Merged revisions 59541-59561 via svnmerge from
svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk

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  r59544 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-18 01:13:45 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Add more namedtuple() test cases.  Neaten the code and comments.
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  r59545 | christian.heimes | 2007-12-18 04:38:03 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 3 lines

  Fixed for #1601: IDLE not working correctly on Windows (Py30a2/IDLE30a1)

  Amaury's ideas works great. Should we build the Python core with WINVER=0x0500 and _WIN32_WINNT=0x0500, too?
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  r59546 | christian.heimes | 2007-12-18 10:00:13 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Make it a bit easier to test Tcl/Tk and idle from a build dir.
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  r59547 | christian.heimes | 2007-12-18 10:12:10 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Removed several unused files from the PCbuild9 directory. They are relics from the past.
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  r59548 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-18 19:26:18 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 29 lines

  Speed-up dictionary constructor by about 10%.

  New opcode, STORE_MAP saves the compiler from awkward stack manipulations
  and specializes for dicts using PyDict_SetItem instead of PyObject_SetItem.

  Old disassembly:
                0 BUILD_MAP                0
                3 DUP_TOP
                4 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
                7 ROT_TWO
                8 LOAD_CONST               2 ('x')
               11 STORE_SUBSCR
               12 DUP_TOP
               13 LOAD_CONST               3 (2)
               16 ROT_TWO
               17 LOAD_CONST               4 ('y')
               20 STORE_SUBSCR

  New disassembly:
                0 BUILD_MAP                0
                3 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
                6 LOAD_CONST               2 ('x')
                9 STORE_MAP
               10 LOAD_CONST               3 (2)
               13 LOAD_CONST               4 ('y')
               16 STORE_MAP
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  r59549 | thomas.heller | 2007-12-18 20:00:34 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 2 lines

  Issue #1642: Fix segfault in ctypes when trying to delete attributes.
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  r59551 | guido.van.rossum | 2007-12-18 21:10:42 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 2 lines

  Issue #1645 by Alberto Bertogli.  Fix a comment.
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  r59553 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-18 22:24:09 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 12 lines

  Give meaning to the oparg for BUILD_MAP:  estimated size of the dictionary.

  Allows dictionaries to be pre-sized (upto 255 elements) saving time lost
  to re-sizes with their attendant mallocs and re-insertions.

  Has zero effect on small dictionaries (5 elements or fewer), a slight
  benefit for dicts upto 22 elements (because they had to resize once
  anyway), and more benefit for dicts upto 255 elements (saving multiple
  resizes during the build-up and reducing the number of collisions on
  the first insertions).  Beyond 255 elements, there is no addional benefit.
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  r59554 | christian.heimes | 2007-12-18 22:56:09 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Fixed #1649: IDLE error: dictionary changed size during iteration
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  r59557 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-18 23:21:27 +0100 (Tue, 18 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Simplify and speedup _asdict() for named tuples.
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  r59558 | christian.heimes | 2007-12-19 00:22:54 +0100 (Wed, 19 Dec 2007) | 3 lines

  Applied patch #1635: Float patch for inf and nan on Windows (and other platforms).

  The patch unifies float("inf") and repr(float("inf")) on all platforms.
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  r59559 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-19 00:51:15 +0100 (Wed, 19 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Users demand iterable input for named tuples. The author capitulates.
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  r59560 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-19 01:21:06 +0100 (Wed, 19 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Beef-up tests for dict literals
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  r59561 | raymond.hettinger | 2007-12-19 01:27:21 +0100 (Wed, 19 Dec 2007) | 1 line

  Zap a duplicate line
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diff --git a/Doc/library/functions.rst b/Doc/library/functions.rst
index 14fd1a7..02c709c2 100644
--- a/Doc/library/functions.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/functions.rst
@@ -435,7 +435,8 @@
 
    Convert a string or a number to floating point.  If the argument is a string, it
    must contain a possibly signed decimal or floating point number, possibly
-   embedded in whitespace. Otherwise, the argument may be an integer
+   embedded in whitespace. The argument may also be [+|-]nan or [+|-]inf.
+   Otherwise, the argument may be a plain integer
    or a floating point number, and a floating point number with the same value
    (within Python's floating point precision) is returned.  If no argument is
    given, returns ``0.0``.
@@ -447,9 +448,10 @@
          single: Infinity
 
       When passing in a string, values for NaN and Infinity may be returned, depending
-      on the underlying C library.  The specific set of strings accepted which cause
-      these values to be returned depends entirely on the C library and is known to
-      vary.
+      on the underlying C library.  Float accepts the strings nan, inf and -inf for
+      NaN and positive or negative infinity. The case and a leading + are ignored as
+      well as a leading - is ignored for NaN. Float always represents NaN and infinity
+      as nan, inf or -inf.
 
    The float type is described in :ref:`typesnumeric`.