Cython 0.12 released

[Robert Bradshaw]

Cython 0.12 has been officially released. You can get it directly from
http://cython.org/ or at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Cython/. This is
the culmination of many months of work, including a mergeback of the
experimental branch (after much testing) that was started earlier this
year.


== New features ==

 -  Type inference with the infer_types directive
 -  Seamless C++ complex support
 -  Fast extension type instantiation using the normal Python meme obj
= MyType.__new__(MyType).
 -  Improved support for Py3.1
 -  Cython now runs under Python 3.x using the 2to3 tool
 -  unittest support for doctests in Cython modules
 -  Optimised handling of C strings (char*): for c in cstring[2:50]
and cstring.decode()
 -  Looping over c pointers: for i in intptr[:50].
 -  Many other optimisation, e.g. enumerate() loops, parallel swap
assignments (a,b = b,a), and unicode.encode()
 -  More complete numpy.pxd
 -  pyximport improvements
 -  cython_freeze improvements
 -  Many bug fixes

There has also been a lot of work behind the scenes to improve temp
handling, streamline writing optimizations, and cleanup code in
general. A list of tickets closed can be found at
http://trac.cython.org/cython_trac/query?group=component&milestone=0.12


== Semantic Changes ==

This revision to introduces some backwards incompatible changes to
more closely align Cython with the Python language, and unify C and
Python types to pave the way for seamless type inference. They are:

 -  Division involving negative C integers now follow Python semantics
rather than C semantics. Division by zero also now raises a Python
exception. See [[enhancements/division|CEP 516]] This has been
optional for several releases, and is now the default. It can be
disabled on a per-function or per-file basis, or from the command line
(see [[enhancements/compilerdirectives]])

 -  Unmarked strings are now of type str in both Python 2.x (becoming
byte strings) and Python 3.x (becoming unicode strings). Byte strings
may be marked as b"..." and unicode strings as u"..." no matter what
the runtime environment. See [[enhancements/stringliterals|CEP 108]]

 -  The boolean expressions x or y and x and y return either x or y
just like in Python, even when x and y are c types. This means that
the types must be compatible. Previously x and y were coerced into
truth values first, and either 1 or 0 was returned.


== Contributors to this release ==

 * Peter Alexander
 * Stefan Behnel
 * Robert Bradshaw
 * David Cournapeau
 * Lisandro Dalcin
 * Mark Lodato
 * Sturla Molden
 * Dag Sverre Seljebotn
 * Holger

Thanks also to everybody who's helping us out in our discussions on
the
mailing list.