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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
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +00007What's New in Python 3.0a3?
8===========================
9
Georg Brandl52d168a2008-01-07 18:10:24 +000010*Release date: XX-XXX-2008*
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000011
12Core and Builtins
13-----------------
14
Guido van Rossumab078dd2008-01-06 00:09:11 +000015- Issue #1393: object_richcompare() returns NotImplemented instead of
16 False if the objects aren't equal, to give the other side a chance.
17
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000018- Issue #1692: Interpreter was not displaying location of SyntaxError.
Kurt B. Kaiser43b15092008-01-05 04:32:22 +000019
Amaury Forgeot d'Arcbccd63c2008-01-04 01:21:27 +000020- Improve some exception messages when Windows fails to load an extension
21 module. Now we get for example '%1 is not a valid Win32 application' instead
22 of 'error code 193'. Also use Unicode strings to deal with non-English
23 locales.
24
Christian Heimesa3534a62007-12-11 19:56:40 +000025- Issue #1587: Added instancemethod wrapper for PyCFunctions. The Python C API
26 has gained a new type *PyInstanceMethod_Type* and the functions
27 *PyInstanceMethod_Check(o)*, *PyInstanceMethod_New(func)* and
28 *PyInstanceMethod_Function(im)*.
29
Amaury Forgeot d'Arcad8dcd52007-12-10 23:58:35 +000030- Constants gc.DEBUG_OBJECT and gc.DEBUG_INSTANCE have been removed from the
31 gc module; gc.DEBUG_COLLECTABLE or gc.DEBUG_UNCOLLECTABLE are now enough to
32 print the corresponding list of objects considered by the garbage collector.
33
Christian Heimes827b35c2007-12-10 22:19:17 +000034- Issue #1580: New free format floating point representation based on
35 "Floating-Point Printer Sample Code", by Robert G. Burger. For example
36 repr(11./5) now returns '2.2' instead of '2.2000000000000002'.
37
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000038- Issue #1573: Improper use of the keyword-only syntax makes the parser crash.
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000039
Christian Heimes0ded5b52007-12-10 15:50:56 +000040- Issue #1564: The set implementation should special-case PyUnicode instead
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000041 of PyString.
Christian Heimes0ded5b52007-12-10 15:50:56 +000042
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000043
44Extension Modules
45-----------------
46
Christian Heimes043d6f62008-01-07 17:19:16 +000047- Issue #1762972: Readded the reload() function as imp.reload()
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000048
Georg Brandl52d168a2008-01-07 18:10:24 +000049
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000050Library
51-------
52
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000053- Issue #1703: getpass() should flush after writing prompt.
Christian Heimesfc5aa9d2007-12-11 09:00:01 +000054
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000055- Issue #1585: IDLE uses non-existent xrange() function.
56
57- Issue #1578: Problems in win_getpass.
58
59
Georg Brandl52d168a2008-01-07 18:10:24 +000060Build
61-----
62
63- Renamed --enable-unicode configure flag to --with-wide-unicode, since
64 Unicode strings can't be disabled anymore.
65
66
Guido van Rossume239b002008-01-06 00:44:20 +000067C API
68-----
69
70- Issue #1629: Renamed Py_Size, Py_Type and Py_Refcnt to Py_SIZE,
71 Py_TYPE and Py_REFCNT.
72
73- New API PyImport_ImportModuleNoBlock(), works like PyImport_ImportModule()
74 but won't block on the import lock (returning an error instead).
Christian Heimes0ec88b32007-12-10 17:02:00 +000075
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000076
Fred Drake0e474a82007-10-11 18:01:43 +000077What's New in Python 3.0a2?
Christian Heimesbc873412007-12-08 22:11:32 +000078===========================
Fred Drake0e474a82007-10-11 18:01:43 +000079
Guido van Rossum99533a92007-12-06 05:07:41 +000080*Release date: 07-Dec-2007*
81
82(Note: this list is incomplete.)
Fred Drake0e474a82007-10-11 18:01:43 +000083
Guido van Rossum40d20bc2007-10-22 00:09:51 +000084Core and Builtins
85-----------------
86
Brett Cannon37f7e6e2007-10-26 05:42:09 +000087- str8 now has the same construction signature as bytes.
88
Brett Cannon40430012007-10-22 20:24:51 +000089- Comparisons between str and str8 now return False/True for ==/!=. sqlite3
90 returns str8 when recreating on object from it's __conform__ value. The
91 struct module returns str8 for all string-related formats. This was true
92 before this change, but becomes more apparent thanks to string comparisons
93 always being False.
94
Guido van Rossum40d20bc2007-10-22 00:09:51 +000095- Replaced `PyFile_FromFile()` with `PyFile_FromFd(fd, name. mode, buffer,
96 encoding, newline)`
97
98- Fixed `imp.find_module()` to obey the -*- coding: -*- header.
99
100- Changed `__file__` and `co_filename` to unicode. The path names are decoded
101 with `Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding` and a new API method
102 `PyUnicode_DecodeFSDefault(char*)` was added.
103
Guido van Rossum2dced8b2007-10-30 17:27:30 +0000104- io.open() and _fileio.FileIO have grown a new argument closefd. A false
105 value disables the closing of the file descriptor.
106
Guido van Rossum98297ee2007-11-06 21:34:58 +0000107- Added a new option -b to issues warnings (-bb for errors) about certain
108 operations between bytes/buffer and str like str(b'') and comparsion.
109
Christian Heimes58cb1b82007-11-13 02:19:40 +0000110- The standards streams sys.stdin, stdout and stderr may be None when the
111 when the C runtime library returns an invalid file descriptor for the
112 streams (fileno(stdin) < 0). For now this happens only for Windows GUI
113 apps and scripts started with `pythonw.exe`.
114
Christian Heimesbce52be2007-11-17 19:08:41 +0000115- Added PCbuild9 directory for VS 2008.
116
117- Renamed structmember.h WRITE_RESTRICTED to PY_WRITE_RESTRICTED to work
118 around a name clash with VS 2008 on Windows.
119
Christian Heimesff737952007-11-27 10:40:20 +0000120- Unbound methods are gone for good. ClassObject.method returns an ordinary
121 function object, instance.method still returns a bound method object.
122 The API of bound methods is cleaned up, too. The im_class attribute is
123 removed and im_func + im_self are renamed to __func__ and __self__. The
124 factory PyMethod_New takes only func and instance as argument.
125
Christian Heimesf78b1c62007-12-02 16:52:32 +0000126- intobject.h is no longer included by Python.h. The remains were moved
127 to longobject.h. It still exists to define several aliases from PyInt_
128 to PyLong_ functions.
129
Christian Heimesa37d4c62007-12-04 23:02:19 +0000130- Removed sys.maxint, use sys.maxsize instead.
131
Christian Heimesbce52be2007-11-17 19:08:41 +0000132
Fred Drake0e474a82007-10-11 18:01:43 +0000133Extension Modules
134-----------------
135
136- The `hotshot` profiler has been removed; use `cProfile` instead.
137
138
Brett Cannone9fd2312007-10-12 19:18:19 +0000139Library
140-------
141
142- When loading an external file using testfile(), the passed-in encoding
143 argument was being ignored if __loader__ is defined and forcing the source to
144 be UTF-8.
145
Guido van Rossum687b9c02007-10-25 23:18:51 +0000146- The methods `os.tmpnam()`, `os.tempnam()` and `os.tmpfile()` have been
147 removed in favor of the tempfile module.
148
Christian Heimesc9543e42007-11-28 08:28:28 +0000149- Removed the 'new' module.
150
151- Removed all types from the 'types' module that are easily accessable through
152 builtins.
Brett Cannone9fd2312007-10-12 19:18:19 +0000153
Georg Brandl52d168a2008-01-07 18:10:24 +0000154
Guido van Rossum4405cf32007-08-30 17:16:55 +0000155What's New in Python 3.0a1?
Guido van Rossum45aecf42006-03-15 04:58:47 +0000156==========================
Thomas Wouters4d70c3d2006-06-08 14:42:34 +0000157
Guido van Rossum4405cf32007-08-30 17:16:55 +0000158*Release date: 31-Aug-2007*
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000159
160Core and Builtins
161-----------------
162
Martin v. Löwis47383402007-08-15 07:32:56 +0000163- PEP 3131: Support non-ASCII identifiers.
164
Martin v. Löwis447d33e2007-07-29 18:10:01 +0000165- PEP 3120: Change default encoding to UTF-8.
166
Martin v. Löwis9f2e3462007-07-21 17:22:18 +0000167- PEP 3123: Use proper C inheritance for PyObject.
168
Guido van Rossumcd16bf62007-06-13 18:07:49 +0000169- Removed the __oct__ and __hex__ special methods and added a bin()
170 builtin function.
171
172- PEP 3127: octal literals now start with "0o". Old-style octal literals
173 are invalid. There are binary literals with a prefix of "0b".
174 This also affects int(x, 0).
175
Guido van Rossume7ba4952007-06-06 23:52:48 +0000176- None, True, False are now keywords.
177
Guido van Rossum29478ef2007-05-29 00:39:44 +0000178- PEP 3119: isinstance() and issubclass() can be overridden.
179
Guido van Rossumebe3e162007-05-17 18:20:34 +0000180- Remove BaseException.message.
181
Guido van Rossum1bc535d2007-05-15 18:46:22 +0000182- Remove tuple parameter unpacking (PEP 3113).
183
Kurt B. Kaiser2c7f3142007-08-30 21:52:19 +0000184- Remove the f_restricted attribute from frames. This naturally leads to the
Guido van Rossuma8add0e2007-05-14 22:03:55 +0000185 removal of PyEval_GetRestricted() and PyFrame_IsRestricted().
186
Guido van Rossum0368b722007-05-11 16:50:42 +0000187- PEP 3132 was accepted. That means that you can do ``a, *b = range(5)``
188 to assign 0 to a and [1, 2, 3, 4] to b.
189
Guido van Rossum805365e2007-05-07 22:24:25 +0000190- range() now returns an iterator rather than a list. Floats are not allowed.
191 xrange() is no longer defined.
192
Nick Coghlan650f0d02007-04-15 12:05:43 +0000193- Patch #1660500: hide iteration variable in list comps, add set comps
194 and use common code to handle compilation of iterative expressions
195
Guido van Rossume27dc722007-03-27 22:37:34 +0000196- By default, != returns the opposite of ==, unless the latter returns
197 NotImplemented.
198
Collin Winter670e6922007-03-21 02:57:17 +0000199- Patch #1680961: sys.exitfunc has been removed and replaced with a private
200 C-level API.
201
Georg Brandl801dd732007-03-18 20:18:31 +0000202- PEP 3115: new metaclasses: the metaclass is now specified as a
203 keyword arg in the class statement, which can now use the full syntax of
204 a parameter list. Also, the metaclass can implement a __prepare__ function
205 which will be called to create the dictionary for the new class namespace.
206
Georg Brandl428f0642007-03-18 18:35:15 +0000207- The long-deprecated argument "pend" of PyFloat_FromString() has been
208 removed.
209
Georg Brandle32b4222007-03-10 22:13:27 +0000210- The dir() function has been extended to call the __dir__() method on
211 its argument, if it exists. If not, it will work like before. This allows
212 customizing the output of dir() in the presence of a __getattr__().
Brett Cannonba7bf492007-02-27 00:15:55 +0000213
Neal Norwitz8dfc4a92007-08-11 06:39:53 +0000214- Removed support for __members__ and __methods__.
215
Georg Brandle32b4222007-03-10 22:13:27 +0000216- Removed indexing/slicing on BaseException.
Neal Norwitz2633c692007-02-26 22:22:47 +0000217
Georg Brandle32b4222007-03-10 22:13:27 +0000218- input() became raw_input(): the name input() now implements the
Guido van Rossum0240b922007-02-26 21:23:50 +0000219 functionality formerly known as raw_input(); the name raw_input()
220 is no longer defined.
221
Brett Cannon39590462007-02-26 22:01:14 +0000222- Classes listed in an 'except' clause must inherit from BaseException.
Brett Cannonf74225d2007-02-26 21:10:16 +0000223
Guido van Rossumcc2b0162007-02-11 06:12:03 +0000224- PEP 3106: dict.iterkeys(), .iteritems(), .itervalues() are now gone;
Guido van Rossumcf1be882007-08-30 22:07:17 +0000225 and .keys(), .items(), .values() return dict views, which behave
226 like sets.
Guido van Rossumcc2b0162007-02-11 06:12:03 +0000227
Guido van Rossum8b545362007-02-09 23:52:14 +0000228- PEP 3105: print is now a function. Also (not in the PEP) the
229 'softspace' attribute of files is now gone (since print() doesn't use
230 it). A side effect of this change is that you can get incomplete
231 output lines in interactive sessions:
232
233 >>> print(42, end="")
Kurt B. Kaiser2c7f3142007-08-30 21:52:19 +0000234 42>>>
Guido van Rossum8b545362007-02-09 23:52:14 +0000235
236 We may be able to fix this after the I/O library rewrite.
Guido van Rossum4502c802007-02-09 05:42:38 +0000237
Brett Cannon398db8b2007-01-29 23:44:37 +0000238- PEP 3102: keyword-only arguments.
239
Guido van Rossumd4588c12007-02-13 19:55:23 +0000240- Int/Long unification is complete. The 'long' built-in type
Guido van Rossumec7027f2007-01-30 00:00:40 +0000241 and literals with trailing 'L' or 'l' have been removed.
242 Performance may be sub-optimal (haven't really benchmarked).
Guido van Rossumab186842007-01-14 03:42:30 +0000243
244- 'except E, V' must now be spelled as 'except E as V' and deletes V
245 at the end of the except clause; V must be a simple name.
246
Neal Norwitzc1505362006-12-28 06:47:50 +0000247- Added function annotations per PEP 3107.
248
Jeremy Hyltona4f9fc62007-02-27 15:53:28 +0000249- Added nonlocal declaration from PEP 3104
250
251 >>> def f(x):
252 ... def inc():
253 ... nonlocal x
254 ... x += 1
255 ... return x
256 ... return inc
257 ...
258 >>> inc = f(0)
259 >>> inc()
260 1
261 >>> inc()
262 2
263
Georg Brandl66a796e2006-12-19 20:50:34 +0000264- Moved intern() to sys.intern().
265
266- exec is now a function.
267
268- Renamed nb_nonzero to nb_bool and __nonzero__ to __bool__.
Jack Diederich4dafcc42006-11-28 19:15:13 +0000269
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000270- Classic classes are a thing of the past. All classes are new style.
271
272- Exceptions *must* derive from BaseException.
273
274- Integer division always returns a float. The -Q option is no more.
275 All the following are gone:
276 * PyNumber_Divide and PyNumber_InPlaceDivide
277 * __div__, __rdiv__, and __idiv__
278 * nb_divide, nb_inplace_divide
279 * operator.div, operator.idiv, operator.__div__, operator.__idiv__
280 (Only __truediv__ and __floordiv__ remain, not sure how to handle them
281 if we want to re-use __div__ and friends. If we do, it will make
282 it harder to write code for both 2.x and 3.x.)
283
284- 'as' and 'with' are keywords.
285
286- Absolute import is the default behavior for 'import foo' etc.
287
Neal Norwitz378b2c92006-08-29 07:57:22 +0000288- Removed support for syntax:
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000289 backticks (ie, `x`), <>
Neal Norwitz378b2c92006-08-29 07:57:22 +0000290
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000291- Removed these Python builtins:
Neal Norwitz01688022007-08-12 00:43:29 +0000292 apply(), callable(), coerce(), execfile(), file(), reduce(), reload()
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000293
Neal Norwitz378b2c92006-08-29 07:57:22 +0000294- Removed these Python methods:
295 {}.has_key
296
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000297- Removed these opcodes:
298 BINARY_DIVIDE, INPLACE_DIVIDE, UNARY_CONVERT
299
300- Remove C API support for restricted execution.
301
Guido van Rossumcf1be882007-08-30 22:07:17 +0000302- zip(), map() and filter() now return iterators, behaving like their
303 itertools counterparts. This also affect map()'s behavior on
304 sequences of unequal length -- it now stops after the shortest one
305 is exhausted.
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000306
307- Additions:
Guido van Rossumcf1be882007-08-30 22:07:17 +0000308 set literals, set comprehensions, ellipsis literal.
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000309
310- Added class decorators per PEP 3129.
311
312
313Extension Modules
314-----------------
315
316- Remove the imageop module. Obsolete long with its unit tests becoming
317 useless from the removal of rgbimg and imgfile.
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000318
319- Removed these attributes from Python modules:
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000320 * operator module: div, idiv, __div__, __idiv__, isCallable, sequenceIncludes
Guido van Rossume7ba4952007-06-06 23:52:48 +0000321 * sys module: exc_clear(), exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000322
323
324Library
325-------
326
327- Remove the compiler package. Use of the _ast module and (an eventual)
328 AST -> bytecode mechanism.
329
330- Removed these modules:
Guido van Rossum33d26892007-08-05 15:29:28 +0000331 * audiodev, Bastion, bsddb185, exceptions, linuxaudiodev,
332 md5, MimeWriter, mimify, popen2,
333 rexec, sets, sha, stringold, strop, sunaudiodev, timing, xmllib.
334
335- Moved these modules to Tools/Demos:
336 * toaiff
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000337
338- Remove obsolete IRIX modules: al/AL, cd/CD, cddb, cdplayer, cl/CL, DEVICE,
339 ERRNO, FILE, fl/FL, flp, fm, GET, gl/GL, GLWS, IN, imgfile, IOCTL, jpeg,
340 panel, panelparser, readcd, sgi, sv/SV, torgb, WAIT.
341
342- Remove obsolete functions:
343 * commands.getstatus(), os.popen*,
344
Martin v. Löwis967f1e32007-08-14 09:23:10 +0000345- Remove functions in the string module that are also string methods;
346 Remove string.{letters, lowercase, uppercase}.
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000347
348- Remove support for long obsolete platforms: plat-aix3, plat-irix5.
349
350- Remove xmlrpclib.SlowParser. It was based on xmllib.
351
352- Patch #1680961: atexit has been reimplemented in C.
353
Walter Dörwald41980ca2007-08-16 21:55:45 +0000354- Add new codecs for UTF-32, UTF-32-LE and UTF-32-BE.
355
Guido van Rossumd59da4b2007-05-22 18:11:13 +0000356
357Build
358-----
359
360C API
361-----
362
363- Removed these Python slots:
364 __coerce__, __div__, __idiv__, __rdiv__
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000365
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000366- Removed these C APIs:
Neal Norwitz8dfc4a92007-08-11 06:39:53 +0000367 PyNumber_Coerce(), PyNumber_CoerceEx(), PyMember_Get, PyMember_Set
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000368
369- Removed these C slots/fields:
370 nb_divide, nb_inplace_divide
371
372- Removed these macros:
Neal Norwitz30d1c512007-08-19 22:48:23 +0000373 staticforward, statichere, PyArg_GetInt, PyArg_NoArgs, _PyObject_Del
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000374
375- Removed these typedefs:
376 intargfunc, intintargfunc, intobjargproc, intintobjargproc,
Neal Norwitz8dfc4a92007-08-11 06:39:53 +0000377 getreadbufferproc, getwritebufferproc, getsegcountproc, getcharbufferproc,
378 memberlist
Neal Norwitz4886cc32006-08-21 17:06:07 +0000379
Raymond Hettinger4901a1f2004-12-02 08:59:14 +0000380
Raymond Hettinger4901a1f2004-12-02 08:59:14 +0000381Tests
382-----
383
Brett Cannonced04e02005-02-13 22:53:22 +0000384Documentation
385-------------
386
Raymond Hettinger4901a1f2004-12-02 08:59:14 +0000387Mac
388---
389
Guido van Rossume7ba4952007-06-06 23:52:48 +0000390- The cfmfile was removed.
391
392
Guido van Rossum845702c2007-08-30 18:44:53 +0000393Platforms
394---------
395
396- Support for BeOS and AtheOS was removed (according to PEP 11).
397
398- Support for RiscOS, Irix, Tru64 was removed (alledgedly).
399
Hye-Shik Chang4e422812005-07-17 02:36:59 +0000400
Raymond Hettinger4901a1f2004-12-02 08:59:14 +0000401Tools/Demos
402-----------
403
Skip Montanaroe5d7f7f2002-09-20 14:16:59 +0000404**(For information about older versions, consult the HISTORY file.)**