they will still live in 3.0 but it can't hurt

Be less strict when parsing these version numbers,
they don't necessarily follow the python numbering scheme.

This is new in 2.6 so now need to worry about backwards compatibility :)

Optimization of str.format() for cases with str, unicode, int, long,
and float arguments.  This gives about 30% speed improvement for the
simplest (but most common) cases.  This patch skips the __format__
dispatch, and also avoids creating an object to hold the format_spec.

Unfortunately there's a complication in 2.6 with int, long, and float
because they always expect str format_specs.  So in the unicode
version of this optimization, just check for unicode objects.  int,
float, long, and str can be added later, if needed.

the module but exposed as part of the API.

filecmp, and shelve.

   regrtest.py -R:: test_bytes

- Fix broken functions
- Add (hopefully) extensive tests
- Modernize a little

function now takes bytearray by using 's*' instead of 't#'.

fails unicode conversion on 2nd parameter. (windows only)

in a redirect.