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Skip Montanaroe5d7f7f2002-09-20 14:16:59 +00001+++++++++++
2Python News
3+++++++++++
4
Anthony Baxterb0c66302004-11-04 05:23:17 +00005(editors: check NEWS.help for information about editing NEWS using ReST.)
6
Barry Warsaw97f005d2008-12-03 16:46:14 +00007What's New in Python 3.1 alpha 0
8================================
Barry Warsawd8ccd1c2008-11-21 15:13:37 +00009
Antoine Pitrou3ad3a0d2008-12-18 17:08:32 +000010*Release date: XX-XXX-200X*
Barry Warsawd8ccd1c2008-11-21 15:13:37 +000011
12Core and Builtins
13-----------------
14
Antoine Pitrouab868312009-01-10 15:40:25 +000015- Issue #4868: utf-8, utf-16 and latin1 decoding are now 2x to 4x faster. The
16 common cases are optimized thanks to a dedicated fast path and a moderate
17 amount of loop unrolling.
18
Antoine Pitrou14b78f52009-01-09 22:27:08 +000019- Issue #4074: Change the criteria for doing a full garbage collection (i.e.
20 collecting the oldest generation) so that allocating lots of objects without
21 destroying them does not show quadratic performance. Based on a proposal by
22 Martin von Löwis at
23 http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-June/080579.html.
24
Antoine Pitrou8043cf82009-01-09 19:54:29 +000025- Issue #4604: Some objects of the I/O library could still be used after
26 having been closed (for instance, a read() call could return some
27 previously buffered data). Patch by Dmitry Vasiliev.
28
Antoine Pitrou05608432009-01-09 18:53:14 +000029- Issue #4705: Fix the -u ("unbuffered binary stdout and stderr") command-line
30 flag to work properly. Furthermore, when specifying -u, the text stdout
31 and stderr streams have line-by-line buffering enabled (the default being
32 to buffer arbitrary chunks of data).
33
Raymond Hettinger35631532009-01-09 03:58:09 +000034- The internal table, _PyLong_DigitValue, is now an array of unsigned chars
35 instead of ints (reducing its size from 4 to 8 times thereby reducing
36 Python's overall memory).
37
Antoine Pitroud35cbf62009-01-06 19:02:24 +000038- Issue #1180193: When importing a module from a .pyc (or .pyo) file with
39 an existing .py counterpart, override the co_filename attributes of all
40 code objects if the original filename is obsolete (which can happen if the
41 file has been renamed, moved, or if it is accessed through different paths).
42 Patch by Ziga Seilnacht and Jean-Paul Calderone.
43
Antoine Pitrouc3b39242009-01-03 16:59:18 +000044- Issue #4580: Fix slicing of memoryviews when the item size is greater than
45 one byte. Also fixes the meaning of len() so that it returns the number of
46 items, rather than the size in bytes.
47
Martin v. Löwis5c88d812009-01-02 20:47:48 +000048- Issue #4075: Use OutputDebugStringW in Py_FatalError.
49
Amaury Forgeot d'Arc374e2202009-01-01 23:05:36 +000050- Issue #4747: When the terminal does not use utf-8, executing a script with
51 non-ascii characters in its name could fail with a "SyntaxError: None" error.
52
Hirokazu Yamamoto0f22d692009-01-01 16:03:45 +000053- Issue #4797: IOError.filename was not set when _fileio.FileIO failed to open
Hirokazu Yamamoto8ed9a802009-01-01 16:09:52 +000054 file with `bytes' filename on Windows.
Hirokazu Yamamoto0f22d692009-01-01 16:03:45 +000055
Antoine Pitrou7ddda782009-01-01 15:35:33 +000056- Issue #3680: Reference cycles created through a dict, set or deque iterator
57 did not get collected.
58
Nick Coghlanf1f2f682008-12-30 07:29:12 +000059- Issue #4701: PyObject_Hash now implicitly calls PyType_Ready on types
60 where the tp_hash and tp_dict slots are both NULL.
61
Georg Brandlccc47b62008-12-28 11:44:14 +000062- Issue #4759: None is now allowed as the first argument of
63 bytearray.translate(). It was always allowed for bytes.translate().
64
Skip Montanaro80072cb2008-12-23 03:51:14 +000065- Added test case to ensure attempts to read from a file opened for writing
66 fail.
67
Antoine Pitrou51f3ef92008-12-20 13:14:23 +000068- Issue #3106: Speedup some comparisons (str/str and int/int).
69
Antoine Pitrouf289ae62008-12-18 11:06:25 +000070- Issue #2183: Simplify and optimize bytecode for list, dict and set
71 comprehensions. Original patch for list comprehensions by Neal Norwitz.
72
Antoine Pitrou621601a2008-12-17 23:18:19 +000073- Issue #2467: gc.DEBUG_STATS reported invalid elapsed times. Also, always
74 print elapsed times, not only when some objects are uncollectable /
75 unreachable. Original patch by Neil Schemenauer.
76
Mark Dickinson54bc1ec2008-12-17 16:19:07 +000077- Issue #3439: Add a bit_length method to int.
78
Mark Dickinsonda2706b2008-12-11 18:03:03 +000079- Issue #2173: When getting device encoding, check that return value of
80 nl_langinfo is not the empty string. This was causing silent build
81 failures on OS X.
82
Jeffrey Yasskinb9083f32008-12-11 06:18:33 +000083- Issue #4597: Fixed several opcodes that weren't always propagating
84 exceptions.
85
86- Issue #4589: Fixed exception handling when the __exit__ function of a
Amaury Forgeot d'Arc10b24e82008-12-10 23:49:33 +000087 context manager returns a value that cannot be converted to a bool.
88
Mark Dickinsonfd24b322008-12-06 15:33:31 +000089- Issue #4445: Replace "sizeof(PyBytesObject)" with
90 "offsetof(PyBytesObject, ob_sval) + 1" when allocating memory for
91 bytes instances. On a typical machine this saves 3 bytes of memory
92 (on average) per allocation of a bytes instance.
93
Christian Heimesa872de52008-12-05 08:26:55 +000094- Issue #4533: File read operation was dreadfully slow due to a slowly
95 growing read buffer. Fixed by using the same growth rate algorithm as
96 Python 2.x.
97
Antoine Pitrou5504e892008-12-06 21:27:53 +000098- Issue #4509: Various issues surrounding resize of bytearray objects to
99 which there are buffer exports (e.g. memoryview instances).
100
Georg Brandlf9734072008-12-07 15:30:06 +0000101- Issue #4233: Changed semantic of ``_fileio.FileIO``'s ``close()``
102 method on file objects with closefd=False. The file descriptor is still
103 kept open but the file object behaves like a closed file. The ``FileIO``
104 object also got a new readonly attribute ``closefd``.
Matthias Klose7e1b8fa2008-11-26 17:22:04 +0000105
Antoine Pitroubc420402008-12-07 20:14:49 +0000106- Issue #4569: Interpreter crash when mutating a memoryview with an item size
107 larger than 1.
108
Benjamin Peterson371ccfb2008-12-27 19:03:36 +0000109- Issue #4748: Lambda generators no longer return a value.
110
Barry Warsawd8ccd1c2008-11-21 15:13:37 +0000111Library
112-------
113
Antoine Pitrou308705e2009-01-10 16:22:51 +0000114- Issue #3860: GzipFile and BZ2File now support the context manager protocol.
115
Thomas Heller5e4e4272009-01-08 09:34:20 +0000116- Issue #4867: Fixed a crash in ctypes when passing a string to a
117 function without defining argtypes.
118
Antoine Pitrou42db3ef2009-01-04 21:37:59 +0000119- Issue #4272: Add an optional argument to the GzipFile constructor to override
120 the timestamp in the gzip stream. The default value remains the current time.
121 The information can be used by e.g. gunzip when decompressing. Patch by
122 Jacques Frechet.
123
Mark Dickinson315a20a2009-01-04 21:34:18 +0000124- Restore Python 2.3 compatibility for decimal.py.
125
Guilherme Polo3f5f8222009-01-03 22:00:39 +0000126- Issue #3638: Remove functions from _tkinter module level that depend on
127 TkappObject to work with multiple threads.
128
Antoine Pitrou38a66ad2009-01-03 18:41:49 +0000129- Issue #4718: Adapt the wsgiref package so that it actually works with
130 Python 3.x, in accordance with the `official amendments of the spec
131 <http://www.wsgi.org/wsgi/Amendments_1.0>`_.
132
Raymond Hettinger771ed762009-01-03 19:20:32 +0000133- Issue #4796: Added Decimal.from_float() and Context.create_decimal_from_float()
134 to the decimal module.
135
Georg Brandl3a9b0622009-01-03 22:07:57 +0000136- Fractions.from_float() no longer loses precision for integers too big to
137 cast as floats.
138
Mark Dickinsonf9236412009-01-02 23:23:21 +0000139- Issue #4812: add missing underscore prefix to some internal-use-only
140 constants in the decimal module. (Dec_0 becomes _Dec_0, etc.)
141
Georg Brandl3a9b0622009-01-03 22:07:57 +0000142- Issue 4790: The nsmallest() and nlargest() functions in the heapq module
143 did unnecessary work in the common case where no key function was specified.
144
Georg Brandlb1441c72009-01-03 22:33:39 +0000145- Issue #4795: inspect.isgeneratorfunction() returns False instead of None when
146 the function is not a generator.
147
Tarek Ziadé9df8ce32008-12-30 23:09:20 +0000148- Issue #4702: Throwing a DistutilsPlatformError instead of IOError in case
149 no MSVC compiler is found under Windows. Original patch by Philip Jenvey.
150
Tarek Ziadé4450dcf2008-12-29 22:38:38 +0000151- Issue #4646: distutils was choking on empty options arg in the setup
152 function. Original patch by Thomas Heller.
153
Martin v. Löwis1f1620e2008-12-29 16:27:13 +0000154- Issue #3767: Convert Tk object to string in tkColorChooser.
155
Martin v. Löwise354d782008-12-29 16:03:04 +0000156- Issue #3248: Allow placing ScrolledText in a PanedWindow.
157
Antoine Pitrou5acd41e2008-12-28 14:29:00 +0000158- Issue #4444: Allow assertRaises() to be used as a context handler, so that
159 the code under test can be written inline if more practical.
160
Georg Brandldb7b6b92009-01-01 15:53:14 +0000161- Issue #4739: Add pydoc help topics for symbols, so that e.g. help('@')
162 works as expected in the interactive environment.
163
Antoine Pitroudb5fe662008-12-27 15:50:40 +0000164- Issue #4756: zipfile.is_zipfile() now supports file-like objects. Patch by
165 Gabriel Genellina.
166
Antoine Pitrou180a3362008-12-14 16:36:46 +0000167- Issue #4574: reading an UTF16-encoded text file crashes if \r on 64-char
168 boundary.
169
Nick Coghlanf088e5e2008-12-14 11:50:48 +0000170- Issue #4223: inspect.getsource() will now correctly display source code
171 for packages loaded via zipimport (or any other conformant PEP 302
172 loader). Original patch by Alexander Belopolsky.
173
174- Issue #4201: pdb can now access and display source code loaded via
175 zipimport (or any other conformant PEP 302 loader). Original patch by
176 Alexander Belopolsky.
177
178- Issue #4197: doctests in modules loaded via zipimport (or any other PEP
179 302 conformant loader) will now work correctly in most cases (they
180 are still subject to the constraints that exist for all code running
181 from inside a module loaded via a PEP 302 loader and attempting to
182 perform IO operations based on __file__). Original patch by
183 Alexander Belopolsky.
184
185- Issues #4082 and #4512: Add runpy support to zipimport in a manner that
186 allows backporting to maintenance branches. Original patch by
187 Alexander Belopolsky.
188
Antoine Pitrou7c59bc62008-12-13 23:20:54 +0000189- Issue #4163: textwrap module: allow word splitting on a hyphen preceded by
190 a non-ASCII letter.
191
Lars Gustäbel43fcf3a2008-12-12 14:58:38 +0000192- Issue #4616: TarFile.utime(): Restore directory times on Windows.
193
Benjamin Peterson433f32c2008-12-12 01:25:05 +0000194- Issue #4021: tokenize.detect_encoding() now raises a SyntaxError when the
195 codec cannot be found. This is for compatibility with the builtin behavior.
196
Facundo Batista708d5812008-12-11 04:20:07 +0000197- Issue #4084: Fix max, min, max_mag and min_mag Decimal methods to
198 give correct results in the case where one argument is a quiet NaN
199 and the other is a finite number that requires rounding.
200
Skip Montanaroc1ce2862008-12-06 17:25:02 +0000201- Issue #4483: _dbm module now builds on systems with gdbm & gdbm_compat
202 libs.
203
Georg Brandlf9734072008-12-07 15:30:06 +0000204- Added the subprocess.check_call_output() convenience function to get output
205 from a subprocess on success or raise an exception on error.
206
207- Issue #1055234: cgi.parse_header(): Fixed parsing of header parameters to
208 support unusual filenames (such as those containing semi-colons) in
209 Content-Disposition headers.
210
211- Issue #4384: Added logging integration with warnings module using
212 captureWarnings(). This change includes a NullHandler which does nothing;
213 it will be of use to library developers who want to avoid the "No handlers
214 could be found for logger XXX" message which can appear if the library user
215 doesn't configure logging.
216
217- Issue #3741: DISTUTILS_USE_SDK set causes msvc9compiler.py to raise an
218 exception.
219
Georg Brandleee31162008-12-07 15:15:22 +0000220- Issue #4529: fix the parser module's validation of try-except-finally
221 statements.
222
223- Issue #4458: getopt.gnu_getopt() now recognizes a single "-" as an argument,
224 not a malformed option.
225
226- Added the subprocess.check_output() convenience function to get output
227 from a subprocess on success or raise an exception on error.
228
Amaury Forgeot d'Arcbc9d4742008-12-05 01:40:43 +0000229- Issue #4542: On Windows, binascii.crc32 still accepted str as binary input;
230 the corresponding tests now pass.
231
Amaury Forgeot d'Arcbc2ce572008-12-05 01:02:21 +0000232- Issue #4537: webbrowser.UnixBrowser would fail to open the browser because
233 it was calling the wrong open() function.
234
Fred Drake9a0a65b2008-12-04 19:24:50 +0000235- Issue #1055234: cgi.parse_header(): Fixed parsing of header parameters to
236 support unusual filenames (such as those containing semi-colons) in
237 Content-Disposition headers.
238
Matthias Klose2c7e3ee2009-01-10 17:08:25 +0000239- Issue #4861: ctypes.util.find_library(): Robustify. Fix library detection on
240 biarch systems. Try to rely on ldconfig only, without using objdump and gcc.
241
Antoine Pitrou2a013ea2008-12-27 20:39:28 +0000242Tools/Demos
243-----------
244
245- Issue #4677: add two list comprehension tests to pybench.
246
Georg Brandlb1441c72009-01-03 22:33:39 +0000247
248Build
249-----
250
251- Issue #4472: "configure --enable-shared" now works on OSX
252
253- Issues #4728 and #4060: WORDS_BIGEDIAN is now correct in Universal builds.
254
255- Issue #4389: Add icon to the uninstall entry in "add-and-remove-programs".
256
257- Issue #4289: Remove Cancel button from AdvancedDlg.
258
259- Issue #1656675: Register a drop handler for .py* files on Windows.
260
261- Issue #4120: Exclude manifest from extension modules in VS2008.
262
263- Issue #4091: Install pythonxy.dll in system32 again.
264
265- Issue #4018: Disable "for me" installations on Vista.
266
267- Issue #3758: Add ``patchcheck`` build target to .PHONY.
268
269- Issue #4204: Fixed module build errors on FreeBSD 4.
270
271
272C-API
273-----
274
275- Issue #4720: The format for PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords can begin with '|'.
276
277- Issue #3632: from the gdb debugger, the 'pyo' macro can now be called when
278 the GIL is released, or owned by another thread.
279
280- Issue #4122: On Windows, fix a compilation error when using the
281 Py_UNICODE_ISSPACE macro in an extension module.
282
283
Mark Dickinsone675f082008-12-11 21:56:00 +0000284Extension Modules
285-----------------
286
Antoine Pitroubcd5cbe2009-01-08 21:17:16 +0000287- Issue #4751: hashlib now releases the GIL when hashing large buffers
288 (with a hardwired threshold of 2048 bytes), allowing better parallelization
289 on multi-CPU systems. Contributed by Lukas Lueg (ebfe) and Victor Stinner.
290
Martin v. Löwis5c88d812009-01-02 20:47:48 +0000291- Issue #4051: Prevent conflict of UNICODE macros in cPickle.
292
Antoine Pitrou31f30b12009-01-02 17:34:35 +0000293- Issue #4738: Each zlib object now has a separate lock, allowing to compress
294 or decompress several streams at once on multi-CPU systems. Also, the GIL
295 is now released when computing the CRC of a large buffer. Patch by ebfe.
296
Georg Brandlb1441c72009-01-03 22:33:39 +0000297- Issue #4228: Pack negative values the same way as 2.4 in struct's L format.
298
Martin v. Löwis05bfe1f2008-12-29 18:21:47 +0000299- Issue #1040026: Fix os.times result on systems where HZ is incorrect.
300
Mark Dickinsone675f082008-12-11 21:56:00 +0000301- Issues #3167, #3682: Fix test_math failures for log, log10 on Solaris,
302 OpenBSD.
Amaury Forgeot d'Arcefae8c42008-11-21 23:08:09 +0000303
Antoine Pitrou3ad3a0d2008-12-18 17:08:32 +0000304- Issue #4583: array.array would not always prohibit resizing when a buffer
305 has been exported, resulting in an interpreter crash when accessing the
306 buffer.
307
Martin v. Löwis841edad2008-11-30 10:36:49 +0000308
Brett Cannon7317c1e2008-11-25 19:19:17 +0000309Docs
310----
311
Georg Brandl52b92cc2008-05-25 09:43:03 +0000312
Skip Montanaroe5d7f7f2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000313**(For information about older versions, consult the HISTORY file.)**