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+PYTHON RELEASE NOTES FOR THE MACINTOSH
+
+VERSION 1.0.2
+
+For the most part, Python on the Mac works just like Python under UNIX.
+The most important differences are:
+
+- Since there is no shell environment on the Mac, the start-up file
+ has a fixed name: PythonStartup. If a file by this name exists
+ (either in the current folder or in the system folder) it is executed
+ when an interactive interpreter is started.
+
+- The default search path for modules is different: first the current
+ directory is searched, then the subdirectories 'lib', 'lib:stdwin' and
+ 'demo'. As always, you can change this (e.g. in your PythonStartup
+ file) by assigning or appending to sys.path -- use Macintosh pathnames!
+ (The default contains no absolute paths because these are unlikely
+ to make sense on other people's hard disks.)
+
+- The user interface for typing interactive commands is different.
+ This is actually the THINK C console I/O module, which is based on
+ the Mac toolbox TextEdit. A standard Edit menu provides Cut, Copy,
+ Paste and Clear (Undo is only there for Desk Accessories). A minimal
+ File menu provides Quit, which immediately exits the application,
+ without the usual cleanup. You can Copy from previous output,
+ but you can't scroll back beyond the 24x80 screen. The TAB key
+ always brings you to the end of the current input line; indentation
+ must be entered with spaces (a single space is enough).
+ End-of-file is generated by Command-D; Command-Period interrupts.
+ There is an annoying limit in the length of an input line to a single
+ screen line (less the prompt). Use \ to input long statements.
+ Change your program if it requires long lines typed on input.
+ Even though there is no resize box, the window can be resized by
+ dragging its bottom right corner, but the maximum size is 24x80.
+
+- Tabs in module files are interpreted as 4 (four!) spaces. This is
+ consistent with most Mac editors that I know. For individual files
+ you can change the tab size with a comment like
+
+ # vi:set tabsize=8:
+
+ (exactly as shown here, including the colons!). If you are consistent
+ in always using tabs for indentation on UNIX, your files will be
+ parsed correctly on the Mac, although they may look funny if you
+ have nicely lined-up comments or tables using tabs. Never using tabs
+ also works. Mixing tabs and spaces to simulate 4-character indentation
+ levels is likely to fail.
+
+- You can start a script from the Finder by selecting the script and
+ the Python interpreter together and then double clicking. If you
+ make the owner of the script PYTH (the type should always be TEXT)
+ Python will be launched if you double click it!
+ There is no way to pass command line arguments to Python scripts.
+
+- The set of built-in modules is different:
+
+ = Operating system functions for the 'os' module is provided by the
+ built-in module 'mac', not 'posix'. This doesn't have all the
+ functions from posix, for obvious reasons (if you know the Mac
+ O/S a little bit). The functions in os.path are provided by
+ macpath, they know about Mac pathnames etc.
+
+ = None of the UNIX specific modules ('socket', 'pwd', 'grp' etc.)
+ exists.
+
+ = Module 'stdwin' is always available. It uses the Mac version of
+ STDWIN, which interfaces directly with the Mac toolbox. The most
+ important difference is in the font names; setfont() has a second
+ argument specifying the point size and an optional third one
+ specifying the variation: a single letter character string,
+ 'i' for italics, 'b' for bold. Note that when STDWIN is waiting
+ for events, the standard File and Edit menus are inactive but
+ still visible, and (most annoyingly) the Apple menu is also inactive;
+ conversely, menus put up by STDWIN are not active when the Python is
+ reading from the keyboard. If you open Python together with a text
+ file containing a Python script, the script will be executed and
+ a console window is only generated when the script uses standard
+ input or output. A script that uses STDWIN exclusively for its I/O
+ will have a working Apple menu and no extraneous File/Edit menus.
+ (This is because both stdwin and stdio try to initialize the
+ windowing environment; whoever gets there first owns the Apple menu.)
+ LIMITATIONS: a few recent additions to STDWIN for X11 have not yet
+ been added to the Mac version. There are no bitmap objects, and
+ the setwinpos() and setwinsize() methods are non--functional.
+
+- Because launching an application on the Mac is so tedious, you will
+ want to edit your program with a desk accessory editor (e.g., Sigma
+ edit) and test the changed version without leaving Python. This is
+ possible but requires some care. Make sure the program is a module
+ file (filename must be a Python identifier followed by '.py'). You
+ can then import it when you test it for the first time. There are
+ now three possibilities: it contains a syntax error; it gets a runtime
+ error (unhandled exception); or it runs OK but gives wrong results.
+ (If it gives correct results, you are done testing and don't need
+ to read the rest of this paragraph. :-) Note that the following
+ is not Mac-specific -- it's just that on UNIX it's easier to restart
+ the entire script so it's rarely useful.
+
+ Recovery from a syntax error is easy: edit the file and import it
+ again.
+
+ Recovery from wrong output is almost as easy: edit the file and,
+ instead of importing it, call the function reload() with the module
+ name as argument (e.g., if your module is called foo, type
+ "reload(foo)").
+
+ Recovery from an exception is trickier. Once the syntax is correct,
+ a 'module' entry is placed in an internal table, and following import
+ statements will not re-read the file, even if the module's initialization
+ terminated with an error (one reason why this is done is so that
+ mutually recursive modules are initialized only once). You must
+ therefore force re-reading the module with reload(), however, if this
+ happens the first time you try to import the module, the import statement
+ itself has not completed, and your workspace does not know the module
+ name (even though the internal table of moduesl does!). The trick is
+ to first import the module again, then reload it. For instance,
+ "import foo; reload(foo)". Because the module object already exists
+ internally, the import statement does not attempt to execute the
+ module again -- it just places it in your workspace.
+
+ When you edit a module you don't have to worry about the corresponding
+ '.pyc' file (a "compiled" version of the module, which loads much faster
+ than the textual version): the interpreter notices that the '.py' file
+ has changed (because its modification time has changed) and ignores the
+ '.pyc' file. When parsing is successful, a new '.pyc' file is written;
+ if this fails (no write permission, disk full or whatever) it is
+ silently skipped but attempted again the next time the same module
+ is loaded. (Thus, if you plan to place a Python library on a read-only
+ disk, it is advisable to "warm the cache" by making the disk writable
+ and importing all modules once. The standard module 'importall' helps
+ in doing this.)