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Commit 27b3bc3f authored by Guido van Rossum's avatar Guido van Rossum
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Reordered the news to make it more accessible. Also removed some dups.

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Misc/NEWS
View file @ 27b3bc3f
......@@ -32,6 +32,10 @@ Ctrl-Z) to exit.
- New and improved Misc/python-mode.el (Python mode for Emacs).
- Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag. It turned
out to be a bad idea.
Miscellaneous fixed bugs
------------------------
......@@ -44,19 +48,25 @@ __getattr__ method).
- Removed the only use of calloc(). This triggered an obscure bug on
multiprocessor Sparc Solaris 2.6.
- Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
(believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
- Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and some other cases).
Documentation
-------------
- Doc strings have been added to many extension modules: __builtin__,
errno, select, signal, socket, sys, thread, time. Also to methods of
list objects (try [].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now
automatically be propagated to an instance if the instance has methods
that are accessed in the usual way.
- The documentation has been expanded and the formatting improved.
(Remember that the documentation is now unbundled and has its own
release cycle though; see http://www.python.org/doc/.)
- Doc strings have been added to many modules: socket, signal, select,
time, thread, sys, __builtin__. Also to methods of list objects (try
[].append.__doc__). A doc string on a type will now automatically be
propagated to an instance if the instance has methods that are
accessed in the usual way.
- Added Misc/Porting -- a mini-FAQ on porting to a new platform.
Ports and build procedure
......@@ -73,28 +83,21 @@ Ports and build procedure
works, it won't also use -Olimit 1500 (which gives a warning for every
file). Also support the SGI_ABI environment variable better.
- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
Makefiles.
- The makesetup script now understands absolute pathnames ending in .o
in the module -- it assumes it's a file for which we have no source.
- Other miscellaneous improvements to the configure script and
Makefiles.
- The test suite now uses a different sound sample.
Built-in functions and exceptions
---------------------------------
Built-in functions
------------------
- Better checks for invalid input to int(), long(), string.atoi(),
string.atol(). (Formerly, a sign without digits would be accepted as
a legal ways to spell zero.)
- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError;
EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
filename argument now use this.
- Changes to map() and filter() to use the length of a sequence only
as a hint -- if an IndexError happens earlier, take that. (Formerly,
this was considered an error.)
......@@ -105,12 +108,31 @@ default (instead of raising AttributeError).
- Implement round() slightly different, so that for negative ndigits
no additional errors happen in the last step.
Built-in types and statements
-----------------------------
- The open() function now adds the filename to the exception when it
fails.
Built-in exceptions
-------------------
- New standard exceptions EnvironmentError and PosixError.
EnvironmentError is the base class for IOError and PosixError;
PosixError is the same as os.error. All this so that either exception
class can be instantiated with a third argument indicating a filename.
The built-in function open() and most os/posix functions that take a
filename argument now use this.
Built-in types
--------------
- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
i. Also, the sort() method is faster again. Sorting is now also
safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
while the sort is going on (which could cause core dumps).
- Changes to comparisons: numbers now compare smaller than any other
type. This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < []
is true. As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
- Changes to comparisons: numbers are now smaller than any other type.
This is done to prevent the circularity where [] < 0L < 1 < [] is
true. As a side effect, cmp(None, 0) is now positive instead of
negative. This *shouldn't* affect any working code, but I've found
that the change caused several "sleeping" bugs to become active, so
beware!
......@@ -125,47 +147,52 @@ now allowed (with stringent type checks); also allow assignment to
__getattr__ etc. The cached values for __getattr__ etc. are
recomputed after such assignments (but not for derived classes :-( ).
- New, better performing sort() method for list objects.
- List objects now have an experimental pop() method; l.pop() returns
and removes the last item; l.pop(i) returns and removes the item at
i. Also, the sort() method is faster again. Sorting is now also
safer: it is impossible for the sorting function to modify the list
while the sort is going on (this could cause core dumps).
- Fix a bug in the overflow checking when converting a Python long to
a C long (failed to convert -2147483648L, and other spurious bugs).
- Allow assignment to some attributes of function objects: func_code,
func_defaults and func_doc / __doc__. (With type checks except for
__doc__ / func_doc .)
- Fix a peculiar bug that would allow "import sys.time" to succeed
(believing the built-in time module to be a part of the sys package).
Library modules
Python services
---------------
- New tests (in Lib/test): reperf.py (regular expression benchmark),
sortperf.py (list sorting benchmark), test_MimeWriter.py (test case
for the MimeWriter module).
- New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames(). New
variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac. Do *not* use
this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
will always be '\n'!
- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
packages.
- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
stat return tuple.
- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
compliance, for picky servers.
- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
of regular file objects.
- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
IndexError when there are no more completions left.
- Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
input. (It's still not foolproof!)
- In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
"contains" for "sequenceincludes".
String Services
---------------
- In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
occurrences of a given substring.
- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
result in long integer values.
Miscellaneous services
----------------------
- In whrandom.py, added new method and function randrange(), same as
choice(range(start, stop, step)) but faster. This addresses the
......@@ -177,51 +204,80 @@ adding extra range and type checking to its arguments!
crash when invoked from separate threads; now the worst it can do is
give a duplicate result occasionally).
- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name. No
longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
- In getpass.py, don't use raw_input() to ask for the password -- we
don't want it to show up in the readline history! Also don't catch
interrupts (the try-finally already does all necessary cleanup).
- Generalized test/regrtest.py so that it is useful for testing other
packages.
Generic OS Services
-------------------
- Changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote(). Fixed an
obscure bug in quote_plus(). Added urlencode(dict) -- convenience
function for sending a POST request with urlopen(). Use the getpass
module to ask for a password. Rewrote the (test) main program so that
when used as a script, it can retrieve one or more URLs to stdout.
Use -t to run the self-test. Made the proxy code work again.
- New functions in os.py: makedirs(), removedirs(), renames(). New
variable: linesep (the line separator as found in binary files,
i.e. '\n' on Unix, '\r\n' on DOS/Windows, '\r' on Mac. Do *not* use
this with files opened in (default) text mode; the line separator used
will always be '\n'!
- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
been loaded yet.
- Changes to the 'os.path' submodule of os.py: added getsize(),
getmtime(), getatime() -- these fetch the most popular items from the
stat return tuple.
- In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList. Also support a new
overridable method, isheader(). Also add a get() method similar to
dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it). Also, be smarter
about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
unread() method before trying seeks.
- In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists. (This parses a
time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().) Also,
remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
formatting of some non-local times.
- Some speedups to re.py, especially the string substitution and split
functions. Also added new function/method findall(), to find all
occurrences of a given substring.
- In the socket module, added a new function gethostbyname_ex().
Also, don't use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some
platforms (and should exist everywhere).
- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
Optional OS Services
--------------------
- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
long ago. Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
separator.
- Some fixes to gzip.py. In particular, the readlines() method now
returns the lines *with* trailing newline characters, like readlines()
of regular file objects. Also, it didn't work together with cPickle;
fixed that.
- Major upgrade to ConfigParser.py; converted to using 're', added new
exceptions, support underscore in section header and option name. No
longer add 'name' option to every section; instead, add '__name__'.
- In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
- The ihooks.py module now understands package imports.
- In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
which module to use to open it. (The anydbm.error exception is now a
tuple.)
- Some restructuring and generalization done to cmd.py.
Unix Services
-------------
- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py.
- In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
calling tcgetattr().
- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions to
the posix module (and thus to the os module): WEXITSTATUS(),
WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(), WTERMSIG().
- In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
(matching the docs).
Debugger
--------
- In pdb.py, support for setting breaks on files/modules that haven't
been loaded yet.
Internet Protocols and Support
------------------------------
- Changes in urllib.py; sped up unquote() and quote(). Fixed an
obscure bug in quote_plus(). Added urlencode(dict) -- convenience
function for sending a POST request with urlopen(). Use the getpass
module to ask for a password. Rewrote the (test) main program so that
when used as a script, it can retrieve one or more URLs to stdout.
Use -t to run the self-test. Made the proxy code work again.
- In cgi.py, treat "HEAD" the same as "GET", so that CGI scripts don't
fail when someone asks for their HEAD. Also, for POST, set the
......@@ -230,64 +286,38 @@ FieldStorage.__init__(), when method='GET', always get the query
string from environ['QUERY_STRING'] or sys.argv[1] -- ignore an
explicitly passed in fp.
- Improved imaplib.py.
- In code.py, add a class that subsumes Fredrik Lundh's
PythonInterpreter class. The interact() function now uses this.
- In multifile.py, support a seekable flag.
- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py, which never worked.
- In rlcompleter.py, in completer(), return None instead of raising an
IndexError when there are no more completions left.
- The smtplib.py module now supports ESMTP and has improved standard
compliance, for picky servers.
- In the string and strop modules, in the replace() function, treat an
empty pattern as an error (since it's not clear what was meant!).
- Improved imaplib.py.
- The gzip.py module didn't work together with cPickle. Fixed.
- Fixed UDP support in SocketServer.py (it never worked).
- Fixed a small bug in CGIHTTPServer.py.
- In whichdb.py, support byte-swapped dbhash (bsddb) files.
Internet Data handling
----------------------
- In anydbm.py, look at the type of an existing database to determine
which module to use to open it. (The anydbm.error exception is now a
tuple.)
Extension modules
-----------------
- In the socket module: new function gethostbyname_ex(). Also, don't
use #ifdef to test for some symbols that are enums on some platforms
(and should exist everywhere).
- Added some of the "wait status inspection" macros as functions:
WEXITSTATUS(), WIFEXITED(), WIFSIGNALED(), WIFSTOPPED(), WSTOPSIG(),
WTERMSIG().
- In cStringIO, add better argument type checking and support the
readonly 'closed' attribute (like regular files).
- In the struct module, unsigned 1-2 byte sized formats no longer
result in long integer values.
- In the termios module, in tcsetattr(), initialize the structure vy
calling tcgetattr().
- In rfc822.py, add a new class AddressList. Also support a new
overridable method, isheader(). Also add a get() method similar to
dictionaries (and make getheader() an alias for it). Also, be smarter
about seekable (test whether fp.tell() works) and test for presence of
unread() method before trying seeks.
- In the time module, add strptime(), if it exists. (This parses a
time according to a format -- the inverse of strftime().) Also,
remove the call to mktime() from strftime() -- it messed up the
formatting of some non-local times.
- In sgmllib.py, restore the call to report_unbalanced() that was lost
long ago. Also some other improvements: handle <? processing
instructions >, allow . and - in entity names, and allow \r\n as line
separator.
- Fixed the marshal module to test for certain common kinds of invalid
input. (It's still not foolproof!)
- Some restructuring and generalization done to multifile.py; support
a 'seekable' flag.
- In the operator module, add an alias (now the preferred name)
"contains" for "sequenceincludes".
Restricted Execution
--------------------
- In the syslog module, make the default facility more intuitive
(matching the docs).
- Improvements to rexec.py: package support; support a (minimal)
sys.exc_info(). Also made the (test) main program a bit fancier (you
can now use it to run arbitrary Python scripts in restricted mode).
Tkinter
-------
......@@ -330,48 +360,67 @@ extension that needs to make calls into the Tcl/Tk C API and needs to
get the address of the Tcl interpreter object. A simple cast of the
return value to (Tcl_Interp *) will do the trick.
Windows
-------
- The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be
resynchronized.
- The project files have been moved so they are distributed in the
same subdirectory (PCbuild) where they must be used; this avoids
confusion.
- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive.
Windows General
---------------
- Don't insist on proper case for module source files if the filename
is all uppercase (e.g. FOO.PY now matches foo; but FOO.py still
doesn't). This should address problems with this feature on
oldfashioned filesystems (Novell servers?).
Windows Library
---------------
- os.environ is now all uppercase, but accesses are case insensitive,
and the putenv() calls made as a side effect of changing os.environ
are case preserving.
- Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
wouldn't know how).
- Fixed os.pipe() so that it returns file descriptors acceptable to
os.read() and os.write() (like it does on Unix), rather than Windows
file handles.
- In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the heap.
- Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
- The getpass module now raises KeyboardInterrupt when it sees ^C.
- In the select module, put the (huge) file descriptor arrays on the
heap.
- Changes to os.py: os.environ now upcases keys before storing them on
Windows, DOS and OS/2.
- The getpass module now raises KeyboardInterrupt when it sees ^C.
- In mailbox.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
- In rfc822.py, fix tell/seek when using files opened in text mode.
- Several improvements to freeze (mostly, but not exclusively for
Windows).
- In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche(). Also fix a
bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
argument list.
Windows Installer
-----------------
- The registry key used is now "1.5" instead of "1.5.x" -- so future
versions of 1.5 and Mark Hammond's win32all installer don't need to be
resynchronized.
Windows Tools
-------------
- Moved the VC++ project files and the WISE installer script from PC
to PCbuild.
- Several improvements to freeze specifically for Windows.
Windows Build Procedure
-----------------------
- The VC++ project files and the WISE installer have been moved to the
PCbuild subdirectory, so they are distributed in the same subdirectory
where they must be used. This avoids confusion.
- New project files for Windows 3.1 port by Jim Ahlstrom.
- Got rid of the obsolete subdirectory PC/setup_nt/.
- The projects now use distinct filenames for the .exe, .dll, .lib and
.pyd files built in debug mode (by appending "_d" to the base name,
......@@ -380,27 +429,10 @@ and get the right versions. There's a pragma in config.h that directs
the linker to include the appropriate .lib file (so python15.lib no
longer needs to be explicit in your project).
- In the msvcrt extension module, release the interpreter lock for
calls that may block: _locking(), _getch(), _getche(). Also fix a
bogus error return when open_osfhandle() doesn't have the right
argument list.
- Revert a new feature in Unix dynamic loading: for one or two
revisions, modules were loaded using the RTLD_GLOBAL flag. It turned
out to be a bad idea.
- The installer now installs more files (e.g. config.h). The idea is
that you shouldn't need the source distribution if you want build your
own extensions in C or C++.
- Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
- Added a table of WSA error codes to socket.py.
- Removed samefile(), sameopenfile(), samestat() from os.path (aka
ntpath.py) -- these cannot be made to work reliably (at least I
wouldn't know how).
Tools and Demos
---------------
......@@ -429,18 +461,7 @@ Python/C API
- Added missing prototypes for PyEval_CallFunction() and
PyEval_CallMethod().
- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
your compiler supports it.
- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
etc. are sought).
- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_Lis(t) to use the
length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
- New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
- New macros to access object members for PyFunction, PyCFunction
objects.
......@@ -452,11 +473,12 @@ dynamically add one or many entries to the table of built-in modules.
Py_InitModule4() with appropriate arguments. (The -4 variant requires
you to pass an obscure version number constant which is always the same.)
- Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
many error checking bugs.
- New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface. (Used in
_tkinter.c, for example.)
- Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
- New APIs for conversion between Python longs and C 'long long' if
your compiler supports it.
- PySequence_In() is now called PySequence_Contains().
(PySequence_In() is still supported for b/w compatibility; it is
......@@ -467,11 +489,23 @@ declared obsolete because its argument order is confusing.)
the error). This was necessary because there is lots of code out
there that already assumes this.
- New APIs PySys_WriteStdout() and PySys_WriteStderr() to write to
sys.stdout or sys.stderr using a printf-like interface. (Used in
_tkinter.c, for example.)
- Changes to PySequence_Tuple() and PySequence_List() to use the
length of a sequence only as a hint -- if an IndexError happens
earlier, take that. (Formerly, this was considered an error.)
- New macro PyList_SET_ITEM().
- Reformatted abstract.c to give it a more familiar "look" and fixed
many error checking bugs.
- Add NULL pointer checks to all calls of a C function through a type
object and extensions (e.g. nb_add).
- The code that initializes sys.path now calls Py_GetPythonHome()
instead of getenv("PYTHONHOME"). This, together with the new API
Py_SetPythonHome(), makes it easier for embedding applications to
change the notion of Python's "home" directory (where the libraries
etc. are sought).
- Fixed a very old bug in the parsing of "O?" format specifiers.
======================================================================
......
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