Guido van Rossum | 635649f | 1994-11-10 23:04:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame^] | 1 | =================================== |
| 2 | ==> Release 1.1.1 (10 Nov 1994) <== |
| 3 | =================================== |
| 4 | |
| 5 | This is a pure bugfix release again. See the ChangeLog file for details. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | One exception: a few new features were added to tkinter. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | |
Guido van Rossum | 1146c87 | 1994-10-10 18:05:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 10 | ================================= |
| 11 | ==> Release 1.1 (11 Oct 1994) <== |
| 12 | ================================= |
Guido van Rossum | 061f182 | 1994-10-06 16:03:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 13 | |
| 14 | This release adds several new features, improved configuration and |
Guido van Rossum | 1146c87 | 1994-10-10 18:05:40 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 15 | portability, and fixes more bugs than I can list here (including some |
Guido van Rossum | 061f182 | 1994-10-06 16:03:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 16 | memory leaks). |
| 17 | |
| 18 | The source compiles and runs out of the box on more platforms than |
| 19 | ever -- including Windows NT. Makefiles or projects for a variety of |
| 20 | non-UNIX platforms are provided. |
| 21 | |
Guido van Rossum | ac5a4e3 | 1994-10-11 15:04:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 22 | APOLOGY: some new features are badly documented or not at all. I had |
Guido van Rossum | 061f182 | 1994-10-06 16:03:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 23 | the choice -- postpone the new release indefinitely, or release it |
Guido van Rossum | ac5a4e3 | 1994-10-11 15:04:57 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 24 | now, with working code but some undocumented areas. The problem with |
| 25 | postponing the release is that people continue to suffer from existing |
| 26 | bugs, and send me patches based on the previous release -- which I |
| 27 | can't apply directly because my own source has changed. Also, some |
| 28 | new modules (like signal) have been ready for release for quite some |
| 29 | time, and people are anxiously waiting for them. In the case of |
| 30 | signal, the interface is simple enough to figure out without |
| 31 | documentation (if you're anxious enough :-). In this case it was not |
| 32 | simple to release the module on its own, since it relies on many small |
| 33 | patches elsewhere in the source. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | For most new Python modules, the source code contains comments that |
| 36 | explain how to use them. Documentation for the Tk interface, written |
| 37 | by Matt Conway, is available as tkinter-doc.tar.gz from the Python |
| 38 | home and mirror ftp sites (see Misc/FAQ for ftp addresses). For the |
| 39 | new operator overloading facilities, have a look at Demo/classes: |
| 40 | Complex.py and Rat.py show how to implement a numeric type without and |
| 41 | with __coerce__ method. Also have a look at the end of the Tutorial |
| 42 | document (Doc/tut.tex). If you're still confused: use the newsgroup |
| 43 | or mailing list. |
Guido van Rossum | 061f182 | 1994-10-06 16:03:45 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 44 | |
| 45 | |
| 46 | New language features: |
| 47 | |
| 48 | - More flexible operator overloading for user-defined classes |
| 49 | (INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS!) See end of tutorial. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | - Classes can define methods named __getattr__, __setattr__ and |
| 52 | __delattr__ to trap attribute accesses. See end of tutorial. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | - Classes can define method __call__ so instances can be called |
| 55 | directly. See end of tutorial. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | |
| 58 | New support facilities: |
| 59 | |
| 60 | - The Makefiles (for the base interpreter as well as for extensions) |
| 61 | now support creating dynamically loadable modules if the platform |
| 62 | supports shared libraries. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | - Passing the interpreter a .pyc file as script argument will execute |
| 65 | the code in that file. (On the Mac such files can be double-clicked!) |
| 66 | |
| 67 | - New Freeze script, to create independently distributable "binaries" |
| 68 | of Python programs -- look in Demo/freeze |
| 69 | |
| 70 | - Improved h2py script (in Demo/scripts) follows #includes and |
| 71 | supports macros with one argument |
| 72 | |
| 73 | - New module compileall generates .pyc files for all modules in a |
| 74 | directory (tree) without also executing them |
| 75 | |
| 76 | - Threads should work on more platforms |
| 77 | |
| 78 | |
| 79 | New built-in modules: |
| 80 | |
| 81 | - tkinter (support for Tcl's Tk widget set) is now part of the base |
| 82 | distribution |
| 83 | |
| 84 | - signal allows catching or ignoring UNIX signals (unfortunately still |
| 85 | undocumented -- any taker?) |
| 86 | |
| 87 | - termios provides portable access to POSIX tty settings |
| 88 | |
| 89 | - curses provides an interface to the System V curses library |
| 90 | |
| 91 | - syslog provides an interface to the (BSD?) syslog daemon |
| 92 | |
| 93 | - 'new' provides interfaces to create new built-in object types |
| 94 | (e.g. modules and functions) |
| 95 | |
| 96 | - sybase provides an interface to SYBASE database |
| 97 | |
| 98 | |
| 99 | New/obsolete built-in methods: |
| 100 | |
| 101 | - callable(x) tests whether x can be called |
| 102 | |
| 103 | - sockets now have a setblocking() method |
| 104 | |
| 105 | - sockets no longer have an allowbroadcast() method |
| 106 | |
| 107 | - socket methods send() and sendto() return byte count |
| 108 | |
| 109 | |
| 110 | New standard library modules: |
| 111 | |
| 112 | - types.py defines standard names for built-in types, e.g. StringType |
| 113 | |
| 114 | - urlparse.py parses URLs according to the latest Internet draft |
| 115 | |
| 116 | - uu.py does uuencode/uudecode (not the fastest in the world, but |
| 117 | quicker than installing uuencode on a non-UNIX machine :-) |
| 118 | |
| 119 | - New, faster and more powerful profile module.py |
| 120 | |
| 121 | - mhlib.py provides interface to MH folders and messages |
| 122 | |
| 123 | |
| 124 | New facilities for extension writers (unfortunately still |
| 125 | undocumented): |
| 126 | |
| 127 | - newgetargs() supports optional arguments and improved error messages |
| 128 | |
| 129 | - O!, O& O? formats for getargs allow more versatile type checking of |
| 130 | non-standard types |
| 131 | |
| 132 | - can register pending asynchronous callback, to be called the next |
| 133 | time the Python VM begins a new instruction (Py_AddPendingCall) |
| 134 | |
| 135 | - can register cleanup routines to be called when Python exits |
| 136 | (Py_AtExit) |
| 137 | |
| 138 | - makesetup script understands C++ files in Setup file (use file.C |
| 139 | or file.cc) |
| 140 | |
| 141 | - Make variable OPT is passed on to sub-Makefiles |
| 142 | |
| 143 | - An init<module>() routine may signal an error by not entering |
| 144 | the module in the module table and raising an exception instead |
| 145 | |
| 146 | - For long module names, instead of foobarbletchmodule.c you can |
| 147 | use foobarbletch.c |
| 148 | |
| 149 | - getintvalue() and getfloatvalue() try to convert any object |
| 150 | instead of requiring an "intobject" or "floatobject" |
| 151 | |
| 152 | - All the [new]getargs() formats that retrieve an integer value |
| 153 | will now also work if a float is passed |
| 154 | |
| 155 | - C function listtuple() converts list to tuple, fast |
| 156 | |
| 157 | - You should now call sigcheck() instead of intrcheck(); |
| 158 | sigcheck() also sets an exception when it returns nonzero |
| 159 | |
| 160 | |
Guido van Rossum | a85d053 | 1994-01-26 17:24:14 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 161 | --Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl> |
| 162 | URL: <http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Guido.van.Rossum.html> |