Add support for binary pickles to the shelve module. In some situations
this can result in significantly smaller files. All classes as well as the
open function now accept an optional binary parameter, which defaults to
False for backward compatibility. Added a small test suite, updated the
libref documentation (including documenting the exported classes and fixing
a few other nits) and added a note about the change to Misc/NEWS.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 0e883bb..68ff040 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -440,6 +440,10 @@
all dictionary methods. This eases the transition to persistent
storage for scripts originally written with dictionaries in mind.
+- shelve.open and the various classes in shelve.py now accept an optional
+ binary flag, which defaults to False. If True, the values stored in the
+ shelf are binary pickles.
+
- A new package, logging, implements the logging API defined by PEP
282. The code is written by Vinay Sajip.