large period (2**19937-1), creates random floats to full 53-bit |
| 573 | precision, and may be the most widely tested random number generator |
| 574 | in existence. |
| 575 | |
| 576 | The random.jumpahead(n) method has different semantics for the new |
| 577 | generator. Instead of jumping n steps ahead, it uses n and the |
| 578 | existing state to create a new state. This means that jumpahead() |
| 579 | continues to support multi-threaded code needing generators of |
| 580 | non-overlapping sequences. However, it will break code which relies |
| 581 | on jumpahead moving a specific number of steps forward. |
| 582 | |
| 583 | The attributes random.whseed and random.__whseed have no meaning for |
| 584 | the new generator. Code using these attributes should switch to a |
| 585 | new class, random.WichmannHill which is provided for backward |
| 586 | compatibility and to make an alternate generator available. |
| 587 | |
Guido van Rossum | 4a57c33 | 2002-08-02 18:05:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 588 | - New "algorithms" module: heapq, implements a heap queue. Thanks to |
| 589 | Kevin O'Connor for the code and François Pinard for an entertaining |
| 590 | write-up explaining the theory and practical uses of heaps. |
| 591 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 58e2ff2 | 2002-07-12 14:40:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 592 | - New encoding for the Palm OS character set: palmos. |
| 593 | |
Tim Peters | 943382c | 2002-07-07 03:59:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 594 | - binascii.crc32() and the zipfile module had problems on some 64-bit |
| 595 | platforms. These have been fixed. On a platform with 8-byte C longs, |
| 596 | crc32() now returns a signed-extended 4-byte result, so that its value |
| 597 | as a Python int is equal to the value computed a 32-bit platform. |
| 598 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 7d650ca | 2002-06-30 15:05:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 599 | - xml.dom.minidom.toxml and toprettyxml now take an optional encoding |
| 600 | argument. |
| 601 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9f7549b | 2002-06-10 21:39:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 602 | - Some fixes in the copy module: when an object is copied through its |
| 603 | __reduce__ method, there was no check for a __setstate__ method on |
| 604 | the result [SF patch 565085]; deepcopy should treat instances of |
| 605 | custom metaclasses the same way it treats instances of type 'type' |
| 606 | [SF patch 560794]. |
| 607 | |
Guido van Rossum | 5033c8e | 2002-06-07 12:40:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 608 | - Sockets now support timeout mode. After s.settimeout(T), where T is |
| 609 | a float expressing seconds, subsequent operations raise an exception |
| 610 | if they cannot be completed within T seconds. To disable timeout |
Guido van Rossum | 79f0a10 | 2002-07-23 03:32:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 611 | mode, use s.settimeout(None). There's also a module function, |
| 612 | socket.setdefaulttimeout(T), which sets the default for all sockets |
| 613 | created henceforth. |
Guido van Rossum | 5033c8e | 2002-06-07 12:40:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 614 | |
| 615 | - getopt.gnu_getopt was added. This supports GNU-style option |
| 616 | processing, where options can be mixed with non-option arguments. |
Martin v. Löwis | 446a25f | 2002-06-06 10:58:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 617 | |
Michael W. Hudson | b0dc1a3 | 2002-06-04 18:27:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 618 | - Stop using strings for exceptions. String objects used for |
| 619 | exceptions are now classes deriving from Exception. The objects |
| 620 | changed were: Tkinter.TclError, bdb.BdbQuit, macpath.norm_error, |
| 621 | tabnanny.NannyNag, and xdrlib.Error. |
Neal Norwitz | b5b5a26 | 2002-06-04 17:14:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 622 | |
Walter Dörwald | 474458d | 2002-06-04 15:16:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 623 | - Constants BOM_UTF8, BOM_UTF16, BOM_UTF16_LE, BOM_UTF16_BE, |
| 624 | BOM_UTF32, BOM_UTF32_LE and BOM_UTF32_BE that represent the Byte |
| 625 | Order Mark in UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 encodings for little and |
| 626 | big endian systems were added to the codecs module. The old names |
| 627 | BOM32_* and BOM64_* were off by a factor of 2. |
| 628 | |
Guido van Rossum | f925782 | 2002-06-18 20:43:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 629 | - Added conversion functions math.degrees() and math.radians(). |
Raymond Hettinger | 87f59ee | 2002-05-13 04:17:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 630 | |
Raymond Hettinger | 866964c | 2002-12-14 19:51:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 631 | - math.log() now takes an optional argument: math.log(x[, base]). |
| 632 | |
Raymond Hettinger | 9b1df1d | 2002-05-12 06:07:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 633 | - ftplib.retrlines() now tests for callback is None rather than testing |
| 634 | for False. Was causing an error when given a callback object which |
| 635 | was callable but also returned len() as zero. The change may |
| 636 | create new breakage if the caller relied on the undocumented behavior |
| 637 | and called with callback set to [] or some other False value not |
| 638 | identical to None. |
| 639 | |
Tim Peters | 46c04e1 | 2002-05-05 20:40:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 640 | - random.gauss() uses a piece of hidden state used by nothing else, |
| 641 | and the .seed() and .whseed() methods failed to reset it. In other |
| 642 | words, setting the seed didn't completely determine the sequence of |
| 643 | results produced by random.gauss(). It does now. Programs repeatedly |
| 644 | mixing calls to a seed method with calls to gauss() may see different |
| 645 | results now. |
| 646 | |
Fred Drake | 7f781c9 | 2002-05-01 20:33:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 647 | - The pickle.Pickler class grew a clear_memo() method to mimic that |
| 648 | provided by cPickle.Pickler. |
| 649 | |
Tim Peters | 81b9251 | 2002-04-29 01:37:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 650 | - difflib's SequenceMatcher class now does a dynamic analysis of |
| 651 | which elements are so frequent as to constitute noise. For |
| 652 | comparing files as sequences of lines, this generally works better |
| 653 | than the IS_LINE_JUNK function, and function ndiff's linejunk |
| 654 | argument defaults to None now as a result. A happy benefit is |
| 655 | that SequenceMatcher may run much faster now when applied |
| 656 | to large files with many duplicate lines (for example, C program |
| 657 | text with lots of repeated "}" and "return NULL;" lines). |
| 658 | |
Guido van Rossum | 256705b | 2002-04-23 13:29:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 659 | - New Text.dump() method in Tkinter module. |
| 660 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 1ec71ea | 2002-04-17 20:33:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 661 | - New distutils commands for building packagers were added to |
| 662 | support pkgtool on Solaris and swinstall on HP-UX. |
| 663 | |
| 664 | - distutils now has a new abstract binary packager base class |
| 665 | command/bdist_packager, which simplifies writing packagers. |
| 666 | This will hopefully provide the missing bits to encourage |
| 667 | people to submit more packagers, e.g. for Debian, FreeBSD |
| 668 | and other systems. |
| 669 | |
Guido van Rossum | f925782 | 2002-06-18 20:43:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 670 | - The UTF-16, -LE and -BE stream readers now raise a |
| 671 | NotImplementedError for all calls to .readline(). Previously, they |
| 672 | used to just produce garbage or fail with an encoding error -- |
| 673 | UTF-16 is a 2-byte encoding and the C lib's line reading APIs don't |
Marc-André Lemburg | 4179a01 | 2002-04-05 12:15:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 674 | work well with these. |
| 675 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 5c137c2 | 2002-03-18 12:44:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 676 | - compileall now supports quiet operation. |
| 677 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 678 | - The BaseHTTPServer now implements optional HTTP/1.1 persistent |
Martin v. Löwis | 587c98c | 2002-03-17 18:37:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 679 | connections. |
| 680 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | a5d2b4c | 2002-02-16 18:23:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 681 | - socket module: the SSL support was broken out of the main |
| 682 | _socket module C helper and placed into a new _ssl helper |
| 683 | which now gets imported by socket.py if available and working. |
| 684 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 37aa580 | 2002-02-10 21:42:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 685 | - encodings package: added aliases for all supported IANA character |
| 686 | sets |
| 687 | |
Guido van Rossum | 606fe4e | 2001-12-28 20:57:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 688 | - ftplib: to safeguard the user's privacy, anonymous login will use |
| 689 | "anonymous@" as default password, rather than the real user and host |
| 690 | name. |
| 691 | |
Fred Drake | 3673612 | 2002-01-10 13:50:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 692 | - webbrowser: tightened up the command passed to os.system() so that |
| 693 | arbitrary shell code can't be executed because a bogus URL was |
| 694 | passed in. |
| 695 | |
Tim Peters | 11bd994 | 2002-02-01 00:52:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 696 | - gettext.translation has an optional fallback argument, and |
Martin v. Löwis | a55ffae | 2002-01-11 06:58:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 697 | gettext.find an optional all argument. Translations will now fallback |
Martin v. Löwis | d899605 | 2002-11-21 21:45:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 698 | on a per-message basis. The module supports plural forms, by means |
| 699 | of gettext.[d]ngettext and Translation.[u]ngettext. |
Martin v. Löwis | 1be6419 | 2002-01-11 06:33:28 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 700 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 9668b93 | 2002-01-12 11:27:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 701 | - distutils bdist commands now offer a --skip-build option. |
| 702 | |
Walter Dörwald | b25c2b0 | 2002-03-21 10:38:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 703 | - warnings.warn now accepts a Warning instance as first argument. |
| 704 | |
Fred Drake | fed7e85 | 2002-04-04 19:36:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 705 | - The xml.sax.expatreader.ExpatParser class will no longer create |
| 706 | circular references by using itself as the locator that gets passed |
| 707 | to the content handler implementation. [SF bug #535474] |
| 708 | |
Barry Warsaw | 47f3e2c | 2002-05-20 00:14:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 709 | - The email.Parser.Parser class now properly parses strings regardless |
| 710 | of their line endings, which can be any of \r, \n, or \r\n (CR, LF, |
| 711 | or CRLF). Also, the Header class's constructor default arguments |
| 712 | has changed slightly so that an explicit maxlinelen value is always |
Barry Warsaw | 497e5c4 | 2002-12-30 19:27:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 713 | honored, and so unicode conversion error handling can be specified. |
Barry Warsaw | 47f3e2c | 2002-05-20 00:14:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 714 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | f8ca836 | 2002-11-05 16:50:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 715 | - distutils' build_ext command now links c++ extensions with the c++ |
| 716 | compiler available in the Makefile or CXX environment variable, if |
| 717 | running under *nix. |
| 718 | |
| 719 | - New module bz2: provides a comprehensive interface for the bz2 compression |
| 720 | library. It implements a complete file interface, one-shot (de)compression |
| 721 | functions, and types for sequential (de)compression. |
| 722 | |
Barry Warsaw | 5d8d618 | 2002-11-05 22:41:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 723 | - New pdb command `pp' which is like `p' except that it pretty-prints |
| 724 | the value of its expression argument. |
| 725 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | fbceb01 | 2002-11-06 18:44:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 726 | - Now bdist_rpm distutils command understands a verify_script option in |
| 727 | the config file, including the contents of the referred filename in |
| 728 | the "%verifyscript" section of the rpm spec file. |
| 729 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | 1456fde | 2002-11-25 17:25:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 730 | - Fixed bug #495695: webbrowser module would run graphic browsers in a |
| 731 | unix environment even if DISPLAY was not set. Also, support for |
| 732 | skipstone browser was included. |
| 733 | |
Gustavo Niemeyer | d5ae01a | 2002-12-16 13:11:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 734 | - Fixed bug #636769: rexec would run unallowed code if subclasses of |
| 735 | strings were used as parameters for certain functions. |
| 736 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 737 | Tools/Demos |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 738 | ----------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 739 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 0d1fdea | 2002-11-22 08:36:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 740 | - pygettext.py now supports globbing on Windows, and accepts module |
| 741 | names in addition to accepting file names. |
| 742 | |
Guido van Rossum | 923e4ef | 2002-09-17 20:58:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 743 | - The SGI demos (Demo/sgi) have been removed. Nobody thought they |
| 744 | were interesting any more. (The SGI library modules and extensions |
| 745 | are still there; it is believed that at least some of these are |
| 746 | still used and useful.) |
| 747 | |
Fred Drake | 40813b1 | 2002-08-05 15:24:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 748 | - IDLE supports the new encoding declarations (PEP 263); it can also |
| 749 | deal with legacy 8-bit files if they use the locale's encoding. It |
| 750 | allows non-ASCII strings in the interactive shell and executes them |
| 751 | in the locale's encoding. |
Martin v. Löwis | 98ce7b7 | 2002-08-05 15:11:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 752 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 4626009 | 2002-04-04 16:17:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 753 | - freeze.py now produces binaries which can import shared modules, |
| 754 | unlike before when this failed due to missing symbol exports in |
| 755 | the generated binary. |
| 756 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 757 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 758 | ----- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 759 | |
Guido van Rossum | acd738f | 2002-12-30 21:04:23 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 760 | - Makefile.pre.in now adds @CFLAGS@ and @CPPFLAGS@ to their respective |
| 761 | variable definitions. |
| 762 | |
Martin v. Löwis | dc46175 | 2002-11-06 21:59:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 763 | - On Unix, IDLE is now installed automatically. |
| 764 | |
Guido van Rossum | 6b3db55 | 2002-09-25 15:02:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 765 | - The fpectl module is not built by default; it's dangerous or useless |
| 766 | except in the hands of experts. |
| 767 | |
Tim Peters | f47630f | 2002-08-01 02:34:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 768 | - The public Python C API will generally be declared using PyAPI_FUNC |
Guido van Rossum | 6b3db55 | 2002-09-25 15:02:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 769 | and PyAPI_DATA macros, while Python extension module init functions |
| 770 | will be declared with PyMODINIT_FUNC. DL_EXPORT/DL_IMPORT macros |
| 771 | are deprecated. |
Neal Norwitz | 1389f3e | 2002-07-22 13:21:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 772 | |
Tim Peters | c6a3ff6 | 2002-07-08 22:11:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 773 | - A bug was fixed that could cause COUNT_ALLOCS builds to segfault, or |
| 774 | get into infinite loops, when a new-style class got garbage-collected. |
| 775 | Unfortunately, to avoid this, the way COUNT_ALLOCS works requires |
| 776 | that new-style classes be immortal in COUNT_ALLOCS builds. Note that |
| 777 | COUNT_ALLOCS is not enabled by default, in either release or debug |
| 778 | builds, and that new-style classes are immortal only in COUNT_ALLOCS |
| 779 | builds. |
| 780 | |
Tim Peters | 943382c | 2002-07-07 03:59:34 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 781 | - Compiling out the cyclic garbage collector is no longer an option. |
| 782 | The old symbol WITH_CYCLE_GC is now ignored, and Python.h arranges |
| 783 | that it's always defined (for the benefit of any extension modules |
| 784 | that may be conditionalizing on it). A bonus is that any extension |
| 785 | type participating in cyclic gc can choose to participate in the |
| 786 | Py_TRASHCAN mechanism now too; in the absence of cyclic gc, this used |
| 787 | to require editing the core to teach the trashcan mechanism about the |
| 788 | new type. |
| 789 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 0cec0ff | 2002-07-28 16:33:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 790 | - According to Annex F of the current C standard, |
Tim Peters | 1de41bf | 2002-07-03 03:31:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 791 | |
| 792 | The Standard C macro HUGE_VAL and its float and long double analogs, |
| 793 | HUGE_VALF and HUGE_VALL, expand to expressions whose values are |
| 794 | positive infinities. |
| 795 | |
| 796 | Python only uses the double HUGE_VAL, and only to #define its own symbol |
| 797 | Py_HUGE_VAL. Some platforms have incorrect definitions for HUGE_VAL. |
| 798 | pyport.h used to try to worm around that, but the workarounds triggered |
| 799 | other bugs on other platforms, so we gave up. If your platform defines |
| 800 | HUGE_VAL incorrectly, you'll need to #define Py_HUGE_VAL to something |
| 801 | that works on your platform. The only instance of this I'm sure about |
| 802 | is on an unknown subset of Cray systems, described here: |
| 803 | |
| 804 | http://www.cray.com/swpubs/manuals/SN-2194_2.0/html-SN-2194_2.0/x3138.htm |
| 805 | |
| 806 | Presumably 2.3a1 breaks such systems. If anyone uses such a system, help! |
| 807 | |
Martin v. Löwis | a3fb4f7 | 2002-06-09 13:33:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 808 | - The configure option --without-doc-strings can be used to remove the |
| 809 | doc strings from the builtin functions and modules; this reduces the |
| 810 | size of the executable. |
| 811 | |
Guido van Rossum | add8806 | 2002-08-15 14:01:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 812 | - The universal newlines option (PEP 278) is on by default. On Unix |
| 813 | it can be disabled by passing --without-universal-newlines to the |
| 814 | configure script. On other platforms, remove |
| 815 | WITH_UNIVERSAL_NEWLINES from pyconfig.h. |
Tim Peters | 639295f | 2002-04-21 07:30:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 816 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 1142de3 | 2002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 817 | - On Unix, a shared libpython2.3.so can be created with --enable-shared. |
| 818 | |
Tim Peters | 8deda70 | 2002-03-30 10:06:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 819 | - All uses of the CACHE_HASH, INTERN_STRINGS, and DONT_SHARE_SHORT_STRINGS |
| 820 | preprocessor symbols were eliminated. The internal decisions they |
| 821 | controlled stopped being experimental long ago. |
Tim Peters | 1f7df35 | 2002-03-29 03:29:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 822 | |
Fred Drake | 7d28b73 | 2002-05-02 21:17:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 823 | - The tools used to build the documentation now work under Cygwin as |
| 824 | well as Unix. |
| 825 | |
Skip Montanaro | 57454e5 | 2002-06-14 20:30:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 826 | - The bsddb and dbm module builds have been changed to try and avoid version |
| 827 | skew problems and disable linkage with Berkeley DB 1.85 unless the |
| 828 | installer knows what s/he's doing. See the section on building these |
| 829 | modules in the README file for details. |
| 830 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 831 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 832 | ----- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 833 | |
Neil Schemenauer | 6c19476 | 2002-11-18 16:19:39 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 834 | - PyNumber_Check() now returns true for string and unicode objects. |
| 835 | This is a result of these types having a partially defined |
Guido van Rossum | 1d26740 | 2002-11-18 16:27:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 836 | tp_as_number slot. (This is not a feature, but an indication that |
Walter Dörwald | a1a61f9 | 2002-11-19 21:20:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 837 | PyNumber_Check() is not very useful to determine numeric behavior. |
Guido van Rossum | 1d26740 | 2002-11-18 16:27:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 838 | It may be deprecated.) |
Neil Schemenauer | 6c19476 | 2002-11-18 16:19:39 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 839 | |
Guido van Rossum | 45ec02a | 2002-08-19 21:43:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 840 | - The string object's layout has changed: the pointer member |
| 841 | ob_sinterned has been replaced by an int member ob_sstate. On some |
| 842 | platforms (e.g. most 64-bit systems) this may change the offset of |
| 843 | the ob_sval member, so as a precaution the API_VERSION has been |
| 844 | incremented. The apparently unused feature of "indirect interned |
| 845 | strings", supported by the ob_sinterned member, is gone. Interned |
| 846 | strings are now usually mortal; theres a new API, |
| 847 | PyString_InternImmortal() that creates immortal interned strings. |
| 848 | (The ob_sstate member can only take three values; however, while |
| 849 | making it a char saves a few bytes per string object on average, in |
| 850 | it also slowed things down a bit because ob_sval was no longer |
| 851 | aligned.) |
| 852 | |
Guido van Rossum | fdb8648 | 2002-08-14 21:20:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 853 | - The Py_InitModule*() functions now accept NULL for the 'methods' |
| 854 | argument. Modules without global functions are becoming more common |
| 855 | now that factories can be types rather than functions. |
| 856 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | cc8764c | 2002-08-11 12:23:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 857 | - New C API PyUnicode_FromOrdinal() which exposes unichr() at C |
| 858 | level. |
| 859 | |
Thomas Heller | 085358a | 2002-07-29 14:27:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 860 | - New functions PyErr_SetExcFromWindowsErr() and |
| 861 | PyErr_SetExcFromWindowsErrWithFilename(). Similar to |
| 862 | PyErr_SetFromWindowsErrWithFilename() and |
| 863 | PyErr_SetFromWindowsErr(), but they allow to specify |
| 864 | the exception type to raise. Available on Windows. |
| 865 | |
Tim Peters | 7c321a8 | 2002-07-09 02:57:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 866 | - Py_FatalError() is now declared as taking a const char* argument. It |
| 867 | was previously declared without const. This should not affect working |
| 868 | code. |
| 869 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 01f94bd | 2002-05-08 08:44:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 870 | - Added new macro PySequence_ITEM(o, i) that directly calls |
| 871 | sq_item without rechecking that o is a sequence and without |
| 872 | adjusting for negative indices. |
| 873 | |
Fred Drake | d0ba636 | 2002-05-02 21:28:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 874 | - PyRange_New() now raises ValueError if the fourth argument is not 1. |
| 875 | This is part of the removal of deprecated features of the xrange |
| 876 | object. |
| 877 | |
Guido van Rossum | 517c7d4 | 2002-04-26 02:49:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 878 | - PyNumber_Coerce() and PyNumber_CoerceEx() now also invoke the type's |
| 879 | coercion if both arguments have the same type but this type has the |
| 880 | CHECKTYPES flag set. This is to better support proxies. |
| 881 | |
Skip Montanaro | a2a07bc | 2002-09-30 15:23:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 882 | - The type of tp_free has been changed from "``void (*)(PyObject *)``" to |
| 883 | "``void (*)(void *)``". |
Neil Schemenauer | 9344b14 | 2002-04-12 23:00:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 884 | |
| 885 | - PyObject_Del, PyObject_GC_Del are now functions instead of macros. |
| 886 | |
Guido van Rossum | 0986d82 | 2002-04-08 01:38:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 887 | - A type can now inherit its metatype from its base type. Previously, |
| 888 | when PyType_Ready() was called, if ob_type was found to be NULL, it |
| 889 | was always set to &PyType_Type; now it is set to base->ob_type, |
| 890 | where base is tp_base, defaulting to &PyObject_Type. |
| 891 | |
| 892 | - PyType_Ready() accidentally did not inherit tp_is_gc; now it does. |
| 893 | |
Neil Schemenauer | c9abc1d | 2002-05-08 14:14:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 894 | - The PyCore_* family of APIs have been removed. |
Neil Schemenauer | 9d50d13 | 2002-03-22 17:06:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 895 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 896 | - The "u#" parser marker will now pass through Unicode objects as-is |
Marc-André Lemburg | 3e3eacb | 2002-01-09 16:21:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 897 | without going through the buffer API. |
| 898 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 899 | - The enumerators of cmp_op have been renamed to use the prefix ``PyCmp_``. |
Martin v. Löwis | 7198a52 | 2002-01-01 19:59:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 900 | |
Tim Peters | 10a3bb5 | 2001-12-25 19:07:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 901 | - An old #define of ANY as void has been removed from pyport.h. This |
| 902 | hasn't been used since Python's pre-ANSI days, and the #define has |
| 903 | been marked as obsolete since then. SF bug 495548 says it created |
| 904 | conflicts with other packages, so keeping it around wasn't harmless. |
| 905 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 906 | - Because Python's magic number scheme broke on January 1st, we decided |
| 907 | to stop Python development. Thanks for all the fish! |
| 908 | |
Tim Peters | fb05db2 | 2002-03-11 00:24:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 909 | - Some of us don't like fish, so we changed Python's magic number |
Marc-André Lemburg | e92e0a9 | 2002-02-09 11:28:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 910 | scheme to a new one. See Python/import.c for details. |
| 911 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 912 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 913 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 914 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 79acb9e | 2002-12-06 12:48:53 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 915 | - OpenVMS is now supported. |
| 916 | |
Martin v. Löwis | f90ae20 | 2002-06-11 06:22:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 917 | - AtheOS is now supported. |
| 918 | |
Andrew MacIntyre | 161ad0e | 2002-08-04 07:25:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 919 | - the EMX runtime environment on OS/2 is now supported. |
| 920 | |
Martin v. Löwis | a6e9758 | 2002-01-01 18:41:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 921 | - GNU/Hurd is now supported. |
| 922 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 923 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 924 | ----- |
| 925 | |
Fred Drake | 4dd0f7e | 2002-11-26 21:44:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 926 | - The regrtest.py script's -u option now provides a way to say "allow |
| 927 | all resources except this one." For example, to allow everything |
| 928 | except bsddb, give the option '-uall,-bsddb'. |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 929 | |
| 930 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 931 | ------- |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 932 | |
Tim Peters | 19cf4ee | 2002-11-23 03:49:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 933 | - The Windows distribution now ships with version 4.0.14 of the |
| 934 | Sleepycat Berkeley database library. This should be a huge |
| 935 | improvement over the previous Berkeley DB 1.85, which had many |
| 936 | bugs. |
| 937 | XXX What are the licensing issues here? |
Tim Peters | 84c7a3f | 2002-11-23 18:48:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 938 | XXX If a user has a database created with a previous verion of |
| 939 | XXX Python, what must they do to convert it? |
| 940 | XXX I'm still not sure how to link this thing (see PCbuild/readme.txt). |
Tim Peters | 19cf4ee | 2002-11-23 03:49:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 941 | XXX The version # is likely to change before 2.3a1. |
Tim Peters | e820cb6 | 2002-12-16 20:57:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 942 | |
| 943 | - The Windows distribution now ships with a Secure Sockets Library (SLL) |
Mark Hammond | c3de008 | 2002-12-03 06:16:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 944 | module (_ssl.pyd) |
Tim Peters | 19cf4ee | 2002-11-23 03:49:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 945 | |
Tim Peters | 857fb4c | 2002-11-14 23:31:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 946 | - The Windows distribution now ships with Tcl/Tk version 8.4.1 (it |
| 947 | previously shipped with Tcl/Tk 8.3.2). |
| 948 | |
Tim Peters | 37dfb01 | 2002-11-11 19:51:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 949 | - When Python is built under a Microsoft compiler, sys.version now |
| 950 | includes the compiler version number (_MSC_VER). For example, under |
| 951 | MSVC 6, sys.version constains the substring "MSC v.1200 ". 1200 is |
| 952 | the value of _MSC_VER under MSVC 6. |
| 953 | |
Tim Peters | 08e7295 | 2002-04-16 20:48:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 954 | - Sometimes the uninstall executable (UNWISE.EXE) vanishes. One cause |
| 955 | of that has been fixed in the installer (disabled Wise's "delete in- |
| 956 | use files" uninstall option). |
| 957 | |
Guido van Rossum | 181e41a | 2002-04-06 00:23:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 958 | - Fixed a bug in urllib's proxy handling in Windows. [SF bug #503031] |
| 959 | |
Tim Peters | 3318792 | 2002-04-04 20:02:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 960 | - The installer now installs Start menu shortcuts under (the local |
| 961 | equivalent of) "All Users" when doing an Admin install. |
| 962 | |
Tim Peters | fb05db2 | 2002-03-11 00:24:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 963 | - file.truncate([newsize]) now works on Windows for all newsize values. |
| 964 | It used to fail if newsize didn't fit in 32 bits, reflecting a |
| 965 | limitation of MS _chsize (which is no longer used). |
| 966 | |
Tim Peters | ab034fa | 2002-02-01 11:27:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 967 | - os.waitpid() is now implemented for Windows, and can be used to block |
| 968 | until a specified process exits. This is similar to, but not exactly |
| 969 | the same as, os.waitpid() on POSIX systems. If you're waiting for |
| 970 | a specific process whose pid was obtained from one of the spawn() |
| 971 | functions, the same Python os.waitpid() code works across platforms. |
Tim Peters | 3318792 | 2002-04-04 20:02:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 972 | See the docs for details. The docs were changed to clarify that |
| 973 | spawn functions return, and waitpid requires, a process handle on |
| 974 | Windows (not the same thing as a Windows process id). |
Tim Peters | ab034fa | 2002-02-01 11:27:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 975 | |
Tim Peters | 11bd994 | 2002-02-01 00:52:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 976 | - New tempfile.TemporaryFile implementation for Windows: this doesn't |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 977 | need a TemporaryFileWrapper wrapper anymore, and should be immune |
Tim Peters | 11bd994 | 2002-02-01 00:52:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 978 | to a nasty problem: before 2.3, if you got a temp file on Windows, it |
| 979 | got wrapped in an object whose close() method first closed the |
| 980 | underlying file, then deleted the file. This usually worked fine. |
| 981 | However, the spawn family of functions on Windows create (at a low C |
| 982 | level) the same set of open files in the spawned process Q as were |
| 983 | open in the spawning process P. If a temp file f was among them, then |
| 984 | doing f.close() in P first closed P's C-level file handle on f, but Q's |
| 985 | C-level file handle on f remained open, so the attempt in P to delete f |
| 986 | blew up with a "Permission denied" error (Windows doesn't allow |
| 987 | deleting open files). This was surprising, subtle, and difficult to |
| 988 | work around. |
| 989 | |
| 990 | - The os module now exports all the symbolic constants usable with the |
| 991 | low-level os.open() on Windows: the new constants in 2.3 are |
| 992 | O_NOINHERIT, O_SHORT_LIVED, O_TEMPORARY, O_RANDOM and O_SEQUENTIAL. |
| 993 | The others were also available in 2.2: O_APPEND, O_BINARY, O_CREAT, |
| 994 | O_EXCL, O_RDONLY, O_RDWR, O_TEXT, O_TRUNC and O_WRONLY. Contrary |
| 995 | to Microsoft docs, O_SHORT_LIVED does not seem to imply O_TEMPORARY |
| 996 | (so specify both if you want both; note that neither is useful unless |
| 997 | specified with O_CREAT too). |
| 998 | |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 999 | Mac |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1000 | ---- |
| 1001 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1002 | - Mac/Relnotes is gone, the release notes are now here. |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1003 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1004 | - The current naming convention for Python on the Macintosh is that MacPython |
| 1005 | refers to the unix-based OSX-only version, and MacPython-OS9 refers to the |
| 1006 | CFM-based version that runs on both OS9 and OSX. |
| 1007 | |
| 1008 | - All MacPython-OS9 functionality is now available in an OSX unix build, |
| 1009 | including the Carbon modules, the IDE, OSA support, etc. A lot of this |
| 1010 | will only work correctly in a framework build, though, because you cannot |
| 1011 | talk to the window manager unless your application is run from a .app |
| 1012 | bundle. There is a command line tool "pythonw" that runs your script |
| 1013 | with an interpreter living in such a .app bundle, this interpreter should |
| 1014 | be used to run any Python script using the window manager (including |
| 1015 | Tkinter or wxPython scripts). |
Jack Jansen | 8bb80db | 2002-12-30 22:42:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1016 | |
| 1017 | - Most of Mac/Lib has moved to Lib/plat-mac, which is again used both in |
| 1018 | MacPython-OSX and MacPython-OS9. The only modules remaining in Mac/Lib |
| 1019 | are specifically for MacPython-OS9 (CFM support, preference resources, etc). |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1020 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1021 | - A new utility PythonLauncher will start a Python interpreter when a .py or |
| 1022 | .pyw script is double-clicked in the Finder. By default .py scripts are |
| 1023 | run with a normal Python interpreter in a Terminal window and .pyw |
| 1024 | files are run with a window-aware pythonw interpreter without a Terminal |
| 1025 | window, but all this can be customized. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1026 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1027 | - MacPython-OS9 is now Carbon-only, so it runs on Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X and |
| 1028 | possibly on Mac OS 8.6 with the right CarbonLib installed, but not on earlier |
| 1029 | releases. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1030 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1031 | - Many tools such as BuildApplet.py and gensuitemodule.py now support a command |
| 1032 | line interface too. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1033 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1034 | - All the Carbon classes are now PEP253 compliant, meaning that you can |
| 1035 | subclass them from Python. Most of the attributes have gone, you should |
| 1036 | now use the accessor function call API, which is also what Apple's |
| 1037 | documentation uses. Some attributes such as grafport.visRgn are still |
| 1038 | available for convenience. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1039 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1040 | - New Carbon modules File (implementing the APIs in Files.h and Aliases.h) |
| 1041 | and Folder (APIs from Folders.h). The old macfs builtin module is |
| 1042 | gone, and replaced by a Python wrapper around the new modules. |
| 1043 | |
| 1044 | - Pathname handling should now be fully consistent: MacPython-OSX always uses |
| 1045 | unix pathnames and MacPython-OS9 always uses colon-separated Mac pathnames |
| 1046 | (also when running on Mac OS X). |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1047 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1048 | - New Carbon modules Help and AH give access to the Carbon Help Manager. |
| 1049 | There are hooks in the IDE to allow accessing the Python documentation |
| 1050 | (and Apple's Carbon and Cocoa documentation) through the Help Viewer. |
| 1051 | See Mac/OSX/README for converting the Python documentation to a |
| 1052 | Help Viewer comaptible form and installing it. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1053 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1054 | - OSA support has been redesigned and the generated Python classes now |
| 1055 | mirror the inheritance defined by the underlying OSA classes. |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1056 | |
Jack Jansen | ae3cb6c | 2002-12-23 11:25:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1057 | - MacPython no longer maps both \r and \n to \n on input for any text file. |
| 1058 | This feature has been replaced by universal newline support (PEP278). |
Tim Peters | af8446f | 2001-12-21 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1059 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1060 | What's New in Python 2.2 final? |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1061 | =============================== |
| 1062 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1063 | *Release date: 21-Dec-2001* |
| 1064 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1065 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1066 | -------------------------------------------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1067 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1068 | - pickle.py, cPickle: allow pickling instances of new-style classes |
| 1069 | with a custom metaclass. |
| 1070 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1071 | Core and builtins |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1072 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1073 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1074 | - weakref proxy object: when comparing, unwrap both arguments if both |
| 1075 | are proxies. |
| 1076 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1077 | Extension modules |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1078 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1079 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1080 | - binascii.b2a_base64(): fix a potential buffer overrun when encoding |
| 1081 | very short strings. |
| 1082 | |
| 1083 | - cPickle: the obscure "fast" mode was suspected of causing stack |
| 1084 | overflows on the Mac. Hopefully fixed this by setting the recursion |
| 1085 | limit much smaller. If the limit is too low (it only affects |
| 1086 | performance), you can change it by defining PY_CPICKLE_FAST_LIMIT |
| 1087 | when compiling cPickle.c (or in pyconfig.h). |
| 1088 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1089 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1090 | ------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1091 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1092 | - dumbdbm.py: fixed a dumb old bug (the file didn't get synched at |
| 1093 | close or delete time). |
| 1094 | |
| 1095 | - rfc822.py: fixed a bug where the address '<>' was converted to None |
| 1096 | instead of an empty string (also fixes the email.Utils module). |
| 1097 | |
| 1098 | - xmlrpclib.py: version 1.0.0; uses precision for doubles. |
| 1099 | |
| 1100 | - test suite: the pickle and cPickle tests were not executing any code |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1101 | when run from the standard regression test. |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1102 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1103 | Tools/Demos |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1104 | ----------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1105 | |
| 1106 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1107 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1108 | |
| 1109 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1110 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1111 | |
| 1112 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1113 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1114 | |
| 1115 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1116 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1117 | |
| 1118 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1119 | ------- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1120 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1121 | - distutils package: fixed broken Windows installers (bdist_wininst). |
| 1122 | |
| 1123 | - tempfile.py: prevent mysterious warnings when TemporaryFileWrapper |
| 1124 | instances are deleted at process exit time. |
| 1125 | |
| 1126 | - socket.py: prevent mysterious warnings when socket instances are |
| 1127 | deleted at process exit time. |
| 1128 | |
| 1129 | - posixmodule.c: fix a Windows crash with stat() of a filename ending |
| 1130 | in backslash. |
| 1131 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1132 | Mac |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1133 | ---- |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1134 | |
Barry Warsaw | 52acb49 | 2001-12-21 20:04:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1135 | - The Carbon toolbox modules have been upgraded to Universal Headers |
| 1136 | 3.4, and experimental CoreGraphics and CarbonEvents modules have |
| 1137 | been added. All only for framework-enabled MacOSX. |
| 1138 | |
Tim Peters | 909c091 | 2001-12-14 23:16:18 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1139 | |
Tim Peters | 6272dfd | 2001-12-13 19:34:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1140 | What's New in Python 2.2c1? |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1141 | =========================== |
| 1142 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1143 | *Release date: 14-Dec-2001* |
| 1144 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1145 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1146 | -------------------------------------------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1147 | |
Barry Warsaw | 0655745 | 2001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1148 | - Guido's tutorial introduction to the new type/class features has |
| 1149 | been extensively updated. See |
| 1150 | |
| 1151 | http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html |
| 1152 | |
| 1153 | That remains the primary documentation in this area. |
| 1154 | |
Guido van Rossum | 33bab01 | 2001-12-05 22:45:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1155 | - Fixed a leak: instance variables declared with __slots__ were never |
| 1156 | deleted! |
| 1157 | |
Guido van Rossum | 4b80085 | 2001-12-03 00:54:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1158 | - The "delete attribute" method of descriptor objects is called |
| 1159 | __delete__, not __del__. In previous releases, it was mistakenly |
| 1160 | called __del__, which created an unfortunate overloading condition |
| 1161 | with finalizers. (The "get attribute" and "set attribute" methods |
| 1162 | are still called __get__ and __set__, respectively.) |
| 1163 | |
Guido van Rossum | cdbbd0a | 2001-12-03 15:46:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1164 | - Some subtle issues with the super built-in were fixed: |
| 1165 | |
| 1166 | (a) When super itself is subclassed, its __get__ method would still |
| 1167 | return an instance of the base class (i.e., of super). |
| 1168 | |
| 1169 | (b) super(C, C()).__class__ would return C rather than super. This |
| 1170 | is confusing. To fix this, I decided to change the semantics of |
| 1171 | super so that it only applies to code attributes, not to data |
| 1172 | attributes. After all, overriding data attributes is not |
| 1173 | supported anyway. |
| 1174 | |
| 1175 | (c) The __get__ method didn't check whether the argument was an |
| 1176 | instance of the type used in creation of the super instance. |
| 1177 | |
Guido van Rossum | cd7b7d6 | 2001-12-04 21:02:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1178 | - Previously, hash() of an instance of a subclass of a mutable type |
| 1179 | (list or dictionary) would return some value, rather than raising |
| 1180 | TypeError. This has been fixed. Also, directly calling |
| 1181 | dict.__hash__ and list.__hash__ now raises the same TypeError |
| 1182 | (previously, these were the same as object.__hash__). |
Guido van Rossum | cdbbd0a | 2001-12-03 15:46:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1183 | |
Guido van Rossum | d331cb5 | 2001-12-05 19:46:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1184 | - New-style objects now support deleting their __dict__. This is for |
| 1185 | all intents and purposes equivalent to assigning a brand new empty |
| 1186 | dictionary, but saves space if the object is not used further. |
| 1187 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1188 | Core and builtins |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1189 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1190 | |
Tim Peters | 3caca23 | 2001-12-06 06:23:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1191 | - -Qnew now works as documented in PEP 238: when -Qnew is passed on |
| 1192 | the command line, all occurrences of "/" use true division instead |
| 1193 | of classic division. See the PEP for details. Note that "all" |
| 1194 | means all instances in library and 3rd-party modules, as well as in |
| 1195 | your own code. As the PEP says, -Qnew is intended for use only in |
| 1196 | educational environments with control over the libraries in use. |
Tim Peters | bf72fe2 | 2001-12-11 21:43:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1197 | Note that test_coercion.py in the standard Python test suite fails |
| 1198 | under -Qnew; this is expected, and won't be repaired until true |
| 1199 | division becomes the default (in the meantime, test_coercion is |
| 1200 | testing the current rules). |
Tim Peters | 3caca23 | 2001-12-06 06:23:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1201 | |
Fred Drake | 6c01e25 | 2001-12-14 17:08:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1202 | - complex() now only allows the first argument to be a string |
| 1203 | argument, and raises TypeError if either the second arg is a string |
| 1204 | or if the second arg is specified when the first is a string. |
| 1205 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1206 | Extension modules |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1207 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1208 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 560da62 | 2001-11-24 09:24:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1209 | - gc.get_referents was renamed to gc.get_referrers. |
| 1210 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1211 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1212 | ------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1213 | |
Tim Peters | 25059d3 | 2001-12-07 20:35:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1214 | - Functions in the os.spawn() family now release the global interpreter |
| 1215 | lock around calling the platform spawn. They should always have done |
| 1216 | this, but did not before 2.2c1. Multithreaded programs calling |
| 1217 | an os.spawn function with P_WAIT will no longer block all Python threads |
| 1218 | until the spawned program completes. It's possible that some programs |
| 1219 | relies on blocking, although more likely by accident than by design. |
| 1220 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 3a89b2b | 2001-11-25 14:35:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1221 | - webbrowser defaults to netscape.exe on OS/2 now. |
| 1222 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 652e191 | 2001-11-25 14:50:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1223 | - Tix.ResizeHandle exposes detach_widget, hide, and show. |
| 1224 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 714d2e2 | 2001-12-02 12:26:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1225 | - The charset alias windows_1252 has been added. |
| 1226 | |
Barry Warsaw | 0655745 | 2001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1227 | - types.StringTypes is a tuple containing the defined string types; |
| 1228 | usually this will be (str, unicode), but if Python was compiled |
| 1229 | without Unicode support it will be just (str,). |
| 1230 | |
| 1231 | - The pulldom and minidom modules were synchronized to PyXML. |
| 1232 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1233 | Tools/Demos |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1234 | ----------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1235 | |
Barry Warsaw | 0655745 | 2001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1236 | - A new script called Tools/scripts/google.py was added, which fires |
| 1237 | off a search on Google. |
| 1238 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1239 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1240 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1241 | |
Barry Warsaw | 0655745 | 2001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1242 | - Note that release builds of Python should arrange to define the |
| 1243 | preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the command line (or equivalent). |
| 1244 | In the 2.2 pre-release series we tried to define this by magic in |
| 1245 | Python.h instead, but it proved to cause problems for extension |
| 1246 | authors. The Unix, Windows and Mac builds now all define NDEBUG in |
| 1247 | release builds via cmdline (or equivalent) instead. Ports to |
| 1248 | other platforms should do likewise. |
| 1249 | |
Jack Jansen | 1999ef4 | 2001-12-06 21:47:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1250 | - It is no longer necessary to use --with-suffix when building on a |
| 1251 | case-insensitive file system (such as Mac OS X HFS+). In the build |
| 1252 | directory an extension is used, but not in the installed python. |
| 1253 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1254 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1255 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1256 | |
Tim Peters | f582b82 | 2001-12-11 18:51:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1257 | - New function PyDict_MergeFromSeq2() exposes the builtin dict |
| 1258 | constructor's logic for updating a dictionary from an iterable object |
| 1259 | producing key-value pairs. |
| 1260 | |
Tim Peters | cffed4b | 2001-11-29 03:26:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1261 | - PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords() requires that the number of entries in |
Tim Peters | f582b82 | 2001-12-11 18:51:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1262 | the keyword list equal the number of argument specifiers. This |
Tim Peters | cffed4b | 2001-11-29 03:26:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1263 | wasn't checked correctly, and PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords could even |
| 1264 | dump core in some bad cases. This has been repaired. As a result, |
| 1265 | PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords may raise RuntimeError in bad cases that |
| 1266 | previously went unchallenged. |
| 1267 | |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1268 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1269 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1270 | |
| 1271 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1272 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1273 | |
| 1274 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1275 | ------- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1276 | |
| 1277 | Mac |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1278 | ---- |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1279 | |
Jack Jansen | ffa260f | 2001-12-06 21:14:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1280 | - In unix-Python on Mac OS X (and darwin) sys.platform is now "darwin", |
| 1281 | without any trailing digits. |
Tim Peters | b3c9af1 | 2001-11-17 00:21:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1282 | |
Barry Warsaw | 0655745 | 2001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1283 | - Changed logic for finding python home in Mac OS X framework Pythons. |
| 1284 | Now sys.executable points to the executable again, in stead of to |
| 1285 | the shared library. The latter is used only for locating the python |
| 1286 | home. |
| 1287 | |
| 1288 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1289 | What's New in Python 2.2b2? |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1290 | =========================== |
| 1291 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1292 | *Release date: 16-Nov-2001* |
| 1293 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1294 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1295 | -------------------------------------------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1296 | |
Guido van Rossum | 3d27df0 | 2001-11-15 20:27:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1297 | - Multiple inheritance mixing new-style and classic classes in the |
| 1298 | list of base classes is now allowed, so this works now: |
Tim Peters | 76f7fe3 | 2001-11-15 20:02:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1299 | |
| 1300 | class Classic: pass |
Guido van Rossum | 3d27df0 | 2001-11-15 20:27:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1301 | class Mixed(Classic, object): pass |
Tim Peters | 76f7fe3 | 2001-11-15 20:02:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1302 | |
| 1303 | The MRO (method resolution order) for each base class is respected |
| 1304 | according to its kind, but the MRO for the derived class is computed |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1305 | using new-style MRO rules if any base class is a new-style class. |
Tim Peters | 76f7fe3 | 2001-11-15 20:02:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1306 | This needs to be documented. |
| 1307 | |
Tim Peters | a427a2b | 2001-10-29 22:25:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1308 | - The new builtin dictionary() constructor, and dictionary type, have |
| 1309 | been renamed to dict. This reflects a decade of common usage. |
| 1310 | |
Guido van Rossum | 3fc08d2 | 2001-11-15 20:33:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1311 | - dict() now accepts an iterable object producing 2-sequences. For |
| 1312 | example, dict(d.items()) == d for any dictionary d. The argument, |
| 1313 | and the elements of the argument, can be any iterable objects. |
| 1314 | |
Guido van Rossum | 7ad2d1e | 2001-10-29 22:11:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1315 | - New-style classes can now have a __del__ method, which is called |
| 1316 | when the instance is deleted (just like for classic classes). |
| 1317 | |
Guido van Rossum | 12d955c | 2001-10-26 14:56:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1318 | - Assignment to object.__dict__ is now possible, for objects that are |
| 1319 | instances of new-style classes that have a __dict__ (unless the base |
| 1320 | class forbids it). |
| 1321 | |
Guido van Rossum | c8e5645 | 2001-10-22 00:43:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1322 | - Methods of built-in types now properly check for keyword arguments |
| 1323 | (formerly these were silently ignored). The only built-in methods |
| 1324 | that take keyword arguments are __call__, __init__ and __new__. |
| 1325 | |
Guido van Rossum | 8644321 | 2001-10-27 22:28:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1326 | - The socket function has been converted to a type; see below. |
| 1327 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1328 | Core and builtins |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1329 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1330 | |
Jeremy Hylton | 249aaed | 2001-11-09 21:06:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1331 | - Assignment to __debug__ raises SyntaxError at compile-time. This |
| 1332 | was promised when 2.1c1 was released as "What's New in Python 2.1c1" |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1333 | (see below) says. |
Jeremy Hylton | 249aaed | 2001-11-09 21:06:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1334 | |
Guido van Rossum | 12d955c | 2001-10-26 14:56:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1335 | - Clarified the error messages for unsupported operands to an operator |
| 1336 | (like 1 + ''). |
| 1337 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1338 | Extension modules |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1339 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1340 | |
Tim Peters | 5ebfd36 | 2001-11-13 23:11:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1341 | - mmap has a new keyword argument, "access", allowing a uniform way for |
| 1342 | both Windows and Unix users to create read-only, write-through and |
| 1343 | copy-on-write memory mappings. This was previously possible only on |
| 1344 | Unix. A new keyword argument was required to support this in a |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1345 | uniform way because the mmap() signatures had diverged across |
Tim Peters | 5ebfd36 | 2001-11-13 23:11:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1346 | platforms. Thanks to Jay T Miller for repairing this! |
| 1347 | |
Tim Peters | 169ded0 | 2001-11-03 19:57:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1348 | - By default, the gc.garbage list now contains only those instances in |
| 1349 | unreachable cycles that have __del__ methods; in 2.1 it contained all |
| 1350 | instances in unreachable cycles. "Instances" here has been generalized |
| 1351 | to include instances of both new-style and old-style classes. |
| 1352 | |
Guido van Rossum | 12d955c | 2001-10-26 14:56:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1353 | - The socket module defines a new method for socket objects, |
| 1354 | sendall(). This is like send() but may make multiple calls to |
Guido van Rossum | 8644321 | 2001-10-27 22:28:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1355 | send() until all data has been sent. Also, the socket function has |
| 1356 | been converted to a subclassable type, like list and tuple (etc.) |
| 1357 | before it; socket and SocketType are now the same thing. |
Guido van Rossum | 12d955c | 2001-10-26 14:56:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1358 | |
| 1359 | - Various bugfixes to the curses module. There is now a test suite |
| 1360 | for the curses module (you have to run it manually). |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 15e0353 | 2001-10-22 16:37:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1361 | |
Guido van Rossum | 692adf1 | 2001-10-30 03:03:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1362 | - binascii.b2a_base64 no longer places an arbitrary restriction of 57 |
| 1363 | bytes on its input. |
| 1364 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1365 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1366 | ------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1367 | |
Tim Peters | 5ebfd36 | 2001-11-13 23:11:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1368 | - tkFileDialog exposes a Directory class and askdirectory |
Martin v. Löwis | 25ee87c | 2001-11-07 22:38:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1369 | convenience function. |
| 1370 | |
Tim Peters | 7533587 | 2001-11-03 19:35:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1371 | - Symbolic group names in regular expressions must be unique. For |
| 1372 | example, the regexp r'(?P<abc>)(?P<abc>)' is not allowed, because a |
| 1373 | single name can't mean both "group 1" and "group 2" simultaneously. |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1374 | Python 2.2 detects this error at regexp compilation time; |
| 1375 | previously, the error went undetected, and results were |
| 1376 | unpredictable. Also in sre, the pattern.split(), pattern.sub(), and |
| 1377 | pattern.subn() methods have been rewritten in C. Also, an |
| 1378 | experimental function/method finditer() has been added, which works |
| 1379 | like findall() but returns an iterator. |
Tim Peters | 7533587 | 2001-11-03 19:35:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1380 | |
Martin v. Löwis | b7b3260 | 2001-11-02 23:48:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1381 | - Tix exposes more commands through the classes DirSelectBox, |
| 1382 | DirSelectDialog, ListNoteBook, Meter, CheckList, and the |
| 1383 | methods tix_addbitmapdir, tix_cget, tix_configure, tix_filedialog, |
| 1384 | tix_getbitmap, tix_getimage, tix_option_get, and tix_resetoptions. |
| 1385 | |
Tim Peters | 98791af | 2001-10-23 01:59:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1386 | - Traceback objects are now scanned by cyclic garbage collection, so |
| 1387 | cycles created by casual use of sys.exc_info() no longer cause |
| 1388 | permanent memory leaks (provided garbage collection is enabled). |
| 1389 | |
Guido van Rossum | 4919214 | 2001-10-24 20:51:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1390 | - os.extsep -- a new variable needed by the RISCOS support. It is the |
| 1391 | separator used by extensions, and is '.' on all platforms except |
| 1392 | RISCOS, where it is '/'. There is no need to use this variable |
| 1393 | unless you have a masochistic desire to port your code to RISCOS. |
| 1394 | |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1395 | - mimetypes.py has optional support for non-standard, but commonly |
| 1396 | found types. guess_type() and guess_extension() now accept an |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1397 | optional 'strict' flag, defaulting to true, which controls whether |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1398 | recognize non-standard types or not. A few non-standard types we |
| 1399 | know about have been added. Also, when run as a script, there are |
| 1400 | new -l and -e options. |
| 1401 | |
| 1402 | - statcache is now deprecated. |
| 1403 | |
| 1404 | - email.Utils.formatdate() now produces the preferred RFC 2822 style |
| 1405 | dates with numeric timezones (it used to produce obsolete dates |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1406 | hard coded to "GMT" timezone). An optional 'localtime' flag is |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1407 | added to produce dates in the local timezone, with daylight savings |
| 1408 | time properly taken into account. |
| 1409 | |
| 1410 | - In pickle and cPickle, instead of masking errors in load() by |
| 1411 | transforming them into SystemError, we let the original exception |
| 1412 | propagate out. Also, implement support for __safe_for_unpickling__ |
| 1413 | in pickle, as it already was supported in cPickle. |
| 1414 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1415 | Tools/Demos |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1416 | ----------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1417 | |
| 1418 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1419 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1420 | |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1421 | - The dbm module is built using libdb1 if available. The bsddb module |
| 1422 | is built with libdb3 if available. |
| 1423 | |
| 1424 | - Misc/Makefile.pre.in has been removed by BDFL pronouncement. |
| 1425 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1426 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1427 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1428 | |
Tim Peters | 1fc240e | 2001-10-26 05:06:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1429 | - New function PySequence_Fast_GET_SIZE() returns the size of a non- |
| 1430 | NULL result from PySequence_Fast(), more quickly than calling |
| 1431 | PySequence_Size(). |
| 1432 | |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1433 | - New argument unpacking function PyArg_UnpackTuple() added. |
| 1434 | |
| 1435 | - New functions PyObject_CallFunctionObjArgs() and |
| 1436 | PyObject_CallMethodObjArgs() have been added to make it more |
| 1437 | convenient and efficient to call functions and methods from C. |
| 1438 | |
| 1439 | - PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords() no longer masks errors, so it's |
| 1440 | possible that this will propagate errors it didn't before. |
| 1441 | |
| 1442 | - New function PyObject_CheckReadBuffer(), which returns true if its |
| 1443 | argument supports the single-segment readable buffer interface. |
| 1444 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1445 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1446 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1447 | |
Guido van Rossum | 8644321 | 2001-10-27 22:28:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1448 | - We've finally confirmed that this release builds on HP-UX 11.00, |
| 1449 | *with* threads, and passes the test suite. |
| 1450 | |
Tim Peters | 7a33d8b | 2001-11-05 02:51:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1451 | - Thanks to a series of patches from Michael Muller, Python may build |
| 1452 | again under OS/2 Visual Age C++. |
| 1453 | |
Guido van Rossum | 4919214 | 2001-10-24 20:51:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1454 | - Updated RISCOS port by Dietmar Schwertberger. |
| 1455 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1456 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1457 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1458 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 15e0353 | 2001-10-22 16:37:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1459 | - Added a test script for the curses module. It isn't run automatically; |
| 1460 | regrtest.py must be run with '-u curses' to enable it. |
| 1461 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1462 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1463 | ------- |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1464 | |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1465 | Mac |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1466 | ---- |
Barry Warsaw | 012852b | 2001-11-16 16:17:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1467 | |
| 1468 | - PythonScript has been moved to unsupported and is slated to be |
| 1469 | removed completely in the next release. |
| 1470 | |
| 1471 | - It should now be possible to build applets that work on both OS9 and |
| 1472 | OSX. |
| 1473 | |
| 1474 | - The core is now linked with CoreServices not Carbon; as a side |
| 1475 | result, default 8bit encoding on OSX is now ASCII. |
| 1476 | |
| 1477 | - Python should now build on OSX 10.1.1 |
| 1478 | |
Tim Peters | 84362bc | 2001-10-19 17:55:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1479 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1480 | What's New in Python 2.2b1? |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1481 | =========================== |
| 1482 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1483 | *Release date: 19-Oct-2001* |
| 1484 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1485 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1486 | -------------------------------------------- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1487 | |
Guido van Rossum | 687ae00 | 2001-10-15 22:03:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1488 | - New-style classes are now always dynamic (except for built-in and |
Guido van Rossum | 3eea25c | 2001-10-16 00:46:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1489 | extension types). There is no longer a performance penalty, and I |
Guido van Rossum | 687ae00 | 2001-10-15 22:03:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1490 | no longer see another reason to keep this baggage around. One relic |
Guido van Rossum | 3eea25c | 2001-10-16 00:46:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1491 | remains: the __dict__ of a new-style class is a read-only proxy; you |
| 1492 | must set the class's attribute to modify it. As a consequence, the |
Guido van Rossum | 687ae00 | 2001-10-15 22:03:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1493 | __defined__ attribute of new-style types no longer exists, for lack |
| 1494 | of need: there is once again only one __dict__ (although in the |
Guido van Rossum | 3eea25c | 2001-10-16 00:46:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1495 | future a __cache__ may be resurrected with a similar function, if I |
| 1496 | can prove that it actually speeds things up). |
Guido van Rossum | 50fda3b | 2001-10-04 19:46:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1497 | |
Tim Peters | 1c9ca87 | 2001-10-04 06:43:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1498 | - C.__doc__ now works as expected for new-style classes (in 2.2a4 it |
| 1499 | always returned None, even when there was a class docstring). |
| 1500 | |
| 1501 | - doctest now finds and runs docstrings attached to new-style classes, |
| 1502 | class methods, static methods, and properties. |
| 1503 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1504 | Core and builtins |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1505 | ----------------- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1506 | |
Guido van Rossum | a8bcf80 | 2001-10-15 15:53:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1507 | - A very subtle syntactical pitfall in list comprehensions was fixed. |
| 1508 | For example: [a+b for a in 'abc', for b in 'def']. The comma in |
| 1509 | this example is a mistake. Previously, this would silently let 'a' |
| 1510 | iterate over the singleton tuple ('abc',), yielding ['abcd', 'abce', |
| 1511 | 'abcf'] rather than the intended ['ad', 'ae', 'af', 'bd', 'be', |
| 1512 | 'bf', 'cd', 'ce', 'cf']. Now, this is flagged as a syntax error. |
| 1513 | Note that [a for a in <singleton>] is a convoluted way to say |
| 1514 | [<singleton>] anyway, so it's not like any expressiveness is lost. |
| 1515 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1516 | - getattr(obj, name, default) now only catches AttributeError, as |
| 1517 | documented, rather than returning the default value for all |
| 1518 | exceptions (which could mask bugs in a __getattr__ hook, for |
| 1519 | example). |
| 1520 | |
Fred Drake | cb7a6b5 | 2001-10-22 18:41:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1521 | - Weak reference objects are now part of the core and offer a C API. |
Fred Drake | 934d2a4 | 2001-10-18 18:18:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1522 | A bug which could allow a core dump when binary operations involved |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 51c1816 | 2001-10-22 01:47:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1523 | proxy reference has been fixed. weakref.ReferenceError is now a |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1524 | built-in exception. |
Fred Drake | 934d2a4 | 2001-10-18 18:18:06 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1525 | |
Guido van Rossum | 1c48609 | 2001-10-19 02:05:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1526 | - unicode(obj) now behaves more like str(obj), accepting arbitrary |
| 1527 | objects, and calling a __unicode__ method if it exists. |
| 1528 | unicode(obj, encoding) and unicode(obj, encoding, errors) still |
Marc-André Lemburg | b5507ec | 2001-10-19 12:02:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1529 | require an 8-bit string or character buffer argument. |
Guido van Rossum | 1c48609 | 2001-10-19 02:05:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1530 | |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1531 | - isinstance() now allows any object as the first argument and a |
| 1532 | class, a type or something with a __bases__ tuple attribute for the |
| 1533 | second argument. The second argument may also be a tuple of a |
| 1534 | class, type, or something with __bases__, in which case isinstance() |
| 1535 | will return true if the first argument is an instance of any of the |
| 1536 | things contained in the second argument tuple. E.g. |
| 1537 | |
| 1538 | isinstance(x, (A, B)) |
| 1539 | |
| 1540 | returns true if x is an instance of A or B. |
| 1541 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1542 | Extension modules |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1543 | ----------------- |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1544 | |
| 1545 | - thread.start_new_thread() now returns the thread ID (previously None). |
| 1546 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 16dc7f4 | 2001-09-30 20:32:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1547 | - binascii has now two quopri support functions, a2b_qp and b2a_qp. |
| 1548 | |
Guido van Rossum | c524d95 | 2001-10-19 01:31:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1549 | - readline now supports setting the startup_hook and the |
| 1550 | pre_event_hook, and adds the add_history() function. |
Martin v. Löwis | 0daad59 | 2001-09-30 21:09:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1551 | |
Guido van Rossum | c524d95 | 2001-10-19 01:31:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1552 | - os and posix supports chroot(), setgroups() and unsetenv() where |
| 1553 | available. The stat(), fstat(), statvfs() and fstatvfs() functions |
| 1554 | now return "pseudo-sequences" -- the various fields can now be |
| 1555 | accessed as attributes (e.g. os.stat("/").st_mtime) but for |
| 1556 | backwards compatibility they also behave as a fixed-length sequence. |
| 1557 | Some platform-specific fields (e.g. st_rdev) are only accessible as |
Guido van Rossum | 98bf58f | 2001-10-18 20:34:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1558 | attributes. |
| 1559 | |
| 1560 | - time: localtime(), gmtime() and strptime() now return a |
| 1561 | pseudo-sequence similar to the os.stat() return value, with |
| 1562 | attributes like tm_year etc. |
Martin v. Löwis | 16628c9 | 2001-10-04 22:46:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1563 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1564 | - Decompression objects in the zlib module now accept an optional |
| 1565 | second parameter to decompress() that specifies the maximum amount |
| 1566 | of memory to use for the uncompressed data. |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1567 | |
Jeremy Hylton | cb44143 | 2001-10-19 03:40:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1568 | - optional SSL support in the socket module now exports OpenSSL |
| 1569 | functions RAND_add(), RAND_egd(), and RAND_status(). These calls |
| 1570 | are useful on platforms like Solaris where OpenSSL does not |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1571 | automatically seed its PRNG. Also, the keyfile and certfile |
| 1572 | arguments to socket.ssl() are now optional. |
| 1573 | |
| 1574 | - posixmodule (and by extension, the os module on POSIX platforms) now |
| 1575 | exports O_LARGEFILE, O_DIRECT, O_DIRECTORY, and O_NOFOLLOW. |
Jeremy Hylton | cb44143 | 2001-10-19 03:40:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1576 | |
Guido van Rossum | 9074ef6 | 2001-10-16 21:34:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1577 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1578 | ------- |
Guido van Rossum | 3c28863 | 2001-10-16 21:13:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1579 | |
Tim Peters | 7402f79 | 2001-10-02 03:53:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1580 | - doctest now excludes functions and classes not defined by the module |
| 1581 | being tested, thanks to Tim Hochberg. |
| 1582 | |
Fred Drake | cb7a6b5 | 2001-10-22 18:41:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1583 | - HotShot, a new profiler implemented using a C-based callback, has |
| 1584 | been added. This substantially reduces the overhead of profiling, |
| 1585 | but it is still quite preliminary. Support modules and |
| 1586 | documentation will be added in upcoming releases (before 2.2 final). |
| 1587 | |
Guido van Rossum | c4b09b4 | 2001-10-04 10:19:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1588 | - profile now produces correct output in situations where an exception |
| 1589 | raised in Python is cleared by C code (e.g. hasattr()). This used |
| 1590 | to cause wrong output, including spurious claims of recursive |
| 1591 | functions and attribution of time spent to the wrong function. |
| 1592 | |
Tim Peters | 0a1fc4e | 2001-10-07 03:12:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1593 | The code and documentation for the derived OldProfile and HotProfile |
| 1594 | profiling classes was removed. The code hasn't worked for years (if |
| 1595 | you tried to use them, they raised exceptions). OldProfile |
| 1596 | intended to reproduce the behavior of the profiler Python used more |
| 1597 | than 7 years ago, and isn't interesting anymore. HotProfile intended |
| 1598 | to provide a faster profiler (but producing less information), and |
| 1599 | that's a worthy goal we intend to meet via a different approach (but |
| 1600 | without losing information). |
| 1601 | |
Tim Peters | cce092d | 2001-10-09 05:31:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1602 | - Profile.calibrate() has a new implementation that should deliver |
Tim Peters | 659a603 | 2001-10-09 20:51:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1603 | a much better system-specific calibration constant. The constant can |
| 1604 | now be specified in an instance constructor, or as a Profile class or |
| 1605 | instance variable, instead of by editing profile.py's source code. |
| 1606 | Calibration must still be done manually (see the docs for the profile |
| 1607 | module). |
| 1608 | |
| 1609 | Note that Profile.calibrate() must be overriden by subclasses. |
| 1610 | Improving the accuracy required exploiting detailed knowledge of |
| 1611 | profiler internals; the earlier method abstracted away the details |
| 1612 | and measured a simplified model instead, but consequently computed |
| 1613 | a constant too small by a factor of 2 on some modern machines. |
Tim Peters | cce092d | 2001-10-09 05:31:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1614 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 16dc7f4 | 2001-09-30 20:32:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1615 | - quopri's encode and decode methods take an optional header parameter, |
Jeremy Hylton | 6f543b6 | 2001-10-16 20:42:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1616 | which indicates whether output is intended for the header 'Q' |
| 1617 | encoding. |
| 1618 | |
Guido van Rossum | a5343cc | 2001-10-18 18:02:07 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1619 | - The SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn class now closes the request after |
| 1620 | finish_request() returns. (Not when it errors out though.) |
| 1621 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1622 | - The nntplib module's NNTP.body() method has grown a 'file' argument |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1623 | to allow saving the message body to a file. |
| 1624 | |
| 1625 | - The email package has added a class email.Parser.HeaderParser which |
| 1626 | only parses headers and does not recurse into the message's body. |
| 1627 | Also, the module/class MIMEAudio has been added for representing |
| 1628 | audio data (contributed by Anthony Baxter). |
| 1629 | |
| 1630 | - ftplib should be able to handle files > 2GB. |
| 1631 | |
| 1632 | - ConfigParser.getboolean() now also interprets TRUE, FALSE, YES, NO, |
| 1633 | ON, and OFF. |
| 1634 | |
Fred Drake | cb7a6b5 | 2001-10-22 18:41:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1635 | - xml.dom.minidom NodeList objects now support the length attribute |
| 1636 | and item() method as required by the DOM specifications. |
| 1637 | |
Guido van Rossum | ed554f6 | 2001-10-02 23:15:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1638 | Tools/Demos |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1639 | ----------- |
Guido van Rossum | ed554f6 | 2001-10-02 23:15:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1640 | |
| 1641 | - Demo/dns was removed. It no longer serves any purpose; a package |
| 1642 | derived from it is now maintained by Anthony Baxter, see |
| 1643 | http://PyDNS.SourceForge.net. |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1644 | |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1645 | - The freeze tool has been made more robust, and two new options have |
| 1646 | been added: -X and -E. |
| 1647 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1648 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1649 | ----- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1650 | |
Barry Warsaw | f6fb171 | 2001-10-19 05:35:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1651 | - configure will use CXX in LINKCC if CXX is used to build main() and |
| 1652 | the system requires to link a C++ main using the C++ compiler. |
| 1653 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1654 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1655 | ----- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1656 | |
Guido van Rossum | 6c4bce3 | 2001-10-18 19:20:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1657 | - The documentation for the tp_compare slot is updated to require that |
| 1658 | the return value must be -1, 0, 1; an arbitrary number <0 or >0 is |
| 1659 | not correct. This is not yet enforced but will be enforced in |
| 1660 | Python 2.3; even later, we may use -2 to indicate errors and +2 for |
| 1661 | "NotImplemented". Right now, -1 should be used for an error return. |
| 1662 | |
Tim Peters | d38b1c7 | 2001-09-30 05:09:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1663 | - PyLong_AsLongLong() now accepts int (as well as long) arguments. |
| 1664 | Consequently, PyArg_ParseTuple's 'L' code also accepts int (as well |
| 1665 | as long) arguments. |
| 1666 | |
Guido van Rossum | 3c28863 | 2001-10-16 21:13:49 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1667 | - PyThread_start_new_thread() now returns a long int giving the thread |
| 1668 | ID, if one can be calculated; it returns -1 for error, 0 if no |
| 1669 | thread ID is calculated (this is an incompatible change, but only |
| 1670 | the thread module used this API). This code has only really been |
| 1671 | tested on Linux and Windows; other platforms please beware (and |
| 1672 | report any bugs or strange behavior). |
| 1673 | |
Guido van Rossum | 1c48609 | 2001-10-19 02:05:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1674 | - PyUnicode_FromEncodedObject() no longer accepts Unicode objects as |
| 1675 | input. |
| 1676 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1677 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1678 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1679 | |
| 1680 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1681 | ----- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1682 | |
| 1683 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1684 | ------- |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1685 | |
Tim Peters | 04cf1d3 | 2001-10-09 22:39:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1686 | - Installer: If you install IDLE, and don't disable file-extension |
| 1687 | registration, a new "Edit with IDLE" context (right-click) menu entry |
| 1688 | is created for .py and .pyw files. |
| 1689 | |
Tim Peters | 1ce3cf7 | 2001-10-01 17:58:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1690 | - The signal module now supports SIGBREAK on Windows, thanks to Steven |
| 1691 | Scott. Note that SIGBREAK is unique to Windows. The default SIGBREAK |
| 1692 | action remains to call Win32 ExitProcess(). This can be changed via |
Skip Montanaro | a2a07bc | 2002-09-30 15:23:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1693 | signal.signal(). For example:: |
Tim Peters | 1ce3cf7 | 2001-10-01 17:58:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1694 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1695 | # Make Ctrl+Break raise KeyboardInterrupt, like Python's default Ctrl+C |
| 1696 | # (SIGINT) behavior. |
| 1697 | import signal |
| 1698 | signal.signal(signal.SIGBREAK, signal.default_int_handler) |
Tim Peters | 1ce3cf7 | 2001-10-01 17:58:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1699 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1700 | try: |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1701 | while 1: |
| 1702 | pass |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1703 | except KeyboardInterrupt: |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1704 | # We get here on Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Break now; if we had not changed |
| 1705 | # SIGBREAK, only on Ctrl+C (and Ctrl+Break would terminate the |
| 1706 | # program without the possibility for any Python-level cleanup). |
| 1707 | print "Clean exit" |
Tim Peters | 1ce3cf7 | 2001-10-01 17:58:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1708 | |
Tim Peters | abf925f | 2001-09-28 21:53:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1709 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1710 | What's New in Python 2.2a4? |
| 1711 | =========================== |
| 1712 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1713 | *Release date: 28-Sep-2001* |
| 1714 | |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1715 | Type/class unification and new-style classes |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1716 | -------------------------------------------- |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1717 | |
| 1718 | - pydoc and inspect are now aware of new-style classes; |
| 1719 | e.g. help(list) at the interactive prompt now shows proper |
| 1720 | documentation for all operations on list objects. |
| 1721 | |
| 1722 | - Applications using Jim Fulton's ExtensionClass module can now safely |
| 1723 | be used with Python 2.2. In particular, Zope 2.4.1 now works with |
| 1724 | Python 2.2 (as well as with Python 2.1.1). The Demo/metaclass |
| 1725 | examples also work again. It is hoped that Gtk and Boost also work |
| 1726 | with 2.2a4 and beyond. (If you can confirm this, please write |
| 1727 | webmaster@python.org; if there are still problems, please open a bug |
| 1728 | report on SourceForge.) |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1729 | |
Tim Peters | 66c1a52 | 2001-09-24 21:17:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1730 | - property() now takes 4 keyword arguments: fget, fset, fdel and doc. |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1731 | These map to read-only attributes 'fget', 'fset', 'fdel', and '__doc__' |
Tim Peters | 66c1a52 | 2001-09-24 21:17:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1732 | in the constructed property object. fget, fset and fdel weren't |
| 1733 | discoverable from Python in 2.2a3. __doc__ is new, and allows to |
| 1734 | associate a docstring with a property. |
| 1735 | |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1736 | - Comparison overloading is now more completely implemented. For |
| 1737 | example, a str subclass instance can properly be compared to a str |
| 1738 | instance, and it can properly overload comparison. Ditto for most |
| 1739 | other built-in object types. |
| 1740 | |
| 1741 | - The repr() of new-style classes has changed; instead of <type |
| 1742 | 'M.Foo'> a new-style class is now rendered as <class 'M.Foo'>, |
| 1743 | *except* for built-in types, which are still rendered as <type |
| 1744 | 'Foo'> (to avoid upsetting existing code that might parse or |
| 1745 | otherwise rely on repr() of certain type objects). |
| 1746 | |
| 1747 | - The repr() of new-style objects is now always <Foo object at XXX>; |
| 1748 | previously, it was sometimes <Foo instance at XXX>. |
| 1749 | |
| 1750 | - For new-style classes, what was previously called __getattr__ is now |
| 1751 | called __getattribute__. This method, if defined, is called for |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 51c1816 | 2001-10-22 01:47:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1752 | *every* attribute access. A new __getattr__ hook more similar to the |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1753 | one in classic classes is defined which is called only if regular |
| 1754 | attribute access raises AttributeError; to catch *all* attribute |
| 1755 | access, you can use __getattribute__ (for new-style classes). If |
| 1756 | both are defined, __getattribute__ is called first, and if it raises |
| 1757 | AttributeError, __getattr__ is called. |
| 1758 | |
| 1759 | - The __class__ attribute of new-style objects can be assigned to. |
| 1760 | The new class must have the same C-level object layout as the old |
| 1761 | class. |
| 1762 | |
| 1763 | - The builtin file type can be subclassed now. In the usual pattern, |
| 1764 | "file" is the name of the builtin type, and file() is a new builtin |
| 1765 | constructor, with the same signature as the builtin open() function. |
| 1766 | file() is now the preferred way to open a file. |
| 1767 | |
| 1768 | - Previously, __new__ would only see sequential arguments passed to |
| 1769 | the type in a constructor call; __init__ would see both sequential |
| 1770 | and keyword arguments. This made no sense whatsoever any more, so |
| 1771 | now both __new__ and __init__ see all arguments. |
| 1772 | |
| 1773 | - Previously, hash() applied to an instance of a subclass of str or |
| 1774 | unicode always returned 0. This has been repaired. |
| 1775 | |
| 1776 | - Previously, an operation on an instance of a subclass of an |
| 1777 | immutable type (int, long, float, complex, tuple, str, unicode), |
| 1778 | where the subtype didn't override the operation (and so the |
| 1779 | operation was handled by the builtin type), could return that |
| 1780 | instance instead a value of the base type. For example, if s was of |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 21b23b0 | 2002-05-07 20:58:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1781 | a str subclass type, s[:] returned s as-is. Now it returns a str |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1782 | with the same value as s. |
| 1783 | |
Barry Warsaw | 86fbaf8 | 2001-09-28 15:26:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1784 | - Provisional support for pickling new-style objects has been added. |
| 1785 | |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1786 | Core |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1787 | ---- |
Guido van Rossum | 808eea7 | 2001-09-25 04:15:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1788 | |
Tim Peters | 2c9aa5e | 2001-09-23 04:06:05 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1789 | - file.writelines() now accepts any iterable object producing strings. |
| 1790 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | aefd766 | 2001-09-20 12:59:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1791 | - PyUnicode_FromEncodedObject() now works very much like |
| 1792 | PyObject_Str(obj) in that it tries to use __str__/tp_str |
| 1793 | on the object if the object is not a string or buffer. This |
| 1794 | makes unicode() behave like str() when applied to non-string/buffer |
| 1795 | objects. |
| 1796 | |
Andrew M. Kuchling | 51c1816 | 2001-10-22 01:47:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1797 | - PyFile_WriteObject now passes Unicode objects to the file's write |
| 1798 | method. As a result, all file-like objects which may be the target |
Martin v. Löwis | 2777c02 | 2001-09-19 13:47:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1799 | of a print statement must support Unicode objects, i.e. they must |
| 1800 | at least convert them into ASCII strings. |
| 1801 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1802 | - Thread scheduling on Solaris should be improved; it is no longer |
| 1803 | necessary to insert a small sleep at the start of a thread in order |
| 1804 | to let other runnable threads be scheduled. |
| 1805 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1806 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1807 | ------- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1808 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | bf99017 | 2001-09-27 14:17:33 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1809 | - StringIO.StringIO instances and cStringIO.StringIO instances support |
| 1810 | read character buffer compatible objects for their .write() methods. |
| 1811 | These objects are converted to strings and then handled as such |
| 1812 | by the instances. |
| 1813 | |
Barry Warsaw | 2f60073 | 2001-09-24 04:28:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1814 | - The "email" package has been added. This is basically a port of the |
| 1815 | mimelib package <http://sf.net/projects/mimelib> with API changes |
| 1816 | and some implementations updated to use iterators and generators. |
| 1817 | |
Tim Peters | 8a9c284 | 2001-09-22 21:30:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1818 | - difflib.ndiff() and difflib.Differ.compare() are generators now. This |
| 1819 | restores the ability of Tools/scripts/ndiff.py to start producing output |
| 1820 | before the entire comparison is complete. |
| 1821 | |
Barry Warsaw | 58b072d | 2001-09-22 04:44:21 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1822 | - StringIO.StringIO instances and cStringIO.StringIO instances support |
| 1823 | iteration just like file objects (i.e. their .readline() method is |
| 1824 | called for each iteration until it returns an empty string). |
| 1825 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 494f2ae | 2001-09-19 11:33:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1826 | - The codecs module has grown four new helper APIs to access |
| 1827 | builtin codecs: getencoder(), getdecoder(), getreader(), |
| 1828 | getwriter(). |
| 1829 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1830 | - SimpleXMLRPCServer: a new module (based upon SimpleHTMLServer) |
| 1831 | simplifies writing XML RPC servers. |
| 1832 | |
Barry Warsaw | 647d5e8 | 2001-09-28 17:01:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1833 | - os.path.realpath(): a new function that returns the absolute pathname |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1834 | after interpretation of symbolic links. On non-Unix systems, this |
| 1835 | is an alias for os.path.abspath(). |
| 1836 | |
Tim Peters | 16a77ad | 2001-09-08 04:00:12 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1837 | - operator.indexOf() (PySequence_Index() in the C API) now works with any |
| 1838 | iterable object. |
| 1839 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1840 | - smtplib now supports various authentication and security features of |
| 1841 | the SMTP protocol through the new login() and starttls() methods. |
Guido van Rossum | d8185ca | 2001-09-14 16:35:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1842 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1843 | - hmac: a new module implementing keyed hashing for message |
| 1844 | authentication. |
| 1845 | |
| 1846 | - mimetypes now recognizes more extensions and file types. At the |
| 1847 | same time, some mappings not sanctioned by IANA were removed. |
Guido van Rossum | d8185ca | 2001-09-14 16:35:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1848 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1849 | - The "compiler" package has been brought up to date to the state of |
Guido van Rossum | c9ed5dc | 2001-09-20 05:30:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1850 | Python 2.2 bytecode generation. It has also been promoted from a |
| 1851 | Tool to a standard library package. (Tools/compiler still exists as |
| 1852 | a sample driver.) |
| 1853 | |
Guido van Rossum | c9ed5dc | 2001-09-20 05:30:24 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1854 | Tools |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1855 | ----- |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1856 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1857 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1858 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1859 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1860 | - Large file support (LFS) is now automatic when the platform supports |
| 1861 | it; no more manual configuration tweaks are needed. On Linux, at |
| 1862 | least, it's possible to have a system whose C library supports large |
| 1863 | files but whose kernel doesn't; in this case, large file support is |
| 1864 | still enabled but doesn't do you any good unless you upgrade your |
| 1865 | kernel or share your Python executable with another system whose |
| 1866 | kernel has large file support. |
| 1867 | |
| 1868 | - The configure script now supplies plausible defaults in a |
| 1869 | cross-compilation environment. This doesn't mean that the supplied |
| 1870 | values are always correct, or that cross-compilation now works |
| 1871 | flawlessly -- but it's a first step (and it shuts up most of |
| 1872 | autoconf's warnings about AC_TRY_RUN). |
| 1873 | |
| 1874 | - The Unix build is now a bit less chatty, courtesy of the parser |
| 1875 | generator. The build is completely silent (except for errors) when |
| 1876 | using "make -s", thanks to a -q option to setup.py. |
| 1877 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1878 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1879 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1880 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1881 | - The "structmember" API now supports some new flag bits to deny read |
| 1882 | and/or write access to attributes in restricted execution mode. |
| 1883 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1884 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1885 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1886 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1887 | - Compaq's iPAQ handheld, running the "familiar" Linux distribution |
| 1888 | (http://familiar.handhelds.org). |
| 1889 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1890 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1891 | ----- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1892 | |
Tim Peters | 8a9c284 | 2001-09-22 21:30:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1893 | - The "classic" standard tests, which work by comparing stdout to |
| 1894 | an expected-output file under Lib/test/output/, no longer stop at |
| 1895 | the first mismatch. Instead the test is run to completion, and a |
| 1896 | variant of ndiff-style comparison is used to report all differences. |
| 1897 | This is much easier to understand than the previous style of reporting. |
| 1898 | |
| 1899 | - The unittest-based standard tests now use regrtest's test_main() |
| 1900 | convention, instead of running as a side-effect of merely being |
| 1901 | imported. This allows these tests to be run in more natural and |
| 1902 | flexible ways as unittests, outside the regrtest framework. |
| 1903 | |
| 1904 | - regrtest.py is much better integrated with unittest and doctest now, |
| 1905 | especially in regard to reporting errors. |
| 1906 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1907 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1908 | ------- |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1909 | |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1910 | - Large file support now also works for files > 4GB, on filesystems |
Tim Peters | 8a9c284 | 2001-09-22 21:30:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1911 | that support it (NTFS under Windows 2000). See "What's New in |
| 1912 | Python 2.2a3" for more detail. |
Guido van Rossum | 624c8af | 2001-09-18 15:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1913 | |
Tim Peters | b07352e | 2001-09-08 01:25:47 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1914 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1915 | What's New in Python 2.2a3? |
| 1916 | =========================== |
| 1917 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1918 | *Release Date: 07-Sep-2001* |
| 1919 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1920 | Core |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1921 | ---- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1922 | |
Tim Peters | 9fffa3e | 2001-09-04 05:14:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1923 | - Conversion of long to float now raises OverflowError if the long is too |
| 1924 | big to represent as a C double. |
| 1925 | |
Tim Peters | 32f453e | 2001-09-03 08:35:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1926 | - The 3-argument builtin pow() no longer allows a third non-None argument |
| 1927 | if either of the first two arguments is a float, or if both are of |
| 1928 | integer types and the second argument is negative (in which latter case |
| 1929 | the arguments are converted to float, so this is really the same |
| 1930 | restriction). |
| 1931 | |
Tim Peters | 5d2b77c | 2001-09-03 05:47:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1932 | - The builtin dir() now returns more information, and sometimes much |
| 1933 | more, generally naming all attributes of an object, and all attributes |
| 1934 | reachable from the object via its class, and from its class's base |
| 1935 | classes, and so on from them too. Example: in 2.2a2, dir([]) returned |
| 1936 | an empty list. In 2.2a3, |
| 1937 | |
| 1938 | >>> dir([]) |
| 1939 | ['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__delitem__', |
| 1940 | '__eq__', '__ge__', '__getattr__', '__getitem__', '__getslice__', |
| 1941 | '__gt__', '__hash__', '__iadd__', '__imul__', '__init__', '__le__', |
| 1942 | '__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__repr__', |
| 1943 | '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__setslice__', '__str__', |
| 1944 | 'append', 'count', 'extend', 'index', 'insert', 'pop', 'remove', |
| 1945 | 'reverse', 'sort'] |
| 1946 | |
| 1947 | dir(module) continues to return only the module's attributes, though. |
| 1948 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1949 | - Overflowing operations on plain ints now return a long int rather |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1950 | than raising OverflowError. This is a partial implementation of PEP |
| 1951 | 237. You can use -Wdefault::OverflowWarning to enable a warning for |
| 1952 | this situation, and -Werror::OverflowWarning to revert to the old |
| 1953 | OverflowError exception. |
| 1954 | |
Guido van Rossum | 61c345f | 2001-09-04 03:26:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1955 | - A new command line option, -Q<arg>, is added to control run-time |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1956 | warnings for the use of classic division. (See PEP 238.) Possible |
Barry Warsaw | d6c8ca6 | 2001-09-07 18:13:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1957 | values are -Qold, -Qwarn, -Qwarnall, and -Qnew. The default is |
| 1958 | -Qold, meaning the / operator has its classic meaning and no |
| 1959 | warnings are issued. Using -Qwarn issues a run-time warning about |
| 1960 | all uses of classic division for int and long arguments; -Qwarnall |
| 1961 | also warns about classic division for float and complex arguments |
Tim Peters | 3caca23 | 2001-12-06 06:23:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1962 | (for use with fixdiv.py). |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1963 | [Note: the remainder of this item (preserved below) became |
| 1964 | obsolete in 2.2c1 -- -Qnew has global effect in 2.2] :: |
| 1965 | |
| 1966 | Using -Qnew is questionable; it turns on new division by default, but |
| 1967 | only in the __main__ module. You can usefully combine -Qwarn or |
| 1968 | -Qwarnall and -Qnew: this gives the __main__ module new division, and |
| 1969 | warns about classic division everywhere else. |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1970 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1971 | - Many built-in types can now be subclassed. This applies to int, |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1972 | long, float, str, unicode, and tuple. (The types complex, list and |
| 1973 | dictionary can also be subclassed; this was introduced earlier.) |
| 1974 | Note that restrictions apply when subclassing immutable built-in |
| 1975 | types: you can only affect the value of the instance by overloading |
| 1976 | __new__. You can add mutable attributes, and the subclass instances |
| 1977 | will have a __dict__ attribute, but you cannot change the "value" |
| 1978 | (as implemented by the base class) of an immutable subclass instance |
| 1979 | once it is created. |
| 1980 | |
Guido van Rossum | aaf80c8 | 2001-09-02 13:44:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1981 | - The dictionary constructor now takes an optional argument, a |
| 1982 | mapping-like object, and initializes the dictionary from its |
| 1983 | (key, value) pairs. |
| 1984 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1985 | - A new built-in type, super, has been added. This facilitates making |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1986 | "cooperative super calls" in a multiple inheritance setting. For an |
| 1987 | explanation, see http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html#cooperation |
| 1988 | |
Guido van Rossum | 8d7234d | 2001-09-06 22:02:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1989 | - A new built-in type, property, has been added. This enables the |
| 1990 | creation of "properties". These are attributes implemented by |
| 1991 | getter and setter functions (or only one of these for read-only or |
| 1992 | write-only attributes), without the need to override __getattr__. |
| 1993 | See http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html#property |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1994 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1995 | - The syntax of floating-point and imaginary literals has been |
Tim Peters | d507dab | 2001-08-30 20:51:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1996 | liberalized, to allow leading zeroes. Examples of literals now |
| 1997 | legal that were SyntaxErrors before: |
| 1998 | |
| 1999 | 00.0 0e3 0100j 07.5 00000000000000000008. |
| 2000 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2001 | - An old tokenizer bug allowed floating point literals with an incomplete |
Tim Peters | c6d9581 | 2001-08-28 20:56:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2002 | exponent, such as 1e and 3.1e-. Such literals now raise SyntaxError. |
| 2003 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2004 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2005 | ------- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2006 | |
Martin v. Löwis | cb227c9 | 2001-09-06 08:54:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2007 | - telnetlib includes symbolic names for the options, and support for |
Martin v. Löwis | 1da9c57 | 2002-11-04 09:56:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2008 | setting an option negotiation callback. It also supports processing |
| 2009 | of suboptions. |
Martin v. Löwis | cb227c9 | 2001-09-06 08:54:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2010 | |
Tim Peters | a40c793 | 2001-09-05 22:36:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2011 | - The new C standard no longer requires that math libraries set errno to |
| 2012 | ERANGE on overflow. For platform libraries that exploit this new |
| 2013 | freedom, Python's overflow-checking was wholly broken. A new overflow- |
| 2014 | checking scheme attempts to repair that, but may not be reliable on all |
| 2015 | platforms (C doesn't seem to provide anything both useful and portable |
| 2016 | in this area anymore). |
| 2017 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 44f8696 | 2001-09-05 13:44:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2018 | - Asynchronous timeout actions are available through the new class |
| 2019 | threading.Timer. |
| 2020 | |
Tim Peters | 7852616 | 2001-09-05 00:53:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2021 | - math.log and math.log10 now return sensible results for even huge |
| 2022 | long arguments. For example, math.log10(10 ** 10000) ~= 10000.0. |
| 2023 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2024 | - A new function, imp.lock_held(), returns 1 when the import lock is |
Tim Peters | 6923234 | 2001-08-30 05:16:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2025 | currently held. See the docs for the imp module. |
| 2026 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2027 | - pickle, cPickle and marshal on 32-bit platforms can now correctly read |
Tim Peters | 8211237 | 2001-08-29 02:28:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2028 | dumps containing ints written on platforms where Python ints are 8 bytes. |
| 2029 | When read on a box where Python ints are 4 bytes, such values are |
| 2030 | converted to Python longs. |
| 2031 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2032 | - In restricted execution mode (using the rexec module), unmarshalling |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2033 | code objects is no longer allowed. This plugs a security hole. |
| 2034 | |
Steve Purcell | 6091cd6 | 2001-09-06 16:05:17 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2035 | - unittest.TestResult instances no longer store references to tracebacks |
| 2036 | generated by test failures. This prevents unexpected dangling references |
| 2037 | to objects that should be garbage collected between tests. |
| 2038 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2039 | Tools |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2040 | ----- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2041 | |
Barry Warsaw | d6c8ca6 | 2001-09-07 18:13:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2042 | - Tools/scripts/fixdiv.py has been added which can be used to fix |
| 2043 | division operators as per PEP 238. |
| 2044 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2045 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2046 | ----- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2047 | |
Barry Warsaw | d6c8ca6 | 2001-09-07 18:13:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2048 | - If you are an adventurous person using Mac OS X you may want to look at |
| 2049 | Mac/OSX. There is a Makefile there that will build Python as a real Mac |
| 2050 | application, which can be used for experimenting with Carbon or Cocoa. |
| 2051 | Discussion of this on pythonmac-sig, please. |
| 2052 | |
Tim Peters | 7eea37e | 2001-09-04 22:08:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2053 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2054 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 7eea37e | 2001-09-04 22:08:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2055 | |
| 2056 | - New function PyObject_Dir(obj), like Python __builtin__.dir(obj). |
Tim Peters | 6923234 | 2001-08-30 05:16:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2057 | |
Tim Peters | 9fffa3e | 2001-09-04 05:14:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2058 | - Note that PyLong_AsDouble can fail! This has always been true, but no |
| 2059 | callers checked for it. It's more likely to fail now, because overflow |
Skip Montanaro | a2a07bc | 2002-09-30 15:23:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2060 | errors are properly detected now. The proper way to check:: |
Tim Peters | 9fffa3e | 2001-09-04 05:14:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2061 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2062 | double x = PyLong_AsDouble(some_long_object); |
| 2063 | if (x == -1.0 && PyErr_Occurred()) { |
Raymond Hettinger | af72d52 | 2002-12-29 20:14:11 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2064 | /* The conversion failed. */ |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2065 | } |
Tim Peters | 9fffa3e | 2001-09-04 05:14:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2066 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2067 | - The GC API has been changed. Extensions that use the old API will still |
Neil Schemenauer | 4042c69 | 2001-08-30 15:38:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2068 | compile but will not participate in GC. To upgrade an extension |
| 2069 | module: |
| 2070 | |
| 2071 | - rename Py_TPFLAGS_GC to PyTPFLAGS_HAVE_GC |
Tim Peters | d507dab | 2001-08-30 20:51:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2072 | |
Neil Schemenauer | 4042c69 | 2001-08-30 15:38:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2073 | - use PyObject_GC_New or PyObject_GC_NewVar to allocate objects and |
| 2074 | PyObject_GC_Del to deallocate them |
Tim Peters | d507dab | 2001-08-30 20:51:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2075 | |
Neil Schemenauer | 4042c69 | 2001-08-30 15:38:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2076 | - rename PyObject_GC_Init to PyObject_GC_Track and PyObject_GC_Fini |
| 2077 | to PyObject_GC_UnTrack |
Tim Peters | d507dab | 2001-08-30 20:51:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2078 | |
Neil Schemenauer | 4042c69 | 2001-08-30 15:38:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2079 | - remove PyGC_HEAD_SIZE from object size calculations |
| 2080 | |
| 2081 | - remove calls to PyObject_AS_GC and PyObject_FROM_GC |
| 2082 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2083 | - Two new functions: PyString_FromFormat() and PyString_FromFormatV(). |
Guido van Rossum | ae45714 | 2001-08-31 18:31:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2084 | These can be used safely to construct string objects from a |
| 2085 | sprintf-style format string (similar to the format string supported |
| 2086 | by PyErr_Format()). |
Tim Peters | 6923234 | 2001-08-30 05:16:13 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2087 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2088 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2089 | ------------- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2090 | |
Tim Peters | b7da090 | 2001-09-02 23:01:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2091 | - Stephen Hansen contributed patches sufficient to get a clean compile |
| 2092 | under Borland C (Windows), but he reports problems running it and ran |
| 2093 | out of time to complete the port. Volunteers? Expect a MemoryError |
| 2094 | when importing the types module; this is probably shallow, and |
| 2095 | causing later failures too. |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2096 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2097 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2098 | ----- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2099 | |
| 2100 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2101 | ------- |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2102 | |
Tim Peters | 6e13a56 | 2001-09-06 00:32:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2103 | - Large file support is now enabled on Win32 platforms as well as on |
| 2104 | Win64. This means that, for example, you can use f.tell() and f.seek() |
| 2105 | to manipulate files larger than 2 gigabytes (provided you have enough |
| 2106 | disk space, and are using a Windows filesystem that supports large |
Tim Peters | 9a9471c | 2001-09-11 23:18:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2107 | partitions). Windows filesystem limits: FAT has a 2GB (gigabyte) |
| 2108 | filesize limit, and large file support makes no difference there. |
| 2109 | FAT32's limit is 4GB, and files >= 2GB are easier to use from Python now. |
| 2110 | NTFS has no practical limit on file size, and files of any size can be |
| 2111 | used from Python now. |
Tim Peters | 6e13a56 | 2001-09-06 00:32:15 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2112 | |
Tim Peters | bdee63f | 2001-09-02 03:40:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2113 | - The w9xpopen hack is now used on Windows NT and 2000 too when COMPSPEC |
Tim Peters | 402d598 | 2001-08-27 06:37:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2114 | points to command.com (patch from Brian Quinlan). |
| 2115 | |
Tim Peters | edc9931 | 2001-08-22 21:36:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2116 | |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2117 | What's New in Python 2.2a2? |
| 2118 | =========================== |
| 2119 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2120 | *Release Date: 22-Aug-2001* |
| 2121 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 339d0f7 | 2001-08-17 18:39:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2122 | Build |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2123 | ----- |
Martin v. Löwis | 339d0f7 | 2001-08-17 18:39:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2124 | |
Barry Warsaw | 18b2ecf | 2001-08-22 20:26:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2125 | - Tim Peters developed a brand new Windows installer using Wise 8.1, |
| 2126 | generously donated to us by Wise Solutions. |
| 2127 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 339d0f7 | 2001-08-17 18:39:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2128 | - configure supports a new option --enable-unicode, with the values |
| 2129 | ucs2 and ucs4 (new in 2.2a1). With --disable-unicode, the Unicode |
| 2130 | type and supporting code is completely removed from the interpreter. |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2131 | |
Jack Jansen | 32ce0cd | 2001-08-21 19:28:20 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2132 | - A new configure option --enable-framework builds a Mac OS X framework, |
| 2133 | which "make frameworkinstall" will install. This provides a starting |
| 2134 | point for more mac-like functionality, join pythonmac-sig@python.org |
| 2135 | if you are interested in helping. |
Martin v. Löwis | 339d0f7 | 2001-08-17 18:39:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2136 | |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2137 | - The NeXT platform is no longer supported. |
| 2138 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2139 | - The 'new' module is now statically linked. |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2140 | |
Tim Peters | 0afb609 | 2001-08-15 06:06:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2141 | Tools |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2142 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 0afb609 | 2001-08-15 06:06:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2143 | |
| 2144 | - The new Tools/scripts/cleanfuture.py can be used to automatically |
Andrew M. Kuchling | b053209 | 2001-08-15 15:54:56 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2145 | edit out obsolete future statements from Python source code. See |
Tim Peters | 0afb609 | 2001-08-15 06:06:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2146 | the module docstring for details. |
| 2147 | |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2148 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2149 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2150 | |
Tim Peters | 5e824c3 | 2001-08-12 22:25:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2151 | - regrtest.py now knows which tests are expected to be skipped on some |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2152 | platforms, allowing to give clearer test result output. regrtest |
| 2153 | also has optional --use/-u switch to run normally disabled tests |
| 2154 | which require network access or consume significant disk resources. |
Tim Peters | 5e824c3 | 2001-08-12 22:25:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2155 | |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2156 | - Several new tests in the standard test suite, with special thanks to |
| 2157 | Nick Mathewson. |
| 2158 | |
| 2159 | Core |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2160 | ---- |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2161 | |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2162 | - The floor division operator // has been added as outlined in PEP |
| 2163 | 238. The / operator still provides classic division (and will until |
| 2164 | Python 3.0) unless "from __future__ import division" is included, in |
| 2165 | which case the / operator will provide true division. The operator |
| 2166 | module provides truediv() and floordiv() functions. Augmented |
| 2167 | assignment variants are included, as are the equivalent overloadable |
| 2168 | methods and C API methods. See the PEP for a full discussion: |
| 2169 | <http://python.sf.net/peps/pep-0238.html> |
| 2170 | |
Tim Peters | 6cd6a82 | 2001-08-17 22:11:27 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2171 | - Future statements are now effective in simulated interactive shells |
| 2172 | (like IDLE). This should "just work" by magic, but read Michael |
| 2173 | Hudson's "Future statements in simulated shells" PEP 264 for full |
| 2174 | details: <http://python.sf.net/peps/pep-0264.html>. |
| 2175 | |
Guido van Rossum | f86ddd2 | 2001-08-17 21:21:04 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2176 | - The type/class unification (PEP 252-253) was integrated into the |
| 2177 | trunk and is not so tentative any more (the exact specification of |
| 2178 | some features is still tentative). A lot of work has done on fixing |
| 2179 | bugs and adding robustness and features (performance still has to |
| 2180 | come a long way). |
| 2181 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 888fac0 | 2001-07-31 14:24:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2182 | - Warnings about a mismatch in the Python API during extension import |
| 2183 | now use the Python warning framework (which makes it possible to |
| 2184 | write filters for these warnings). |
| 2185 | |
Barry Warsaw | 9b3be7f | 2001-08-14 18:35:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2186 | - A function's __dict__ (aka func_dict) will now always be a |
| 2187 | dictionary. It used to be possible to delete it or set it to None, |
| 2188 | but now both actions raise TypeErrors. It is still legal to set it |
| 2189 | to a dictionary object. Getting func.__dict__ before any attributes |
| 2190 | have been assigned now returns an empty dictionary instead of None. |
| 2191 | |
Guido van Rossum | 32aa5d2 | 2001-09-05 18:43:35 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2192 | - A new command line option, -E, was added which disables the use of |
| 2193 | all environment variables, or at least those that are specifically |
| 2194 | significant to Python. Usually those have a name starting with |
| 2195 | "PYTHON". This was used to fix a problem where the tests fail if |
| 2196 | the user happens to have PYTHONHOME or PYTHONPATH pointing to an |
| 2197 | older distribution. |
| 2198 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2199 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2200 | ------- |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2201 | |
Tim Peters | 5e824c3 | 2001-08-12 22:25:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2202 | - New class Differ and new functions ndiff() and restore() in difflib.py. |
| 2203 | These package the algorithms used by the popular Tools/scripts/ndiff.py, |
Tim Peters | 0afb609 | 2001-08-15 06:06:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2204 | for programmatic reuse. |
Tim Peters | 5e824c3 | 2001-08-12 22:25:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2205 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2206 | - New function xml.sax.saxutils.quoteattr(): Quote an XML attribute |
| 2207 | value using the minimal quoting required for the value; more |
| 2208 | reliable than using xml.sax.saxutils.escape() for attribute values. |
| 2209 | |
| 2210 | - Readline completion support for cmd.Cmd was added. |
| 2211 | |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2212 | - Calling os.tempnam() or os.tmpnam() generate RuntimeWarnings. |
| 2213 | |
| 2214 | - Added function threading.BoundedSemaphore() |
| 2215 | |
| 2216 | - Added Ka-Ping Yee's cgitb.py module. |
| 2217 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2218 | - The 'new' module now exposes the CO_xxx flags. |
Barry Warsaw | 6f3410d | 2001-08-22 04:08:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2219 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 560da62 | 2001-11-24 09:24:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2220 | - The gc module offers the get_referents function. |
| 2221 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2222 | New platforms |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2223 | ------------- |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2224 | |
| 2225 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2226 | ----- |
Marc-André Lemburg | d627791 | 2001-07-31 14:42:42 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2227 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 888fac0 | 2001-07-31 14:24:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2228 | - Two new APIs PyOS_snprintf() and PyOS_vsnprintf() were added |
| 2229 | which provide a cross-platform implementations for the |
| 2230 | relatively new snprintf()/vsnprintf() C lib APIs. In contrast to |
| 2231 | the standard sprintf() and vsprintf() C lib APIs, these versions |
| 2232 | apply bounds checking on the used buffer which enhances protection |
| 2233 | against buffer overruns. |
| 2234 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 48dbfe9 | 2001-07-31 14:37:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2235 | - Unicode APIs now use name mangling to assure that mixing interpreters |
Tim Peters | c173137 | 2001-08-04 08:12:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2236 | and extensions using different Unicode widths is rendered next to |
| 2237 | impossible. Trying to import an incompatible Unicode-aware extension |
Marc-André Lemburg | 48dbfe9 | 2001-07-31 14:37:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2238 | will result in an ImportError. Unicode extensions writers must make |
| 2239 | sure to check the Unicode width compatibility in their extensions by |
| 2240 | using at least one of the mangled Unicode APIs in the extension. |
| 2241 | |
Martin v. Löwis | 339d0f7 | 2001-08-17 18:39:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2242 | - Two new flags METH_NOARGS and METH_O are available in method definition |
| 2243 | tables to simplify implementation of methods with no arguments and a |
| 2244 | single untyped argument. Calling such methods is more efficient than |
| 2245 | calling corresponding METH_VARARGS methods. METH_OLDARGS is now |
| 2246 | deprecated. |
| 2247 | |
Tim Peters | c173137 | 2001-08-04 08:12:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2248 | Windows |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2249 | ------- |
Tim Peters | c173137 | 2001-08-04 08:12:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2250 | |
| 2251 | - "import module" now compiles module.pyw if it exists and nothing else |
| 2252 | relevant is found. |
| 2253 | |
Tim Peters | 20f51a7 | 2001-07-21 02:31:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2254 | |
Guido van Rossum | 55a7899 | 2001-07-17 17:22:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2255 | What's New in Python 2.2a1? |
Tim Peters | f553f89 | 2001-05-01 20:45:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2256 | =========================== |
| 2257 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2258 | *Release date: 18-Jul-2001* |
| 2259 | |
Tim Peters | f553f89 | 2001-05-01 20:45:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2260 | Core |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2261 | ---- |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2262 | |
Tim Peters | 6d6c1a3 | 2001-08-02 04:15:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2263 | - TENTATIVELY, a large amount of code implementing much of what's |
| 2264 | described in PEP 252 (Making Types Look More Like Classes) and PEP |
| 2265 | 253 (Subtyping Built-in Types) was added. This will be released |
| 2266 | with Python 2.2a1. Documentation will be provided separately |
| 2267 | through http://www.python.org/2.2/. The purpose of releasing this |
| 2268 | with Python 2.2a1 is to test backwards compatibility. It is |
| 2269 | possible, though not likely, that a decision is made not to release |
| 2270 | this code as part of 2.2 final, if any serious backwards |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2271 | incompatibilities are found during alpha testing that cannot be |
Tim Peters | 6d6c1a3 | 2001-08-02 04:15:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2272 | repaired. |
| 2273 | |
Guido van Rossum | 55a7899 | 2001-07-17 17:22:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2274 | - Generators were added; this is a new way to create an iterator (see |
Tim Peters | 11a0d10 | 2001-07-17 18:48:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2275 | below) using what looks like a simple function containing one or |
Guido van Rossum | 55a7899 | 2001-07-17 17:22:32 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2276 | more 'yield' statements. See PEP 255. Since this adds a new |
| 2277 | keyword to the language, this feature must be enabled by including a |
| 2278 | future statement: "from __future__ import generators" (see PEP 236). |
| 2279 | Generators will become a standard feature in a future release |
| 2280 | (probably 2.3). Without this future statement, 'yield' remains an |
| 2281 | ordinary identifier, but a warning is issued each time it is used. |
| 2282 | (These warnings currently don't conform to the warnings framework of |
| 2283 | PEP 230; we intend to fix this in 2.2a2.) |
| 2284 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | 12e74b3 | 2001-05-22 08:58:23 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2285 | - The UTF-16 codec was modified to be more RFC compliant. It will now |
| 2286 | only remove BOM characters at the start of the string and then |
| 2287 | only if running in native mode (UTF-16-LE and -BE won't remove a |
| 2288 | leading BMO character). |
| 2289 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | fab96cc | 2001-05-15 18:38:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2290 | - Strings now have a new method .decode() to complement the already |
| 2291 | existing .encode() method. These two methods provide direct access |
| 2292 | to the corresponding decoders and encoders of the registered codecs. |
| 2293 | |
| 2294 | To enhance the usability of the .encode() method, the special |
| 2295 | casing of Unicode object return values was dropped (Unicode objects |
| 2296 | were auto-magically converted to string using the default encoding). |
Tim Peters | eb28ef2 | 2001-06-02 05:27:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2297 | |
Marc-André Lemburg | fab96cc | 2001-05-15 18:38:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2298 | Both methods will now return whatever the codec in charge of the |
| 2299 | requested encoding returns as object, e.g. Unicode codecs will |
| 2300 | return Unicode objects when decoding is requested ("äöü".decode("latin-1") |
| 2301 | will return u"äöü"). This enables codec writer to create codecs |
| 2302 | for various simple to use conversions. |
| 2303 | |
| 2304 | New codecs were added to demonstrate these new features (the .encode() |
| 2305 | and .decode() columns indicate the type of the returned objects): |
| 2306 | |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2307 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2308 | |Name | .encode() | .decode() | Description | |
| 2309 | +=========+===========+===========+=============================+ |
| 2310 | |uu | string | string | UU codec (e.g. for email) | |
| 2311 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2312 | |base64 | string | string | base64 codec | |
| 2313 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2314 | |quopri | string | string | quoted-printable codec | |
| 2315 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2316 | |zlib | string | string | zlib compression | |
| 2317 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2318 | |hex | string | string | 2-byte hex codec | |
| 2319 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
| 2320 | |rot-13 | string | Unicode | ROT-13 Unicode charmap codec| |
| 2321 | +---------+-----------+-----------+-----------------------------+ |
Marc-André Lemburg | fab96cc | 2001-05-15 18:38:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2322 | |
Mark Hammond | 2a0af79 | 2001-05-14 03:09:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2323 | - Some operating systems now support the concept of a default Unicode |
| 2324 | encoding for file system operations. Notably, Windows supports 'mbcs' |
| 2325 | as the default. The Macintosh will also adopt this concept in the medium |
Guido van Rossum | 1bd797a | 2001-05-14 13:53:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2326 | term, although the default encoding for that platform will be other than |
Mark Hammond | 2a0af79 | 2001-05-14 03:09:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2327 | 'mbcs'. |
Guido van Rossum | 1bd797a | 2001-05-14 13:53:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2328 | |
| 2329 | On operating system that support non-ASCII filenames, it is common for |
Mark Hammond | 2a0af79 | 2001-05-14 03:09:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2330 | functions that return filenames (such as os.listdir()) to return Python |
| 2331 | string objects pre-encoded using the default file system encoding for |
| 2332 | the platform. As this encoding is likely to be different from Python's |
| 2333 | default encoding, converting this name to a Unicode object before passing |
| 2334 | it back to the Operating System would result in a Unicode error, as Python |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2335 | would attempt to use its default encoding (generally ASCII) rather than |
| 2336 | the default encoding for the file system. |
Guido van Rossum | 1bd797a | 2001-05-14 13:53:38 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2337 | |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2338 | In general, this change simply removes surprises when working with |
| 2339 | Unicode and the file system, making these operations work as you expect, |
| 2340 | increasing the transparency of Unicode objects in this context. |
Mark Hammond | 2a0af79 | 2001-05-14 03:09:36 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2341 | See [????] for more details, including examples. |
Tim Peters | f553f89 | 2001-05-01 20:45:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2342 | |
Tim Peters | 61dff2b | 2001-05-08 15:43:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2343 | - Float (and complex) literals in source code were evaluated to full |
| 2344 | precision only when running from a .py file; the same code loaded from a |
| 2345 | .pyc (or .pyo) file could suffer numeric differences starting at about the |
| 2346 | 12th significant decimal digit. For example, on a machine with IEEE-754 |
| 2347 | floating arithmetic, |
| 2348 | |
| 2349 | x = 9007199254740992.0 |
| 2350 | print long(x) |
| 2351 | |
| 2352 | printed 9007199254740992 if run directly from .py, but 9007199254740000 |
| 2353 | if from a compiled (.pyc or .pyo) file. This was due to marshal using |
| 2354 | str(float) instead of repr(float) when building code objects. marshal |
| 2355 | now uses repr(float) instead, which should reproduce floats to full |
| 2356 | machine precision (assuming the platform C float<->string I/O conversion |
| 2357 | functions are of good quality). |
| 2358 | |
| 2359 | This may cause floating-point results to change in some cases, and |
| 2360 | usually for the better, but may also cause numerically unstable |
| 2361 | algorithms to break. |
| 2362 | |
Tim Peters | 2f228e7 | 2001-05-13 00:19:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2363 | - The implementation of dicts suffers fewer collisions, which has speed |
| 2364 | benefits. However, the order in which dict entries appear in dict.keys(), |
| 2365 | dict.values() and dict.items() may differ from previous releases for a |
| 2366 | given dict. Nothing is defined about this order, so no program should |
| 2367 | rely on it. Nevertheless, it's easy to write test cases that rely on the |
| 2368 | order by accident, typically because of printing the str() or repr() of a |
| 2369 | dict to an "expected results" file. See Lib/test/test_support.py's new |
| 2370 | sortdict(dict) function for a simple way to display a dict in sorted |
| 2371 | order. |
| 2372 | |
Tim Peters | 7a3bfc3 | 2001-06-12 01:22:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2373 | - Many other small changes to dicts were made, resulting in faster |
| 2374 | operation along the most common code paths. |
| 2375 | |
Guido van Rossum | 1031582 | 2001-05-01 20:54:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2376 | - Dictionary objects now support the "in" operator: "x in dict" means |
| 2377 | the same as dict.has_key(x). |
| 2378 | |
Barry Warsaw | 51acc8d | 2001-06-26 20:12:50 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2379 | - The update() method of dictionaries now accepts generic mapping |
| 2380 | objects. Specifically the argument object must support the .keys() |
| 2381 | and __getitem__() methods. This allows you to say, for example, |
| 2382 | {}.update(UserDict()) |
| 2383 | |
Guido van Rossum | 1031582 | 2001-05-01 20:54:30 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2384 | - Iterators were added; this is a generalized way of providing values |
| 2385 | to a for loop. See PEP 234. There's a new built-in function iter() |
| 2386 | to return an iterator. There's a new protocol to get the next value |
| 2387 | from an iterator using the next() method (in Python) or the |
| 2388 | tp_iternext slot (in C). There's a new protocol to get iterators |
| 2389 | using the __iter__() method (in Python) or the tp_iter slot (in C). |
| 2390 | Iterating (i.e. a for loop) over a dictionary generates its keys. |
| 2391 | Iterating over a file generates its lines. |
| 2392 | |
Tim Peters | f553f89 | 2001-05-01 20:45:31 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2393 | - The following functions were generalized to work nicely with iterator |
Skip Montanaro | a2a07bc | 2002-09-30 15:23:01 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2394 | arguments:: |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2395 | |
Tim Peters | e63415e | 2001-05-08 04:38:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2396 | map(), filter(), reduce(), zip() |
Tim Peters | 8572b4f | 2001-05-06 01:05:02 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2397 | list(), tuple() (PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_Fast() in C API) |
| 2398 | max(), min() |
Tim Peters | 1af03e9 | 2001-05-26 19:37:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2399 | join() method of strings |
| 2400 | extend() method of lists |
Tim Peters | 75f8e35 | 2001-05-05 11:33:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2401 | 'x in y' and 'x not in y' (PySequence_Contains() in C API) |
| 2402 | operator.countOf() (PySequence_Count() in C API) |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2403 | right-hand side of assignment statements with multiple targets, such as :: |
Tim Peters | d6d010b | 2001-06-21 02:49:55 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2404 | x, y, z = some_iterable_object_returning_exactly_3_values |
Tim Peters | 75f8e35 | 2001-05-05 11:33:43 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2405 | |
Tim Peters | d85e102 | 2001-05-11 21:51:48 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2406 | - Accessing module attributes is significantly faster (for example, |
| 2407 | random.random or os.path or yourPythonModule.yourAttribute). |
| 2408 | |
Tim Peters | e63415e | 2001-05-08 04:38:29 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2409 | - Comparing dictionary objects via == and != is faster, and now works even |
| 2410 | if the keys and values don't support comparisons other than ==. |
| 2411 | |
Tim Peters | 95bf939 | 2001-05-10 08:32:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2412 | - Comparing dictionaries in ways other than == and != is slower: there were |
| 2413 | insecurities in the dict comparison implementation that could cause Python |
| 2414 | to crash if the element comparison routines for the dict keys and/or |
| 2415 | values mutated the dicts. Making the code bulletproof slowed it down. |
| 2416 | |
Tim Peters | eb28ef2 | 2001-06-02 05:27:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2417 | - Collisions in dicts are resolved via a new approach, which can help |
| 2418 | dramatically in bad cases. For example, looking up every key in a dict |
Tim Peters | 7a3bfc3 | 2001-06-12 01:22:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2419 | d with d.keys() == [i << 16 for i in range(20000)] is approximately 500x |
Tim Peters | eb28ef2 | 2001-06-02 05:27:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2420 | faster now. Thanks to Christian Tismer for pointing out the cause and |
| 2421 | the nature of an effective cure (last December! better late than never). |
Tim Peters | 15d4929 | 2001-05-27 07:39:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2422 | |
Tim Peters | 52e155e | 2001-06-16 05:42:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2423 | - repr() is much faster for large containers (dict, list, tuple). |
| 2424 | |
| 2425 | |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2426 | Library |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2427 | ------- |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2428 | |
Fred Drake | 960fdf9 | 2001-07-20 18:38:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2429 | - The constants ascii_letters, ascii_lowercase. and ascii_uppercase |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2430 | were added to the string module. These a locale-independent |
Fred Drake | 960fdf9 | 2001-07-20 18:38:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2431 | constants, unlike letters, lowercase, and uppercase. These are now |
| 2432 | use in appropriate locations in the standard library. |
| 2433 | |
Martin v. Löwis | f0473d5 | 2001-07-18 16:17:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2434 | - The flags used in dlopen calls can now be configured using |
| 2435 | sys.setdlopenflags and queried using sys.getdlopenflags. |
| 2436 | |
Guido van Rossum | c7e4aca | 2001-07-12 11:54:37 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2437 | - Fredrik Lundh's xmlrpclib is now a standard library module. This |
| 2438 | provides full client-side XML-RPC support. In addition, |
| 2439 | Demo/xmlrpc/ contains two server frameworks (one SocketServer-based, |
| 2440 | one asyncore-based). Thanks to Eric Raymond for the documentation. |
| 2441 | |
Guido van Rossum | 643d391 | 2001-07-05 14:46:25 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2442 | - The xrange() object is simplified: it no longer supports slicing, |
| 2443 | repetition, comparisons, efficient 'in' checking, the tolist() |
| 2444 | method, or the start, stop and step attributes. See PEP 260. |
| 2445 | |
Martin v. Löwis | ebf94db | 2001-06-06 06:25:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2446 | - A new function fnmatch.filter to filter lists of file names was added. |
| 2447 | |
Barry Warsaw | ffd674d | 2001-05-22 16:00:10 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2448 | - calendar.py uses month and day names based on the current locale. |
| 2449 | |
Guido van Rossum | 2e0a654 | 2001-05-15 02:14:44 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2450 | - strop is now *really* obsolete (this was announced before with 1.6), |
| 2451 | and issues DeprecationWarning when used (except for the four items |
| 2452 | that are still imported into string.py). |
| 2453 | |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2454 | - Cookie.py now sorts key+value pairs by key in output strings. |
| 2455 | |
| 2456 | - pprint.isrecursive(object) didn't correctly identify recursive objects. |
| 2457 | Now it does. |
| 2458 | |
Tim Peters | 95b3f78 | 2001-05-14 18:39:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2459 | - pprint functions now much faster for large containers (tuple, list, dict). |
| 2460 | |
Tim Peters | 7b9542a | 2001-06-10 23:40:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2461 | - New 'q' and 'Q' format codes in the struct module, corresponding to C |
| 2462 | types "long long" and "unsigned long long" (on Windows, __int64). In |
| 2463 | native mode, these can be used only when the platform C compiler supports |
| 2464 | these types (when HAVE_LONG_LONG is #define'd by the Python config |
| 2465 | process), and then they inherit the sizes and alignments of the C types. |
Tim Peters | 7a3bfc3 | 2001-06-12 01:22:22 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2466 | In standard mode, 'q' and 'Q' are supported on all platforms, and are |
| 2467 | 8-byte integral types. |
Tim Peters | 7b9542a | 2001-06-10 23:40:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2468 | |
Guido van Rossum | 83213cc | 2001-06-12 16:48:52 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2469 | - The site module installs a new built-in function 'help' that invokes |
| 2470 | pydoc.help. It must be invoked as 'help()'; when invoked as 'help', |
| 2471 | it displays a message reminding the user to use 'help()' or |
| 2472 | 'help(object)'. |
| 2473 | |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2474 | Tests |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2475 | ----- |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2476 | |
| 2477 | - New test_mutants.py runs dict comparisons where the key and value |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2478 | comparison operators mutate the dicts randomly during comparison. This |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2479 | rapidly causes Python to crash under earlier releases (not for the faint |
| 2480 | of heart: it can also cause Win9x to freeze or reboot!). |
| 2481 | |
Raymond Hettinger | f2f2a2c | 2002-08-19 14:25:03 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2482 | - New test_pprint.py verifies that pprint.isrecursive() and |
Tim Peters | 95b3f78 | 2001-05-14 18:39:41 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2483 | pprint.isreadable() return sensible results. Also verifies that simple |
| 2484 | cases produce correct output. |
Tim Peters | a814db5 | 2001-05-14 07:05:58 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2485 | |
Tim Peters | 4324aa3 | 2001-05-28 22:30:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2486 | C API |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2487 | ----- |
Tim Peters | 4324aa3 | 2001-05-28 22:30:08 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2488 | |
| 2489 | - Removed the unused last_is_sticky argument from the internal |
| 2490 | _PyTuple_Resize(). If this affects you, you were cheating. |
Skip Montanaro | e5d7f7f | 2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2491 | |
| 2492 | ---- |
| 2493 | |
| 2494 | **(For information about older versions, consult the HISTORY file.)** |