This was originally submitted by Martin von Loewis as part of his
Unicode patch; all I did was add special cases for Python int and
float objects and rearrange the object type tests somewhat to speed up
the common cases (string, int, float, tuple, unicode, object).

executive summary:
Instead of typing 'apply(f, args, kwargs)' you can type 'f(*arg, **kwargs)'.
Some file-by-file details follow.

Grammar/Grammar:
    simplify varargslist, replacing '*' '*' with '**'
    add * & ** options to arglist

Include/opcode.h & Lib/dis.py:
    define three new opcodes
        CALL_FUNCTION_VAR
        CALL_FUNCTION_KW
        CALL_FUNCTION_VAR_KW

Python/ceval.c:
    extend TypeError "keyword parameter redefined" message to include
        the name of the offending keyword
    reindent CALL_FUNCTION using four spaces
    add handling of sequences and dictionaries using extend calls
    fix function import_from to use PyErr_Format

This fixes a bunch of socket.connect(host, post) calls.  Note that I
haven't tested all modules -- I don't have enough servers here...

The new filecmp module has an optional argument called use_statcache
which is documented as a true/false value, but used as an tuple index.

This patches replaces the tuple stuff with a good old if- statement,
and also removes a few other tuple pack/unpack constructs (if not
else, this saves a few bytes in the PYC file, and a few microseconds
when using the module ;-).

Updated NetPresenz URL. Still needs update in the light of the new :Mac:Tools:CGI: stuff. Later. (jvr)

The attached patch set includes a workaround to get Python with
Unicode compile on BSDI 4.x (courtesy Thomas Wouters; the cause
is a bug in the BSDI wchar.h header file) and Python interfaces
for the MBCS codec donated by Mark Hammond.

Also included are some minor corrections w/r to the docs of
the new "es" and "es#" parser markers (use PyMem_Free() instead
of free(); thanks to Mark Hammond for finding these).

The unicodedata tests are now in a separate file
(test_unicodedata.py) to avoid problems if the module cannot
be found.

This patch fixes the "search" command in imaplib. The problem
was that a search can take multiple arguments, but as defined,
would only accept one.

I have also made changes to the test code at the end to be less
verbose by default, but to accept a verbosity argument.

self.parser to be None; in that case don't dereference it in
getnames().

8.0.  There really is no excuse, and for who really still wants those,
they can go back to Python 1.5.2.

- new script/applet BuildCGIApplet
This largely supercedes :Mac:Demos:cgi, except for the html doc file. Should it move here? Merged with CGI_README.txt?
Todo: fullbuild support.
(jvr)

Martin von Loewis (whose more elaborate patch to use objects is still
under review).

The robotparser.py module currently lives in Tools/webchecker.  In
preparation for its migration to Lib, I made the following changes:

    * renamed the test() function _test
    * corrected the URLs in _test() so they refer to actual documents
    * added an "if __name__ == '__main__'" catcher to invoke _test()
      when run as a main program
    * added doc strings for the two main methods, parse and can_fetch
    * replaced usage of regsub and regex with corresponding re code

fixed several event handling buglets, added command Q support, added a new module doc string, some formatting nits. (jvr)

handle OSError and DistutilsExecError now.

rather than None.

Fixed 'build_extensions()' to pay attention to the 'rpath' element of the
  'build_info' dictionary.

  we don't know what to do with it when we see it.
Call '_fix_object_args()' and/or '_fix_lib_args()' as appropriate, rather
  than just '_fix_link_args()'.

  use it when linking.
Call '_fix_object_args()' and/or '_fix_lib_args()' as appropriate, rather
  than just '_fix_link_args()'.

Split '_fix_link_args()' up into '_fix_object_args()' (for use of
  'create_static_lib() and link methods) and '_fix_lib_args()' (for the
  link methods only).

cgitest.cgi.rsrc: disable argv emulation; this is essential for the first time the cgi applet starts up

Added "better safe than sorry" patch to the new
trashcan code in object.c, to ensure that tstate
is not touched when it might be undefined.

Attached you find the latest update of the Unicode implementation.
The patch is against the current CVS version.

It includes the fix I posted yesterday for the core dump problem
in codecs.c (was introduced by my previous patch set -- sorry),
adds more tests for the codecs and two new parser markers
"es" and "es#".

argument format strings.

THIS WILL PROBABLY BREAK LOTS OF CODE!!!

Also fixed a bogus string in an error message in getsockaddrlen().

argument: a (host, port) tuple.

Like multi-arg append(), multi-arg connect() and bind() may be ruled out!