>COLOR="#FF0000">Heading Level 1

if
for
range()
if
for
range()
class foo:
    def __init__(self,data):
        ....

f=foo("blabla)

', test, '
Dear %(name)s,
 We really like your %(feature)s, and have awarded
you the %(feature)s-of-the-month award for %(month)s %(year)s.
>From all of us here at ACMW Awards, Congradulations!
      %(closing)s,
      Dave Mitchell

From alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk  Wed Oct  4 13:08:15 2000
From: alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk (Alan Gauld)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 18:08:15 +0100
Subject: 4-byte string to integer
References: <39DB493F.A7AA3E40@noaa.gov>
Message-ID: <39DB63FF.BAF3B4B5@gssec.bt.co.uk>

j vickroy wrote:
> 
> How can a 4-byte string be converted to an unsigned integer using
> Python?
> 
> The byte order may be either big or little endian.

Last things first, you will need to know that. There 
is no way the program can tell unless you tell it.

Now assuming the bytes are integers making up the 
digits you can just multiply and add succesive digits
by successive powers of 10.

Thus for 1,2,3,4:

digits = (1,2,3,4)

m,n = 1,0
for i in (1,2,3,4):
   n = n + i*m
   m = 10 * m

If the order is different you need to rearrange the 
order accordingly first. 

digits = (digits[1],digits[0], digits[3],digits[2])

You can of course generalise this but if its only 
ever 4 digits its not worth it.

HTH,

Alan G.
-- 
=================================================
This post represents the views of the author 
and does not necessarily accurately represent 
the views of BT.

From linuxqna at chollian.net  Mon Oct 16 22:43:50 2000
From: linuxqna at chollian.net (junwon,Seo)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:43:50 +0900
Subject: What is a pattern in imaplib.
Message-ID: <8sgdo3$2dp$1@news1.kornet.net>

Hi,,
In imaplib, many method have a "pattern" argument..
What is a pattern?

Examply, I  programmed following.

----------------
p = re.compile("^.*")
l = imap.LIST("INBOX",p)
----------------
Error....

please help me

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct  5 06:08:02 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 12:08:02 +0200
Subject: Inefficiency of __getattr__
References:  <39DBDF08.137B5269@tcac.net>
Message-ID: <8rhk88021ad@news1.newsguy.com>

"Albert Wagner"  wrote in message
news:39DBDF08.137B5269 at tcac.net...
> Wasn't this whole static/dynamic thing beat to death here several months
> ago?  If another language does  things more to your liking, then use
> that other language.  If NO language does things to your liking, then
> write one that does. Most on this newgroup are here because for various
> reasons they like Python.  Also most have a diverse background of many
> languages.  This NG has grown by leaps and bounds the last year.  We
> don't need to waste bandwidth rehashing an old, old argument.

We don't need to waste it, but we do need to spend it (and keep
spending it for the foreseeable future).  It would be silly to
further encourage language fragmentation, as you're doing, by
suggesting that anybody who doesn't consider any existing language
absolutely perfect should write a new one; even as it is, far too
many languages are born anyway IMHO, far too much collective energy
gets wasted in redesigning and reimplementing.  I'd MUCH rather
encourage people who like a language, but don't consider it quite
perfect, to spend their time and energy contributing to that
language's development (which fully includes discussing the why's
and wherefore's of various design-choices currently active in the
language and ones that might be made in the future).

Such discussions are not a waste, since they encourage widespread
attention on such design-choices, what benefits and problems they
bring, how some of their strengths can be exploited and some of
their weaknesses worked around, etc, etc.  If so much bandwidth
was not being invested in such discussion, awareness of these issues
would be generally lower, and this would lower the effectiveness of
some of the programming we do -- even quite apart from the issue of
influencing the language's future development.  (I do wonder what
ever happened to the typing SIG, though:-).

Alex

From peter at engcorp.com  Sun Oct  8 17:47:55 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 17:47:55 -0400
Subject: Request for Python Source Code
References: <4oeD5.1592$jBx.66322493@news.randori.com> <8rkdmk$he5$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de>
Message-ID: <39E0EB8B.2D9EDCCB@engcorp.com>

Dirk-Ulrich Heise wrote:
> 
> "Darren Rush"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:4oeD5.1592$jBx.66322493 at news.randori.com...
> > koders.com is a new website that is currently seeking expert developers to
> 
> I see a little problem with the requested Hungarian notation.
> 
> def x(a):
>    return a+1

Maybe I don't get out enough, but that's the first time I've seen
Hungarian notation actually referred to as a "Best Practice".  Yikes. 
Anyone have a code-obfuscator I can run on my Python code before I
submit it to them, to meet their standards?  

Just-venting-but-not-trying-to-start-an-anti-hungarian-notation-war-ly-yr's,
Peter Hansen

From scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl  Sat Oct 21 18:51:58 2000
From: scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl (Remco Gerlich)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 22:51:58 GMT
Subject: Cultural practices (was: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython (fwd))
References:  <4B59CD4D5EC85ECD.2233701BB177DE7D.A05C52BC7B51EE72@lp.airnews.net> 
Message-ID: 

John W. Baxter  wrote in comp.lang.python:
> In article 
> <4B59CD4D5EC85ECD.2233701BB177DE7D.A05C52BC7B51EE72 at lp.airnews.net>, 
> claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird) wrote:
> 
> > The Dutch smuggled it to Java in 1696, and
> > expanded its production explosively.
> 
> So...an early connection between Java and Python.  ;-)

In a related discussion on trademarkable names, someone claimed "Reebok"
was a made up word, even though it is, of course, a Dutch word (it's a small
male deer - I bet Pythons eat this sort of thing, but wrong continent, move
along, nothing to see).

Als Nederland inderdaad een samenzwering is, waarom weet ik er dan niets
van?!

-- 
Remco Gerlich

From jcm at bigskytel.com  Mon Oct 23 05:27:21 2000
From: jcm at bigskytel.com (David Porter)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 03:27:21 -0600
Subject: Resuming a file download with python
In-Reply-To: <8sufig$j2t$06$1@news.t-online.com>; from Robert.Harris@gmx.net on Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 12:30:04PM +0200
References: <8srp7c$ak$07$1@news.t-online.com>  <8ssapv$a36$06$1@news.t-online.com>  <8sufig$j2t$06$1@news.t-online.com>
Message-ID: <20001023032721.A28222@bigskytel.com>

* Robert Harris  [on wget for win32]:
> Could you send the url ?
> I'm not sure yet, if the ftplib really solves the problem.

http://www.interlog.com/~tcharron/wgetwin.html

David

From thomas at xs4all.net  Sun Oct 29 11:36:32 2000
From: thomas at xs4all.net (Thomas Wouters)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:36:32 +0100
Subject: how do I exit gracefully?
In-Reply-To: <39FB6DC1.84C12A34@python.com>; from tbryan@python.com on Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 08:22:25PM -0400
References:  <39FB6DC1.84C12A34@python.com>
Message-ID: <20001029173632.W12812@xs4all.nl>

On Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 08:22:25PM -0400, Thomas A. Bryan wrote:

> > execute?  I dug around the FAQ and DejaNews and found sys.exit() and
> > os._exit() but both of these methods raise exceptions.  

> sys.exit() should exit the program, not raise an exception.

Actually, sys.exit() does raise an exception, but that's besides the point
;) My bet is the exception the original guy was talking about was
'NameError'. He probably forgot to import sys and/or os before using them. 

-- 
Thomas Wouters 

Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread!

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Thu Oct 26 14:12:21 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:12:21 -0400
Subject: TypeError
References: <39F83ED4.57ADB649@hotmail.com> <39F86026.D65F0CB7@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <39F87405.828C41E0@holdenweb.com>

joonas wrote:
> 
> I used the "print type(first)" method and it printed
> 
> ""
> 
> but when i wrote used "print first" it gave me
> 
> "100"
> 
> So. How can i make first substractable.
> 
> Joonas.

If you can tell me how to subtract three from a banana, I'll tell you
how to subtract one hundred from a button!

The confusion seens to be that you want to get some numeric property
of the button (probably its caption) and subtract that from it.  A button
is a complex graphical object, with many properties.

When you see "100" as the value of the button in printing it, the print
statement is actually asking the Python system to produce a printable
representation of itself.

Look in the Tkinter documentation at the properties of buttons, and
you'll probably find what you need is something like

	sppedgear.text = str(int(first.text) - int(second.text))

Hope this helps.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From ian at leo.science-computing.de  Mon Oct 16 15:01:37 2000
From: ian at leo.science-computing.de (Jan Wender)
Date: 16 Oct 2000 19:01:37 GMT
Subject: Problem with japanese characters in filenames
Message-ID: <8sfjah$b0o$1@news.BelWue.DE>

With Python 1.5.2 I had problems with japanese characters in filenames
on MS Windows. In the native character encoding (952, I believe) the
backslash is an allowed second character of a multibyte sequence. This
broke os.listdir, because it splits directory and file names at
backslashes. 
Has somebody experience with this with newer Python versions? Does
unicode help here in any way? As far as I know, the windows
interfacing part of Python is written with the 8bit functions.
Thanks for any light on this,

Cheerio,
--
J.Wender at science-computing.de - Fon +4970719457-257 Fax-27
Living With Other People: Civilization is a religion. (Talking Heads)

From kragen at dnaco.net  Sun Oct  1 23:53:00 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 03:53:00 GMT
Subject: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)
References: <8r7du7$86p$1@reader1.imaginet.fr>   <39D7B297.E6FCE8B9@engcorp.com>
Message-ID: 

In article <39D7B297.E6FCE8B9 at engcorp.com>,
Peter Hansen   wrote:
>Totally valid, totally conformant with standards, and totally taken
>advantage of by bulk mailer dweebs throughout the world since time
>immemorial.

No, you have no sense of history.  It's only been taken advantage of by
bulk mailer dweebs since 1995 or so.
-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From R.Brodie at rl.ac.uk  Mon Oct 30 13:41:08 2000
From: R.Brodie at rl.ac.uk (Richard Brodie)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:41:08 -0000
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> <8tc42n$lm3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <798jvs4p780j4m9n2pnddj4cti22gpn9pd@4ax.com> <4ShK5.453$G4.40777@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>  
Message-ID: <8tkfcn$1ffc@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk>

"Albert Hopkins"  wrote in message
news:slrn8vjjiu.517.ahopkins at ahopkins.dynacare.com...

> I thought that "!" was used to place emphasis on something.  So by that
> I thought you meant that PythonWin *really* sucks.

Speaking as a another Brit (as I suppose), it seems clear to me that it
wasn't intended seriously. It just doesn't work as an insult for anyone
other than Bart Simpson over here.

> Lightheartedness, I thought, was usually expressed with a smily :-) on the 'Net.

That may have been wiser. Humour is a tricky thing. Some people
can't even get the spelling right ;)

From aahz at panix.com  Thu Oct 19 11:37:50 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 08:37:50 -0700
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython
References: 
Message-ID: <8sn4ge$jp$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article ,
Barry A. Warsaw  wrote:
>
>  [...]

Wow.  This announcement is almost as interesting for what it doesn't say
as for what it does.  ;-)
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"real love can't be explained by simplistic platitudes."  --piranha

From rupole at msn.com  Sun Oct 22 21:16:37 2000
From: rupole at msn.com (Roger Upole)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 01:16:37 GMT
Subject: Pythonwin can't resolve WMI instances
References: 
Message-ID: 

If you've run makepy on WMI, only the properties defined in the object
library can be accessed
with the 'object.property' notation.  You can use the more verbose notation
print cpu.Properties_('Name'), cpu.Properties_('CurrentClockSpeed'),
cpu.Properties_('Description'), cpu.Properties_('L2CacheSize')
to access properties from the WMI provider itself with makepy support.

    Roger Upole

"Benjamin Derstine"  wrote in message
news:X5_H5.7008$rD3.235678 at newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> When I try to run the exact code below (except for changing the computer
> name) I get an "AttributeError: Name" error for the last line.  I inspect
> the object type and the object type is correct- ISWbemObject.  It seems
that
> Pythonwin can only see the generic classes for WMI and can't seem to
access
> instances and their dynamic properities. I also tried enumerating the
> software products on my machine and got the same result- the returned
> objects have class types that are correct but no instance information is
> accessible.  I'm running a Win2000 system and when I run the equivalent
code
> using VBS (with WSH) everything works fine. Is there something else I need
> to do to make Pythonwin aware of WMI?
>
> Ben
>
> Subject: Re: System information on Windows?
> Date: 09/19/2000
> Author: Roger Upole 
>
>
>       If you don't mind installing WMI (a free download from Microsoft) on
> all the machines in question, you can do things like this:
>
>       import win32com.client
>       wmi = win32com.client.Dispatch('wbemscripting.swbemlocator')
>       rmt_mach = wmi.ConnectServer('machine name')
>       cpus = rmt_mach.InstancesOf('Win32_Processor')
>       for cpu in cpus:
>           print cpu.Name, cpu.CurrentClockSpeed, cpu.Description,
> cpu.L2CacheSize
>
>       For my machine, this returns
>           Intel Pentium III processor 450 x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 3
> 512
>
>       HTH
>       Roger Upole
>
>
>
>
>
>

From mwh21 at cam.ac.uk  Sun Oct 29 13:34:30 2000
From: mwh21 at cam.ac.uk (Michael Hudson)
Date: 29 Oct 2000 18:34:30 +0000
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References:  <8tdstp$cvp$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>  <39fbdb7d.67199359@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: 

olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L. Olczyk) writes:

> On Sat, 28 Oct 2000 12:25:03 GMT, Guido van Rossum 
> wrote:
> 
> >"Andrew Dalke"  writes:
> >
> >> Does this mean Python 3.0 will be coming out soon?  :)
> >
> >No -- DC is not interested in branding or monetizing Python, so there
> >will be no pressure for marketing gimmicks like that.  Python will
> >remain Python, soon to be owned py the Python Software Foundation
> >(more about that idea another time).
> >
> >--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
> 
> I think he meant Python 3000.
> 

I don't.

M.

-- 
  Indeed, when I design my killer language, the identifiers "foo" and
  "bar" will be reserved words, never used, and not even mentioned in
  the reference manual. Any program using one will simply dump core
  without comment. Multitudes will rejoice. -- Tim Peters, 29 Apr 1998

From michael at stroeder.com  Mon Oct 16 08:11:30 2000
From: michael at stroeder.com (Michael =?iso-8859-1?Q?Str=F6der?=)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:11:30 +0200
Subject: python + ldap + ERROR!! HELP!
References: <971690230.373315@proxy.bos.nl>
Message-ID: <39EAF072.502A6F9D@stroeder.com>

"J?rgen Teunis" wrote:
> 
> ImportError: ld.so.1: python: fatal: relocation error: file
> /usr/local/lib/python1.5/site-packages/_ldapmodule.so: symbol ldap_bind_s:
> referenced symbol not found

Something's wrong with your shared libs setup.

Assuming you're on Linux:
Check ldd _ldapmodule.so. Should look like this:

# ldd /usr/lib/python/site-packages/_ldapmodule.so
        libldap.so.1 => /usr/lib/libldap.so.1 (0x4001b000)
        liblber.so.1 => /usr/lib/liblber.so.1 (0x40030000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x40035000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40052000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x80000000)

Check the output of ldconfig -v, adjust /etc/ld.so.conf.

Ciao, Michael.

From peter at engcorp.com  Sun Oct  1 17:54:31 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 17:54:31 -0400
Subject: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)
References: <8r7du7$86p$1@reader1.imaginet.fr>  
Message-ID: <39D7B297.E6FCE8B9@engcorp.com>

Sandipan Gangopadhyay wrote:
> 
> And this also means that the actual recipient specified in the to_addrs need
> not be the one that shows up in the headers at all. It is upto the
> programmer to sync the two.
> 
> Did RFC822 specifically allow this (typical bulk mail case) or is it a case
> where the module allows us to bypass the RFC ?

I'm pretty sure RFC822 says nothing about the mail transport system, or
at least has little to do with SMTP.  It simply talks about the format
of the mail header and specifically the addresses within it. 
(Disclaimer, it's been three years since I even looked at it last.)

The point is that SMTP requires specifying a list of recipients of a
message.  The "recipient" addresses given to an SMTP mailer are
completely independent of the RFC822 headers "To:" "Cc:" and "Bcc:".  A
mail client can and should strip the names out of the Bcc header when it
forwards messages to SMTP, even though it gives those same addresses to
the SMTP server as "recipient" addresses.  In effect, this is *how* the
blind carbon-copy process works: the sending client does the work.

I doubt the Python module is doing anything that would be considered
"bypassing" the standard in this case.  You can experiment with this by
connecting via telnet to an SMTP server and telling it via "rcpt to:"
commands where to send the mail, even though the headers in the message
you actually send say "To:" somebody else entirely.  Totally valid,
totally conformant with standards, and totally taken advantage of by
bulk mailer dweebs throughout the world since time immemorial.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dag Sunde" 
> > I think you add all recipients (including the cc & bcc ones to
> > the comma-separated "to_addrs"-parameter of the sendmail method,
> > and use the MIME headers: "To: ", "From: ", "Cc: " and "Bcc: "
> > to specify which one to show (or not) at the receiving side...
> >
> > "Gilles Lenfant"  wrote 
> > > Is there an smtp/python expert here who can tell me how to have "cc" and
> > > "bcc" recipients of a mail ?
> > > BTW, it's with python 1.5.2, I use binary extra modules that are not
> > > compliant with 1.6.
> > > Thanks in advance !

-- 
Peter Hansen
Kaval Telecom Inc.

From matt at virtualspectator.com  Tue Oct  3 06:16:37 2000
From: matt at virtualspectator.com (matt)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 23:16:37 +1300
Subject: how do I listen on a socket without sucking up all the CPU time?
In-Reply-To: <39D9AA8D.EABDF6BA@businesscollaborator.com>
References: <39d971f3_1@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39D9AA8D.EABDF6BA@businesscollaborator.com>
Message-ID: <00100323202602.01096@localhost.localdomain>

Using select with a timeout of NULL(None) is the nicer way to do things, i.e.
make select blocking.  It means this thread doesn't have to be limited to just
that socket.  It obviously becomes a lot more useful.

On Tue, 03 Oct 2000, Paul Robinson wrote:
> Joshua Muskovitz wrote:
> > 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I've got a worker thread which listens on an ICMP (ping) socket for replies
> > to pings that I send out (on the same socket from a different thread).  All
> > of this code runs fine, but the socket is set to be non-blocking, so
> > recvfrom() returns immediately most of the time, and this thread runs like
> > mad, consuming all the available CPU time. 
> 
> I've read the other replies about using select and asnycore - but (and
> this question is posed to hopefully enlighten myself as much as anyone
> else), why can't you just make the socket blocking?
> 	
> 	Paul.
> 
> -- 
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct  5 04:10:55 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 10:10:55 +0200
Subject: Inefficiency of __getattr__
References:   <8rf3fm030n4@news2.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <8rhdcl01ohr@news1.newsguy.com>

"Kragen Sitaker"  wrote in message
news:m2UC5.3538$q9.167352 at news-west.usenetserver.com...
> In article <8rf3fm030n4 at news2.newsguy.com>,
> Alex Martelli  wrote:
> >"Kragen Sitaker"  wrote in message
> >news:NpzC5.1605$l52.81889 at news-west.usenetserver.com...
> >    [snip]
> >> So what's the advantage of static typing over dynamic typing?  Does it
> >> help you catch bugs, and if so, which ones?
> >
> >It helps catch some type-related bugs -- particularly in areas
> >of the code that it's hard to ensure are wholly tested because
> >they deal with rare/exceptional/abstruse conditions.  Even for
> >bugs one would catch anyway in testing, it does help by letting
> >you do the "catching" earlier -- costs are lower the earlier
> >you catch the bugs.
>
> I run my regression tests after the compile.  For functional stuff, it
> tends to be pretty fast --- a second or less per thousand lines of
> code.  My web stuff is slower.  That's not much of an earliness advantage
;)

Aggressive, extensive, pervasive unit-testing and regression testing
is good.  Just don't try to make it into a "magic bullet" that makes
other error-catching helpers irrelevant!

You may be blessed with only writing units/components that can be
effectively and exhaustively tested in a few seconds.  That is very,
very far from applying to all of us.  When a component's job in life
is extracting information from some intrisically huge and complex
database (or, even worse, updating said DB -- in which case every
test needs to start from a known/restored DB state, and reloading/
restoring the DB can itself be highly time-consuming), for example,
testing gets intrinsically slow.  Similar considerations apply when
a component performs very exhaustive computations (three-dimensional
modeling has many such tasks), or is user-interaction-heavy (one of
the worst situations, since you can't easily run batch tests).

Sure, one tries to model things on a reduced scale for test purposes,
but even with a thorough design-for-testability strategy (lots and
lots of test-harnesses, stubs and skeletons and drivers, simulated
DB interaction and UI interaction, etc, as well as lot of attention
paid to potential execution paths' interactions), there is no real
"magic bullet".  When you have, say, ten significant decision points
in the component (where different execution paths are possible),
and an average branching factor of four at each point, you need over
a million passes for exhaustive coverage, even assuming your design
ensured each combination of execution paths can be forced by the
test-harness; that can easily mean an hour's elapsed time even for
rather speedy single passes.  And please note I'm not describing a
component that is really *complicated* at all!  These combinatorial
explosions kill you even on "highly-atomized" component-design.

So, one compromises, and only runs tests through some subset of the
possible combinations of execution paths.  But then, inevitably,
some potential errors are left uncaught during development, and may
be caught only (e.g.) when running more exhaustive tests at night,
or on weekends, or, sometimes, much later.

Explicit assertions of type, just as any other explicit assertion
that it may be possible for the compiler to check statically, help
you catch some fractions of these nasty little bugs much earlier.
The "earliness advantage" can thus become quite significant.

It's not a panacea.  It IS a help.  I would add that its helpfulness
is rather obvious, at least to anybody who has actually developed
significant amount of code in languages both with and without some
measure of explicit-type-assertions; _denying_ it is just as extreme
a position as making a fetish out of it (as some proponents of
static typing at all costs do!).  One should be aware of both its
benefits and costs, in order to make a serious engineering tradeoff
about it in a language (or, if using a language allowing optional
type-annotation, in a specific program's coding).

> >It also helps your compiler generate better code.  And, your
> >source can be more expressive, as it states certain things that
> >you know about your code, in a precise and unambiguous way.
>
> I agree with generating better code; static typing definitely makes
> writing good compilers easier.

Yes, although it can be interesting to see what can be done for
a language without explicit type assertion, just by a very clever
compiler.  I'm only aware of Lisp-ish languages, particularly
Scheme, being subject to such treatment; a particularly interesting
thing to study is Bigloo, which is able to compile both Scheme
(without explicit/static typing) and Caml (a language largely
designed expressly to allow type-inference, and based on static
typing just-about-exclusively).  I believe Bigloo's code quality
(at least on toy-sized examples) is quite comparable for both.

But, of course, stating something outright does make it easier
even if one "should" be able to deduce/infer it.  It surely does
for the program's human reader; and, for a compiler, it does
at least under separate-compilation rather than whole-program
analysis.

> It *does* state certain things that you know about your code in a
> precise and unambiguous way.  The problem is that they are things that
> are minimally related to the problem at hand.  It makes your source

Not at all.  The *abstract* typing of (e.g.) "the arguments I can
accept" is very much "related to the problem at hand" -- it says a
lot about how I have analyzed the situation and proceeded with
designing my solution (particularly when typing is taken to include
design-by-contract issues).

> code "more expressive" in the same way that assembler is "more
> expressive" than C: assembler is five times as long, and precisely and
> unambiguously describes which registers you are using and what order
> you are computing operations in.

Not at all: you're confusing implementation with design.  Assembler
forces me to detail the implementation, and thereby may well obscure
the design.  A higher-level language, by letting me hide implementation
details, is thus more expressive of design-aspects.

But the higher-level, more abstract language may be lacking in not
letting me express, "declaratively" rather than "imperatively",
certain things I do know about my problem (my analysis of it, my
design about it) and which it might be helpful to share with human
readers and with the compiler.  Natural language (in comments,
docstrings, etc) is no real substitute for an expressive language,
as the latter is unambiguous, doesn't "fall out of sync" with the
way things really are, etc.

Consider, for example, the way Python's excellent docs often
mention that "a sequence" is needed in a certain position.  At
times they say "a list" and it's not really true (any more), as
any sequence is in fact accepted.  But even when they say "a
sequence", it's often not clear at all what they mean.  When
talking about, e.g., the 'for' statement, they imply an object
that will respond to __getitem__ for increasing natural and
normally raise an index exception when 'exhausted'; but in other
contexts, they ALSO want the object to have a __len__ method
they can call.  E.g.:

>>> class numbers:
 def __getitem__(self, i):
  return i
>>> for i, c in zip(numbers(), "peep"):
 print i,c

0 p
1 e
2 e
3 p
>>> for i, c in map(None, numbers(), "peep"):
 print i,c

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
    for i, c in map(None, numbers(), "peep"):
AttributeError: 'numbers' instance has no attribute '__len__'
>>>

Can you evince this difference in behaviour between zip and
map from just reading the docs?  Maybe, but it's going to be
a useless burden on you.  Why not have a language that lets
the designer of zip and map *state outright* the typing
characteristics he or she certainly knows about these two
functions?  Having an abstract-interface (or typeclass, or
however you want to call it) "Sequence", which only needs
the __getitem__ part; a derived interface "Length
Limited Sequence", which adds the constraint of having a
__len__; and a way in the language to annotate the args
(optionally) with the needed abstract-interface; would
make it all smooth and wonderful!

> But you have convinced me that it is useful, at least, to describe what
> interface you require of your parameters.  STL seems to have gone
> furthest in this direction.

Not really, IMHO, since STL has had to use natural language
(docs/comments/etc) for this purpose.  I believe the Haskell 98
standard (particularly the part about libraries) may be a better
example.  Haskell's typeclasses and generic-polymorphism are a
very elegant and suitable approach for this, again IMHO.  The
language itself may not go far enough for many uses -- it has
no 'dynamic' typing at all, just the generic polymorphism.  But
the mechanisms and approaches it uses for the static/generic
part are well worth studying, I think.

Alex

From jsp at mail.utexas.edu  Thu Oct  5 13:41:07 2000
From: jsp at mail.utexas.edu (Jeff Perry)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 12:41:07 -0500
Subject: Stdout in extensions under IDLE
Message-ID: <8riefl$g2k$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>

My C extension's output is different under the python command line shell
than it is under the graphical shell, IDLE.

pyext.c:
    #include 
    void Print() { printf("This is the message.\n"); }

Command line python:

    $ python
    >>> import pyext
    >>> pyext.Print()
    This is the message.
    >>>

Windowed python:

    $ idle
    >>> import pyext
    >>> pyext.Print ()
    >>>

Under IDLE, there is no output.

Is this a bug to report to sourceforge?
Is there a way to step into extensions with a debugger?

My environment:
- Python 2.0 b2
- Windows 98
- SWIG 1.1
- MSVC 5.0

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 21 04:39:08 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 10:39:08 +0200
Subject: request for advice: "PyString_FromStringAndSize(0, ..."?
Message-ID: <8srsrn111gm@news1.newsguy.com>

PyString_FromStringAndSize(0, len) returns a PyObject and
"the contents of the string are uninitialized", according to
the docs.  _Am_ I then allowed to "initialize" it (and if so
how -- getting at the buffer with PyString_AS_STRING, or,
how else...?) -- all the docs say is that "The data must not
be modified in any way".  And in such "authoritative"
example sources as arrayobject.c in the NumPy sources
I see usage patterns such as:

   new_string = (char *)malloc(n_new*sizeof(char));
   /* format the data into new_string, 2 rows snipped */
   result = PyString_FromStringAndSize(new_string, n_new);
   free(new_string);

rather than the should-surely-be-faster-if-allowed:

   result = PyString_FromStringAndSize(0, n_new);
   new_string = PyString_AS_STRING(result);
   /* format the data into new_string */

So, I wonder.    What role does the 0 as the first argument
to PyString_FromStringAndSize possibly play, unless that
uninitialized data can then be gotten at and initialized?  Is
it a documentation glitch that the means of doing so are
not specified (and actually there's a big "must not" against
the only way that comes to mind) and an excess of prudence
on the part of module-authors that prefer double allocation
and extra copying of string data?  Or is the 0-as-first-arg an
anomaly that is not in fact intended to be used (and again,
the docs should perhaps mention the fact...)?

I don't want to "use the source" to confirm my impression
that _right now_ I could probably use the speedy idiom,
because I see this as an architectural issue -- IS the speedy
way architecturally supported and stable for the future, or
does one have to pay the performance price of extra
malloc/free/copy for the sake of peace of mind...?

Alex

From nospam at nospam.com  Wed Oct 11 23:27:01 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 03:27:01 GMT
Subject: help with strange traceback while unpickling on 2.0b2
Message-ID: <9caF5.116094$dZ2.51930991@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>

I'm running a script on Python v2.0b2 that unpickles data from a text file.
I get the traceback included below.
What I find unusual is that there is the text "(imPyObj 2" at the end of the
traceback, instead of an error message.
(My pickle file does contain the text "(imPyObj", but not the "2".)
Also note that the script is still (sort of) running after the traceback,
but it seems to have gone off to la-la land so I have to press Ctrl-C to
stop it.

Any suggestions?

Tom.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "x:\Dev\mGui.py", line 555, in OnIdle
    EventMan.ProcessInput();
  File "x:\Dev\mGui.py", line 38, in ProcessInput
    Event = Port.ReceiveEvent();
  File "x:\Dev\mPorts.py", line 29, in ReceiveEvent
    Event = self.pick.load()
  File "e:\Python\Python20\lib\pickle.py", line 516, in load
    dispatch[key](self)
  File "e:\Python\Python20\lib\pickle.py", line 783, in load_get
    self.append(self.memo[self.readline()[:-1]])
 (imPyObj 2

From timwkelly at my-deja.com  Sun Oct  1 03:59:51 2000
From: timwkelly at my-deja.com (timwkelly at my-deja.com)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 07:59:51 GMT
Subject: Python on VMS
References: <8qvn64$5gi$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8i8WxEA8lS15EwwX@gol.com>
Message-ID: <8r6qtm$96o$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <8i8WxEA8lS15EwwX at gol.com>,
  Ian Parker  wrote:
> In article <8qvn64$5gi$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, timwkelly at my-deja.com writes
> >Been trying to build Python on VMS.  Used the
> >Port for version 1.5.2. I keep getting access
> >violations in PTHREAD$RTL.  I have a version of
> >GCC that runs on the ALPHA and tried to rebuild
> >but get errors when compiling.  If anyone has the
> >binaries for AXP/OpenVMS V7.2-1 I would
> >appreciated receiving them.  Thank you
> >
> >
> >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> >Before you buy.
>
> You could download the object modules and link them to create the
> executables:
> http://decus.decus.de/~zessin/python/obj.html
>
> It worked for me
>
> --
> Ian Parker
>

Tried to use the object modules.  was able to link but still got an
access violation in ptrhead$rtl.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From kragen at dnaco.net  Sun Oct  1 20:30:09 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 00:30:09 GMT
Subject: Using Python under apache
References:  <8r50iv$v51$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: 

In article ,
Sandipan Gangopadhyay  wrote:
>The link to mod_python.org is broken. Google comes up with 0 results. This
>seems like a must-have. Does anyone know the location ?

Well, there's mod_snake --- modsnake.sourceforge.net, since underscores
are illegal in hostnames --- and www.modpython.org for mod_python.

-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Thu Oct 26 00:51:14 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:51:14 -0400
Subject: [Distutils] NameError: Extension
References: <39F7B466.EE403718@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <39F7B842.AE1D17EE@ix.netcom.com>

Whoops!

Ok.  I fixed that one.  I forgot to modify my "from" statement:

from distutils.core import setup, Extension

But I got a new error -- more in the next message.

--
.tom

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Sun Oct 22 14:19:07 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 18:19:07 GMT
Subject: Getting Python 2.0 without pythonlabs.com
References: <8sv4m0$6m3$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

> If both of those sites go down too, we'll look into attaching free
> Python CDs to boxes of major breakfast cereals.

Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

All-we-need-now-is-milk-and-we-can-take-over-the-world-ly y'rs

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 05:05:13 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:05:13 +0200
Subject: Accessing a COM object from Python
References: <39D317F2.B0346D5A@inenco.no>
Message-ID: 

Hans Kristian Ruud  writes:

>     IDispatch = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(IDispatch, None, clsctx,
> pythoncom.IID_IDispatch)
[...]
> Any ideas???

It appears that CoCreateInstance failed. That, in turn, would indicate
that either your server is not properly registered, or does not
provide an IDispatch interface.

I'd suggest that you have Python print the parameters it passes to
CoCreateInstance, then write a small C program that does the exact
same thing - that would allow eliminate one error source.

Regards,
Martin

From smarsh at hotmail.com  Mon Oct 16 22:18:24 2000
From: smarsh at hotmail.com (scott)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:18:24 -0700
Subject: Python script to start VNC over SSH?
Message-ID: <39EBB6F0.8EC2CD02@hotmail.com>

Apparently the following 2 short scripts 
(1) start a secure (using SSH) VNC session between a client NT machine
and a server Solaris machine 
(2)forward remote port 5902 to local port 5902 and 
(3)run a vncviewer process on an NT (local) machine against the
forwarded port:

"
2 scripts. One on each host.

 __1st host script_____
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use strict;

 my $buffer="I made it!!";
 system "ssh hostname.com: /path/to/script/to/run.PL $buffer"; 

 ___2nd host script ____

 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use strict;
 my $buffer = $ARGV[0];
 print `hostname`,"\n$buffer\n";"
"

I don't speak Perl, only a little Java. I'm trying to learn Python and
would be interested to know how the above would be done using Python.

Thanks.

P.S. None of the above represents original thinking on my part. I
searched Deja with the keywords 'ssh' vnc' 'solaris' and basicly
parroted some statements I found.

From deja at gembook.org  Tue Oct 17 05:11:06 2000
From: deja at gembook.org (deja at gembook.org)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 09:11:06 GMT
Subject: Problem with japanese characters in filenames
References: <8sfjah$b0o$1@news.BelWue.DE>
Message-ID: <8sh538$6eg$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <8sfjah$b0o$1 at news.BelWue.DE>,
  Jan Wender  wrote:
> With Python 1.5.2 I had problems with japanese characters in filenames
> on MS Windows. In the native character encoding (952, I believe) the
> backslash is an allowed second character of a multibyte sequence. This
> broke os.listdir, because it splits directory and file names at
> backslashes.

For Python1.5.2, you can try pysjis and sjisntpath module.

http://www.gembook.org/python/pysjis-zip
(source and binary for win32. Document is written in Japanese)

pysjis and sjisntpath are Japanese SJIS encoding aware version of the
standard string and sjisntpath module. To install them, just copy
sjisntpath.py, pysjis.py, sjisstrop.pyd into your PYTHONPATH.

Home this helps,

======
Atsuo Ishimoto
ishimoto at gembook.org

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From skodela at hotmail.com  Tue Oct  3 12:47:50 2000
From: skodela at hotmail.com (Sreekant Kodela)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 17:47:50 +0100
Subject: Printing under Tkinter
References: <39D832AA.DB10EF4D@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <39DA0DB6.F863E8DD@hotmail.com>

Is there a way to print atleast plaintext from python under win32? so
that I can print formatted text in the least.

Thanks
sreekant

From alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk  Tue Oct  3 12:05:58 2000
From: alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk (Alan Gauld)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 17:05:58 +0100
Subject: Debugging Python -Newbie?
References: <39D9631B.A209BA56@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <39DA03E6.846C0A00@gssec.bt.co.uk>

David Lees wrote:
> I am looking for an elementary introduction (cookbook) to debugging
> Python code with either PythonWin or IDLE.  I am playing with the
> classic recursive factorial example in PythonWin and somehow am not 
My forthcoming book has a chapter on debugging for beginners 
that uses factorial as an example. Unfortunately the book 
won't be out till December which is probably too long to 
wait :-)

Meantime what's the specific problem you have? What happens 
when you try to step thru'?

If its a recursive solution are you sure you aren't just 
stepping into the same line recursively - thus appearing 
not to be going anywhere...

Alan G.
Author of:
Learn to Program Using Python
http://www.awl.com/product/0,2627,0201709384,00.html

able
> to single step through, even though I see the step functions (F11 and
> F10).
> 
> A pointer to step by step instructions on debugging/debuggers would be
> great.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> David Lees

-- 
=================================================
This post represents the views of the author 
and does not necessarily accurately represent 
the views of BT.

From feldmh01 at popmail.med.nyu.edu  Tue Oct 10 18:55:33 2000
From: feldmh01 at popmail.med.nyu.edu (Henry Feldman)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 22:55:33 GMT
Subject: Python
Message-ID: 

OK, so I now have python installed (someone posted a patch to the makefile),
and it is now installed. How do I configure apache to know where to find it,
and where do I have to put my python scripts so that they execute? (I
remember that I had to put them in specific places on endeavor too)... Just
out of curiosity where did it exactly install python? It seems to have put
it into /usr/local/lib?

-Henry

From hoopy_frood at my-deja.com  Mon Oct  2 18:28:37 2000
From: hoopy_frood at my-deja.com (hoopy_frood at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 22:28:37 GMT
Subject: Python equivalent of Java Vector
References: <8rau5e$afv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8rb26a$e8g$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Much appreciated.  That's what I thought, but as a newbie I lack
confidence in the answers I usually come up with to his questions.

hoopyfrood

In article ,
  "Darrell Gallion"  wrote:
> From: 
> >
> > "Does Python have something equivalent to Java's Vector?  For
instance,
> > most of the time if you want to use an array you have to declare the
> > size up front.  Java has a Vector class which is an array of objects
> > which grows as you add things to it.
> >
>
> See lists:
>
>     tmp=[]
>     tmp.append("value1")
>     tmp.append(55)
>     print len(tmp)
>     print tmp[1]
>
> Check out the docs, lists and dictionaries are very powerful.
> And who needs to declare what's in the list!
>
> --Darrell
>
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From ge at nowhere.none  Thu Oct 12 16:35:51 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 20:35:51 GMT
Subject: pyGTK -- how to wait for modal dialog?
References:   
Message-ID: 

In article , Steffen Ries wrote:

>The actual dialogs would inherit from Dialog and connect self.close()
>to some button, which passes the appropriate return value. (Just
>closing the window acts like canceling the dialog).

Handling a window close/destroy is one point I missed in mine
The application will wait forever if you close my dialog
window.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  .. the MYSTERIANS are
                                  at               in here with my CORDUROY
                               visi.com            SOAP DISH!!

From breiter at usf.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE  Tue Oct 10 17:38:27 2000
From: breiter at usf.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE (Bernhard Reiter)
Date: 10 Oct 2000 21:38:27 GMT
Subject: COM+ in Python
References: <8ruqc9$mtb$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>
Message-ID: <8s028j$7c5$3@newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de>

In article <8ruqc9$mtb$1 at oslo-nntp.eunet.no>,
	"Thomas Weholt"  writes:

> Has anybody made COM+ servers in Python? Is there any information about this
> available ? Anything ? Any information related to COM+ and Python would be
> highly appreciated.

A 1997 tutorial on COM and python mentions COM+, it looks like
win32com can just do it. Mark Hammond will probably answer this
question soon:

http://www.python.org/windows/win32com/COMTutorial/

	Bernhard

-- 
Professional Service around Free Software                (intevation.net)  
The FreeGIS Project				            (freegis.org)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure            (ffii.org)

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 03:38:03 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 09:38:03 +0200
Subject: reloading a C module
References: <8qod32$dqo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  
Message-ID: 

kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:

> Perhaps reload(x) should raise an exception in this case?

I can't see any negative side effects from such a solution, but I may
be missing some potential problems. If you like to see such a feature,
please submit a bug report or patch to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/python.

Regards,
Martin

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 18:04:05 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 00:04:05 +0200
Subject: Need help creating variable for unpack statement
References: <8t24rf$hg0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8t2cr20lg0@news2.newsguy.com>

 wrote in message
news:8t24rf$hg0$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> I'm new to Python and have a dumb question (please be patient with
> me!!!!)....
>
> I have a variable called length which contains a value of 6 and a
> variable called fmt which contains 's'.
>
> length = 6
> fmt = 's'
>
> How do I combine those into one variable with the value of '6s'.

There are several ways.

oneway = str(length) + fmt
another = '%s%s' % (length,fmt)
andmor = ''.join(map(str,[length,fmt]))

The simplest way is often the best:-).

Alex

From bend at ecollege.com  Fri Oct 20 12:08:23 2000
From: bend at ecollege.com (Benjamin Derstine)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 16:08:23 GMT
Subject: Pythonwin can't resolve WMI instances
Message-ID: 

When I try to run the exact code below (except for changing the computer
name) I get an "AttributeError: Name" error for the last line.  I inspect
the object type and the object type is correct- ISWbemObject.  It seems that
Pythonwin can only see the generic classes for WMI and can't seem to access
instances and their dynamic properities. I also tried enumerating the
software products on my machine and got the same result- the returned
objects have class types that are correct but no instance information is
accessible.  I'm running a Win2000 system and when I run the equivalent code
using VBS (with WSH) everything works fine. Is there something else I need
to do to make Pythonwin aware of WMI?

Ben

Subject: Re: System information on Windows?
Date: 09/19/2000
Author: Roger Upole 

      If you don't mind installing WMI (a free download from Microsoft) on
all the machines in question, you can do things like this:

      import win32com.client
      wmi = win32com.client.Dispatch('wbemscripting.swbemlocator')
      rmt_mach = wmi.ConnectServer('machine name')
      cpus = rmt_mach.InstancesOf('Win32_Processor')
      for cpu in cpus:
          print cpu.Name, cpu.CurrentClockSpeed, cpu.Description,
cpu.L2CacheSize

      For my machine, this returns
          Intel Pentium III processor 450 x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 3
512

      HTH
      Roger Upole

From reli at mixmail.com  Sun Oct  1 04:47:23 2000
From: reli at mixmail.com (reli at mixmail.com)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 08:47:23 GMT
Subject: 0j0 Super truco Linux  4370
Message-ID: 

 Para saber mas www.cambiaelchip.com/index2.htm

Si quieres tener como fondo de imagen un salvapantalla deves hacer lo siguiente:
Antres de nada para una mejor visualizacion debes poner el fondo en Negro.

Entra en xterm (kterm,konsole es indiferente )
desde las Xwindows(KDE)
localiza tus salvapantallas con locate
locate kss
seguidamente elige el que mas te guste y ejecuta desde el mismo terminal que tengas abierto
ej: kbouboule.kss -inroot &
el salvapantallas se activara como imagen de fondo
en esa ventana podra observar el PID (identificacion del proceso)asignado.
Para detener la ejecucion del salvapantalla
escribe en el terminal
kill  sustituya el PID number por la cifra real

Seguro que os gustara
Requisito aconsejado 128 Megas de Ram
tdwvdbrirwufidpepgrbdkgmhofqbwvbchi

From eem12 at cornell.edu  Tue Oct 31 10:19:24 2000
From: eem12 at cornell.edu (Ed McKenzie)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 20:19:24 +0500
Subject: Multithreaded profiler?
Message-ID: <8tnr3g$moh$1@news01.cit.cornell.edu>

Hello all,

I'm writing a multithreaded server using the SocketServer classes, and
I'd like to know where time is spent in my request_handler and descendants.
Unfortunately, it seems that profile.run can only account for time spent
in the main thread, and I've been unsuccessful in trying to calling profile.run
from within my code. Any suggestions? Searching the web and list archives
turns up nothing, but I find it hard to believe no-one has tried this
before!

ed

From josh at open.com  Fri Oct 13 18:40:48 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 18:40:48 -0400
Subject: Perl rules - Python drools
References: <8s6ksl$mea$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>
Message-ID: <39e78dd1$1_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>

I would have to say that the most objectionable thing about this post is
that the image easily could have been compressed to below 100k with no
significant loss in quality.  Then again, it could have been compressed out
of existence with no significant loss in quality either...

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From jeremy at beopen.com  Mon Oct 16 18:11:49 2000
From: jeremy at beopen.com (Jeremy Hylton)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 18:11:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Python 2.1 Release Schedule (tentative)
Message-ID: <14827.32037.652156.120714@bitdiddle.concentric.net>

FYI: In anticpation of the Python 2.0 final release this evening, we
just created a new PEP describing the release schedule for Python 2.1.

Jeremy

PEP: 226
Title: Python 2.1 Release Schedule
Version: $Revision: 1.1 $
Author: Jeremy Hylton 
Status: Incomplete
Type: Informational
Created: 16-Oct-2000
Python-Version: 2.1
Post-History:

Abstract

    This document describes the post Python 2.0 development and
    release schedule.  According to this schedule, Python 2.1 will be
    released in mid-March of 2001.  The schedule primarily concerns
    itself with PEP-size items.  Small bug fixes and changes will
    occur up until the first beta release.

Tentative Release Schedule

    16-Oct-2000: Python 2.0 final release

    These dates represent goals, not commitments.

    16-Dec-2000: 2.1 PEPs ready for review
    01-Feb-2001: First 2.1 beta release
    16-Mar-2001: 2.1 final release

Guidelines for making changes for Python 2.1

    The guidelines and schedule will be revised based on discussion in
    the python-dev at python.org mailing list.

    The PEP system was instituted late in the Python 2.0 development
    cycle and many changes did not follow the process described in PEP
    1.  The development process for 2.1, however, will follow the PEP
    process as documented.

    The first eight weeks following 2.0 final will be the design and
    review phase.  By the end of this period, any PEP that is proposed
    for 2.1 should be ready for review.  This means that the PEP is
    written and discussion has occurred on the python-dev at python.org
    and python-list at python.org mailing lists.

    The next six weeks will be spent reviewing the PEPs and
    implementing and testing the accepted PEPs.  When this period
    stops, we will end consideration of any incomplete PEPs.  Near the
    end of this period, there will be a feature freeze where any small
    features not worthy of a PEP will not be accepted.

    Before the final release, we will have six weeks of beta testing
    and a release candidate or two.

Bug fix releases before 2.1

    We may have to issue Python 2.0.1 for critical bug fixes.  If we
    need to issue a bug fix release, we will use a CVS branch. 

General guidelines for submitting patches and making changes

    Use good sense when committing changes.  You should know what we
    mean by good sense or we wouldn't have given you commit privileges
    <0.5 wink>.  Some specific examples of good sense include:

    - Do whatever the dictator tells you.

    - Discuss any controversial changes on python-dev first.  If you
      get a lot of +1 votes and no -1 votes, make the change.  If you
      get a some -1 votes, think twice; consider asking Guido what he
      thinks.

    - If the change is to code you contributed, it probably makes
      sense for you to fix it.

    - If the change affects code someone else wrote, it probably makes
      sense to ask him or her first.

    - You can use the SourceForge (SF) Patch Manager to submit a patch
      and assign it to someone for review.

    Any significant new feature must be described in a PEP and
    approved before it is checked in.

    Any significant code addition, such as a new module or large
    patch, must include test cases for the regression test and
    documentation.  A patch should not be checked in until the tests
    and documentation are ready.

    If you fix a bug, you should write a test case that would have
    caught the bug.

    If you commit a patch from the SF Patch Manager or fix a bug from
    the Jitterbug database, be sure to reference the patch/bug number
    in the CVS log message.  Also be sure to change the status in the
    patch manager or bug database (if you have access to the bug
    database).

    It is not acceptable for any checked in code to cause the
    regression test to fail.  If a checkin causes a failure, it must
    be fixed within 24 hours or it will be backed out.

    All contributed C code must be ANSI C.  If possible check it with
    two different compilers, e.g. gcc and MSVC.

    All contributed Python code must follow Guido's Python style
    guide.  http://www.python.org/doc/essays/styleguide.html

    It is understood that any code contributed will be released under
    an Open Source license.  Do not contribute code if it can't be
    released this way.

From dnew at san.rr.com  Fri Oct 27 13:48:43 2000
From: dnew at san.rr.com (Darren New)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 17:48:43 GMT
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich ,  comparison
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com> <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com>  <8tc1en0129j@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39F9C00B.B51361D9@san.rr.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:
> mod (ideally) for truncating division
> remainder (currently existing but spelled %)

Better than spelling it with the *wrong* name. Why spell "remainder" as
"mod", which implies it is "modulo" when it isn't? Personally, I've never
found a need for "remainder" and often found a need for "modulo" and had to
fix it every time those two differ.

Sorry. Just a pet peeve. 

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
The tragedy of the commons applies to monitizing eyeballs, too.

From david_ullrich at my-deja.com  Sun Oct 15 14:10:41 2000
From: david_ullrich at my-deja.com (David C. Ullrich)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 18:10:41 GMT
Subject: Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)
References: <39D03630.155AD70A@engcorp.com>  <8s9uak$n7i$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39E8C32F.E6A630ED@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <8scruu$pip$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <39E8C32F.E6A630ED at seebelow.org>,
  g2 at seebelow.org wrote:
> David C. Ullrich wrote:
> >
> > In article ,
> >   "Tim Peters"  wrote:
> > [...]
> > >
> > > So what's XML good for, anyway ?
> > >
> > > never-did-get-the-connection-to-floating-point-ly y'rs  - tim
> >
> > 
> >   
> >     1
> >   
> >   
> >     
> >       3
> >     
> >     
> >       1
> >     
> >     
> >       4
> >     
> >     
> >       1
> >     
> >     
> >       5
> >     
> >     
> >       9
> >     
> >     
> >       2
> >     
> >     
> >       6
> >     
> >     
> >       5
> >     
> >     
> >       3
> >     
> >     
> >       6
> >     
> >   
> > 
> >
> >    The point is that the XML is self-documenting -
> > it's clear to anyone that this denotes the number
> > 3.14159... .
>
> I dunno...to uninitiated folks like me, the more immediate conclusion
is
> that XML is verbose. 

    True. But that doesn't matter (I know the verbosity doesn't
matter because it says so explicitly in the standard... but
only once, curiously.)

> i'd-tell-you-that-in-xml-if-i-knew-how-(and-had-time)--ly y'rs,

    Not to steal someone else's joke, but the first thing you need to
learn is you gotta close those tags: .

> =g2
> --
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
> Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
> Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com
>

--
Oh, dejanews lets you add a sig - that's useful...

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From hei at adtranzsig.de  Tue Oct 10 10:51:13 2000
From: hei at adtranzsig.de (Dirk-Ulrich Heise)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 16:51:13 +0200
Subject: Request for Python Source Code
References: <4oeD5.1592$jBx.66322493@news.randori.com><8rkdmk$he5$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de><39E0EB8B.2D9EDCCB@engcorp.com> 
Message-ID: <8rva9b$vbs$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de>

"Fran?ois Pinard"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:mailman.971112928.4760.python-list at python.org...
> [Peter Hansen]
>
> > Hungarian notation actually referred to as a "Best Practice".
>
> There ought to be something good about so-called Hungarian notation...

I suppose (this is just an assumption) that Simoney invented it
in the 70ies when writing assembler code. There, it might make sense
to prefix a name of a variable with a type prefix.
It doesn't make much sense from C upwards.

--
Dipl.Inform. Dirk-Ulrich Heise
hei at adtranzsig.de
dheise at debitel.net

From cbarker at jps.net  Fri Oct 13 21:22:28 2000
From: cbarker at jps.net (Chris Barker)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 18:22:28 -0700
Subject: [Python-Dev] RE: [Numpy-discussion] RE: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, 
 overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
References: 
Message-ID: <39E7B554.29A168E3@jps.net>

Incomplete vs. non-at-all IEEE 754 support is a non argument. If you
have full IEEE support (which it seems everyone here thinks would be
good, but difficult), it is clear what you have. If not, you are not
consistent with a standard, and therefor making up your own. That being
the case, it's a matter of what we want the Python standard to be.

I, for one think that NaN and Inf are fantastic!!! I think the best
argument for them here is that it is almost impossible to do a lot of
array based calculations without them, and you can't do serious number
crunching in Python without array based calculations.

I've come to Python from MATLAB for numerics, and I really appreciated
MATLAB's way of handling all this. I don't think MATLAB has true 754
support, as I don't think you can change the behaviour, but you do get a
consistent result across platforms (including non-iee machines like the
Cray?---I have no idea). 

I have not yet heard a decent response to the question of what to do
when a single value in a large array is bad, and causes an exception.
This really does render Python essentially useless for Numerics for me.
I suspect all those number crunchers that want an exception rather than
an Inf are NOT using array-oriented languages. My goal is to dump MATLAB
for Python, but this may prevent me from doing that.

Does anyone know what other array-oriented languages use? I know what
MATLAB does:

>> exp(-777)
ans =
     0
>> exp(777)
ans =
   Inf
>> sqrt(-1)
ans =
        0 + 1.0000i

Hey! I like that! Python is dynamic, why can't we just get the actual
answer to sqrt(-1), without using cmath, that always returns a complex ?
sorry, other subjet, not meant to be raised at the moment.

>> 54/0
Warning: Divide by zero.
ans =
   Inf                   

Here we get a warning, but also a result that won't crash the
computation.

>> a = 0/0
Warning: Divide by zero.
a =
   NaN
>> b = a
b =
   NaN
>> a == b
ans =
     0            

So comparing two NaNs yields a false, as it should, and though Python
won't do it now, it could. One thing that a numerical routine should
NEVER do is give an incorrect answer. No answer is often bad, but an
incorrect one is much worse. NaN == NaN must return false.

Does anyone know what FORTRAN 90 specifies (if anything)? What other
array-oriented languages are there?

I think what MATLAB does is what Tim is calling "bad *and* incomplete
754 support" Incomplete is surely true, "bad" is clearly a matter of
opinion. It seems we have a variety of users of numerics in Python, that
I break into three broad catagories:

Casual users:
mostly doing non-numeric stuff, with the occasional calculation:
This group could use any non-cryptic handling of over/underflow, it just
doesn't matter.

Mid-level number crunchers:
This is the group I put myself in. We crunch a lot of numbers, really
like the array semantics (and speed) of NumPy, and are doing things like
graphing functions, statistical calculations, etc. We have probably only
taken one of two (at most) numerical analysis courses, and many don't
know what the heck IEE 754 is. (The one Numerical Analysis course I did
take, happened to be with Kahan, which is why I know what it is)

For this group, the incomplete IEEE support is probably the best way to
go. We're more likely to be annoyed by our whole computation stopping
because of one bad data point, than we are to be pissed off that it
didn't stop when it started to compute garbage.

Hard Core Number crunchers:
These are the folks that do things like write optimised routines for
particular architectures, adn teach numerical analysis courses. These
folks want either FULL IEEE, or plain old "classic" overflow and
underflow errors, that they can handle themselves. Do these folks really
use Python as other than a glue language? Are they really doing massive
number crunching in Python itself, rather than in C (or whatever)
extensions? If so, I'd be surprised is they didn't find Huaiyu's
argument compelling when doing array based calculations.

Tim pointed out that Python was not designed with 754 in mind, so for
2.0, what he is doing is probably our best bet, but it seems to not be
the best ultimate solution, I hope using NaN and Inf will be considered
for future versions, even if it is incomplete 754 compliance.

Note: if the ultimate goal is REAL IEEE 754 compliance, is it possible
without custom re-compiling your own interpreter? If so, is there any
chance that it will come any time soon (2.1 ?) , so we don't have to
have this discussion at all?

Thanks for all of your work on this, Python just keeps getting better!!

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker,
Ph.D.                                                           
cbarker at jps.net                      ---           ---           ---
http://www.jps.net/cbarker          -----@@       -----@@       -----@@
                                   ------@@@     ------@@@     ------@@@
Water Resources Engineering       ------   @    ------   @   ------   @
Coastal and Fluvial Hydrodynamics -------      ---------     --------    
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 30 08:54:24 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 14:54:24 +0100
Subject: Using more than 7 bit ASCII on windows.
References: <8tdlgd$r0t$1@news.nuri.net> <39FA90D9.7070403@ActiveState.com> <8tfpf7$jnn$2@troll.powertech.no>  <39FCA0B5.6040606@ActiveState.com> <+k=9Obpkexxebyymyh8GKU+y+3g8@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <8tjusf01d0@news1.newsguy.com>

"Paul Moore"  wrote in message
news:JmL9OY9FJWKYSmZT5wV46STMeZkC at 4ax.com...
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 12:03:34 +0100, Paul Moore
>  wrote:
> >I can accept this. But I still don't know how to enter a literal
> >string containing a "?" character into Python. More explicitly, Python
> >accepts the line
> >
> >    >>> s = "?"
> >
> >But what does this *mean* (ie, what should I expect the semantics of s
> >to be?)
>
> Further investigation, based on some other posts I read, show:
>
> >>> unicode('?', 'latin-1')
> u'\234'

The interactive interpreter calls 'repr' on the objects
returned from expressions entered at the >>> prompt.  So,
this is what repr says of this Unicode object.

> >>> print unicode('?', 'latin-1')

Similarly, print calls 'str'.  So, the following is
an issue that str has:

> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
> UnicodeError: ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)
> >>> os.chdir(unicode('?', 'latin-1'))
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
> UnicodeError: ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)
>
> I think this implies that I can get latin-1 data *into* Python, but
> that print doesn't like it...

print couldn't care less -- it delegates the transform-into-string
to str.  str applied to a Unicode object, in turn, wants _ASCII_
encoding, as the message on the UnicodeError is telling you.

os.chdir is apparently also "calling str" (the C API equivalent
thereof, no doubt, in both cases:-), with similar results.

It sure would be nice to have a way to control the default
encoding -- not have ASCII hard-wired.  There is a function
(not in the 2.0 docs -- doc error?), sys.getdefaultencoding(),
that _tells_ you what the default encoding is (and guess
which one...:-), but I do not know of a way to *change* it.

> Hmm. Codecs.
>
>     >>> e,d,sr,sw = codecs.lookup('latin-1')
>     >>> o = sw(sys.stdout)
>     >>> o.write(unicode('?','latin-1'))
>     ?>>> print >> o, 'a'
>     a
>     >>> print >> o, unicode('?','latin-1')
>     Traceback (most recent call last):
>       File "", line 1, in ?
>     UnicodeError: ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)
>
> Huh? So o.write() works, but print >> o doesn't? When o is a stream
> writer specifically built to write in Latin-1?

The write method of file objects uses the "buffer interface" of
the objects it's writing out, I believe.  It most definitely
does NOT call 'str' (or the equivalent thereof), as print
does (wherever you're redirecting output, print always calls
str to prepare the bytes it wants to put out).

>     >>> print >> o, '?'
>      Traceback (most recent call last):
>       File "", line 1, in ?
>       File "c:\applications\python20\lib\codecs.py", line 134, in
>       write
>         data, consumed = self.encode(object,self.errors)
>     UnicodeError: ASCII decoding error: ordinal not in range(128)
>
> Probably not relevant, '?' is somewhat undefined here, I guess.
>
> This is looking more and more bizarre...

Not sure what's going on here, but the other parts don't
seem bizarre at all to me -- I'm not 100% sure I am looking
at them the right way, but they sure to make sense the
way I look at them.

Alex

From spahievi at vega.bg  Tue Oct 31 16:10:04 2000
From: spahievi at vega.bg (Niki Spahiev)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 23:10:04 +0200
Subject: wxPython 2.2.2 demo crashes
In-Reply-To: <8tltv5$5s5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
References: <8tjmds$96v$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8tk898$o9v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
 <8tlp80$2gu$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8tlr1j$3qo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
 <8tltv5$5s5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <941814304.20001031231004@vega.bg>

31.10.2000, 09:56:23, rerwig at my-deja.com wrote:

rmdc> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/tools/htmlhelp/wkshp/download_main.htm

rmdc> Robin,
rmdc> I confess: I didn't.
rmdc> I just followed the links and think the OpenGL upgrade presents no
rmdc> problem.
rmdc> WinSock might be a problem as I use currently a company sock
rmdc> installation. I can't currently judge about that.
rmdc> The help file viewer is definitly out of the question as it requires
rmdc> installation of IE: not my personal preference, besides that not

NOT TRUE. I use HTMLHELP workshop on NT4 SP3 without IE4 or IE5

-- 
Best regards,
 Niki Spahiev

From stephenk at cc.gatech.edu  Mon Oct 23 07:01:39 2000
From: stephenk at cc.gatech.edu (Stephen Kloder)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 07:01:39 -0400
Subject: All combinations of a list
References: <8t0rsf$r0s$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: <39F41A93.1D127B46@cc.gatech.edu>

June Kim wrote:

> Below is my first version of doing it:
>
> def comb(list):
>     if len(list) ==0:
>            return [[]]
>     return [ [[list[0]],[]][i]+c for i in (0,1) \
>            for c in comb(list[1:]) ]
>
> That works fine, but why does another version using
> lambda give a subscription error?
>
> def comb(list):
>     if len(list) ==0:
>            return [[]]
>     return  map(lambda x: [list[0]]+x , comb(list[1:]))  \
>              + comb(list[1:])
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> June
>
> [This thread was first started from permutation lists
> and now that the topic has moved somewhat far from
> the originator's question, I open up this thread as a new one]

It does not work because list is not defined as a list inside the
context of lambda.  If you had not used a pre-defined name, the error
message would have been NameError.  Changing the last line to:
    return  map(lambda x,list=list: [list[0]]+x , comb(list[1:]))  \
             + comb(list[1:])
should do the job.

--
Stephen Kloder               |   "I say what it occurs to me to say.
stephenk at cc.gatech.edu       |      More I cannot say."
Phone 404-874-6584           |   -- The Man in the Shack
ICQ #65153895                |            be :- think.

From haering at sunhalle4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de  Wed Oct 11 13:46:32 2000
From: haering at sunhalle4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Gerhard Haering)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 17:46:32 GMT
Subject: MySQLdb binaries for Windows
References: <8r2tpb$fhu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

I have moved my build of MySQLdb for Windows to the following location:

http://home.t-online.de/home/err666/

It's still version 0.2.1. Perhaps a 0.2.2 build will be there, rsn. It's
all for Python 1.5.2. Sorry, I do not bother with Python 2.0 until the
final is released, which should also be rsn :-)

Gerhard Haering

In article <8r2tpb$fhu$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, echuck3 at my-deja.com wrote:
>I used to be able to get this at ftp://ins-networks.de, but not anymore:
>
>C:\>ftp ins-networks.de
>Connected to ins-networks.de.
>220 ins-networks.de NcFTPd Server (licensed copy) ready.
>User (ins-networks.de:(none)): anonymous
>331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
>Password:
>451 Login failed, can't set startup dir to /usr/public_ftp/insadmin:
>Permission denied.
>Connection closed by remote host.
>
>
>And I don't see anything but source at the MySQLdb page:
>
>http://dustman.net/andy/python/MySQLdb/

From bjorn at roguewave.com  Tue Oct  3 18:05:51 2000
From: bjorn at roguewave.com (Bjorn Pettersen)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 16:05:51 -0600
Subject: Newbie: How to convert "<" to "<" ( encoding? )
References: 
Message-ID: <39DA583F.3D03916@roguewave.com>

This should get you going:

Python 1.5.2 (#0, Apr 13 1999, 10:51:12) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> import string
>>> s = "this  a  with >"
>>> print string.replace.__doc__
replace (str, old, new[, maxsplit]) -> string

Return a copy of string str with all occurrences of substring
old replaced by new. If the optional argument maxsplit is
given, only the first maxsplit occurrences are replaced.
>>> tmp = string.replace(s, '<', '<')
>>> tmp
'this <is> a <string> with <nested <brackets>>'
>>> s = string.replace(tmp, '>', '>')
>>> s
'this <is> a <string> with <nested <brackets>>'
>>>

-- bjorn

Eric wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> The subject says it all.  I'm sure there's a Python function that will
> convert:
> "<"  to  "<"
> ">"  to  ">"
> etc.
> Do you know what the function(s) is/are?  Any help or pointers are greatly
> appreciated!
> 
> Eric.
> 
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From g2 at seebelow.org  Sun Oct  8 05:09:36 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 10:09:36 +0100
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: 
Message-ID: <39E039D0.3A319DBE@seebelow.org>

Tim Peters wrote:
> 
> [David T. Grove]
> > die unless @d = map {"$basedir/$_"} grep {!-d && -w} readdir(dir);
> 
> [Grant Griffin]
> > What in the heck does all _that_ mean?
> 
> [back to David]
> > Actually, fully extended, it means "give me a platform independent
> > list of writable (non-directory) files in that directory in a form
> > that will allow me to name the files so that I can see them from
> > elsewhere in my code regardless of where they are on disk, or halt
> > immediately because if this doesn't work you might screw something
> > up".
...
> Python (2.0) code for doing all that correctly is no more lines (it could be
> squashed into fewer but not profitably), but they are longer; OTOH, they do
> more, and don't change the current directory:
> 
> import os, stat
> basedir = os.path.normpath("/code")
> paths = [os.path.join(basedir, f) for f in os.listdir(basedir)]
> d = [p for p in paths if os.path.isfile(p)
>                       if os.stat(p)[stat.ST_MODE] & 0222]

Hey, waitaminute!  It this a case where the Python code is actually
_smaller_ than the "natural language" equivalent above?

maybe-guido-is-secretly-a-linguist-like-larry-wall--ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From dalke at acm.org  Fri Oct  6 01:11:43 2000
From: dalke at acm.org (Andrew Dalke)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 23:11:43 -0600
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References:    <8qss6t$7i$1@saltmine.radix.net> <8rhsgu$i8j$3@newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de>  <8rjgq1$cqh$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>
Message-ID: <8rjn2f$ea9$2@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

Andrew Dalke wrote in message <8rjgq1$cqh$1 at nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>...
>J

That was weird.  My post was supposed to say that bioinformatics.org
is an alternate place for software projects, similar to SourceForge.
(I think they use the same code base.)  However, they are biased
towards biology and chemistry projects.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct  6 05:32:48 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 11:32:48 +0200
Subject: Substring Detection? Pythonically?
References: <20001004.123529.97857@Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com>  <20001005.191011.17414@Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com>
Message-ID: <8rk6i301evf@news1.newsguy.com>

"Stephen Hansen"  wrote in message
news:20001005.191011.17414 at Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com...
> LOL. I feel dumb. I don't really know precisely what is going on in that
> acode, largely because I don't yet completely understand lamdba's and try
> to avoid regexp's whenever possible, so don't exactly clearly understand
> them either. :) I'm very impressed it's so easily -- and perfectly! --
doable
> in eight lines. :)

I'm a big fan of the Extreme Programming principle #1: *DO THE SIMPLEST
THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY WORK*.  lambda, regexp, etc, are all fine and
dandy, but complexity has a nasty habit of coming back and biting you.

So, I would propose an alternative to 's excellent (but complex)
regexp-based solution -- one based on utter simplicity.

Basically: you have a list of strings, and want the sub-list made up of
those list elements that start with a certain user-supplied string.
OK, then...:

class SimpleMatcher:
    def __init__(self, names):
        self.names = names
    def find(self, start):
        return [name for name in self.names if name.startswith(start)]

i.e., "return the list of those elements of self.names that start
with the user-supplied string" -- basically a restatement of the
problem-statement; it doesn't get much simpler than this.

Before 2.0 (list comprehension, startswith method of the string object),
the body of SimpleMatcher's find would be quite a bit longer, though the
complexity would be roughly equivalent:

    result = []
    startlen = len(start)
    for name in self.names:
        if name[:startlen] == start:
            result.append(name)
    return result

Performance isn't that bad:

>>> names = ['x%3.3d' % i for i in range(1000)]
>>> m=prov.Matcher(names)
>>> s=prov.SimpleMatcher(names)
>>> profile.run('y=m.find("x")')
         81 function calls (75 primitive calls) in 0.050 CPU seconds
    [snip]
>>> profile.run('y=s.find("x")')
         3 function calls in 0.013 CPU seconds

The profiler may be invasive, and distort relative performance in
favour of the simple-minded solution (I suspect there is some
miscalibration in Python 2.0b2's profiler, though I can't quite
put my finger on it), but at least this suggests that the simple
matcher isn't ruinously slower than the sophisticated one, and
the runtimes involved are probably low enough that it does not
really matter (depending on your patterns of usage, of course).

Alex

From jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de  Fri Oct 20 05:22:59 2000
From: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de (Janko Hauser)
Date: 20 Oct 2000 11:22:59 +0200
Subject: Automatic copies of NumPy arrays
References: 
Message-ID: <87hf67euj0.fsf@ifm.uni-kiel.de>

A good policy with NumPy functions should be that they do not alter
the input arguments, without mentioning this explicitly. This policy
is now more important, as there is now the savespace flag, which
actually changes the behavior of a NumPy array. This flag needs to be
cleaned up before the function returns.

HTH,
__Janko

-- 
  Institut fuer Meereskunde             phone: 49-431-597 3989
  Dept. Theoretical Oceanography        fax  : 49-431-565876
  Duesternbrooker Weg 20                email: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de
  24105 Kiel, Germany

From crunch at host.net  Mon Oct 16 20:04:25 2000
From: crunch at host.net (John Draper)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 17:04:25 -0700
Subject: And of course - the main question is....
Message-ID: 

What directory do I have to be in,    to compile in the module into Python.
And once I do that,     will I also have to re-compile PostGreSQL?
Because I added a line to compile in the pgmodule.c,   the PostGre
interface module.

I'm in the "Python-1.5" directory when I try to do a "make"....   Should I
be in the next one down (Modules) directory when I make it?

John

From nospam at nospam.com  Sun Oct  1 12:39:52 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 16:39:52 GMT
Subject: ANNOUNCE: cCopy 0.1
References: 
Message-ID: 

Robin,

Thanks for cCopy.

Browsing the code brings to some comments about the implementation and
documentation of cCopy and copy.py.

Some object types are described as 'atomics', some as 'special', and the
rest aren't supported.  (It appears that the atomics don't actually get
copied, but just have their reference counts increased.)

The atomic types are:
NoneType,IntType,LongType,FloatType,StringType,CodeType,TypeType,XRangeType,
ClassType.
The special types are: ListType,TupleType,DictionaryType,InstanceType.

My Comments:

- XRange isn't atomic, it is a compound.  I presume that the reason that it
can be copied in this manner is because it is only composed of immutables?
- Class & Code aren't atomic either.  To me they appear to belong with the
other unsupported types in the un-named third category - those that don't
really have a regular value and are composed entirely of special attributes.
- Instances are not compound objects (as the other 'special' types are).  I
suppose that it can be copied (unlike a similar type like a class) because
multiple identical instances are allowed?

It doesn't seem to me that the 'atomic/compound/no-value' trichotomy (is
that a real word?) is really the issue for copying purposes, but I don't
have a better alternative.

I realize these weren't your decisions - I am just making these comments to
see if my understanding of this module is accurate.

Thanks,

Tom.

"Robin Becker"  wrote in message
news:of$bgXAf9b15EwhO at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk...
> As an exercise I have tried to duplicate the functionality of Python's
> copy module in a C extension. My tests indicate that it works, but it
> obviously wants to be let out to be stamped on.
>
> You can find cCopy.zip at http://www.jessikat.fsnet.co.uk/
> --
> Robin Becker

From raja at cs.indiana.edu  Thu Oct 19 20:10:36 2000
From: raja at cs.indiana.edu (Raja S.)
Date: 20 Oct 2000 00:10:36 GMT
Subject: A suggestion for python 2.1.
References: <39f09400.33100312@nntp.interaccess.com> <8smuqv$1o9$1@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu> <39ef27c1.3714328@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: <8so2hs$7nd$1@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu>

olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L. Olczyk) writes:

>On 19 Oct 2000 14:01:03 GMT, raja at cs.indiana.edu (Raja S.) wrote:
> > since you seem to be running your scripts under Unix, why don't you just
> > use the conventional shell trick ?
> >
>
> Why do people always jump on stupid and rash assumptions.
> At no point do I say that I am using UNIX. There are no statements
> that rule out all other operating systems.
...

My my ... :-)
Whoa. :-) Relax.  You asked a question.  Made a suggestion.  Don't like it?
No sweat.  No one was critizing your proposal.  Does sound interesting.
But till that happens was just suggesting an alternative.

[Incidentally you didn't mention any platform.  But you did use / as your
dir seperator and you also mention emacs --- something used more under Unix
than Windows (though I personally use ntemacs on my laptop when running
windows).  I also run cygwin so have the 'bash' shell on all my platforms.] 

In any event, at the risk of raising your ire again :-), how about the
following:

1. Create an alias or put the following in your bin dir, say call it 'pscript'

   python -c "script='$1'; execfile('/u/raja/scripts/Script.py')"

2. Place Script.py where ever you want (altering the above path accordingly)

#-------------------------
import sys, string, os, os.path

try:
    psp = os.environ['PYTHONSCRIPTPATH']
except KeyError:
    print "PYTHONSCRIPTPATH not set"
    sys.exit()

def findFile (paths, f):
    for p in paths:
        fp = os.path.join(p, f)
        if os.path.isfile(fp):
            return fp
    else:  # file isn't in the list of paths
        return None

paths = string.split(psp, ":")  
f = findFile(paths, script)

if f:
    #print "execfile: ", f
    execfile(f)
else:
    print "Python script not found: %s" % script
#-------------------------

[One could of course use Perl to search PYTHONSCRIPTPATH before invoking
python but lets keep it within Python]

3.  pscript foo.py  will use your PYTHONSCRIPTPATH to run foo.py

Granted not as simple as having Python itself use PYTHONSCRIPTPATH but
better than having to type:

> python directoryWhereCleanupIsStored/cleanup.py

Seems portable across platforms but for some preliminary installation work.

> The fact is that I am A REAL PROGRAMMER who writes REAL PROGRAMS
> that are used in REAL CIRCUMSTANCES, not some student who tools around
> on one computer. 
...
> Maybe when you get out in the real world
> and do some real world programming you will understand this.

Amusing :-).  You may be surprised what some students do (and have been
doing)  apart from "tooling around on one computer" ... ;-)
Talking about "assumptions", just because a post comes from a .edu domain
doesn't necessarily mean its a student ...

Anyway, just kidding with you :-)

Hope you solve your problem to your satifaction.

Best wishes,
Raja

From the_brain at mit.edu  Wed Oct 11 11:29:45 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 11:29:45 -0400
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] cCopy 0.2
References: <7xK$7KA$p145Ewoi@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

> Copying is obviously not very popular with pythoneers as only one
> response was received about the utility or otherwise of speeding it
> up.

You should judge more by your web server logs than the response here.
My own experience suggests there are a lot of shy people lurking
here. (Well, I would count as one of them, in your case. :)

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From paulb at infercor.no  Wed Oct 11 06:32:14 2000
From: paulb at infercor.no (Paul Boddie)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 12:32:14 +0200
Subject: Sybase DB-Client module searched
References: <39E40B3F.A8B9A911@eed.ericsson.se>
Message-ID: <39E441AE.2E0D94F0@infercor.no>

Daniel Hops wrote:
> 
> I am looking for a python module to let me connect to a sybase 11
> server.
> I already downloaded ctsybasemodule0.1b-r4, but I don't understand how
> to install it.
> It looks like I have to recompile python to get it working, which is not
> very easy, as our Sysops
> dont support python and I had to fight to install it in my /home dir.

Well, I don't think I ever had to fight to install python, although you may be
referring to your fight for the right to install it. ;-)

> Isn't there any other choice or other module which lets me contact
> sybase servers?

There are other modules, such as mxODBC, although you will need some ODBC
middleware if you plan to take this route on UNIX. See:

  http://www.paul.boddie.net/Python/mxODBC.html

It may be the case that you would need root access to install some of the
middleware packages, however.

Back to ctsybasemodule:

> The passage that I dont understand / which dont works follows (I think
> it has to be used in the
> compilation process of python). Isnt there any option for which I dont
> have to recompile python?
> "To install ctsybasemodule, add a line like the following to your
> modules/Setup
> file.
> 
> ctsybase dbi.c ctsybasemodule.c -I$(SYBASE)/include -L$(SYBASE)/lib
> -lblk -l
> ct -lcs -lsytcl -lcomn -lintl -ltli # -linsck
> 
> Recompile python, and you should be all set.  I don't know if this
> module
> works as a dynamically loadable module.  I'd love to hear about it one
> way or the other. "

The answer is found in the Makefile.pre.in file:

# Short Instructions
# ------------------

# 1. Build and install Python (1.5 or newer).
# 2. "make -f Makefile.pre.in boot"
# 3. "make"
# You should now have a shared library.

I think you need to change the Setup.in file so that SYBASE refers to your
Sybase directory. Also in that file, I needed to change the "link line" so that
the appropriate (Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.5) libraries are
referenced when building the shared library:

ctsybase dbi.c ctsybasemodule.c -I$(SYBASE)/include -L$(SYBASE)/lib \
        -lblk -lct -lcs -ltcl -lcomn -lintl -ltli # -linsck

Remember that this is ctsybasemodule's Setup.in file, not Python's.

Now, follow the above "Short Instructions" (from step 2) and you might have
ctsybasemodule.so in your ctsybasemodule directory. Just make sure that that
directory is in your PYTHONPATH, invoke Python, and try and import ctsybase. You
may need to make sure that the Sybase libraries are found in your
LD_LIBRARY_PATH too.

I hope that this helps!

Regards,

Paul

From hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu  Tue Oct 31 19:27:09 2000
From: hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu (Hwanjo Yu)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:27:09 -0600
Subject: Q: commenting multiple lines
Message-ID: 

Hi,

Isn't there any way to comment out multiple lines without using '#' on every
line ?
Thanks.

From jaepstein_63 at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 25 09:17:46 2000
From: jaepstein_63 at yahoo.com (jaepstein_63 at yahoo.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:17:46 GMT
Subject: Creating printed source code listings
Message-ID: <8t6mhi$79q$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi,

This may be slightly off-topic, but here goes.  While traversing source
code online using Speedbar, etags, etc. is all very nice, sometimes what
I really need is to print out a lot of code in a nice organized manner.
In particular, it would be nice to have:
  (a) two page numbers: one local for each file, and the other global
for the entire comprehensive listing
  (b) an index showing on which page(s) I can find references to a
particular symbol.  Distinguishing between a function definition and
non-defining references would also be nice.

At this point, I am mostly interested in such a tool for Python code,
but would like it in the future for Perl, C, Java, Matlab, and Elisp.

I would prefer to be able to control this somehow through NT Emacs, but
both Unix-based solutions and non-Emacs-friendly solutions could also be
OK.

Thanks for any pointers,

-Jonathan

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From matthias.huening at univie.ac.at  Mon Oct  2 08:42:05 2000
From: matthias.huening at univie.ac.at (Matthias Huening)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 14:42:05 +0200
Subject: 2.0b2 and mxODBC
Message-ID: <8r9vun$1bsq$1@www.univie.ac.at>

Hi,

I use mxODBC under Win98 with Python 1.5.2 without problems.
On a new computer (again with Win98) I installed Python 2.0b2, mxDateTime
and mxODBC, but I get an import-problem.

---------
Python 2.0b2 (#6, Sep 26 2000, 14:59:21) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
IDLE 0.6 -- press F1 for help
>>> import ODBC.Windows
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
    import ODBC.Windows
  File "C:\PYTHON20\lib\ODBC\__init__.py", line 21, in ?
    import DateTime # mxDateTime package must be installed first !
  File "C:\PYTHON20\lib\DateTime\__init__.py", line 20, in ?
    from DateTime import *
  File "C:\PYTHON20\lib\DateTime\DateTime.py", line 8, in ?
    from mxDateTime import *
  File "C:\PYTHON20\lib\DateTime\mxDateTime\__init__.py", line 7, in ?
    from mxDateTime import *
ImportError: DLL load failed
---------

Is this a known problem?
Any suggestions / solutions?

Matthias

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Mon Oct 30 06:27:24 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:27:24 -0000
Subject: Python & RPGs
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B136D@intrepid>

> From:	Andrew Kuchling [SMTP:akuchlin at mems-exchange.org]
> Moshe Zadka  writes:
> > Definitely, Martijn! That would be neat. I'm more of a HEROS (formerly
> > known as Champions) kind of guy -- I feel in love with super-heroics
> > because of it.
> 
> Gosh, who knew there were so many RPGers in c.l.p?  I played the
> Marvel RPG back in high school, along with the rather clunky FASA
> Doctor Who game.  I haven't gamed since then, though I've been dying
> to try the live-action Cthulhu Mythos game since hearing about it at
> Necronomicon last year.

*Way* off topic here - allow me to introduce you to what I consider to be
the Python of the RPG world - The Window. See
.

Sorry.

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

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From alexander_k at my-deja.com  Fri Oct 27 10:01:33 2000
From: alexander_k at my-deja.com (alex k)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:01:33 GMT
Subject: Loading a module by expanding a string variable?
References:   
Message-ID: <8tc1rp$jlo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

or:
mod = module_you_want

exec 'import ' + mod
(altarnatively)
exec 'from ' + mod + ' import *'

 / alex

In article ,
  Joakim Hove  wrote:
> "Fredrik Lundh"  writes:
>
> > if you trust whoever sets the module variable, and don't mind
> > compiling code on the fly, you can also use exec:
> >
> >     exec "from %s import *" % module
>
> This did the trick - thanks a lot.
>
> > (if you don't trust the source, consider what happens if module is
> > set to e.g "os import *; system('rm -rf $HOME') #")
>
> I write the modules myself - so I guess I have to trust the source -
> but thanks for the warning anyway.
>
> Joakim
>
> --
> === Joakim Hove      www.phys.ntnu.no/~hove/   ======================
> # Institutt for fysikk  (735) 93637 / E3-166  |  Sk?yensgate 10D    #
> # N - 7491 Trondheim    hove at phys.ntnu.no     |  N - 7030 Trondheim #
> ================================================ 73 93 31 68 ========
>

--
.
.
...: [ ~~~~~~~ ] :...

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu  Mon Oct 30 13:44:39 2000
From: not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 13:44:39 -0500
Subject: A Suggestion  (please read and respond)
References:  <8tkalb0r36@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

> This would seem tantamount to a mother making her little children pay
> her for lunch, rather than providing it for free, to prepare them for
> the harsher "real world" of restaurants:-).

Don't knock it till you've tried it.  It's character building, and
knowing they'll have to pay for it stops 'em clamouring for
seconds. 

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From stadt at cs.utwente.nl  Sat Oct 21 16:22:58 2000
From: stadt at cs.utwente.nl (Richard van de Stadt)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 21:22:58 +0100
Subject: All permutations of a list
Message-ID: <39F1FB22.6E9246E7@cs.utwente.nl>

Hi,

I was looking for an algorithm to generate all permutations of
a row of numbers. I couldn't find the solution (which I thought
should be recursive) myself and looked on the internet, found
a non-recursive C program by one Frank Ruskey, and translated
it to python in a few minutes. It's 40 lines of code.

Then a collegue of mine impressed me with a recursive program
in the functional language Miranda/Amanda:

ins a []     = [[a]]
ins a (x:xs) = (a:x:xs) : map (x:) (ins a xs)

perms []     = [[]]
perms (x:xs) = concat (map (ins x) (perms xs))

'ins a xs' returns a list of all possible extensions of
the list xs by inserting element a.
'perms xs' returns the list of all possible permutations
of the list xs.
'concat' joins lists.

Is such an elegant recursive solution possible in Python?

Richard.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 24 04:50:42 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 10:50:42 +0200
Subject: win32all build 135: missing functions from win32gui...?
Message-ID: <8t3iqh021lg@news2.newsguy.com>

Apparently, win32gui in build 135 is exporting the
following functions whose names start with Get...:

GetActiveWindow
GetClientRect
GetCursorPos
GetDC
GetDlgItem
GetForegroundWindow
GetModuleHandle
GetObject
GetOpenFileName
GetParent
GetScrollInfo
GetStockObject
GetSystemMenu
GetWindowRect
GetWindowText

There seem to be many missing, that are listed in
the docs for win32gui also distributed with build
135 of win32all, e.g.:

GetCapture
GetDesktopWindow
GetWindow
GetWindowDC

I haven't even looked at other functions, but there
seems to be a problem (the specific one I needed
was GetDesktopWindow).  Is it a damaged build, or
am I missing something...?

Alex

From bill at libc.org  Sat Oct 28 01:43:23 2000
From: bill at libc.org (Bill Anderson)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 11:43:23 +0600
Subject: Python in RedHat 7
References: <8t6bku$13s$1@lola.ctv.es>
Message-ID: <20001028.114323.982936784.18601@locutus.noreboots.com>

In article <8t6bku$13s$1 at lola.ctv.es>, inigo at cuervo.eng.sun.com  wrote:

> 
> 	Hello,
> 
> I could compile Python 2.0 (and previous betas) with RedHat 6.2,  but
> the comp?lation fails in RedHat 7. It seems a problem with the compiler
> (gcc-2.96, I think).
> 
> Has anyone the same problem?

I haven't had any problems, but you could use kgcc instead.

Bill

From anthony at lokie.co.uk  Fri Oct 13 01:45:34 2000
From: anthony at lokie.co.uk (Lokie)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 06:45:34 +0100
Subject: Programmer-Wanna-Be (Is Python for me?)
References: <8s2354$ep2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <1mxF5.36034$Cl1.869085@stones>

 wrote in message news:8s2354$ep2$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> 1.  First of all, is Python what I'm looking for:  a way to create
> Windows (or other OS's) applications?
Yes, with the advantage that most of its library's abstract the
application/OS layer making it extremely easy to port to another OS. Having
just developed a complex search engine and management system on a Win98 box,
its kinda nice to only have to change 1 line to get it to work on a Redhat
Linux machine.

> 2.  Is Python RELATIVELY one of the easiest ways to do this?
I'd say yes. Coming from a background of coding in Basic, C, Ada, and Pascal
on a number of platforms Python allowed me to very quickly lever that
experience to be producing working code. Like all good art's it takes time
to become truly good with a system and I bet I could rewrite those first few
demo programs in half the space and with double the performance. Thats true
for any language, but Pythons rigid block structure will allow you to
examine code from resources such as Parnassus (URL escapes me) and have
very good idea of whats happening and how, If only C had been so easy when I
learned that many years ago :-)'s

> 3.  What about Visual Basic? (the most commonly used) Why should I
> not choose VB instead?
I've not used VB in nearly 3 years so this is almost certainly not something
you should take as gospel, but I tended to find it Ideal for quickly laying
out the look of an application before coding in C. Its syntax seems to
suffer from trying to marry BASIC's syntax with the Microsoft C++ classes
exposed by Windows which leads to some interesting confusions with new
users, and lots of head banging with older users. However, with all of that
in mind, Microsoft do seem to want to stick VB in every application, so it
won't hurt to at least understand some of it, if only for using Office a
little more efficently.

> 4.  Is there a WYSIWYG editor (like Frontpage is for HTML)?  Is this
> what Tkinter is?  Is there a 'better' WYSIWYG editor for Python that I
> should use instead?
Good question, not seen one but I'm sure there was a thread in this group
about a RAD for Python a few months ago......

> 5.  What's the deal with Tk/Tcl?  Why is this so closely tied with Python
> and Tkinter if Python is it's own language?  (The install instructions
> say I may need to install Tk/Tcl too (what ever that is))
Tcl is an old scripting language which by some accounts is beginning to show
its age and limitation against the new breed of languages such as Python
that are beginning to emerge. TK is a GUI development system written in Tcl
originally for X-Windows, but now ported pretty much everywhere. When Python
needed a GUI system it therefore made sense to use what was already
available and guaranteed to work across platforms and hence TK/Tcl is now
included with Python.

> 6.  Where should I start?  (I've already downloaded and installed
> Python2.0b2 but haven't attempted to write anything)  Do I need to
> download anything else?
Ask 10 people where to start and your going to get 11 answers :-)'s
Personally I'd start by downloading and reading the Tutorial, followed by a
quick visit to Parnussus (link on the python website) to pick up some
programs to take a quick look at. The final step for me in learning a
language is to sit down and write something (choose something simple to
begin with), it doesn't matter how "bad" the code is, if it works and does
what you want then your on your way to a long productive relationship with
Python.

As a final thought, your obviously looking at a number of languages, and I
suspect theres a similar post in each of their newsgroups. Every reply your
going to read will tell you that language X is what you need and there will
be lots of arguments on each side as to who's right and who's wrong. The
bottomline is every language has its zealots (just as every OS has its
zealots) who'll defend there favourite system to the death. At the end of
the day, its you who has to make the final choice, its you who'll have to
struggle late at night to find the bugs, and ultimately its you who'll have
that "rush" when a piece of code you've spent a little while on works as
expected. Therefore before you make your choice consider the following:

Is there a friendly place where I can get peer help with my problems?
Is the documentation helpful?
Are there example programs you can learn from?
Is the language structured to allow someone to read somebody elses code (or
even your own code in 6 months time)?
Will what you learn in Language X be applicable to Language Y?

Python scores heavily on all the above points, so give it a whirl and I bet
you won't be disappointed.

--
Anthony McDonald

From thomas at xs4all.net  Fri Oct 20 16:21:18 2000
From: thomas at xs4all.net (Thomas Wouters)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 22:21:18 +0200
Subject: Compiling python 2.0
In-Reply-To: ; from mwh21@cam.ac.uk on Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 06:49:36PM +0100
References:  
Message-ID: <20001020222118.M12812@xs4all.nl>

On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 06:49:36PM +0100, Michael Hudson wrote:
> "Jean-Claude Levieux"  writes:

> > I just tried to compile Python 2.0.
> > on BSDI BSD/OS 4.0.1

[ Sorry, missed the original message. Used the Archive to find it, tho ]

> Random guess, but you are using a ANSI C compiler, aren't you?  Python
> 2.0 now demands that.

BSDI uses gcc, so that's not the problem. Neither are these three warnings:

/usr/include/math.h:177: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
/usr/include/math.h:257: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
/usr/include/wchar.h:17: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype

(or any other warnings regarding 'function decl isn't a prototype)

They are a result of Python using '-Wstrict-prototypes' by default, if the
compiler is gcc. It just means BSDI declares a few functions without
specifying argument lists (prototypes) and has nothing to do with Python
(other than that Python always defines CFLAGS to contain
-Wstrict-prototypes.) There isn't an easy way to get this 'fixed',
unfortunately. If you want to quench the warnings, you'll have to edit
./Makefile, Objects/Makefile, Parser/Makefile, Python/Makefile,
and ./Modules/Makefile.pre. (Do not edit ./Modules/Makefile directly,
because it's overwritten by the 'makesetup' script, which parses the Setup
file.)

As for the other error, that's really an error :(

../libpython2.0.a(fileobject.o): In function portable_fseek':
/usr/home/thomas/Python-2.0/Objects/fileobject.c:274: undefined
reference to `TELL64'

The problem is that BSDI has an 'off_t' type that is larger than the 'long'
type, and Python's configure makes the flawed assumption that this means
BSDI supports large files (larger than 2Gb.) However, BSDI doesn't. This bug
is even present with BSDI 4.1, and probably more platforms. You can fix this
by editing './config.h' after running './configure', and commenting out the
HAVE_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT line; changing this:

#define HAVE_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT 1

into something like this:

/* #define HAVE_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT 1 */

(You can just remove the line as well.) The downside of both these 'hacks'
(excuse me, 'hotfixes'), is that you'll have to reedit the files again after
running configure again (or something that runs configure, like
'config.status'.)

I see a total of three bugs here: Python adds -Wstrict-prototypes even
though it can generate a lot of warnings that aren't related to Python;
there is no way to override the CFLAGS variable (you can pass it to
configure, and it uses it at first, but then just overwrites it); and
mis-detecting large file support. I can't decide which of the last two is
the biggest bug :-)

I would write a patch for the lot of 'm, but I'm in the middle of getting
ready to head to London for the Apache conference (any other Pythonistas
going ? :) and Have I Got News For You is about to start on BBC1. If you
don't do it, Jean-Claude, I'll submit bugreports on these when I'm back,
next Thursday.

(Oh, another hint: *disable threads* when compiling Python for BSDI 4.0.1.
You can leave them on for 4.1, but 4.0.1 has very broken threads, and it
will cause lots of problems in the signal module if you leave them on. You
can disable them by using '--with-threads=no' -- this is also listed in the
README, by the way. And note that BSDI 4.1 only has the large file support
problem, none of the others, and I strongly suggest upgrading for other
reasons as well.)

Python-dev: CC'd because this is material for a bugfix-release. There are
likely to be other platforms hit by the large filesupport misdetection.
Don't think this is enough to warrant a bugfix release (it's not *that*
brownbaggy) but it should definately go in if there is one ;P If I or
someone else didn't fix it by the time a bugfix release is considered,
please hit me. I also appologize for not properly testing Python 2.0 on BSDI
4.0.1 or 4.1... We still have those machines, but we are using less and less
of them. Out of sight, out of mind, and I'm happier using FreeBSD and Linux
:)

BSDI-isn't-all-bad--it's-just-that-by-now-Linux-and-FreeBSD-have-all-
	-those-good-sides-too-ly y'rs,

-- 
Thomas Wouters 

Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread!

From News at Titanic.co.uk  Mon Oct 23 09:33:23 2000
From: News at Titanic.co.uk (Simon Faulkner)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:33:23 GMT
Subject: Reverse NS Lookup
References:  
Message-ID: <2hf8vss1cdlmjucvqh9np3vqp3drgr4iq4@4ax.com>

Cheers,  I will try these...

Simon

On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 18:29:56 GMT, matt at mondoinfo.com (Matthew Dixon
Cowles) wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:43:03 GMT, Simon Faulkner 
>wrote:
>
>>How do I find the domain name of an IP address?
>
>If you're running under Unix, you could open a pipe from nslookup (or
>another similar command line tool) and parse the result:
>
>import os
>import string
>
>def main():
>  p=os.popen("/usr/bin/nslookup 208.185.174.123")
>
>  while 1:
>    l=p.readline()
>    if l[:6]=="Name: ":
>      domainName=string.strip(l[6:])
>      break
>  p.close()
>  print domainName
>
>While that's not hard, it leaves you vulnerable to a change in
>nslookup's output format.
>
>Alternatively, you can prolly use the dns code that's in the source
>distribution's Demo directory. I've been using Anthony Baxter's
>improved version of that code. You can find information about it at:
>
>http://www.vex.net/parnassus/apyllo.py?i=632080673
>
>If you're using that code, all you need to do is:
>
>>>> import DNS
>>>> DNS.ParseResolvConf()
>>>> DNS.revlookup("208.185.174.123")
>
>You should be aware that a very small number of evil spammers
>deliberately put false information in their reverse lookup databases
>and that a fair number of clueless admins don't put any data in them.
>
>Regards,
>Matt

Simon Faulkner

From josh at open.com  Thu Oct  5 16:45:00 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 16:45:00 -0400
Subject: Substring Detection? Pythonically?
References: <20001004.123529.97857@Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com>  <39dba218$1_2@corp.newsfeeds.com> <731D5.212$Y32.14254@newsb.telia.net>
Message-ID: <39dce6af_1@corp.newsfeeds.com>

> (it may not be obvious, but "not string.find(str, prefix)" is only
> true if str *starts* with prefix)

This was *exactly* the reason for my post.  :-)  For generic substring
searching, you would use "string.find(str, prefix) != -1".

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From crunch at webcrunchers.com  Sat Oct 28 06:17:38 2000
From: crunch at webcrunchers.com (John Draper)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 03:17:38 -0700
Subject: How do I handle setting the cookies file in a CGI?
Message-ID: 

Hi,

I want to set a cookie in my CGI,   to pass information from page to page.
I want to set a cookie called "usercode" to some value....

It is my understanding that I Have to send this back to tbe browser from
my CGI.

Set-Cookie: usercode=ty654etyh;

I tried sending this in various ways....    but I'm not sure if I send this
BEFORE or AFTER sending the....   Content-Type: text/html\n

I tried either way,   but not sure if it's working.    How can I test it?

I don't have the Cookie.py module in my Ver 1.5.2 of python,   and I cannot
upgrade right now,  because I'm in middle of the project.

John

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Mon Oct  9 16:12:59 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 9 Oct 2000 15:12:59 -0500
Subject: What's wrong with ActiveState? (was: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML))
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>   <39e1f314.11798695@news.davesworld.net>
Message-ID: 

In article <39e1f314.11798695 at news.davesworld.net>,
David T. Grove  wrote:
			.
			.
			.
>ActiveState is a competitor. To me, ActiveState is a pimary antagonist
>of my way of life and my profession, of which latter Perl is, or has
>been, a major part. There's lots of room between those two points of
			.
			.
			.
>they do (if so, then explain the thousands of mini-anti-as-activists
>who have said their peace since 1998 but have never been employed by
>ActiveState, or listened to), and a lay-off doesn't magically create
>technical and political issues in the public eye that are completely
>unrelated and that affect the entire perl, and now the python,
>communities.
>
>My anger toward ActiveState has one basis: the love of the Perl
>language and my faithfulness to its people. Were it anything else, I'd
			.
			.
			.
>of international unfair trade, anti-trust, and deception. All I'm
>doing is pointing out what is already publicly visible in the hope
>that at some point somebody (either the community or Larry) will wake
>up and smell the rotten fish.
			.
			.
			.
>This is in full public view. That you need clarification simply states
>that you don't pay attention.
			.
			.
			.
I'll summarize what I understand from this thread:  you
are angry with ActiveState.  Thousands of other people
are opposed to ActiveState.  The reasons are sufficiently
evident that I could comprehend them without further
explanation if only I would "pay attention".

Thank you for your help in this matter.  Good luck with
CodeMagic and CodeMagicCD; I'm told these are quite useful
and praiseworthy.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From tdelaney at avaya.com  Sun Oct  8 19:50:33 2000
From: tdelaney at avaya.com (Delaney, Timothy)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 10:50:33 +1100 
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
Message-ID: 

> Thank you for your explanation. I assume 2*'a' is an example of a
> runtime computed string?

Um ... yes and no.

Whilst the *current* compiler treats it as a runtime computed string, there
is not reason that a future compiler need do so. As strings are immutable,
and 2*'a' is a trivial calculation (it is only reliant on constants) the
compiler could well decide to change this to 'aa' i.e. a compile-time
computed string.

Tim Delaney

From rlboloNOSPAM at libero.it  Tue Oct 31 19:48:07 2000
From: rlboloNOSPAM at libero.it (Super Bolo)
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:48:07 GMT
Subject: Security Concerns
Message-ID: 

Hi all,
i'm really new to the Python world... question: are there known security
problems that can be generated by CGI programming with Python??
Installing the Python interpreter on a web server can in some way compromise
it's security??

Thanx to ALL,
Lorenzo

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct  7 11:58:38 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 17:58:38 +0200
Subject: busting-out XML sections
References: <39DCFFC2.A26BF159@ix.netcom.com> <39DDB4F8.60ECF23C@milagrosoft.com> <39DE24AE.71AD86C1@ix.netcom.com> <8rliub0daq@news1.newsguy.com> <39DEABC2.B0980E15@ix.netcom.com> <39DEADA7.2A92363E@ix.netcom.com> <39dee283.144103710@news.iol.ie> <39DF390E.CD6D4DFF@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <8rnhdt030j9@news1.newsguy.com>

"Thomas Gagne"  wrote in message
news:39DF390E.CD6D4DFF at ix.netcom.com...
> Assuming I can use that utility to correclty parse the incomming XML, is
there
> a matching utility to reverse it back into XML?  Because that is what the
> remote process is expecting.

Note that a DOM's elements will include a writexml method to write
back out the XML for the each element of your interest...

Alex

From josh at open.com  Tue Oct 24 15:42:02 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 15:42:02 -0400
Subject: How do I force a single instance of a python app?
Message-ID: <39f5e46f_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>

I need to prevent multiple copies of a python app from running
simultaneously on a single machine.  In Windows and C++, this is done with
sending custom window messages to all top level windows, or using some other
kind of scheme.

I'm looking for a platform neutral way to do this for my python apps -- the
second instance should somehow detect the first instance and should quietly
kill itself.  It does not need to notify the first instance of anything.
Initial target platforms are Solaris and NT, but others will follow, so a
generic solution would be the best.  File existence is a bad solution
because the first instance might (possibly) terminate before it could delete
the file.  I need a semaphore which will absolutely go away when the first
instance dies, or else a way to reliably probe to see if the first instance
exists on the fly.

Suggestions gratefully accepted!

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From tiskander at hologic.com  Mon Oct  9 13:58:33 2000
From: tiskander at hologic.com (Tim Iskander)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 13:58:33 -0400
Subject: Python 2.0b2 on Redhat 7.0
Message-ID: <39E20749.4CEF994E@hologic.com>

Hi
apologies in advance if this is not the forum for this, but I am trying
to build python 2.0b2
on a redhat 7.0 (Dell dimension XPS T500) and I get the following

gcc -g -O2 -I./../Include -I.. -DHAVE_CONFIG_H   -c -o intobject.o
intobject.c
intobject.c: In function `int_mul':
intobject.c:327: warning: right shift count >= width of type
intobject.c:328: warning: right shift count >= width of type
intobject.c:353: warning: right shift count >= width of type
intobject.c:367: warning: right shift count >= width of type
intobject.c:404: warning: left shift count >= width of type
intobject.c:408: warning: left shift count >= width of type

which causes all kinds of mayhem at run time, lots of "OverflowError:
integer multiplication" errors.

As far as I can tell there is a conflict in that
/usr/include/bits/xopen_lim.h
is defining LONG_BIT to be 64 when sizeof (long) is returning  4 (32
bits)

has anyone else seen this?
please cc: my email and I will summarize.

thanks
/Tim Iskander 
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From peter at engcorp.com  Sun Oct  8 17:41:29 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 17:41:29 -0400
Subject: Python routines for driving a Microwire serial port? like on AD 
 Converter
References: <39DCDB20.5A1FE2B0@home.com>
Message-ID: <39E0EA09.CACBA517@engcorp.com>

(We have not tried that specifically.)  At the moment, I can't recall
whether the protocol for Microwire involves any timing-related
restrictions.  That is, are there *any* hard real-time considerations,
where the master must respond (either by updating its output or by
reading the current input) within a certain amount of time or the result
will be wrong?

If there are any hard real-time considerations, it is unlikely you could
reliably use NT (with or without Python, but Python just makes the
problem worse) for this sort of application, even if a few retries were
allowed.

On the other hand, if the slave is able to wait indefinitely for the
host at any point (and since Microwire is, if I recall, a three-wire
protocol, I believe that's the case), then you could definitely do it. 
You might require a minor bit of glue hardware externally, depending on
your particular application, and you would definitely have to learn how
to control the parallel port from Python.  (Another NT-gotcha: that
probably requires a DLL since it means interfacing with hardware
directly.  Either that or some methods in the Python win32 stuff...)

rob wrote:
> 
> Has anyone ever tried using Python on NT for driving a Microwire serial
> port?  Its used on many IC's for implementing digital control. e.g. AD
> converters.  I would think that perhaps the pc parallel port could be
> used in some way to implement this.  I have seen proprietary
> schemes/boxes for this but have no idea how they work.
> 
> Rob.

From jclevieux at sud2000.com  Fri Oct 20 04:46:53 2000
From: jclevieux at sud2000.com (Jean-Claude Levieux)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:46:53 GMT
Subject: Please help a newbe
Message-ID: <1ETH5.217$ST6.405551@nnrp6.proxad.net>

Hi,

I just tried to compile Python 2.0.
on BSDI BSD/OS 4.0.1

After a lot of warnings like :

        .........
        in file included from ../Include/pyport.h:84,
                        from ../Include/Python.h:54,
                        from python.c:3:
        /usr/include/math.h:177: warning: function declaration isn't a
prototype
        /usr/include/math.h:257: warning: function declaration isn't a
prototype
        ........

The compile failed with this message :

        /usr/home/......./Python-2.0/Objects/fileobject.c:274: undefined
reference to `TELL64'
        *** Error code 1

        Stop.
        *** Error code 1

Coul you help me, please.

Thanks in advance

From teep at inet.co.th  Tue Oct 17 05:49:14 2000
From: teep at inet.co.th (Prateep Siamwalla)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 16:49:14 +0700
Subject: question about Pythonwin and memory
Message-ID: <8sh7ch$st0$1@news.inet.co.th>

Hello python masters out there,

The interactive shell in windows (Pythonwin or IDLE) is great for trying
things/ideas out.  I usually write code/scripts in one window and then
switch over to the interactive shell to poke around with the object I have
created.  On some occasions, either by intention or by accident, I have
gotten the shell to print out lots and lots of text ( something like "for i
in big_list: print i"....woops!!) Anyways, after such a command is run, I
notice the environment slows down drastically.  Is there a way of clearing
some memory/buffer/whatever to get it back up to speed again?  (other than
stopping and restarting Pythonwin of course)

Thanks in advance
teep

From scherrey at switchco.com  Sun Oct 22 11:30:56 2000
From: scherrey at switchco.com (Benjamin Scherrey)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 19:30:56 +0400
Subject: Build bug with configure --with-cxx
Message-ID: <8svthj02297@news1.newsguy.com>

FYI - I'm trying to build the latest Python 2.0 source on my Linux RedHat 6.2
machine using gcc-2.95.2. When I use the --with-cxx option in my
configure I get an infinite loop during my build on ccpython.cc. I'm not
sure what this option is supposed to get me but leaving it out allows my
build to go through just fine.

	thanx & later,

		Ben Scherrey

From zessin at my-deja.com  Tue Oct 10 12:27:28 2000
From: zessin at my-deja.com (Uwe Zessin)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 16:27:28 GMT
Subject: Python 2.0 release candidate 1
References:  
Message-ID: <8rvg14$a8m$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  Robin Becker  wrote:
> In article , Jeremy
> Hylton  writes
>
> >The final release of Python 2.0 will be next week.  We would
> >appreciate feedback on the release candidate in order to fix any
> >remaining bugs before the final release.  Confirmation of build and
> >test success on less common platforms is also helpful.n
> ...
> OK I downloaded the win32 version of Python 2.0 c1 and ran all the
> tests inside reportlab through it. I had to build _imaging.pyd for
> it and so on as well as our own accelerators.
>
[...]
> So far as I can tell everything went well.

It looks fine on OpenVMS, too, although I haven't run detailed tests,
yet. Good work, anyway.

One thing I have noticed is this:
if I run '>>> import test.autotest', all modules stay in memory.
It needs more than 60 MBytes at the end. OK, that is not a problem -
after all: 'VMS' means 'Virtual Memory System' ;-)

I'm curious: is that 'by design'? Why?

--
Uwe Zessin

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Mon Oct 30 19:49:02 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 00:49:02 GMT
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] ?
References:  <8t9d2m$lqo$2@news.wrc.xerox.com> <39F8DB20.C9FBE4ED@holdenweb.com> <2Z7K5.126092$g6.57970438@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com> <39FCE48C.47AEF81A@my.signature> 
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:10:52 GMT, Rainer Deyke  wrote:
>
>Many things cannot be cut in half this easily.

That's why integers are not suitable for every division.

>a = [1, 2, 3]
>first_half, second_half = a[:1.5], a[1.5:]

You mean 

first_half, second_half = a[:floor(1.5)], a[floor(1.5):]

Or do you mean 

first_half, second_half = a[:ceil(1.5)], a[ceil(1.5):]

What does a[:-5/2] mean?  And a[:-5/-2]?  And a[:5/-2]?  Did you get all of
them right without experimenting?

Given the various different ways to convert a fraction into integers and
remainders (as evident from other posts in this thread), it is much safer to
use the correct mathematical result (or a best approx to it) and let users
specify what method they want to use to map it to a smaller domain

floor(1.2) == 1;  floor(-1.2) == -2; 
ceil(1.2) == 2;  floor(-1.2) == -1; 
int(1.2) == 1;  omt(-1.2) == -1; 

When something is not inherently uniquely defined, taking a single
convention out of several equally valid candidates is bound to generate
confusion.

Case in point:

>>> from Numeric import arange
>>> a = arange(-4, 4)
>>> a/2                                     # Using int
array([-2, -1, -1,  0,  0,  0,  1,  1])
>>> map(lambda x:x/2, a)                    # Using floor
[-2, -2, -1, -1, 0, 0, 1, 1]                

The mathematical result is good not just because mathematicians like it -
they like it because it is consistent.  For example

-5/2 = (-5)/2 = -(5/2) = 5/(-2) = -(-5/-2)

Likewise, sqrt(5) is not an integer, and sqrt(-4) is not a real number.  You
could map them to the smaller domain by int(x) or real(x) or infinitely many
other methods, but doing that by default is a guaranteed trouble maker.
Whichever mapping you use, the result will not be as consistent as the
original.

You may say math is only useful for scientific work.  That may be true a few
hundred years ago, but not now, not at least for that kind of math we are
talking about.  Most people wouldn't insist on using physics at the level
their primary school teacher told them.

But at least here in the US there is a perception that math is not for
everybody.  This is unfortunate, because it actually makes math harder here
than in almost anywhere else in the world.  Many teachers try various
superficially simple rules instead of genuine underlying principles.  These
often generate a lot of trouble down the road.  And Americans thought that
their trouble of comparing mile, foot and inch to a metre is the most they
can take for science.  :-)

I forgot who's the author of this famous quote: 
  Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Huaiyu

From Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com  Wed Oct 11 16:29:49 2000
From: Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 21:29:49 +0100
Subject: Of what use is 'lambda'???
References:  <39E4C13C.4E489C16@motorola.com>
Message-ID: 

Tom Krehbiel wrote:

> Its been a long time since I worked with lisp, but my memory is that
> the deference between define and lambda is the closer. I thought
> define created a closer and lambda didn't, which means there is
> a significant difference. The lambda command lets you save
> pieces of code that you want to use in-line while define performs
> a call and its associated overhead.

No. Dead wrong, I'm afraid.

In Scheme, DEFINE! and LAMBDA both create closures.
In Common Lisp, DEFUN and LAMBDA both create closures.

In neither case is there any difference in respect of
inline-ness, except that LAMBDAs probably get inlined
more often on account of (1) more often having the
definition provably local to its place of use, and (2)
often being simpler. Well, I suppose there's one other
difference: in Common Lisp, you can use DECLARE to say
that you'd prefer a DEFUNed function to be inlined,
whereas there isn't anything quite equivalent for
anonymous functions.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan  Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com
sig under construc

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Thu Oct 12 08:35:15 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 21:35:15 +0900
Subject: Most Effective Way to Build Up a Histogram of Words?
Message-ID: <8s4b6f$5ch$1@news.nuri.net>

What is the most effective way, in terms of the execution speed,
to build up a histogram of words from a multiple of huge text
files?

(NOTE: I meant HISTOGRAM a list of all words occuring from texts,
with their frequency)

Can anyone give me an insight?

From kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us  Wed Oct 25 10:36:07 2000
From: kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us (Jeff Kunce)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:36:07 -0500
Subject: Python on the iPAQ
References: <8sb2f2$hns$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39F48CF8.D80F9169@udel.edu> <0klJ5.330$VF3.524@news.more.net> <39F6E2F8.B25F55B6@udel.edu>
Message-ID: 

> > Last I heard, nobody had updated Python CE to run on
> > any of the newer Pocket PC models. The whole project
> > seems to be hibernating.
>
> But, I'd really like to do Python programming on it, even under
> Win CE.  There are lots of times I want to test a few ideas and
> Python on an IPAQ would be perfect.

Don't get me wrong - I would too! I'd like an excuse to get a PocketPC ,
and a [useful] python would be just the ticket. Unfortunately, it seems
that the port is not trivial, and nobody has stepped forward to take
up the challenge. I would give it a try, if I had a free month or two :-)

  --Jeff

From keisari_ at hotmail.com  Thu Oct 26 14:04:48 2000
From: keisari_ at hotmail.com (joonas)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 21:04:48 +0300
Subject: TypeError
References: <39F83ED4.57ADB649@hotmail.com> <39F86026.D65F0CB7@hotmail.com> 
Message-ID: <39F87240.559EA771@hotmail.com>

I would like to get a number button function (or class or whatsoever)
and then make mathematical things like subtract with it.

Joonas.

Trent Mick wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2000 at 07:47:34PM +0300, joonas wrote:
> > I used the "print type(first)" method and it printed
> >
> > ""
> >
> > but when i wrote used "print first" it gave me
> >
> > "100"
> >
> 
> "100" is the result of running your BUtton's __str__() method.
> 
> > So. How can i make first substractable.
> 
> Well, are you sure you want to subtract Buttons? I don't know what it means
> to do that.
> 
> Trent
> 
> --
> Trent Mick
> TrentM at ActiveState.com

From ack at simplyweb.net  Thu Oct 26 18:29:22 2000
From: ack at simplyweb.net (Michael Ackerman)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 15:29:22 -0700
Subject: Python scoping
References: 
Message-ID: <39F8B042.4F0558E5@simplyweb.net>

"Steven D. Majewski" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Joshua Muskovitz wrote:
> 
.
>  A situation where the human eye uses indentation and the compiler
> uses braces is unsafe.

Why is it unsafe? Doesn't it work well in Haskell?

                          -- Michael

From bk at xk7.com  Fri Oct 13 05:39:28 2000
From: bk at xk7.com (Burkhard Kloss)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 10:39:28 +0100
Subject: Perl rules - Python drools
References: <8s6ksl$mea$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>
Message-ID: <971430231.69045@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>

"Python can be eaten, but Perl can't"

Well, surely that means Python is more useful, at least when you're hungry
:)

trying-very-hard-not-to-rise-to-the-bait-and-failingly- burkhard

From hartmut at oberon.noris.de  Sat Oct 21 13:55:25 2000
From: hartmut at oberon.noris.de (hartmut Goebel)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 18:55:25 +0100
Subject: Mass Text Indexing Tools
References: 
Message-ID: <16600812@oberon.noris.de>

Ender (kthangavelu at earthlink.net) schrieb:

 >Does anyone know of some good mass text indexing/searching tools
 >(preferrable open source) that are accessible from python. i've tried

DocuShare (docushare.xerox.com), which is written entirely in Python, uses
the Verity Search-Engine (www.verity.com). So either the Verity SDK comes
with a Python interface or you may want to have a look on DocuShare (demo is
available for free).

+++hartmut

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Fri Oct 20 16:28:11 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 20 Oct 2000 16:28:11 -0400
Subject: sre negated lookaheads/behinds
References:  <3dpukxdae9.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us> 
Message-ID: <3dpukvs1es.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

"Fredrik Lundh"  writes:
> you're right, of course; negative lookbehind is clearly broken
> in 2.0.  my fault (shouldn't have let you add it to the docs ;-)

>From my quick glance at the code, though, it doesn't look massively
"oh-God-this-can-never-possibly-work-let's-rip-it-out" broken, just
"still-a-few-glitches-left" broken, which isn't too bad.  (Or do you
think it's massively broken?  Is my proposed fix correct?)

Will you add a test case to re_tests.py once the bug is fixed, or
shall I do that?

--amk

From ge at nowhere.none  Fri Oct  6 16:32:17 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 20:32:17 GMT
Subject: Organizing Python Code
References: <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7@ix.netcom.com> <39D82B17.81958D15@esatclear.ie>  <39DBB04C.1681E515@esatclear.ie> <39DBC391.EDF52FF8@my.signature> <39DD2319.6ECE412E@esatclear.ie> <39de333a$1_2@goliath2.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: 

In article <39de333a$1_2 at goliath2.newsfeeds.com>, Garth Dighton wrote:

>This doesn't work when the code is in several directories. I frequently 
>have this problem at work, where the source code for our main product is 
>spread across several hundred files in 50 or so directories (our product is 
>a database server, so the architecture is fairly complicated). You CAN'T 
>just do a grep to find the function definition.

$ ctags --recurse

Gnu ctags only knows C, C++, Fortan, Eiffel, and Java.  One
presumes adding a new language is a fair amount of work.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  It's the RINSE
                                  at               CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED
                               visi.com            the RINSE CYCLE!!

From egbert at bork.demon.nl  Mon Oct  2 10:34:53 2000
From: egbert at bork.demon.nl (Egbert Bouwman)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 16:34:53 +0200
Subject: shared reference please
Message-ID: <20001002163453.A1562@bork.demon.nl>

Is there a way to make a list element and and a variable always
show the same value, even if that value is a simple number or string ?
Eg
   >>> a = [100,200]
   >>> weight  = a[0]
   >>> length  = a[1]
   >>> length  = 222
   >>> a
       [100, 222]
and vice versa:
   >>> a[0]    =  99
   >>> weight
   >>> a
       [99, 222]  
egbert           
-- 
Egbert Bouwman - Keizersgracht 197 II - 1016 DS  Amsterdam - 020 6257991
========================================================================

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Fri Oct 20 14:10:00 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 20 Oct 2000 13:10:00 -0500
Subject: Cultural practices (was: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython (fwd))
References: 
Message-ID: <4B59CD4D5EC85ECD.2233701BB177DE7D.A05C52BC7B51EE72@lp.airnews.net>

In article ,
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters   wrote:
>"Alex Martelli" 
>|And "Nike" was a term for "victory" (in Greek) from since
>|well before anybody raised coffee in the island of Java.
>|So why would it be 'more protectable' as a trademark...?
>
>'Nike' we can probably date from around 8th Century B.C., I imagine (I
>am not a Greek philologist, however).  When did coffee cultivation
>begin? When did it begin on Java?
>
>Just curious.
>
>
>

Coffee has probably been *chewed* in East Africa in
the vicinity of Ethiopia (where Kaffa is the old town
which apparently lent its name to the beveage) for
at least a hundred thousand years, and perhaps much
longer.  Its cultivation is, I understand, still 
surprisingly controversial, with claims more-or-less
well attested from around 1000 BC to 1000 AD for vari-
ous sites around the African horn and southern Arabia.
It was undeniably an element of Arabian culture by the
beginning of the most recent millenium.

Various governments restricted the escape of coffee
cultivation from their control, and it might not have
arrived in India successfully until the mid-seventeenth
century.  The Dutch smuggled it to Java in 1696, and
expanded its production explosively.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From paulp at ActiveState.com  Fri Oct 20 18:07:09 2000
From: paulp at ActiveState.com (Paul Prescod)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 15:07:09 -0700
Subject: ActivePython 2.0 Release
Message-ID: <39F0C20D.97150BAC@activestate.com>

Before I start to describe the benefits of the ActivePython 2.0
installation for windows, I'd like to make the point that as far as I
know, ActiveState is the first source for Python 2.0 binaries for
Solaris,
and Debian Linux (in addition to the more mainstream Windows and RPM
installations). Quality assured cross-platform distributions are a big
part of our mission. So looking only at the Windows installer does not
give the whole picture.

Q. How does ActivePython benefit the Windows user?

We strove to make ActivePython the easiest way to
get started with Python 2.0. It is certainly possible to download most
parts of the ActivePython product from various sites:

 * Python 2.0 core
 * PythonWin environment
 * Win32 APIs
 * TKinter
 * Indexed HTMLHelp versions of Python documentation

If you are a Python expert and you know what you want and where to get
it, then ActivePython may not be of interest to you. On the other hand,
when you wish to distribute a program with dependencies on these various
packages you may want to point your customers at ActiveState's
distribution rather than at various download sites.

In addition to the major advantages of multi-platform support and ease
of
installation, ActivePython is expected to be the first of many
ActiveState
Python-world products. We look forward to being able to point our
customers at a family of quality assured, cross-platform distributions
rather than multiple parts for multiple operating systems. Also, we are
not bound by anyone else's release schedule so we can release newer
versions on an accelerated schedule when we feel that will benefit our
customers.

Q. Why use the Microsoft Installer (MSI)?

My opinion is that an operating system should come with a standard
installation engine rather than having it bundled in each executable
distribution. This allows much safer and cleaner uninstallation and
dependency tracking because the operating system knows everything that
is going on. In my personal opinion, Microsoft, Red Hat, Debian etc.
have finally gotten this right. It is unfortunate that older versions of
Windows do not come with MSI. Even if we had Guido's time machine I
don't think we could correct that situation. I've railed against the
Windows installer situation for about a decade and it didn't have any
effect the first time!

Q. How does ActivePython differ from PythonLabs in terms of
"standard-ness"?

We have one minor bug fix and miscellaneous changes to the build system
and documentation to reflect our alternate documentation delivery
format.
The primary reason that there are so few differences is because
ActiveState contributes our improvements to the Python core to the
Python
development team. That ensures that we remain standard and everybody
benefits from our work.

Q. What's in the package?

ActivePython ships with TKinter and IDLE but not TK. This keeps our file
size down. IDLE is not in the start menu because it depends on TKinter
and
anyway it would be somewhat confusing for us to suggest two development
environments for the same product.

We are certainly interested in feedback on our choice of extensions to
include and exclude. This is especially true of the GUI world where
there are many different libraries competing for support.

ActivePython-Feedback at activestate.com is the best place to voice these
opinions because it is connected to our bug and feature request tracking
systems.

Q. Why doesn't the license allow redistribution?

ActiveState's license does not allow redistribution without contacting
us. Anyone who has created, tested and supported multiple platform
installations knows that this is a large effort and ActiveState depends
upon the publicity that accrues from having people download from our
site. This also helps us to quickly take obsolete versions (especially
betas) out of circulation and to ensure that our customers have the code
we expect them to have.

Q. What does ActivePython contribute to the Python world?

Guido has stated on various occasions that he hoped that multiple Python
distributions would arise and thrive. Out of the box, ActivePython is an
excellent platform for developing Windows, Linux or Solaris
applications. Those who are new to Python world and want to get up and
running, with lets say COM or MFC programming quickly and easily now
have a choice that gets them there. Choice is good.

Also, not every ActiveState product will be groundbreaking and
revolutionary. Some are incremental improvements. Nevertheless, we have
announced many products that will take Python places it has never been
before and ActivePython is a part of that strategy.

 Paul Prescod
 ActiveState Tool Corp.

From mcalla at home.com  Mon Oct 16 19:41:24 2000
From: mcalla at home.com (Mike Callahan)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 23:41:24 GMT
Subject: Problems with ftplib
Message-ID: 

I see some typos with my first post so here is a second try:

Python 1.5.2 (#0, Apr 13 1999, 10:51:12) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
IDLE 0.5 -- press F1 for help
>>> from ftplib import FTP
>>> ftps = FTP('ftp.python.org')
>>> ftps.login()
(signon message)
>>> ftps.quit()
(signoff message)
>>> (ctrl-D)
(window pops up with...)
PYTHONW caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 0167:bff7b9a6.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=bff7b9a6 EFLGS=00000246
EBX=0087b650 SS=016f ESP=0062fbdc EBP=0084d73c
ECX=00000000 DS=016f ESI=020325f0 FS=4207
EDX=00000000 ES=016f EDI=00671d68 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
ff 76 04 e8 13 89 ff ff 5e c2 04 00 56 8b 74 24
Stack dump:
0087b650 02020b13 020325f0 0062fbf8 76003481
0062fbf8 0084d730 0087b650 7600265e 00000000
0084d730 0084d6d0 0084d6dc 76003283 0084d6d0 7600e420

Do any windows Python gurus have any ideas? The same thing happens with
Python command line, scripts and the latest version of Python, on two
different machines.

Mike Callahan

From georg.simon at bnmsp.de  Sun Oct  8 08:58:57 2000
From: georg.simon at bnmsp.de (Georg Simon)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 14:58:57 +0200
Subject: Integer multiplication overflow
References: 
Message-ID: <39E06F91.32D60B08@bnmsp.de>

number = 1
while 1 :
    number = number + 1
    print fact(number)

When I tried your function and the script above, I did not get
multiplication overflow but a very long trace back and then
RuntimeError: Maximum recursion depth exceeded
( RAM is 64MB )

Then I typed number and got 989

Georg

Nadav Horesh schrieb:
> 
> try:
> 
> def fact(num):
>   if num < 2: return 1L
>   return num * fact(num - 1)
> 
> Nadav.

From not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu  Tue Oct 31 19:56:15 2000
From: not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 31 Oct 2000 19:56:15 -0500
Subject: Q: commenting multiple lines
References: 
Message-ID: 

> Isn't there any way to comment out multiple lines without using '#' on
> every line ?

Well, you could triple-quote them, as in 

'''
this is a multiple line comment.
'''

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From effbot at telia.com  Fri Oct 20 16:15:39 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 20:15:39 GMT
Subject: sre negated lookaheads/behinds
References:  <3dpukxdae9.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: 

Andrew wrote:
> Robin Becker  writes:
> > Clearly my a( is not preceded by self. in either case. However, in the
> > first case as there is not enough room for the positive look behind I
> > think it is wrongly failing to match. Is this correct?
>
> I think you've found a bug.  (First bug found in 2.0?) The ASSERT_NOT
> opcode contains this bit of code:
>      if (state->ptr < state->beginning)
>                  return 0;
>
> I think this is wrong; if the pattern is too long to match, then
> clearly the negative lookbehind succeeds, so it should simply continue
> matching the rest of the pattern.  Patch #101972 on SourceForge is a
> proposed fix; /F has to approve it first.

you're right, of course; negative lookbehind is clearly broken
in 2.0.  my fault (shouldn't have let you add it to the docs ;-)

sorry /F

From jepler.lnk at lnk.ispi.net  Wed Oct 25 08:15:50 2000
From: jepler.lnk at lnk.ispi.net (jepler epler)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:15:50 GMT
Subject: How to statically bind modules written in Python
References: 
Message-ID: 

On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:53:08 -0700, jay.krell at cornell.edu
  wrote:
>const char foo_py[] =
>"abc\n"
>"124\n"
>"this is supposed to be Python code\n"
>;

You'll find that many C compilers, including MSVC6, permit embarassingly
small string constants, even those produced by string (con)catenation.

const char foo_py[] = {
	'a', 'b', 'c', '\n', /* ... */
};

is much more likely to succeed on platforms which treat the C standard's
translations as maximums as well as minimums.

Speaking from experience,
Jeff

From nospam at nospam.com  Sat Oct 14 16:44:27 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:44:27 GMT
Subject: utility to display the contents of a pickle (fwd) (fwd)
References: 
Message-ID: 

I had in mind a utility that would display the contents of a pickle file w/o
unpickling.  Sort of like:

Instance (module a, class b)
    Integer: 125
    Tuple: [1,2,3]
    Instance (module a, class b)
        String: 'blah'
etc.

This would be for occasions when you can't unpickle.  This is happening to
me rather frequently, and the error messages I get from the unpickler are
very cryptic.

Tom.

"Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters"  wrote in message
news:mailman.971541335.6741.python-list at python.org...
> From: "Tom" 
> | I thought I saw a post a few months ago regarding a utility that would
> | display the contents of a pickle file.
> | (I realize that a text editor fits this description, but I'm hoping for
> | something a bit more structured.)
>
> My xml_objectify module (check the Vaults) contains a utility function
> called pyobj_printer that makes a pretty representation of any Python
> object.  There is nothing terribly special about this 20 line function,
> but I assume this is basically what you want to do in representing a
> pickle file.  You'll need to unpickle before you pass to this function,
> of course.
>
>

From hamish_lawson at yahoo.co.uk  Mon Oct 16 07:32:35 2000
From: hamish_lawson at yahoo.co.uk (Hamish Lawson)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 11:32:35 GMT
Subject: libpython20.a for building extensions using mingw32
Message-ID: <8sep0l$6g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I'm trying to use Robert Kern's py-mingw32 approach
(http://starship.python.net/crew/kernr/mingw32/Notes.html) to build an
extension using mingw32, but for Python 2.0 rather than Python 1.5.2.
Instead of libpython15.a I'm guessing I would need a libpython20.a.
Where would I get that or how would I build it?

Hamish Lawson

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct 22 05:05:56 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 09:05:56 GMT
Subject: Is this a bug in Python2.0 or yet another feature of Windows?
References: <8su86i$fen$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: 

"June Kim" wrote:
> With Python 2.0 Final Release,
>
> >>> from array import array
> >>> z=array('c','hello world')
> >>> `z`  #Note that these are back-quotes
>
> It returns a nice "python20.dll" error, whereas run on python 1.6,
> it returns what we expect, the string form of the array.

explicit calls to repr and str crashes for me with a locally built
2.0 interpreter (for some reason, it can still *print* this array).

have you reported the bug?  here's where to do it:

    http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470

From jjlucsy at concentric.net  Wed Oct 25 15:53:59 2000
From: jjlucsy at concentric.net (Joel Lucsy)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 15:53:59 -0400
Subject: Where is wxPython?
References: <39E33757.E9F81F9C@cicei.ulpgc.es>   <8t216i$dvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t54hu$hl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t77t1$ndf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

Another idea we use quite a bit in my office is to use delay loading, then
load the dll specifically with full path from where you expect it to be. Of
course this requires MSVC6, but it does work quite well.

--
Joel Lucsy (jjlucsy at concentric.net)

"Robin Dunn"  wrote in message
news:8t77t1$ndf$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article ,
>   Paul Moore  wrote:
>
> >
> > Fiddling in the registry is even worse...
> >
>
> I agree.
>
>
> > Actually, I believe that you should be able to put the DLL in the same
> > directory as the DLL which uses it (ie, the wxPython PYD file). I've
> > done this with other modules and it seems to work.
> >
> > Basically, Python itself loads DLLs (PYDs) from explicit directories
> > in sys.path. If these DLLs load other DLLs, I believe that the search
> > path includes the directory in which the loading DLL is located,
> > rather than the directory in which the original EXE is located. The
> > Windows documentation seems to imply otherwise - all I can say is that
> > it seems to work.
>
> I'm sure I tried that before and it didn't work...  But it *is* working
> for me now with both 1.5.2 and 2.0.  Perhaps it is a win2k thing, which
> version of windows are you running?
>
> --
> Robin Dunn
> Software Craftsman
> robin at AllDunn.com
> http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
> http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>

From steve at nospam.twovoyagers.com.invalid  Fri Oct  6 00:03:36 2000
From: steve at nospam.twovoyagers.com.invalid (Steve)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 04:03:36 +0000
Subject: web hosting with python cgi
References: <8rdk5o$97j$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>
Message-ID: <39DD4F18.49A39005@nospam.twovoyagers.com.invalid>

Bill de h?ra wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can anyone recommend a domain web hosting service that will allow Python cgi
> scripting? Preferably in the UK and with some kind of pricing structure for
> non-ecommerce use.

  Not in the UK, but my web host is addr.net:

% which python
/usr/local/bin/python
% python
Python 1.5.2 (#2, May 11 1999, 17:14:37)  [GCC 2.7.2.1] on freebsd3

-- 
Steve Ackman

From cookedm at physics.mcmaster.ca  Tue Oct 24 17:39:39 2000
From: cookedm at physics.mcmaster.ca (David M. Cooke)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 17:39:39 -0400
Subject: Scripting SSH with Python
References: 
Message-ID: 

At some point, "Lenny Self"  wrote:

> Hello, all.
> 
> I am scripting SSH or actually rsync using ssh and I am in need of a bit of
> help.  When I make the SSH connection I am prompted to enter a password...
> my problem is that I don't know how to look for this promt and have the
> script submit the password for me.  Can anyone give me some help on this.
> 
> I have been experimenting with os.popen and os.popen3 but I am either
> looking in the wrong spot or I am not doing it correctly.
> 

I've done this (actually for scp) and it looked like scp was looking
for a tty: if it wasn't connected to a tty, it would pop up an X
window to type the password in. To get around this I fooled it using
the pty module (which according to the documentation works only on
IRIX and Linux, but it also worked on AIX for me) to fool scp into
thinking it's talking to a tty.

-- 
|>|\/|<
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David M. Cooke
cookedm at mcmaster.ca

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 17 18:21:40 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 00:21:40 +0200
Subject: Connecting to running win32com
References: <39ECB9EF.D4EDEE5A@sandia.gov>
Message-ID: <8sijuh014r@news2.newsguy.com>

"ghubbar"  wrote in message
news:39ECB9EF.D4EDEE5A at sandia.gov...
    [snip]
> My whole goal here is for a remote program, eventually on a second
> computer, to be able to access data collected by a long running
> data acquisition program.  Unfortunately, the instance started by
> running
> c:\progra~1\python\python serverCode.py
> is not the instance run by win32com.

Right, it isn't.  It's not registering the class factory with COM's
Service Control Manager when run normally -- you're not telling
it to do so.  That may be a bit tricky in Python (it would not be
in C++, but I'm not sure how to do it in Python) so the simplest
solution might be for the server to generate the COM object,
when started 'normally', and RegisterActiveObject it -- the
client would then have to GetActiveObject rather than create
a new instance, I think.  (The registration will have to be with
the 'strong' option, so the same active-object can be gotten
by several client requests).

> I can see a choice of creating a second, non-GUI program which the
> GUI program also communicates with using COM, placing any data
> there it might want to export.  The client on the second machine
> then communicates with this second, slave, program.  This would
> be acceptable, but seems a little kludgy.  Is there any way to
> do it within a single program?

You could have the GUI-part and the COM-server in the same
*program* but separate *processes*.  Would that seem less
kludgy to you?  It's probably simpler than either of the above
solutions (unless there's a simpler way to RegisterServerClass
from Python than comes to mind...).

Alex

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Sun Oct 22 04:35:25 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:35:25 +0900
Subject: Is this a bug in Python2.0 or yet another feature of Windows?
References: <8su86i$fen$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: <8su8st$fsa$1@news.nuri.net>

Interesting... I got the similar error to the Windows
"Page blah blah" --  the "Segmentation blah blah" from UNIX System V.
This feature or bug seems quite platfrom-independent.

"June Kim"  wrote in message
news:8su86i$fen$1 at news.nuri.net...
> With Python 2.0 Final Release,
>
>
> >>> from array import array
> >>> z=array('c','hello world')
> >>> `z`  #Note that these are back-quotes
>
> It returns a nice "python20.dll" error, whereas run on python 1.6,
> it returns what we expect, the string form of the array.
>
> - June
>
>

From josh at open.com  Thu Oct 26 19:13:30 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 19:13:30 -0400
Subject: How do I force a single instance of a python app?
References: <39f5e46f_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>  <39f731ff_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8esfvssua5andnu28ui2otqvdkkugqde5l@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <39f8b922_1@corp.newsfeeds.com>

As soon as my boss says it is ok, I'll post a handy class which solves this
in a platform neutral way.

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From dalke at acm.org  Wed Oct 25 01:37:07 2000
From: dalke at acm.org (Andrew Dalke)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 23:37:07 -0600
Subject: Minor 2.0 incompatibility
References:  
Message-ID: <8t5rea$vn8$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>

Michael Hudson wrote:
>Timothy Docker  writes:
>> The following code works under 1.5.2 but not under 2.0...
>>  | import string
>>  |
>>  | class A:
>>  |     fromString = string.atoi
>>  |     def go(self, s):
>>  |         print self.fromString(s)
>>  |
>>  | a = A()
>>  | a.go( '10' )

>What's happened is that string.atoi is now a Python function, when it
>used to be of builtin-function-or-method type.  No time for more
>explaination now, I've got lectures to get too...

To elaborate, pure Python functions in class scope are considered member
functions, even if they aren't defined that way.  For the spec, see
"User-defined methods" in http://www.python.org/doc/current/ref/types.html .
} User-defined method objects are created in two ways: when getting an
} attribute of a class that is a user-defined function object, ...

The reason it changed for you is because string.atoi used to be a
builtin-function-or-method but is now a user-defined function so is
treated as a method call instead of a function.

I personally think the behaviour is unexpected and inappropriate; see
the thread titled "unexpected behaviour in class variables", as in

http://x55.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?
AN=639198917&CONTEXT=972451795.658374665&hitnum=3

(The documentation has been fixed since then to reflect the implementation.)

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Thu Oct 12 11:07:59 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:07:59 -0400
Subject: Most Effective Way to Build Up a Histogram of Words?
References: 
Message-ID: <39E5D3CF.62C6CE8E@holdenweb.com>

Simon Brunning wrote:
> 
> > From: June Kim [SMTP:junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com]
> > What is the most effective way, in terms of the execution speed,
> > to build up a histogram of words from a multiple of huge text
> > files?
> 
> June,
> How huge? As a first cut, I'd try something like this (untested) -
> 
> file = open('yourfile.txt', r)
> filedata = file.read()
> words=filedata.split()
> histogram {}
> for word in words:
>         histogram[word] = histogram.get(word, 0) + 1
> for word in histogram.keys():
>         print 'Word: %s - count %s' % (word, str(histogram[word])
> 
> This should work unless the file is *really* huge, in which case you'll need
> to read the file in a chunk at a time. But if you can squeeze the file in
> one gulp, do so.
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon Brunning
> TriSystems Ltd.
> sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk
> 
Try the following with some sample files to see whether you have enough
memory.

I removed a couple of syntax errors, and re-cast it to be 1.5.2 compatible
(since I don't run 2.0c1 on my laptop yet).  Tested -- seems to work OK.

If you want the most frequent words last, remove the reverse() call.

regards
 Steve
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
import string

file = open('histo.py', "r")
filedata = file.read()
words=string.split(filedata)
histogram = {}
for word in words:
        histogram[word] = histogram.get(word, 0) + 1
#for word in histogram.keys():
#        print 'Word: %s - count %s' % (word, str(histogram[word]))
flist = []
for word, count in histogram.items():
    flist.append([count, word])
flist.sort()
flist.reverse()
for pair in flist:
    print "%30s: %4d" % (pair[1], pair[0])
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From effbot at telia.com  Tue Oct  3 11:21:11 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:21:11 GMT
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string? 
References: 
Message-ID: 

Peter.Rupp at ual.com wrote:
> Earlier I asked a question about cloning python strings, but neglected 
> to say why I needed it.
>
> What I'm trying to do is determine how large a user process can be 
> before it runs out of memory.   This is useful in debugging kernel 
> parameter issues in our performance lab where our tests are running out 
> of memory and I have to provide empirical proof that the kernel parms 
> are set correctly and that an example program can prove it.   

oh, now you're telling us ;-)

forget about strings.  use the array module instead (it basically
implements mutable strings).  here's an example:

import array

bloat = [array.array('c', '*'*1000000)]

while 1:
    print len(bloat), "..."
    # consume another meg
    bloat.append(bloat[0][:])

From root at rainerdeyke.com  Mon Oct 23 22:07:27 2000
From: root at rainerdeyke.com (Rainer Deyke)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 02:07:27 GMT
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy,  overflow, inf, ieee, and rich  comparison
References:  <39EB3D03.A00C78B6@jps.net>  <39F4A4DE.9202540A@udel.edu>
Message-ID: 

"Charles Boncelet"  wrote in message
news:39F4A4DE.9202540A at udel.edu...
> I often want 2/3 to equal 0, but then again I learned FORTRAN years ago.
>
> My point is that if 2/3 = 0.667, then special syntax is needed for those
> applications that want 2/3=0.  The current syntax is very simple, even
> if slightly confusing to a complete newby.

To the newbie, floating points are more likely to be confusing than
integers, because of the inherent inaccuracies in floating points.  At least
integers guarantee that (a+b)-b equals a (in the absence of
overflow/underflow).

--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct 22 05:41:43 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 09:41:43 GMT
Subject: Slice Notation?
References: <39F2CF69.372971ED@mindspring.co.za>
Message-ID: 

Wynand van Dyk wrote:
> I am pretty new to python and I keep seeing ppl referring to "slice
> notation" which include a colon in square brackets somewhere in
> your code.
>
> I would like to know:
>
> 1) What exactly does it do?
> 2) What is it usefull for?
> 3) How would I use it in a program ie: example usage

the answers to your questions are all found in chapter 3
("An Informal Introduction to Python") of the standard
tutorial, available from:

http://www.python.org/doc/current/tut/tut.html

    "Strings can be subscripted (indexed); like in C, the
    first character of a string has subscript (index) 0.
    There is no separate character type; a character
    is simply a string of size one. Like in Icon, substrings
    can be specified with the slice notation: two indices
    separated by a colon.

        >>> word[4]
        'A'
        >>> word[0:2]
        'He'
        >>> word[2:4]
        'lp'

read the rest of that chapter to learn more about default
values, degenerate slices, how slices work with mutable
sequences, how to do slice assignments, etc.

then consider reading the entire tutorial ;-)

From mohammed at ucmb.ulb.ac.be  Mon Oct  2 05:11:15 2000
From: mohammed at ucmb.ulb.ac.be (Mohammed Ennasar)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 11:11:15 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: compilation of python?
Message-ID: 

Hi all,

When we compile the python we have this message error:

------------
        make
                ...
        make test
        .
        .
        test test_popen2 crashed -- exceptions.AssertionError :
        .
        .
        41 tests OK.
        1 test failed: test_popen2
        19 tests skipped: test_al test_audioop test_bsddb test_cd test_cl
        test_crypt test_dbm test_dl test_gdbm test_gl test_gzip
test_imageop
        test_imgfile test_nis test_rgbimg test_sunaudiodev test_thread
        test_timing test_zlib
        make: *** [test] Error 1
------------

Thanks in advance.

mohammed.

From g2 at seebelow.org  Fri Oct  6 13:41:09 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: 6 Oct 2000 10:41:09 -0700
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com>  <39DCE8B8.3100BE89@seebelow.org> 
Message-ID: <8rl2rl01db@drn.newsguy.com>

In article , Alex says...
>
>
>> I'm always bugged by "elif" because I can never remember whether it's
>> "elif", "elsif", or "elseif".
>
>Use an editor with syntax highlighting.  That way, you'll know you've
>got it when it lights up.

Not a bad idea.  (Or better yet, I guess I could just put a little "sticky note"
on my computer. .)

I have tried "Vim", but it was so much different from all the other editors I've
ever used (I'm a DOS/Windows man), that its usefulness didn't seem to justify
the learning curve I would have to undertake.

I used Pythonwin for awhile, and it was very good, but I got frustrated with
having to restart it every time I changed my program--because its Python
interpreter often remembered the old version.  (I know that the Python is
_supposed_ to work like that, but it still was frustrating: to me, the best cure
seemed to be to use an IDE that isn't written in Python.)  Also, it looks like
you now can only get Pythonwin as part of ActiveState's Python distribution: as
far as I can tell, Pythonwin isn't available separately anymore.

i-basically-just-want-a-python--aware-plug-in-to-MSVC-that-acts
   -just-like-MSVC's-editor-(which-isn't-really-all-that-special,
   -but-i'm-used-to-it)-ly y'rs,

=g2

_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation            http://www.iowegian.com

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Thu Oct 26 10:37:41 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 15:37:41 +0100
Subject: TypeError
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B1351@intrepid>

> From:	joonas [SMTP:keisari_ at hotmail.com]
> I get error, "TypeError: bad operand type(s) for -"
> 
> What could be wrong.

I should imagine that it's a TypeError - care to show us what you were
doing?

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else
is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure,
copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From jeffrey.hobbs at ajubasolutions.com  Fri Oct 20 00:11:14 2000
From: jeffrey.hobbs at ajubasolutions.com (Jeffrey Hobbs)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 21:11:14 -0700
Subject: SF corpsed?
References: 
	 <39EF22E7.4C058D08@ajubasolutions.com> 
Message-ID: <39EFC5E2.86A0E0C9@ajubasolutions.com>

Robin Becker wrote:
> 
> In article <39EF22E7.4C058D08 at ajubasolutions.com>, Jeffrey Hobbs
>  writes
> >Robin Becker wrote:
> >> I can't seem to get any decent access to sourceforge. Anybody else
> >> having troubles?
> >
> >I find that SF tunes out from time to time, but I am currently
> >logged in without problem, and project pages respond. (9:30am PST).
> >
> Mr Hobbs! Nice to hear from you here. I'm trying various updates and all
> are giving messages like
> 
> cvs server: Diffing .
> cvs server: failed to create lock directory in repository
> `/cvsroot/pingo/pingo'
> : Permission denied
> cvs server: failed to obtain dir lock in repository
> `/cvsroot/pingo/pingo'
> cvs [server aborted]: read lock failed - giving up
> 
> I am also unable to login etc.

login as in ssh?  That works for me, as does cvs:

pop [~/cvs/tkcon] 5 % tkconcvs up
hobbs at cvs.sourceforge.net's password:
cvs server: Updating .
cvs server: Updating docs
cvs server: Updating extra

(tkconcvs is just an alias to get the right cvs tree).  It looks
like you may have a cvsroot problem.  Checking their support manager
entries for recent entries:
http://sourceforge.net/support/?func=browse&group_id=1&set=open&offset=50

I see that there are numerous similar problems already noted.  Perhaps
anyone doing cvs activity during some burp in the system got hosed.
I'd submit a support request for your project as well.

-- 
   Jeffrey Hobbs

From erno-news at erno.iki.fi  Sat Oct 21 05:26:30 2000
From: erno-news at erno.iki.fi (Erno Kuusela)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 12:26:30 +0300
Subject: Need the Request/URL running SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
References: <39f05567.176615659@news.eunet.no>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Weholt  writes:

 | Hi,
 | I'm trying to extend SimpleHTTPRequestHandler ( I've subclassed it )
 | and I need to get hold of the url the user submitted, or the request.

self.path has a part of it. it is not necessarily possible to
find out the full url the user agent was trying to access
since in http 1.0 the "host" header was optional. but newer
user agents include a "host:" header in the request.

 |  If I could get any deeper, like getting it allready at the
 | "protocoll"-level, like seeing what command the browser sent, like GET
 | etc. that would be nice too.

look at self.raw_requestline and self.headers (mimetools & rfc822
module docs explain what you can do with this - self.headers.headers
has a simple list)

  -- erno

From donald.duck at disney.com  Mon Oct  9 08:54:52 2000
From: donald.duck at disney.com (Zomaar Iemand)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 14:54:52 +0200
Subject: Code obfuscation / decompilers?
References: <39de791e_4@corp.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: <8rsf5i$fe4$1@weber.a2000.nl>

Hi,

Why don't you write a python function using the Python C API and put all
your validation functions and stuff in a dll and use it that way. This way,
the sensitive code is less vulnerable, I think.

Just take a look here:
http://www.pythonlabs.com/doc/manuals/python2.0/ext/ext.html

Greets, Micha

"Joshua Muskovitz"  wrote in message
news:39de791e_4 at corp.newsfeeds.com...
> Hi,
>
> I'm sure that other commercial developers have had this concern, namely,
how
> do I prevent others from figuring out how my code works (without the
> original source, that is...)?  Do code obfuscators exist for Python?
>
> Conversely, are there any bytecode to source code decompilers?  These
would
> be of great help in convincing myself that my code is relatively safe from
> prying eyes as well.
>
> All pointers welcome...
>
> -- josh
>
>
>
>
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
> -----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct  9 01:21:34 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 8 Oct 2000 22:21:34 -0700
Subject: join()
References: <8rjj82$dnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8rlrdr$6ed$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8rntb8$fhb$1@panix6.panix.com> <87n1gfe1vm.fsf@cartman.azz.net>
Message-ID: <8rrkku$9nv$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <87n1gfe1vm.fsf at cartman.azz.net>,
Adam Sampson   wrote:
>aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) writes:
>> Adam Sampson deleted an attribution here:
>>>
>>> What other things in Python have become non-intuitive in your opinion?
>> 
>> print >> file, "foo"
>
>I don't see why that needs to be part of the language.

Well, exactly.  Why do you think I mentioned that in response to a
question about warts in Python?  However, we're now stuck with it until
Py3K.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"[I have a] windmill fetish."  --Darkhawk

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Thu Oct  5 15:44:58 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 05 Oct 2000 15:44:58 -0400
Subject: re.match question
References: <39DC9F7C.67B71D52@era.ericsson.se> 
Message-ID: <3du2arax8l.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

Dan Schmidt  writes:
> As I was about to send this, I looked at the Perl regexp
> documentation, and it actually mentions your exact case:
> 
>      `/foo(?!bar)/' matches any occurrence of "foo" that isn't followed
>      by "bar".  Note however that lookahead and lookbehind are NOT the
>      same thing.  You cannot use this for lookbehind: `/(?!foo)bar/' will

Note that lookbehind is in both Perl 5.005 and in Python 2.0.  So the
original poster's:

> | re.match('^.*?(?!Foo)Bar$', word)

could be written in Python 2.0 as:

p = re.compile('(?
Message-ID: <39d88122@news.xtml.co.uk>

> I'm working on a 3D simulation project in Python with a high degree of AI
in
> it. I want to demonstrate a set of bots operating in a 3d landscape,
finding
> specified objects, avoiding obstacles, learning ( ie. remembering objects
> location and the shortest path to it ), evaluation of cost in energi for
> movement in the 3d terrain and interaction among the bots. All of this are
> just in the planning phase right now, but I need some info to get started.
> Does anybody has any hint on what to start with ( docs, tutorials etc. ) ?
> Preferrably things in Python, pseudo-code etc.
>
> The goal is to create a virtual world where players can control bots and
> operate in a complex environment, but first I need to get the simulation
> going.

You could look at Blender. It uses Python scripting and you're supposed to
be able to interactively write games with it.

Failing that CrystalSpace (on Sourceforge) is planning to use Python as a
scripting language (don't know where they're up to on that).

There are a number of open source renderers and games on Sourceforge, you
may be able to modify them to do what you want.

/N

From captainTRASHobvious at rocketTRASHmail.com  Wed Oct 18 19:30:41 2000
From: captainTRASHobvious at rocketTRASHmail.com (Captain Obvious)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:30:41 -0000
Subject: Need help on a program.
References: <8sl2f7$fua$1@ns2.bcs.moore.com>
Message-ID: <8sluf1$po2$1@ns2.bcs.moore.com>

Fixed it...I was using the wrong kind of loop.  Thanks to all of you who sent emails...turned out I just needed to spend some time
with it and figure it out myself.

Jim

--
===

Thanks for taking the time to read my posting.

Take out the TRASH to respond via email.

Any views expressed in this USENET posting and/or
attachments are not necessarily those of
Wartburg College.

Go Knights!

"Captain Obvious"  wrote in message news:8sl2f7$fua$1 at ns2.bcs.moore.com...
> I am taking a Python class in college, and am stuck on a program I am writing.
>
> Here is the error I get:
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
>   File "C:\Jim's Stuff\College Stuff\CS120\Python Programs\JRC_07.py", line 37, in ?
>     main()
>   File "C:\Jim's Stuff\College Stuff\CS120\Python Programs\JRC_07.py", line 17, in main
>     infile = open("p7.dat", "r")
> IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'p7.dat'
>
> Here is the program I wrote:
>
> # JRC_07.py
> # Program written by James Cory for October 18, 2000
> # This program, using p7.dat, will keep a running total of heating degree days
> # and cooling degree days.  One heating degree day is added for every degree the
> # temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and one cooling degree day is added
> # for every degree the temperature is below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
>
> def main():
>     #Greeting Section
>     print "This program, using p7.dat, will keep a running total of heating degree days"
>     print "and cooling degree days.  One heating degree day is added for every degree the"
>     print "temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and one cooling degree day is added"
>     print "for every degree the temperature is below 60 degrees Fahrenheit."
>     hdd = 0
>     cdd = 0
>     day = 0
>     infile = open("p7.dat", "r")
>     temp = eval(infile.readline())
>     while temp != "":
>         if temp > 80:
>             amount = temp-80
>             hdd=hdd+amount
>             day=day+1
>             print "Day: ", day, "Cooling Degree Days: ", cdd, "Heating Degree Days: ", hdd
>         elif temp < 60:
>             amount = 60-temp
>             cdd=cdd+amount
>             day=day+1
>             print "Day: ", day, "Cooling Degree Days: ", cdd, "Heating Degree Days: ", hdd
>         else:
>             day=day+1
>             print "Day: ", day, "Cooling Degree Days: ", cdd, "Heating Degree Days: ", hdd
>     infile.close
>     print
>     print "+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+"
>     print "The final results are:" cdd, "Cooling Degree Days: ", hdd, "Heating Degree Days."
> main()
> raw_input ("Press  to quit")
>
> Thanks in advance.  I can't get ahold of my professor, and am really stuck.
>
>
> --
> ===
>
> Thanks for taking the time to read my posting.
>
> Take out the TRASH to respond via email.
>
> Any views expressed in this USENET posting and/or
> attachments are not necessarily those of
> Wartburg College.
>
> Go Knights!
>
>
>

From BgPorter at NOartlogicSPAM.com  Fri Oct 20 09:34:52 2000
From: BgPorter at NOartlogicSPAM.com (Brett g Porter)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 13:34:52 GMT
Subject: newbie
References: <8soeic$57gs$2@newssvr05-en0.news.prodigy.com> <9_PH5.99786$g6.44454168@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com> <8sov2g0142d@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <0SXH5.72992$ib7.10053637@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com>

"Alex Martelli"  wrote in message
news:8sov2g0142d at news1.newsguy.com...
>
> If C++ is your goal, then, after you've used Python to learn programming
> reasonably well, you may as well jump right into C++ with the aid of a
> good tutorial (I suggest Lippman and Lajoie's -- by far the best IMHO;
> it's published by Addison-Wesley).
I recommend Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in C++" -- you can download it for free
(full text!) at  -- the first edition was the
book that finally turned me from a C programmer into a native-speaking C++
programmer. The second edition is designed for someone with little or no C
experience. Then keep checking back to see if he's finally started writing
his "Thinking in Python" book.

> C++ is *horrendously* difficult (its
> main defect, again IMHO)
Well, yes and no. There's a sane and simple subset that's easily learned and
used. Most people never have need for the more obscure corners of the
language. But when I need them, I'm comforted knowing that they're there.
 By the same token WRT Python -- hands up, everyone who _really_ understands
and can use the Beaudry hook. How far can you go as a Python programmer
without that? Pretty far, but I love knowing that it's there should I ever
need it.

BgP

--
// Brett g Porter * Senior Engineer, Application Development
// BgPorter @ artlogic . com * http://www.artlogic.com
// Art & Logic * Custom software solutions for hardware products
// Windows * MacOS * Embedded Systems

From aahz at panix.com  Wed Oct 18 19:32:07 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 18 Oct 2000 16:32:07 -0700
Subject: How to use sys.exc_info()???
References: <8sksit$mj1$1@panix6.panix.com>
Message-ID: <8slbtn$fg1$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <8sksit$mj1$1 at panix6.panix.com>, Roy Smith  wrote:
>
>I'm stuped with how sys.exc_info() is supposed to work.  If I do:
>
>open ('xxx')
>
>I get:
>
>Traceback (innermost last):
>  File "", line 1, in ?
>IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'xxx'
>
>Which is what I expect.  But when I do:
>
>try:
>     open ('xxx')
>except:
>     foo = sys.exc_info()

Use the traceback module.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"real love can't be explained by simplistic platitudes."  --piranha

From trentm at ActiveState.com  Tue Oct 31 11:09:55 2000
From: trentm at ActiveState.com (Trent Mick)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 08:09:55 -0800
Subject: Compiling Python on multiple platforms...
In-Reply-To: <39F9BC79.517DE77F@roguewave.com>; from bjorn@roguewave.com on Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 11:33:45AM -0600
References: <39F9BC79.517DE77F@roguewave.com>
Message-ID: <20001031080955.R22581@ActiveState.com>

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 11:33:45AM -0600, Bjorn Pettersen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm about to start compiling Python on a number of *nix systems
> (Solaris,HPUX,AIX,True64,IRIX,Linux). To make matters more interesting
> I'm only making these to the point where our sysadmin can say "make
> install" (they're so sensitive about the root password ;-)
> 
> Question 1: We'll be doing some xml work. Do I need to download and
> compile expat seperatly, or does it come with the Python 2.0 tarball?
You need to get and compile it sep.

> Question 3: Are there any of the above platforms where Tkinter doesn't
> work? (is this a separate install?)

Okay on Solaris and Linux

> 
> Question 5: I'm hoping to have _one_ source installation, and compile
> the binaries so they're not conflicting with each other... Is this
> possible?

I was using separate Setup.in files for the different plastforms to handle
provide different flags for compiling some of the modules. This might just be
laziness to figure out how to merge these properly on my part though.

Trent

-- 
Trent Mick
TrentM at ActiveState.com

From cg at schlund.de  Mon Oct  2 04:51:41 2000
From: cg at schlund.de (Carsten Gaebler)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 10:51:41 +0200
Subject: gdbm mytery
Message-ID: <39D84C9D.D33C95E7@schlund.de>

Hi!

I have a GDBM file with about 25000 keys. After applying the gdbm
module's reorganize() function to the file, there are only 15000 keys
left, which I find strange. I can understand that the file size is
reduced, but why does reorganize() *delete* keys?

Regards
Carsten.

From hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr  Tue Oct 17 16:27:10 2000
From: hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr (Konrad Hinsen)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 22:27:10 +0200
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy,  overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison
In-Reply-To: <39EB3D03.A00C78B6@jps.net> (message from Chris Barker on Mon, 16
	Oct 2000 10:38:11 -0700)
References:  <39EB3D03.A00C78B6@jps.net>
Message-ID: <200010172027.WAA11907@chinon.cnrs-orleans.fr>

> Are people doing the kind of numeric programming with "complex
> algorithms" using Python that Konrad refers to? More importantly, how
> many people?

At least one: me.

> >  Guido thinks that 2/3 returning 0 was a design mistake,
> > but not that math.sqrt(-1) raising an exception is a mistake.  Most Python
> > users won't know what to do with a complex number, so it's "an error" to
> > them.
>
> Guido's philosophy is clearly that Python defaults should be geared to
> "Most Python users". I agree, and as I wrote in an earlier post, the

It's difficult to say what "most Python users" want; it's not a static
community. I'd say the basic principle is "no bad surprises".  2/3 ==
0 is a bad surprise for anyone who knows elementary math but is not
familiar with certain programming languages, especially since the
program goes on silently with a "wrong" intermediate result.

> Maybe we can have true 754 compliance in Py3k, and we can all be happy!!

Py3k forever!

Konrad.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen                            | E-Mail: hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr
Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS) | Tel.: +33-2.38.25.56.24
Rue Charles Sadron                       | Fax:  +33-2.38.63.15.17
45071 Orleans Cedex 2                    | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/
France                                   | Nederlands/Francais
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From rimbault at cybercable.fr  Sat Oct 14 06:12:13 2000
From: rimbault at cybercable.fr (Rimbault Jean-Claude)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 12:12:13 +0200
Subject: interchanging rows and columns
References: 
Message-ID: <39E8317D.560DA74F@cybercable.fr>

Johannes Zellner wrote:

> how can I turn
>    [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]
> into
>    [[1, 4], [2, 5], [3, 6]]
>
> ?
> must be easy, but I couldn't manage it.
> I tried some (map|apply) variants of the tutorial. No luck.
>
> --
>    Johannes

>>> a = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6]]
>>> apply(map, (None,)+ tuple(a))
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]

In Python 2.0, there is a new builtin function zip:

>>> apply(zip, a)
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]

Note that this will give you a list of tuples.
If you really want a list of lists, do:

>>> map(list, apply(zip, a))
[[1, 4], [2, 5], [3, 6]]

From phil.harris at zope.co.uk  Sat Oct 14 19:30:55 2000
From: phil.harris at zope.co.uk (Phil Harris)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 00:30:55 +0100
Subject: This is really cheesing me off...
References:  <39E8C046.D1C4C1F6@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <39eb71fa@news.server.worldonline.co.uk>

Have you looked at SciTE?

http://www.scintilla.org

Does syntax hilite, no debugger tho.
"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39E8C046.D1C4C1F6 at seebelow.org...
> Dale Strickland-Clark wrote:
> >
> > Env: Win2K, Python 1.6, PythonWin
> >
> > How do you develop multi-module projects without haveing to constantly
> > quit and restart PythonWin?
>
> I had the same problem--and I gravitated to the same solution.  Then I
> gave up on PythonWin.  It's a darn shame, too, because PythonWin is
> otherwise a really strong product.
>
> In the last several months, I've taken to using MS Visual C++ (MSVC) as
> my Python IDE.  It doesn't do Python syntax highlighting, and it doesn't
> have a Python debugger.  But other than that, it's almost as good of a
> Python IDE as PythonWin. 
>
> As I understand it, PythonWin's problem stems from the fact that is
> partly written in Python: the Python interpreter can't be totally
> re-initialized--except by exiting and restarting PythonWin.  (It seems
> like there ought to be a way to somehow run separate interpreters for
> PythonWin and user code.  But maybe there isn't.)
>
> I'm unclear whether IDLE has the same problem.  I'm gonna to give it a
> try soon.  In any case, if a Python IDE were available with a debugger
> that worked as smoothly as MSVC's does on C/C++ programs, that would
> really be valuable.
>
> btw,-isn't-msvc's-debugger-written-in-msvc?--ly y'rs,
>
> =g2
> --
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
> Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
> Iowegian International Corporation       http://www.iowegian.com

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Tue Oct  3 19:36:28 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 16:36:28 -0700
Subject: Testing for file existence
Message-ID: <001001c02d92$c25b6aa0$0101a8c0@jayk3>

Opening a file is also a good way to test for its existance. If you write
code like:
if exists:
    open

the file can be deleted between the existance check and the open, but
opening in the first place does not have this problem -- well, basically you
need to be prepared for open-for-read to fail because the file may not exist
and open-new-not-existing-for-write to fail bcause the file may exist,
regardless of checks beforehand.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Aahz Maruch 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: Testing for file existence

>In article , P Browning  wrote:
>>
>>What's the recommended way to do this in Python?
>>In Perl you've got -x File tests.
>
>os.path.exists() and similar functions.
>--
>                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)
>
>Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>
http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
>Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
>
>There's a difference between a person who gets shit zie doesn't
>deserve and a person who gets more shit than zie deserves.  --Aahz
>--
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From python-group at rascal.remove_this_bit.org  Sun Oct 15 09:42:40 2000
From: python-group at rascal.remove_this_bit.org (Steve George)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 13:42:40 +0000
Subject: Testing existance of variable
Message-ID: 

Hi,

I've just started playing with Python and CGI and need to know if
something exists in the environment.  According to the O'Reilly CGI text
you would do this in Perl as follows:

my $remote_id = $ENV{REMOTE_HOST} || $ENV{REMOTE_ADDR};

I can't seem to find a Python equivalent.  As far as I have got is:

if os.environ.has_key('REMOTE_HOST') or os.environ.has_key('REMOTE_ADDR'):
        remote_id = os.environ['REMOTE_HOST'] or os.environ['REMOTE_ADDR']

However, this fails with an exception for KeyError if one of them doesn't
exist.  The only thing I can think to do is to try and catch the exception,
but this feels so long winded that I wondered if there is a shorter
answer.

Thanks,

Steve

From nick at src.uchicago.edu  Tue Oct  3 10:53:40 2000
From: nick at src.uchicago.edu (Nick Collier)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 09:53:40 -0500
Subject: pyxml for mac
Message-ID: <39D9F2F4.D7A2340A@src.uchicago.edu>

Hi,

Anybody have pyxml binaries for Mac they'd like to share or know where I
could get such a thing. (We have a mac but no compiler.)

Nick

-- 
Nick Collier
Social Science Research Computing
University of Chicago
http://repast.sourceforge.net

From python-mode at python.org  Thu Oct 26 10:42:15 2000
From: python-mode at python.org (python-mode at python.org)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 10:42:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: python-mode in xemacs -- font-locking and auto-indentation b0rken
References: 
	<14839.30557.697461.468137@anthem.concentric.net>
	<20001026092226.A248303@vislab.epa.gov>
Message-ID: <14840.17095.277894.890316@anthem.concentric.net>

>>>>> "RH" == Randall Hopper  writes:

    RH> However, I have noticed (in GNU Emacs) what you describe with
    RH> Python-mode getting syntax-confused sometimes -- in particular
    RH> with nested quoting characters.  See attached.

This happens in both Emacs and XEmacs, and there's little that can be
done about it.  The syntax table primitives cannot be taught about
triple quoted strings, so when you write the following in Python

    '''...'''

Emacs thinks it's 3 adjacent strings.  That usually does the right
thing (thank goodness Guido didn't make them just double-quoted!) but
as you noticed, it gets messed up when an embedded quote character
screws with the quote parity.  You just have to beware of this and
swap quoting characters, or escape embedded quotes.

-Barry

From TBryan at UTS.Itron.com  Fri Oct 27 12:21:50 2000
From: TBryan at UTS.Itron.com (Tom Bryan)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 12:21:50 -0400
Subject: Zope question: collaborative environments?
References: <39F8C8EC.EB2DC75D@UTS.Itron.com> <39F8EEC4.76941E04@engcorp.com>
Message-ID: <39F9AB9E.8A043196@UTS.Itron.com>

Peter Hansen wrote:
> 
> Tom Bryan wrote:
> > I'm a developer, and I'd like to create a combination discussion board,
> > bug tracking system, and general collaborative environment.  I was
> > thinking of using Zope, but I have never even looked at Zope.  Am I crazy
> > even to consider using Zope when we won't have any dedicated staff to
> > develop stuff for/in Zope and maintain it?  Is Zope easy enough to use,
> > simple enough to maintain, and complete enough as a product that I could
> > get something set up with just a couple of weeks of work and then simply
> > use it?
> 
> Short answer: NO!  Note the !.  Don't go there.  Tell your boss to get a
> clue about the length of time it would take to even *specify
> requirements* for such a system, let alone design, build, test, and
> launch it in a couple of weeks.

I was hoping that there were already some useful Zope plugins already 
written for a basic discussion board.  Perhaps also a bug/issue tracking 
plugin.  Perhaps I've simply misunderstood what I've seen/read about 
Zope.

> Longer answer: No!  Been there, considered that.  So has Digital
> Creations, I think.  There's lots of us working at using Zope for
> exactly the above sorts of applications (NOT all tightly integrated...
> that goal went out with Win 3.1) and we have no plans to turn to
> anything else.  It is very suitable in many ways for those things and
> more.  On the other hand, it has a *steep* learning curve, and becoming
> as productive as Zope promises to be will take more than a couple of
> weeks.  We've been learning for several months and only now have gotten
> past using a very simplistic Portal and a Wiki (220 pages and growing)
> for a group of ten.  And we now have one dedicated staff member on this
> project, though I'm sure a small group could use it effectively with
> only 20-40% of one person's time dedicated.

Wow!  Okay.  Thanks for the numbers.  

> > Any advice before I waste a lot of time digging into this topic would be
> > much appreciated.  (The time frame is very tight.  My boss is planning to
> > lend me one of his personal machines to play put on my network at home as
> > a zope or sourceforge or ??? server so that I can evaluate it next week.
> > He definitely wants something in place in the next few weeks.)
> 
> I agree with the other poster: your boss is (IMHO) an inexperienced,
> optimistic dolt if he thinks anything can solve his problems in a couple
> of weeks.  Tell him to re-read Brooks on the topic of Silver Bullets.

I must step in here in defense of my boss.  He's an ubergeek who developed 
on this product before he was moved into a much needed development manager 
position.  (Before that, we didn't really have a manager in charge of our 
development team on a daily basis.)  I don't need a collaborative env. 
in the sense that multiple people can simultaneously edit the same doc. 
in an online discussion.  I need a place site that functions like a 
SourceForge for a single product.  Flexible bug tracking would be great.  
We already use Perforce for SCM (which has options to give command line 
output as marshalled Python objects).  I'm going to set up the FAQ Wizard 
and hopefully a web board where we can post notes and quick instructions. 

We're just looking for a centralized resource for developers on our team to 
jot notes such as, "I modified the CUSTOMER table but the following two 
modules need to be modified to take advantage of the changes."

> On the other hand, if he is willing to face reality and take a gamble, I
> would recommend he look closely at Zope *anyway*, and consider using it
> for a simpler, less grandiose support environment while he takes the
> time to *really* evaluate it and his own needs (which sound ill-thought
> out), 

No.  They're well-considered, trust me.  Perhaps I was writing too hastily 
last night.  I have a *good boss*.  He's *knows* the product at the code and 
the business level.  In the past, I have spent Saturday mornings with him 
migrating our NFS servers and configuring NIS.  He knows what we need and how 
long it would take to do it right.  He also knows that we won't get a green 
light to spend the proper resources to do it.  If we don't get *something* 
usable and centralized, we risk losing a lot of accumulated product knowledge 
over and over again as employees come and go.  So...basically we'd like to 
figure out a workable solution that is flexible enough for us to do neat 
things in the future (such as echoing SCM changes to a weblog) while giving 
us a lot of functionality up front (simple discussion board, interface to 
a bug tracking system like Bugzilla, document repository, etc.).  I was 
hoping that Zope + plugins + a few weeks of scripting by an experienced 
Python coder would give us something basic and usable while providing us 
with a platform for future improvements and extensions as time permits.

> and over time dedicate at least a fraction of somebody's time to
> improving and developing it.  We have a lot of faith in Zope's future,
> and I recommend it on that basis.  But it won't take a few weeks to get
> what you want!

I guess the question is whether a few weeks would get us something that 
would be usable by the developers without causing a huge administration 
burden or training requirement for the developers.  Another major option 
is SourceForge, but I hesitate to use it because no one here knows PHP 
and because we would only populate it with a single project.  I also set 
one up a few months ago, and it was non-trivial to get everything set up 
at first.

I'd personally like to hire a Python/Unix hacker college student here in 
Raleigh who would be willing to dive into Zope for a 10-20 hours per week 
job.  My boss said that he'd hire one if we could find him.  Anyone 
interested?

---Tom

From daimun at home.com  Wed Oct 18 18:30:40 2000
From: daimun at home.com (Alex McHale)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 22:30:40 GMT
Subject: A guide to Python Threads
Message-ID: 

First, all apologies if this goes through twice.. I made an attempt to post
this from work through deja.

I was wondering if there is any sort of expanded material on the subject of
threads in Python?  www.python.org touchs only very basically on the topic.
I'm having a tough time with them - and need a little bit more help than I
should post on the group.
If nobody knows of a good place online, perhaps someone will volunteer to go
a little more in depth with me.

Thanks

From jeffrey at Digicool.com  Fri Oct  6 09:46:28 2000
From: jeffrey at Digicool.com (Jeffrey P Shell)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:46:28 -0400
Subject: Python on Mac OS X w/shared modules
References: 
Message-ID: 

in article mailman.970784064.725.python-list at python.org, Steven D. Majewski
wrote::

>> Last I heard, the "general" checkin procedure will be suspended the
>> coming Monday; patches that are not in by then won't be in Python 2.
>> Only critical bug fixes will be accepted for another week, at the
>> choice of the release manager.
> 
> With Tony's patches and the changes I posted earlier, AND
> dropping the --with-next-framework, it seems to build AND
> install properly with dynamically loadable shared library
> modules. The python library isn't packages into a Framework --
> eventually we will want this I think -- but that's not necessary
> for the dynamic modules to work.

Yeah, that --with-next-framework is nasty.  If Python *were* easier to
install and set up as a .framework the way they've got Perl and other things
in there, it would be nice, but I'm not smart enough to deal with that.  :)

The main bad thing about compiling with --with-next-framework is that
sys.executable (which is the path to and including the Python interpreter)
points to the shared library\bundle that holds Python but is not executable.
Zope's installation scripts did *not* like that effect.

It's good to see this effort.  I've made some efforts to get Python working
on the Mac OS X family in the past, but Makefiles and configure scripts and
cc options and ld options are VERY far from being my bag of cats.

From dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk  Fri Oct 27 15:06:35 2000
From: dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk (Dale Strickland-Clark)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 20:06:35 +0100
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>
Message-ID: 

OK. I give up. 

This newsgroup has to get the prize for some of the fragile, sensitive
egos on the net. 

I've just received this by email:

"As a friend of the person who wrote PythonWin, I didn't see anything
lighthearted about your message at all and although I have some ideas
to help you improve your situation, there is no way I am going to
bother unless you apologize. I suspect a lot of very knowledgeable
people reading the list feel the same way.
Paul Prescod"

If you want to have a go at me, please have the balls to do it on the
original forum.

FWIW, I have exchanged several emails with Mark Hammond and hold him
in high esteem. I thinkI have even thanked him for introducing me to
Python through the book he co-authored with Andy Robinson.

If I believed this to be a real problem with PythonWin, I would
probably have emailed Mark directly, however, I was half expecting
someone to reply that I was being a twat and should so such-and-such
and the problem would go away.

Instead I find I am surrounded by a bunch of frail-hearts who
come-over all faint when the language departs from the usual
obsequious pleas for help.

Not all, thankfully. I have had a few very helpful emails who seem to
have taken my original post in the light it was intended.

I feel no apology is required as no offence was intended.

--
Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 13 18:11:29 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 00:11:29 +0200
Subject: File tests in Python
References:  
Message-ID: <8s81kk015mr@news1.newsguy.com>

"Joakim Hove"  wrote in message
news:k0nog0o61ko.fsf at dhcp-49138.phys.ntnu.no...
> Following up on my own post:
>
> > [...]  Writing
> >
> >    List = [1,2,["List","in","List"]]
> >
> > in Python is just the way it _should_ be, really nice!
>
> In this case List[0] and List[1] are simple scalars - whearas List[2]
> is a new list (or is this a "unPythonlike" way of thinking ??). Is
> there a way of testing this, i.e.
>
> for x in range(len(List)):
>     if is_scalar List[x]:
>         print "List[",x,"] is scalar"
>     else
>         print "List[",x,"] is not scalar - maybe a list?"

You can test the type of an object (e.g., a list entry) with the
type operator (to use symbolic names for builtin types, you
may also import module types, but it's often just as clear to
test against, e.g., type(0) for integers, type(0L) for long
integers, type([]) for lists, and so on).  Thus, one way to
do it could be:

def printType(t):
    if t==type([]): return "list"
    elif t==type(''): return "string"
    elif t==type(0): return "integer"
    elif t==type(()): return "tuple"
    else: return "something else"

for i in range(len(list)):
    print "element %d has type %s" % (i, printType(type(list[i])))

However, this kind of approach has some huge flaws -- the
number of built-in types (plus types that could be added by
the user importing C-written modules...) is enormous, and
all the _classes_ get lumped into one 'type', which you may
not want to keep as one lump...

Rather, I suggest you draw a broader distinction.  Probably,
if an object is something you can iterate on, then it's a
"sequence" (except that a string is a sequence by this
definition, as you can iterate on its characters, yet you may
prefer to treat it as 'a scalar'...); else, it could be a mapping
(typically a dictionary); or else again, "a scalar".  One
approach might then be...:

def typeClass(obj):
    t = type(obj)
    if t==type('') or t==type(u''): return 'scalar'
    elif t==type({}): return 'mapping'
    else:
        try:
            for i in obj:
                break
            return 'sequence'
        except TypeError:
            return 'scalar'

This is imperfect (no way to identify a mapping that is
not really a dictionary, e.g. an instance of UserDict --
you might want to check for that in other ways, e.g.
by checking if an object has a __getitem__ method
while not being a sequence...) but it may often serve.

Alex

From mksql at my-deja.com  Fri Oct 27 16:52:25 2000
From: mksql at my-deja.com (Matt)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 20:52:25 GMT
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <8tcpu5$a0o$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  dale at out-think.NOSPAM.co.uk wrote:

...
> This newsgroup has to get the prize for some of the fragile, sensitive
> egos on the net.
...

Head on over to comp.lang.perl.misc, and ask an IDE related question. I
am quite sure the replies will show no fragility. Perhaps you will
prefer the demeanor there?

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Before you buy.

From glandrum at my-deja.com  Tue Oct 10 09:57:37 2000
From: glandrum at my-deja.com (Greg Landrum)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 13:57:37 GMT
Subject: wxGrid: how to set the labels
References: 
Message-ID: <8rv78d$289$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  "Ruediger"  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have started to work with wxPython and would like to
> use the wxGrid. Unfortunately, I could not find the way
> to set the labels of the grid. Can anyone help?
>

The relevant methods are wxGrid.SetRowLabelValue(row,label) and
wxGrid.SetColLabelValue(col,label)

I hope this helps
-greg

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Before you buy.

From quinn at bolivar.ugcs.caltech.edu  Sat Oct 28 01:29:38 2000
From: quinn at bolivar.ugcs.caltech.edu (Quinn Dunkan)
Date: 28 Oct 2000 05:29:38 GMT
Subject: Binding arguments to parameter functions
References: <1ej64j6.1r2g6nc1krebqsN%p.agapow@ic.ac.uk>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 16:29:12 +0100, Paul-Michael Agapow 
wrote:
>
>I've just struck a problem that I'm sure can be solved in Python but not
>the way I was trying. The below is a very simplified example:
>
>Say you have a some objects with assorted properties in a list and you
>want to fetch objects from the list according to their properties.
>Hence:
>
>   class simple_object:
>      def __init__ (self, name):
>         self.name = name
>
>   A = simple_object ("bert")
>   B = simple_object ("ernie")
>   B = simple_object ("big bird")
>
>   L = [A, B, C]
...
>   def findWithName (L, name):
>      return findWithProperty (L, lambda x: x.name == name)
>
>I guess one solution might be to write a function wrapper that binds
>arguments to given parameters in the passed function but this seems like
>too much hard work. Any solutions?

The reason your lambda didn't work is because python is not lexically scoped;
it only has two scopes (local and global).  You'd have to pass 'name' in
the arg list explicitly.  name=name is the usual idiom.

If you want to find *all* elements that match a condition, filter does what
you want:

ernies = filter(lambda o: o.name == 'ernie', sesame_cast)
ernies = [ o for o in sesame_cast if o.name == 'ernie' ] # python2 alternative

You could stick a '[0]' on the end to get the first match, but if you always
want to match a single element, I'd suggest that what you really want is a
dictionary:

sesame_d = {}
for c in sesame_cast:
    sesame_d[c.name] = c

ernie = sesame_d['ernie']

From hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu  Mon Oct  2 20:57:37 2000
From: hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu (yu hwan-jo)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 19:57:37 -0500
Subject: Q: generating machine code
Message-ID: <39D92F01.8684059@uiuc.edu>

Hi,

How to generate platform-dependent machine object code from python
sources, so I don't need python interpreter to run a python program ?
Thanks.

From hoopy_frood at my-deja.com  Tue Oct  3 15:37:43 2000
From: hoopy_frood at my-deja.com (hoopy_frood at my-deja.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 19:37:43 GMT
Subject: Python equivalent of Java Vector
References: <8rau5e$afv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8rcucl$t1e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39da1e16_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: <8rdci6$a6m$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Well, as stated before, I'm an American.  How about if I just avoid
mentioning Cthulhu or doing anything ?

hoopyfrood

In article <39da1e16_3 at corp.newsfeeds.com>,
  "Joshua Muskovitz"  wrote:
>
>  wrote in message
> news:8rcucl$t1e$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> > Thanks to all for the helpful responses.  I'd buy you all a beer,
but
> > I'm an American, and the beer here isn't much of a reward.
> >
> > hoopyfrood
>
> If you were really grateful, you'd buy *each* of us a beer.  :-)
>
> -- j
>
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
> -----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From max at alcyone.com  Wed Oct 25 00:16:50 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 21:16:50 -0700
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39F65EB2.EE2E3B1C@alcyone.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> But that doesn't mean I have to keep silent when somebody
> baldly asserts that C's syntax is "pretty good".  Yecch.  It's
> most definitely *NOT*!

In _your_ very obviously biased opinion.

> And trying to classify me as "does
> not like C" because I *detest* its syntax is just silly.

How can you "_detest_" (your emphasis) a language's syntax but like the
language?  They're inseparable, bub.

Considering that you're the one who's ranting for paragraphs and
paragraphs about C, it's pretty clear that you have a bee in your bonnet
about _something_.

Don't like C's syntax?  Don't use it.  Hate its syntax but use it
anyway?  Live in your own private hell.  Hate its syntax but like it? 
By all means, continue making no sense.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ Blood is the god of war's rich livery.
\__/ Christopher Marlowe
    The laws list / http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws/
 Laws, rules, principles, effects, paradoxes, etc. in physics.

From OneDay at A.Time  Mon Oct  2 17:22:22 2000
From: OneDay at A.Time (OneDay at A.Time)
Date: Mon,  2 Oct 2000 17:22:22 EDT
Subject: Freeze
Message-ID: <8rauae$12sl$2@earth.superlink.net>

Hello All,

        Python 1.5.2 on Windows 95: I've looked in my tools folder and cannot 
find the freeze.py file. Does anyone know where I can get it?

Thanks, Al

From xiaoyan at netease.com  Fri Oct 27 11:18:17 2000
From: xiaoyan at netease.com (Pan)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 23:18:17 +0800
Subject: aluminium extrusion
Message-ID: <20001027151849.4932F1C745BE3@mx1.netease.com>

Dear Sir or Madam,

JinXieCheng Aluminum Manufacturing Co. Ltd., GuangDong is an enterprise specializing 
in producing electrophoresis paintings aluminium extrusion for architecture and 
industrial profiles.

It products include: curtain wall material, casement window, sliding
window, door material, piping material, window, door matrial, piping
material, decorative cabinet material and industrial profiles. It has
successfully pass the recognition of ISO9002 quality system certification.

We have invested a huge sum of capital to import a full set of specialized production 
equipment from Korea and has been in a technical partnership with Korean DOIL 
INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD. whose electrophoresis paintings technology 
was peer to well known as Japanese HONNYLITE. Since then, a chain of drawbacks 
had been rectified, the color of aluminum profiles is no longer monotonous. Paintings 
don't easily come off or fade.?????? 

at present,we are planning to export our products to international market,if 
you are interested our products,please feel free to contact us.

Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks and best regards,

Jin Xiecheng

JinXieCheng Aluminum Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

E-mail: nhjinxiecheng at sina.com        
http://www.jinxiecheng.com
Contact Person: Ms Pan

From canimal at my-deja.com  Thu Oct 26 20:34:13 2000
From: canimal at my-deja.com (canimal at my-deja.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 00:34:13 GMT
Subject: NewbieQ: Viewing lists in PythonWin? Text overwrite?
References: <8t8lj7$50q$1@news.nuri.net>  
Message-ID: <8taii5$f20$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I am just learning Python.  I downloaded the ActiveState package and am
pretty happy with it overall.  However I am getting some weird behavior
involving the printing of lists at the interactive prompt.

I am playing around with the nntplib module and downloading articles
from newsgroups.  The way I am getting them they are coming in as a list
of lists.  If I print the list, though, I usually end up with a mess in
the interactive window.  If the list is short (say 100 chars), no
problem.  If the list is medium length (few hundred chars) I get a big
smear of text as though many characters were overwriting each other.  If
the list is long (thousands of chars) I get a long pause and then a
blank line.  This didn't happen in IDLE, so I assume it is a PythonWin
thing.

If I cut and paste from the interactive window I can see all of the text
properly, even the long list of lists.  Apparently the interactive
window is trying to write all of the data on the same line and making a
mess.

Is there some switch I am missing that will give me line wrap?  I don't
know what I am doing and need an easy way to look at my data.

Thanks,
Matt
mwc_ks-at-yahoo-dot-com

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Before you buy.

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Mon Oct 16 19:18:48 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:18:48 -0400
Subject: Some Q&A with Kahan on IEEE 754
In-Reply-To: <8sfqsp$14e$1@slate.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Message-ID: 

[Kevin Jacobs, working hard to make some progress]

Briefly, as the 2.0 release is today and I'm swamped:

> I'm glad to see that Dr. Kahan's opinions are in line with what
> _everyone_ here wants.

They won't be if we flesh them out more, but so it goes.

> I am drafting a PEP and reference implementation
> that embodies these ideas and goals:

> ...
>   5) Thread specific handling of traps with creation-time inheritance of
>      settings.

Yes, all 754 state (rounding, precision, sticky flags, trap masks) must be
part of thread state.  Someone else questioned that before, but it's a
no-brainer.  Inheriting precision, rounding and trap masks from the parent
thread works best in practice.  Less clear is whether sticky flags should be
inherited too or cleared in a new thread; I favor the latter (a new thread
hasn't caused any exceptions yet, so the principle of least surprise
dictates that its sticky flags reflect that).

> ...
> Of the many issues to be resolved, here are a few things to consider:
>
>   1) Handling of signaling NaNs.  This can get expensive since it
>      involves a test every time a floatobject is used or requires
>      mucking about with signal handlers.

Signaling NaNs are a minor feature; I'm not sure I've *ever* seen them used
(on purpose ).

>   2) Speaking of signal handlers, Tim Peters stated that returns are not
>      allowed from sIGFPE handlers.  I have yet to see this restriction in
>      any platform documentation.  What is the deal?

C standard.  Here's the exact text from C99, section 7.11.1.1 ("The 'signal'
function"):

    ... [in context, "the function" means the signal handler] ...
    If and when the function returns, if the value of sig is SIGFPE,
    SIGILL, SIGSEGV, or any other implementation-defined value
    corresponding to a computational exception, the behavior is undefined;
    otherwise the program will resume execution at the point it was
    interrupted.

Note that it doesn't say returning from a SIGFPE handler is not allowed, it
says what happens if you *do* return is simply undefined.  There is nothing
portable you can rely on here, and that's what the std is warning about.
For example, if you try to return from a SIGFPE handler on a WinTel box, you
*usually* get into an infinite loop, as the offending instruction is
restarted and just raises the same exception again (which goes back to the
SIGFPE handler, which returns, which goes back to etc etc).  This is (in
part) why the current fpectl module longjmps out of its SIGFPE handler.

Overall, current fpectl would probably be cheaper if the "open" macro saved
the current sticky flags and the "after" macro xor'ed them with the current
values, to see whether a 754 condition had been signaled.  But I don't
believe the fpectl module author had only 754-like machines in mind, so
funneled everything into SIGFPE instead.

>   3) Thread support -- Python threading will have to know about
>      per-thread floating point data-structures.

There's already a thread-state structure in Python for holding per-thread
implementation details; this part should be easy.

>  There are also implications for uthreads.

uthreads aren't in the std distribution; since their primary purpose is to
allow screamingly fast context switches with minimal memory burden, I expect
that Will Ware and Christian Tismer will want all uthreads to share the 754
state of the "real thread" they're running in.

Note that I/O is a problem:  different platforms spell Inf and NaN in
different ways, and Python currently defers to the platform atod and strtod
to do string->float input.  Similarly for output.  I expect everyone will
eventually move to the C99 spellings for these things, but before then
Python may need to write its own (and just porting David Gay's routines for
754 I/O to all the platforms Python uses could consume a good chunk of a
release cycle ...).

Note that comparisons are a problem.  754 implicitly defines 32 distinct
binary comparison predicates (16 for which subset of {lt, eq, gt, unordered}
is of interest, times 2 for whether or not a quiet NaN signals invalid
operation).  But there's no way Python will grow new language syntax for
these.  So this needs to be funneled thru a vanilla function interface.
Also doubtful that

    x == x

will be changed to special-case NaNs; this currently returns 1 no matter
what x is bound to because the same ("x is x") objects are being compared,
and object identity is fundamental in Python.

>   4) I am going to need help implementing support for many of the commonly
>      used Python platforms.  I have access to Windows 95/98/NT/2000,
>      Compaq/Digital Unix, AIX (Power3), IRIX, Linux (i386+glibc2.1+), and
>      Solaris.  Edward Jason Riedy has offered to help with AIX, Linux,
>      Solaris and Unicos/mk.  We still need volunteers for the following:
>
> 	Windows
> 	OS/2
> 	BeOS
> 	VxWorks
> 	OpenVMS
> 	QNX
>
> 	Others?  Speak now!

I'll take Windows.  Note a peculiar feature of the Pentium architecture:  it
doesn't raise a 754 exception until executing the fp instruction *following*
(in time) the instruction that actually caused the problem.  So an unbounded
number of cycles and (non-fp) instructions can pass between the time, e.g.,
a divide by 0 happens, and the time a divby0 trap occurs.  That's why the
"close macro" in fpectl calls a silly function that just returns 1.0, and
the caller immediately casts that to an int:  it's forcing another FP
instruction to get executed so that the Pentium will finally act on
*earlier* problems.  Like I said before, this stuff is a x-platform delight
.

> ...
> I think the problem here is in the definition of "Enable IEEE".  Your
> meaning seems to be "Enable IEEE" == "Enable all/some IEEE 754 traps". My
> meaning, and I believe the standard one is "use features available in
> conforming IEEE 754 implementations." This is, by necessity, a superset of
> the generic C floating point support (with a few notable, but minor
> exceptions).

Actually, all Huaiyu has been talking about is whether libm functions return
Infs and NaNs.  Strictly speaking, that's not a 754 issue at all, as sqrt is
the only libm function 754 mentions.  I know what he means, though, so
haven't picked on that point .  He just never wants to see an
exception raised by any fp operation.  That's a legit thing to want, but
also a minority thing to want.  But getting libm to work predictably across
platforms is a whole other can of worms, above and beyond 754 support.

there's-several-person-years-of-work-here-ly y'rs  - tim

From kalab at my-deja.com  Fri Oct  6 06:29:40 2000
From: kalab at my-deja.com (kalab at my-deja.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 10:29:40 GMT
Subject: Problem with using PythonWin and ActiveX COM Object
References:  <8rfdjo0apr@news2.newsguy.com>  <8ri8ba02lfe@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <8rk9ig$u9g$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <8ri8ba02lfe at news1.newsguy.com>,
  "Alex Martelli"  wrote:
> The behaviour of any Python function is just like that of "thebyval":
> after a sequence such as
>     a=23
>     b=a
>     thepythonfunction(a)

it depends if the argument is mutable or not:
def change(a):
    a[0] = 24
a=[23]
b=a
print a, b
change(a)
print a, b

Output:
[23] [23]
[24] [24]

> it MUST, always, be the case that a and b are still identical, no
> matter how "thepythonfunction" is written (well... one could play
> dirty tricks to find and alter the caller's namespace, maybe, but
> I wouldn't recommend it!-).

You are right - a and b must always be identical since they are both
references.

Gerhard

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Before you buy.

From jbaker at ummelec.com  Wed Oct  4 16:33:44 2000
From: jbaker at ummelec.com (Jake Baker)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:33:44 -0500
Subject: Substring Detection? Pythonically?
Message-ID: 

Stephen Hansen writes:

> And a user gives me a string -- 'the', I want it to match to 'they'. Then
> say they give me a string, 'to', I want it to match to 'tommy'. A string
> of 'th' or 't' is ambiguious, and i want a list returned, ['they','that']
> and ['they','that','tommy'] respectively.

# Put all your strings into a list
strings = [ 'they', 'that', 'tommy' ]

# Get the string to search for from the user
search_string = 'to'

# Get the length of that string
lmatch = len(search_string)

# Set the set of matches to empty
matches = []

# For each source string, try to match its head against
# against the sought string
for s in strings:
  if s[:lmatch] == search_string:
    matches.append(s)

print matches

- - - 

> Note that my 'words' will end up being a rather big list, mebbe a hundred
> at least, and i'll be checking against it very frequently, so want this to
> be as efficient as possible.

Faster matches: There are several easy algorithms for making this faster. For example, you can initially place your source code strings into 26 lists based on first letter; if your strings are well distributed, then you immediately cut the list of strings that have to be searched by 26.

From hzhu at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 10 05:17:55 2000
From: hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:17:55 GMT
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com> <87zokes2wc.fsf@cartman.azz.net> <8rstcj$t1n$1@panix3.panix.com> <87aecdmyo3.fsf@cartman.azz.net> <8rtlqf$72m$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

On 9 Oct 2000 16:53:51 -0700, Aahz Maruch  wrote:

>OIC.  Well, in Python, I'd write this as
>
>if dict[k1]:
>  dict[k1].something()
>
>assuming I were certain that k1 existed in dict, which you'd have to do
>in C (null pointer bugs are so much fun).

This is not entirely equivalent, as dict.__getitem__ may have side effects.
Besides, things like

if a=dict[k1]; a>0:
   print a, a+b
elif a=file.readline().strip(); a:
   print format % a
else:
   raise "Can't get a"
print "Finally we got a=", a

would be hard to do in a flat structure, IMHO, without puting statements in
if conditions.  But as I said, the most logical structure might be

a=dict[k1]; if a>0:
   print a, a+b
else: a=file.readline().strip(); if a:
   print format % a
else:
   raise "Can't get a"
print "Finally we got a=", a

This is in fact quite readable in colored editors.  It would also satisfy
someone's desire to separate elif into else if.

I was in fact hoping that someone could come up with a clever way to do this
in current Python without nested structures ...

Huaiyu

From rjroy at takingcontrol.com  Sun Oct  8 11:34:10 2000
From: rjroy at takingcontrol.com (Robert Roy)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:34:10 GMT
Subject: Installing 2.0 with a 1.5.* version in place
References: <39e16234.203101046@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: <39e09141.242635046@news1.on.sympatico.ca>

On Sun, 08 Oct 2000 12:06:23 GMT, olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L.
Olczyk) wrote:

>Several questions about installing 2.0b2.
>First when will 2.0final be ready?
>If someone says this week, then I am not going to bother
>until final is out (why do it twice in a short span?)
>
>Second do I have to unistall 1.5.*, or can I just install 2.0
>over it?
>
>Third what other "software packages" am I going to have to
>update ( WinPython, IDLE, libraries...).
>
>I'm doing this both on linux and on Win NT 4.0sp1000000 ( or whatever
>the latest).
>

Install 2.0 in a separate directory. The only gotcha I have found is
that the installation sets the file association for .py files to the
newer version so you might get some unexpected results depending on
how you start the program if you do not also change your path variable
to point to the new version.

For example if I type at the command line v2specific_code.py it runs
ok under v2 if I type python v2specific_code.py it tries to run under
1.5.2.

Easy to fix but I am too lazy and anyways it suits my purposes as it
is.

Bob

From dnew at san.rr.com  Mon Oct  2 00:39:28 2000
From: dnew at san.rr.com (Darren New)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 04:39:28 GMT
Subject: self.python vs Current.eiffel
References:    
Message-ID: <39D81182.48731850@san.rr.com>

Egbert Bouwman wrote:
> In Eifel you cannot say:
>    Current.x := Current.x + a
> because you cannot qualify the variable assigned to.
> And the assignment to x is really the assignment to Current.x .

It's actually pretty easy to understand. Instance variables in Eiffel are
read-only from outside the instance methods, because there shouldn't be any
syntactic difference between instance variables and functions of no
arguments. Indeed, a function of zero arguments can be overridden in a
subclass by a variable.

Hence, the *only* form of qualified assignment allowed would be Current.x,
since the only thing you are allowed to assign to from within Current is
Current. Hence, Current.x is treated as an expression (or "rvalue") not an
lvalue.

It's like saying "+x := 5" is not allowed, because "-x := 5" is not allowed.

> But I don't know yet how Meyer handles same named class variables and
> instance variables, if at all allowed. Give me a few days.

No class variables. Which I find odd. There's just work-around bits, like
"mix-in inheritance" and "once functions".

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
The tragedy of the commons applies to monitizing eyeballs, too.

From gfortune_ewu at ispchannel.com  Sat Oct  7 19:45:58 2000
From: gfortune_ewu at ispchannel.com (Greg Fortune)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 23:45:58 GMT
Subject: Data distribution by frequency
Message-ID: 

I have several objects that I need to arrange in a list based on their
respective frequency.  I'm basically trying to set up an intelligent user
modifiable timing loop.

Obj1
Frequency: 2
Obj2
Frequency:2

should yeild
[Obj1, Obj2, Obj1, Obj2]

Something a little nastier like

Obj1
Frequency: 3
Obj2
Frequency: 2
Obj3
Frequency: 1
Obj4
Frequency: 2

Should yield
[Obj1, Obj2, Obj4, Obj1, Obj3, Obj2, Obj1, Obj4]
or something very similar.

The only idea I have on the matter is take the most frequently occuring
object and distribute it through the list at the appropriate intervals (i.e.
total_size/obj1_freq).  Then, create a temp list of the available elements
and do the same thing with the next most frequently occuring object and the
new list.

Sound good? Or is there an easier/cleaner way to accomplish the same thing?

Anyone know of any resources I can look at for information?  Implementation
language doesn't really matter either.

Greg Fortune
Eastern Washington University Student

Why is it, that coding C++ just isn't quite as cool now as it was before I
learned Python? ;o) - Me

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Sat Oct 28 15:41:10 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (tim_one at email.msn.com)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 19:41:10 GMT
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References:  
Message-ID: <8tfa4l$3ns$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

[Tom ]
> Some of this sounds good, but some is a bit scary.

Indeed, not unlike life itself <0.9 wink>.

> In particular:
>
>   [Guido]
>   We will be spending part of our time on core Python development
>   (including Jython and Mailman) and part of our time on Python
>   infrastructure improvements that also benefit Zope.
>
> If Python itself is good, and is being actively developed, then
> other companies and individuals will develop 'infrastructure'.
> For example, it appears that WingIDE, Boa, and ActiveState's
> Visual Python IDE will all be ready in the near future - this
> is evidence of the momentum that Python currently has.

Infrastructure refers to basic services, like roads, sewers and power
lines in your home town.  Whiz-bang IDEs aren't the idea here; they're
at the other end of that scale.  Things like library feature set and
internal implementation tradeoffs are on target, and, yes, we will make
changes in those areas that benefit Digital Creations products (but we
did before too!  the lines here are grey).  When such changes become
part of the std Python distibution, they should benefit everyone (much
as repaving a public road may benefit everyone in your town, although
probably benefits you most directly if the road happens to be one you
travel daily -- DC will naturally be most interested in improving their
own section of town before others, and, yup, we've agreed to devote a
substantial part of our paid time helping them do exactly that).

> However, if work on the core of Python were to slow, or if it's
> direction was guided by the interests of one particularly product
> (ie. Zope), then this might discourage the development of all
> other 'infrastructure' projects, and would hurt the Python
> community.

Python's direction will still be set by Guido.  Rights to our Python
(etc -- Jython/Mailman) work will be assigned to the PSF (to Guido,
until the PSF exists), establishing a strong legal wall between Python
(etc) and DC's (or anyone else's) particular private interests.

DC isn't a charity, but neither is Beopen.com, and while CNRI *is* a
charity (according to the IRS), Python work there too was strongly
influenced by the availability of funds for specific projects.  So the
potential problems you fear have always existed; the question is
whether Guido can continue to balance competing forces in ways that
leave almost everyone "happy enough".  DC isn't erecting new barriers
here, and-- to the contrary --is enthusiastic about pursuing genuinely
helpful new ideas (like the PSF).

Anyone else with a special interest to advance is free to contribute
the Python changes they want to the PSF too, via SourceForge.  Guido
will continue to Pronounce on such changes based solely on his view of
what's best for Python.

Note that there have always been more requests for library and language
and doc and implementation changes than can possibly be accomplished!
The really dramatic thing that's changed this year is opening up the
development process by moving it to SourceForge and attracting about 30
developers:  Guido's direct team is much less vital than it used to be
in getting core Python work done (for proof, look at who contributed
the major Python 2.0 features).  Python's development process "in the
public interest" is much stronger today than ever before, and the move
to DC doesn't hurt it.  Again, to the contrary, DC explictly supports
good ideas to make it even stronger (like the PSF).

nothing-new-to-fear-and-less-old-ly y'rs  - tim

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct 16 12:34:20 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 16 Oct 2000 09:34:20 -0700
Subject: Fibonacci Sequence and Long numbers.
References:  <8s7iuske1jkop8qupc0jbjia94aqj0je3u@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <8sfamc$j74$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article , Rob Hooft  wrote:
>from math import sqrt
>
>def fib(n):
>  return ((0.5+0.5*sqrt(5.0))**n-(0.5-0.5*sqrt(5.0))**n)/sqrt(5.0)

That's fast, but of course it doesn't scale as well as Python longs.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop III

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Mon Oct 30 09:19:57 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 09:19:57 -0500
Subject: Shall we declare Tkinter dead?  No-one seems interested in it 	 ;o)
References: 
Message-ID: <3dbsw2o1gy.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

Mike Fletcher  writes:
> Re: missing posts...  I posted to Python list (via mailman), as well as to
> the Stackless Python list (though didn't expect you to see it there)...

I think that python.org's disk filled up two weekends ago, therefore
breaking mail service to some degree.  Perhaps you sent your messages
then, because I can't recall seeing them either.

--amk

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct  6 10:32:09 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:32:09 +0200
Subject: Does a PVM (Python Virtual Maschine) exists ?
References: <39DDD7E4.E0BC5E26@oracle.com>
Message-ID: <8rko3r0dq@news2.newsguy.com>

"Stephan Becker"  wrote in message
news:39DDD7E4.E0BC5E26 at oracle.com...

Python's virtual machine (VM) is part of the shared-library
(.DLL on Windows, .so on Linux and most Unix versions, etc)
that is named python20 for Python 2.0.  You can feed a compiled
Python bytecode file (foo.pyc) at the VM via the python
executable (python.exe on Windows, just python on Unix),
or any other custom executable that will load and suitably
initialize the VM.  The same DLL/so also houses the compiler
and other tidbits, but that shouldn't be a problem, as it's
not too large anyway.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to your objective and concerns:

> I?am planing to write a middle tier application using python.
    ...
> I like to communicate with other instances of my persistent Python
> Servlet on different servers using the ORB  protocoll or any other
> matching middle tier communication facility.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the ORB protocoll" (CORBA?  Python
does support several existing CORBA ORB's), but this should surely
be feasible.

Alex

From cliff.penton at b_i_g_f_o_o_t.c_o_m  Wed Oct 18 18:22:07 2000
From: cliff.penton at b_i_g_f_o_o_t.c_o_m (Cliff Penton)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 23:22:07 +0100
Subject: Embedding problem
Message-ID: 

I looking at Python as a possible language for embedding in an application I
am working on.  Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to get a very simple
script to work the same when embedded and when run within Python.  To help
illustrate my problem I have included a simple example, consisting of the
following bits:

embed.c         is a simple program that executes the hello()
                function in the embed.py script.
embed.py        is a simple script, using Tk, that displays a
                window with a button in it
embed.traceback is the result when running hello() inside
                embed.c

If I try:

> python embed.py

everything works fine, if i try:

> embed

I get the traceback guff detailed below.

What am I doing wrong?

I am using Python 2.0 release.

Help!

Cliff

--- embed.c starts ---

#include 

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
   PyObject* module = 0;
   PyObject* func   = 0;
   PyObject* args   = 0;
   PyObject* rc     = 0;

   Py_SetProgramName(argv[0]);
   Py_Initialize();
   PySys_SetArgv(argc, argv);
   printf("Welcome to a brave new world\n\n");

   /* Initialise the Python module and function */
   module = PyImport_ImportModule("embed");
   if (module == NULL) {
      PyErr_Clear();
      printf("Unable to import embed module\n");
      goto bye;
   }

   func = PyObject_GetAttrString(module, "hello");
   if (func == NULL) {
      PyErr_Clear();
      printf("Unable to bind to hello function in detect module\n");
      goto bye;
   }

   rc = PyEval_CallObject(func, NULL);
   if (rc == NULL) {
      PyErr_Print();
   } else {
      Py_DECREF(rc);
   }
bye:
   Py_XDECREF(func);
   Py_XDECREF(module);
   Py_Exit(0);
}

--- embed.c ends ---

--- embed.py starts ---

from Tkinter import *

def hello():
   ok = Button(None, text='Ok')
   ok.pack()
   ok.mainloop()

if __name__ == '__main__':
   hello()

--- embed.py ends ---

--- embed.traceback starts ---

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "embed.py", line 4, in hello
    ok = Button(None, text='Ok')
  File "e:\program files\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1819, in
__init__
    Widget.__init__(self, master, 'button', cnf, kw)
  File "e:\program files\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1752, in
__init__
    BaseWidget._setup(self, master, cnf)
  File "e:\program files\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1727, in
_setup
    _default_root = Tk()
  File "e:\program files\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1482, in
__init__
    self.tk = _tkinter.create(screenName, baseName, className)
TclError: Can't find a usable init.tcl in the following directories:
    {} {e:/program files/python20/lib/tcl8.3} E:/Home/embed/lib/tcl8.3
E:/Home/lib/tcl8.3 E:/Home/lib/tcl8.3/library E:/Home/library
E:/Home/../tcl8.3/library E:/../tcl8.3/library

This probably means that Tcl wasn't installed properly.

--- embed traceback.ends ---

From jshankl at speakeasy.org  Tue Oct 31 22:29:19 2000
From: jshankl at speakeasy.org (John Shankland)
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 03:29:19 GMT
Subject: Newbie Pythom + Newbie Com = Way confussed
Message-ID: <8FDECF03Bjshanklspeakeasyorg@209.99.56.9>

Hello,

I'm trying to do some com programming in python with win32com. I'm able
to get a com object and call it's methods, and it actually does what it's
supposed to. The problem is I need to get some information from the
device which it sends asynchronously and I guess calls some function in
my code. The name of the function is ( not that it matters )
SlinkeDeviceEvent. I've written a function SlinkeDeviceEvent but it
doesn't seem to get called. I think it wants me to override some method
but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. So here's some code. 

import win32com.client
SlinkEX = win32com.client.Dispatch("SLINKX.SlinkxCtrl.1")
SlinkEX.Connect()

# Add a sending device
SlinkEX.AddDeviceText("cdj", "type=devtx", 1, 1, 0 )

# Play a play list
SlinkEX.Send( "cdj", "playlist_play" )

# Add a receiving device. This is the one that's supposed to get messages
SlinkEX.AddDeviceText("cdjr", "type=devrx", 1, 1, 0 )

Any ideas?

John

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Mon Oct 16 15:38:23 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:38:23 GMT
Subject: Small Python?
References: <39EB2298.5D40A732@sandqvist.com>
Message-ID: 

You want a 50kb minimalistic interpreter?  I'd say you might want to
download the sources and start removing built-ins you won't use, but 50kb is
*really* pushing it.

You can get Gordon's installer scripts (for windows) to produce a
distribution that's about 700kb and _that_ fits nicely onto a floppy.  Or
you get your users to install Python ONCE and then you only have to worry
about the size of your scripts.  I think FREEZE will turn your python
program into a C program, which you can then compile down to whatever size
makes you happy.

my-python-dir-takes-up-38-megs-but-that-includes-documentation-and-lots-of-o
ther-stuff-your-users-wouldn't-need-ly y'rs  :)

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Sam Sandqvist"  wrote in message
news:39EB2298.5D40A732 at sandqvist.com...
> Hi,
>
> I am quite fond of Python, and use it for several small things... key
> here is small.
>
> Is there anywhere a Minimalist Python? Sort of an adder, instead of the
> full-blown thing? I would be very interested in having such a beast, a
> SmallPython...
>
> Or failing that, which language is closest to Python - but significantly
> smaller? Say, 50kb or smaller?
>
> Cheers,
> Sam Sandqvist
>
>

From tye4 at yahoo.com  Fri Oct  6 20:35:30 2000
From: tye4 at yahoo.com (tye4)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 17:35:30 -0700
Subject: Fibonacci Sequence and Long numbers.
References: 
Message-ID: <39DE6FD2.A94EAC06@yahoo.com>

Python has a fixed level of recursion; 9999 to be exact.
That is, x() can call x() 9999 times before Python
spits out an error msg.

This li'l script prints out the max depth of recursive calls

class foo:
    pass

def recurse(f, depth):
    f.depth = depth
    recurse(f, depth+1)

>>> f = foo()
>>> recurse(f, 1)
Runtime error: max recursion depth exceeded

>>> f.depth
9999

Try using a non-recursive fibonacci fn.

def fib_nr(n):
    cache = []
    a = 0L
    b = 0L
    while b < n:
       cache.append(b)
       temp = a + b
       a = b
       b = temp
    #end loop
    return cache

>>> fib_nr(10)
[1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8]

or

>>> fib_nr(1000000L)

-tye4

Neil Macneale wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am using MacPython 1.5.2 on a G3 powerbook,  and I am getting a
> strange result from a fibonachi function. This is what I typed at the
> command line:
>
> >>> cache = []
> >>> cache.insert(0, 0L)
> >>> cache.insert(1, 1L)
> >>> def fib(i):
> ...    if len(cache) > i:
> ...       return cache[i]
> ...    cache.insert(i, fib(i-1) + fib(i-2))
> ...    return cache[i]
> ...
> >>> fib(1)
> 1L
> >>> fib(2)
> 1L
> >>> fib(3)
> 2L
> >>> for i in range(10):
> ...    print fib(i)
> ...
> 0L
> 1L
> 1L
> 2L
> 3L
> 5L
> 8L
> 13L
> 21L
> 34L
> >>> fib(100)
> 354224848179261915075L
>
> All seems good and well to this point.  But when I try:
>
> >>> fib(1000)
>
> I get a whole bunch of recursive erros which tell me there is an Integer
> addition error.  The strangest part is that if I slowely increment, by a
> few hundred, up to 1000,  it works fine.
>
> >>> fib(180)
> 18547707689471986212190138521399707760L
> >>> fib(200)
> 280571172992510140037611932413038677189525L
> >>> fib(220)
> 4244200115309993198876969489421897548446236915L
> >>> fib(400)
> 1760236806450139664682269453924112507703843833044921918867259928965753450
> 44216019675L
> >>> fib(600)
> 1104330705729522423464322467677182859425902373575556063800088918752777017
> 05731473925618404421867819924194229142447517901959200L
> >>> fib(1000)
> 4346655768693745643568852767504062580256466051737178040248172908953655541
> 7949051890403879840079255169295922593080322634775209689623239873322471161
> 642996440906533187938298969649928516003704476137795166849228875L
>
> I went up all the way to 5000 this way,  but when I tried fib(7000) I
> got all the same errors again.
>
> What is going on?
>
> Thanks for any insight,  Neil Macneale

From wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net  Tue Oct 31 17:09:50 2000
From: wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 22:09:50 GMT
Subject: Licencing Python as extension in commercial app?
References: <39ff02b1.849871@news.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

On Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:23:15 GMT, Owen F. Ransen wrote:
>Licensing Python as extension in commercial app?
>What is the deal? I'd like to use Python to extend
>a new graphics app I am writing, but I need to sell
>the app to buy bread.
>So...do I need to buy a license, or is it free or
>what?

You don't need to buy a license; you're given one already, and it grants
permission to do just about anything you'd like to, deliberately including
any commercial use, including commercial use in which you modify the
source code and don't distribute the results.

So go for it.  Many others already have.  Good luck, and let us know how
it works for you.  If you find and/or fix bugs or add features to the
language we'd be grateful to get the patches, but that's completely up to
you.

>Owen

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley

From wynand at mindspring.co.za  Wed Oct 18 13:16:52 2000
From: wynand at mindspring.co.za (Wynand van Dyk)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 10:16:52 -0700
Subject: Newbie query about Tkinter in win32
Message-ID: <8sjn3u$1ch$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>

Hi,

I am working on a cross platform (win32, Linux, MacOS) gui app.
I would like to write my code once and have it run on all those platforms
without the need to change anything.

Tkinter I assume works on all the above listed platforms without need to
change one line of code.

My problem is something windows specific though.

The titlebar of the application has an icon in the top left corner. With
Tk, this icon defaults to a red Tk. How do I change this.

On Linux (X with Windowmaker) there is no icon in the titlebar, same deal in
MacOS.
RTFM's with links to the specified FM's will be appreciated.

Thanks
--
Wynand van Dyk
==============
Mindspring Computing

From mballen at NOSPAM_erols.com  Sun Oct  8 05:18:55 2000
From: mballen at NOSPAM_erols.com (Michael B. Allen)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 05:18:55 -0400
Subject: best way to store dbm records?
References: <8rnu4o$emc$1@bob.news.rcn.net> 
Message-ID: <8rpdug$ki$1@bob.news.rcn.net>

Fredrik Lundh wrote in message ...
>> Then, to get a record out I eval it like this:
>>
>>  dbmrecord = eval(db[key])
>>  (a,v,d,x,o,r,f) = dbmrecord
>>
>> Will this work reliably or is there a better way?
>
>as long as you stick to simple types, and trust whoever
>is putting data in the database...
>
>(if someone can mess with your database, that "eval" call
>can do things you didn't expect -- including erasing all your
>files, sending nasty mail, etc).

Oh, yeah. Duh.

Mike

From hkrosing at my-deja.com  Sat Oct 28 18:50:24 2000
From: hkrosing at my-deja.com (hkrosing at my-deja.com)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 22:50:24 GMT
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References: 
Message-ID: <8tfl7f$c26$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article
,
  Guido van Rossum  wrote:
> To all Python users and developers:
>
> I am proud to have found a new home for my
entire team: starting
> today, Tim Peters, Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton,
Fred Drake and myself
> are working for Digital Creations.

Congratulations!

> We will be spending part of our
> time on core Python development (including
Jython and Mailman) and
> part of our time on Python infrastructure
improvements that also
> benefit Zope.

Will this mean that there is some hope of python
getting native (as in included in standard
distribution) support for binary trees, like
rbtrees or avltrees. Or perhaps it has already
happened when I was'nt looking ?

It's not too hard to get the avl or rbtree module
via google, but having one in the standard
distribution would be much nicer.

> These are exciting times for the PythonLabs team
-- and also for
> Python and its community.  Mainstream successes
for Python are showing
> up everywhere, and we're proud to be a part of
such a smart and
> friendly community.  A great year lies ahead!

Time to start the discussion about the _real_
start of the next century/millennium again ;)

-----------
Hannu

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 25 09:31:29 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 15:31:29 +0200
Subject: Using COM constants on under IIS ASP.
References: 
Message-ID: <8t6nkm0k6l@news1.newsguy.com>

"Syver Enstad"  wrote in message
news:UnAJ5.14550$W31.220361 at news1.online.no...
> Does anybody know how to access the constants of COM objects created with
> Server.CreateObject. I tried using the global.asa file to accomplish this,
> but it doesn't seem to work.

As long as you've run makepy on the type-library of the object you're
creating, all constants defined in that library will be available as
attributes of win32com.client.constants when objects defined in that
library are created.

See, for more details:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pythonwin32/chapter/ch12.html
which is a sample-chapter from the "Python Programming on
Win32" book, and happens to be exactly the one on "Advanced
Python and COM".  But I recommend you purchase & read the
whole book.

There may be ways to get even at the constants of an object whose
typelibrary has NOT been subjected to makepy (as long as the object
is "kind" enough to reveal upon request the type-library it belongs
to... which is a nice thing for COM objects to do, but not a
mandatory one [e.g., Python-implemented COM objects typically
have nothing to do with type-libraries, thus give no 'type-info'
when it's asked for...]).  But that's a "meta-advanced" issue,
and just running makepy is handier & better 99.44% of the time.

>From Pythonwin, Tools/COM Makepy utility will present a list of
registered type-libraries; just pick the one you want to use
from Python (this must be done on the machine where your Python
scripts will run from...).  Running from the command line, you
can also use the -i option (example picking 'Acrobat Control for
ActiveX' from the interactive list presented):

D:\Python20\win32com\client>python makepy.py -i
Acrobat Control for ActiveX
 {CA8A9783-280D-11CF-A24D-444553540000}, lcid=0, major=1, minor=3
 >>> # Use these commands in Python code to auto generate .py support
 >>> from win32com.client import gencache
 >>> gencache.EnsureModule('{CA8A9783-280D-11CF-A24D-444553540000}', 0, 1,
3)

D:\Python20\win32com\client>

the call to gencache.EnsureModule will generate the needed support
for the typelibrary, if needed.

Alex

From grante at visi.com  Tue Oct 17 17:12:29 2000
From: grante at visi.com (Grant Edwards)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 21:12:29 GMT
Subject: Reading a binary file in as hex
References: <8sicku$91r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <1h3H5.1688$FU3.403358@ptah.visi.com>

In article <8sicku$91r$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, alfred6465 at my-deja.com wrote:

>I am new to python and am kinda stuck on something.  I have a binary
>file which I would like to read as hexidecimal.  The file can vary in
>length.  After I get it in a hex format I want to scan through it to
>look for certain numbers.  Any thoughts on how to do this?

I'm not sure what you mean by "read as hexidecimal".

If you want to read the bytes in a file and convert each to a
hex string, you can do something like this:

import string
d = open("file.data","rb").read()
l = map(lambda x: '%02x' % ord(x), d)
s = string.join(l)
print s

Or mashed into a one-liner:

string.join(map(lambda x: '%02x' % ord(x), open("file.data","rb").read()))

If you've got Python 2.0 you can use a list comprehension
rather than the Schemesque map/lambda

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  But they went to MARS
                                  at               around 1953!!
                               visi.com            

From dberlin at redhat.com  Tue Oct 24 00:37:20 2000
From: dberlin at redhat.com (Daniel Berlin)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 00:37:20 -0400
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
In-Reply-To: <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>
References: 

	<8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>

	<39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>
Message-ID: 

Erik Max Francis  writes:

> Rainer Deyke wrote:
> 
> > int (*a)[5], *(b[5]);
> > 
> > It looks like 'a' is an array of pointers and 'b' is a pointer to an
> > array,
> > but the opposite is the case.
> 
> Makes perfect sense, if you that you read C declarations from the inside
> out.
> 
> C is not a trivial language, so the rules are not trivial.  If you have
> sloppy thinking or are not familiar with the details of the language,
> you will get yourself into trouble with a non-trivial language.  But
> then that's true of a trivial language as well.

Sloppy thinking?
You mean, sorta like how

"hello"[4] == 4["hello"] ?

That kind of sloppy thinking?

Or is that a feature?

--Dan

From n0nb at my-deja.com  Sat Oct  7 22:53:16 2000
From: n0nb at my-deja.com (Nate Bargmann)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 02:53:16 GMT
Subject: Text size in Idle under X11?
Message-ID: <8ronir$78d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Sorry if this is an FAQ (didn't find it there).  I am running Idle on
Linux/X and find the 8 pt text to be quite small on this laptop which is
stuck in 1024x768 mode.  I found only one reference to text size in the
help file, but that only works if running on Win.  I'm not familiar at
all with tk, and am just getting started in Python as well.

Thanks,

- Nate >>

--
 Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB          | "None can love freedom
 Internet | n0nb at networksplus.net               | heartily, but good
 Location | Wichita, Kansas USA EM17hs          | men; the rest love not
   Wichita area exams; ham radio; Linux info @  | freedom, but license."
             http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/           | -- John Milton

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From blablu at gmx.net  Tue Oct  3 10:27:21 2000
From: blablu at gmx.net (Mike 'Cat' Perkonigg)
Date: 3 Oct 2000 14:27:21 GMT
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
References:  
Message-ID: <8FC2A49E3mikecat@192.168.10.38>

effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh) wrote in 
:

>Max M?ller Rasmussen wrote:
>> Just use slice:
>>
>> a = 'a'
>> b = a[:]
>
>>>> a = 'a'
>>>> b = a[:]
>>>> id(a)
>7834944
>>>> id(b)
>7834944
>>>> a is b
>1
>
>
>
>

LOL!
There seem to be a good optimization :-)

Regards,
Mike

From Jan.Kybic at epfl.ch  Tue Oct 24 10:03:09 2000
From: Jan.Kybic at epfl.ch (Jan Kybic)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 16:03:09 +0200
Subject: Q: Interactive input
Message-ID: 

Hi,
	would there be a simple way to stop the execution of a script,
read commands from the keyboard and  execute them in the current
frame? Something like keyboard() in Matlab. I know you can do it using
the debugger, but this still requires a lot of typing: import pdb,
pdb.run('adsdas') , b , c , ...

I would just like to put 'keyboard()' somewhere in my script, be able
to examine and change the values of some variables, perhaps call some
functions, and continue.

Any other hints how to debug python programs?

Many thanks.

	     Jan

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan Kybic       BIG IOA DMT EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland
       or          tel. work +41 (21) 693 5142
For PGP key see my WWW page.       http://bigwww.epfl.ch/kybic

From josh at open.com  Wed Oct 18 00:25:51 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 00:25:51 -0400
Subject: copy protection
References:  <39ED12BB.89A0D056@smith-house.org>
Message-ID: <39ed24b1_1@corp.newsfeeds.com>

Well, given that he's talking about *porting* their app, I would say that
their entire client base would be that stupid.  Licensing code to a
particular machine is actually quite common, especially for expensive
software.  Using the network adapter ID or other unique identifiers is no
big deal.  I'm sure that if they need to move to another machine, it is
probably just a phone call or an email to get a new key.

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 27 18:39:49 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 00:39:49 +0200
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich ,  comparison
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com> <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com>  <8tc1en0129j@news1.newsguy.com> <39F9C00B.B51361D9@san.rr.com> 
Message-ID: <8td0et023qa@news1.newsguy.com>

"Johann Hibschman"  wrote in message
news:mtu29y11ip.fsf at astron.berkeley.edu...
    [snip]
> By the way, what is the logic behind "-1/-3 = 0"?  That just seems
> broken.  -1/3 = -1, so we should have -1/-3 = 1.  If division were
> defined that way, we could simply let % give the least positive
> residue, and everyone would be happy.
>
> Is there any situation in which you would want -1/-3 = 0?

There are many nice properties you might like integer
division to have; unfortunately, they're self contradictory
en masse -- you can't have them all at once.

For example, for any non-null integers a,b,c, we might
like to have
    a/b == (a*c)/(b*c)
right?  After all, we can see algebraically that the factors
of c in numerator and denominator simplify out...

Well, what happens if a=1, b=3, and c=-1, then?-)

Alex

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct  5 08:46:24 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 14:46:24 +0200
Subject: How many people are making COM objects with Python?
References: <8r56ta$3mj$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8abmtsgqfpe4svqj1amjan46agsqv7shp8@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <8rhthe02alu@news1.newsguy.com>

"Roger Upole"  wrote in message
news:h1JC5.29740$g6.3879769 at pouncer.easynews.com...
> The only references I've seen were right here on clp.
> One poster (Syver Enstad) identified a pattern whereby the
> missing events all have an IDispatch pointer in the parameter list.

Yes, and I managed to reproduce this completely with a small
artificial event-generating COM object.  To be specific, if an
event has a VARIANT type argument, it will be passed on OK if
the variant type is set to string, number, etc, but not if the
variant type is set to VT_UNKNOWN or VT_DISPATCH.

This is 100% reproducible.  I tried looking at the sources to
understand why it was happening, but was stumped, and haven't
yet begun to look again (I only returned from vacations two
days ago and am a bit swamped with other stuff).

Alex

From bjorn at roguewave.com  Wed Oct  4 13:50:33 2000
From: bjorn at roguewave.com (Bjorn Pettersen)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 11:50:33 -0600
Subject: Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)
References:  <8r1oq1$5go$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de> <39D44213.59B6CA11@seebelow.org> <8ra9iu$bo0$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de>  
Message-ID: <39DB6DE9.4A3348AD@roguewave.com>

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> 
> Bjorn Pettersen wrote:
> > Every compiler has it's set of bugs, however I still haven't seen the ms
> > compiler lay down incorrect assembly (not accepting legal code is a
> > different issue ;-).
> 
> MSVC 5.0 without all service packs can generate some
> really strange things...
> 
> ...and I still remember good old MSC 6's loop optimizer,
> which once changed:
> 
>     result = 0
>     for x in range(large number):
>         for y in range(large number):
>             get pixel at (x, y)
>             result = result + do some math
> 
> to
> 
>     get pixel at random coordinate
>     result = do some math
>     for x in range(large number):
>         for y in range(large number):
>             pass
> 
> ("hey, you asked me to optimize for speed, didn't you?")
> 
> MSVC 6 seems to be pretty solid, though...

Yes, MS has had it's share of interesting compiler quirks through the
years. As you point out MSVC 6 with SP4 is relatively good unless you
try to do too fancy things with namespaces combined with templates (and
don't even mention partial specializations ;-)

Their 64 bit compiler for Win64/Itanium seems to be pretty good too (and
they've even fixed bugs that we've reported ! :-)

just-doing-my-part-to-keep-this-thread-off-topic'ly y'rs
-- bjorn

From noahspurrier at my-deja.com  Tue Oct  3 22:55:45 2000
From: noahspurrier at my-deja.com (noahspurrier at my-deja.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 02:55:45 GMT
Subject: Zope on Solaris problem
Message-ID: <8re67g$vil$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I built Zope from source for Solaris 2.6. I started the Zope server
with no problems and I was able to get the "Welcome to Zope!" screen.
I hit the management link and I got the login. I connected with the
superuser password. Then I started to get the manage page. I got the
frameset, but each frame had this error message:
    Error Type: ParserError
    Error Value: Expected node type 12, got 312.

I check the Zope bug site:
    http://classic.zope.org:8080/Collector
And found a bug similar, but not the same:
    http://classic.zope.org:8080/Collector/354/view

Any ideas?

Yours,
Noah

P.S. A traceback is below:
Traceback (innermost last):
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 222, in publish_module
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 187, in publish
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-2.2.2/lib/python/Zope/__init__.py,
line 221, in zpublisher_exception_hook
    (Object: ApplicationDefaultPermissions)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 171, in publish
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-2.2.2/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply.py,
line 160, in mapply
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 112, in call_object
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-2.2.2/lib/python/App/special_dtml.py,
line 117, in __call__
    (Object: manage_main)
    (Info: /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-2.2.2/lib/python/OFS/main.dtml)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_String.py, line 408, in cook
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_String.py, line 242, in parse
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_String.py, line 292, in parse_block
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_String.py, line 242, in parse
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_String.py, line 305, in parse_block
    (Object: manage_main)
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_If.py, line 165, in __init__
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/DT_Util.py, line 359, in name_param
    (Info: ({'': '"_.SecurityCheckPermission(\'Delete objects\',this
())"'}, 'if', 1, 'name'))
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/VSEval.py, line 194, in __init__
    (Object: _.SecurityCheckPermission('Delete objects',this()))
  File /home/nspurrier/Zope/Zope-
2.2.2/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/gparse.py, line 293, in compile
ParserError: (see above)

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From effbot at telia.com  Tue Oct  3 10:03:48 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 14:03:48 GMT
Subject: range of mktime
References: <39D923A6.8A0A74B8@uniserve.com> <8rbq6u$89o$1@panix3.panix.com> <8rc88n$9su$2@netserv.univ-lille1.fr>
Message-ID: <8HlC5.1600$d5.122787@newsb.telia.net>

Daniel wrote:
> : That surprises me mildly; the usual range is 1970 to 2038 (matching the
> : range of the Unix 32-bit clock).  You may want to use mxDateTime instead
> : for greater range, precision, and utility.
> 
> It's 32-bit, but signed. The 32-bit-Unix-range is then 1970+/-68 years.

note that the time.h functions use "(time_t) -1" to flag errors,
so I doubt they expected anyone to use negative values...

From phd at phd.russ.ru  Fri Oct 20 05:57:27 2000
From: phd at phd.russ.ru (Oleg Broytmann)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:57:27 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython
In-Reply-To: <8souia$db8$1@news1.wdf.sap-ag.de>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Daniel Dittmar wrote:
> > "Jython" kinda sticks in my larynx.  How about "Javathon", or "Pythonava?
> How about "Jivethon"?

   PyJava?

Oleg.            (All opinions are mine and not of my employer)
---- 
    Oleg Broytmann      Foundation for Effective Policies      phd at phd.russ.ru
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

From fredrik at effbot.org  Tue Oct 31 18:13:29 2000
From: fredrik at effbot.org (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 23:13:29 GMT
Subject: Python Labs Move
References:  <39FCE915.C1DC844C@san.rr.com> <39FE805A.518E447B@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: 

Grant Griffin wrote:
> frankensteinian-monsters-are-known-by-the-bolts-on-their-necks-

you mean "bots", don't you?

From Robert.Harris at gmx.net  Sat Oct 21 10:53:22 2000
From: Robert.Harris at gmx.net (Robert Harris)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 16:53:22 +0200
Subject: Resuming a file download with python
References: <8srp7c$ak$07$1@news.t-online.com> 
Message-ID: <8ssakk$vu8$04$1@news.t-online.com>

Thanks,

I'll try it

--
Regards
    Robert Harris

"Dan Schmidt"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:wkem1al5c8.fsf at turangalila.harmonixmusic.com...
> "Robert Harris"  writes:
>
> | I want to resume a file download with python. It would be
> | either the http or ftp protocol used. How could I do it or isn't
> | it possible ? I browsed through the docs of the http and ftp objects
> | but didn't find anything.
>
> ftplib started supporting this in 2.0 (two days after I hacked it into
> my own copy of the library :).  retrbinary() now takes an optional
> 'rest' parameter to tell it how many bytes into the file to seek
> before starting to download.
>
> --
>                  Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
> Honest Bob CD now available! | http://www.dfan.org/honestbob/cd.html

From anthony at lokie.co.uk  Sun Oct 22 14:15:39 2000
From: anthony at lokie.co.uk (Lokie)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 19:15:39 +0100
Subject: Reverse NS Lookup
References: 
Message-ID: 

"Simon Faulkner"  wrote in message
news:km96vs8e6fppc78i072s3isdvrvntrh02t at 4ax.com...
> How do I find the domain name of an IP address?
>
> I have the IP address from os.environ["REMOTE_ADDR"] and I want to
> store the domain name in a database
>
> Simon
> Simon Faulkner

Not the best code to do the job, but hopefully should give you a good
starting point.

import socket

def ips:
    if os.environ.has_key('REMOTE_ADDR'):
        user = os.environ['REMOTE_ADDR']
        try:
            host, alias, ips = socket.gethostbyaddr(user)
            if host!="":
                user = host
        except socket.error, msg:
            pass
    else:
        user = "Local machine"
    return(user)

--
Anthony McDonald

From dankramer at home.com  Sun Oct 29 23:00:55 2000
From: dankramer at home.com (Daniel Kramer)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 04:00:55 GMT
Subject: fxpy
Message-ID: 

Hello,
    I stumbled apon fxpy (fox gui library) and it's looks pretty cool.  I
had never heard of it before but the demo's are impressive.  Does anyone
have any experiance w/it?  Is it a good choice for a UI with python?

Thanks,
    Daniel

From effbot at telia.com  Thu Oct  5 11:37:59 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:37:59 GMT
Subject: Recommended exception method for modules?
References: 
Message-ID: 

Grant Edwards wrote:
>  3) a class for each type of error with value(s) that further
>     explain what is wrong:
> 
>     class PosixSerialBaudError(Exception):
>         [...]
>          
>     if not validBaud(r):
>         raise PosixSerialBaudError(r)
> 
>     [this last one could be done as a subclass of a general
>      PosixSerialError class, -- that way somebody can catch
>      either all of my exceptions or just individual ones.
>      Right?]

> Does anybody care to share their opinion on the relative merits
> of these?

Don't use string exceptions.  They're evil.  Enough said.

For simple cases, reuse an existing exception (if reasonable),
or use a single exception class, either inherited from Exception
or from a suitable standard exception class (alternative 2).

(in 2.0, the -X option is gone, and built-in exceptions are
always classes)

When it makes sense, use an exception hierarchy (alternative 3).

You can always move from (2) to (3), without breaking existing
code.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct  9 07:10:27 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 13:10:27 +0200
Subject: doubling slashes in a string
References: <39de8a48_3@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8rmvbo02dfo@news1.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <8rs9dc0143f@news2.newsguy.com>

 wrote in message news:uy9zytl1w.fsf at cs.uu.nl...
    [snip]
> >> newname = string.join(string.split(oldname,"\\"), "\\\\")
    [snip]
> AM>     newname = oldname.split(r'\').join(r'\\')
> AM>     newname = oldname.replace(r'\', r'\\')
>
> AM> would strike some of us as being even better yet!-)
>
> It would strike most of us as being particularly bad, especially those who
> would try it. (A string cannot end in an odd number of \, not even a raw

Whoops!  You're right.  I had never noticed this lexical peculiarity,
and now I wonder about the rationale for it -- since backslashes play
no special role within a rawstring, why the peculiarly specific prohibition
about having an odd number of them _at the end_...?

Oh well, then I guess my above-quoted suggestions will have to be reworded:

    newname = oldname.split('\\').join(r'\\')
    newname = oldname.replace('\\', r'\\')

Alex

From carroll at cis.ohio-state.edu  Thu Oct  5 15:18:34 2000
From: carroll at cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark Carroll)
Date: 5 Oct 2000 19:18:34 GMT
Subject: Class Browsers vs Static Types (Re: Inefficiency of 	__getattr__)
References:   <8rfslr$335$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu> 
Message-ID: <8rik6a$o2s$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu>

In article ,
David Bolen   wrote:
(snip)
>Of course, if it isn't tested, then whether or not you're using a
>statically typed system is only one potential problem that could exist
>in that code.  The fact that static typing might let the compiler
>catch errors in that regard in the non-tested code is only an
>incremental improvement on the chance of that code functioning
>properly once it does get used.

IME it's not all that small. If I'm using a language that does plenty
of static type checking, the compiler catches a very high fraction of
my bugs, at least if the language has a fairly expressive type system
and rarely requires you to do a widening cast or something to get
things done. Quite often, unless there's much code, by the time it
compiles it's working.

>I actually disagree about your every line of code comment.  Perhaps
>not repeatedly in regression tests or automated testing, but I do
>expect every line of code that I write to be executed during
>development at some point - even if I have to write dedicated code to
>do it.  So pretty much the same stuff that the compiler would catch my
>tests will catch.

You obviously missed my qualifier, "Unless you have a very well
designed test suite". Clearly you usually do, but that's too rarely
the case.

>Of course, if it's then impractical for some reason to include such
>tests on official regression/automated testing (not my first choice),
>you still have an exposure of a bug being introduced down the road,
>particularly in a dynamic system, but that's a consequence of having
>the ability to be dynamic, which I'll accept for the benefits.

Indeed. Some applications really benefit from such dynamism.

>>  (...)                                   In particular, with languages
>> like Lisp, without lots of (declare ...)'s I'd sometimes find type
>> errors cropping up some time after the code had been put into use.
>
>Of course, that's not much different from finding semantic or
>behavioral errors cropping up some time after code is in use, but when
>the inputs to the system begin to change.
(snip)

Yes. Most of my bugs happen to be the sort that a type checker will
catch, though. No doubt one's mileage varies.

-- Mark

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Wed Oct 18 18:48:09 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 22:48:09 GMT
Subject: Low cost web hosting with Python
References: 
Message-ID: 

http://www.free.prohosting.com gives you 50 megs and lets you do that for
free, but they won't install FastCGI for me..   I'm currently seeing if
they will allow FastCGI if I go for paid hosting
[http://www.prohosting.com], so I'll keep you posted.

Apart from that, I have found http://www.youthofamerica.net which allows
Python CGI programs, for as low as 22 dollars per month and that includes a
truckload of features, including 600 megs!  I haven't tried them, yet,
mostly because my e-mails have been unanswered.  (???)

There might be a few more, if you find anything in your searches, let me
know!

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

 wrote in message news:vrpH5.2$v3.43 at iq-lilly1...
> Any recommendations for a low cost (or even free, ok I doubt it but...)
> web hosting service that allows Python CGI scripts?
>
> For learning purposes only, not as a real web app server.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
> buckensatyahoodotcom

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Mon Oct 30 14:57:52 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 19:57:52 GMT
Subject: How do you create constants?
References:  <39FAE133.9070001@yieldworks.com>  <2nDK5.2916$QH2.270412@newsb.telia.net> <39FB0B4A.1238E8BC@yieldworks.com> 
Message-ID: 

On 28 Oct 2000 20:43:54 GMT, Quinn Dunkan 
wrote: 
>
>One real use I can think of for enforced immutable values is efficiency (e.g.,
>sather's immutable classes which enable some optimization), and even though
>python is not an efficiency-minded language, it still provides tuples (and
>immutable strings which probably also has something to do with the popularity
>of keying dicts with them).

Taking this idea to a fuller generality: -

Python objects do have the property of constancy: number, string and tuple
are immutable, list, dictionary, function, class and module are mutable.
Python names are mutable - any name can refer to any object whatsoever.

So a hyperthetical Python with the const keyword might look like this:

x = const "a string" # as current string
x = "a string"       # a true class object that's mutable
x = [1, 2, 3]        # as current list
x = const [1, 2, 3]  # as current tuple
const x = [1, 2, 3]  # x is fixed to a list whose contents can change
const x = const [1, 2, 3] # x is fixed to a const list (tuple)
x = const {1:2, 3:4} # a dict whose contents cannot change

Is this a good thing?
- It gives programmers more expresiveness when needed.
- It does not force a change in programming style if not wanted.
- It may allow substantial efficiency gains.
- It allows more consistency for things like augmented assignment.
- It may be combined with safe exec module to build other security modules.

Any potential problems?
What's the implementational cost? 

Huaiyu

From jbranthoover at my-deja.com  Wed Oct 11 10:06:05 2000
From: jbranthoover at my-deja.com (jbranthoover at my-deja.com)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 14:06:05 GMT
Subject: Newbie: How do I implement an 2 element integer array in Python�.?
Message-ID: <8s1s48$89a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hello All,
	What is the syntax for creating a 2 element integer array?  I
have looked at the Array  Module documentation,  but I am afraid that I
don?t quite understand it.  In Basic I would do something like:

Dim	MyArray(100,16)

For i = 0 to 100
	For j = 0 to 16
	      MyArray( i,j ) = MyData
        Next j
Next i

	Can someone out there give me a quick example of how this
function is done in Python?  Thank you for you time and have a nice day.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From syver.enstad at sensewave.com  Sat Oct 28 21:11:09 2000
From: syver.enstad at sensewave.com (Syver Enstad)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 02:11:09 +0100
Subject: Modules
Message-ID: <8tftp7$ld6$1@troll.powertech.no>

What is required in order to install a module? I am running Win2000Pro,
Python 2.0, win32all 135 with patch

If it's only python code, I just add the directory where it lies to the
Pythonpath. But if it is a module that relies on a pyd, what should one do?

From hei at adtranzsig.de  Fri Oct  6 10:05:27 2000
From: hei at adtranzsig.de (Dirk-Ulrich Heise)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:05:27 +0200
Subject: future of Python: Stackless, Standard -> fragmentation ?
References: <8rk7e5$47u$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no> 
Message-ID: <8rkm43$kre$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de>

"Will Ware"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:G20Dsq.Epp at world.std.com...
[...]
> Were it not for the irreconcilable differences between Stackless and
> JPython, Stackless might have made it into the 2.0 release. The people who
> make these decisions (Guido and company at BeOpen) are well aware of these
> issues and many more, and have thought them through in much greater detail
> than you or I have done. So I'll reiterate the Python community refrain
> of "in Guido we trust".

Mark Hammond wrote/is writing (?) a compiler that lets Python
run on this Microsoft VM that runs C#, if i recall correctly.
I suppose that that VM shares the same disadvantages
the Java VM has? Does anybody know more? (I suspect
it is the case because Microsoft is kind of imitating this Java VM
thing, and if i were to invent a VM, i wouldn't give it such a
feature unless somebody requested it or i was i, which i wouldn't
be if i invented a VM that wouldn't have it because it would be
so cute. Forget the last sentence.)
--
Dipl.Inform. Dirk-Ulrich Heise
hei at adtranzsig.de
dheise at debitel.net

From tim at degree.ath.cx  Wed Oct 11 21:46:44 2000
From: tim at degree.ath.cx (Tim Hammerquist)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 01:46:44 GMT
Subject: Programmer-Wanna-Be (Is Python for me?)
References: <8s2354$ep2$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8s2q2a013la@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

Alex Martelli  wrote:
> c. gvim, but that's because I'm somewhat weird (VI and its
>     relatives are soundly hated by most editor-users and deeply
>     loved by a small but vocal minority of us, see www.vim.org)

What, vi-users are a minority over here?  Heck, I might as well just go
back to clpm!  *j/k*  "soundly hated by most editor-users?"  How many of
this alleged majority even know what vi/vim is?  I do have to agree
though: we are quite vocal.  =)

> -- but
> it must be admitted that no tool, for any other language, does
> it as well as MS's VB editor [not even other MS tools]).

No harm intended, Alex.  I agree that the VB IDE is quite easy to use,
but:

	if 'ease of use' == 'power':
		Win98_power = Linux_power + WinNT_power

-- 
-Tim Hammerquist 
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you
want to test a man's character, give him power.
	-- Abraham Lincoln

From glyph at no.spam  Mon Oct 16 11:47:29 2000
From: glyph at no.spam (Glyph Lefkowitz)
Date: 16 Oct 2000 10:47:29 -0500
Subject: I want to impress the boss.
References: <8sdvc6$jqq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <39EAFE3C.7D13B8B3@engcorp.com>
Message-ID: 

Peter Hansen  writes:

> Python is not your father's scripting language.

I had to find this a little amusing, since python *is* my father's
scripting language, as well as his prototyping and server development
language, after I turned him on to it.  He discovered many of his
database interface applications experienced a 5/1 code-compression
vs. their java counterparts, and that Php/JSP/Zope actually added
"negative value" in terms of code length / bug density of his web apps
compared to pure Python.

-- 
Glyph Lefkowitz
Professional -- Software Engineer,  Origin Systems
Amateur      -- Computer Scientist, Twisted Matrix Enterprises
(My opinions are my own and do not reflect in any way on the policies
or practices of my employer, etcetera etcetera.)

From QuickCash at darrenw.com  Tue Oct 24 23:15:36 2000
From: QuickCash at darrenw.com (QuickCash at darrenw.com)
Date: 24 Oct 00 21:15:36 MDT
Subject: Check this out!!!
Message-ID: <$$hgkAbJIw$6@cc.usu.edu>

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Trust me, you'll be VERY glad you did!

Just click on this link:
http://www.ticket-trust.com/$5Fast/mailer.cfm?id=darrenw

Darren W
darren-w at darrenw.com

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 25 09:09:29 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 15:09:29 +0200
Subject: C's syntax
References: 
Message-ID: <8t6mce0it1@news1.newsguy.com>

 wrote in message
news:mailman.972471621.14727.python-list at python.org...
> Historically, two languages have been defined by people who were probably
> more mathematicians. The first one is COBOL, the second one Pascal.
> Since mathematically '=' means 'is equal to', they found it more
appropriate
> to use '=' for it's real meaning, and create new operators for assignment:

Wirth and Hopper were "probably more mathematicians" than Backus?  This
is news to me.  Anyway, Pascal just took its ':=' from Algol (as did other
languages, such as BCPL; C [its immediate predecessor B, actually] used
'=' for assignment [rather than the ':=' of BCPL, the language it was mostly
following] specifically because of PL/I influence [so says Ritchie in his
paper], and PL/I, in turn, had it from Fortran).

Backus was also on the Algol committee, as well as having invented Fortran
(it was to describe Algol syntax formally that he invented BNF, Backus
Normal
Form -- peculiarly also called 'Backus-Naur Form', when Naur explicitly
disclaimed having had anything to do with its invention).

If I had to give an example of a language invented by a mathematician, it
would be APL.  Kenneth Iverson had a Ph.D. in (applied) mathematics and
was a professor of mathematics for years before he joined IBM Research
and proceeded to invent APL.  He published books on mathematics and was
apparently the inventor of the mathematical terms "ceiling function"
and "floor function".

APL was utterly liberal in its use of rich typography, untrammeled by
the limitations of existing character sets (interestingly, another great
computer scientist with claims to "being a mathematician", Donald Knuth,
has, as the best-known software product he wrote, a typographical
composition system -- TeX; the best-known "language he invented", though,
is a fictitious _assembler_, MIXAL...).  Assignment was denoted by a
left-pointing arrow; = meant 'equality comparison'.  Some later languages
have tried mimicking that with, e.g., <-, but whether this looks like
a left-pointing arrow is highly dependent on the font in use:-).

More recently, some mathematicians who dabble in computers have leaned
towards functional programming (another idea to which Backus gave great
impetus...).  As variables cannot be 're-bound' in a pure FP language,
'assignment' per se doesn't really exist.  Such languages' closest
equivalents are forms such as:
    let x=23 in x+2
or, equivalently:
    x+2 where x=23
where the "binding", denoted by '=', means 'give this name to this
value in this scope' -- equality (of name and value) IS also implied.

Alex

From robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk  Thu Oct 19 07:25:59 2000
From: robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk (Robin Becker)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:25:59 +0100
Subject: sre negated lookaheads/behinds
References: 
 <3dpukxdae9.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <2yClrSBHpt75Ewxe@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk>

In article <3dpukxdae9.fsf at kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>, Andrew Kuchling
 writes
>Robin Becker  writes:
>> Clearly my a( is not preceded by self. in either case. However, in the
>> first case as there is not enough room for the positive look behind I
>> think it is wrongly failing to match. Is this correct?
>
>I think you've found a bug.  (First bug found in 2.0?) The ASSERT_NOT
>opcode contains this bit of code:
>     if (state->ptr < state->beginning)
>                 return 0;
>
>I think this is wrong; if the pattern is too long to match, then
>clearly the negative lookbehind succeeds, so it should simply continue
>matching the rest of the pattern.  Patch #101972 on SourceForge is a
>proposed fix; /F has to approve it first.
> 
>> I know the documentation mentions that the (?< ... ) patterns must be
>> fixed length, but nowhere does it say that negated patterns must be
>> fixed length.
>
>Er, yes, the docs do in fact say that.  But that isn't the problem
>biting you.
>
>--amk
I have no wish to be known as the bug finder general :)

Anyhow as for the documentation my intention was to make clear that
negated patterns are in general variable length ie they match anything
that doesn't match the given pattern. I suppose it's an implementation
issue why the condition patterns have to be fixed length or is it some
restriction on the re language?

As for sourceforge I can't seem to get access to login right now. Any
one else having trouble?
-- 
Robin Becker

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 30 15:35:31 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 21:35:31 +0100
Subject: A Suggestion  (please read and respond)
References:  <39FDAE7D.2259B2EC@san.rr.com>
Message-ID: <8tkm5308q5@news1.newsguy.com>

"Courageous"  wrote in message
news:39FDAE7D.2259B2EC at san.rr.com...
    [snip]
> strict class Joe:
>     i = 3
> j = Joe()
> j.j = 1
>
> >>>> Attribute error: strict classes only support instance attributes
>      which also exist as class attributes. Valid instance attributes are:
> 'i' (which is an integer in its class context)
>
> You could do something similar with every possible namespace, although
> I haven't thought out what the syntax might be for modules...
>
> Note for classes you can, by overriding the set attr method, implement
> this now.

Very, very true.  Moreover, you can do it by mix-in inheritance
if you don't need to have your own special meaning for
__setattr__ (if you do, you will need explicit delegation).

For example, this gets close:

-- cut: strict.py
class Strict:
    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
        if hasattr(self.__class__,name):
            self.__dict__[name]=value
        else:
            names = [x for x in self.__class__.__dict__.keys()
                     if not x.startswith('__')]
            names.sort()
            message = ("Class %s is strict: only attributes %s can be set" %
                (self.__class__.__name__, names))
            raise AttributeError,message
-- end of cut

>>> import strict
>>> class Mine(strict.Strict):
            a=1; b=2; c="foo"; d=()

 >>> x=Mine()
>>> x.a=23
>>> x.z='foo'
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
    x.z='foo'
  File "D:\Python20\strict.py", line 11, in __setattr__
    raise AttributeError,message
AttributeError: Class Mine is strict: only attributes ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
can be set

However, the message is misleading for _inherited_ attributes (a bit too
strict, let's say...):

>>> class Yours(Mine):
 z=45; y='wep'

>>> y=Yours()
>>> y.z='plop'
>>> y.a=23
>>> y.n=42
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
    y.n=42
  File "D:\Python20\strict.py", line 11, in __setattr__
    raise AttributeError,message
AttributeError: Class Yours is strict: only attributes ['y', 'z'] can be set
>>>

It's not true -- attribute a can be set as well, as we have just
demonstrated! -- but it ain't too hard to fix... left as an
exercise to the reader!-)  [these metaprogramming tricks
are fascinating, though I think their status is close to what
Zen thinks of metaphysical reflections -- just a mind-
obstacle in the quest for true simplicity...:-)]

Alex

Thinking up strategies for that to be arranged gets
interesting -- looking up a name in the graph of
base classes each time, recursively, is not too hard
of course:

def isnameok_inclass(klass, name):
    if klass.__dict__.has_key(name):
        return klass
    for super in klass.__bases__:
        isokthere=isnameok_inclass(super,name)
        if isokthere: return isokthere
    return None

def isnameok(object, name):
    return isnameok_inclass(object.__class__, name)

and change the line in class Strict
        if self.__class__.__dict__.has_key(name):
into
        if isnameok(self, name):

but optimizing that is more interesting.  For
example, if we can assume that a class's bases
are not changed during runtime (or if special
re-processing can be required if they do), we
could compute an '_allbases' field in a class
the first time is needed:

def allbasesof(klass):
    if not klass.__dict__.has_key('_allbases'):
        all = list(klass.__bases__)
        for super in klass.__bases__:
            all.extend(allbasesof(super))
        klass._allbases = all
    return klass._allbases

From -$Paul$- at verence.demon.co.uk  Fri Oct 27 14:52:48 2000
From: -$Paul$- at verence.demon.co.uk (Paul Wright)
Date: 27 Oct 2000 18:52:48 -0000
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> <8tc42n$lm3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <798jvs4p780j4m9n2pnddj4cti22gpn9pd@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <8tciu0$6bm$1@verence.demon.co.uk>

In article <798jvs4p780j4m9n2pnddj4cti22gpn9pd at 4ax.com>,
Dale Strickland-Clark   wrote:
>Matt  wrote:
>
>>In article <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si at 4ax.com>,
>>  dale at out-think.NOSPAM.co.uk wrote:
>>
>>> I've sort of mentioned this before and all I got was general murmors
>>> of agreement but no solution.
>>>
>>> This is such a huge irritation and time waster for me that if it isn't
>>> sorted out I can't really consider Python for future large projects.
>>
>>PythonWin is a tool for working with the Python language. The
>>usefulness of the tool has no impact on the usefullness of the language.
>
>What nonsense. Of course it does. The usefulness of the language is
>directly linked to how quickly you can churn out working code. The IDE
>is a critical factor in this.

PythonWin isn't *the* IDE, it's *an* IDE that happens to come with
ActiveState's distribution of Python. Python isn't tied to one
development environment.

I've never found IDEs to be particularly useful, myself (unless you
consider Vim to be an IDE: I don't as it lacks a debugger!) I regularly
work with large projects (in C) and I prefer to be able to write scripts
to extend the editor rather than using an all in one solution (which
probably doesn't quite do everything I want it to). If a language is
good then the lack of an IDE is not a problem. It is the
straightforwardness of Python that enables you to churn out working code
quickly, not the IDE.

-- 
----- Paul Wright ------| The trouble with doing something right the first
-paul.wright at pobox.com--| time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
http://pobox.com/~pw201 | -- Walt West

From jeremy at beopen.com  Mon Oct  9 16:23:19 2000
From: jeremy at beopen.com (Jeremy Hylton)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 16:23:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Python 2.0b2 and Redhat 7.0
Message-ID: <14818.10551.675262.718735@bitdiddle.concentric.net>

[Tim reports compile problems in intobject.c caused by
/usr/include/bits/xopen_lim.h defined LONG_BIT to be 64.]

This is a known bug with some versions of GCC and/or glibc.  The
definition for LONG_BIT is clearly wrong and you should report that
bug to whoever is responsible for it.

The Python 2.0 release candidate 1 release does not provide a
work-around, but does about the compilation with a #error if LONG_BIT
is bogus.  It seems unreasonable to maintain hacks in the source tree
to work around obvious bugs in header files.  

If you need to compile right now, I would suggest hacking the source
code yourself to set LONG_BIT to 32. 

Jeremy

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Tue Oct 24 16:30:01 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 16:30:01 -0400
Subject: Q: re
References: 
Message-ID: <3dr956ugmu.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

"Hwanjo Yu"  writes:
> >>> matchstr = re.compile(r".*homepage | .*~.*", re.IGNORECASE)
                                        ^ ^

The indicated spaces will be included in the pattern as literals, so
it will try to match "homepage ", which isn't what you want.  Use
either ...homepage|.*... or add the re.VERBOSE flag to the
re.compile() call, which will cause those spaces to be ignored.  (See
the re module's docs for a complete explanation of what re.VERBOSE
does.)

--amk

From francois.granger at free.fr  Sun Oct  8 15:03:26 2000
From: francois.granger at free.fr (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Granger?=)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 19:03:26 GMT
Subject: What is Python?
References:  <8pqhm9$6a9$1@panix3.panix.com> <3BBC75F01B2A2291.3CC54B93C0C69DED.4E021EA85330C94C@lp.airnews.net>  <8pt65c$cbs$2@newshost.accu.uu.nl>  <39C29336.71ED41AC@seebelow.org>  <39C3E664.BCEAF741@seebelow.org>  <8q5rgv$7to$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <39C6DF06.FF7F8A74@engcorp.com> <39C70642.D6CBF93A@alcyone.com> <39C710F7.4E72D963@seebelow.org> <39C86059.2F644D70@engcorp.com> <39C867B5.DFF9FFD3@seebelow.org> <8qat1u02g2j@drn.newsguy.com> <1eha5k2.kxgxg85fmpvrN@paris11-nas8-55-47.dial.proxad.net> <8rkk93028po@news2.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <1ei797z.80h2j11axifjmN@paris11-nas2-42-25.dial.proxad.net>

Alex Martelli  wrote:

> "Fran?ois Granger"  wrote in message
> news:1eha5k2.kxgxg85fmpvrN at paris11-nas8-55-47.dial.proxad.net...
>     [snip]
> > Funny, these guy don't know french ;-)
> >
> > It's worse on the "consistentness" side
> 
> But better in many ways thanks to many centuries' worth of
> effort by the Academie -- isn't the language itself spelled
> (cedillas apart) Francais (consistently with its pronunciation)
> rather than Francois (as it used to be in the 18th Century)
> thanks to the Academie's 1835 edition of its Dictionary, for
> example?  Despite my rather-libertarian leanings in most
> fields, I can't help thinking that French has been more
> helped than hindered by this specific case of "dirigisme"

Comming from an italian, I take it for a compliment ;-)

But french acad?mie did few interresting things since 1835 :-)

And we now have annual revisions from a governement agency wich dictate
the way we should speak english words in french. Like this infamous
C?d?rom for CD-Rom, or m?l for Email.

I think our Quebec cousins do it better.

But I was thinking of consistentness in the grammar and spelling of
words. And this is a real nightmare even for native french speakers like
me.

-- 
"Deux choses sont en vastes quantit? dans l'univers. L'hydrog?ne et la
connerie humaine. L'hydrog?ne est detruit dans le coeur des ?toiles."
- inconnu cit? par Noelle Adam

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Wed Oct  4 09:09:12 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 22:09:12 +0900
Subject: good python tutorials for C mother-tongues?
References: <0L2C5.39$T34.2386@news.hananet.net> <39D98690.9821F93C@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <8rfa5u$mfg$1@news.nuri.net>

Thank you all who have answered me.
As you guys recommended, I'm reading through Guido's, and hopefully
will finish it sooner or later. For the next step I've been considering
several
books and Mr. Griffin said he read "Learning Python" from beloved O'Reily.
However, I was somewhat surprised after I visited AMAZON to read some
reviews about it, which turned out to be critical and negative to some
degree.
I love O'Reily's Learning/Programming Perl and thought Learning Python
would keep up with the great style as those, but people wrote Python
versions of Learning/Programming are way below expectations.

What are your opinions?

"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39D98690.9821F93C at seebelow.org...
> June Kim wrote:
> >
> > Just as the subject goes.
> >
> > Are there any good python tutorials for
> > professional programmers who's been
> > brought up in C language?
>
> The tutorial that comes with Python (by Guido van Rossum, Python's
> creator) is very good.  I spent one full working day going through it,
> and I felt like I had a basic understanding of Python at the end of the
> day.  Then, in the next few days, I was able to write several small (but
> non-trivial) programs in Python.
>
> I bet most experienced C programmers would have a similar experience.
> The only thing that might be difficult for C (but not C++) programmers
> is Python's object-oriented features.  If you don't already know about
> OO programming, Python is probably a good language to learn it in, but
> Guido's tutorial is directed at teaching how _Python_ does OO, not at
> teaching OO concepts in general.  (There are lots of good (and not so
> good) books on that.)
>
> The next thing I did was read the book "Learning Python" cover-to-cover,
> which filled in some details.  Now, after having practiced Python for
> many months, I'm reading "Python Essential Reference" cover-to-cover.
> Again, that fills in more details.
>
> Also, I recommend you study the online documentation for Python's most
> useful modules: os, os.path, sys, and string; you will use one or more
> of these in nearly any substantial Python program.  (Python has a
> zillion modules, so I kindda had to figure out for myself which modules
> I should really "learn".)
>
> one-of-the-nicest-things-about-Python-is-that-you-can-learn-it-in
>    -layers-ly y'rs,
>
> =g2
> --
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
> Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
> Iowegian International Corporation       http://www.iowegian.com

From michael at stroeder.com  Tue Oct 17 04:45:20 2000
From: michael at stroeder.com (Michael =?iso-8859-1?Q?Str=F6der?=)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 10:45:20 +0200
Subject: ldap python, how2?
Message-ID: <39EC11A0.1C1747A8@stroeder.com>

In article <971767705.395821 at proxy.bos.nl> you wrote:
>
> Could anybody tell me where i can find the documentation of the python-ldap
> module?

See the tex files in Doc/.

> try:
> [..]
> except ldap.LDAPError:
>         pass
> [..]
> I get no error's but after i execute it, it isn't inserted........

Off course you won't get an error if you catch all LDAP-related
exceptions! Try these things manually in the Python interpreter to
get familiar with it.

Ciao, Michael.

From didier.doussaud at analis.fr  Fri Oct 27 05:40:40 2000
From: didier.doussaud at analis.fr (Didier DOUSSAUD)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 10:40:40 +0100
Subject: Python directly on SVGA screen
Message-ID: <8tbenb$9f1$1@sshuraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com>

I want to use Python to develop application to run on a PC/LINUX without
Standard Screen.

(it has an arcade monitor on a VGA card, thats work fine in DOS with
appropriate 
driver)

It seems that one solution is to use SVGALIB that can also use such a
monitor.

But I can't find SVGALIB-PYTHON library (like Perl has) ?

Thanks for information.

From donod at home.com  Thu Oct 26 03:16:06 2000
From: donod at home.com (Donald O'Donnell)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 07:16:06 GMT
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich , 
 comparison
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:
> 
> ...
> Seems a waste of effort to compute the fractional-result when
> all I'm interested in is its integer-part; I would much rather
> have a way to ask for that integer-part *directly*, with a div
> operator or function. Often, when I want that, I also want the
> remainder, in which case existing function divmod is just
> right; but I'd like to have separate div and mod too, for
> those cases in which I _don't care_ about the other part -- as
> "explicit is better than implicit", why not let me be explicit
> about 'not caring', rather than "implicitly" expressing it by
> doing nothing further with the computed-anyway value...?
> 
Sounds like we are very much in agreement here:

If you want the integer part of a division by 2, 
(your "div" operator) use:

    a/2   =>  a truncated integer result with no time wasted 
              computing a float.

If you want a mathematically correct float use:

    a/2.0  =>  a float

If you want integer quotient and remainder use

    divmod(a,2)  =>   a 2-tuple containing 2 integers

You can get whatever you want very easily and it doesn't break
any existing code.  The rule is very simple and easy to
remember:  If an expression consists of all integers, the 
result is an integer; if it contains mixed integers and
floats, the integers are promoted to floats, the calculations 
are done using floats, and the result is a float.

If the language were changed as others have suggested, we would
have:

    a/2   =>  a float

    a/2.0  =>  a float

Seems like we've lost something here.  If we needed an integer
result under these new proposals, we would have to use:

    floor(a/2)

which would promote both a and 2 to floats, perform a floating
point division, and then truncate the fractional part of the
result and convert it to an integer.

What I think some people are loosing sight of, is that the 
underlying hardware instruction set of most computers 
contains an integer division instruction which results in a
quotient and a remainder (which, BTW Alex, implies that it 
doesn't cost any more to get both even if all you want is just
the quotient or just the remainder), which is usually at least 
an order of magnitude faster than a hardware floating point 
division; and on some computers which lack floating point 
hardware, a software generated floating point result could 
take several orders of magnitude longer to compute.  

The compiled C code underlying a Python integer division makes 
use of this fast hardware integer division instruction.  If 
Python were changed so that all integer divisions were done in
floating point, we would loose the ability to make use of this 
fast hardware divide instruction.  This could have a severe 
negative impact on some compute intensive (Numpy?) programs.

Don O'Donnell

From jurgen.defurne at philips.com  Mon Oct 30 05:51:45 2000
From: jurgen.defurne at philips.com (jurgen.defurne at philips.com)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:51:45 +0100
Subject: Python scoping
Message-ID: <0056900013323926000002L062*@MHS>

grante at visi.com@SMTP at python.org on 27/10/2000 19:00:03
Sent by:	python-list-admin at python.org
To:	python-list at python.org@SMTP
cc:	 
Subject:	Re: Python scoping
Classification:	

In article <8FD6F80F0suppamanxcollectoror at 209.155.56.95>, SuppamanX wrote:

>   I have been using Python off and on for 6 months now and have grown to
>love it from the beginning. However, there is a facett of Python that
>annoys me somewhat. It is the 'scoping by indentation'. Coming from a
>background of 'formal' languages (e.g. Pascal, C, Java,...), I am
>accustomed to explicitly start and end my scopes with a braces.

Perhaps you already know this, and I'm about to sound overly
pedantic, but...

You're mixing together two different things: scoping and
statement grouping.  They're two different (though in many
languages not orthogonal) things.  In C, Pascal, Java, the
_same_ method is used for both scoping and grouping statements:
the begin/end tokens and curly-braces do two distinct things:
delimit a scope _and_ group multiple statements into a single
"statement".

In Python, indentation is used to group statements but it is
not used for scoping, as you seem to indicate.

>Can someone clarify why there is no explicit end for scopes?
>(i.e. IFs, FORs, WHILEs, METHODs, etc...)

In python, IF, FOR, WHILE do not start a new scope.  The only
thing that starts a new scope is a function definition.

Or a class definition.

Jurgen

--
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  BRILL CREAM is
                                  at               CREAM O' WHEAT in another
                               visi.com            DIMENSION...
--
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From jhylton at my-deja.com  Wed Oct 18 11:47:13 2000
From: jhylton at my-deja.com (Jeremy Hylton)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:47:13 GMT
Subject: Python 2.0 test_dbm crashes
References: <39ED591D.47F2A853@schlund.de>
Message-ID: <8skglu$vr4$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <39ED591D.47F2A853 at schlund.de>,
  Carsten Gaebler  wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Python 2.0 compiles well on my RedHat 6.2 system with the dbm module
> enabled, but "make test" crashes with a segmentation fault at
test_dbm.
> What's going wrong? I haven't had this problem with Python 1.6.

In general, please submit reports of test failures to the Python bug
tracker: http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?func=addbug&group_id=5470
It is much easier to track bugs that have been entered in the database
than it is to scan the newsgroup for them.

Does test_dbm crash all by itself, e.g.
python
>>> import test.test_dbm

Can you provide a stack trace from the debugger?
What platform and compiler are you using?

--
-- Jeremy Hylton, 

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From fpm at u.washington.edu  Sun Oct 15 17:27:40 2000
From: fpm at u.washington.edu (Frank Miles)
Date: 15 Oct 2000 21:27:40 GMT
Subject: Newbie problem with wxListCtrl
References:  <39E936E0.3BADC7D8@home.com> 
Message-ID: <8sd7gc$8bcc$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>

In article ,
Tom  wrote:
>Frank,
>
>You need to insert items, as well as setting the item's string.
>
>So, before your line:
>             self.lc.SetStringItem(i, 0, "%d" % i)
>Add a line like this:
>            self.lc.InsertStringItem(i, label);
>
>Where label is a string that serves no purposes (doesn't get displayed) that
>I've deteremined.  It's all the same on the Win32 api - this is a common
>mistake.

Thanks!  That does it (at least for the entries, column widths are of
lesser importance).

My only complaint (whine?) now is that the documentation for this is pretty
much missing.  Didn't see any reference to this on the wxpython mailing
lists, either.

Ah, but now a search yields something from the Hammond book on programming
python for win32, Ch 20:

	"For the report mode, you insert an item for the first
                 column and then set values for the remaining columns."
	[ shows some code, too ]

Too bad the book focuses on win32 stuff, and relatively little about
wxpython, AFAICT.

Thanks again...

	-frank

-- 

From bhoel at starship.python.net  Wed Oct 25 02:18:00 2000
From: bhoel at starship.python.net (Berthold H�llmann)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 08:18:00 +0200
Subject: DESPERATE FOR NEWS ON STARSHIP OUTAGE
References: <8t1rb9$8hn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Manus" == Manus Hand  writes:

    Manus> I fit the category described in the subject of this
    Manus> message. Anyone know anything about when whatever network
    Manus> problem that is preventing us from getting to
    Manus> starship.python.net and to beopen.com will be resolved?

    Manus> Anyone know if it's being worked? Can I badger someone more
    Manus> specific than the whole newsgroup?

    Manus> Please e-mail me any update you know of at
    Manus> mjhand at concentric.net.

    Manus> Thanks in advance, Manus

Please, are there any news on the starship? Haven't got any emails
from there for days. PythonLabs are accesible sometimesm, but nor
reliable. What's going on?

Greetings

Berthold

-- 
bhoel at starship.python.net / http://starship.python.net/crew/bhoel/
        It is unlawful to use this email address for unsolicited ads
        (USC Title 47 Sec.227). I will assess a US$500 charge for
        reviewing and deleting each unsolicited ad.

From bowman at montana.com  Wed Oct 11 09:33:25 2000
From: bowman at montana.com (bowman)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 07:33:25 -0600
Subject: PyQt
Message-ID: <39E46C25.67DD50A7@montana.com>

I'm trying to build PyQt with 2.0/1 on a Mandrake 7.1 installation. sip
builds and installs, and PyQt itself builds for an hour or so,
ultimately failing with:

make[3]: Entering directory `/usr3/python/PyQt-2.0/qt'
(cd /tmp;
PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.0/site-packages:/usr/local/lib/python2.0/site-packages
python -c "import qt")
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.0/site-packages/qt.py", line 16, in ?
    import libqtc
ImportError: /usr/local/lib/libsip.so.3: undefined symbol:
PyObject_Init   

Anyone know what this is about?

tia.

From paul.moore at uk.origin-it.com  Thu Oct 26 06:07:18 2000
From: paul.moore at uk.origin-it.com (Paul Moore)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 12:07:18 +0200
Subject: If I have code to share with all of you, how do I do it?
References: <39f7b26b_3@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39F7CBAF.E74DB74C@san.rr.com>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 08:10:44 +0200, Courageous 
wrote:

>Joshua Muskovitz wrote:
>> 
>> If I want to make available a small but useful set of classes, what is the
>> proper way to do it?
>
>Submit it to the Vaults of Parnassus. For that matter, check to
>see if someone there has submitted something similar also. Which
>isn't to say you shouldn't submit a duplicate; maybe your stuff
>is better.

And if you can, package it using distutils. See the Python
documentation for details.

(Standard packaging is a hobby-horse of mine. Sorry.)

Paul.

From bowman at montana.com  Wed Oct 11 19:17:15 2000
From: bowman at montana.com (bowman)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:17:15 -0600
Subject: PyQt
References: <39E46C25.67DD50A7@montana.com> <39e4d028$0$28370@reader3>
Message-ID: <39E4F4FB.44FF1DBE@montana.com>

jasper van putten wrote:
> 
> I had a simulair problem. it has something to do with libsip.so.3 which cannot
> be found. I solved it by copying libsip.so.3 from /usr/local/lib/ to /usr/lib/

I had that problem also, and made a few links to the library. I am not
at all clear on what the message about 'libtool' and LIBDIR implies. Now
it finds the library, but not PyObject_Init. The README's are generic,
and don't mention any special handling, but apparently something is
required over and above the
usual make, make install sequence.

From cobrien at Radix.Net  Mon Oct 16 10:11:00 2000
From: cobrien at Radix.Net (Cary O'Brien)
Date: 16 Oct 2000 10:11:00 -0400
Subject: Python in WWW-development?
References: <39eab13e_1@newsflash.abo.fi> <39EACDF7.A89FE1FA@infercor.no>
Message-ID: <8sf29k$2lu$1@saltmine.radix.net>

In article <39EACDF7.A89FE1FA at infercor.no>,
Paul Boddie   wrote:
>Jan Ekholm wrote:
>> 
>> Hi there!
>> 
>> I've been using Python for a while now, and I'm quite hooked to it. I was
>> mainly wondering wether there are any nice modules for Apache that would
>> allow me to write code similar to PHP? I don't want to use CGI, which works
>> fine with Python too, but I'd like to embed the code into the WWW-pages.
>> 
>> Is this possible, and is there some module or project that does/tries to do
>> this?
>
>In a persistent fashion of self-promotion (and the promotion of many other good
>people ) here's my Web modules page which might help to inform you of the
>choices in this area:
>
>  http://www.paul.boddie.net/Python/web_modules.html
>

1) Very nice chart.
2) Why leave out Zope?

-- cary

>Regards,
>
>Paul

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Thu Oct 19 21:32:49 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 20:32:49 -0500
Subject: I want to use python as PHP..
References: 
Message-ID: <59AC3E1A1FF46052.FF9574BACC3D991F.F9600CFEC3739D21@lp.airnews.net>

In article ,
Cho Yoonbae  wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I want to use python scripts as PHP on apache.
>
>How can I web-programming in python as PHP?
>
>Is there any module for web-programming?
			.
			.
			.
Several: 
.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From pete at petes-place.com  Sun Oct  8 01:16:31 2000
From: pete at petes-place.com (David T. Grove)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 05:16:31 GMT
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>  <39D19EBB.ABF18F23@engcorp.com> <39def2ae.8929692@news.davesworld.net>  <8ro52a0q1o@news1.newsguy.com> <39dfa617.25953118@news.davesworld.net> <39DF88E1.A4181BC5@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <39dffde6.48435086@news.davesworld.net>

>> die unless @d = map {"$basedir/$_"} grep {!-d && -w} readdir(dir);
>> 
>
>What in the heck does all _that_ mean?

Actually, fully extended, it means "give me a platform independent
list of writable (non-directory) files in that directory in a form
that will allow me to name the files so that I can see them from
elsewhere in my code regardless of where they are on disk, or halt
immediately because if this doesn't work you might screw something
up".

>
>> ...which is perfectly logical and readable to me as a single
>> "thought"... "get me all the filenames in that directory or halt
>> immediately because you'll screw something up".
>
>OK, _now_ I see!  9If only Perl were as readable as a natural language.
>)

If I knew of one that could express this with as little typing, I'd
switch immediately. LOL.

>if-i-were-designing-a-programming-language-with-the-express-purpose
>   -of-eliminating-lines,-i'd-pick-on-the-braces-before-the
>   -semicolons-(or-maybe-just-eliminate-both-)-ly y'rs,

(What is this. Some kinf of "japh" sig? It appears to be limited to
this newsgroup, so I assume it's python-based in some way. Still have
to figure out the "-ly y'rs".)

OH I GET IT!!! The -ly y'rs is the whole clue, ain't it? Just a
"Sincerely Yours" with python indentation. Hmmm. I'll have to try
that. Nobody laugh as I screw up my first few with something silly.

Rather more polite than a japh, I'd say.

Well, just because you can't see your beginning spaces or tabs that
define your blocks doesn't mean that they're not extra characters in
your file. They just happen to be invisible to the naked eye unless
you have CodeMagic set to see invisible characters. The semi-colon
just becomes a habit, though. You'll never know how many sentences
I've written in emails and normal (non code) documents where I've
accidentally hit the semi-colon rather than the period. In code, I
don't actually see it. My eye passes it just as much as yours passes
your spaces or tabs.

If-it-weren't-for-monotype-text,-you'd-never-catch-your-end-of-block
    -errors,-though-ly y'rs.

;-))

Did I do that right? Give a guy a break it's my first python japhsig.

From rwallace at esatclear.ie  Thu Oct  5 20:55:53 2000
From: rwallace at esatclear.ie (Russell Wallace)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 01:55:53 +0100
Subject: Organizing Python Code
References: <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7@ix.netcom.com> <39D82B17.81958D15@esatclear.ie>  <39DBB04C.1681E515@esatclear.ie> <39DBC391.EDF52FF8@my.signature>
Message-ID: <39DD2319.6ECE412E@esatclear.ie>

Greg Ewing wrote:
> 
> Russell Wallace wrote, concerning "import *":
> >
> > What problems do you see it causing?
> 
> In my experience, the main thing you lose is the ability
> to easily track down which module a given identifier is
> coming from. This can be quite important when working on
> someone else's code, or your own code some time later.

Oh, I see.  Yes, I certainly find it important to be able to track down
where an identifier is coming from; if my import usage made that hard,
that'd be a big drawback.  But...

> Recently I had occasion to work on a Borland Pascal
> program written by someone else, consisting of a few
> dozen source files spread over several directories.
> I found myself wishing that Borland Pascal had a more
> explicit import mechanism than just "uses modulename".

...I don't understand where the difficulty is?

Pascal: grep "procedure foo" or "function foo" *.pas (unless my Pascal
is rustier than I think it is :))
C: grep foo *.h
Python: grep "def foo" *.py

and equivalents for definitions of classes, global variables etc.  I
find this easily works even for hundreds of source files of other
people's code that I'm not familiar with.

-- 
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
Russell Wallace
mailto:rwallace at esatclear.ie
http://www.esatclear.ie/~rwallace

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Mon Oct  9 11:24:33 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 11:24:33 -0400
Subject: Super reps a class, not an instance
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com> <39DD865E.D97E4D09@cable.a2000.nl>  <8rkpsr$bpa$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39DE2905.1E62C763@ix.netcom.com>  <8rliak0crt@news1.newsguy.com> <39DEAD1A.1201A557@ix.netcom.com> <8rmu1e12bc1@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39E1E331.BA9B9252@ix.netcom.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> 
>
> Note that in each of this cases super is a CLASS, not an INSTANCE.
> I suspect this deep-semantic issue is somewhat more important
> than the syntax-sugary one of whether you need to type 5 or 7
> characters, no?-)  But, we can remedy that (see later...).

1) you made a lot of good points in your message
2) references from within an instance to its superclass (however that is
accomplished) are intended to access the superclass's methods/data as an
instance not a class, aren't they?  Maybe this is my smalltalk talking but from
within an instance, if I wrote, "super init" it is with the intention off
kicking-off the init method of my instance's superclass' init.  I don't feel
like I'm saying this well.

At the point that any class is instantiated all the super class' methods and
data are also instantiated, so invokations of the heirarchy without explictly
indicating references to the Class objects are by default refering to the
instantiation of self, no?

Yes, I'll leave writing OO books to the pros.

--
.tom

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct  7 17:35:02 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 23:35:02 +0200
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>  <39D19EBB.ABF18F23@engcorp.com> <39def2ae.8929692@news.davesworld.net> 
Message-ID: <8ro52a0q1o@news1.newsguy.com>

"Frank Sergeant"  wrote in message
news:MqLD5.1338$G5.25319 at read1.centurytel.net...
    [snip]
> I noticed on the web site that you said
>
> > The true beauty of perl is shown in how rapidly a program can be
created:
> > a good average for comparison is 1 line of perl for every 25 lines of C,
> > TclTk, Python, or Visual Basic, and every 100 lines of C++.

Such an assertion can only come from a mind that's totally out of
synch with reality.  400% *more* lines of code for C++ than for
C?!  That's even crazier than the 2500%-more assertion for Python
vs Perl.  If this quote is correct, then the site must clearly be one
devoted to silly humour.

Alex

From m.hadfield at niwa.cri.nz  Thu Oct  5 01:00:32 2000
From: m.hadfield at niwa.cri.nz (Mark Hadfield)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 18:00:32 +1300
Subject: setting pythonpath on Windows NT
References: <39DB997D.959281FD@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <970722032.909357@clam-ext>

"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39DB997D.959281FD at seebelow.org...
> Hi Gang,
>
> I've been trying to set my PYTHONPATH on Windows NT for my installation
> of 2.0.  Basically, I just want to add a certain directory to my
> PYTHONPATH.  After a fair amount of head-banging, I'm ready to ask you
> folks for a little help:
>
> 1.  I added the directory on to the PYTHONPATH variable using NT's
> Registry Editor.  However, it then didn't show up in the sys.path list.
> I restarted the computer, just in case that was an issue, but it _still_
> didn't show up.  The sys.path list  matched the Registry's original
> PYTHONPATH, so the Registry entry seems to be the source of it.  But
> that leaves me stumped as to what basis Python discriminates against my
> addition.

Me too, but the registry's definitely the way to go. Changes made by regedit
take effect immediately and should be picked up by Python next time it is
started. Perhaps you got the format wrong. Here is what the relevant section
of my registry says (exported by regedit). Hand-entered additions are for
HTMLgen and Site; the rest were put in by installers for Python and Win32
extensions...

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath\HTMLgen]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Python\\HTMLgen"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath\Pythonwin]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Python\\Python20\\Pythonwin"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath\Site]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Python\\Site"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath\win32]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Python\\Python20\\win32;C:\\Program
Files\\Python\\Python20\\win32\\lib"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.0\PythonPath\win32com]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Python\\Python20"

---
Mark Hadfield
m.hadfield at niwa.cri.nz  http://katipo.niwa.cri.nz/~hadfield/
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research
PO Box 14-901, Wellington, New Zealand

Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me
spread!

From arneh++ at ifi.uio.no  Wed Oct 18 11:14:03 2000
From: arneh++ at ifi.uio.no (Arne Martin =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=FCettler?=)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 17:14:03 +0200
Subject: Splitting strings
References: <39EDB7C3.1D82C920@hotmail.com> 
Message-ID: <39EDBE3B.EE74AFF4@ifi.uio.no>

Janne Sinkkonen wrote:
> 
> joonas  writes:
> 
> > i have a string "8643" how can i split it into variables:
> > firstvar, secondvar, thirdvar and fourthvar.
> >
> > Then variables would contain:
> >
> > firstvar = 8
> > secondvar = 6
> > thirdvar = 4
> > fourthvar = 3
> 
> >>> a,b,c,d='1234'

That will of course give a, b, c and d as strings, if the intention was
to get them as integers, this will do the job:
a,b,c,d = map(int, '1234')

-- 
Arne Martin

From robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Oct 18 09:29:14 2000
From: robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk (Robin Becker)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 14:29:14 +0100
Subject: sre negated lookaheads/behinds
Message-ID: 

I think the documentation is unclear/wrong about how look behinds etc
work.

wpat = re.compile(r'(? 
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:24:18 +0200, hinsen at dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr
 wrote: 
>
>So how about making this a run-time option? I'd choose exceptions by
>default and Infs and Nans by specifying a command-line option, but
>there are certainly others who would prefer it the other way round.
>What matters most to me is that the choice is possible somehow.

So there is complete harmony here from number-crunchers. :-)
Here's just a little thought about how that might be done:

In mathmodule.c define math_1_check, math_1_nocheck, math_2_check, and
math_2_nocheck.  Let math_1=math_1_check as default, if you will.

If I want a different behavior, I could do:
import math
math.math_1 = math.math_1_nocheck
math.math_2 = math.math_2_nocheck

Or even a function the sets this up for me:
math.do_not_check_fp_exception()

I don't know how much runtime overhead this would be.  Does it only involve
one extra C function call or does it involve a Python function call?

The advantage is that this is completely under user control, in a level that
is platform independent, and the user only needs to set the default once per
python session, but he could also change it as many times as he want.

Huaiyu

From ge at nowhere.none  Thu Oct  5 18:29:14 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 22:29:14 GMT
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References:  <39e0d75b.78955419@news.telus.net>
Message-ID: <_g7D5.4318$WJ3.742225@ptah.visi.com>

In article <39e0d75b.78955419 at news.telus.net>, David wrote:

>Another option is to create a HOSTS file that sends requests for ad servers
>to the garbage bin:
> 
>www.adserver.com 127.0.0.1

I've got a couple of my systems set up that way, but it can get
annoying when you get the "ERROR 4xx yadda-yadda-yadda not
found" messages splattered all over the page where the ads used
to be.  The problem is the error messages are bigger than the
ad gifs were, and end up overlapping the stuff I want.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Did I SELL OUT yet??
                                  at               
                               visi.com            

From samschul at pacbell.net  Wed Oct 18 14:11:54 2000
From: samschul at pacbell.net (Sam Schulenburg)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 18:11:54 GMT
Subject: calldll and python20
References: <8sjeu1$4h6$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8skp52$7v9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Thanks Mark,

As usual you spotted the problem. I forgot to mention that this was Sam
Rushing's CallDll code, and it was writtin in C++.  I added the
extern "C" statment just prior to the initcalldll(void) declaration.

Sam Schulenburg

In article ,
  "Mark Hammond"  wrote:
>
> > __declspec(dllexport) void
> > initcalldll(void)
>
> Is it C++ code?  Try "extern "C"" before it.
>
> Also, MSVC comes with a tool "dumpbin.exe" - try "dumpbin /exports
> calldll.pyd"
>
> Mark.
>
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From stephen at cerebralmaelstrom.com  Wed Oct  4 15:34:38 2000
From: stephen at cerebralmaelstrom.com (Stephen Hansen)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 19:34:38 GMT
Subject: Substring Detection? Pythonically?
Message-ID: <20001004.123529.97857@Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com>

Okay, say I have three different strings:
	#1: they
	#2: that
	#3: tommy

And a user gives me a string -- 'the', I want it to match to 'they'. Then
say they give me a string, 'to', I want it to match to 'tommy'. A string
of 'th' or 't' is ambiguious, and i want a list returned, ['they','that']
and ['they','that','tommy'] respectively.

What's the best way to do that? The onyl way I can think if is a massive
nested switch(if-elif), basically, since the 'words' i'm testing for will
be somewhat predefined. Another idea that just popped into my head was to
use mxTextTools instead of the nested-case, it'd do the same thing but it
seems like it'd be faster since Python isn't having to run through and
parse itself. Not sure tho :)

Note that my 'words' will end up being a rather big list, mebbe a hundred
at least, and i'll be checking against it very frequently, so want this to
be as efficient as possible.

--S

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 27 15:07:49 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 21:07:49 +0200
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <8tcjt901m5g@news1.newsguy.com>

"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
news:7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si at 4ax.com...
> I've sort of mentioned this before and all I got was general murmors
> of agreement but no solution.
>
> This is such a huge irritation and time waster for me that if it isn't
> sorted out I can't really consider Python for future large projects.

Given that your issues appear to be solely with the IDE, why don't
you propose to change development environments, but, rather,
_languages_?  Seems a non-sequitur if I ever saw one.

Previous grumblings of yours that I remember seeing about this
IDE appeared to be related to completely different issues -- hangs
in the IDE due to broken code, as I recall.  Those are architectural
issues -- similar to those which affect the VB IDE, by the way: as
it runs the code under development in the same process as the
IDE, if said code does something sufficiently disruptive (and bugs
will cause that, sometimes...), then the IDE itself hangs or
crashes.  (I consider this "proof" that an IDE must run the code
being developed under _another_, separate process -- but that
is quite another issue).

> To test a module, I import it into PythonWin using the Import/Reload
> button and then instantiate a class in the Interactive Window.
>
> After a failure, I fix the offending code and Import/Reload again.
> However, the same failure occurs showing the original line with it's
> original contents. The changed module hasn't been loaded.
>
> Why is this?

Can you reproduce this behavior "in the small"?  When this happens
to me, it tends to be a case of the module _not_ having been reloaded,
due to (e.g.) syntax errors, and me missing the feedback about it in
the statusbar.  If you have a sourcefile that reproducibly displays
this behavior (the smaller the better, of course), then it should not
be _too_ hard to diagnose the cause (and the fix is likely to be easy
once the cause is diagnosed).

> What can I do about it?

Get a reproducible bug.  Diagnosis and fix will follow -- I'll gladly
lend a hand myself, and I'm sure Hammond and others at
ActiveState are even more disposed to.  But dealing with bugs
that are not reproducible (and which _might_ be user errors...)
is just too hard.

> The only way to fix it is to quite and reload PythonWin but then you
> have to arrange windows, reestablish breakpoints and watches, etc.
> and it all takes far too long.

A consequential feature-request might be to give PythonWin a
"save-all-IDE-state"/"reload-all-IDE-state" functionality; that
would not only diminish this issue, but come in handy on many
other occasions.  Have you submitted such a feature request?

Alex

From arildh at stud.cs.uit.no  Mon Oct 23 15:43:40 2000
From: arildh at stud.cs.uit.no (Arild Hansen)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 21:43:40 +0200
Subject: Threads and Tkinter GUI ...
References: <39F40343.2978F59B@stud.cs.uit.no> 
Message-ID: <39F494EC.85AE375A@stud.cs.uit.no>

Grant Edwards wrote:

> In article <39F40343.2978F59B at stud.cs.uit.no>, Arild Hansen wrote:
>
> >what I want: When I start the xclient I first create a thread called
> >"pingServer" which is resonsible for pinging the server at regular
> >intervals. When this thread is started I start the GUI's mainloop.
> >I will then have a GUI running and a thread running in the background
> >pinging the server. If the server is not found, the pingServer thread
> >will update a global variable and a led light will turn red in the GUI.
>
> If I were you, I'd just use the after() method on the top-level window to
> schedule a function to run every 5 seconds.  It's a lot simpler than doing
> the whole thread thing.
>
> I don't seem to have an example handy, but it works something like this
> (warning, I've been doing pyGtk stuff more recently than Tkinter stuff, so I
> may have this not-quite-right, so you should probably find a real example or
> look at the Tk docs):
>
> def doSomething(*args):
>    # insert ping code here
>    win.after(5000, doSomething)
>
> win = Tk()
>
> # set up everything
>
> ...
>
> # start pinging
>
> doSomething()
>
> --
> Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  ... Get me a GIN
>                                   at               and TONIC!!...make it
>                                visi.com            HAIR TONIC!!

Thx for your response! I actually found my problem. It seemed that I started my
pingThread that eventually made a "import guimaker" statement. But when
starting the GUI, the guimaker module is used since it is a superclass. So it
seems like the pingThread and the GUI were trying to access this same module at
approximately the same time. Don't know why that shouldn't work though since
the pingThread only imported the guimaker class without accessing any of its
contents (so therefore I could safely remove it and my pingThread wroked just
fine).

Well, I'll look into the "after" thingy anyway since it seems like a more
reasonable approach in my situation. So thanks for your help. If anyone can
tell my why my program didn't work when I had "import guimaker" in my
pingThread, please tell me as I am curious.

Arild Hansen

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Mon Oct 30 14:32:00 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 19:32:00 GMT
Subject: In memory persistence - used as CGI
References: <8tk9aq$p80$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8FDD7A8F4ilcrwfrd@207.126.101.100> <8tkg6p$voh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

> Okay - I'm beginning to think that I need to use either pickle/cpickle
> or shelve (through the dbm/gdbm) for data persistence.  I'm a newbie to
> Python so I don't know what the performance ramifications are.  Any
> thoughts on which approach gives the best performance from:
> 1. Using pickle/cpickle.
> 2. Using shelve.
> 3. Using anydbm directly.

For CGI stuff, you don't have to worry so much about performance as about
concurrency.  You can not have two sessions writing to the same file or one
reading to a file another is writing to.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Thu Oct 19 22:19:49 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 02:19:49 GMT
Subject: Perl rules - Python drools
References: <8s6ksl$mea$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net> <39e77de7.28583100@news.davesworld.net> <39EEE96B.7C8C8891@holdenweb.com> 
Message-ID: <9ZNH5.352184$Gh.10679486@news20.bellglobal.com>

>  [ snipped long troll-evoked response ]
> > You might consider thinking twice before trolling, there's likely to
> > be someone in the group who can slam you harder than you wanna be, you
> > wannabe.
> YHBT. YHL. HAND.

I've read about that somewhere.  What does it mean??

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 27 09:48:51 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 15:48:51 +0200
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich ,  comparison
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com> <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com> 
Message-ID: <8tc1en0129j@news1.newsguy.com>

"Huaiyu Zhu"  wrote in message
news:slrn8vgst8.oo.hzhu at rocket.knowledgetrack.com...
> On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 07:16:06 GMT, Donald O'Donnell  wrote:
> >
> >What I think some people are loosing sight of, is that the
> >underlying hardware instruction set of most computers
> >contains an integer division instruction which results in a
> >quotient and a remainder (which, BTW Alex, implies that it
> >doesn't cost any more to get both even if all you want is just
> >the quotient or just the remainder), which is usually at least

Haven't seen Donald's post, so I take advantage of Huaiyu's
reply to answer this: _maybe_ it's just as cheap for, certain
numeric values, on a given hardware/software platform, to
compute both quotient and remainder as to compute only one
of them -- *and maybe it isn't*.  It depends on many factors.

For example, for longs, there are algorithms to compute
only one of them that can be much faster than general ones
to compute both, although I don't think Python makes any
real attempt at heavy optimization in this field, _right
now_.  In any case, allocating the space for two numbers
when only one is of interest is sure to be a sheer waste
in this case.

When I program in a very high level language, *I do not care
and do not want to care* about such issues -- this is WHY
I'm using a VHLL, remember?  If a specific programming
problem was all about working close to the machine, a VHLL
would not be the most appropriate choice.

If a CPU comes onto the market tomorrow, for which the
instruction to compute just-the-quotient is half the cost
of the one for computing quotient-and-remainder, do you
want to be using a language that has forced you to throw
away that possible speedup forevermore...?!

What I want of a high-level language is, first of all, a
way to express my intentions exactly, clearly, explicitly.
If I only want the quotient, and don't care about the
remainder, I want a way to ask for the quotient.  It's
fine (except, possibly, for performance issues) if, in
some cases (or even all) the language internally computes
the remainder too, and throws it away; this is a language
implementation issue, and potential optimizations in this
very specific area will have to be weighted against other
opportunities.  But the _language_ itself must let me
state my intentions directly -- this makes my code more
readable *and* yields easy optimization opportunities to
future processors for that language -- it's a win/win.

> >an order of magnitude faster than a hardware floating point
> >division; and on some computers which lack floating point
> >hardware, a software generated floating point result could
> >take several orders of magnitude longer to compute.
> >
> >The compiled C code underlying a Python integer division makes
> >use of this fast hardware integer division instruction.  If
> >Python were changed so that all integer divisions were done in
> >floating point, we would loose the ability to make use of this
> >fast hardware divide instruction.  This could have a severe
> >negative impact on some compute intensive (Numpy?) programs.

But if Py3000 changed so that _both_ truncating-division
and non-truncating-division operators existed, one could make
use of the appropriate one according to one's needs, and
live happily ever after.  And THAT is what I want: / for
non-truncating division, div (ideally) for truncating
division quotient, mod (ideally) for truncating division
remainder (currently existing but spelled %), divmod (the
only currently existing one) for quotient AND remainder.
(I, personally, feel no need for a polymorphic operator
or function to mean "don't truncate, unless both args are
integral, in which case do truncate" -- but I have no
objection to the existence of such an obscure peculiarity
to ease the porting of Python source to Py3000:-).

I could stand other spellings for the truncating and non
truncating division operators (or functions) -- syntax
sugar is not the key issue to me -- but I think the syntax
should be optimized towards those for which it's most likely
to be a biggie (i.e., beginners), and that those people
would likely expect / to be non-truncating, etc.  If one
holds compatibility with the past as the highest target
(which is not supposed to be the case for Py3000), then
I guess / will have to keep meaning the current peculiar
polymorphic operator, and all we need are operators for
truncating and non-truncating divisions (simulating them
today as functions is easy for div -- just divmod and a
[0] at the end:-) -- not so easy for non-truncating-division
except by introducing a non-built-in "rationals" module:-).

> A little test result.  Doing a+a one million times takes 2.05sec for
a==2.2,
> and 1.82sec for a==22.  That's about 9/8 ratio.
>
> For a/a the time ratio becomes 2.180/ 2.040, or about 16/15.
>
> Doesn't look like an order of magnitude to me.

The negligible difference between addition and division is also
interesting.  Python-internals-overhead dominating...?-)

Alex

From daimun at home.com  Thu Oct 19 09:59:30 2000
From: daimun at home.com (Alex McHale)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:59:30 GMT
Subject: Lets Talk More Threads
Message-ID: <67DH5.155361$Qx4.5103925@news1.rdc1.il.home.com>

Ok,
  Using the Thread class, which I'm extremely happy with, I've run into a
problem.  The documentation on the class suggests that you can obj.start( )
a thread multiple times.  Yet, when I do this, I get an error to the effect
of "thread already started"
What I'm needing to do is have a thread which I can resurrect over and over.

This isn't the code I'm dealing with, but it is a simple parallel (abstract,
no imports, etc)

actions = myThread( )
actions.start( )
while actions.isAlive( ):
  sleep(10)
if not actions.isAlive( ):     # this is only to emphasize that
ctions.run( ) has indeed finished
  actions.start( )

and this gives the above style error, every time.  Am I missing something
here?

From drew at level3.net  Tue Oct 17 12:15:03 2000
From: drew at level3.net (Drew Fisher)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 10:15:03 -0600
Subject: Compilation question
Message-ID: <39EC7B07.A99DC481@level3.net>

I just have a real quick compilation question.

If I'm trying to compile Python 2.0 for a RedHat 6.2 distribution, how
do I add the neat tcsh-style actions in the python interpreter?

What I mean is if I invoke python at the command prompt to get into to
an interactive Python session, how do I use the arrow keys while in the
session without getting escape characters?

Thanks,
Drew

From brendhan at bellsouth.net  Sun Oct  1 02:00:16 2000
From: brendhan at bellsouth.net (Brendhan Horne)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 02:00:16 -0400
Subject: piggies
Message-ID: 

Is there a PIG group in the south Florida area?

--
Thanks,
Brendhan

From jon+python-list at unequivocal.co.uk  Mon Oct 23 05:10:33 2000
From: jon+python-list at unequivocal.co.uk (Jon Ribbens)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 10:10:33 +0100
Subject: detrail the trailing space in print statement
In-Reply-To: <8st0m9$l15$1@news.nuri.net>; from junaftnoon@nospamplzyahoo.com on Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 06:09:12AM +0900
References: <8st0m9$l15$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: <20001023101033.B12857@snowy.squish.net>

June Kim  wrote:
> I can remove the newline character by adding a comma but cannot remove
> the trailing space which is automatically inserted at the end of the object.
> 
> Any comments?

Don't use print. Use sys.stdout.write() instead.

From dalke at acm.org  Fri Oct  6 01:08:41 2000
From: dalke at acm.org (Andrew Dalke)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 23:08:41 -0600
Subject: CIF parser
References: <39DC1A25.9E7504D8@proceryon.at>
Message-ID: <8rjn2e$ea9$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

Horst Gassner wrote:
>Does anyone know if there is a parser for the CIF (Crystallographic
>Information File) format? I only found parsers written in C language but
>none written in Python.
>
>The following URL is the one where I have looked for a parser:
>http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/cif/home.html

I haven't come across any.  That link you mentions points to HICCuP from
CCDC which requires Python, but I can't find documentation for it and
I don't like the license enough to download the package.

Then again, I've had a long dislike of CIF - more specifically, mmCIF -
so it would't take much for me to keep from downloading a CIF package.
(Eg, the CIF format is protected by patent law (!), is strongly FORTRAN
biased and doesn't really have namespaces.)  Luckily, I haven't come
across anyone in molecular modelling who's actually used the format,
even though mmCIF's been out for 6 years or so.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org

From mjackson at wc.eso.mc.xerox.com  Wed Oct 25 12:52:20 2000
From: mjackson at wc.eso.mc.xerox.com (Mark Jackson)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 16:52:20 GMT
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References: 
Message-ID: <8t7344$30c$1@news.wrc.xerox.com>

"Fredrik Lundh"  writes:
> Grant Griffin wrote:
> > Isn't nice to type "{" rather than "begin"?
> 
> try a swedish keyboard, and you may change your mind
> after you've worn out a couple of thumbs...
> 
> (if I ever meet the IBM engineer etc etc)

Heh.  I once had to use a terminal in which delete-previous-character
was a SHIFTED key.

(*And* I was translating code heavy with arithmetic on complex numbers
into Pascal.  Don't get me started. . . :-)

-- 
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
	I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
				- Wilson Mizner

From awaken71 at yahoo.fr  Sat Oct 28 05:00:33 2000
From: awaken71 at yahoo.fr (Olivier Paquay)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 11:00:33 +0200
Subject: Window extension question
Message-ID: <39fa93df$0$4491$73bec57d@news.be.uu.net>

Hi,

I am trying to make a Windows DLL extension. The main C file was generated
with SWIG. Everything compiles fine but i have a link problem

Linking...
..\..\Python16\libs\python16.lib : fatal error LNK1106: invalid file or disk
full: cannot seek to 0x39b65ad1
Error executing link.exe.

I get this message under DevStudio. I tried compiling with a Makefile in the
way described in the Python Doc but i get the same message.

Thx for any help ...

From c_ullman at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 31 14:38:06 2000
From: c_ullman at yahoo.com (c_ullman at yahoo.com)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 19:38:06 GMT
Subject: Expansion of the __debug__ and pass concepts
Message-ID: <8tn72t$8s6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi,

My company is working on a large of multi-threaded, multi-client, multi-
server application.  The majority of it is based in python.

Here is the problem.  We came up with a generalized debugging
printf that could be assigned masks for severity reporting, etc.
It looks something like this :
DBG(DBG.DM_DEFAULT, "The value for x is : %d", x)

We have encouraged our developers to use the mechanism often.  So
we have probably one of these statements for every 5 or 6 lines of code.

So, even if we tell our debugging mechanism to silence all debug
information this still has a tremendous impact on performance. The
ideal solution would be a way for us to essentially remove these
statements when -O was specified for production use.

We explored a couple of ways of doing this, I looked into bytecodehacks,
but that seemed like we would have to wrapper every function we were
doing this for.

What we ended up doing was making our own version of python that
replaces all DBG's with pass statements at parse time if the -O
is specified.  This speeds up our application considerably.
However, we don't like have a  special version of python, and this
is not very general purpose.

I think there a couple of ways we could add this functionality
in a generic way to python.

1) Create an IFDEF like, preprocessor system for python.

2) Improve the byte-code optimizer so if I did this:

if __debug__:
    def DBG(*args):
       pass

The optimizer would figure out that DBG never did anything and
optimize it away.

3) Expand the concept of pass so that it will now take arguments.
For example, all the following would now be legal python:
pass
pass(5)
pass(5, x=6)
etc...

Then we could do this in python
if __debug__:
    DBG = pass

The third option is our current favorite.  I think that this
wouldn't be overly difficult to implement, would not break any
existing python scripts, and remains true to the way python
currently works.

Any comments, suggestions?  Am I missing an easy way to do this
that exists today?  Should I write up a PEP?

TIA,

Cayce

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Thu Oct 26 21:44:01 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 21:44:01 -0400
Subject: DESPERATE FOR NEWS ON STARSHIP OUTAGE
References: <8t1rb9$8hn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <4tKJ5.68526$oN2.2731135@news20.bellglobal.com> <8FDA20DE2rcamesz@127.0.0.1>
Message-ID: <39F8DDE1.98F119D8@holdenweb.com>

Robert Amesz wrote:
> 
> Olivier Dagenais wrote:
> 
> >> We are in serious trouble, but we got enough help,
> >> so please don't send money - praying and keeping fingers
> >> crossed will help.
> >
> >DON'T send money????
> 
> Good lord - it's ANTIspam! If that message ever _touches_ any spam the
> explosion probably will take out all comp.lang.* groups. Please be more
> careful in future.
> 
> Robert Amesz
> --
> Sorry, couldn't resist.

This isn't widely known, but the antispam factor is exactly what's been
causing the trouble.  Negative entropy has been dragging "keep your own
money" mesages out of the starship at an ever-increasing rate, until
finally the CPU couldn't keep up and overheated, resulting in a rather
unpleasant grey-brown puddle of silicon slag on the machine room floor.

The only way the starship will ever come back again is if we all wish
very hard, and create a spamless zone within a four-hop diameter.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From gregj at io.com  Sun Oct 29 15:42:28 2000
From: gregj at io.com (Greg Jorgensen)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 20:42:28 GMT
Subject: getting keyboard input 1 char at a time
References: 
Message-ID: 

"John R Bedal"  wrote in message
news:aI%K5.11744$w6.5446784 at news3.rdc1.on.home.com...
> Is there a platform independant method for getting keyboard input one
> character at a time?

c = sys.stdin.read(1)

There's an example on page 79 of the book "Python Essential Reference."

--
Greg Jorgensen
Deschooling Society
Portland, Oregon, USA
gregj at pobox.com

From dont at spam.me  Tue Oct 10 01:51:22 2000
From: dont at spam.me (Chris Akre)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 05:51:22 GMT
Subject: Data distribution by frequency (one line algorithm)
References: 
Message-ID: 

Enjoy.

>>> events = {
    'obj1': 3,
    'obj2': 2,
    'obj3': 1,
    'obj4': 2 }

>>> list=reduce(lambda x,y: x+y, map(lambda t,q:map(lambda
x,t=1.*t/q[1],o=q[0]:((x-.5)*t,o),range(1,q[1]+1)),(reduce(lambda
x,y:x+y,events.values()),)*len(events),events.items()),[]);list.sort();map(l
ambda x:x[1],list)

['obj1', 'obj2', 'obj4', 'obj1', 'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj4', 'obj1']

>>> events = {
    'obj1':  5,
    'obj2':  9,
    'obj3': 18,
    'obj4':  2}

>>> list=reduce(lambda x,y: x+y, map(lambda t,q:map(lambda
x,t=1.*t/q[1],o=q[0]:((x-.5)*t,o),range(1,q[1]+1)),(reduce(lambda
x,y:x+y,events.values()),)*len(events),events.items()),[]);list.sort();map(l
ambda x:x[1],list)

['obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj1', 'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj3', 'obj4',
'obj2', 'obj1', 'obj3', 'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj3', 'obj1', 'obj2',
'obj3', 'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj3', 'obj1', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj4',
'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3', 'obj1', 'obj3', 'obj2', 'obj3']

Who says you can't write obfusicated code in Python-ly yours.

class sig:
    author = 'Chris Akre'
    email  = reduce(lambda x,y: x + y*(not y in 'SPAM'),
                    'cpSa at mPail.nAova.oMrg', '')

"Greg Fortune"  wrote in message
news:WAOD5.14689$la6.197754 at news1.onlynews.com...
>
> I have several objects that I need to arrange in a list based on their
> respective frequency.  I'm basically trying to set up an intelligent user
> modifiable timing loop.
>
> Obj1
> Frequency: 2
> Obj2
> Frequency:2
>
> should yeild
> [Obj1, Obj2, Obj1, Obj2]
>
>
> Something a little nastier like
>
> Obj1
> Frequency: 3
> Obj2
> Frequency: 2
> Obj3
> Frequency: 1
> Obj4
> Frequency: 2
>
> Should yield
> [Obj1, Obj2, Obj4, Obj1, Obj3, Obj2, Obj1, Obj4]
> or something very similar.
>
> The only idea I have on the matter is take the most frequently occuring
> object and distribute it through the list at the appropriate intervals
(i.e.
> total_size/obj1_freq).  Then, create a temp list of the available elements
> and do the same thing with the next most frequently occuring object and
the
> new list.
>
> Sound good? Or is there an easier/cleaner way to accomplish the same
thing?
>
> Anyone know of any resources I can look at for information?
Implementation
> language doesn't really matter either.
>
>
> Greg Fortune
> Eastern Washington University Student
>
> Why is it, that coding C++ just isn't quite as cool now as it was before I
> learned Python? ;o) - Me
>
>
>

From boud at rempt.xs4all.nl  Wed Oct 11 01:20:18 2000
From: boud at rempt.xs4all.nl (Boudewijn Rempt)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 05:20:18 GMT
Subject: IDE: was: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>  <39D19EBB.ABF18F23@engcorp.com> <39def2ae.8929692@news.davesworld.net>  <39dfabb5.27391600@news.davesworld.net> 
Message-ID: <8s0tai$mc1$1@news1.xs4all.nl>

Bill Hunter  wrote:
> A real IDE for Python would be wonderful.  No criticism implied of
> IDLE or PythonWin -  I'd just like to wake up some morning and find
> something that didn't make my VB-centric colleagues roll their eyes.

Go to www.archaeopteryx.com and download the latest version of Wing.
Wing is really good - best source browser I've ever seen and lots of
other good features. It's still beta, but the last beta is quite
stable.

-- 

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

From news at dorb.com  Sun Oct 22 17:22:52 2000
From: news at dorb.com (Darrell)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:22:52 GMT
Subject: class mutex
References: <39F1E7B8.D2E0F2AB@weihenstephan.org>
Message-ID: 

If your on Windows then try "win32event.CreateMutex"

--Darrell

"Prof. Peter Stoehr"  wrote in message
> Based on that, I have two questions:
> 1) Does python provide a real mutex object.
> 2) What is the use of the class mutex
>

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Thu Oct 12 16:33:41 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 16:33:41 -0400
Subject: [Python-Dev] RE: [Numpy-discussion] RE: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

[Steven D. Majewski]
> ...
> I also mostly agree with Tim, except that I'm not sure that bad or
> incomplete ieee support is always better than none at all.

This is true, because having Python is better than not having Python, and in
having Python you indeed have bad *and* incomplete 754 support on every 754
platform it runs on.  Even better, it's a subset of damaged 754 support
unique to each platform whose details can't be guessed or documented in
advance of trying it exhaustively to see what happens(*), and a subset that
can change delightfully across releases, compiler upgrades, library upgrades
and seemingly irrelevant minor config changes.  So if bad or incomplete IEEE
support is good, Python is-- here as elsewhere --the King of Languages
.

Every step of this dance is thoroughly predictable.  In this case, I'm doing
my darnedest to nudge Python its very first step towards *real* 754 support,
and getting dumped on for it by a 754 fan.  Simultaneously, the "old guard"
defends their lifestyle against new-fangled ideas , asking for
protections unaware that 754 *requires* they get a better form of the
protections they seek than they've dreamed of so far.  It appears that
nobody on either side has actually read the std, and I've become the very
754 Storm Trooper I used to despise.  Computer life is great .

all-it's-missing-is-variety-ly y'rs  - tim

(*) Quiz:  *if* you can manage to trick Python into creating a NaN on your
particular 754 platform, does the Python expression NaN == 1.0 return true,
false, or raise an exception?  Answer before you try it.  Then try it on
enough 754 platforms until you give up trying to guess in advance.  NaN ==
NaN is predictable in Python, and is the one 754 feature Python guarantees
won't work correctly on any 754 platform (although I've heard that it loses
this predictability when run using NumPy's flavor of comparisons instead of
core Python's).

From cjensen at bioeng.ucsd.edu  Mon Oct  9 20:39:58 2000
From: cjensen at bioeng.ucsd.edu (Curtis Jensen)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 17:39:58 -0700
Subject: Why can't instance methods be pickled?
References: <39DE58F3.3A582AAA@lbl.gov>
Message-ID: <39E2655E.9D1D3F00@bioeng.ucsd.edu>

"Nicholas K. Sauter" wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
>     This very simple example fails because instance methods cannot be
> pickled:
> 
> import pickle,sys
> 
> class foo:
>   def __init__(self):
>     self.advertise = self.message
>   def message(self):
>     print "I am spam"
> 
> f = foo()
> f.advertise()
> pickle.dump(f, sys.stdout)
> #raises a pickle.PicklingError
> 
>     Is there a fundamental reason why instance method pickling is not
> implemented? Has anyone written code to solve this problem?
> 
> Nick Sauter

"Attempts to pickle unpicklable objects will raise the
PicklingError...."
http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-pickle.html

-- 
Curtis Jensen
cjensen at bioeng.ucsd.edu
http://www-bioeng.ucsd.edu/~cjensen/
FAX (425) 740-1451

From timwkelly at my-deja.com  Fri Oct  6 16:58:14 2000
From: timwkelly at my-deja.com (timwkelly at my-deja.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 20:58:14 GMT
Subject: Python on VMS
References: <8qvn64$5gi$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8i8WxEA8lS15EwwX@gol.com> <8r6qtm$96o$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8r7ku8$pjf$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8ra5gk$jqb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8rled2$s0l$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <8ra5gk$jqb$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
  timwkelly at my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8r7ku8$pjf$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Uwe Zessin  wrote:
> > In article <8r6qtm$96o$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
> >   timwkelly at my-deja.com wrote:
> > > In article <8i8WxEA8lS15EwwX at gol.com>,
> > >   Ian Parker  wrote:
> > > > In article <8qvn64$5gi$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, timwkelly at my-deja.com
> > writes
> > > > >Been trying to build Python on VMS.  Used the
> > > > >Port for version 1.5.2. I keep getting access
> > > > >violations in PTHREAD$RTL.
> > [...]
> > > > You could download the object modules and link them to create
the
> > > > executables:
> > > > http://decus.decus.de/~zessin/python/obj.html
> > > >
> > > > It worked for me
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Ian Parker
> >
> > > Tried to use the object modules.  was able to link but still got
an
> > > access violation in ptrhead$rtl.
> >
> > There are incompatibilities between the thread implementations.
> > That's the reason there is now threaded + non-threaded object code
for
> > OpenVMS VAX.
> > I'll build build non-threaded ones for Alpha next week and make them
> > available.
> >
> > --
> > Uwe Zessin
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Before you buy.
> >
>
> Thank You
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>

Tried to download the new objects and I get an error.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From Bill.Scherer at VerizonWireless.com  Tue Oct 17 11:07:13 2000
From: Bill.Scherer at VerizonWireless.com (Bill Scherer)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:07:13 -0400
Subject: Printing multiple lines
References: <39EC67FE.447693B3@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <39EC6B21.42156DC6@VerizonWireless.com>

These two will work:

print "firstline\nsecondline\nthirdline"

or

print """firstline
secondline
thirdline
""" # note the triple quotes

joonas wrote:
> 
> How can i print multiple lines for example
> 
> #######
> firstline
> secondline
> thirdline
> #######
> 
> i tried
> 
> print "firstline
> secondline
> thirdline"
> 
> but it didnt worked.
> 
> Joonas
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

-- 
William K. Scherer
Sr. Member of Applications Staff - Verizon Wireless
Bill.Scherer_at_VerizonWireless.com

From dag at orion.no  Thu Oct 26 09:30:18 2000
From: dag at orion.no (Dag Sunde)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 13:30:18 GMT
Subject: python and distributed object like CORBA
References: 
Message-ID: 

I can recommend omniORB from AT&T, which I have used myself
with success in a couple of commercial applications.
You find it here:
http://www.uk.research.att.com/omniORB/omniORBpy/

All the troubles I ran into were solved by this ng within
hours...

Also check out the "networking.Remote and Distributed"-section of
"Vaults of Parnassus":
http://www.vex.net/parnassus/apyllo.py/126307487.549099265

HTH...

Dag.

"Hwanjo Yu"  wrote in message
news:EntJ5.5080$l12.80649 at vixen.cso.uiuc.edu...
> Hi,
>
> Is there a distributed object supported for python like CORBA or RMI ?
> If not, isn't there any way of implementing it in python ?
> Thanks in advance.
>
>

From gibert at home.com  Wed Oct 11 13:34:42 2000
From: gibert at home.com (Ricardo Gibert)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:34:42 GMT
Subject: Newbie: How do I implement an 2 element integer array in Python..?
References: <8s1s48$89a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

I couldn't find anything in the online docs about multi-dimensional arrays.
Apparently, you can only create one dimensional arrays, but you can still
"simulate" a 2 dimensional array:

>>> import array

To create a 3 by 5 array with elements initialized to the 4 byte value 0:

>>> MyArray = array.array('l',[0]*3*5)
>>> MyArray
array('l', [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0])

Now lets change the last element 2,4 to the value one.

>>> i,j = 2,4
>>> MyArray[i + 3*j] = 1
>>> MyArray
array('l', [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1])

Note that the 'l' is the lower case of the letter "L".

I'm a Python newbie too. I hope this helps.

 wrote in message
news:8s1s48$89a$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> Hello All,
> What is the syntax for creating a 2 element integer array?  I
> have looked at the Array  Module documentation,  but I am afraid that I
> don't quite understand it.  In Basic I would do something like:
>
> Dim MyArray(100,16)
>
>
> For i = 0 to 100
> For j = 0 to 16
>       MyArray( i,j ) = MyData
>         Next j
> Next i
>
>
> Can someone out there give me a quick example of how this
> function is done in Python?  Thank you for you time and have a nice day.
>
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

From jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de  Tue Oct 31 16:23:48 2000
From: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de (Janko Hauser)
Date: 31 Oct 2000 22:23:48 +0100
Subject: Expansion of the __debug__ and pass concepts
References: <8tn72t$8s6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <87bsw0ogbf.fsf@lisboa.ifm.uni-kiel.de>

Have you tried to use assert? It looks for a logical expression, I
have note tested this, but I think the expression evaluation is
skipped if python runs with -O. Yeah I think it the case.

import time

def bigtest():
    time.sleep(10)
    return 1

a=time.time()
print '0'
assert bigtest() == 1
print time.time()-a

gives:
@porto >python test_a.py
0
9.99659597874
@porto >python -O test_a.py
0
0.0057909488678

HTH,
__Janko

-- 
  Institut fuer Meereskunde             phone: 49-431-597 3989
  Dept. Theoretical Oceanography        fax  : 49-431-565876
  Duesternbrooker Weg 20                email: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de
  24105 Kiel, Germany

From jim at digicool.com  Thu Oct 12 18:13:29 2000
From: jim at digicool.com (Jim Fulton)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 18:13:29 -0400
Subject: Zope availability (was Re: pythonlabs.com website down -- 2.0c1 
 still available!)
References: <200010102316.SAA20071@cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com>   <8s143u$2eq$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no> <39E4D842.3BEBCB32@digicool.com> <39E54171.8181501F@engcorp.com>
Message-ID: <39E63789.7ED224EE@digicool.com>

Peter Hansen wrote:
> 
> Jim Fulton wrote:
> >
> > Thomas Weholt wrote:
> > > The main Zope homepage was also down for a long time some
> > > weeks ago. It doesn't exactly do a good job at marketing Zope as a viable
> > > platform. Could we get some info on how the problem occurred so we can avoid
> > > it?
> >
> > We sometimes use zope.org as a bit of petri dish. For example,
> > during the time you refered to above, we used zope.org
> > to test (and, as it turned out, debug) a new release of ZEO.
> > Maybe we shouldn't use zope.org this way, but it sure is convenient
> > having a site that gets hit hard to try new software out on. :)
> 
> My opinion is that you (and we, by extension) would be better off *NOT*
> using zope.org this way, as the various times it has been offline,
> though possibly all due to experimentation, have combined to give me a
> moderate concern about how suitable Zope might be for "high
> availability" applications. 

There are many who agree with your sentiment. :)

(snip)

> Although www.pythonlabs.com was apparently offline only briefly, I was
> looking for it at the time.  I have to agree with Thomas' warning that
> this kind of thing, while perhaps helping Zope *development*, does not
> help Zope marketing.

The PythonLabs problem was not due to anyone experimenting with
Zope, or due to a Zope failure. It was due to a bug in an application.

> I'm sure there are many, many of us who would be only too happy to help
> beat up on a victimize-me.zope.org site which was explicitly made
> available as a target for testing new releases of Zope technology... :-)

This is certainly something we should consider.

Thanks for the input.

Jim

--
Jim Fulton           mailto:jim at digicool.com   Python Powered!        
Technical Director   (888) 344-4332            http://www.python.org  
Digital Creations    http://www.digicool.com   http://www.zope.org    

Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email
address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my
permission.  Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will
result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for
repeats.

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Sun Oct  1 07:32:01 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 04:32:01 -0700
Subject: Python2.0 beta 2 on MacOSX/Darwin
Message-ID: <007e01c02b9b$38c2ce30$0101a8c0@jayk3>

libtool is the Gnu /bin/sh script for portably building shared libraries,
across various *nix platforms and presumably compilers (presumably Gcc
supports a unified command line syntax and such a script would not be needed
if everyone targeted Gcc..)

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin von Loewis 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Sunday, October 01, 2000 3:26 AM
Subject: Re: Python2.0 beta 2 on MacOSX/Darwin

...
>B. An alternative is to link extension modules with the Python bundle.
>   It seems configure.in already has an option --with-next-framework,
>   which generates some files through libtool(1) (whatever that is),
>   and links these files into extension modules.
...

From see at my.signature  Sun Oct 29 22:01:32 2000
From: see at my.signature (Greg Ewing)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 16:01:32 +1300
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] ?
References:  <8t9d2m$lqo$2@news.wrc.xerox.com> <39F8DB20.C9FBE4ED@holdenweb.com> <2Z7K5.126092$g6.57970438@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>
Message-ID: <39FCE48C.47AEF81A@my.signature>

Rainer Deyke wrote:
> 
> It should be noted that kids in school typically learn integer division with
> remainder before they learn about fractions or decimal numbers.

However, in my experience that kind of division is not
all that useful in real life. The solution to the
problem of dividing 5 apples between 2 people is
most often (provided someone has a pocket knife)
"2 and a half apples", not "2 apples and throw the
other one away", as your primary school teacher
would have told you.

Let's-ditch-our-computers-and-go-back-to-using-
those-little-coloured-rods-of-different-lengths-ly,

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,	  
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:	  
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg

From alfred6465 at my-deja.com  Mon Oct  9 16:07:43 2000
From: alfred6465 at my-deja.com (alfred6465 at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 20:07:43 GMT
Subject: NameError
Message-ID: <8rt8i9$hlv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hello,

I am a new Python user and am having some
problems.  I have a file called test.py that
looks like the following:

import struct

def unpack_data():
   f=open('C:\\cudacom\\result\\1.rp1').read()
   start = 42
   stop = (struct.calcsize('6s') + start)
   name = struct.unpack('6s', f[start:stop])
   grab_data(start,stop)
   print_results(name,desc,data)
   f.close()

def grab_data(start, stop):
   header = 5
   start = stop+header
   stop =  struct.calcsize('sh')+start
   desc, data = struct.unpack('sh', fstart:stop])
   return desc,data

def print_results(name,desc,data):
   print 'Variable Name: %s' %name
   print 'Descriptor: %s' %desc
   print 'Data: %s' %data
   print ""
   return

If I open up PythonWin and type 'import test' at
the prompt I get the following error.
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "GetInfo2.py", line 42
     return (descriptor, data)
     ^
 SyntaxError: invalid syntax

If I comment out the return statement in
grab_data and the print_results call I still get
an error.  It looks like this.

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 0, in ?
  File "GetInfo2.py", line 10, in unpack_data
    grab_data(start,stop)
NameError: grab_data

Can anyone help me?  I am very confused as to
what I am doing wrong.

Thanks in advance.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From bwinton at tor.dhs.org  Fri Oct 13 23:00:25 2000
From: bwinton at tor.dhs.org (Blake Winton)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 23:00:25 -0400
Subject: Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200010140300.XAA01279@tor.dhs.org>

In comp.lang.python, you wrote:
>Martin should take that to heart, and thanks, but I don't need it:  I'm a
>paid corporate apologist now!  There is *nothing* in the Python world I
>won't be relentlessly cheerful about.  Go ahead.  Stab me!  I won't bleed.
>Harder!  Ha ha!  I laugh at adversity, I sneer at impossible odds, I am
>Python.

You haven't heard of Henry Rollins, have you?

Later,
Blake.
-- 
9:40pm up 52 days, 21:07, 2 users, load average: 0.02, 0.09, 0.07

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Mon Oct  9 10:44:41 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 09 Oct 2000 16:44:41 +0200
Subject: Distributing Python
References: <39E1B493.A0EC8F3@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: 

Sreekant Kodela  writes:

> I was wondering if there is a url which will explain various ways of
> packaging a python / PMW / Tkinter application as a single executable
> for windows. Any relevant info would do.

Since any relevant info would do, why not start with the FAQ:

http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html

A number of questions deal with packaging there.

Regards,
Martin

From mikael at isy.liu.se  Tue Oct  3 11:17:37 2000
From: mikael at isy.liu.se (Mikael Olofsson)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 17:17:37 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

On 03-Oct-00 Peter.Rupp at ual.com wrote:
 >  So, my next thought was to simply create thousands of 1-meg strings on 
 >  the fly using "exec".  I could then determine very accurately when the 
 >  process ran out of memory.  (Of course, I could probably write this 
 >  easily in C, but it would be more hastle than it's worth at this point.

Well... FWIW, on my machine I get the following.

>>> a='a'
>>> b='a'
>>> c='a'
>>> d='a'
>>> id(a),id(b),id(c),id(d)
(830696, 830696, 830696, 830696)

But I also get the following.

>>> a=2*'a'
>>> b=2*'a'
>>> c=2*'a'
>>> d=2*'a'
>>> id(a),id(b),id(c),id(d)
(878200, 878280, 878320, 878360)

It seems that as long as you choose long enough strings (2), they do 
wind up in different memory locations.

Someone with deeper knowledge can probably explain why, and tell you
whether you can depend on this behaviour.

/Mikael

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From kern at caltech.edu  Tue Oct 17 00:40:14 2000
From: kern at caltech.edu (Robert Kern)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 21:40:14 -0700
Subject: libpython20.a for building extensions using mingw32
References: <8sep0l$6g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8sgl3n$6bo@gap.cco.caltech.edu>

In article <8sep0l$6g5$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, Hamish Lawson
 wrote:

> I'm trying to use Robert Kern's py-mingw32 approach
> (http://starship.python.net/crew/kernr/mingw32/Notes.html) to build an
> extension using mingw32, but for Python 2.0 rather than Python 1.5.2.
> Instead of libpython15.a I'm guessing I would need a libpython20.a.
> Where would I get that or how would I build it?

I don't have a platform to test any of this on or look at the files 
themselves, but ...

If the Python 2.0 Windows binary distribution is anything like 1.5.2's, 
then there will be a "libs" subdirectory in the main Python directory.
There will be a file "libs/python20.lib" or something similar. In the
file http://starship.python.net/crew/kernr/mingw32/Py-mingw32-tools.zip ,
there is a script lib2def.py that will extract the symbol names from 
python20.lib and create a DEF file. It calls the program nm.exe which comes
with your mingw32 distro.

Then use dlltool.exe (also from mingw32) to create the libpython20.a . The 
exact call is in the Makefile in the archive mentioned above. If you have
GNU make and a python interpreter in your PATH, then you can just edit
the Makefile to reflect the new version, move it into the libs subdirectory, 
and run "make all".

One problem you might run into is that lib2def.py won't catch all of the 
symbols. I wrote lib2def.py as a hack that worked for 1.5.2, and some 
important symbols in 2.0 may be left out. Give it a shot, and use the bare
output of "nm -Cs python20.lib" to see if you've missed anything.

Good luck.  I'd like to hear from you if you succeed.

> Hamish Lawson

-- 
Robert Kern
kern at caltech.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
 Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."

From nksauter at lbl.gov  Fri Oct  6 18:57:57 2000
From: nksauter at lbl.gov (Nicholas K. Sauter)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 15:57:57 -0700
Subject: Why can't instance methods be pickled?
Message-ID: <39DE58F3.3A582AAA@lbl.gov>

Hello all,
    This very simple example fails because instance methods cannot be
pickled:

import pickle,sys

class foo:
  def __init__(self):
    self.advertise = self.message
  def message(self):
    print "I am spam"

f = foo()
f.advertise()
pickle.dump(f, sys.stdout)
#raises a pickle.PicklingError

    Is there a fundamental reason why instance method pickling is not
implemented? Has anyone written code to solve this problem?

Nick Sauter
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From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 20 12:23:53 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:23:53 +0200
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython
References:   <39EFF829.500C37@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <8sprsr028jb@news1.newsguy.com>

"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39EFF829.500C37 at seebelow.org...
> entropia wrote:
> >
> > Then I can have PyPepsi or PyNike as trademark?
>
> Maybe not...but since "Java" was a term for coffee before it was a
> trademark for a computer programming language it may not be any
> different than "PyCoffee", "PyTea", and "PyMocha".
>
> the-pepsi-people-and-the-nike-people-are-smarter-than-the-sun*
>    -people-ly y'rs,

And "Nike" was a term for "victory" (in Greek) from since
well before anybody raised coffee in the island of Java.
So why would it be 'more protectable' as a trademark...?

Alex

From allanwind at mediaone.net  Fri Oct  6 13:42:13 2000
From: allanwind at mediaone.net (Allan M. Wind)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 13:42:13 -0400
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
In-Reply-To: <39DDEC25.CEE0E16A@gssec.bt.co.uk>; from alan.gauld@gssec.bt.co.uk on Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 04:13:41PM +0100
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com> <39DDEC25.CEE0E16A@gssec.bt.co.uk>
Message-ID: <20001006134213.B29352@digit-safe.dyndns.org>

On 2000-10-06 16:13:41, Alan Gauld wrote:

> line = fp.readline()
> while line:
>    # do something wiyth line
>    line = fp.readline()

Which is a well-known construct.

/Allan
-- 
Allan M. Wind			email: allanwind at mediaone.net
P.O. Box 2022			finger: awind at digit-safe.dyndns.org (GPG/PGP)
Woburn, MA 01888-0022		icq: 44214251
USA

From dgrisby at uk.research.att.com  Wed Oct 25 05:48:09 2000
From: dgrisby at uk.research.att.com (Duncan Grisby)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 09:48:09 GMT
Subject: Q: python and distributed object like CORBA
References: 
Message-ID: <8t6a8p$dqq$1@pea.uk.research.att.com>

In article ,
 Hwanjo Yu  wrote:

>Is there a distributed object supported for python like CORBA or RMI ?

Many. There are several CORBA implementations:

  omniORBpy:    http://www.omniorb.org/omniORBpy/
  Fnorb:        http://www.fnorb.com/
  ILU:          ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html
  orbit-python: http://projects.sault.org/orbit-python/

I can't comment on which is best, since I wrote omniORBpy.

There are also two Python-specific systems, which are more like RMI:

  DOPY: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~proteus/dopy/welcome.html
  Pyro: http://www.xs4all.nl/~irmen/ap/pyro.html

Cheers,

Duncan.

-- 
 -- Duncan Grisby  \  Research Engineer  --
  -- AT&T Laboratories Cambridge          --
   -- http://www.uk.research.att.com/~dpg1 --

From sh at ttsoftware.co.uk  Fri Oct 27 04:27:04 2000
From: sh at ttsoftware.co.uk (Steve Horne)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 09:27:04 +0100
Subject: Python scoping
References:  <8tab8k024o3@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 00:28:15 +0200, "Alex Martelli"
 wrote:

>I recall that in PL/I you may, if you wish, recall the label in
>the END clause (or was it Ada...?  darn -- big languages, long
>ago...):

Ada certainly allows some types of blocks to be named, and allows you
to use those names (for instance) to exit out of multiple layers of
loop in one go (sound like a hidden goto?)

You must specify the block name for 'end' with procedures and
functions, but cannot (except comments) for ifs, loops etc.

Modula-2 and pascal, IIRC, do not allow named blocks.

C, C++ and Java certainly not.

I've never used PL/1.

-- 
Steve Horne
sh at ttsoftware.co.uk

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Wed Oct 25 20:23:34 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:23:34 GMT
Subject: popen2.popen2,3,4 from Python 2.0 on NT 4.0 SP5
References: <39F767B2.266F4965@home.com>
Message-ID: 

Are you using a standard command interpreter (ie, cmd.exe)

Eg, I try your exact code ('sqlplus' isnt installed here, so it
fails):

Python 2.0 (#5, Sep 12 2000, 14:13:44) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import popen2
>>> x=popen2.popen3('sqlplus pf/pf at dds230pf3 @rowcount.sql')
>>> x[0].readline()
''
>>> x[0].readline()
''

So I have no idea why a simple test of a command failing doesnt work
for you?

> 1.  Why does it hang?  This seems like a bug.  It should return with
> some known response, or nothing.

No idea.

> 2.  Is there a way to find out how many characters are left in the
> stdout/stderr buffers?

Umm - can't recall if a portable way exists?  However, you should
definitely not get hangs.

> 3.  This test is for winnt.  Is unix different, and should I use
> win32all to workaround (I would rather not, if possible)?

win32all has the exact same code as python 2.0 for this.

> 4.  Should I use threading, and use another thread to see when the
> readline() fails to return (messy)?
> 5.  Is this a shelled process state problem, or a buffer state
problem?
> 6.  Does this problem throw any exception?

It simply shouldn't behave like this, and I don't believe it will for
most other people.

Actually - my testing is Win2k - maybe some other NT4 users can chime
in (although I imagine they must be getting rarer - win2k is much
nicer)

Mark.

From robin at alldunn.com  Fri Oct 27 00:36:09 2000
From: robin at alldunn.com (Robin Dunn)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 04:36:09 GMT
Subject: Where is wxPython?
References: <39E33757.E9F81F9C@cicei.ulpgc.es>   <8t216i$dvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t54hu$hl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t77t1$ndf$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8t7isq$1qj$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8tb0np$qfo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  "Jeff Kunce"  wrote:
> > > > Actually, I believe that you should be able to put the DLL in
the
> > > > same directory as the DLL which uses it
>
> > > I'm sure I tried that before and it didn't work...  But it *is*
> > > working for me now with both 1.5.2 and 2.0.
>
> I am also sure that there is/was an issue there. Perhaps it
> was only some of the special MS DLL's (MSVCRT.DLL et al)
> that must  live in the system directory?
>
> It might be a good idea to check with a windows guru
> (Mark Hammond?) to figure out what the DLL path issue
> is all about.
>

Well, I'm about to have a trial by fire over this issue as I just
released a new set of installers that put the wxWindows DLL in the
wxPython package directory...

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr  Sun Oct 15 15:04:27 2000
From: hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr (Konrad Hinsen)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 21:04:27 +0200
Subject: [Python-Dev] RE: [Numpy-discussion] RE: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, 
 overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
In-Reply-To: <39E7B554.29A168E3@jps.net> (message from Chris Barker on Fri, 13
	Oct 2000 18:22:28 -0700)
References:  <39E7B554.29A168E3@jps.net>
Message-ID: <200010151904.VAA32561@chinon.cnrs-orleans.fr>

> I've come to Python from MATLAB for numerics, and I really appreciated
> MATLAB's way of handling all this. I don't think MATLAB has true 754

MATLAB is fine for simple interactive data processing, and its
behaviour is adapted to this task. I don't think anyone would use
MATLAB for developing complex algorithms, its programming language
isn't strong enough for that. Python is, so complex algorithms have to
be considered as well. And for that kind of application, continuing a
calculation with Infs and NaNs is a debugging nightmare.

> I have not yet heard a decent response to the question of what to do
> when a single value in a large array is bad, and causes an exception.

I'd like to have at least the option of raising an exception in that
case. Note that this is not what NumPy does today.

> >> sqrt(-1)
> ans =
>	   0 + 1.0000i
>
> Hey! I like that! Python is dynamic, why can't we just get the actual
> answer to sqrt(-1), without using cmath, that always returns a complex ?

For the same reason that makes 2/3 return zero instead of a float
division result. Like C or Fortran, Python treats integers, floats,
and complex numbers as different data types. And the return type of a
function should depend only on the types, but not the values, of its
parameters (for consistency, not because of any implementational
limitation). So sqrt(a) for a of type float can either always return a
float (math, Numeric) and crash for negative arguments, or always
return a complex (cmath).

The "right" solution, in my opinion, would be to have a single
"number" type of which integers, float, and complex numbers are simply
different internal representations. But such a change cannot be
introduced without breaking a lot of code.

Konrad.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen                            | E-Mail: hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr
Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS) | Tel.: +33-2.38.25.56.24
Rue Charles Sadron                       | Fax:  +33-2.38.63.15.17
45071 Orleans Cedex 2                    | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/
France                                   | Nederlands/Francais
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From ewalstad at yahoo.com  Tue Oct  3 18:14:34 2000
From: ewalstad at yahoo.com (Eric)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 15:14:34 -0700
Subject: Newbie: How to convert "<" to "<" ( encoding? )
References:  
Message-ID: <9UsC5.27$fn2.59024@news.pacbell.net>

> replace (str, old, new[, maxsplit]) -> string
Thanks Bjorn.  That DOES take care of the two examples I gave.  However, I
am trying to implement something that will handle all the encoding needed to
make a string "HTML friendly."  I'm sorry, there is a name for the kind of
encoding I am trying to do, but I don't know what that name is (HTML
encoding?).

Thanks,

Eric.

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Wed Oct  4 12:06:14 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:06:14 -0700
Subject: 4-byte string to integer
Message-ID: <001801c02e1d$063fd5f0$0101a8c0@jayk3>

Here's one *extremely ineffiicient* piece of code I was using a while ago:

def Reverse(s):
# This works for any sequence type;
# it returns a new sequence / inefficient / recursive
 if (len(s) < 1):
  return s
 else:
  return s[len(s) - 1:] + Reverse(s[:len(s) - 1])

def unpack(bytes, offset = 0, size = -1):
# little endian integer from string, very inefficiently
 if size == -1:
  size = len(bytes)
 return reduce(
  lambda resultSoFar, next: (resultSoFar << 8) | (0xff & ord(next)),
  Reverse(bytes[offset : offset + size]),
  0
  )

at the time Python had no unicode support and it seemed pretty broken that
The way to do binary i/o was to read stuff into strings, not arrays of bytes
(or did I misunderstand something?).

It's from http://home.netcom.com/~jaykrell/1Pecoff.py that reads in a just
little information about Win32 "pe/coff" files..till I got sick of Python..

(the code is doing file type detection, it is not based on filename
extension;
the pretty print is pleasantly data driven using Python's
__class__/__name__/__dict__ features)
Z:\dev\Jk\src\imp3>1pecoff.py \msdev5\vc\lib\kernel32.lib
Library
(
)

Z:\dev\Jk\src\imp3>1pecoff.py Z:\msdev5\vc\lib\BINMODE.OBJ
Object
(
)

Z:\dev\Jk\src\imp3>1pecoff.py Z:\msdev5\vc\bin\LIB.EXE
Executable
(
        msdosStub = string(...)
        header = Header
        (
                numberOfSymbols = int(0)
                sizeOfOptionalHeader = int(224)
                characteristics = int(271)
                numberOfSections = int(5)
                filePointerToSymbolTable = int(0)
                timeDateStamp = int(853994404)
                machine = int(332)
        )
        peOffset = int(128)
)

It even includes a little "struct" package (about seven lines) since the
standard Python stuff does not enable specifying exact offets and sizes like
I needed.

For big endian, remove the "Reverse" call.

 ..Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: j vickroy 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 8:38 AM
Subject: 4-byte string to integer

>How can a 4-byte string be converted to an unsigned integer using
>Python?
>
>The byte order may be either big or little endian.
>
>Thnaks
>--
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From robinhat at rhk.dk  Thu Oct 12 05:41:59 2000
From: robinhat at rhk.dk (Lars Hoeyrup Jensen)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:41:59 +0200
Subject: Bypassing the proxy cache
Message-ID: <39E58767.FA05537E@rhk.dk>

Is it possible to do an urlopen() and _not_ using the cached files that may
reside in the proxy's cache? I want something similar to pressing shift-reload
in the netscape browser; this bypasses the proxy cache and goes directly to the
specified website. Can you do that in Python?

I'm sitting behind a transparent Squid proxy.

Thanks in advance,
Lars H?yrup Jensen

From effbot at telia.com  Sat Oct  7 16:12:39 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 20:12:39 GMT
Subject: best way to store dbm records?
References: <8rnu4o$emc$1@bob.news.rcn.net>
Message-ID: 

Michael wrote:
>  dbmrecord = (a,v,d,x,o,r,f)
>  db[p] = `dbmrecord`
>
> Then, to get a record out I eval it like this:
> 
>  dbmrecord = eval(db[key])
>  (a,v,d,x,o,r,f) = dbmrecord
> 
> Will this work reliably or is there a better way?

as long as you stick to simple types, and trust whoever
is putting data in the database...

(if someone can mess with your database, that "eval" call
can do things you didn't expect -- including erasing all your
files, sending nasty mail, etc).

:::

somewhat safer (and more efficient) alternatives include:
http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-pickle.html
http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-marshal.html

e.g.

    db[p] = pickle.dumps(dbmrecord)
    dbmrecord = pickle.loads(db[key])

:::

also see the "shelve" module, which pickles things for
you on the way in to and out from the database:

    import shelve

    db = shelve.open(...)

    db[p] = dbmrecord
    dbmrecord = db[key]

From cg at schlund.de  Mon Oct  2 05:28:42 2000
From: cg at schlund.de (Carsten Gaebler)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 11:28:42 +0200
Subject: gdbm mytery
References: <39D84C9D.D33C95E7@schlund.de>
Message-ID: <39D8554A.6627F745@schlund.de>

Sorry, I've messed up the database file names. Everything's fine with
reorganize(). :-)

Carsten.

> I have a GDBM file with about 25000 keys. After applying the gdbm
> module's reorganize() function to the file, there are only 15000 keys
> left, which I find strange. I can understand that the file size is
> reduced, but why does reorganize() *delete* keys?
> 
> Regards
> Carsten.

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Wed Oct 18 14:07:49 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 18 Oct 2000 13:07:49 -0500
Subject: "Portability" (was: How to create a Unix Domain Socket?)
References: <39ED6C4A.CBEE94DB@schlund.de> <8skj2r$3i9k$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <4BE3250D4FF22FD0.C3EA83F880EAEC04.44DD6B4DD07EB906@lp.airnews.net>

In article <8skj2r$3i9k$1 at nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
Donn Cave   wrote:
		.
		.
		.
>underlying C API pretty closely.  The Python documentation tends
>to be mostly concerned with the Python-specific issues.  Rather
>than look there for every detail of the API, you should refer
>to the documentation on the host system, e.g., "man socket", which
>will be more complete (and more accurate when there are differences
>between one platform and another, as there are with sockets.)
>
>	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu

I'm going to grumble briefly--or perhaps ask for help.
I'm getting tired of calling Python "wonderfully por-
table" or whatever it is I say when I'm acting as an
advocate.  I know what I mean by it, but for most
people, most of the time, Python's not quite up to the
portability of C, and almost every other language is
equally tender on the point.  So:  what's a good word
to express, "available on lots of platforms, more or
less, and, whatever the semantics are on any particular
one, there's an entertaining story to explain why it's
so"?
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl  Mon Oct  9 12:53:14 2000
From: scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl (Remco Gerlich)
Date: 9 Oct 2000 16:53:14 GMT
Subject: doubling slashes in a string
References: <39de8a48_3@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8rmvbo02dfo@news1.newsguy.com>  <8rs9dc0143f@news2.newsguy.com>  <8rsj3p01hhs@news2.newsguy.com> <39E1F11E.ECFBED09@holdenweb.com>
Message-ID: 

Steve Holden  wrote in comp.lang.python:
> I've had trouble fully understanding raw string literals.  Since
> 
> >>> len(r'\t')
> 2
> >>> len(r'\"')
> 2
> >>> len(r"\"")
> 2
> 
> can I assume
> 
> 	a) There is no way to write a string literal containing
> 		only an apostrophe and a double-quote; and

String literals easy - '\'"', or "\"'". You probably meant raw string.
Then either
r""""'""" for "', and r''''"''' for '". Triple quotes to the rescue! :-)

Also there's string concatenation if you just list the literals:
s = r'"' r"'"

But of course raw strings aren't needed here at all.

> 	b) A string literal containing only a single backslash
> 		must be written as "\\"?

Yes. Raw strings can't do that.

Remco Gerlich

From keisari_ at hotmail.com  Fri Oct 13 10:36:27 2000
From: keisari_ at hotmail.com (j)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 17:36:27 +0300
Subject: Writing to file
Message-ID: <39E71DEB.D543820A@hotmail.com>

How can i write string "test string" into file "test.txt".

How can i print
i am a "monkey"

In perl that would be
print qq(i am a "monkey");

Joonas.

From erno-news at erno.iki.fi  Sat Oct 21 05:07:37 2000
From: erno-news at erno.iki.fi (Erno Kuusela)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 12:07:37 +0300
Subject: large file support
References: <8sqn2l$ec$1@ncar.ucar.edu>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Fred" == Fred Clare  writes:

 | In fact I get the MemoryError even when trying to read 2GB files.
 | When I run configure before building python, it indicates that
 | large file support *is* enabled.

a couple of guesses:
you might have resource limits set too low. you can use the "ulimit"
command in sh, or, iirc, "limit" in csh.

or you might have accidentally compiled python in 32-bit mode.
that means you can only access <2gb on many systems. try telling
your compiler that you want 64-bit executables.

if those don't help, take 2 aspirin and post again in the morning...

  -- erno

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct  6 10:58:01 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:58:01 +0200
Subject: future of Python: Stackless, Standard -> fragmentation ?
References: <8rk7e5$47u$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>  <8rkm43$kre$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de>
Message-ID: <8rkpk301ir@news2.newsguy.com>

"Dirk-Ulrich Heise"  wrote in message
news:8rkm43$kre$1 at desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de...
> "Will Ware"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:G20Dsq.Epp at world.std.com...
> [...]
> > Were it not for the irreconcilable differences between Stackless and
> > JPython, Stackless might have made it into the 2.0 release. The people
who
> > make these decisions (Guido and company at BeOpen) are well aware of
these
> > issues and many more, and have thought them through in much greater
detail
> > than you or I have done. So I'll reiterate the Python community refrain
> > of "in Guido we trust".
>
> Mark Hammond wrote/is writing (?) a compiler that lets Python
> run on this Microsoft VM that runs C#, if i recall correctly.

I think that you do recall correctly (and ActiveState is the
firm financing this effort) except for the detail about a
"Microsoft VM".  The target-code for Microsoft .NET is not
really "a VM": it's a low-level (bytecode-like) intermediate
language, called MSIL, which is normally meant to be finally
compiled to machine code (during the program's installation
on any given machine) although options exist (delaying the
compilation to runtime rather than installation time -- may
save some diskspace, I guess).  There's more, of course (lots
of runtime libraries, conventions for language interop, etc),
but this is the gist.

> I suppose that that VM shares the same disadvantages
> the Java VM has? Does anybody know more? (I suspect

Lots and lots about it has been published.  Apparently,
Microsoft being quite keen on .NET as a multi-language
architecture (quite the opposite of Java's "one language
fits all" attitude), they proved somewhat receptive to
requests for modifications to MSIL & friends during the
months and years which preceded .NET's announcements,
when developers of "oddball" (from a mainstream POV)
languages demonstrated a need.  A specific example I've
seen mentioned is tail-recursion-optimization, which is
crucial for functional-programming languages.

Do remember that Microsoft's Research division includes
such household names (in the advanced-languages world)
as, e.g., Luca Cardelli, of ML and Modula-3 fame... the
MSIL architecture _is_ reportedly such that languages
based on continuations, closure, &tc (Haskell, ML,
Mercury, ...) can use it fruitfully as the intermediate
target-language for their compilers.

> it is the case because Microsoft is kind of imitating this Java VM

While I think it can fairly be said that C# is rather an
imitation of Java (with differences and extensions, to be
sure, but very clearly rooted in it), it doesn't seem to
me that MSIL and friends can be seen as "imitating the JVM".

Whether this allows 'stackless' -- I don't know: I don't
understand enough of stackless' fine details, and not really
in significant depth MSIL, either (I'd be glad to hear more
authoritative opinions from those who DO!).

Alex

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Mon Oct 16 12:51:24 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 16:51:24 GMT
Subject: interchanging rows and columns
References: 
Message-ID: 

On 14 Oct 2000 09:45:25 GMT, Johannes Zellner  wrote:
>how can I turn
>   [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]
>into
>   [[1, 4], [2, 5], [3, 6]]
>
>?
>must be easy, but I couldn't manage it.
>I tried some (map|apply) variants of the tutorial. No luck.
>

Do you have Python 2.0?

>>> a = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]
>>> zip(*a)
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]

Huaiyu

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Thu Oct  5 14:11:41 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 11:11:41 -0700
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
Message-ID: <00be01c02ef7$bd4501f0$0101a8c0@jayk3>

>In case anyone cares, the extension type example in file xxobject.c has the
>following code:
>static PyTypeObject Xxtype = { PyObject_HEAD_INIT(&PyType_Type) ...
>But PyType_Type isn't a constant here (it is exported from the Python DLL),
>so it should just be NULL here, and should be updated from the module
>initializatin.

If the data stored was a function pointer instead of a pointer to data, it'd
be "constant enough" (you actually get a level 4 warning about "identity not
guaranteed")... ie: if Python.dll did not export any data..

Optimization tip: making stuff "const static" lets it remain readonly and
shared across processes, which is good. If it doesn't get relocated. Making
it null and finishing the initialization later moves it to writable data.

So ideally it'd be const static and contain the address of a function.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Thursday, October 05, 2000 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: New Python development process (SourceForge considered
Harmful?)
...

From breiter at usf.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE  Tue Oct 10 18:25:50 2000
From: breiter at usf.Uni-Osnabrueck.DE (Bernhard Reiter)
Date: 10 Oct 2000 22:25:50 GMT
Subject: PIL Win32 binaries for Python 1.6 (final)
References: 
Message-ID: <8s051e$dcq$1@newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de>

[Posted and mailed]

In article ,
	"Kaufman, Duane (MED, LUNAR)"  writes:

> I downloaded the source, and then found sub parts (jpeg-6b, and
> zlib-113) and pieced together a dsp for MSVC++6.0.

Good, you should publish that all somewhere.
Including the PIL binary, if you get it to work.

> Further, getting the last .h files the build seemed to require from the
> tcl and tk distributions, I finally get it built, but when I try to use
> the Image module to, for instance, convert a .gif to a .bmp:
> 
>>>> import Image
>>>> img=Image.open('c:\splash.gif')
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
>   File "D:\PYTHON\PIL\Image.py", line 895, in open
>     raise IOError, "cannot identify image file"
> IOError: cannot identify image file
>>>>
> 
> I do not know the innards well enough to figger out what needs to be
> done.

I have no clue ether, but at least you got a step further.
Did you try other image formats? Did you check that this is actually
a GIF (maybe it is the wrong spec for a gif..)

	Bernhard
-- 
Professional Service around Free Software                (intevation.net)  
The FreeGIS Project				            (freegis.org)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure            (ffii.org)

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct 30 11:32:15 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 08:32:15 -0800
Subject: import x as y
References:  
Message-ID: <8tk7qf$as1$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
Thomas Wouters   wrote:
>
>d = {}
>import string as d['string'] # store directly in dict, not in local namespace
>
>and
>
>from sys import version_info as (maj, min, pl, type, relno) # unpack tuple
>
>and
>
>import shelve
>from myoptimizedCPickle import Pickler as shelve.Pickler # store in shelve

Yer a sick puppy.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

'Does it say something about our culture that "academic" is sometimes
used as a synonym for "irrelevant"?'  --Marc Wilson

From jepler.lnk at lnk.ispi.net  Sun Oct  1 14:01:44 2000
From: jepler.lnk at lnk.ispi.net (jepler epler)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 18:01:44 GMT
Subject: Coerce that can pay attention to type of operation
Message-ID: 

I'm writing a rational number class, as an exercise.  As I implemented
+, -, *, /, I realized that I could use __coerce__ to turn integers
and longs into Ratios, and when the "other" arg was an unrecognized type,
to convert the Ratio into a real.

However, for __pow__, I wish that I could follow another rule, where:
	r = Ratio()
	f = 1.0
	i = 1

	r**f -> float(r) ** f
	r**i -> Ratio(r.num ** i, r.den ** i)
	f**r -> f ** float(r)
	i**r -> i ** float(r)

However, this means that __coerce__ needs to know what operation is
about to be performed.  Obviously, you can't do this without an extension
to python.

I could choose to put the __coerce__-like code into each method, but
increased code size is just what __coerce__ is supposed to avoid.

Thus, I wonder whether a method which is told the upcoming operation,
perhaps named __coerce3__ (because it would take three arguments)
could solve this problem:

class Ratio:
	def __mul__(self, other):
		assert isinstance(Ratio, other)
		return Ratio(self.num * other.num, self.den * other.den)

	def __pow__(self, other):
		assert type(other) in (IntType, LongType)
		return Ratio(self.num ** other, self.den ** other)

	def __coerce3__(self, other, op):
		if op == "__pow__":
			if type(other) in (IntType, LongType):
				return (self, other)
		elif op != "__rpow__":
			if type(other) in (IntType, LongType):
				return self, Ratio(other)
			elif isinstance(Ratio, other):
				return self, other
		return float(self), other)

I don't have a patch, but it looks like one could be developed
fairly simply in Objects/classobject.c:halfbinop().  Changes to let
coerce(a, b, operation type) call __coerce3__ would take a little
more work.

Am I missing a better way to do what I want?  If not, is there any
merit to the idea of __coerce3__?

Jeff

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 05:59:00 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:59:00 +0200
Subject: Inefficiency of __getattr__
References: 
Message-ID: 

hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu) writes:

> Is __getattr__ supposed to be run only when the attribute is not already
> defined?  

Yes, that is the case.

> This does not seem to be so and it is very costly (equivalent of
> addition of two 1000 element vectors).  In the following example __getattr__
> should not be invoked even if it is there:
[...]
> a = A()
> def test():
>     for i in xrange(10000):     a+a

Computing a+a will first invoke __coerce__. Since that is not defined,
it will invoke __getattr__ - this is what happens. Defining __coerce__
would fix this problem.

Regards,
Martin

From algaba at my-deja.com  Thu Oct  5 12:47:34 2000
From: algaba at my-deja.com (Manuel Gutierrez Algaba)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 16:47:34 GMT
Subject: [ANN] pyportal
Message-ID: <8ribb4$btu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

 pyportal

http://pyportal.seul.org

is a tool for creating web sites in less than 5 minutes.
Follow the spirit of python and it's GPL . enjoy it.

--
-------------
Manolo

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us  Mon Oct 16 11:33:36 2000
From: kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us (Jeff Kunce)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 10:33:36 -0500
Subject: This is really cheesing me off...
References:  <39eb13af.1132964404@news.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <4gFG5.225$VF3.397@news.more.net>

> When I need to be absolutely sure the environment is 'clean', I keep a
> DOS box open and run command-line test programs from there;it
> only needs 3 keystrokes to switch windows, recall the last line,
> and run again in the DOS box.

I do most of my test runs this way, even though I'm using Idle.

Actually, I use windows explorer to launch the program.
I have set up a 'test' option for launching .py files from
explorer using "python.exe -i %1". This leaves the window
open with a python prompt after the script runs - I can check
variables, or use pdb.pm() as needed.

  --Jeff

From mmiller3 at iupui.edu  Wed Oct 25 17:40:15 2000
From: mmiller3 at iupui.edu (Michael A. Miller)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 16:40:15 -0500
Subject: statistical modules for python?
Message-ID: <87n1fsppkw.fsf@lumen.med.iupui.edu>

Does anyone know of a python module that implements an ANOVA
calculation.

Mike

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  8 12:23:28 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 18:23:28 +0200
Subject: copy_reg problem - UPDATE!  PLEASE READ!
References:  <7ecD5.41113$g6.16721199@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>
Message-ID: 

"Rainer Deyke"  writes:

> Appearantly copy_reg.pickle only works for types, not classes (despite the
> documentation saying otherwise). 

I'd say the documentation is wrong, not the code.

> I really need this to work for class instances for two reasons:
> 
>   1. It allows me to later replace a class with a C extension type.

Can you please elaborate? What is it that you want to do, and why is
that a good thing?

>   2. It allows me to "merge" objects from different pickles.

Again, I don't understand. In what way do you want to merge objects
from different pickles, and why is there no other way to achieve the
same effect?

> Any other ideas or suggestions?

Hard to say, since I still don't see the problem you are trying to solve.

Regards,
Martin

From lluang at northwestern.edu  Wed Oct  4 17:43:21 2000
From: lluang at northwestern.edu (Louis Luangkesorn)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 16:43:21 -0500
Subject: adding matrices of strings
Message-ID: <39DBA479.1179C63E@northwestern.edu>

Is there a way to add matrices of strings?  In other words, if I have
matrices A and B, whose elements are strings, can i add them so I get C
= A + B where C[i,j] = concatonate(A[i,j], B[i,j])

It does not seem like the NumPy array accepts strings, and I was
thinking about adding lists of lists together, but all I get is the set
of lists in A with the lists in B.

the other thing I need to do is to take that matrix A, and pull a
particular element from it (without removing that element like a
a.pop(x) would do)

Thanks

--
Louis Luangkesorn
lluang at northwestern.edu   http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~kll560
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am,
Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
        - Dietrich Bonhoeffer "Who am I?"

From phd at phd.russ.ru  Fri Oct 20 07:34:46 2000
From: phd at phd.russ.ru (Oleg Broytmann)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 11:34:46 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython
In-Reply-To: <39F02461.38CAB7D8@jazzfree.com>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, entropia wrote:
> >    PyJava?
> 
> Java is a Sun trademark and it can not appear in any name.

   IANAL but PyJava does not contain "Java". Only "Py Java" contains it.

Oleg.            (All opinions are mine and not of my employer)
---- 
    Oleg Broytmann      Foundation for Effective Policies      phd at phd.russ.ru
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

From Drew.Whitehouse at anu.edu.au  Wed Oct 25 02:39:34 2000
From: Drew.Whitehouse at anu.edu.au (Drew Whitehouse)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 17:39:34 +1100
Subject: WIN32 questions
References:    
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Hammond  writes:
    Mark> "Drew Whitehouse"  wrote in
    Mark> message news:wlbsw9wlsp.fsf at anu.edu.au...
    Mark> A service wont really do what you want in the general case.
    >>  I was thinking of the service more for the starting and
    >> stopping the client programs, assuming. In a UNIX world I would
    >> have the control system use something like remote shell. eg

    Mark> This would work, so long as the program (or the programs it
    Mark> spawns) doesn't need to interact with users.  The NT/2000
    Mark> concept of "desktops" may get in your way here.

Which unfortunately is exactly what I need. The users will be
interacting with a full-screen GUI via touch screens. What would the
problem ?

    Mark> Everything you describe regarding watching the processes is
    Mark> pretty easy, but maintaing this in a UI for the user,
    Mark> especially with the possibility of users logging on and off,
    Mark> is pretty tricky.  If you are happy with a "normal" program,
    Mark> run from the startup folder, then it should be pretty
    Mark> simple...

One thing I *don't* need is users logging on and off. When the machine
boots up it should immediately login to a pre-defined account and stay
logged in. Does that simplify things ? Things are a bit complex in
that the programs running on the touch screen stations don't run
asynchronously. They all need to start a particular activity at the
same time, at the command of the control system.

-Drew

-- 
;; Drew.Whitehouse at anu.edu.au      Sci-Viz/VR Programmer
;; http://anusf.anu.edu.au/~drw900          ANUSF VIZLAB
;; Australian National University Supercomputer Facility

From thomas at cintra.no  Mon Oct  2 07:23:04 2000
From: thomas at cintra.no (Thomas Weholt)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 13:23:04 +0200
Subject: Using Python in AI/3D Simulation
Message-ID: <8r9r6p$lu9$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>

Hi,

I'm working on a 3D simulation project in Python with a high degree of AI in
it. I want to demonstrate a set of bots operating in a 3d landscape, finding
specified objects, avoiding obstacles, learning ( ie. remembering objects
location and the shortest path to it ), evaluation of cost in energi for
movement in the 3d terrain and interaction among the bots. All of this are
just in the planning phase right now, but I need some info to get started.
Does anybody has any hint on what to start with ( docs, tutorials etc. ) ?
Preferrably things in Python, pseudo-code etc.

The goal is to create a virtual world where players can control bots and
operate in a complex environment, but first I need to get the simulation
going.

Thanks for any input.

Thomas Weholt

From josh at open.com  Tue Oct 17 23:47:13 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 23:47:13 -0400
Subject: importing dynamic files, unimporting
References: 
Message-ID: <39ed1ba2_4@corp.newsfeeds.com>

You can try to "del modulename", but I'm not sure that will actually get rid
of it, especially if you still have references to it hanging around.

-- j

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk  Wed Oct 18 10:28:41 2000
From: alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk (Alan Gauld)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:28:41 +0100
Subject: Newbie query about Tkinter in win32
References: <8sjn3u$1ch$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>
Message-ID: <39EDB399.BF8DE52E@gssec.bt.co.uk>

Wynand van Dyk wrote:
> I am working on a cross platform (win32, Linux, MacOS) gui app.

> Tkinter I assume works on all the above listed platforms 
> without need to change one line of code.

Almost, yes.
There are a few bits that you need to watch out for, 
like fonts and...

> Tk, this icon defaults to a red Tk. How do I change this.

There are some methods of (I think) the TopLevel widget 
that correspond to the window manager (wm) commands of Tk. 
BUT I think they only work on non windows platforms. 
They won't break a windows program but they don't 
change the icon either :-(

I don't think this can be done, and note that IDLE doesn't 
change the icon which suggests its either not possible or
the IDLE programmers haven't had time to do it yet :-)

Not a big help but a pointer to finding some info maybe.

Alan G.
-- 
=================================================
This post represents the views of the author 
and does not necessarily accurately represent 
the views of BT.

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sun Oct  8 00:17:30 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 00:17:30 -0400
Subject: Text size in Idle under X11?
References: <8ronir$78d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8roq66$985$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

Which version of idle are you using?  I'm using CVS, and in that case,
it seems that you can set the font size in a config file.  Try putting
this text in a file called ~/.idle and restarting it:

[EditorWindow]
font-name= courier
font-size= 14

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From dwelden at my-deja.com  Tue Oct 31 17:21:35 2000
From: dwelden at my-deja.com (dwelden at my-deja.com)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 22:21:35 GMT
Subject: Newbie biting off more than he can chew, can you lend some molars?
References: <8tkcps$sdd$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8tngl5$hjn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  quinn at chunder.ugcs.caltech.edu (Quinn Dunkan) wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 17:57:22 GMT, dwelden at my-deja.com 
> wrote:
> >I have a vendor supplied Perl module that I would like to convert
into
> >a Python module. I am very new to Python and don't have much of a
clue
> >on creating extension modules, but from what I have learned so far it
> >looks like what I want to do is feasible.
>
> Uh, do you mean converting a C perl module to a C python module, or
perl perl
> module to python python module?
>
> >Any takers?
>
> If you mean "if I send the source to you will you do half the work
and I'll do
> the other half", you're unlikely to get many takers unless you can be
more
> specific :)  If you say what it is you're doing, you may get (in
order of
> probability): a pointer to an existing python module or project that's
> similar, suggestions about how to go about implementation, or maybe
even
> someone willing to write it for you (doubtful, that last one :) )
>

It is a C Perl module. I am fine with a C Python equivalent. If someone
can provide or point me to detailed instructions on how to proceed, I
am happy to do it myself (don't know anything about this stuff, but I
do have MS VC++ 5.0 for compiling). If someone is willing to "watch
over my shoulder" or better yet let me "watch over their shoulder", so
much the better.

As I said, I am a newbie. I am very willing to learn how to fish
instead of letting someone else do the fishing, I just need some help
getting started.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From sdm7g at virginia.edu  Thu Oct  5 14:53:04 2000
From: sdm7g at virginia.edu (Steven D. Majewski)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 14:53:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Darwin/MacOSX Python 2.0b2  with shared libs. 
Message-ID: 

Thanks to Tony Lownds, his patches at: http://tony.lownds.com/macosx/,
and discussions between he and Martin v. Loewis on pythonmac-sig,
building with dynamic shared modules on Darwin/MacOSX now works. 
( The install scripts are still severely broken -- build and install
  targets don't seem to agree about what platform this is! ) 

Another problem with case indifference proped up with FCNTL.py vs.
fcntlmodule.so -- the solution here, I think, is to move fcntlmodule
up above the *shared* marker in Modules/Setup so that it is builtin,
and both FCNTL and fcntl will import as the appropriate and different
modules. 

Adding 'darwin1.2' to test_fcntl.py among the other bsd's where it 
belongs will get it thru that test successfully. ( Otherwise, it 
falls thru to the default case and gets an invalid arg. error. ) 

make test is now only failing on 3 tests:
 test_format, test_largefile, & test_unicodedata. 

test_format is failing on a unicode string so maybe it's the same 
bug as test_unicodedata. 

I vaguely recall someone saying this was a bug fixed in CVS, but 
I couldn't manage to dig out that message. ( BTW: Is there someway
to get SourceForge to sort reverse order ? It shows bugs starting
with July, and I don't see any way to skip to the tail of the list --
just  a 'next 50' button. ) 

---|  Steven D. Majewski   (804-982-0831)    |---
---|  Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics  |---
---|  University of Virginia             Health Sciences Center  |---
---|  P.O. Box 10011            Charlottesville, VA  22906-0011  |---
		"All operating systems want to be unix, 
		 All programming languages want to be lisp." 

From kcazabon at home.com  Sun Oct  8 21:13:12 2000
From: kcazabon at home.com (Kevin Cazabon)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 01:13:12 GMT
Subject: Tkinter Question
References: <8ropm2$8r5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

The other thing you can do is lift the Tkinter window above the DOS box.  I
find the DOS box useful in the debugging stage to print debugging info to.
(afterwards, I capture sys.stdout to a log).

To do this, it's easy:

a = Tk()
# make all your child widgets

a.lift()
a.update()
a.mainloop()

That's it.

Kevin.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)

 wrote in message news:8ropm2$8r5$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
| I've been doing some Tkinter experimenting lately.  My problem is when
| I run a saved module by clicking on the icon, the black MSDOS window
| pops up before any of the dialogs the module is supposed to display.
| Is there any way to keep this from happening?
|
| pheideaux
|
|
| Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
| Before you buy.

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Fri Oct  6 12:51:51 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 16:51:51 GMT
Subject: Are there Python code for a FIFO-like structure?
References:   
Message-ID: 

[Huaiyu Zhu]

>> > I need something like a fifo, inplemented in a fixed length list...
>> > an IndexError is raised if the tail gets
>> > too close to the head.

Hi, everyone,

Thanks for all these good ideas. 

[Christian Tismer]

>Hmm, why don't you really use a fixed length list, maintain
>two rotating pointers, and check that they behave well?

Yes, that's what I had in mind when I posted the query.  The real work is to
make the two pointers behave well, of course.  I'm getting there.

>But if the fixed length implementation is not the main goal,
>but to achieve O(1) behavior, then the attached linked list
>implementation might be helpful. It also allows for
>rotations (only efficient for smal deviations).

The fixed length requirement is meant to limit its growth and raise error
when it's full, at that time several different actions might be taken. The
rotation requirement is so that it's light weight even if it's large.

Huaiyu

From phd at phd.russ.ru  Thu Oct 19 09:52:21 2000
From: phd at phd.russ.ru (Oleg Broytmann)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:52:21 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: SF corpsed?
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Robin Becker wrote:
> I can't seem to get any decent access to sourceforge. Anybody else
> having troubles?

   Me too :(

Oleg.            (All opinions are mine and not of my employer)
---- 
    Oleg Broytmann      Foundation for Effective Policies      phd at phd.russ.ru
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

From emile at fenx.com  Sat Oct 14 23:02:12 2000
From: emile at fenx.com (Emile van Sebille)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:02:12 -0700
Subject: SMTP receive as well as send
References: <39e8bfe4.2248931@news.demon.nl>
Message-ID: <8sb7ad$jsju9$1@ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de>

Benny,

What are you trying to do?  On linux, you can simply run the
SMTP service to receive mail.  Do you want a python based
service that does the same thing?  Or are you trying to set
up receive capabilities on a dial-up connection?  If so,
look into one of the dynamic IP services.  I've used TZO,
which you pay for, but there are free ones as well.

HTH, but I'm not quite sure what you're looking for.

--

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx.com
-------------------

"benny"  wrote in message
news:39e8bfe4.2248931 at news.demon.nl...
> Hi,
>
> I'm in need of an SMTP setup that will allow me to receive
as well as
> send messages. The Python SMTPlib looked like a good bet
but it seems
> to be send-only (kind of like the POP3 lib stuff seems to
be read
> only).
>
> Can a kind soul help out a Python newbie and give me a few
hints about
> how/where/etc. I could get an SMTP setup that works both
ways please?
> (The PC is a Linux box.)
>
> Many thanks.
>
> --
>
> Benny (who apologises if this has been discussed recently
or if this
> is obviously posted somewhere but days of searching hasn't
helped)

From sabren at manifestation.com  Sat Oct  7 23:49:22 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 23:49:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Tkinter Question
In-Reply-To: <8ropm2$8r5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000 pheideaux at my-deja.com wrote:

> I've been doing some Tkinter experimenting lately.  My problem is when
> I run a saved module by clicking on the icon, the black MSDOS window
> pops up before any of the dialogs the module is supposed to display.
> Is there any way to keep this from happening?

try renaming it to *.pyw :)

(it runs pythonw.exe rather than python.exe)

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From cmedcoff at sprynet.com  Tue Oct 17 21:58:49 2000
From: cmedcoff at sprynet.com (Charles Medcoff)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 21:58:49 -0400
Subject: Problem building Win32 extensions
References: <8sim04$i87$1@news.vanderbilt.edu>
Message-ID: <8sivth$tij$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

This sound like a problem similar to what I went through a couple of
versions ago.  (I confess that I haven't built from the the source
latetly.).

Try modifying the python.swg file in the PyWin32 directory and make sure
that the include for python.h is in the right place.

The problem I had is that the contents of the python.swg file was placed in
SWIG generated source files.  This always created the compiler errors that
you describe.

Have a look at the win32 mailing list archives for a long thread between I
and other on this problem.

From tanzer at swing.co.at  Tue Oct 24 03:20:33 2000
From: tanzer at swing.co.at (Christian Tanzer)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 09:20:33 +0200
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC)) 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 23 Oct 2000 08:36:21 PDT."
             <39F45AF5.E7387466@alcyone.com> 
Message-ID: 

Erik Max Francis  wrote:

> > or
> >     foo* bar, baz;    /* NOT two pointers... */
> 
> That's a programmer error.  In declaring pointers, the * is a declarator
> and binds to the variable, not the type.  That's why coding styles such
> as writing `int* p' end up only causing problems, because they imply
> that the * binds to the type when it does not.

It's a programmer error in the same sense as Three Mile Island was an
operator error (as was the Therac 25 and countless plane crashes).
In Three Mile Island some very important instruments were located at
the back of the operator consoles...

In all these cases, there were fundamental design problems which
practically guaranteed accidents. Calling such a design reasonably
good is euphemistic at best.

-- 
Christian Tanzer                                         tanzer at swing.co.at
Glasauergasse 32                                       Tel: +43 1 876 62 36
A-1130 Vienna, Austria                                 Fax: +43 1 877 66 92

From Hajnalka.Kontos at eth.ericsson.se  Fri Oct 27 10:32:47 2000
From: Hajnalka.Kontos at eth.ericsson.se (Hajnalka =?iso-8859-1?Q?K=F6nt=F6s?=)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 16:32:47 +0200
Subject: GUI
References: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B1361@intrepid>
Message-ID: <39F9920E.A32EE93@eth.ericsson.se>

Hi,
Is it possible to write graphical user interfaces in python? Do I need a spec.
library .. for that? Is there a documentation describing the graphical
functions?
Thanx,
Hajni

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 05:55:42 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:55:42 +0200
Subject: Help: Chinese charactor in Tkinter
References: 
Message-ID: 

Zhenlei Jia  writes:

> I am trying to display Chinese charactor in Tkinter. The following is 
> the code I've tried, but the texts were displied as "?". Had I missed
> somthing, or just I can't do it on my system? I am using MacPython 2.0b1,
> Tcl & Tk 8.3.0 on MacOS 8.6, I have installed Chinese Language Kit, and I
> can display Chinese char in java, also using unicode.

Can you please try this in a plain wish? It appears that Tk somehow
cannot determine that your font indeed supports the character, so it
displays the replacement character instead.

Also, did you try passing unicode strings but no font? Tk should
attempt to analyse all available fonts and find a suitable one.

In any case, if it turns out that Tk itself is not capable of handling
that, I suggest that you contact Ajuba Solutions or some Tk group for
help.

Regards,
Martin

From fidelman at world.std.com  Mon Oct 16 08:23:04 2000
From: fidelman at world.std.com (Miles R. Fidelman)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 12:23:04 GMT
Subject: Perl rules - Python drools
References: <8s6ksl$mea$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net> <39e77de7.28583100@news.davesworld.net>
Message-ID: 

David T. Grove (pete at petes-place.com) wrote:
: On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:38:52 +0200, "Wayne Paterson"
:  wrote:
: >
: >begin 666 cameleatingpython.jpg

: As an avid perl user: I should point out something. You are in
: violation of trademark law. You are not permitted to use a camel in
: association with the Perl language without specific written permission
: from O'Reilly and Associates. You have also used a trademarked

Actually, that's not clear - parody is a defense against trademark
infringement. How much of a defense seems to less clear - the court
decisions go both ways. (note: trademark law is different from copyright
law, where parody gets strong protection as a "fair use")

From schlatterbeck at tttech.com  Fri Oct 13 09:42:48 2000
From: schlatterbeck at tttech.com (Ralf Schlatterbeck)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 15:42:48 +0200
Subject: Job: SW-Eng Tool Design&Implementation, Vienna, Austria, Europe
Message-ID: <8s73go$hlf$1@ttt14.tttech.com>

Sorry for this posting, but I sent this to the Python Job board ten days
ago where it hasn't appeared yet (the last update seems to have been in
September).

TTTech Time-Triggered Technology Inc. (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.tttech.com

Software Engineers Tool Design and Implementation

TTTech is a young high-tech startup setting the standard for the
next-generation distributed control systems in automotive, aerospace,
and other domains. We are well funded and growing rapidly, aiming
for an IPO in about three years.

We develop software tools for the design and deployment of embedded,
fault-tolerant, hard real-time systems. For the development of an
advanced GUI framework based on GTK+, we are looking for creative
software engineers who fit into our small software team.
We expect expertise in object oriented development, a craving for
quality and software reusability, and the will and ability to learn
quickly. You should be comfortable with Linux and WNT. Experience with
Python and C is an asset. Fluency in English is expected, a command of
German would be helpful but not necessary.

We offer competitive compensation and pre-IPO stock options based on
experience and performance. Please send your resume to
positions at tttech.com. 

Why TTP ?
**********

The digital revolution is entering the car: From intelligent sensors to
purely electronically controlled braking and steering systems to the
integration of the internet, satellite and mobile telephone networks. 
It is assumed that 90 % of innovations in future vehicles will occur
in electronics.

Current in-car computer systems (e.g., CAN) fail to integrate new
"by wire" functionalities, lack the possibility of remote diagnosis
via the Internet, and are expensive to test and integrate.

TTTech is proposing a new computer network architecture. The Time-
Triggered Architecture (TTA) with its building block TTP(r) (for 
Time-Triggered Protocol) supports the integration of conventional 
electronics and new "by-wire" functions. It enables Internet and 
remote access connectivity as well as advanced diagnosis strategies. 
The new diagnostic capabilities enable condition based maintenance 
and new end-customer focused service strategies (e.g., software 
downloads). TTP based components are designed to ease testing and 
integration, leading to increased customer satisfaction and
lower total life-cycle cost.

TTP based brake- or steer-by-wire systems promise higher levels of active
safety, comfort and functionality to customers.

What is TTP?
************
TTP is a communication architecture for distributed real-time embedded
computer systems. This innovative technology allows the design,
construction, and maintenance of fault-tolerant complex systems with
faster turn-around times and at lower system costs.

The protocol variant TTP/C is used in applications where dependable,
hard real-time performance is required, including automotive,
aerospace, industrial control, robotics and medical electronics
systems. Several of the world's leading vehicle manufacturers and
suppliers in Europe, the U.S., and Japan, are already in development
with TTP-based silicon implementations for "x-by-wire" applications.

CORPORATE PROFILE
*****************

TTTech AG

TTTech - Time-Triggered Technology is the world's leading supplier of
TTP related technology and tools.

TTTech's products enable customers to build TTP-based systems quickly
and efficiently. These comprise TTPtools(tm), an integrated software
development environment for TTP based systems, and a variety of
hardware products based on the TTP controller chip. TTTech also
provides a broad range of services, from training courses on TTP to
worldwide product and project support.
TTTech has formed a number of key partnerships in the electronics
industry (Motorola, ARM) to broaden the industrial acceptance of the 
highly researched TTA.

Further information on TTTech is available on http://www.tttech.com.
TTTech Computertechnik AG, Sch?nbrunnerstra?e 7, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Email: positions at tttech.com, FAX: +43/1/5853434-90, Tel: +43/1/5853434-0

-- 
Dr. Ralf Schlatterbeck                  mailto:schlatterbeck at tttech.com
TTTech Computertechnik AG, Sch?nbrunnerstra?e 7, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Voice: +43/1/5853434-0,  Fax: +43/1/5853434-90,  http://www.tttech.com/

From mtebeka at iil.intel.com  Thu Oct 19 10:16:48 2000
From: mtebeka at iil.intel.com (Miki Tebeka)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 17:16:48 +0300
Subject: A suggestion for python 2.1.
In-Reply-To: <39f09400.33100312@nntp.interaccess.com>
References: <39f09400.33100312@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: 

Hello,

> The way I would like to run it is:
> python cleanup(.py)
> the way I have to write it is 
> python directoryWhereCleanupIsStored/cleanup.py
> I've tried various tricks for this ( modifying PATH and PYTHONPATH ),
I use aliasing for that matter.
(e.g. alias pyclean="python dirname/cleanup.py")
Or bash functions
(e.g. runpy() {
	python dirname/$1.py
	}
)

Bye.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smile, damn it, smile.

lambda msg: { 
	'name' : 'Miki Tebeka',
	'email' : 'tebeka at lycosmail.com',
	'homepage' : 'www.tebeka.freeservers.com',
	'quote' : "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it."
}[msg]

From sabren at manifestation.com  Thu Oct  5 20:51:14 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 20:51:14 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: hack to auto-define variables?
Message-ID: 

I'm trying to come up with a way to make something like this happen:

>>> x
None

WITHOUT saying "x=None":

>>> x = "blablalskdjflaskdjf"
>>> del x
>>> x
None

Bascially, I'd like to make variables just pop into existence under
certain circumstances.

My first thought was to replace __dict__ (or __dict__.__getitem__) but
this raises an error.

Then I thought maybe I could throw an exception, assign the variable,
and then find some way to make that exception disappear.. (Like
whoever mentioned signals vs exceptions earlier).. But I haven't
found a way to make that happen.

Then I found a way I could do what I wanted for a module that I'm
importing, but not the top level module:

## a module that isn't a module....
## must call with "from badboy import *" though.. :/

class _BadBoy:
    def __init__(self):
        self.__dict__["__attrs__"] = {}
        self.__dict__["__default__"] = None
    def __getattr__(self, name):
        return self.__dict__["__attrs__"].get(
            name, self.__dict__["__default__"])
    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
        self.__dict__["__attrs__"][name] = value
    def __str__(self):
        return "BADBOY!"

try:
    raise "this is just a hack!"
except:
    _frame = sys.exc_info()[2].tb_frame.f_back
    _frame.f_locals["badboy"] = _BadBoy()

#####

>>> from badboy import * # because import is an assignment
>>> badboy.name
None

#####

I've got some other ideas, but they all seem like too much work:

  - write a C module that, when you import it, replaces the locals()
    of the calling frame with something that has a __getitem__..

  - write a wrapper script, and just define my own __globals__..
    maybe give scripts like this a special extension, and create
    an ihook...

  - preprocess the python file and define variables myself..

  - hack python itself, and make __dict__ writable..

  - set sys.settrace() to some evil function that will look
    ahead for uses of undeclared variables and declare them
    before they cause an error.. (Which sounds like a lot of
    fun, but I suspect it would kill performance)

  - some kind of bytecodehack?

Anyone have any ideas? (besides "just declare your variables!")

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sun Oct  8 00:08:27 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 00:08:27 -0400
Subject: Data distribution by frequency
References:   
Message-ID: 

In this context 'probability density function' just refers to the
likelihood that one of your finite set of options is chosen in some
random process.  Here's something that does roughly what you want, for
instance.  It may send out more than one ping at a time, but the average
traffic it generates will be about right:

import random

class Choices:

    def __init__(self, events, counts):

        assert len(events) == len(counts)
        self.total = 0.
        for count in counts:
            self.total = self.total + count
        self.events = events
        self.likelihoods = []
        for count in counts:
            self.likelihoods.append(count/self.total)

    def generate_events(self):

        current_events = []
        for event, likelihood in map(None,
                                     self.events,
                                     self.likelihoods):
            if likelihood >= random.random():
                current_events.append(event)
        retun current_events

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au  Thu Oct 19 13:01:05 2000
From: bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au (Nick Bower)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 01:01:05 +0800
Subject: all i want to do is plot a matrix!!!
References:  
Message-ID: <39EF28D1.88F9F9CA@ses.curtin.edu.au>

> >all i want to do is import an image (say .png, .gif) to a matrix of colour
> >values (rgb) so i can manipulate them with my own maths functions, do
> >lookups etc etc ...

you may try pydl (python clone of IDL).  i'm not sure if it's what you want, and it's
only for linux right now, but what's there is quite functional with superb
documentation.  we have students using it now and then to import ascii/image data, plot
and manipulate it.  images are read directly into numpy arrays which can be easily
plotted.

http://nickbower.com/computer/pydl/

if it's not what you want, i'm sure you could at least look at the python source and
adapt.

nick

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Sat Oct 28 01:16:57 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 01:16:57 -0400
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References:  <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> <8tcmin$fuio$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu> <493kvs8mondhqgv8jofdiiaulksv2rh933@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <39FA6149.4D6A347@holdenweb.com>

Dale Strickland-Clark wrote:
> 
> Donn Cave  wrote:
> 
...
> >
> >Haven't read them all, but some followups have made helpful comments
> >on your approach.  (Maybe helpful to others, anyway, you look like a
> >lost cause.)  I would add, when proposing or requesting something
> >here, stifle the impulse to say "otherwise I will have to take my
> >marbles and go elsewhere", or "otherwise everyone will use Perl
> >instead of Python", or any variation on that theme.  You have no
> >idea how comical that is to people who have been using Python for
> >lo these many years.
> >
> >       Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu
> 
> It may sound comical but unfortunately, that's the way
> it is.
> 
> We develop software for clients, frequently under
> strict time constraints.
> 
> We are currently on our first project using Python.

Great stuff!

> This project was all set to be developed with J++ but I
> picked up the Python on Win32 book a while ago and
> started a bit of a diversion. I eventually pursuaded
> the project leader to go for Python. (Although this was
> as much to do with J++'s uncertain future as any
> advantage of Python's)
> 
Light is beginning to dawn.

> Being late isn't an option so when things don't go
> well, we just have to work harder to make it up.
> 
Ah, so you're feeling ratty about PythonWin because
you're having to work late/too hard to avoid missed
deadlines.

> If the project isn't judged a success, and Python is
> considered the limiting factor (language and/or tools),
> then it probably won't get used again - not for client
> work, anyway.
> 
And you are the one who persuaded the project leader to
consider Python, so your ass is on the line if the project
isn't a success.

We can talk later about the advisability of changing horses
in midstream (or even once you've first got your toes wet)
if you want, but once the learning curve is climbed Python
*is* a highly productive programming environment.

> I'm quite keen that we use it again.
> --
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants

I'm sure the various pieces of advice you've received under this
thread (not to mention a few gratuitous insults) have got your
project moving forwards again.  PythonWin really is a pretty good
environment, though I personally don't have enough experience with
the MFCs to get the most out of it (yet).

Previous posts from you have seemed pretty sane, so I'm just
chalking this down to overwork -- you will find a way to get
Python to work just as you want it!

Good luck with the project.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Wed Oct 11 18:12:54 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 18:12:54 -0400
Subject: How does "for" work?
References:  <8s17bl02cuq@news1.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <39E4E5E6.F8C3EAE8@holdenweb.com>

Steve Juranich wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Alex Martelli wrote:
> 
> > I see that other posts have already remarked that you need to
> > change the KeyError exception (returned by addressing the self.data
> > dictionary with a missing key) into an IndexError (which is what
> > a sequence returns, and for expects), but I'd like to understand
> > better what you're doing.  _Why_ is self.data a dictionary at all,
> > rather than a list?  Using it correctly with a for-loop requires
> > that the keys be a compact set of integers from 0 upwards -- and
> > in this case, what do you gain by making it a dictionary rather
> > than a list in the first place?
> >
> 
> self.data is a time-indexed bunch of data structures.  I would have used a
> list, but I wanted to allow for start times != 0.  I know that in the other
> "P" language, it allows re-defining the start index of a list.  Has Python
> implemented a similar bad idea?
> 

In that case, why not have a self.timeoffset attribute, set in the __init__
method or some other suitable place, which you subtract from each index
before accessing the list?  That way you get list speed and simplicity.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Tue Oct  3 10:59:01 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 3 Oct 2000 09:59:01 -0500
Subject: Python-based StoryServer??
References: 
Message-ID: <48A73353DC990B11.F7F9C840DDE90DD5.E9AA032F96D65E9D@lp.airnews.net>

In article ,
Jon Brisbin  wrote:
>Is ther such a thing as a Python-based StoryServer or OpenACS rip-off
>(besides Zope, of course :-)??
			.
			.
			.
You do know about PyWX

right?

I doubt there'll be a Python-based StoryServer.
A Python-*accessible* StoryServer is a possibility,
though; maybe more information about that will turn
up soon ...
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From ahopkins at dynacare.com  Thu Oct 19 00:26:46 2000
From: ahopkins at dynacare.com (ahopkins at dynacare.com)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 04:26:46 -0000
Subject: New - Need Help
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <20001019042646.7737.qmail@dynacare.com>

In comp.lang.python, you wrote:
>I dont have any prior compiled language programing experience(I know 
>HTML, that is it) and I am looking to start learning a language. I 
>was planning on making python my first. Is this a good idea? If it 
>is, does anyone know of any good beginnering online tutorials and/or 
>books?

There is a Python tutorial at the Python web site (www.python.org).
A good book to start with is _Programming Python_ by Mark Lutz.

-- 
                                                     Albert Hopkins
                                             Sr. Systems Specialist
                                              Dynacare Laboratories 
                                              ahopkins at dynacare.com

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. 
-John Kenneth Galbraith 

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 16:08:50 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 22:08:50 +0200
Subject: Coerce that can pay attention to type of operation
References: 
Message-ID: 

jepler.lnk at lnk.ispi.net (jepler epler) writes:

> However, for __pow__, I wish that I could follow another rule, where:
> 	r = Ratio()
> 	f = 1.0
> 	i = 1
> 
> 	r**f -> float(r) ** f
> 	r**i -> Ratio(r.num ** i, r.den ** i)
> 	f**r -> f ** float(r)
> 	i**r -> i ** float(r)

You did not specify what outcome you want to get from 3.14+Ratio(1,2)
- I'll assume that the result should be 3.14+0.5. So inside coerce, if
one argument is float, you have to coerce the rational number to float
as well (in general: of one type is mathematically a superset of the
other, coerce to the former; think of 'float' == 'real numbers' here
(*)).

With that, you'd get the r**f and f**r case covered.

For the r**i case, I suggest that you still coerce the integer into a
rational. Then you'll need to implement a __pow__, which will deal
with the r**r case. If the exponent happens to be an integral number,
you implement your r**i formula (remember to deal with negative
numbers); if the exponent is not natural, convert to float and compute
the power then.

> Am I missing a better way to do what I want?  If not, is there any
> merit to the idea of __coerce3__?

There are places where you can't tell, e.g when invoking coerce
directly. Adding new magic functions is a bad idea in general, since
it puts a burden onto any class object: the interpreter would always
call __coerce3__ on both objects, then __coerce__, and then the
operation. The extra lookup is bad for performance, especially if the
class also has a __getattr__.

Nevertheless, please write a PEP (http://python.sourceforge.net/peps)
on this subject, or have a look at PEP 208 :-). Something should be
done, probably, but it will need a lot of planning.

Regards,
Martin

(*) I know that technically, rational numbers are a superset of
floating point numbers (which are rationals with some base two
denominator). I understand you don't want to treat them that way,
though.

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Mon Oct 23 04:37:04 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 09:37:04 +0100
Subject: please help with Windows 98 install
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B12F2@intrepid>

> From:	Jeff Melvaine [SMTP:jeffm52 at rivernet.com.au]
> Sent:	Monday, October 23, 2000 2:05 AM
> To:	python-list at python.org
> Subject:	Pmw: please help with Windows 98 install
> 
> I have downloaded Python 1.5.2 to my Dell laptop under Windows 98, and the
> installation works; a simple hello world Tkinter application (copied from
> Grayson's book) executes as expected, simply by double clicking its icon
> in
> the browser.  I also downloaded Pmw, but when I try to run a simple Pmw
> application (any of the demos, for example) the same way, the MS-DOS
> console
> window stays up for all of half a second and dies without logging a
> message.

You are probably getting messages, but the DOS box is dying before you have
a chance to read them. One thing to try is to open a command line DOS box
(from the Start|Programs menu), and to run the module from there.

> The documentation for Pmw says that the lib directory should be included
> in
> the sys.path variable.  This suggests to me that the import for Pmw is
> failing when the console drops out.  When I run a MS-DOS prompt window and
> type 'set', I don't see a sys.path variable.  Is this is Unix advice, like
> much in the Pmw documentation?

sys.path is the Python path. How this is set differs from OS to OS. To set
it under Win98, add something like this to the C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

SET PYTHONPATH = c:\spam;c:\egg\chips

and reboot. The directories specified will be ahead of the standard Python
folders when you fire up Python.

I'm not sure that you'll have to mess with this, though. PMW is a package,
so it should work OK if it's in a subdirectory of your Python directory.

> My background: I have considerable experience writing shell and perl
> scripts
> on Unix but I am not a professional Unix systems administrator.  I am at
> beginner level with MS-DOS and its relationship to Windows.  I could
> probably do the installation of Pmw to Linux more easily, but I have
> particular reasons to want to use Python windowing applications in a
> Windows
> environment, including Windows NT on my desktop.

OK, now one for you - I installed SuSE at the weekend, and my mind is
*totally* blown. I've never used and *nix OS before. I had been under the
impression that if you had '#!/usr/bin/env python' as the first line of your
script, you could treat the script as executable, but it isn't happening.
Any pointers?

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

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accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 16:53:02 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 22:53:02 +0200
Subject: DLL in Python
References: <8t1e4p$gok@micky.ibh-dd.de>
Message-ID: <8t290k0hjb@news2.newsguy.com>

"Mike M?ller"  wrote in message
news:8t1e4p$gok at micky.ibh-dd.de...
> Hi,
>
> I need to supply a DLL, which will be called by a third party FORTRAN
> program. I would like to write this DLL in Python. I am not sure what
would
> be the best way to this.
>
> - Looking at the freeze utility I don't see where in the frozen.c I can
> define the dll export.

As you later say that you're using VC++6, you have several
ways to tell the compiler and linker what symbols it should
export: put the "__declspec(dllexport)" attribute in the C
source of the functions you're exporting, add a .DEF file to
your project with the list of exports, use the /EXPORT flag
on the linker's runtime.  If you don't care about the C source
being portable, the first is probably easiest; if you do, then
the second.

> - Another option would be to embed the Python interpreter in a C-program,
> which in turn will be a DLL.

Sure, but you still have the same ways to tell the compiler
and linker what symbols the DLL should export.

> I am working with VC++ 6.0 which is integrated with Digital FORTRAN
> 6.1 (so the connection between C and FORTRAN should be no problem).
>
> I don?t have much experience with C/C++ (just recently compiled my first
> Python extension) so minimizing the work in C would be good.

Well, there's not much C work you need to do with either of
these approaches, but I guess the amount may be lower with
the freeze idea -- you only need to add the functions you want
to export, which in turn call to Python.

Still, on Windows, there's a way to do even less work, and
_none_ of it in C, but...:

> Also, since the program needs to be installed on a different computer, the
> installation of a full-blown Python interpreter with lots of modules is
not
> an option.

...it may not be compatible with the idea of "a full-blown interpreter
with lots of modules", since it would probably require a few DLL's --
it's based on using Python to implement COM servers, and Fortran
to use those servers (I don't know how good Digital Fortran 6.1 is
at calling COM servers, but modern language implementations on
Windows usually have few problems doing that).

Alex

From cgicq at my-deja.com  Sat Oct 21 08:20:45 2000
From: cgicq at my-deja.com (cgicq at my-deja.com)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 12:20:45 GMT
Subject: newbie: configure stops on aix
Message-ID: <8ss1mr$1ct$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi
I have a server running AIX 4.3
with visualAge 5.0 as the compiler.

When I run the configure script, I get the
following error:

configure: error: can not run test program while
cross compiling

And it stops...

What can I do??

TIA

Chris

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 12:09:53 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:09:53 +0200
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com> <8t1964$v8a$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk> <8t1eqq0o5t@news1.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <8t1o6i010gj@news1.newsguy.com>

"Toby Dickenson"  wrote in message
news:h0m8vs0sstq8v8q5ik0engbafrmks570gm at 4ax.com...
> "Alex Martelli"  wrote:
>
> >somebody who claims the syntax is pretty good AND in the same
> >breath claims a compiler "should" warn against using it clearly
> >not counting as "understanding".
>
> While I agree with what you say about C, Im not sure that this
> statement is true in general.
>
> Python's syntax is 'pretty good' yet I would advocate a python
> compiler (or compileall.py) to give warnings like tabnanny.

I won't disagree with your advocacy.  I consider that the
possibility that space/tab confusion will change the semantics
of a piece of code is one of the very few specific cases where
Python's syntax is NOT good -- that's why I like the idea of
this "syntax feature" being warned against (I'd even go further
and say that I'd be overjoyed if Python sources, using such
mixtures of leading tabs & spaces as tabnanny detects, did NOT
by default compile any more, with a '-legacy' compiler flag
for emergencies where one desperately needs to recompile such
old sources without fixing them right now -- matter of degree).

Alex

From josh at blast.net  Tue Oct  3 10:48:32 2000
From: josh at blast.net (J Storrs Hall, PhD)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 10:48:32 -0400
Subject: Odd bombs from PyOpenGL
Message-ID: <39D9F1C0.4162DBB4@blast.net>

Here it is in a nutshell:

. python
Python 1.5.2 (#1, Oct  2 2000, 11:20:58)  [GCC 2.7.2.3] on linux2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> from OpenGL.GL import *
>>> from OpenGL.GLUT import *
>>> glutInit('foo')
XIO:  fatal IO error 0 (Success) on X server ":0.0"
      after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

The corresponding C program shows that glut itself is
working and runs with no error:

#include 

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
 int n = 1;
 char *x[1];
 x[0] ="foo";
  glutInit(&n, x);
}

anybody seen this?

From kkinder at tridog.com  Wed Oct 25 16:03:11 2000
From: kkinder at tridog.com (Ken Kinder)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:03:11 -0600
Subject: Python in RedHat 7
References: <8t6bku$13s$1@lola.ctv.es> 
Message-ID: <39F73C7F.A55ACBF8@tridog.com>

Unfortunately, that doesn't really fix the problem. If you use the stable
compiler on Red Hat 7, then what it compiles is binary incompatible with
the rest of the system. You'd have to recompile *everything* If I were
you, I'd just declare Red Hat 7 to be pre-alpha software and not use it.
Red Hat releases are generally unstable until about .2 series. 7.2, should
therefor be stable.

bowman wrote:

> On 25 Oct 2000 10:11:42 GMT, Inigo Serna Robledo
>
> !I could compile Python 2.0 (and previous betas) with RedHat 6.2,
> !but the comp?lation fails in RedHat 7. It seems a problem with
> !the compiler (gcc-2.96, I think).
>
> You can look on the gnu site for the disclaimers on using this snapshot
> version of gcc. Save yourself a lot of grief and either build 2.95.2 or
> get an rpm for it, and ditch 2.96.
>
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From effbot at telia.com  Wed Oct 25 12:23:00 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 16:23:00 GMT
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: 

Grant Griffin wrote:
> Isn't nice to type "{" rather than "begin"?

try a swedish keyboard, and you may change your mind
after you've worn out a couple of thumbs...

(if I ever meet the IBM engineer etc etc)

From Peter.Rupp at ual.com  Tue Oct  3 10:53:07 2000
From: Peter.Rupp at ual.com (Peter.Rupp at ual.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:53:07 -0500
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string? 
Message-ID: 

All,

Earlier I asked a question about cloning python strings, but neglected 
to say why I needed it.
What I'm trying to do is determine how large a user process can be 
before it runs out of memory.   This is useful in debugging kernel 
parameter issues in our performance lab where our tests are running out 
of memory and I have to provide empirical proof that the kernel parms 
are set correctly and that an example program can prove it.   

Originally, I created a one-meg string, then concatenated it to itself 
until I ran out of memory (on the heap).  The number of iterations 
would give me a close approximation of the maximum date-segment size 
for a single process.   The problem is, that once the string approaches 
half or so of the kernel limit, you get a memory error....Python will 
have to malloc a string that is 1-meg larger than the original 
string....you get the idea.

So, my next thought was to simply create thousands of 1-meg strings on 
the fly using "exec".  I could then determine very accurately when the 
process ran out of memory.  (Of course, I could probably write this 
easily in C, but it would be more hastle than it's worth at this point.

Any ideas are still appreciated...and thanks to Paul and Max for their 
suggestions...
==pete==
peter.rupp at ual.com

From not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu  Mon Oct 30 09:18:24 2000
From: not_such_a_brain_after_all at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 09:18:24 -0500
Subject: Extensions with LCC
References: <39FD7EDC.EF818DA2@helsinki.fi>
Message-ID: 

> I also tried out using GCC/mingw32 compiler, as I found instructions of
> how to use it to make extensions, but I got error message of
> 
> ImportError: Module use of python15.dll conflicts with this version of
> Python
> 
> when I tried to run my python program. With the instructions there was
> modified header files for the python, so I doubt they would work with
> version 2.0 (but I haven't tried it yet).

Don't take this as gospel, because I don't know Windows, but I think if
you compile a new version of python from the using this compiler, you
might be able to use the tensor module you've compiled with it.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From juergen.erhard at gmx.net  Mon Oct 30 23:58:56 2000
From: juergen.erhard at gmx.net (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22J=FCrgen_A=2E_Erhard=22?=)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 05:58:56 +0100
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich , 
 comparison
In-Reply-To: <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com> (donod@home.com)
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com> <39F7D93F.B5B201B4@home.com>
Message-ID: <31102000.2@sanctum.local.jae.ddns.org>

>>>>> "Donald" == Donald O'Donnell  writes:

[...]

    Donald> The rule is very simple and easy to remember: If an
    Donald> expression consists of all integers, the result is an
    Donald> integer; if it contains mixed integers and floats, the
    Donald> integers are promoted to floats, the calculations are done
    Donald> using floats, and the result is a float.

This rule is very simple... and easy to remember... and *wrong*.

What would be the result of

    (2 / 3) * 3

according to this rule?  Well, 2.0 of course.  But in reality it's 0,
as we all know.

For the record, I'm all for 2/3 giving 2/3 (a floating point
approximation thereof, or better yet, a rational)

Bye, J

-- 
J?rgen A. Erhard    juergen.erhard at gmx.net   phone: (GERMANY) 0721 27326
          My WebHome: http://members.tripod.com/Juergen_Erhard
          George Herrimann's Krazy Kat (http://www.krazy.com)
   "No matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up."  -- Bruce Schneier
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From tdelaney at avaya.com  Mon Oct 30 02:02:13 2000
From: tdelaney at avaya.com (Delaney, Timothy)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:02:13 +1100
Subject: CPython vs. Jython/JPython
Message-ID: 

> >         It will still be *many* times slower than CPython due to the
> > overhead of JNI.
> 
> I'm not sure if I follow; IIRC, the JNI is faster than CPython's
> native dispatch.

Ah - but if you're trying to speed up a *Java* version of Python ... you're
going to be constantly switching between JNI-called code and Java code.

In CPython, there is no need for *this* context switch. Others yes ... but
they would also need to be done in J(P)ython, *plus* the JNI overhead.

Tim Delaney
Avaya Australia

From andrew.markebo at telelogic.com  Tue Oct 17 08:26:34 2000
From: andrew.markebo at telelogic.com (Andrew Markebo)
Date: 17 Oct 2000 14:26:34 +0200
Subject: [Q] In imaplib, SEARCH method's usage?
References: <8shavf$2ce$1@news1.kornet.net>
Message-ID: 

Reading the tests in the source I find something like:

search(None, 'SUBJECT', 'test')

Could it be useful??

       /andy

From ack at simplyweb.net  Fri Oct 27 17:36:06 2000
From: ack at simplyweb.net (Michael Ackerman)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:36:06 -0700
Subject: Python scoping
References: 
Message-ID: <39F9F546.14FA8D76@simplyweb.net>

"Steven D. Majewski" wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Michael Ackerman wrote:
> 
> > "Steven D. Majewski" wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Joshua Muskovitz wrote:
> > >
> > .
> > >  A situation where the human eye uses indentation and the compiler
> > > uses braces is unsafe.
> >
> > Why is it unsafe? Doesn't it work well in Haskell?
> >
> 
> Doesn't Haskell use the "offside rule" like Python, and make
> the compiler follow the same rules as the human eye ?

Yes Haskell uses _an_ offside rule. The Haskell Report says: "The effect
of a Haskell program may depend on its _layout_. The effect of layout on
its meaning can be completely described by adding braces and semicolons
in places determined by the layout. The meaning of this augmented
program is now layout insensitive".
Were you claiming that this could not be done in a safe way?
                       -- Michael

From prakash.ojha at hope.edu  Tue Oct 17 00:01:24 2000
From: prakash.ojha at hope.edu (prakash.ojha at hope.edu)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 04:01:24 GMT
Subject: evaluating a string
Message-ID: <8sgiuh$ope$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I am new to Python and would like to know how can I evaluate a string
like "1+2*3/4" to give a numeric result. Is there any built in function
that will give me this result. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From coolbill at my-deja.com  Fri Oct  6 20:35:25 2000
From: coolbill at my-deja.com (Bill Tolbert)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 00:35:25 GMT
Subject: list sort question
Message-ID: <8rlr4e$6av$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I was asked today to sort a list of names and email addresses by last
name. I ended up with a list of tuples:

[('Bill Tolbert', 'bill_tolbert at bigfoot.com'), ('Tom Hogan',
'TH at bigfoot.com'), ('Test Zebra', 'tz at email.com'), ('Three Level Name',
'tln at email.com')]

I couldn't figure out the list.sort(somefunction) syntax and resorted to
all sorts of slicing before I gave up and solved it in a query (outside
of Python).

Any ideas on how to solve such a problem?

Thanks,

Bill Tolbert

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From gallegoj at unican.es  Tue Oct 10 05:21:19 2000
From: gallegoj at unican.es (Jos� Luis Gallego)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 11:21:19 +0200
Subject: Gnuplot.py for win32
References: <8rt1mm$p8m5@cchp4.unican.es> <8ru8rq$bhe$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8rums7$j5k1@cchp4.unican.es>

Hi Jannie,

Your reply has been a big relief for me. I got to use Gnuplot modifying two
lines of the gp_win32.py file:

(line 37)    gnuplot_command = 'c:\Python20\gp371w32\pgnuplot.exe'

(line 66)    from os import popen

Thank you very much,

-jose luis

"Jannie Hofmeyr"  escribi? en el mensaje
news:8ru8rq$bhe$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> Jos? Luis Gallego"  wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know how to configure the Gnuplot.py (version 1.4) module
> for
> > Win32? I have installed Python20, Numpy, Gnuplot (gp371w32) and
> win32all.
>
> Under Python20 I had to change the following line in gp_win32.py
>
> from win32pipe import popen
>
> to
>
> from os import popen
>
> Jannie
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct  6 17:59:21 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 23:59:21 +0200
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com> <39DD865E.D97E4D09@cable.a2000.nl>  <8rkpsr$bpa$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39DE2905.1E62C763@ix.netcom.com> 
Message-ID: <8rliak0crt@news1.newsguy.com>

"Grant Edwards"  wrote in message
news:wAqD5.4401$WJ3.791257 at ptah.visi.com...
    [snip]
> Personally, I would like some way to refer to _a_ superclass.
> If there's more than one, it's an error or undefined or
> arbitrarily picks one. Almost all of the code I see/write uses

self.__class__.__bases__[0] satisfies this request, I think.

Would the saving of about three characters to call it, say,
self.__class__.__super__ be worth introducing a 'shortcut'...?

Alex

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Wed Oct 11 22:44:20 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 22:44:20 -0400
Subject: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

[Huaiyu Zhu]
> On the issue of whether Python should ignore over/underflow on
> IEEE-enabled platforms:
>
> It can be argued that on IEEE enabled systems the proper thing to do for
> overflow is simply return Inf.  Raising exception is WRONG.  See below.

Python was not designed with IEEE-754 in mind, and *anything* that happens
wrt Infs, NaNs, and all other 754 features in Python is purely an accident
that can and does vary wildly across platforms.  And, as you've discovered
in this case, can vary wildly also across even a single library, depending
on config options.  We cannot consider this to be a bug since Python has had
no *intended* behavior whatsoever wrt 754 gimmicks.  We can and do consider
gripes about these accidents to be feature requests.

[Guido]
> Incidentally, math.exp(800) returns inf in 1.5, and raises
> OverflowError in 2.0.  So at least it's consistent.

[Huaiyu]
> That is not consistent at all.

Please read with an assumption of good faith.  Guido was pointing out that--
all in the specific case of gcc+glibc on Linux (these don't hold on other
platforms) --exp(800) returning Inf in 1.5 and OverflowError in 2.0 is
consistent *with* that exp(-800) returns 0 in 1.5 and raises an exception in
2.0.  He's right; indeed, he is in part agreeing with you.

[Guido
> 1.5.2 links with -lieee while 2.0 doesn't.  Removing -lieee from the
> 1.5.2 link line makes is raise OverflowError too.  Adding it to the
> 2.0 link line makes it return 0.0 for exp(-1000) and inf for
> exp(1000).

[Huaiyu]
> If using ieee is as simple as setting such a flag, there is no
> reason at all not to use it.

The patch to stop setting -lieee was contributed by a Python user who
claimed it fixed bugs on *their* platform.  That's "the reason".  We don't
want to screw them either.

> Here are some more examples:
> ...

I understand that 754 semantics can be invaluable.  So does Guido.  There's
no argument about that.  But Python doesn't yet support them, and wishing it
did doesn't make it so.  If linking with -lieee happens to give you the
semantics you want on your platform today, you're welcome to build with that
switch.  It appears to be a bad choice for *most* Python users, though (more
below), so we don't want to do it in the std 2.0 distro.

> ...
> In practice this simply means Python would not be suitable for numerical
> work at all.

Your biggest obstacle in getting Python support for 754 will in fact be
opposition from number-crunchers.  I've been slinging fp for 21 years, 15 of
those writing compilers and math libraries for "supercomputer" vendors.  754
is a Very Good Thing, but is Evil in subset form (see Kahan's (justified!)
vilification of Java on this point); ironically, 754 is hardest to sell to
those who could benefit from it the most.

> What about the other way round?  No problem.  It is easy to write
> functions like isNaN, isInf, etc.

It's easy for a platform expert to write such functions for their specific
platform of expertise, but it's impossible to write them in a portable way
before C99 is implemented (C99 requires that library suppliers provide them,
rendering the question moot).

> ...
> The language should never take over or subvert decisions based on
> numerical analysis.

Which is why a subset of 754 is evil.  754 requires that the user be able to
*choose* whether or not, e.g., overflow signals an exception.  Your crusade
to insist that it never raise an exception is as least as bad (I think it's
much worse) as Python's most common accidental behavior (where overflow from
libm usually raises an exception).  One size does not fit all.

[Tim]
> Ignoring ERANGE entirely is not at all the same behavior as 1.5.2, and
> current code certainly relies on detecting overflows in math functions.

[Huaiyu]
> As Guido observed ERANGE is not generated with ieee, even for
> overflow.  So it is the same behavior as 1.5.2.

You've got a bit of a case of tunnel vision here, Huaiyu.  Yes, in the
specific case of gcc+glibc+Linux, ignoring ERANGE returned from exp() is
what 1.5.2 acted like.  But you have not proposed to ignore it merely from
ERANGE returned from exp() in the specific case of gcc+glibc+Linux.  This
code runs on many dozens of platforms, and, e.g., as I suggested before, it
looks like HPUX has always set errno on both overflow and underflow.  MS
Windows sets it on overflow but not underflow.  Etc.  We have to worry about
the effects on all platforms.

> Besides, no correct numerical code should depend on exceptions like
> this unless the machine is incapable of handling Inf and NaN.

Nonsense.  754 provides the option to raise an exception on overflow, or
not, at the user's discretion, precisely because exceptions are sometimes
more appropriate than Infs of NaNs.  Kahan himself isn't happy with Infs and
NaNs because they're too often too gross a clue (see his writings on
"presubstitution" for a more useful approach).

[Tim]
> In no case can you expect to see overflow ignored in 2.0.

[Huaiyu]
> You are proposing a dramatic change from the behavior of 1.5.2.
> This looks like to me to need a PEP and a big debate.  It would break
> a LOT of numerical computations.

I personally doubt that, but realize it may be true.  That's why he have
beta releases.  So far yours is the only feedback we've heard (thanks!), and
as a result we're going to change 2.0 to stop griping about underflow, and
do so in a way that will actually work across all platforms.  We're probably
going to break some HPUX programs as a result; but they were relying on
accidents too.

[Guido]
> No, the configure patch is right.  Tim will check in a change that
> treats ERANGE with a return value of 0.0 as underflow (returning 0.0,
> not raising OverflowError).

[Huaiyu]
> What is the reason to do this?  It looks like intetionally subverting
> ieee even when it is available.  I thought Tim meant that only logistical
> problems prevent using ieee.

Python does not support 754 today.  Period.  I would like it to, but not in
any half-assed, still platform-dependent, still random crap-shoot, still
random subset of 754 features, still rigidly inflexible, way.  When it does
support it, Guido & I will argue that it should enable (what 754 calls) the
overflow, divide-by-0 and invalid operation exceptions by default, and
disable the underflow and inexact exceptions by default.  This ensures that,
under the default, an infinity or NaN can never be created from
non-exceptional inputs without triggering an exception. Not only is that
best for newbies, you'll find it's the *only* scheme for a default that can
be sold to working number-crunchers (been there, done that, at Kendall
Square Research).  It also matches Guido's original, pre-754, *intent* for
how Python numerics should work by default (it is, e.g., no accident that
Python has always had an OverflowError exception but never an UnderflowError
one).

And that corresponds to the change Guido says  I'm going to make in
mathmodule.c:  suppress complaints about underflow, but let complaints about
overflow go through.  This is not a solution, it's a step on a path towards
a solution.  The next step (which will not happen for 2.0!) is to provide an
explicit way to, from Python, disable overflow checking, and that's simply
part of providing the control and inquiry functions mandated by 754.  Then
code that would rather deal with Infs than exceptions can, at its explicit
discretion.

> If you do choose this route, please please please ignore ERANGE entirely,
> whether return value is zero or not.

It should be clear that isn't going to happen.  I realize that triggering
overflow is going to piss you off, but you have to realize that not
triggering overflow is going to piss more people off, and *especially* your
fellow number-crunchers.  Short of serious 754 support, picking "a winner"
is the best we can do for now.  You have the -lieee flag on your platform du
jour if you can't bear it.

[Paul Dubois]
> I don't have time to follow in detail this thread about changed behavior
> between versions.

What makes you think we do <0.5 wink>?

> These observations are based on working with hundreds of code authors. I
> offer them as is.

FWIW, they exactly match my observations from 15 years on the HW vendor
side.

> a. Nobody runs a serious numeric calculation without setting underflow-to-
> zero, in the hardware. You can't even afford the cost of software checks.
> Unfortunately there is no portable way to do that that I know of.

C allows libm implementations a lot of discretion in whether to set errno to
ERANGE in case of underflow.  The change we're going to make is to ignore
ERANGE in case of underflow, ensuring that math.* functions will *stop*
raising underflow exceptions on all platforms (they'll return a zero
instead; whether +0 or -0 will remain a platform-dependent crap shoot for
now).  Nothing here addresses underflow exceptions that may be raised by fp
hardware, though; this has solely to do with the platform libm's treatment
of errno.

So in this respect, we're removing Python's current unpredictability, and in
the way you favor.

> b. Some people use Inf but most people want the code to STOP so they can
> find out where the INFS started. Otherwise, two hours later you have big
> arrays of Infs and no idea how it happened.

Apparently Python on libc+glibc+Linux never raised OverflowError from math.*
functions in 1.5.2 (although it did on most other platforms I know about).
A patch checked in to fix some other complaint on some other Unixish
platform had the side-effect of making Python on libc+glibc+Linux start
raising OverflowError from math.* functions in 2.0, but in both overflow and
underflow cases.  We intend to (as above) suppress the underflow exceptions,
but let the overflow cases continue to raise OverflowError.  Huaiyu's
original complaint was about the underflow cases, but (as such things often
do) expanded beyond that when it became clear he would get what he asked for
.

Again we're removing Python's current unpredictability, and again in the way
you favor -- although this one is still at the mercy of whether the platform
libm sets errno correctly on overflow (but it seems that most do these
days).

> Likewise sqrt(-1.) needs to stop, not put a zero and keep going.

Nobody has proposed changing anything about libm domain (as opposed to
range) errors (although Huaiyu probably should if he's serious about his
flavor of 754 subsetism -- I have no idea what gcc+glibc+Linux did here on
1.5.2, but it *should* have silently returned a NaN (not a zero) without
setting errno if it was *self*-consistent -- anyone care to check that
under -lieee?:

    import math
    math.sqrt(-1)

NaN or ValueError?  2.0 should raise ValueError regardless of what 1.5.2 did
here.).

just-another-day-of-universal-python-harmony-ly y'rs  - tim

From paulp at ActiveState.com  Wed Oct 25 01:01:03 2000
From: paulp at ActiveState.com (Paul Prescod)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 22:01:03 -0700
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich , 
 comparison
References:  <39F6639E.B74867EE@home.com>
Message-ID: <39F6690F.7770D0B6@activestate.com>

Donald O'Donnell wrote:
> 
> ....
> 
> .... Every
> main-stream language I've ever used (Fortran, COBOL, Basic,
> C, C++, Java,...) have all truncated the result of integer
> division to an integer, and that can be very useful.  ...

> If you really want a floating point
> result in the above example, all you need to do is use a/2.0
> -- see, you are in control this way, not the compiler

In either case you are in control. If Guido changes the default to be
float division you can get integer division by wrapping the result in a
floor(). The question is simply whether the default should be optimized
for experienced programmers coming from other languages like you or the
millions of people who are new to programming. You're likely to lose
that beauty contest.

Regardless, several people have made the point that in a dynamically
typed language people are much more likely to be bitten with this bug
because when they type "1" they aren't thinking about whether it is
interpreted as a float or an integer. The language goes out of its way
so that you often don't have to care (e.g. 5.0/2 == 2.5, not TypeError).

> ...
> I submit, that if you ever find it desirable to have your
> compiler automatically convert your ints to floats at some
> time during a calculation, then you should have been dealing
> with floats exclusively from the start.  

You'll have to go way back in history to impose this point of view. C
happily coerces integers to floats in some circumstances. Python will
someday just choose a different set of circumstances.

> Do you mean you would prefer:
>   (int) OP (int) => (int) sometimes and other times (float)
> Or do you mean:
>   (int) OP (int) => (float) always?
> I think the first case would be confusing and the second
> limiting.

The first would not be confusing if you think of integers as a special
case of floats, as you are taught to in high school. To a student, the
output of this program is somewhat confusing:

#include 

void main(void){
    printf("%f\n",5/2);
    printf("%f\n",5.0/2);
    printf("%f\n",5/2.0);
}

0.000000
2.500000
2.500000

Why are integers sometimes treated as a special case of float and
sometimes not?

 Paul Prescod

From thomas.heller at ion-tof.com  Mon Oct 23 07:32:37 2000
From: thomas.heller at ion-tof.com (Thomas Heller)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:32:37 +0200
Subject: Notes on unittest.py
References:  
Message-ID: <011501c03ce4$f1fe5180$e000a8c0@thomasnotebook>

> This looks interesting...  I've been using PyUnit a lot.  It's quite good
> (very solid in my experience), but exceptions are a pain to test for.  I
> generally end up doing something like this to beat the right results out of
> it:
> 
> def check_something(self):
>     val = self.mything(1) # this should pass
>     assert val == 1, 'mything was %s' % val
> 
> def check_something_exception(self):
>     try:
>         val = self.mything(-1) # this should raise an exception
>     except TheExceptionIThinkItWillRaise:
>         pass
>     else:
>         assert 1 == 2, ('check_something_exception did not '
>                         'raise proper exception on argument %s' % val)
> 
You could also use the assertRaises() method in pyunit:

def check_something_exception(self):
    self.assertRaises(TheExceptionIThinkItWillRaise, "self.mything", (-1,))

Thomas

From smithkf at OMIT_THIS.us.ibm.com  Fri Oct 13 19:46:36 2000
From: smithkf at OMIT_THIS.us.ibm.com (Kevin F. Smith)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 16:46:36 -0700
Subject: Compiling Python on Win32
Message-ID: <39E79EDC.3EDE7950@OMIT_THIS.us.ibm.com>

I'm trying to add an import-able module to python on Windows NT.  I am
using MS VC++ 5.0 (Dev Studio 97), and the Workspace file that comes
with the Python source code seems to work great (i.e., pcbuild.dsw)

Then to add the module that I am trying to add, I used the same
workspace (i.e., pcbuild.dsw), and went to the "python15 files" section
and added the module name (e.g., xmodule.c).  Then doing a build of both
the python15 files and the python files seems to result in a good .exe
and .dll.  I seem to be able to do everything except for "import x",
which gives: No Module named x.  All of the other modules seem to import
just fine.

To make sure that I am getting the modules from the new compile, I added
a printf() statement inside of the init function of one of the standard
modules, and sure enough, it prints the message when I import that
module, so I'm obviously running the newly compiled version of python.

What do I need to do to get the newly created module to also show up
when I try and import it?

On AIX, using ./configure and make, everything seems to work.  But there
must be something simple that I am missing on MS VC++ 5.0.

Thanks for any suggestions!
--kevin
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From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Thu Oct 12 19:12:39 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 23:12:39 GMT
Subject: Synchronizing CGI processes?
References:  <8s5bqk$m0h$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

> >synchronization problem:  how on earth can I guarantee synchronization
> >between two (or more) concurrent CGI sessions?  (I need to synchronize
> Hmmmm....  I'd call this a "locking" problem rather than a
> "synchronization" problem.  And you're right: there are few good
> cross-platform mechanisms for this.

Yes, you're probably right about the locking.  I probably wouldn't have to
worry so much about this if I was using a big database system, but I'm
trying to do this as "cheaply" as possible.

> Here's a question: does your
> service permit you to run a stand-alone process?  If so, make that a
> socket-based database server.  This would also make your code run
> generally faster.

As far as I know, I don't think so.  I guess it won't hurt to ask them!
(I'm using http://free.prohosting.com in case someone here would already
know???)  You say "socket-based database server".  What do you mean?  That
the said server would only be accessed by the running CGI processes or
should I rather make it the full server?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From lefebvre at med.mcgill.ca  Mon Oct  2 10:35:52 2000
From: lefebvre at med.mcgill.ca (Luc Lefebvre)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 14:35:52 GMT
Subject: can I query an instance for its name?
References:  <8r5a1p$h19dh$1@ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de>
Message-ID: 

Hi Emile,

Very interesting.  Thank you very much.

cheers.

In article <8r5a1p$h19dh$1 at ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de>, "Emile van Sebille"
 wrote:
> Luc,
> 
> There are many ways that this can be kludged, and certainly no
> recommended way.  That's probably why no other posts specifically
> addressed your question.  It gets muddier though, as the memory location
> storing the instance can be pointed at and known by many different
> names.  What you may want is buried in the traceback, and can be
> extracted.
> (Don't go there).  It's probably best to build whatever
> trace/name capabilities you're looking for into the __init__ of your
> classes.
> 
> That said, here is one more deficient way to *guess*:
> 
> 
> def who(var, lcls, glbls):
>     varid = id(var) for d in [lcls, glbls]:
>         for k in d.keys():
>             if id(d[k]) == varid:
>                 return "%s is an instance of class %s" % (k,
> d[k].__class__.__name__)
> 
> class test:
>     pass
> 
> class test1:
>     def who(self, lcls):
>         return who(self, lcls, globals())
> 
> tvar = test() print who(tvar, locals(), globals())
> 
> tvar = test1() print tvar.who(locals()) avar = tvar print
> tvar.who(locals())
> 
> 
> Ducking-the-expected-seasoned-reproach-ly y'rs,
> 
> --
> 
> Emile van Sebille emile at fenx.com
> -------------------
> 
> 
> "Luc Lefebvre"  wrote in message
> news:mailman.970327546.5142.python-list at python.org...
>> Hi Bjorn,
>>
>> I would like to see:
>>
>> >>> x.who() x is an instance of class foo
>>
>> --
>> Luc Lefebvre
>>
>> Open Source, a strategic choice for mission-critical applications
>>
>> Key fingerprint = D2E5 5E35 B910 6F4E 0242  EC63 0FD9 96D0
> C7F4 784E
>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Bjorn Pettersen wrote:
>>
>> > so if I do:
>> >
>> >  x = foo() y = x y.who()
>> >
>> > what should it print?
>> >
>> > -- bjorn
>> >
>> > Luc Lefebvre wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > > <\newbie alert on>
>> > >
>> > > I have been attempting to get access to instance
> names, eg:
>> > >
>> > > class foo:
>> > >         def __init__(self):
>> > >                 pass
>> > >
>> > >         def who(self):
>> > >                 print "%s is an instance of class %s"
> % (self.????, self.__class__)
>> > >
>> > > if __name__=="__main__":
>> > >         x=foo() x.who() # would expect "x is an instance of
> class foo"
>> > >
>> > > Also, is there a way to enquire as to a given classes
> children eg: foo.__children__?
>> > >
>> > > <\newbie alert off>
>> > > tia
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>> >
>>
>>
> 
> 

From arildh at stud.cs.uit.no  Sun Oct 15 06:40:33 2000
From: arildh at stud.cs.uit.no (Arild Hansen)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 12:40:33 +0200
Subject: LONG_BIT == 64, can't compile
References:  
Message-ID: <8sc0rc$40s$1@news.uit.no>

Hello,

I just deleted the section in pyport.h generating the error, and everything
compiled just fine. Since I don't use large integers in my programs I guess
all will be fine until a solution to the problem has appeared. So if your
programs don't depend on the definition of LONG_BIT you can try to hack your
way around the problem. Hehe - I know this isn't an optimal solution, but
it's a fast hack to get back in business !!!

Arild Hansen

"Johannes Zellner"  wrote in message
news:slrn8uijvt.fek.johannes at kristine.zellner.org...
> In article , Johannes
Zellner wrote:
> >Hello,
> >
> >the following lines of the latest python from cvs
> >make it uncompilable here:
> >
> >Include/pyport.h:384
> >
> >#if LONG_BIT != 8 * SIZEOF_LONG
> >/* 04-Oct-2000 LONG_BIT is apparently (mis)defined as 64 on some recent
> > * 32-bit platforms using gcc.  We try to catch that here at compile-time
> > * rather than waiting for integer multiplication to trigger bogus
> > * overflows.
> > */
> >#error "LONG_BIT definition appears wrong for platform (bad gcc
config?)."
> >#endif
> >
> >
> >LONG_BIT is apparently 64 here.
> >
> >I use:
> >
> >    GCC 2.95.2 20000220 (Debian GNU/Linux)
> >
> >hmm. I just commented out the above lines which makes python
> >compile but I can't do integer multiplictaions.
> >
> >So: how can I compile the stuff then ?
>
> I located the problem to be in /usr/include/bits/xopen_lim.h:
>
>     /* Number of bits in a word of type `long int'.  */
>     #if LONG_MAX == 2147483647
>     # define LONG_BIT 32
>     #else
>     /* Safe assumption.  */
>     # define LONG_BIT 64
>     #endif
>
> This fails, becauls LONG_MAX is defined to 2147483647L
>                                                      ^
>
> Where does this have to be reported ?
>
>
> So again: how can I compile the stuff to get proper integer operations ?
> can I simply override the definition of LONG_BIT to 32 ?
>
> --
>    Johannes

From aahz at panix.com  Fri Oct  6 12:14:01 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 6 Oct 2000 09:14:01 -0700
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
References:   <8ripra$pr3$1@panix2.panix.com> 
Message-ID: <8rkto9$832$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article ,   wrote:
>>>>>> aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) (AM) schrijft:
>
>AM> In article ,   wrote:
>>> 
>>> i = 0
>>> s = 1000 * 'x'
>>> mem = None
>>> while 1:
>>> i = i+1
>>> mem = (mem, s+`i`)
>
>AM> Blech.  If you're going to do a trick like that, just use a list.
>
>Why? What's wrong with a tuple?

Because it's normally considered immutable, and here you're using it in
a mutable way.  I just don't think it's Pythonic.

>I used the tuple because a list would grow and would temporarily occupy
>double the space while growing. 

That's just as true of what you're doing with the tuple.  But because
most of the storage space is being occupied by the strings, it's lost in
the noise.  Note that my example elsewhere in this thread uses 1MB
strings, so it's even less overhead for the list.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

There's a difference between a person who gets shit zie doesn't
deserve and a person who gets more shit than zie deserves.  --Aahz

From gregj at pobox.com  Sat Oct 14 23:56:58 2000
From: gregj at pobox.com (Greg Jorgensen)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 03:56:58 GMT
Subject: how do i PUT or POST to a web server?
References: <39e8e8ff.41ae1@newton.pacific.net.au>
Message-ID: 

"Andrew"  wrote in message
news:39e8e8ff.41ae1 at newton.pacific.net.au...
> Can anyone point me to an example of how I PUT or POST data to a web
server
> using Python?
>
> The Python reference documentation isn't very clear on this, although it
is
> quite clear on how to do a GET

You want httplib. It implements the full HTTP protocol (GET, POST, PUT,
HEAD). You'll have to know about the HTTP protocol, what headers to send,
etc.

urllib is a simple front-end to httplib that just does GET. I assume that's
what you're using.

If your talking to web servers you may find the timeoutsocket module handy:

http://www.timo-tasi.org/python/timeoutsocket.py

--
Greg Jorgensen
Deschooling Society
Portland, Oregon, USA
gregj at pobox.com

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 05:01:33 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:01:33 +0200
Subject: Does Python 2.0b1 support https on Windows?
References: <39B65D22.8C3FB61B@NameConnector.com> <3dn1hl1jkh.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us> <8qtk9v$h5q$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

jegerton at my-deja.com writes:

> I didn't see anything about SSL support in the httplib documentation -
> could you please explain how to use it?    If I was connecting using:
> 
>         h = httplib.HTTP('www.myserver.com')
> 
> what would I change this to for https?

Instead of httplib.HTTP, you write httplib.HTTPS. If you need to pass
X.509 secrets to SSL, you should use httplib.HTTPSConnection instead.

There is a bug report that documentation for SSL support is missing
(not only in httplib, but also in the socket module). Unless somebody
writes something really quick, that bug won't be fixed for 2.0.

Regards,
Martin

From gustav at morpheus.demon.co.uk  Sun Oct 29 17:09:39 2000
From: gustav at morpheus.demon.co.uk (Paul Moore)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 22:09:39 +0000
Subject: Initial value of sys.path
Message-ID: 

The initial value for sys.path on WIndows is signiicantly different
from that on Unix. Specifically, there is no site-packages directory
on Windows.

This is clearly a deliberate decision (as far as I can see, it's
enshrined in site.py, where it depends on os.sep being '/', and in
distutils/command/install.py, where it is in the INSTALL_SCHEMES
dictionary.

What I don't understand is WHY it was made. OK, a proportion of
Windows applications do things like this (mix distributed code and
site-specific details), but I don't think it is particularly common,
and it certainly isn't good practice, IMHO. Surely, the argument for
separating the "core" disrtibution from site-specific packages is just
as valid on Windows as on Unix?

I guess the only person who can say for sure is Guido, but can anybody
explain why things are set up this way - or point me to somewhere
where the rationale is documented?

Thanks,
Paul Moore.

PS And if anyone can suggest how I could modify this policy - short of
hacking site.py and the distutils - I would be modt grateful...

From sandj.williams at gte.net  Tue Oct 24 23:34:34 2000
From: sandj.williams at gte.net (Steve Williams)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 03:34:34 GMT
Subject: C's syntax
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com> <8t1964$v8a$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk> <17WI5.58198$oN2.2362868@news20.bellglobal.com> <39F45B51.320AA63F@alcyone.com> <8t1nr90105v@news1.newsguy.com> <39F4FEAF.FA466927@alcyone.com> <8t3fhf$aia$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
Message-ID: <39F6556B.351D6FDF@gte.net>

Andrew Dalke wrote:

> Erik Max Francis wrote:
> >[Writing "0 == a" instead of "a == 0" to catch accidental typos of
> >"=" instead of "=="] is largely unnecessary.  It is a novice programming
> > error, one that actual programmers do not make unless they are very green.
>
> I accidentally typed "=" instead of "==" today, in Python code expecting
> an expression.  I was glad to get the exception.  Oh, and I've been coding
> for 17+ years and professionally for 5 of those, so I'm not very green.
>

[snip]

Of course in COBOL you can write

    If a = 1 . . .

as well as

    if a = 1 or 2 or 3 . . .

and even

    if a not equal 1 and 2 and 3 . . .

In COBOL, only a novice would write

    if a == 1

and the compiler would definitely sneer at him.

But then COBOL's an antique, verbose language.

From josh at open.com  Sun Oct  8 23:16:12 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 23:16:12 -0400
Subject: Code obfuscation / decompilers?
References: <39de791e_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <6D4E5.34334$Cl1.766003@stones>
Message-ID: <39e136dd_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>

Sigh.  Because it is not within my power to modify the form of the key.  If
I was really trying to create an ideal system, I would start from scratch.
I'm not.  I'm trying to create the "least sucky" solution, given the
constraints imposed on me.

This is the difference between real world coding and theory.

-- johs

"Lokie"  wrote in message
news:6D4E5.34334$Cl1.766003 at stones...
> Looking at this from a slightly different direction, and with the
assumption
> that any code designed to eventually be executed can be examined in at
least
> some form, leads me to conclude the solution is not to distribute the lock
> with the code.
>
> (*** Warning Here comes a wild tangent ***)
>
> Why not then make the unlock code and key one and the same?
>
> For example if I know the user name in advance I can use that for some
> simple (or as complex as you want) encryption/decryption of the key to
> unlock the application. And having that key as a Python code object which
> can then be exec'ed to perform the unlocking operations (maybe some
function
> redirection?) hides from your casual cracker the means to steal your hard
> work.
>
> Of course that doesn't solve the problem of "friends" sharing out keys and
> usernames, and casual code browsers gleaming some of your intellectual
> property, but as a means to protect a revenue stream may be the best way
> forwards in an interpreted language.
>
> --
> Anthony McDonald
>
>

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 13 06:21:37 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:21:37 +0200
Subject: StringIO readline() bug??
References: <39E6CC82.F7A1711A@araidesign.com>
Message-ID: <8s6o1m02bnl@news1.newsguy.com>

"Chris Arai"  wrote in message
news:39E6CC82.F7A1711A at araidesign.com...
    [snip]
> >>>fstr=StringIO(file.readlines())

Here's your error: StringIo needs to be initialized with
a string, not with a list of strings, which is what you're
giving it here.

Use, instead:

>>> fstr = StringIO(file.readline())

and everything should work fine.

Note the difference: file.readline() returns the file's
contents as a single string; file.readlines() returns
it as a list of strings (one per line).

If you DID have a list-of-strings already through some
other process, and wanted to build a StringIO object
from it, you would concatenate the list into a string
when initializing the StringIO object.

If the strings in the list already have the needed
'\n' (as they do when coming from .readlines():

    fstr = StringIO(''.join(thelistofstrings))

If the strings in the list are bereft of '\n', and
you want to interpose '\n' between each of them:

    fstr = StringIO('\n'.join(thelistofstrings))

Alex

From jhsh at iafrica.com  Tue Oct 10 01:18:51 2000
From: jhsh at iafrica.com (Jannie Hofmeyr)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 05:18:51 GMT
Subject: Gnuplot.py for win32
References: <8rt1mm$p8m5@cchp4.unican.es>
Message-ID: <8ru8rq$bhe$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Jos? Luis Gallego"  wrote:

> Does anyone know how to configure the Gnuplot.py (version 1.4) module
for
> Win32? I have installed Python20, Numpy, Gnuplot (gp371w32) and
win32all.

Under Python20 I had to change the following line in gp_win32.py

from win32pipe import popen

to

from os import popen

Jannie

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From pinard at iro.umontreal.ca  Sun Oct  1 18:28:44 2000
From: pinard at iro.umontreal.ca (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Pinard?=)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 18:28:44 -0400
Subject: very good reasons?
In-Reply-To: kragen@pobox.com's message of "Sun, 1 Oct 2000 16:11:39 -0400 (EDT)"
References: 
Message-ID: 

[Kragen Sitaker]

> You write:
> > I'm not sure that `y = list(x)' returns `y' different than `x', if `x' is
> > already a list, in which case the functions above would mutate operands,
> > which is not welcome.  Maybe (?) it would be safer to write:

> It does return a copy of x if x is a list in 1.5.2.  Your proposed
> solution unfortunately doesn't work for tuples, which is unperlish.

> > 	y = x[:]

My suggestion about x[:] was not good.  Thanks for correcting me, Kragen.

-- 
Fran?ois Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 25 06:32:31 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:32:31 +0200
Subject: os.system limitations on Windows NT
References: <39F6A9CE.80407@cms.tecmath.de>
Message-ID: <8t6d5408j3@news1.newsguy.com>

"Markus Kohler"  wrote in message
news:39F6A9CE.80407 at cms.tecmath.de...
> Hi,
> I trying to execute a command with a large list of arguments.
> When I do os.system("link " + args) the program crashes.
> When I write the arguments to a file (fileName) and use
>
> os.system ("link @" + fileName)
>
> the arguments are truncated at an arbitrary point.

That depends on your system (and on the link program you
use; it appears from the @-convention for automatic
response files, that you may be using some link.exe under
some Microsoft operating system).  The link.exe that
comes with VC++6 is apparently able to take huge amounts
of arguments in an automatic-response-file (@filename).

I'm not sure, but I think you may be able to download
that recent version of link.exe as a part of the freely
downloadable "Microsoft Platform SDK" at Microsoft's
website.  Otherwise, the only solution I can think of
(taking advantage of a linker's specific semantics)
is to proceed in steps, grouping numbers of .obj files
into temporary .lib ones (using LIB.EXE, in a MS
setting), so the command arguments you eventually must
pass to LINK.EXE are substantially shorter.

Alex

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Mon Oct  9 12:39:07 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 09 Oct 2000 12:39:07 -0400
Subject: What is Python?
References:  <8pqhm9$6a9$1@panix3.panix.com> <3BBC75F01B2A2291.3CC54B93C0C69DED.4E021EA85330C94C@lp.airnews.net>  <8pt65c$cbs$2@newshost.accu.uu.nl>  <39C29336.71ED41AC@seebelow.org>  <39C3E664.BCEAF741@seebelow.org>  <8q5rgv$7to$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <39C6DF06.FF7F8A74@engcorp.com> <39C70642.D6CBF93A@alcyone.com> <39C710F7.4E72D963@seebelow.org> <39C86059.2F644D70@engcorp.com> <39C867B5.DFF9FFD3@seebelow.org> <8qat1u02g2j@drn.newsguy.com> <1eha5k2.kxgxg85fmpvrN@paris11-nas8-55-47.dial.proxad.net> <8rkk93028po@news2.newsguy.com> <1ei797z.80h2j11axifjmN@paris11-nas2-42-25.dial.proxad.net>
Message-ID: <3dvgv2m0k4.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

francois.granger at free.fr (Fran?ois Granger) writes:
> I think our Quebec cousins do it better.

Really?  I'm not aware that the Quebec office comes up with terms that
people actually use.  I remember amused columns in newspapers when it
decreed that the proper French for "brownie" was "gateau chocolat a
texture spongieux".  

Although, browsing the Quebec Office de la Langue Francaise's online
dictionary of computer-related terms at
http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/termino/ressling.html#vocint, it
seems to me that they've gotten better at coming up with decent terms.
"freeware" -> "gratuiciel", for example, which is kind of cute, and
"killer app" -> "application phare", which is a good metaphor.
Sometimes they don't even seem to be trying, though: ORB ->
"gestionnaire ORB", and "OO programming" -> "programmation orient?e
objet", which is graceless.  And why does "TCP/IP" become "TCP-IP" in
French?

An amusing quote:

    Le terme anglais ? Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister ?, cr??
    par Larry Wall, le concepteur du langage Perl, est un terme
    humoristique qu'on pourrait traduire par ? ?num?ration de d?chets
    pathologiquement ?clectiques ?.

Python is mentioned in the entry for "langage de script", BTW.
Unfortunately the included terms are mostly Internet-related ones.
There's no entry for "tree" or "binary tree" or "linked list" or
"kernel" or the OS-relating meaning of "thread", for example.  I guess
I'll never know if "arbre binaire" is correct French or not.

> "Deux choses sont en vastes quantit? dans l'univers. L'hydrog?ne et la
> connerie humaine. L'hydrog?ne est detruit dans le coeur des ?toiles."
> - inconnu cit? par Noelle Adam

The first sentence is usually attributed to the SF writer Harlan
Ellison; I think the second sentence is from Adam, or from some
intermediate source between Ellison and Adam.)

--amk

From aahz at panix.com  Thu Oct  5 22:33:17 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 5 Oct 2000 19:33:17 -0700
Subject: Running Python on SMP machine
References: 
Message-ID: <8rjdld$dqa$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
William Park   wrote:
>
>How do I take advantage of a SMP (2 CPU) machine?  The speed improvement that
>I get is what I would expect from 1 CPU machine.  Is anyone using Python on
>SMP machines?

You're hitting the Global Interpreter Lock.  The only way around it is
to use an extension that releases the GIL; all the blocking I/O routines
do so, so the simplest way to get fast threading is to use it for I/O.
If you need to speed up computations, you'll need to write an extension
yourself.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

There's a difference between a person who gets shit zie doesn't
deserve and a person who gets more shit than zie deserves.  --Aahz

From josh at open.com  Sun Oct  8 23:13:19 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 23:13:19 -0400
Subject: Code obfuscation / decompilers?
References: <39de791e_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39DE9F04.59C95D24@pehr.net> <39dea172_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <87pulbe215.fsf@cartman.azz.net>
Message-ID: <39e13632_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>

This has been covered in previous posts.  The algorithm, like it or not, is
pre-existing.  I have no choice but to use it.  Help me solve my problem,
don't criticize the constraints I work under.

-- josh

"Adam Sampson"  wrote in message
news:87pulbe215.fsf at cartman.azz.net...
> "Joshua Muskovitz"  writes:
>
> > But...  I don't want prying eyes to easily reverse engineer our key
> > validation process, or it will become useless.
>
> If your key authentication system relies on people not being able to
> find out your algorithm, then you need a better authentication system,
> not a code obfuscator.
>
> --
>
> Adam Sampson
> azz at gnu.org

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From g2 at seebelow.org  Sat Oct  7 09:37:43 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 14:37:43 +0100
Subject: BDFL hailed as Sf #7
References: 
Message-ID: <39DF2727.95470C8A@seebelow.org>

Robin Becker wrote:
> 
> Sourceforge's top 10 developers are
> 
> 1 - (12.0229) Tim Perdue
> 2 - (11.5487) Eric S. Raymond
> 3 - (10.9766) M. Drew Streib
> 4 - (10.7934) Uriah Welcome
> 5 - (9.9563) Tony Guntharp
> 6 - (9.8617) Mark A Peters
> 7 - (9.3784) Guido van Rossum
> 8 - (9.2508) Itzchak Rehberg
> 9 - (8.7577) Joseph Engo
> 10 - (8.2873) Jorrit Tyberghein
> 
> T Perdue is an SF hacker E Raymond is well known, but how this rating is
> arrived at is not clear.

With all respect to ESR, the listing is probably more about fame than
programming accomplishment.  (Fame is the same thing that turned Fred
Grandy and Sonny Bono into Congressmen.) 

it's-a-good-thing-"15-minutes"-spans-most-of-a-congressman's-term
   --ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From gsez020 at kryten.bedford.waii.com  Wed Oct 11 09:13:59 2000
From: gsez020 at kryten.bedford.waii.com (Pete Forman)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 14:13:59 +0100
Subject: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
References:   
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Luethi  writes:

    Martin> I just tried out these examples on Linux (SuSE 6.4 on
    Martin> PIII) and Solaris 5.7 (on Sparc architecture) and I get
    Martin> different behaviour with for the expressions. Both Python
    Martin> interpreters have been compiled with a nearly identical
    Martin> version of gcc

Beware.  The behaviour of math functions is dependent on more than the
compiler version.  On gcc there is a -ffast-math option which favours
speed over IEEE 754 compliance.  Other compilers have other such
options hidden away in the fine print of their man pages.  Often these
options are invoked implicitly by others such as -O5.  The math
library -lm is also a factor.

The other thing I'd be wary of is assuming that printf and friends are
handling your results properly on non-normal numbers.  I'd be tempted
to print out the underlying bits as well.  Use something like a union
of double and unsigned char[8].  I've a short C program that allows
you to play with those if anyone is interested.  See the link below.
-- 
Pete Forman                 -./\.- Disclaimer: This post is originated
Western Geophysical           -./\.-  by myself and does not represent
pete.forman at westgeo.com         -./\.-  the opinion of Baker Hughes or
http://www.crosswinds.net/~petef  -./\.-  its divisions.

From phd at phd.russ.ru  Thu Oct  5 12:46:44 2000
From: phd at phd.russ.ru (Oleg Broytmann)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 16:46:44 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Tom wrote:
> >    Why not just filter ads out? To make the letter more pythonic - I can
> > publish URLs of filtering proxies, and most of them are in Python. I
> > actually use one these proxies - and is pretty satisfied (I hacked it a
> bit
> > and sent patches to author...)
> 
> Yes, I think I should.
> Do I have to setup a proxy?

   They are pretty simple, in my opinion (but I am programmer and sysadmin :)

> Do these slow things down at all?

   To some extent, but not much noticeable. Well, there they are:

http://www.junkbusters.com/ - most known; not Python, C proxy, highly
configurable;

http://waldherr.org/junkbuster/

http://www.zaplet.org/adzapper/

http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/proxy.html - pure Python proxy; I use it,
and I can publish my patches if anyone interested;

http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~ckotso/CTC/

http://www.andrewcooke.free-online.co.uk/jara/alfajor/

Oleg.
---- 
     Oleg Broytmann            http://phd.pp.ru/            phd at phd.pp.ru
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

From hancock at earthlink.net  Wed Oct  4 21:31:36 2000
From: hancock at earthlink.net (Terry Hancock)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 18:31:36 -0700
Subject: type() and types
Message-ID: <39DBD9F8.C310D89E@earthlink.net>

Hi,
I'm implementing a new object class in Python to
do fuzzy logic, and for various reasons I need
to check the type of variables to determine if they
are fuzzy logic values.

It seems like the "right" way to do this is to
somehow provide type() the capability to do this,
and this seems to be how some of the standard 
modules work (since they provide new types), but
amongst "Learning Python" the "Python Reference
Manual" and the "Python Library Reference" I'm
not able to figure out how this is done.  Maybe
I'm just being thick, but I couldn't find anything
about it.  What am I missing?

Does anyone know how to do this?
TiA!

-- 
Terry Hancock
hancock at earthlink.net

From edwardam_home at my-deja.com  Thu Oct 26 12:37:58 2000
From: edwardam_home at my-deja.com (edwardam_home at my-deja.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 16:37:58 GMT
Subject: Python on the iPAQ
References: <8sb2f2$hns$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39F48CF8.D80F9169@udel.edu>
Message-ID: <8t9ml5$npa$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <39F48CF8.D80F9169 at udel.edu>,
  Charles Boncelet  wrote:
> edwardam at home.com wrote:
>
> > I just wanted to toot my own horn for a minute and mention that
python
> > is now available for the Compaq iPAQ running under Linux from
> > www.handhelds.org.
>
> This is really a fun looking project and I'd even consider trying
> it on my IPAQ.  That is, if I had my IPAQ.  It's been backordered
> for months with no clear end in sight.
>
> Any chance python will work in the IPAQ under WinCE? Just
> curious.
>

Not that I am aware of. I bought my iPAQ specifically to run Linux on
it. I had it less than a day before CE went away....

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From werner.geuens2 at pandora.be  Mon Oct  9 18:37:02 2000
From: werner.geuens2 at pandora.be (Werner Geuens)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 22:37:02 GMT
Subject: WinScoc error
Message-ID: 

Jut ran into an error, using urllib from Windows.

Here's what I tested:

import urllib
urllib.urlretrieve('http://www.jennicam.org/guests/cam.jpg','test.jpg')

That kind of thing works just fine under OS/2 and - I supppose - Linux. But
not under Windows.

This is the error message I get:
IOError: [Errno socket error] (10060, 'winsock error')

I'm using 1.5.2 under Windows, OS/2 and Linux S.U.S.E. Seems only Windows
would have this problem, but is there a solution?

--

Werner Geuens from his new, not-yet-configured account
werner.geuens2 at pandora.be

From cmedcoff at my-deja.com  Fri Oct 13 15:44:42 2000
From: cmedcoff at my-deja.com (Charles Medcoff)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 19:44:42 GMT
Subject: any pickle patterns?
Message-ID: <8s7on8$5n7$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I've just begun using the pickle module.  I have found it very easy to
use and it works well.

One item that I am looking for some advice on is how to
support "schema" changes in an object.  What if a class adds some data
members and we try to read in an older version of the object?  I can
write out my own version info and read it back in and handle all of
that myself, but I am wondering if there are other "patterns"
or "idioms" for handling this issue.

Those familiar with MFC/Serialize will be familiar with the schema
numbering of the IMPLEMENT_SERIAL() macro.  Does python have anything
remotely similar in function?

Regards,
Chuck

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 31 08:18:22 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 14:18:22 +0100
Subject: How do you create constants?
References:  <39FAE133.9070001@yieldworks.com>  <2nDK5.2916$QH2.270412@newsb.telia.net> <39FB0B4A.1238E8BC@yieldworks.com>   
Message-ID: <8tmh4p01ume@news1.newsguy.com>

"Rainer Deyke"  wrote in message
news:g%lL5.138552$g6.65232584 at news2.rdc2.tx.home.com...
    [snip]
> 1. The usage "const x = ..." means that the __dict__ is made partially
> immutable.  This is possible, but probably more trouble than it's worth.
>
> 2. It is not obvious wether const-ness applies to objects or references.
I
> vote for the latter.

It seems you mean 'the object referred to cannot be changed through
this reference', rather than 'this reference cannot be changed' (else,
if each reference carried the information about whether it's mutable,
where's the "more trouble" in making specific entries in a dictionary
(which are also references, after all) carry that same information?).

But *that* does seem troublesome indeed.  The general case is something
like
    areference.amethod(some,args)
although some specific subcases may have alternate syntax sugar,
e.g. if 'amethod' is actually '__setitem__' this could be equivalently
written
    areference[some]=args
which is what you exemplify below.  Now, how do we tell the object
referred to by 'areference' that it's not supposed to effect any
changes this time?  Note that catching/inhibiting changes to that
object's __dict__ is surely not enough -- the implementation of
__setitem__ could well be, say:
    def __setitem__(self, index, value):
        globalblob[index]=value

If the reference itself carries the constness-bit, then 'self',
here, is not carrying it, is it?  It's the same _reference_ as
when the same method is called on the same object through another
different reference.

Even if it were, there would have to be an explicit test by the
method author to honor the 'constness'.  Or we would have to
mark methods to denote 'constness' ("this method cannot be
called on a constant reference", "this is the version to call
if the reference is constant", ...), and even then it's still
basically down to the code author -- just like 'const' in C,
which is _supposed_ to denote 'logical constness' but clearly
can't (so it tries to ensure physical constness instead, not
normally the key issue -- btw, let's remember to add a 'mutable'
attribute, as in C++, to members, to indicate "this attribute
can be physically changed without impairing logical constness",
as well as having to rely on coders' judgment anyway to respect
the 'logical constness' constraint...).

In short, the design trouble that follows from wanting to
enable the following (not as a hacked up magic special case,
but with the generality and simplicity that is Python's
hallmark):

> a = [1, 2, 3]
> b = const a
> a[0] = 5
> print b # --> '[5, 2, 3]'
> b[0] = 1 # Raises ConstError

...appears to entail a lot of work for little real gain.

Me, I'd happily settle for a couple of state-bits on
dictionaries -- whether to allow rebinding of existing
entries, whether to allow creation of new entries.  This
has modest usefulness (and, if one had to choose, the
alternative of being able to use general mapping objects
wherever dictionaries are currently allowed would no
doubt be more general -- allowing this tweak as well as
others, such as user-mappings with per-key 'constness',
and others yet not related to constness as well), but
it seems to me it could be implemented easily, with clean
and unsurprising semantics, and no serious performance
implications...

Alex

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Thu Oct 12 09:40:49 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 14:40:49 +0100
Subject: Most Effective Way to Build Up a Histogram of Words?
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B1287@intrepid>

> From:	June Kim [SMTP:junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com]
> What is the most effective way, in terms of the execution speed,
> to build up a histogram of words from a multiple of huge text
> files?

June,
How huge? As a first cut, I'd try something like this (untested) -

file = open('yourfile.txt', r)
filedata = file.read()
words=filedata.split()
histogram {}
for word in words:
	histogram[word] = histogram.get(word, 0) + 1
for word in histogram.keys():
	print 'Word: %s - count %s' % (word, str(histogram[word])

This should work unless the file is *really* huge, in which case you'll need
to read the file in a chunk at a time. But if you can squeeze the file in
one gulp, do so.

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

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copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From sabren at manifestation.com  Mon Oct  9 00:09:46 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 00:09:46 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?
In-Reply-To: <39E12AC1.3B31D31@my.signature>
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, Greg Ewing wrote:

> Alex Martelli wrote:
> > 
> > self.__class__.__bases__[0] satisfies this request, I think.
> 
> Not when there is more than one level of inheritance
> involved. The class you want to find the base class
> of isn't the class of self, it's the class where the
> currently executing method was defined, and there's
> currently nothing in Python that keeps track of that.

Why do you need that? Calling a method of a class 
climbs the hierarchy for you, all the way up to where
the method was first defined or last overridden.

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From cjc26 at nospam.cornell.edu  Fri Oct  6 18:03:58 2000
From: cjc26 at nospam.cornell.edu (Cliff Crawford)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 22:03:58 GMT
Subject: 2 buttons -> 1 form
References: 
Message-ID: 

* Nathan  menulis:
| Is it possible to call the same HTML form with two different submit buttons?
| 
| I have a web page that lists several items that users can select with check
| boxes. At the bottom of the page I have two buttons. The first button sends
| information about the checked items to the user by email. The second button
| displays more details about the checked items. The problem is both buttons
| need to call the same form. I am stuck! Please help.

This isn't exactly a Python question, but I'll answer it anyway :)
The trick is to add a NAME attribute to both submit buttons; for
example:

Then in your CGI script check for what the value of "button" is:

form = cgi.FieldStorage()
if form.has_key("button"):
    if form["button"].value == "Send email":
        send_email()
    else:
        more_details()

Another way to do it would be to give the buttons two different values
for their NAME attributes, and then check to see which one was actually
passed to your CGI script.

-- 
cliff crawford       http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cjc26/
                     "Man, the Internet is so cool." -Robert

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct  8 06:23:37 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 10:23:37 GMT
Subject: Integer multiplication overflow.
References: <8ronb6$75e$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

"johnvert" wrote:
> I wrote the following simple recursive factorial function in python:
> 
> def fact(num):
>   if num < 2: 1
>   return num * fact(num - 1)
> 
> When I run it, I get the following:
> 
> >>> fact(3)
> 6

note that with the code you posted, you're more likely to get
a RuntimeError (Maximum recursion depth exceeded).

> So why does python choke (pun intended) on a slightly large
> multiplication?  I know it's not meant to be very numeric (although I
> hear it's capable of a lot with the Numeric package,) but the factorial
> of 15 is trivial.

not if you're a 32-bit computer ;-)

:::

unlike scheme, python doesn't automatically change from
ordinary (machine) integers to long (unlimited precision)
integers.  (maybe in "python 3000"...)

as others have pointed out, you can use long integers from
the start:

    def fact(num):
        if num < 2:
            return 1L
        return num * fact(num - 1)

it can sometimes be more efficient to switch only when necessary:

    def fact(num):
        if num < 2:
            return 1
        tail = fact(num - 1)
        try:
            return num * tail
        except OverflowError:
            return long(num) * tail

:::

btw, here's a version for people who have problems pressing the
return key:

    def fact(num): return long(num < 2) or num * fact(num - 1)

From kcazabon at home.com  Tue Oct 10 22:02:20 2000
From: kcazabon at home.com (Kevin Cazabon)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 02:02:20 GMT
Subject: simple image processing in python
References: 
Message-ID: 

The "current" version of PIL (Python Imaging Library) is very up to date...
you're probably looking at version 0.3 or something like that.

Check out www.pythonware.com for the latest versions.  They have the 1.1
source files available, as well as 1.0 pre-compiled for Windows (and links
to Linux binaries too).  You can easily get the sizes of the files with PIL,
without loading the entire image.

#sample
import Image

im = Image.open("c:/temp/test.tif")
size = im.size

print size

>>> (768, 512)

PIL doesn't actually load the data until you perform an operation that
requires that it is loaded... so just getting the size is very quick, even
with a 400MB image file.

Kevin.

"Feiyi Wang"  wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.10.10010101841440.11339-100000 at worf.mcnc.org...
| hi,
|
| I have a simple need of geting image size from either .jpg or .tif. I
| didn't find any suitable library from standard python distribution, and
| python imaging SIG got a distribution which seems pretty old (1997).
|
| I wonder what is usually/effective way to get it done?
|
| Thanks for your help
|
| Feiyi
|

From donn at oz.net  Wed Oct  4 12:32:07 2000
From: donn at oz.net (Donn Cave)
Date: 4 Oct 2000 16:32:07 GMT
Subject: how do I listen on a socket without sucking up all the CPU time?
References: <8FC37C7D7mikecat@192.168.10.38> <8FC2A1B30mikecat@192.168.10.38> <39d971f3_1@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39D9AA8D.EABDF6BA@businesscollaborator.com>  <8reb7f$gk6$0@216.39.151.169>
Message-ID: <8rfm27$ham$0@216.39.151.169>

No, I'm sure time.sleep() will release the interpreter lock.  Try it!

	Donn Cave, donn at oz.net

From tbryan at python.com  Sat Oct 28 08:40:16 2000
From: tbryan at python.com (Thomas A. Bryan)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 08:40:16 -0400
Subject: Zope question: collaborative environments?
References: <39F8C8EC.EB2DC75D@UTS.Itron.com>  
Message-ID: <39FAC930.A6B906AA@python.com>

"Samuel A. Falvo II" wrote:

> I think this is an unnecessarily harsh assessment of Zope.  
[...snip...]
> The problem, therefore, is that the assorted set of products available for
> Zope are all in varying stages of development, and none of the *products*
> are ready for prime-time.  Zope, the core itself, has always been ready for
> prime-time -- at least since the 2.1 series was first unveiled.

Thanks.  It's nice to see a few different perspectives on Zope.  If we go 
with Zope, we just need enough products to be good enough for solid, constant 
internal use to suit our needs.  If the engine or the products we need to use 
are so immature that they corrupt data or slow to a crawl on a multi-processor 
Alpha box (or a separate, dedicated PC), then Zope is definitely not an option.
If twenty developers can leave their browsers up and hit the Zope server several 
times per hour with good response time, then Zope is definitely an option.

> is not designed for the web content newbie either.  
[...snip...]
> At some point, you need
> to just dive in and try it yourself.  The single best way to learn how to
> use Zope is to just download it, install it, follow their simple tutorial,
> modify the set of pages supplied, and learn as you go.  

After this thread, I think that it's time to do exactly that.

> >I suggest you look seriously at these alternatives:
> 
> Exactly -- don't use Zope for the sake of it being based on Python.  Use
> Zope because it fulfills your needs.  There's room for all sorts of tools in
> this world.  Sometimes, it seems like this world is a little *too*
> competitive.

Of course.  My boss knows that Python is one of my favorite languages, so he 
knows where my bias lies.  ;-)  The problem was that I knew about Zope and 
Sourceforge, but I had a real problem *finding* anything else.  I tried a dozen 
generic web searches for Zopish things, but I couldn't even locate Zope or 
SourceForge. :-/  I kept pulling up silly tools for web site developers or the 
bug databases of various other products.  I'll definitely take a look at the 
list Jason posted.  If anyone has any other suggestions, then I'd be happy to 
hear them.  The more choices I have, the more likely we'll be able to choose 
something that really fits my group's needs.

---Tom

From shwang5 at students.uiuc.edu  Mon Oct 23 13:58:41 2000
From: shwang5 at students.uiuc.edu (seung-won hwang)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 12:58:41 -0500
Subject: mmap?
In-Reply-To: <8sv73o$a1o$1@panix3.panix.com>
References:  <8sv73o$a1o$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

Hi, thanks for your answer. However, I think mmap is only for mutable
string. Is there any other way to save/load data structure on memory
to file using Python? Your answer would be very helpful to me!

> >Or is there any other way to flush data structure on the memory
> >to the file and load from the file later? I would appreciate your
> >answers very much!
> 
> Use the mmap module?
> -- 
>                       --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)
> 
> Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
> Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
> 
> "In the end, outside of spy agencies, people are far too trusting and
> willing to help."  -- Ira Winkler
> 
> 

From d98aron at dtek.chalmers.se  Tue Oct  3 19:54:54 2000
From: d98aron at dtek.chalmers.se (Fredrik Aronsson)
Date: 3 Oct 2000 23:54:54 GMT
Subject: Newbie: How to convert "<" to "<" ( encoding? )
References: 

    <9UsC5.27$fn2.59024@news.pacbell.net>
Message-ID: <8rdrke$2l9$1@nyheter.chalmers.se>

In article <9UsC5.27$fn2.59024 at news.pacbell.net>,
	"Eric"  writes:
>> replace (str, old, new[, maxsplit]) -> string
> Thanks Bjorn.  That DOES take care of the two examples 
> I gave.  However, I am trying to implement something 
> that will handle all the encoding needed to make a string 
> "HTML friendly."  I'm sorry, there is a name for the 
> kind of encoding I am trying to do, but I don't know 
> what that name is (HTML encoding?).

Here is an example which replaces all characters with HTML entities.

import string

# Load dictionary of entities (HTML 2.0 only...)
from htmlentitydefs import entitydefs
# Here you could easily add more entities if needed...

def html_encode(s):
    s = string.replace(s,"&","&")  # replace "&" first

    #runs one replace for each entity except "&"
    for (ent,char) in entitydefs.items():
        if char != "&": 
            s = string.replace(s,char,"&"+ent+";")
    return s

>>> print html_encode("this  a  with >")
this <is> a <string> with <nested <brackets>>
>>> print html_encode("&<>??????????????")
&<>åäöÅÄÖß£
éèãñîê
>>> 

Another (probably better) solution is:

import string

from htmlentitydefs import entitydefs  

inv_entitydefs = {}
for (ent,char) in entitydefs.items():
    inv_entitydefs[char]="&"+ent+";"  # Invert dictionary

def html_encode2(s):
    res=""
    for c in s:                       # Just loops through the string once
        if inv_entitydefs.has_key(c): # looking for characters
            res=res+inv_entitydefs[c] # to exchange
        else:
            res=res+c
    return res

made-them-two-minutes-ago-so-be-careful-ly' yours
Fredrik

From nas at arctrix.com  Fri Oct  6 09:43:15 2000
From: nas at arctrix.com (Neil Schemenauer)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 06:43:15 -0700
Subject: Organizing Python Code
In-Reply-To: ; from ge@nowhere.none on Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 08:32:17PM +0000
References: <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7@ix.netcom.com> <39D82B17.81958D15@esatclear.ie>  <39DBB04C.1681E515@esatclear.ie> <39DBC391.EDF52FF8@my.signature> <39DD2319.6ECE412E@esatclear.ie> <39de333a$1_2@goliath2.newsfeeds.com> 
Message-ID: <20001006064315.B4793@glacier.fnational.com>

On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 08:32:17PM +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
> Gnu ctags only knows C, C++, Fortan, Eiffel, and Java.  One
> presumes adding a new language is a fair amount of work.

There is a ptags script in the standard distribution.

  Neil

From effbot at telia.com  Thu Oct 26 11:33:19 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 15:33:19 GMT
Subject: TypeError
References:  <39F84AB2.1CB3C26D@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <39YJ5.2965$jv2.333524@newsc.telia.net>

joonas wrote:
> The code that did the error is shown below.
> ##########
> speedgear = first - second
> ##########

>>> speedgear = first - second
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
NameError: first

(the fine manual says TypeErrors are "Raised when a
built-in operation or function is applied to an object of
inappropriate type".  Maybe 'first' and 'second' contain
things that can't be subtracted from each other?  hint:
you can use float() and int() to convert from strings to
numbers)

From aahz at panix.com  Tue Oct 31 20:20:18 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 31 Oct 2000 17:20:18 -0800
Subject: Security Concerns
References: 
Message-ID: <8tnr4i$fht$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
Super Bolo  wrote:
>
>i'm really new to the Python world... question: are there known security
>problems that can be generated by CGI programming with Python??
>Installing the Python interpreter on a web server can in some way compromise
>it's security??

No more than that caused by Perl, overall.  I'd say most security
problems in Python come from badly designed os.system() calls, just like
in Perl.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"I have the heart of a child.  I keep it in a jar on my desk."  --Robert Bloch

From pisel at opencan.cc  Tue Oct 17 05:58:22 2000
From: pisel at opencan.cc (Pisel)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:58:22 +0200
Subject: Python 2.0 + Tkinter + tcl/tk 8.3 (RH7.0)
Message-ID: <39ec2306$0$25470@SSP1NO25.highway.telekom.at>

Hi!
Is there a possibility to compile tkinter for python 2.0 under RH 7.0 
(tcl/tk 8.3)?
(Building PIL for python 1.52 under RH 7.0 worked fine by simply changing  
"-ltk8.0" to "-ltk8.3" in the Makefile :-)

Pisel

From smnordby at yahoo.com  Sun Oct 22 19:38:06 2000
From: smnordby at yahoo.com (Steve)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 16:38:06 -0700
Subject: Save text from Tk widget?
Message-ID: <39F37A5E.329BFE84@yahoo.com>

I have a function inside my main class to open a file in a ScrolledText
widget.
The default Windoze key bindings work for simple text editing, so I
added
a save function, but I declare a global variable to get the widget
contents to the save function.  There must be a better way?

	def viewDict(self):
		new = Toplevel()
		global zd
		zd = ScrolledText(new, height = 30, width = 70)
		zd.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=YES)
		zd.insert('0.0', open('c:/mytools/mydict.py', 'r').read())
		Button(new, text='Save', fg='red', command=self.saveDict).pack()

	def saveDict(self):
		contents = zd.get(1.0, END)
		output = open('c:/mytools/mydict.py', 'w')
		output.write(contents)
		output.close()

From aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com  Fri Oct  6 00:06:00 2000
From: aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com (Aleksei Guzev)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 10:06:00 +0600
Subject: exceptions
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

The problem is I need place the try block otside the function :)))

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: python-list-admin at python.org
>>[mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of Alex
>>Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 11:30 PM
>>To: python-list at python.org
>>Subject: Re: exceptions
>>
>>
>>
>>You just have the try block in the wrong place.  Try something like
>>this:
>>
>>def f(divident):
>>	L=[2,4,5,0,5,0,8]
>>	for divisor in L:
>>                try:
>>		        print divident/divisor
>>                except:
>>                        print ''
>>f(100)
>>
>>Alex.
>>
>>-- 
>>Speak softly but carry a big carrot.
>>
>>-- 
>>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From ge at nowhere.none  Tue Oct  3 12:01:07 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 16:01:07 GMT
Subject: Number of Python Users
References: <8rb8an$jfl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <7pnC5.3840$WJ3.644295@ptah.visi.com>

In article <8rb8an$jfl$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, echuck at mindspring.com wrote:

>Is there any kind of estimate on the number of Python users? Or even
>related numbers, like # of downloads of 1.5.2?

By "user" do you mean people who program in Python or people
who run apps written in python?  If the latter, then pretty
much all RedHat/Mandrake/?? Linux users are Python users.  That
should give you a nice large number for your powerpoint
presentation!

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Is this going to
                                  at               involve RAW human ecstasy?
                               visi.com            

From g2 at seebelow.org  Sat Oct  7 09:00:37 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 14:00:37 +0100
Subject: future of Python: Stackless, Standard -> fragmentation ?
References: <8rk7e5$47u$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no> 
Message-ID: <39DF1E75.5589C2D7@seebelow.org>

Will Ware wrote:
> 
> Thomas Weholt (thomas at cintra.no) wrote:
> > ... could Python be fragmented in the future due to "distros" like
> > (ActivePython), Stackless Python  and JPython ...
> > ... Is the difference between the different
> > implementations any reason for concern at all?
> 
> I can't speak for ActivePython, but I know a little bit about the stories
> with JPython and Stackless. JPython replaces Python's virtual machine,
> normally written in C and part of the source code for Python, with Java's
> virtual machine. Stackless Python is a variant with a modified virtual
> machine, where information that was previously kept on the C stack is
> moved to a separate data structure, with the consequence that threads of
> execution can be separated from one another, allowing for pickling
> (storing the thread away to be continued later) and microthreading (running
> several little threads concurrently, each a few opcodes at a time).
> 
> Alas, Stackless Python and JPython cannot be merged. The reason for this
> is that the Java virtual machine cannot be modified to become stackless in
> the sense that CPython's virtual machine can be. Technically it may be
> possible to write a modified JVM (there is at least one open-source JVM
> out there somewhere), but a forked JVM would never come into common usage,
> and any benefit of running Python on a standardized VM would be lost.
> 
> Were it not for the irreconcilable differences between Stackless and
> JPython, Stackless might have made it into the 2.0 release. The people who
> make these decisions (Guido and company at BeOpen) are well aware of these
> issues and many more, and have thought them through in much greater detail
> than you or I have done. So I'll reiterate the Python community refrain
> of "in Guido we trust".

That was very interesting, and it makes good sense.  But I guess the
thing that confuses me, in that context, is the assertion I have read
that Stackless is 100% backwards compatible with CPython.  Is the
"irreconcilable difference", then, in terms of the _new_ features or
capabilities that Stackless adds?  If so, JPython programmers presumably
could happily continue to do without them, in the same way that CPython
programmers currently do; only programs that rely on the new features
would be incompatible with JPython.

> --
> # - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> # Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.

Inductance is religious.

and-don't-get-me-started-on-"reluctance"--ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 19 16:00:46 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:00:46 +0200
Subject: using 0x1 << i where i is large HELP!!!
References: <39ECF450.A86550BD@uoguelph.ca> <39ECF4F6.3450091E@uoguelph.ca>  
Message-ID: <8snk3g01onc@news2.newsguy.com>

"Samuel A. Falvo II"  wrote in message
news:slrn8uuda5.abd.kc5tja at garnet.armored.net...
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 01:03:33 GMT, William Tanksley wrote:
> >On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 20:55:18 -0400, Mark Cunningham wrote:
> >>How do you make a long long type in Python?
> >
> >A long type in Python is indefinitely long.  As many bits as you need.
>
> That didn't answer his question.

Yes it did, by implication.  Since a Python long has no length
limits, you cannot make any Python type that is *longer* than
it; therefore, no 'long long', 'very long', 'really truly long', etc.

An object that is a Python long, of course, is built by long(something),
or a constant that is a string of digits followed by an L, etc etc.

Alex

From talon at coursen.ifu.net  Mon Oct 30 10:15:07 2000
From: talon at coursen.ifu.net (Stephen Coursen)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 15:15:07 GMT
Subject: CPython vs. Jython/JPython
References:   <9BfL5.14315$w6.6473179@news3.rdc1.on.home.com> 
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 09:55:24 -0500, D-Man  wrote:
>
>Java's implementation (from Sun) is proprietary.  However, you can get a
>compiled version for free.
>
>There are also other implementations (gcj allows compiling to native
>machine code,  kaffe provides a bytecode compiler and VM -- for Linux at
>least.
>
>BTW  [OT]:   I can't remember how to create bytecode with gcj.  Would
>anyone like to refresh my memory?
>

gcj -C some_file.java

HTH,
Steve Coursen

>On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 09:29:25 Tom wrote:
>> And isn't Java a proprietary language/platform (ie. how would you like a VB
>> implementation)?
>> 
>
>
>

-- 
--
Stephen Coursen                      talon at coursen.tempestnetworks.net
Linux is your friend.  Trust the penguin.

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house."
-- George Carlin

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Fri Oct 27 08:42:49 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 08:42:49 -0400
Subject: Pretty report printing
References:  
Message-ID: <39F97849.93C3F790@holdenweb.com>

Dale Strickland-Clark wrote:
> 
> Dale Strickland-Clark  wrote:
> 
> >I need to produce a bunch of standard reports from a database and am
> >considering Python.
> >
> >The reports need to be pretty but probably text only (although borders
> >and boxes would be nice). They should be previewable online and
> >printable to any Windows printer.
> >
> >I like the idea of using HTML but it doesn't understand the printed
> >page so headings, headers and footers are trickey.
> >
> >Other options include PDF (which I'd have to research cos I know
> >nothing about it) and driving Word or Excel through COM to build pages
> >- which isn't an attractive thought.
> >
> >How have others tackled this problem?
> >
> >Thanks
> >Dale Strickland-Clark
> >Out-Think Ltd
> >Business Technology Consultants
> >
> 
> Thanks for the info. I'm looking into the PDF stuff at ReportLabs but
> am a bit confused about the compression. This may not be an issue as
> reports are unlikely to be transmitted anywhere but you can be pretty
> sure that if I don't do it, I'll regret it.
> 
> Something I read on ReportLabs site suggested that I need to rebuild
> Python to get compressed PDF files. Is this right?
> --
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants

Dale:

A somewhat lower-level solution might be the Piddle library, driving the
PDF back-end.  I've used this with success in a couple of quick projects.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Wed Oct 25 03:12:22 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 00:12:22 -0700
Subject: class mutex
Message-ID: <016101c03e53$09889e90$8001a8c0@jayk3.jaykhome>

Sorry..I kind of misspoke. Though what I said is all true, it's not all
relevant. Many kernel objects are unnamed, and therefore have no presence in
the namespace. This is what happens when you pass NULL for the name to
CreateEvent, CreateMutex, CreateSemaphore. Processes and threads are
also..uh, I think impossible to name from the Win32 api. Files too. File
opening does relate to the namespace, as things like c: are there.

Still, NT definitely does not use tempfiles for mutexes. Nor does
Win95/98/Me..
Whether or not Win9x has this internal hierarchical namespace, I don't know.
Win9x critical sections should also be much more efficient than Win9x
mutexes, but I'm not familiar with their details.

Mutexes have the extra features of
    work cross process
    locking them can accept a non infinite timeout parameter (critical
sections on NT4+ and maybe Win98 have TryEnterCriticalSection, but that's
still weaker than a timeout parameter).

The features are not free, and sometimes are needed, sometimes not.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Olivier Dagenais 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: class mutex

>Great!  I learn something new every day...
>So... what would Win95/98/Me do?
>
>--
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
>"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
>internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"
>
>
> wrote in message
>news:mailman.972384960.25318.python-list at python.org...
>> No. Windows does not use a tempfile. That would be crude.
>>
>> NT at least has an internal in-memory-mostly hierarchical namespace. The
>> file system and registry namespaces rooted in the in memory namespace.
>Lots
>> of different types of named objects can live in the namespace, and the
>> system is extensible (there's a toplevel directory \ObjectTypes). Types
>> include Type, Directory, Port, Device, Event (Win32/NT kernel event, same
>> thing), Mutant (something that an implement the semantics of both Win32
>> mutexes and OS/2 mutexes), SymbolicLink, Section (file memory mapping,
>> possibly pagefile backed), Process, Thread, Timer, Token (security),
>Driver,
>> File, Key (registry). Win32 objects live in \BaseNamedObjects, at least
on
>> non Terminal Server logins.
>>
>> Run winobj from www.sysinternals.com.
>>
>> Win32 critical sections are much cheaper than Win32 mutexes.
>> Every mutex operation is a syscall.
>> Critical sections only involve syscalls when there is contention on
>them --
>> they on demand create a kernel object and wait on it.
>>
>>  - Jay
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Olivier Dagenais 
>> Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
>> To: python-list at python.org 
>> Date: Sunday, October 22, 2000 6:16 PM
>> Subject: Re: class mutex
>>
>>
>> >MSDN says this about an article relating to CreateMutex:  "You can use a
>> >mutex object to protect a shared resource from simultaneous access by
>> >multiple threads or processes."  Does Unix/Linux also have something
like
>> >this (at the process level)?  What about Mac and (maybe) other
platforms?
>> >It would be nice if they were wrapped in one convenient Python
>> >module/object.
>> >
>> >It sounds like Windows uses a tempfile to accomplish this and I would
>guess
>> >Unix/Linux - a file-oriented OS - would do the same thing.  However,
>these
>> >are just guesses, we'd need to confirm this...
>> >
>> >--
>> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
>> >"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
>> >internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"
>> >
>> >
>> >"Darrell"  wrote in message
>> >news:MUII5.70068$JS3.10348560 at typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
>> >> If your on Windows then try "win32event.CreateMutex"
>> >>
>> >> --Darrell
>> >>
>> >> "Prof. Peter Stoehr"  wrote in message
>> >> > Based on that, I have two questions:
>> >> > 1) Does python provide a real mutex object.
>> >> > 2) What is the use of the class mutex
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From max at alcyone.com  Fri Oct 27 01:02:55 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:02:55 -0700
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org>  <8t7lio01u29@news2.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <39F90C7F.1F0A1B6@alcyone.com>

William Tanksley wrote:

> For example, it's generally conceded that realloc has too many
> functions:
> it does downsizing, allocation, and upsizing.  At least one of those
> functions (preferably allocation) should be removed.

Not true at all.  There are frequent cases when realloc's complete
generality simplifies things a great deal.  Implementing dynamically
resizing arrays (which is what realloc is for) is a great deal more
straightforward if you don't have to special case allocation and
freeing.

In fact, with realloc, you don't need to use malloc and free at all.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.
\__/ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
    Esperanto reference / http://mirror/alcyone/max/lang/esperanto/
 An Esperanto reference for English speakers.

From Robert.Harris at gmx.net  Sun Oct 22 06:30:04 2000
From: Robert.Harris at gmx.net (Robert Harris)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 12:30:04 +0200
Subject: Resuming a file download with python
References: <8srp7c$ak$07$1@news.t-online.com>  <8ssapv$a36$06$1@news.t-online.com> 
Message-ID: <8sufig$j2t$06$1@news.t-online.com>

Could you send the url ?
I'm not sure yet, if the ftplib really solves the problem.
--
Regards

    Robert
"Andrew Markebo"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ks8zri6kzk.fsf at telelogic.com...
> / "Robert Harris"  wrote:
> | Yeah, that's an idea, but I think, wget is only available on unix
systems,
> | so
> | it would bind the script to a specific platform.
>
> Well I have found wget for the windows-platform.. somewhere ;-) But
> now when ftplib solved your problem...
>
>         /A

From aahz at panix.com  Fri Oct  6 00:31:48 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 5 Oct 2000 21:31:48 -0700
Subject: join()
References: <8rjj82$dnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8rjkjk$7pj$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <8rjj82$dnb$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,   wrote:
>
>In Python 2.0, I was surprised to see join() had become a method of
>string. I "naturally" expected it to be a method of list.
>   [....]
>Thoughts? Is this PEP worthy?

Check DejaNews for "string.join" in the Subject line.  There were
endless arguments and it won't change.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

There's a difference between a person who gets shit zie doesn't
deserve and a person who gets more shit than zie deserves.  --Aahz

From lau at adtranzsig.de  Wed Oct  4 06:53:36 2000
From: lau at adtranzsig.de (Ralf Laukien)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 12:53:36 +0200
Subject: win32com: Trouble using Excel's "SaveAs" method for Workbooks and 
 Worksheet objects
References: <39d90e35@news.digitalselect.net>
Message-ID: <39DB0C30.676823C2@adtranzsig.de>

I had the same problem until I found out that this works:

    xl.Workbooks.Open(sourcefile)  
    xl.ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs(Filename=destfile, FileFormat="6") # 6 =
csv
    xl.Workbooks(1).Close(0) 

Ralf

"S. Murthy Kambhampaty" schrieb:
> 
> I am trying to program Python to make Excel write comma separated variable
> (CSV) files.  I'm having trouble using Excel's "SaveAs" method for Workbook
> and Worksheet objects from Python with the win32comm extensions.  Wondering
> if anybody's had any success using the SaveAs method for Worksheets and
> Workbooks provided by COM.
> 
> I have:
> 
> 1. Followed directions for building excel8.py from excel8.olb
> 2. Created a Workbook object with a single sheet in it called xlBook2
> (creation script shown below)
> 3. Issuing xlBook2.SaveAs(Filename=r'd:\temp\test01.csv',
> FileFormat='xlCSVWindows') produces the
> following error message:
> "Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
>   File
> "d:\Python16\win32com\gen_py\00020813-0000-0000-C000-000000000046x0x1x2.py",
> line 17017, in SaveAs
> com_error: (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (1004, 'Microsoft Excel',
> 'SaveAs method of Workbook class failed', 'XLMAIN8.HLP', 0, 0), None)"
> 
> Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks, smk
> 
> Python script for creating xlBook2 follows:
> # Begin python script
> import excel8, os
> 
> os.chdir(r'C:\Temp')
> 
> xlApp = excel8.Application()
> xlApp.Workbooks.Open(r'C:\Temp\Test1002.XLS')
> # xlBook = xlApp.Workbooks(1)
> # xlSheet = xlApp.Workbooks(1).Worksheets('Page (6)')
> xlApp.Workbooks('Test1002.XLS').Worksheets('Page (6)').Activate()
> xlSheet.Copy()
> xlBook2 = xlApp.Workbooks(2)
> # end Python script

From root at rainerdeyke.com  Mon Oct 23 22:13:13 2000
From: root at rainerdeyke.com (Rainer Deyke)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 02:13:13 GMT
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  
Message-ID: 

"Samuel A. Falvo II"  wrote in message
news:slrn8v9eph.qte.kc5tja at garnet.armored.net...
> On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 20:40:19 GMT, Rainer Deyke wrote:
> >It gets worse.
> >
> >int (*a)[5], *(b[5]);
> >
> >It looks like 'a' is an array of pointers and 'b' is a pointer to an
array,
> >but the opposite is the case.
>
> I don't know -- that makes perfect sense to me.  Order of operations and
all
> that.  :)

I like the C++ template style:

pointer > a;
array > b;

'int (*a)[5]' seems inside out to me.

--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor

From jwbnews at scandaroon.com  Thu Oct  5 19:45:28 2000
From: jwbnews at scandaroon.com (John W. Baxter)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 16:45:28 -0700
Subject: Fibonacci Sequence and Long numbers.
References:  
Message-ID: 

In article , 
hzhu at users.sourceforge.net wrote:

> On Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:35:43 -0700, Neil Macneale 
> 
> wrote: 
> >
> >>>> cache = []
> >>>> cache.insert(0, 0L)
> >>>> cache.insert(1, 1L)
> >>>> def fib(i):
> >...    if len(cache) > i:
> >...       return cache[i]
> >...    cache.insert(i, fib(i-1) + fib(i-2))
> >...    return cache[i]
> >... 
> >
> >All seems good and well to this point.  But when I try:
> >
> >>>> fib(1000)
> >
> >I get a whole bunch of recursive erros which tell me there is an Integer 
> >addition error.
> 
> Are you seeing RuntimeError: Maximum recursion depth exceeded?
> 
> If so, this is because fib is calling fib recursively.  When you call 
> fib(n)
> there are n-len(cache) open function calls before they are fulfilled one 
> by
> one.  On my Linux, fib(len(cache)+997) works, but fib(len(cache)+998) 
> fails.
> 
> Huaiyu

Neil, the solution would be to rewrite fib() as a non-recursive function 
(which is not that hard in the case of fib()), and avoid the recursion 
limit.  [The limit is there to avoid annoyances like
def oops(x)
    oops(x)

oops(x)

(which are usually disguised a bit better than that, and unintentional).  
And to avoid even "correct" functions such as your fib which exhaust 
memory in the real world (faster in the Macintosh real world than in 
some others ;-)).]

Fibonacci is done recursively by habit, because it's such good theatre.  
;-)

  --John

-- 
John W. Baxter   Port Ludlow, WA USA  jwbnews at scandaroon.com

From martin.kew at tenix.com  Tue Oct 31 19:40:17 2000
From: martin.kew at tenix.com (KEW Martin)
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 11:40:17 +1100 (EDT)
Subject: Occam-like multithreading and communication
Message-ID: <200011010040.LAA19450@sprint.tenix.com>

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Henshaw
[mailto:andrew_dot_henshaw_at_earthling_dot_net at python.org]
Sent: 27 October 2000 12:10
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Occam-like multithreading and communication

I've partially developed a module for Python that implements Occam-like
multithreading  (PAR) and inter-process communication (CHAN) functionality.
For an article discussing why this would be useful, read "Communicating Java
Threads" at

http://www.rt.el.utwente.nl/javapp/cjt/CJT-paper.PDF

I'm curious to see if anybody else would find my module useful.  I believe
that it will greatly simplify my multithreaded Python applications.

I do have a question, but first I will demonstrate usage with a simple
example.

#######################################
from occam import PAR, CHAN

# a simple function to read a value from a channel and print it
def reader(c) :
    a = c.read()
    print a

# a simple function to write a value to a channel
def writer(c, value) :
    c.write(a)

# create the shared channel
c = CHAN()

# wrap the functions in processes and run
par = PAR()
par.PROC(reader, c)
par.PROC(writer, c, some_value)
par.end()

######################################

This example creates two tasks that communicate through a shared
channel, and then runs them.   The par.end() basically does a process join
and waits for both tasks to complete before continuing with the sequential
part of the program.  By the way, the UPPERCASE names are for the
duplication of Occam syntax.

I also have a version that would let me code the bottom part as:

PAR( \
    (reader, c), \
    (writer, c, some_value))

while this looks more Occam-like, I can implement the replicated-PAR
construct with the first, but I don't know how to do it cleanly with the
latter.

Now for my problem.  I would like to implement the capability to easily
create parallel communications that would look like this in Occam:

PAR
    in_chan ? a         -- read from in_chan
    out_chan ! b       -- write to out_chan

So, I'm thinking:

par = PAR()
a = in_chan.read(par)
out_chan.write(b, par)
par.end()

I've written this for the channel write, but for the channel read, I've had
to resort to a kludge.  The problem is that in the statement

a = in_chan.read(par)

I have to perform the assignment to 'a' before the read operation is truly
performed.  In other languages, a package that tries to provide this type of
functionality would handle it like this:

in_chan.read(&a, par)

passing the address of a so that the function could assign the value when it
is ready.
Because of Python's "interesting" assignment methodology, I don't believe
that this is straightforwardly feasible.

My kludge works by:
 - returning a list [None] to a.
 - When the read is actually performed, place the result into the 0th
element of that list.

Then, a[0] will contain the desired result.

Any better suggestions??  I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,
Andy Henshaw

-- 
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From pauldubois at home.com  Wed Oct 11 20:04:51 2000
From: pauldubois at home.com (Paul F. Dubois)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:04:51 -0700
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] RE: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

I don't have time to follow in detail this thread about changed behavior
between versions. These observations are based on working with hundreds of
code authors. I offer them as is.

a. Nobody runs a serious numeric calculation without setting
underflow-to-zero, in the hardware. You can't even afford the cost of
software checks. Unfortunately there is no portable way to do that that I
know of.

b. Some people use Inf but most people want the code to STOP so they can
find out where the INFS started. Otherwise, two hours later you have big
arrays of Infs and no idea how it happened. Likewise sqrt(-1.) needs to
stop, not put a zero and keep going.

From clarence at netlojix.com  Thu Oct 12 04:40:10 2000
From: clarence at netlojix.com (Clarence Gardner)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 01:40:10 -0700
Subject: Blocking I/O affecting other threads?
References: <971306059.517595407@news.silcom.com>
Message-ID: <971340111.625361381@news.silcom.com>

Hello again.  Not surprisingly, I've found that this is not a Python
threading problem.  (I did this by adding a thread to the program
that just periodically printed out something.)  I then built a Python
that, immediately after doing the fread at the heart of file.read(),
printed out how many bytes it head read.  Curiously, doing
  open('/etc/passwd').read(10)
printed
  read 10 bytes
  read 0 bytes
I never really understood that, but it got me to thinking about EOF
statuses.  Of course, the read that I do shouldn't get an EOF, because
the preceding select() indicated data present.  I tried adding a clearerr()
unconditionally after the fread (the code already does one if ferror() is
true, but for feof()), which had no effect.  I still didn't understand
what was going on, but finally remembering that the object I was reading
was an instance of a class I've had to use on Solaris to use sockets with
file-expecting functions (because Solaris stdio doesn't work on sockets
if you both read them and write them, so the class does two makefile()s
and directs read/write/etc calls to the appropriate one), I tried using
the socket's recv() method instead of a read.

Voila! No more problem.  I still don't understand what the reading
thread was doing, particularly because at one point I had modified my
function to have this:
        if not x:
                print '0 bytes read, exiting'
                break
instead of:
        if not x:
                break

and it *still* didn't print anything.

Well, I know when I'm licked.  recv() it is.......
I hope you enjoyed my diatribes!

ashamed-to-have-even-for-a-second-suspected-Python-ly,
Clarence

--
Clarence Gardner
Software Engineer
NetLojix Communications
clarence at netlojix.com

From not.this at seebelow.org  Wed Oct 18 13:32:00 2000
From: not.this at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: 18 Oct 2000 10:32:00 -0700
Subject: C macros in Python.
References:  <39E74A27.87695A51@seebelow.org> <971778915.813179@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> 
Message-ID: <8skmqg02pc3@drn.newsguy.com>

In article ,
quinn at zloty.ugcs.caltech.edu says...
>
>On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 11:30:35 +0100, Burkhard Kloss  wrote:
>>> On a different, but related, topic...I sometimes miss C's #define
>>> macro.  There doesn't seem to be any similar thing in Python capable of
>>> creating identifiers which are 1) constant, that is, "read only", and 2)
>>> truly global in scope.
>>How about defining a function that returns the value?  that would make it
>>nicely read-only.
>>
>>define pi(): return 3.14....
>
>pi = 3
>
>will defeat that nicely.

(BTW, here's a "Python Moment" if ever there was one: I realized awhile back
that tuples are essentially read-only lists.)

>If you want something to be constant in python, don't reassign it.  Not that
>hard, now is it? :)  And if you want something "truly global" you could shove
>it into __builtins__, which is great not only for confusing other people but
>also increasing job security.  And that's why you want globals in the first
>place, right? :)

In my own case, I just would like to have the global constants:

   True = 1
   False = 0

>Or, you could just run all your python scripts through cpp.

1 (meaning: "True" ), but that sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

those-who-would-like-"True"-and-"False"-get-"None"-ly y'rs,

=g2

_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation            http://www.iowegian.com

From loris at caren.demon.co.uk  Thu Oct  5 03:14:00 2000
From: loris at caren.demon.co.uk (Loris Caren)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 08:14:00 +0100
Subject: Pmw: Slow Dialogs 
Message-ID: <39DC2A38.68937855@caren.demon.co.uk>

Can anyone explain why Pmw::Dialog and other top-level windows take ages
to appear under Linux whereas the same code comes up with no noticable
delay on WinDoze? (The actual top-level pane appears quickly
under Linux, but there is 1-2 seconds before it's content appears).
The problem is exhibited by running the demos/Dialog.py
Better still, is there a fix?

I'm running:
RedHat 6.0 with extensions
python 1.5.2
Pmw 0.8.4
kde 1.2

From garabik-news at spam.melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk  Wed Oct 25 02:54:24 2000
From: garabik-news at spam.melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk (Radovan Garabik)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 06:54:24 GMT
Subject: python snippet request:  calculate MD5 checksum on 650 MB ISO cdrom image quickly
References: 
Message-ID: <972456680.787167@cdwork.cvt.stuba.sk>

Tim Peters  wrote:
 : [Warren Postma]
 :> I am writing some python scripts to manage downloading (and
 :> re-downloading) ISO images from FTP mirrors, and doing MD5 checksums
 :> on the received files to make sure they are intact.
 :>
 :> I noticed that there is an MD5 message digest module in Python.
 :> But it only accepts STRINGS.  Is there some way to pass a WHOLE FILE to
 :> it, less awkwardly than having a WHILE loop that reads 1k chunks and
 :> passes it along to the MD5 module.

 : You can read the entire file into a string at one gulp, via e.g. f.read().
 : One-liner.

ISO image? typical size of an iso image is about 650 MB :-)

 :> A new function in the md5 module, md5.md5file(filename) would be nice,
 :> if anyone is listening, for a future python 2.x release.
 :>
 :> I'll contribute a patch if anyone thinks it's a good idea.

 : Alas, I don't:  there's no magic to be had here.  Such a function will have
 : to make up its own policy for chunking the file input, and one size doesn't
 : fit all.  The "while" loop is trivial to write, and really has no bad effect
 : on speed even if written in Python (1Kb chunks are very small, btw -- why
 : not use 64Kb, or 1Mb, chunks?  the "sweet spot" on your system is something
 : you can determine (see below), but a builtin md5file method can't guess for
 : you).

the best chunk size is a multiply of filesystem block size. Though
you will not get much better performance compared to exactly
the block size.

-- 
 -----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabik http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__    garabik @ melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk     |
 -----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

From phil at geog.ubc.ca  Sun Oct 29 12:58:20 2000
From: phil at geog.ubc.ca (Phil Austin)
Date: 29 Oct 2000 09:58:20 -0800
Subject: How totell a binary file from a nonbinary file.
References: <39fe4f47.100441671@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: 

olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L. Olczyk) writes:

> There are some changes that I have to make to s directory of files (
> in python of course ). Is there some simple way of telling whether 
> a file is binary or not (from python of course )? 

Something like this might help:

#
# Detects if files contain text or binary data
# Jeff Epler  jepler at inetnebr.com  20 April 97
#
import string
import os

def mask(charlist):
        """Construct a mask suitable for string.translate,
        which marks letters in charlist as "t" and ones not as "b" """
        mask=""
        for i in range(256):
                if chr(i) in charlist: mask=mask+"t"
                else: mask=mask+"b"
        return mask

ascii7bit=string.joinfields(map(chr, range(32,127)), "")+"\r\n\t\b"
ascii7bit_mask=mask(ascii7bit)

def istext(file, check=1024, mask=ascii7bit_mask):
        """Returns true if the first check characters in file
        are within mask, false otherwise"""

        try:
                s=file.read(check)
                s=string.translate(s, mask)
                if string.find(s, "b") != -1: return 0
                return 1
        except (AttributeError, NameError): # Other exceptions?
                return istext(open(file, "r"))

def main(argv):
        for filename in argv:
                print filename+":",
		if os.path.isfile(filename):
	                if istext(filename): print "text"
        	        else: print "binary"
		elif os.path.isdir(filename):
			print "directory"
		else: print "not file or directory"

if __name__=='__main__':
        import sys
        main(sys.argv[1:])

From matt at mondoinfo.com  Thu Oct  5 12:02:30 2000
From: matt at mondoinfo.com (Matthew Dixon Cowles)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 16:02:30 GMT
Subject: Newbie: How Can I Print To Specific Screen Locations.
References: <8ri7i5$8gj$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:43:02 GMT, jbranthoover at my-deja.com
 wrote:

>Hello All,
>I am looking a way to print at specific screen locations under
>Python.  Possibly by controlling the cursor location?  Is there a
>module that will let me do this screen printing?

Have a look at the curses module. There's documentation at:

http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-curses.html

I forget whether it's built by default.

Regards,
Matt

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 12 06:10:38 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:10:38 +0200
Subject: win32com events bug fixed.
References: <_2NE5.15444$aD2.65347@news-server.bigpond.net.au> <8s174102cic@news1.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <8s42vv01cjd@news1.newsguy.com>

"Mark Hammond"  wrote in message
news:lG6F5.16908$aD2.74661 at news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> "Alex Martelli"  wrote in message
> news:8s174102cic at news1.newsguy.com...
>
> > I'm trying, but with some problems -- I don't think they're related
> > to the fix in the events-bug, but rather to 134/2.0c1 coexistence or
> > to some installation error on my part.
> >
> > Specifically, for example, the following VBScript file dic.vbs:
>
> I get a different error:
>
> L:\temp\hello.vbs(4, 1) Python COM Server Internal Error: Unexpected
> Python Error: win32com.server.p
> olicy error: This class does not provide _invokeex_ semantics
>
> Meaning I got further than you, and dictionary.py has a bug when
> working with IDispatchEx() (and I will look into that!)

OK...

> I'm not sure what causes your thread-state error tho.  Can you try
> running "win32comext\axscript\client\pyscript.py" and

Done.

> "win32com\servers\dict.py", and try your example again?

Can't do -- you mean ...\dictionary.py?  I don't have a dict.py there.

What happens is:
a. if I do have the desired line to prohibit inprocess serving,
    _reg_clsctx_ = pythoncom.CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER
in the classbody of DictionaryPolicy in my shareddictionary.py,
then the dic.vbs script hangs in the
    set ob = CreateObject("Python.SharedDictionary")
line -- object creation is apparently then "just not happening".

b. commenting out that line, and rerunning shareddictionary.py
    to re-register, then the above-mentioned CreateObject does
    succeed but then I get the
Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Get: no current thread

This seems to be happening only with VBScript from within WSH
(i.e., as you mention, with IDispatchEx, I guess).  It does
work fine, for example, from within regular Visual Basic (if
one takes care to manually update the registry to delete the
inproc server entry, and exit-and-reenter Pythonwin, when
doing step B -- otherwise the inproc entry remains, or the
process is caching the inproc server, so the system-wide
unique process is not being run:-).

So, all in all, it's possible that we're only seeing anomalies
connected to IDispatchEx anyway (can't guess why different
anomalies on my PC and yours!) -- pity that scripting languages
(WSH to be precise) now seem to be using that, so those bugs
get picked up by default when trying to do a quick & dirty
test from vbscript!-)

But anyway, back to the title -- com events do work fine
again with win32all 134 + your fix + python 2.0c1, so the
world is beautiful once more...!-)

Alex

>
> Has anyone else tried with RC1?  I should put a new win32all
> together...
>
> Mark.
>
>

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Thu Oct 26 06:33:19 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 19:33:19 +0900
Subject: Mail Server on Win written in Python?
References: <8t8lj7$50q$1@news.nuri.net> 
Message-ID: 

"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
news:fj1gvsgpbulhcng55uug6i4v3s32ihmprd at 4ax.com...
> "June Kim"  wrote:
>
> >Is there any kind of simple mail server for windows 95/98/NT
> >written in Python? (I mean the basic sendmail functionality by
> >mail server)
> >
> >Thanks in advance.
> >
> >June
>
> Take a look at the SMTPLIB module in the standard distribution. That
> does sendmail.
> --
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants
>
>

I meant an SMTP server not a client.
SMTPLIB doesn't come with an SMTP or ESMTP listener daemon, does it?

Best regards,

June

From aahz at panix.com  Sun Oct  8 10:53:28 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 8 Oct 2000 07:53:28 -0700
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
References:   <8rkto9$832$1@panix3.panix.com> 
Message-ID: <8rq1p8$pre$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article ,
Piet van Oostrum   wrote:
>>>>>> aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) (AM) writes:
>
>AM> Because it's normally considered immutable, and here you're using it in
>AM> a mutable way.  I just don't think it's Pythonic.
>
>It is not only normally considered immutable, it IS immutable, So you
>cannot use it in a mutable way.  I am just using it to implement a
>linked list. Nothing wrong with that.

Yeesh.  An immutable singly-linked reverse-descent list?  Anyway, you're
writing code that makes it *look* like you're dealing with a mutable
object [*], and while we deal with that all the time with numbers and
strings, I think it's a Bad Idea to do that when there are true mutable
objects available.

(I doubt I'll convince you, but I can at least hope to convince other
people.  Note that you're now confusing the issue by using "list" to
refer to a structure made out of tuples.)

[*] In case anyone has lost track, the code in question is

tuple_var = (tuple_var, value)
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"[I have a] windmill fetish."  --Darkhawk

From darcy at vex.net  Sat Oct  7 08:55:27 2000
From: darcy at vex.net (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
Date: 7 Oct 2000 12:55:27 GMT
Subject: web hosting with python cgi
References: <8rdk5o$97j$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk> <39DD4F18.49A39005@nospam.twovoyagers.com.invalid> 
Message-ID: <8rn6fv$ap0$1@news.tht.net>

Andrew Malcolmson  wrote:
> In the Toronto there's a very Python-friendly ISP called vex.net
> (www.vex.net).   They have Python 1.5.2 and Zope and even run their whole
> site on Python scripts (HTMLgen ?).  They offer a Web hosting account for
> $60 Cdn / year and which permits running CGI.

I don't want to leave an inadvertant false impression here.  Although we do
have a $60/year account, this is a very basic account with no shell and so
has no access to database engines and such.  Most users get the basic
shell account which has those extra facilities for $120/year.

However, that's still only approx $75US.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain            |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.vex.net/                        |  and a sheep voting on         
+1 416 425 1212     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

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From not.this at seebelow.org  Sat Oct 28 11:22:38 2000
From: not.this at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 16:22:38 +0100
Subject: psf's charter (was: PythonLabs Team Moves...)
References:   <8tfa4l$3ns$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39FAEF3E.61A4043@seebelow.org>

tim_one at email.msn.com wrote:
> 
...
> Python's direction will still be set by Guido.  Rights to our Python
> (etc -- Jython/Mailman) work will be assigned to the PSF (to Guido,
> until the PSF exists), establishing a strong legal wall between Python
> (etc) and DC's (or anyone else's) particular private interests.

Hi Tim,

It's probably too early to ask this, but please let me at least plant
the seed...

The idea of the "Python Software Foundation" is a *VERY* good idea. 
Python's recent license wrangling, together with user's concerns about
Python's overall "license stability" have indicated the need for such a
thing.

The FSF already provides a very useful service in this way, that is, of
being a not-for-profit foundation which promises users that software
whose copyrights it holds will perpetually be licensed under certain
terms.  Unfortunately, something like the PSF is needed in the case of
Python, because Python's license terms are not what the FSF prefers.  (I
guess we can't trust the FSF to hold the copyright to Python, and offer
it under CWI license terms. )

But Python is simply a specific case that illustrates a more general
situation: an alternative to the FSF is needed to hold copyrights of
software licensed very freely under something like the BSD or CWI
license, while providing a similar service to the FSF: guaranteeing
user's that the software will perpetually be licensed under those terms.

You probably see where I'm going here: as Guido and the Python Team work
to set up the PSF, I would like to ask that its charter cover not only
Python and its licenses, but that it also be broad enough to hold
copyrights of non-Python software.  In other words, I think the
governing principle of the PSF should not be to own and hold _Python_ so
much as to own and hold copyrights of software licensed under "truly
free" (non-GPL) licenses like BSD, CWI, or whatever.  (One can
characterize those licenses many ways, but the underlying theme is
simply one of having virtually no usage restrictions--except, of course,
"no warranty").

Of course, I recognize that a broader charter for the PSF would require
more time, effort, resources, etc. to accomplish broader goals;
obviously the first-and-foremost thing for the PSF to do is to hold
Python's copyright.  However, I simply ask that as you organize the PSF,
you plan for the _possibility_ of a broader purpose; if, in time,
serving the broader purpose eventually becomes practical within the
resources of the PSF, then that's a very good thing for the Open Source
community.

Be sure to yell if I can help with the PSF.

wide-open-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From mertz at gnosis.cx  Sat Oct 14 19:23:58 2000
From: mertz at gnosis.cx (Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 19:23:58 -0400
Subject: utility to display the contents of a pickle
Message-ID:                 

Well... the representation created by my utility function is very
similar to the above example...  However, as mentioned, you need to be
able to unpickle to get there (or start from an in-memory object).

I rather wonder why you have so much trouble with unpickling though.
Are the pickle files becoming corrupt?  Are you somehow finding a type
of object that won't pickle correctly (unlikely, I think, but maybe)?

In the case of corruption, I suppose some kind of scheme with ECC (error
correcting codes) might be a possibility.  I suppose I can also offer
the suggestion of another module of mine, xml_pickle, that produces a
much more readable pickled representation to start with (much more
slowly than the real pickle, with files many times as large).

Of course, that is not to say that you couldn't figure out the actual
bytecode encodings of pickle (or that someone hasn't done exactly what
you want).  But I think the problem of not being able to unpickle
represents something more serious going on.

Yours, Lulu...

From emile at fenx.com  Fri Oct 20 09:46:47 2000
From: emile at fenx.com (Emile van Sebille)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 06:46:47 -0700
Subject: Import problem
References: <8spgic$1p6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8spivd$l254p$1@ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de>

Are you trying to import names that have the extensions?
e.g.:shutil.py and shutil.pyc

--

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx.com
-------------------

"Sindh"  wrote in message
news:8spgic$1p6$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> Hi folks
>
> How can I import a module by giving a name of list
elements.
>
> Eg:
> for n in os.listdir('.'):
> import n
>
> but it fails. Can anyone find where I am going wrong. It
says 'no module
> called n'.
>
> Thanks
> sreekant
>
> --
> A man needs to sleep for 36 hours a day atleast.
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Tue Oct 10 18:50:34 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 22:50:34 GMT
Subject: win32com events bug fixed.
Message-ID: <_2NE5.15444$aD2.65347@news-server.bigpond.net.au>

Since builds 132 of win32all, and in all ActivePython releases, there
has been a bug relating to COM events.  Some COM events would not be
delivered to your Python code.  This has been well documented here,
mainly thanks to Alex Martelli.

I have released a .zip file with an update that should solve the
problem.  It should work with all versions of win32all since 132 (ie,
the last 1.5.2 version) and all ActivePython versions.  As it is a
simple .zip file, please take care when updating, to ensure you
maintain the correct directory structure.

Obviously, this will not be necessary in any versions of win32all or
ActivePython subsequently released.  (Has anyone tried 134 with 2.0c1?
;-)

See http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/Downloads.html for
the update.  Please let me know if there are any problems...

Mark.
--
markh at activestate.com - but if you think I speak for them, you dont
know Dick!

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Thu Oct  5 15:50:03 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 21:50:03 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PEP 4: Deprecation of standard modules
Message-ID: <200010051950.VAA04775@pandora.informatik.hu-berlin.de>

I just finished a first draft of a PEP on deprecating (and eventually
removing) modules from the standard Python library; it is available
from

http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0004.html

If you have comments or suggestions on the proposed procedures, or the
wording of the text, please send me a message. According to the PEP
procedures (PEP 1), this is the preferred way of progressing this PEP
(rather than discussing it on these lists), at least initially.

Regards,
Martin

From thanos at 0x01.com  Fri Oct  6 19:59:40 2000
From: thanos at 0x01.com (thanos vassilakis)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 19:59:40 -0400
Subject: mod_python error under Apache
References: <39DE58B6.55E1C03B@sandia.gov> <39DE5B2F.7BFD9E7F@sandia.gov>
Message-ID: <39DE676C.63F9C7C4@0x01.com>

Had the same problem but used a directive
PythonPath.  The doc is a little out.  Still the example is not realistic,
you have to work at setting things up. At scriptfoundry.com we are developing
a clean and elegant wrapper around mod_python. It seems the only way to go.

thanos

Hamilton Link wrote:

> I should probably add that I have the following in my httpd.conf, and that
> the mptest.py file is in $APACHEDIR/htdocs/test -- I wouldn't be overly
> surprised if this is a configuration problem, I'm just not sure what to do
> to fix it (I'm trying a few things though). How am I supposed to tell it
> where to look for python files with such handlers? Am I just supposed to
> put them in the python directory structure -- that doesn't seem right
> either...
>
> AddHandler python-program .py
> PythonHandler mptest
> PythonDebug On
>
> thanks,
> hamilton

From andrew.markebo at telelogic.com  Mon Oct 23 05:11:11 2000
From: andrew.markebo at telelogic.com (Andrew Markebo)
Date: 23 Oct 2000 11:11:11 +0200
Subject: How to configure Python to use ssl
References: <39F3C412.710330D2@steven.com.hk>
Message-ID: 

The main config in:

Modules/Setup, the file where you configure what modules to be
included, it is referenced by the readme in the root.

And you need to comment out the line sockets above.. if I recall
right.

        /Andy

From tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com  Thu Oct 19 12:29:36 2000
From: tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com (Travis Nixon)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 10:29:36 -0600
Subject: about floating number
References: <8sm7qa$1711$1@reader.ccu.edu.tw>
Message-ID: <02db01c039e9$c56ca9d0$0700000a@travis2>

That's because it's not possible to exactly represent 2.8 in binary floating
point.

In fact, I'm sort of impressed that you only lost .0000000000000002 in
precision.  When I try to represent 2.8 as a double in MS Devstudio, it
gives me 2.7999999523163, which is about 8 orders of magnitude less precise
than yours. :)

If you're worried about this loss of precision, do keep in mind that you're
talking about a loss of less than one quadrillionth(?) of a unit. :)

Basically, though, it's just a fact of life regarding floating point
numbers.  Not all numbers are exactly representable in a base 2 binary
format.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Graduate" 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: 
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 1:28 AM
Subject: about floating number

> when I in python 2.0, I try to use floating number,
>  but I have a proplem like this...
>  >>> a = 2.8
>  >>> a
>  2.7999999999999998
>
>  why? or I forget some step??
>  I try this in Linux & windows...
>  thanks...
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com  Sun Oct 22 05:29:23 2000
From: tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com (tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 09:29:23 GMT
Subject: Bug in ConfigParser
Message-ID: <8suc1f$mf9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

There's a case sensitivity bug lurking in ConfigParser. (just
downloaded the final version of 2.0 for windows, which is where I found
this)

The following script:

import ConfigParser

cp = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
cp.add_section('test')
cp.set('test','MyCaseOption','MixedCase')
cp.get('test','MyCaseOption')

produces the following output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "cp.py", line 6, in ?
    cp.get('test','MyCaseOption')
  File "c:\python20\lib\ConfigParser.py", line 279, in get
    raise NoOptionError(option, section)
ConfigParser.NoOptionError: No option `mycaseoption' in section: test

The problem is that both get() and read() switch the options to lower
case (using ConfigParser.optionxform()) , but NONE of the other methods
do this.

Basically what this means is that ConfigParser only works if you don't
use any upper case in your option names, or you only use read() and get
()

I don't know what the original intent was, but personally I would
prefer to have the case sensitivity there, so I changed optionxform so
that it doesn't do anything.  Quick and easy, and it does what I want.
Changing it so everything uses the xform is a little more involved. :)

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From andrew_dot_henshaw_at_earthling_dot_net  Sun Oct  8 10:18:18 2000
From: andrew_dot_henshaw_at_earthling_dot_net (Andrew Henshaw)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 10:18:18 -0400
Subject: Are there Python code for a FIFO-like structure?
References:     <39DE3F0C.984E2187@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: 

"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39DE3F0C.984E2187 at seebelow.org...
> Huaiyu Zhu wrote:
> >
> > [Huaiyu Zhu]
> >
> > >> > I need something like a fifo, inplemented in a fixed length list...
> > >> > an IndexError is raised if the tail gets
> > >> > too close to the head.
> >
> > Hi, everyone,
> >
> > Thanks for all these good ideas.
> >
> > [Christian Tismer]
> >
> > >Hmm, why don't you really use a fixed length list, maintain
> > >two rotating pointers, and check that they behave well?
> >
> > Yes, that's what I had in mind when I posted the query.  The real work
is to
> > make the two pointers behave well, of course.  I'm getting there.
> >
>
> If I understand what you're after, here is a description of generic FIFO
> logic (caveat emptor: from memory):
>
> 1. Allocate the fixed-length FIFO buffer (probably as a Python list
> or--maybe better--as a Numeric array.)
> 2. Initialize a read_index and write_index to zero.
> 3. The FIFO is empty whenever read_index == write_index (e.g. when both
> are initialized to zero.)
> 4. The FIFO if full whenever write_index is one less than read_index.
> (Note that a special "modulo" case of full is when write_index == length
> - 1, and read_index == 0.)
> 5. To read, check for FIFO empty (if so, raise error), get data at
> read_index, then increment read_index, modulo the length.  (You can
> quickly implement the modulo by just setting read_index to 0 when the
> incremented read_index == length.)

Note, the modulo function can be made very fast if your list length is a
power of 2.   Modulo then simply becomes 'pointer & (length-1)'.  For
example:

buf_len = 1024
wrap_at = buf_len - 1

buffer = [0] * buf_len
.
.
.
read_index = read_index & wrap_at     # read_index &= wrap_at   with Python
2.0
.
.
.

This should be faster than branching.

> 6. To write, do the same thing: check for FIFO full (if so, raise
> error), put data at write_index, increment, do quick modulo.)
>
> if-i-could-ever-remember-where-i-put-all-those-fifo-implementations
>    -i've-written-over-the-years,-i-wouldn't-ever-have-written
>    -so-many-fifo-implementations-over-the-years-ly y'rs,
>
> =g2
> --
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
> Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
> Iowegian International Corporation       http://www.iowegian.com

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Thu Oct 26 21:39:14 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 21:39:14 -0400
Subject: MS Windows Clipboard
References:  <8t3m1n025h1@news2.newsguy.com>  <8t6fmn0bg9@news1.newsguy.com>  <8ta16b01n0d@news2.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <39F8DCC2.130D64@holdenweb.com>

Mark Hammond wrote:
> 
> "Alex Martelli"  wrote in message
> news:8ta16b01n0d at news2.newsguy.com...
> > "Mark Hammond"  wrote in message
> 
> We are discussing a new optional param for the Win32 clipboard
> functions that would specify the type of the returned data.
> 
> I proposed a simple string:
> > > What would this param look like - maybe a simple string
> > > "string", "unicode", "handle", with None or "" == default?
> 
> Alex suggested a type object:
> > Or maybe type(""), type(u""), type(PyHandle)...?
> 
> Your idea sounds more "correct", but also more verbose and less
> "handy"
> 
> OTOH, using the types module makes it better:
> 
>   GetClipboardText(..., types.UnicodeType)
> 
> I would probably use types.IntType for a handle, as we may not be able
> to provide automatic handle cleanup.  I'm afraid I can't recall the
> exact semantics, and haven't the time to look.
> 
> Any votes on this?  Should we go for:
> 
>   GetClipboardText(..., types.UnicodeType)
> or
>   GetClipboardText(..., "unicode")
> 
> ?
> 
> Mark.

The former seems cleaner.  It would also be quicker, though I'm not
usually one to obsess about a few wasted machine cycles.

When I use Tkinter I always shudder to think about all the data that's
being passed as strings when enumerated constants or simple integers
would be better.

Some-things-are-worth-not-inheriting-from-your-predecessor-ly y'rs - steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From tbryan at python.com  Sat Oct 28 20:22:25 2000
From: tbryan at python.com (Thomas A. Bryan)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 20:22:25 -0400
Subject: how do I exit gracefully?
References: 
Message-ID: <39FB6DC1.84C12A34@python.com>

Andrew Pierce wrote:

> execute?  I dug around the FAQ and DejaNews and found sys.exit() and
> os._exit() but both of these methods raise exceptions.  

sys.exit() should exit the program, not raise an exception.

$ python
Python 1.5.2 (#1, Apr 18 1999, 16:03:16)  [GCC pgcc-2.91.60 19981201 (egcs-1.1.1  on linux2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> raise ValueError
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
ValueError
>>> import sys
>>> sys.exit(0)
$ 

If you're not getting a traceback, you're not getting an exception.
Perhaps you called sys.exit(1) and something running your code 
(such as a web server) assumed that a non-zero exit code indicated 
an error.

---Tom

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Wed Oct 18 18:50:20 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 22:50:20 GMT
Subject: A guide to Python Threads
References: 
Message-ID: 

Give http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~cs300 a try, there's slides on how threads
work and how to synchronize between them.  Between that and the Python
library documentation, I have found it so-so.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Alex McHale"  wrote in message
news:kwpH5.153161$Qx4.5039722 at news1.rdc1.il.home.com...
> First, all apologies if this goes through twice.. I made an attempt to
post
> this from work through deja.
>
> I was wondering if there is any sort of expanded material on the subject
of
> threads in Python?  www.python.org touchs only very basically on the
topic.
> I'm having a tough time with them - and need a little bit more help than I
> should post on the group.
> If nobody knows of a good place online, perhaps someone will volunteer to
go
> a little more in depth with me.
>
> Thanks
>
>

From william_p_heineman at groton.pfizer.com  Thu Oct 19 09:38:00 2000
From: william_p_heineman at groton.pfizer.com (Willy Heineman)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:38:00 -0400
Subject: Incompatible .pyd files with Python 2.0 (and win32comm)
References: <39ED37CB.C4A4F6F7@engcorp.com> 
Message-ID: <39EEF937.DFFE6F74@groton.pfizer.com>

Win32comm is what I considered at the time a stopgap until Mark got
around to that particular recess of the Win32 API. I will be updating the
files this weekend including a Python 2.0 version (source will be
provided). I urge all new development to look at Mark's stuff instead.

Cheers,

Willy Heineman

Mark Hammond wrote:

> "Peter Hansen"  wrote in message
> news:39ED37CB.C4A4F6F7 at engcorp.com...
>
> > Is it really the case that *all* old .pyd files will need to be
> > recompiled from source, *with* source modifications (because of an
> API
> > change?), in order to work with 2.0?
>
> No - recompilation is necessary, but source changes are not.
>
> > I'm thinking specifically of the win32commc.pyd file with the
> win32comm
> > module by  (this is NOT the same as the
> win32com
> > module in PythonWin, but is a SWIGged wrapper, for the Win32 serial
> port
> > DLL, for which I haven't found source), and the 'calldll' module
> from
> > Sam Rushing.
>
> The good news is that later win32all builds (including 134) has a
> native serial port in the win32file module.
> win32\demos\win32comport_demo.py shows how to use it...
>
> It could do with a high-level .py interface, but capturing all the
> possible semantics of the win32 api would be hard, so I just exposed
> it natively.
>
> Mark.

From alvaro at bitmailer.net  Sun Oct 22 16:30:57 2000
From: alvaro at bitmailer.net (Alvaro Falquina Garrido)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 22:30:57 +0200
Subject: Python for Mac OS X?
References:  <39F2ACD1.BEACBCA0@statusbar.com>
Message-ID: 

In article <39F2ACD1.BEACBCA0 at statusbar.com>, Jeff Koftinoff 
 wrote:

> "Steven D. Majewski" wrote:
> 
> >
> > The latest 2.0c1 release of Python will build "out-of-the-box" on
> > Darwin or OSX with either the Darwin or Apple development tools.
> > Use:
> >  ./configure --with-dyld --with-suffix=.x

I have compiled Python 2.0 (final) with:

   ./configure --with-dyld --with-next-archs=ppc
   make
   make install

I have used the Apple development tools as root.

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Wed Oct  4 15:11:39 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 19:11:39 GMT
Subject: A type checking system (was Re: Inefficiency of __getattr__)
References:   <8rf3fm030n4@news2.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:10:06 +0200, Alex Martelli  wrote:

[Re advandage of static typing]

>Whether these undeniable gains are worth the various components
>of bother that static typing just-as-undeniably adds, is of
>course The Question.  I come from a background of mostly static
>typing, but over the years I've never entirely lost track of
>the dynamic-typing world, and from a LOT of relevant experience
>in both camps I have come to be pretty convinced of two things:
>    -- the whole song-and-dance of mandatory strict static typing
>        where the programmer has to specify everything statically
>        is far too much to pay for the benefits; this means Eiffel,
>        C, C++, Java, Pascal, &c;
>    -- having NO way to specify static typing in the language,
>        even where one would DEARLY LOVE to do so for any of
>        the possible benefits, is going too far in the other
>        direction; this covers Python, Scheme, &c.

That is so true.  And the solution is, as you say, to provide voluntary type
checking.  To be really useful for an OO language like Python, however, it
has to work well with overloading and polymorphism.  Here comes a crucial
observation:

  Types should not be inherited in the same way as classes:
   - class inheritance go the way of specialization, for implementation
   - type inheritance go the way of abstraction, for requirements

These ideas are discussed in (and quoted below)
http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/Interface/README.txt

and a prototype illustrating the ideas is at
http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/Interface/typecheck.txt

Here's my take on

		Type checking system in Python

Classes implement a hierarchy of inheritance of attributes (variables and
methods).  They are useful for implementation modularization.

There is another type of modularization that is similar in nature, but is
independent of classes.  This is the hierarchy of polymorphic interfaces.

Python supports polymorphism in a very liberal way: if it walks like a duck
and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck.  The archetypical examples
is that one can usually substitute a writable file with a user defined class
object that happens to have a write() methods with appropriate property.

In many programs it is necessary to ensure that a certain objects has
certain properties.  But how can we express the idea that a function expect
a file-like object, while that can mean an endless list of things, many have
not yet been defined?

One solution promoted by some other languages is to define some abstract
classes for type checking purpose, and require them to be inherited by any
class that behaves like them.  This is like what interfaces do in Java.
This solution is not satisfactory because

- It breaks polymorphism.  One has to harness the property at the time the
  classes are defined, instead of when they are used.  For example, if an
  application requires a property of "ReadableFile" which is satisfied by
  sys.stdin, it is difficult to retrofit the definition of sys.stdin to be
  an instance of such.

- It mixes two incompatible inheritances.  For example, suppose that class A
  has method A.m() but its subclass B overrides it with B.m().  The property
  A satisfies is not necessarily satisfied by B.

>From the above it is clear that there is a useful conceptual hierarchy that
is independent of the class hierarchy.  For lack of a better name let us
just call them Types.  The overridability means that classes do not imply
Types, and the polymorphism means that Types do not imply classes.  Their
main conceptual difference is that

- classes embody implementations
- Types embody requirements

Another way to describe the difference is

- classes are inherited by specialization
- Types are inherited by abstraction

For example, if we specify that A is a superclass of B, this does not change
anything about A, but it does mean that B will have all the attributes of A.
In contrast, if we specify that A is a superType of B, this does not change
anything about B, but it does mean that objects accepted as B must now be
accepted as A as well.  As a concrete example, consider a function expecting
a Number as an argument.  If we declare that 2.3 is a Float, and Float is a
special case of Number, then the function should accept 2.3 as argument.

Therefore, Types should have their own hierarchy, possibly with its own
syntax, that is independent of classes.  

Since Python is a very dynamically typed system, it is also desirable to
make the type checking as flexible as possible, and completely voluntary,
while being able to deliver the same level of guarantees that a strongly and
statically typed language would give.

Type can also be used to express properties like Immutable, which could only
be guaranteed by a compiler.  These properties will also be very useful for
compiler optimization.

All said, there is a role for classes to play in this affair - It is
possible to fake such a Type system using a class, with some caveats:

- It is dynamic, and very inefficient at run time
- It is dynamic, and can be circumvented in various ways.

Nevertheless, this dynamical type-checking does provide a fine illustration
of the concepts discussed above.  If and when they can be coded in compiler
it will be of much greater use.

From muwanda at my-deja.com  Mon Oct 23 17:48:38 2000
From: muwanda at my-deja.com (muwanda at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 21:48:38 GMT
Subject: SQL server data types????
References: <8t23lq$gak$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39F49C97.75E7140B@holdenweb.com>
Message-ID: <8t2bnk$ns5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

hi

this is the TEST SUITE...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Test suite:
 Connecting to the database.
 Connected to DBMS: Microsoft SQL Server; Version: 07.00.0623
              ODBC driver: SQLSRV32.DLL 03.70.0820; ODBC Version: 03.51

 BIGINT column type with 64bits              : type not supported
 BINARY column type                          : not supported
 BIT column type                             : supported
 BLOB column type with binary data           : type not supported
 BLOBs with >32kB text data                  : type not supported
 CHAR column type                            : supported
 CHAR column type with binary data           : supported
 CHAR padding (with spaces)                  : supported
 DATE column type                            : type not supported
 DATETIME column type                        : supported
 DATETIME with string values                 : not supported [column 0
of row 0: input data: '1999-03-02 11:48:03.00' (type=string,len=?),
output data: 
(type=DateTime,len=?), output - input: ?]
 DECIMAL column type                         : supported
 DOUBLE column type                          : type not supported
 FLOAT column type                           : supported
 IMAGE column type                           : supported
 INT column type                             : supported
 INT column type using array processing      : supported
 LONG BYTE column type                       : type not supported
 LONG BYTE with >32kB text data              : type not supported
 LONG column type                            : type not supported
 LONGBINARY column type (binary data)        : type not supported
 LONGTEXT column type (text data)            : type not supported
 LONGs with >32kB text data                  : type not supported
 LONGs with binary data                      : type not supported
 MEMO column type                            : type not supported
 MEMOs with >32kB text data                  : type not supported
 MEMOs with binary data                      : type not supported
 NULLable columns                            : supported
 TEXT column type                            : supported
 TIME column type                            : type not supported
 TIMESTAMP column type                       : unexpected database
error [mxODBC.IntegrityError: ('23000', 273, '[Microsoft][ODBC SQL
Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot insert a non-null value into a
timestamp column. Use INSERT with a column list or with a default of
NULL for the timestamp column.', 3176)]
 TIMESTAMP data having fractions             : unexpected database
error [mxODBC.IntegrityError: ('23000', 273, '[Microsoft][ODBC SQL
Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot insert a non-null value into a
timestamp column. Use INSERT with a column list or with a default of
NULL for the timestamp column.', 3176)]
 Transactions                                : supported
 VARBINARY column type                       : supported
 VARCHAR column type                         : supported
 VARCHAR column type with binary data        : supported
 Variable Bind Method                        : SQL Type

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

and if I have in a table (SQL server) a datatype nvarchar, Python shell
send the follow error:

InterfaceError: SQL type (code -9) not implemented

To solve this erro, i need make a cast, but it's so hard, because I
have a lot a fields nvarhcar....

I need Help???
thanks

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From kragen at dnaco.net  Wed Oct  4 01:09:11 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 05:09:11 GMT
Subject: python source benchmark
References:  <8rcdfv$2be$1@ites.inria.fr>
Message-ID: 

In article <8rcdfv$2be$1 at ites.inria.fr>,
Cedric Adjih   wrote:
>  I usually use the /bin/time command, time.time() (on a lightly
>loaded machine), or the profile module of Python for computing
>the time spent in a program (as another person indicated here).

The difference is that time.time() tells you how long it's been since
1969, and changes in it indicate how many wall-clock seconds have gone
by, while time.clock() tells you how much CPU time your process has
used.  So if your process spends most of its time waiting on external
events to happen, time.clock() will advance very slowly.
-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Wed Oct 11 09:43:41 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:43:41 -0400
Subject: Sybase DB-Client module searched
References: <39E40B3F.A8B9A911@eed.ericsson.se>
Message-ID: <39E46E8D.93BFC01F@ix.netcom.com>

The Sybase module provides a Python interface to the Sybase relational
database system. The Sybase package supports almost all of the Python
Database API, version 2.0 with extensions.

The module works with Python versions 1.5.2 and later and Sybase
versions 11.0.3 and later.  It is based on the Sybase Client Library
(ct_* API), and the Bulk-Library Client (blk_* API) interfaces.

Changes:

I have made some minor changes to the module to allow it to work with
Python 1.6.

Where can you get it:

        http://object-craft.com.au/projects/sybase/

- Dave

--
.tom

From DOUGS at oceanic.com  Fri Oct 13 01:43:02 2000
From: DOUGS at oceanic.com (Doug Stanfield)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:43:02 -1000
Subject: OT Route Flaps (was RE: New Python Dev... & SourceForge considere
	d...))
Message-ID: <8457258D741DD411BD3D0050DA62365907A39D@huina.oceanic.com>

[kc5tja at garnet.armored.net ]

> On Thu, 05 Oct 2000 14:18:25 -0700, Eric Lee Green wrote:
> >Title         : Route flapping for valinux/sourceforge etc.
> 
> OK, I gotta ask -- what is Route Flapping?

Route flapping occurs when there is an unstable link between two routers.
Unstable meaning it is not up good or completely down dead but rather going
up and down.  Routing in the Internet works from the exchange of
connectivity information from a router to its adjacent neighbors.  If there
is an unstable link that changes state more rapidly than the routes would
propagate router to router to router that would be a route flap. That
connectivity information won't be correct for some number of routers through
the network, and worse, it will be different for different routers.  This
could mean that two routers with different information about the best place
to send packets might send them back and forth between each other until they
get thrown in the bit bucket for exceeding their time to live.

There is a mechanism, route dampening, that acts to add hysteresis to route
change propagation so that route flapping doesn't get out of hand.

HTH

or-at-least-satisfied-your-interest 'ly yr's

-Doug-

From the_brain at mit.edu  Fri Oct  6 01:40:06 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 06 Oct 2000 01:40:06 -0400
Subject: Calling the parent class' __init__
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: 

Can you show us some code that reproduces the error?

Alex. 

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From kentsin at poboxes.com  Fri Oct 27 00:29:21 2000
From: kentsin at poboxes.com (kentsin at poboxes.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 04:29:21 -0000
Subject: Regular Expression Help
Message-ID: <8tb0b1+d3kk@eGroups.com>

Is it possible for regular expression to match optional parameters 
like :

    func(optional parameters)

in which the func name and some optional parameters be match for 
later retrieval. To match the func is easy, but if the optional 
parameters can be 

  ()
  (p)
  (p1, p2)
  ....

is it possible to match these?

From ari_deja at ivritype.com  Wed Oct 11 14:30:28 2000
From: ari_deja at ivritype.com (Ari Davidow)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 18:30:28 GMT
Subject: mangled attempt at using htmllib
Message-ID: <8s2bk5$mn5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Well,

I think I'm very lost again. The idea was to parse a file which
contains lots of lines in the following format:

200 OK         http://www.foobar.com/archive/09
1400.html

What I thought I was doing was looking for lines that began with
the "200 OK        '
string, then using htmllib to return the text between the anchor tags.
If I run the program, below, I get the following error:

D:\Program Files\Python\work>python filtertest4.py

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "filtertest4.py", line 58, in ?
    print '%s' % process(line)
  File "filtertest4.py", line 36, in process
    text2print = parser.getLink
AttributeError: getLink

So, two questions. First, how do I do this sanely. Second, when I get
an AttributeError, is there a way to find out what Attributes were
being expected, so I can adjust whatever I'm doing accordingly?

---------------------------------------------------------------
import re, htmllib,formatter,string
import exceptions,string,sys,traceback,time
import DateTime
import ODBC,ODBC.Windows,ODBC.Misc.proc
import urllib

class seekUrl(htmllib.HTMLParser):

    def __init__(self):
        self.start=0
        self.current_data=''
        htmllib.HTMLParser.__init__(
            self, formatter.NullFormatter())

	def start_a(self,attributes):
		self.current_data='boo!'
	def end_a(self):
		pass
	def handle_data(self, data):
		self.current_data=data
	def getLink(self):
		return self.current_data

def process(stuff):
    parser=seekUrl()
    parser.feed(stuff)
    text2print = parser.getLink

def showparse(filename):
    pprint.pprint(process(stuff))

currentFilePrefix = 'http://'
fileDict = {'www.cio.com':'webbusiness.cio.com'}
testOutFile = 'd:\\program files\\python\\work\\ciodump.html'
parser=seekUrl()

for root_url,currentFile in fileDict.items():
	currentFile = currentFilePrefix+currentFile+'/'
	current = urllib.urlopen(currentFile)
	inFile = current.readlines()

	for line in inFile:
		if re.search('200 OK         ',line):
			print '%s' % process(line)
#			foo = parser.myUrl()
#			print '%s' % foo
current.close()
# don't forget to clean up after yourself.
urllib.urlcleanup()
------------------------------------------

Many, many thanks,
ari

--
Ari Davidow
ari at ivritype.com

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From pmoore at mjs400.co.uk  Sun Oct 29 08:25:13 2000
From: pmoore at mjs400.co.uk (Peter Moore)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 13:25:13 +0000
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> <39FB5D09.B2D6F987@mjs400.co.uk> <4TTK5.3013$QH2.281633@newsb.telia.net>
Message-ID: <39FC2539.FD88DD96@mjs400.co.uk>

Is Mark receiving a huge amount sponsorship income?
Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> 
> Peter wrote:
> > In motor racing, apparently the feedback from the top class drivers is a
> > serious competetive factor in determining the success of a team. "Fix it
> > yourself or be more polite" comments made to drivers probably didn't
> > help Ferrari win the constructors championship this year.
> 
> oh, you mean Mark is paying Dale $100M per year
> for his comments?
> 
> 

From erno-news at erno.iki.fi  Wed Oct 11 02:45:34 2000
From: erno-news at erno.iki.fi (Erno Kuusela)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 09:45:34 +0300
Subject: how do I know when popen() finishes?
References: <8s0gts$767$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "jschmitt" == jschmitt   writes:

 | how do I retrieve all the output that busyprogram produces when
 | busyprogram finishes?  Do I busy wait on f.read(), ie, wait for end of
 | file?

you know when you get EOF (ie empty string) from read(), but
i would not call it busy waiting since it can block.

 |  Does f.close() do the same thing as pclose(f)?

yes.

see also the docs:

  -- erno

From abrahams at mediaone.net  Thu Oct 19 22:35:18 2000
From: abrahams at mediaone.net (David Abrahams)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 02:35:18 GMT
Subject: [ANN]: py_cpp Python/C++ binding system
Message-ID: 

1. The review period is over and py_cpp has been accepted into boost
(www.boost.org)! In the next few weeks it will undergo changes in keeping
with the review commentary. Also, expect development activity to slow for a
while as I will be at the C++ committee meeting and Ullrich Koethe will also
be away.

2. An update has been posted to
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/abrahams/downloads/py_cpp.html and
http://www.egroups.com/files/boost/py_cpp/

  a. Documentation of support for special method names has been added
  b. Workarounds for a Dec Alpha compiler/lib bug were added.
  c. Minor fixes to the rest of the documentation were made

3. There is still a little time to vote for a better name!

Regards,
Dave

From root at rainerdeyke.com  Wed Oct  4 22:39:23 2000
From: root at rainerdeyke.com (Rainer Deyke)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 02:39:23 GMT
Subject: copy_reg problem
Message-ID: 

Using Python 1.5.2:

The documentation for module 'copy_reg' states this:

pickle (type, function[, constructor])
  Declares that function should be used as a ``reduction'' function for
objects
  of type or class type. function should return either a string or a tuple.
The
          ^^^^^^^^
  optional constructor parameter, if provided, is a callable object which
can be
  used to reconstruct the object when called with the tuple of arguments
returned
  by function at pickling time.

The module itself gives the following example:
  def pickle_complex(c):
    return complex, (c.real, c.imag)

  pickle(type(1j), pickle_complex, complex)

I wrote a simple module that relies that tests this behavior:

########## start program
import copy_reg
import pickle

class T:
  pass

the_T = T()

def get_the_T():
  return the_T

def pickle_T(t):
  return get_the_T, ()

copy_reg.pickle(T, pickle_T, get_the_T)

assert pickle.loads(pickle.dumps(the_T)) is the_T
########## end program

It fails with an assertion error.  Printing pickle.dumps(the_T) confirms
that the object is pickled as if 'copy_reg.pickle' had not been called.  Who
is wrong here: the documentation, the pickle module (and cPickle), or I?  In
any case, how do I fix this?

--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor

From irmen at -nospam-bigfoot.com  Sun Oct 29 07:17:03 2000
From: irmen at -nospam-bigfoot.com (Irmen de Jong)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 13:17:03 +0100
Subject: ANN: AmigaPython 2.0
Message-ID: 

I'm happy to announce:

                 AmigaPython 2.0 - build 1
                The Amiga version of Python.

WHAT IT IS:

This is the Python language (version 2.0) for AmigaDOS.

WHAT'S NEW ?

 - New version 2.0!  Based on main Python 2.0 final source code.
 - First fully Unicode aware application on AmigaDOS! (as far as I know)
 - Includes fast XML parser (Expat)

WHERE CAN I GET IT ?

>From Aminet , in the dev/lang directory:

Python20.lha      Python language 2.0 (bin+lib)
Python20_Src.lha  Python language 2.0 (source)

Also have a look at my Python pages at
.

It comes with a Python-style license, but is otherwise free for
commercial and non-commercial use.

REFERENCE:

AmigaPython 2.0 - AmigaDOS port of Python 2.0  (29-Oct-2000)

----
Irmen de Jong      irmen@
                       bigfoot.com

From dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk  Fri Oct 20 07:14:19 2000
From: dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk (Dale Strickland-Clark)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 12:14:19 +0100
Subject: ActivePython 2.0 Release
References:  <634vusk9nco8qem70ddo43t4qpgid30s1l@4ax.com> <8sp2he01b00@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

Indeed. Index help would be very handy.

But hardly the basis for a new 'product'

"Alex Martelli"  wrote:

>"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
>news:634vusk9nco8qem70ddo43t4qpgid30s1l at 4ax.com...
>> Yes, but how is this better then Python 2.0 + Win32all?
>
>That will depend on what's in win32all build 135, I guess.  Right
>now, I can't find it anywhere on ActiveState's site -- it only
>seems to have builds up to 134, so far.  If anybody has an URL
>for a build-135 to install on top of BeOpen Python 2.0 final, I
>would welcome that, of course...
>
>
>Apart from that, "one-stop-shopping" seems to be what the ActiveState
>build has going for it, as they claim themselves:
>
>> >ActiveState is committed to making Python easy to install and use on all
>> >major platforms. ActivePython contains the convenience of swift
>> >installation, coupled with commonly used modules, providing you with a
>> >total package to meets your Python needs. Additionally, for Windows
>users,
>> >ActivePython provides a suite of Windows tools, developed by Mark
>Hammond.
>
>I.e., one download, one install.  They have now added Tkinter too, I
>gather from their announcement-page (and, I guess/hope, IDLE as well).
>
>One little plus (from my POV) I noticed in their previous build is
>that the docs in the Windows build are in CHM, which I find quite
>preferable to bare HTML (built-in index and search, etc), although
>there were lots of defects in the .CHM themselves (missing/wrong
>indices, etc).
>
>
>Alex
>
>

Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants

From stadt at cs.utwente.nl  Thu Oct 26 17:59:55 2000
From: stadt at cs.utwente.nl (Richard van de Stadt)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:59:55 +0100
Subject: All permutations of a list
References: <39F1FB22.6E9246E7@cs.utwente.nl>  <39F393B5.A978CC9D@cs.utwente.nl> <9nNI5.110763$g6.50159527@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>
Message-ID: <39F8A95B.F34978F8@cs.utwente.nl>

Rainer Deyke wrote:
> 
> "Richard van de Stadt"  wrote in message
> news:39F393B5.A978CC9D at cs.utwente.nl...
> > Rainer Deyke wrote:
> > > def ins(a, list):
> > >   return [list[:i] + [a] + list[i:] for i in range(len(list) + 1)]
> >
> > After having seen this, my colleague came up with this two-line solution,
> > a version that doesn't need an ins-part:
> >
> > perms [] = [[]]
> > perms xs = concat [ map (x:) (perms (xs--[x])) | x <- xs ]
> >
> > How would that be in Python? I guess it's about time I start
> > downloading v2.0.
[...]
> 
> Here's my short Pythonic permutation function:
> 
> def perms(list):
>   if list == []:
>     return [[]]
>   return [[list[i]] + p for i in range(len(list))\
>     for p in perms(list[:i] + list[i+1:])]

My collegue found another Miranda/Amanda solution, which looks
similar (or is it _the_ equivalent?)

perms [] = [[]]
perms l  = [ x:p | x <- l ; p <- perms (l--[x]) ]

x <- l: x walks through all values of l
for every x, p is set to all permutations of l_without_x
x:p means x with p appended.

Richard.

From erik.wilsher at iname.com  Fri Oct 27 11:28:33 2000
From: erik.wilsher at iname.com (Erik Wilsher)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 15:28:33 -0000
Subject: GUI
In-Reply-To: <39F9920E.A32EE93@eth.ericsson.se>
Message-ID: <8tc6v1+pao1@eGroups.com>

> Is it possible to write graphical user interfaces in python?

There are many possibilities.  Have a look at 
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.python/python_GUI.html

   EW

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Tue Oct 17 09:38:45 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 13:38:45 GMT
Subject: Special printing
References: <39EC4F70.5AA50246@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: 

You can use either single or double quotes to define strings, in Python.
Since you want to print a double quote in your string, I recommend you
surround your string in single quotes:

print '``!"#??%%%/&(%()==??'

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"joonas"  wrote in message
news:39EC4F70.5AA50246 at hotmail.com...
> How can i print special characters like
>
> ``!"#??%%%/&(%()==??
>
> i think that
>
> print "``!"#??/\%%%/&(%()==??"
>
> wont work.
>
> Joonas.

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Thu Oct 26 04:13:19 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 01:13:19 -0700
Subject: Where is wxPython?
Message-ID: <044601c03f24$9a65f6c0$8001a8c0@jayk3.jaykhome>

Windows generally looks in the .exe's directory first anyway, other than
LoadLibraryEx(with altered search path), which favors the directory the .dll
is in. COM uses that.

An empty foo.exe.local does make things more isolated. Loads by full path
resolve to the .exe's directory when foo.exe.local exists. I think.

Already loaded .dlls are also often favored.
eg:
c:\one\foo.exe
c:\one\lib.dll
c:\two\bar.dll
c:\two\lib.dll

foo.exe and bar.dll both depend on lib.dll. bar.dll is loaded "with altered
search path". Bar.dll picks of c:\one\lib.dll instead of the possibly
intended c:\two\lib.dll.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Olivier Dagenais 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: Where is wxPython?

>> > Basically, Python itself loads DLLs (PYDs) from explicit directories
>> > in sys.path. If these DLLs load other DLLs, I believe that the search
>> > path includes the directory in which the loading DLL is located,
>> > rather than the directory in which the original EXE is located. The
>> > Windows documentation seems to imply otherwise - all I can say is that
>> > it seems to work.
>> I'm sure I tried that before and it didn't work...  But it *is* working
>> for me now with both 1.5.2 and 2.0.  Perhaps it is a win2k thing, which
>> version of windows are you running?
>
>Newer versions of Windows support "component isolation" or whatever it is
>called.  To avoid "DLL Hell", applications can install all their components
>in the application directory and Windows will try there first.  (you might
>need a .local file, too)  I think this only works for COM libraries under
>Win98SE on Tuesdays when the month starts in "M" and ends in "arch".  (ie:
>I don't think you can count on it for everybody)
>
>
>--
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
>"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
>internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From fig at monitor.net  Sat Oct 28 14:21:58 2000
From: fig at monitor.net (Stephen R. Figgins)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 11:21:58 -0700
Subject: Vaults of Parnassus available as RSS newsfeed
References: <8t9ljm$mot$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39FB1946.A657A1EA@monitor.net>

Hamish Lawson wrote:
> Unfortunately O'Reilly's Meerkat syndication service doesn't yet
> include the Parnassus newsfeed.

Rael informs me it is there now:

  http://www.oreillynet.com/meerkat/index.php?&c=2034&t=ALL

Have fun!

Stephen

From sandipan at vsnl.com  Sun Oct  1 14:04:33 2000
From: sandipan at vsnl.com (Sandipan Gangopadhyay)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:34:33 +0530
Subject: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)
References: <8r7du7$86p$1@reader1.imaginet.fr> 
Message-ID: <008101c02bd2$0e6c9ee0$020000c3@inxbom5>

And this also means that the actual recipient specified in the to_addrs need
not be the one that shows up in the headers at all. It is upto the
programmer to sync the two.

Did RFC822 specifically allow this (typical bulk mail case) or is it a case
where the module allows us to bypass the RFC ?

Sandipan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dag Sunde" 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: 
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2000 9:32 PM
Subject: Re: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)

> I think you add all recipients (including the cc & bcc ones to
> the comma-separated "to_addrs"-parameter of the sendmail method,
> and use the MIME headers: "To: ", "From: ", "Cc: " and "Bcc: "
> to specify which one to show (or not) at the receiving side...
>
> See RFC-822...
>
> HTH...
>
> Dag.
>
> "Gilles Lenfant"  wrote in message
> news:8r7du7$86p$1 at reader1.imaginet.fr...
> > Hi,
> >
> > Is there an smtp/python expert here who can tell me how to have "cc" and
> > "bcc" recipients of a mail ?
> > BTW, it's with python 1.5.2, I use binary extra modules that are not
> > compliant with 1.6.
> > Thanks in advance !
> >
> > Gilles Lenfant
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>

From chris_barker at my-deja.com  Thu Oct 19 14:16:27 2000
From: chris_barker at my-deja.com (chris_barker at my-deja.com)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 18:16:27 GMT
Subject: Parsing tuples in C extension
References: <8sl63k$jku$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8sndpj$cb3$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

  "Mark Hammond"  wrote:
> PyArg_ParseTuple will work on any tuple.
>
> Eg, if you have nested tuples, you could use PyArg_ParseTuple(args,
> "000", t1, t2, t3), then PyArg_ParseTuple(t1, "iii", &i1)

Well, I thought it might, and I have no excuse for not just trying it.

Thanks, Mark.

-Chris
cbarker at jps.net

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From nospam at nospam.com  Wed Oct 11 13:18:51 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:18:51 GMT
Subject: was: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>  <39D19EBB.ABF18F23@engcorp.com> <39def2ae.8929692@news.davesworld.net>  <39dfabb5.27391600@news.davesworld.net>  <8s0tai$mc1$1@news1.xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <%h1F5.113896$dZ2.50563651@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>

What is the status of a Win32 version of this product?

Tom.

"Boudewijn Rempt"  wrote in message
news:8s0tai$mc1$1 at news1.xs4all.nl...
> Bill Hunter  wrote:
> > A real IDE for Python would be wonderful.  No criticism implied of
> > IDLE or PythonWin -  I'd just like to wake up some morning and find
> > something that didn't make my VB-centric colleagues roll their eyes.
>
> Go to www.archaeopteryx.com and download the latest version of Wing.
> Wing is really good - best source browser I've ever seen and lots of
> other good features. It's still beta, but the last beta is quite
> stable.
>
> --
>
> Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 18:13:06 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 00:13:06 +0200
Subject: event loop problem
References: <8t21ei$e5a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8t2d8k0lu4@news2.newsguy.com>

 wrote in message
news:8t21ei$e5a$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
    [snip]
> Sometimes other windows on NT broadcast messages which need to be
> confirmed by all running windows.  If at least one window does not
> dispatch the confirmation, the broadcaster will hang.  In C++ the

Right.

> ADO opens a hidden window and causes this problem.  If ADO is not used,
> no problem exists.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It's not ADO, but COM (its Service-Control manager, to be precise).

Anyway, inserting a call to pythoncom.PumpWaitingMessages() in
your sleep-loop should fix things up.

Alex

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sat Oct  7 22:56:38 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 07 Oct 2000 22:56:38 -0400
Subject: Data distribution by frequency
References: 
Message-ID: 

> Sound good? Or is there an easier/cleaner way to accomplish the same
> thing?

Can you say a little more about what the timing loop is supposed to
accomplish?  At first glance, it seems like it would be easier to choose
an element in each cell according to the probability density function
that the frequency counts give you.  It depends on how much you depend
on having each object type distributed as heterogeneously as possible.

It's all really much of a muchness, though, I suppose.  Anything you
decide to do along these lines is going to take you less than 20 lines
of python, I'd guess.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From grante at visi.com  Thu Oct 19 14:43:43 2000
From: grante at visi.com (Grant Edwards)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 18:43:43 GMT
Subject: Help installing PIL/Sketch
Message-ID: 

I've been trying (and failing to get PIL) installed on a
vanilla RH system so that I can install sketch.  So far I
haven't had much luck.  

I started by installing the python-imaging RPM.  Here's what's
installed currently:

$ rpm -q -a | grep python
python-1.5.2-13
python-docs-1.5.2-13
python-tools-1.5.2-13
pythonlib-1.23-1
rpm-python-3.0.4-0.48
python-imaging-1.0b1-3
python-devel-1.5.2-13

But when I try to congure sketch:

$ ./setup.py configure
looking for include dir for Imaging.h under
/usr/include/python1.5
Imaging.h not found under /usr/include/python1.5 !

Apparently the python-imaging RPM pointed to by the Sketch home
page doesn't contain the include files, so it isn't useful for
building Sketch.

Next, I tried building PIL from sources, but that fails also. I
followed the steps in the PIL README file, and a "make check"
worked OK, but my _imaging.so file is apparently bad. When I
get to step 8 in the PIL Readme, I get an unresolved symbol
error:

$ PYTHONPATH=.:./PIL ; export PYTHONPATH
$ python
Python 1.5.2 (#1, Feb  1 2000, 16:32:16)  [GCC egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs- on linux-i386
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> import _imaging
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
ImportError: ./_imaging.so: undefined symbol: XCreateRegion
>>> 

Could somebody loan me a clue on how to get PIL installed under
RH 6.2?

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Mr and Mrs PED, can I
                                  at               borrow 26.7% of the RAYON
                               visi.com            TEXTILE production of the
                                                   INDONESIAN archipelago?

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 31 05:24:31 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 11:24:31 +0100
Subject: Would anyone show me how to use htmllib?
References: <8te2ch$8ou$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8teabh0f6q@news1.newsguy.com> <8tln3f$sf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8tm6uo01m29@news1.newsguy.com>

 wrote in message news:8tln3f$sf$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> Thank you for the example.
> I went back and take a look htmllib again. Some part makes more sense
> now. Here is what I wanted to do:
>
> I noticed that are lots of patterns in html pages, I want to extract
> infomation out of html pages(based on patterns). I have done this using
> perl's regular expression before. Now I am wondering if I can speed up
> development process and have a stardard approach for this problem using
> python htmllib.

Absolutely yes.  Particularly because HTML syntax is NOT parsable
by regular-expressions (either Perl's or Python's -- they're quite
close); you can get, say, 80% of the way there with an amount X
of effort, then each halving of the remaining percentage of "cases
not well treated" doubles the overall effort.  It's a no-win
strategy.

> For reference, htmllib library documenation metioned:
> ######################################################################
> #This module defines a class which can serve as a base for parsing text
> #files formatted in the HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML).
> ######################################################################
>
> All of the examples I have seen are extracting URL links from a html
> page. I was wondering if I can do more with this modules.

You have to inherit from HTMLParser, and override some methods, if
you want to do more than extracting links (or simple output formatting),
because that is what HTMLParser itself does.  Sometimes it's handier
to use sgmllib rather than htmllib, actually -- sgmllib is "more
primitive" (htmllib's parser inherits from sgmllib's), but that IS
handy at times.

For an example of htmllib use, see, e.g., my post:
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=661888820
"converting an html table to a tree", and its thread.

Alex

From cfelling at iae.nl  Sun Oct 29 11:56:10 2000
From: cfelling at iae.nl (Carel Fellinger)
Date: 29 Oct 2000 17:56:10 +0100
Subject: How do you create constants?
References:  
Message-ID: <8thkra$5md$1@animus.fel.iae.nl>

Dale Strickland-Clark  wrote:
...
> If you want to use 'set once' values, you could write a simple class
> for that. Something like this:

> class SetOnce:
> 	def __setattr__(self, key, value):
> 		if key in dir(self):
> 			raise ValueError(key)
> 		self.__dict__[key] = value

but be aware that if some joker would replace this __setattr__ method like:

   def noSetOnce(self,key,value:
       self.__dict__[key] = value

   SetOnce.__setattr__ = noSetOnce

then suddenly SetOnce constants aren't constant anymore.
So you're back to having to trust your co-workers:)
And yes, the same can be done for a single instance.
And yes again, thanks to type casts, similar things can be done in e.g. C++.

Hope this gets you scared again:)
-- 
groetjes, carel

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sun Oct 22 22:27:02 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 22 Oct 2000 22:27:02 -0400
Subject: Getting Python 2.0 without pythonlabs.com
References:  <39F39DCF.1017C0F4@Lugoj.Com>
Message-ID: 

> Tim Peters wrote:

>> If both of those sites go down too, we'll look into attaching free
>> Python CDs to boxes of major breakfast cereals.
> 
> Could you be more specific which cereal(s) Python CDs will be in?
> We're a Corn Flakes family and I'm hoping that is one of them.

Don't worry -- given the tone around here, they will probably be
available in specially marked packets of super-size condoms, too.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Wed Oct 25 10:29:50 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:29:50 GMT
Subject: Pretty report printing
References: 
Message-ID: 

wxPython - through wxWindows - seems to have a nice printing framework.
(that's the impression I get from Robin Dunn's wxPython demo)  It would
require you to install wxPython on the target machines, so "previewable
online" might be more difficult unless wxPython can also generate a "rough
copy"/draft to a JPEG or PNG or something, so that you could also have a
server generating previews.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
news:frpdvsgdu444fhev877ajo5tdcbvpk69tq at 4ax.com...
> I need to produce a bunch of standard reports from a database and am
> considering Python.
>
> The reports need to be pretty but probably text only (although borders
> and boxes would be nice). They should be previewable online and
> printable to any Windows printer.
>
> I like the idea of using HTML but it doesn't understand the printed
> page so headings, headers and footers are trickey.
>
> Other options include PDF (which I'd have to research cos I know
> nothing about it) and driving Word or Excel through COM to build pages
> - which isn't an attractive thought.
>
> How have others tackled this problem?
>
> Thanks
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants
>
>

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 04:11:42 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 17:11:42 +0900
Subject: All combinations of a list
Message-ID: <8t0rsf$r0s$1@news.nuri.net>

Below is my first version of doing it:

def comb(list):
    if len(list) ==0:
           return [[]]
    return [ [[list[0]],[]][i]+c for i in (0,1) \
           for c in comb(list[1:]) ]

That works fine, but why does another version using
lambda give a subscription error?

def comb(list):
    if len(list) ==0:
           return [[]]
    return  map(lambda x: [list[0]]+x , comb(list[1:]))  \
             + comb(list[1:])

Thanks in advance.

June

[This thread was first started from permutation lists
and now that the topic has moved somewhat far from
the originator's question, I open up this thread as a new one]

From budncal at earthlink.net  Wed Oct 11 19:00:40 2000
From: budncal at earthlink.net (Robert Biggs)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 23:00:40 GMT
Subject: Python for Mac OS X?
Message-ID: <39E4F04F.C760D01C@earthlink.net>

Where might I find a version of Python that would work on the recently
released Mac OS X Public Beta? It's Apple's new OS based on BSD.

budncal at earthlink.net

From scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl  Mon Oct  9 11:17:31 2000
From: scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl (Remco Gerlich)
Date: 9 Oct 2000 15:17:31 GMT
Subject: doubling slashes in a string
References: <39de8a48_3@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8rmvbo02dfo@news1.newsguy.com>  <8rs9dc0143f@news2.newsguy.com>  <8rsj3p01hhs@news2.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

Alex Martelli  wrote in comp.lang.python:
> If r"\"" really needs to be equal to '"', then we're in serious trouble,

Argh. I'm back to posting inaccurate stuff all the time. Time to get
back to work. Yes, \ escapes, but it leaves the \ in the string, that's
the whole point. Sigh.

-- 
Remco Gerlich

From aa8vb at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 24 10:19:07 2000
From: aa8vb at yahoo.com (Randall Hopper)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 10:19:07 -0400
Subject: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC)
In-Reply-To: ; from
 daimun@home.com on Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 07:24:03AM +0000
References: 
Message-ID: <20001024101907.A1051@vislab.epa.gov>

Alex McHale:
 |Hi there,

Hi.

 |  I have started work on a project that I *think* is unique.  If not,
 |someone please send me a URL to such a project's site.
...
 |  First off, let me say; I have a working prototype, with extremely limited
 |functionality.
 |
 |  The project is, as I call it, a Python Formatted C Converter.  What this
 |means, is that it takes a python-style coded C program and converts it into
 |compilable C code. ...

Ouch!  It looks like the flamers hit you first. 8^)

I like the idea myself.  In fact, I've been passively thinking about how
useful something similar might be for a while.  That is: a pure Python to C
translator.  A few quick net searches reveals there's a py2c out there.
Maybe you could use it as a jumping-off point?  (links below)

As you said, it makes sense.  Python is so easy to read and code for.  And
for 95-99% of the code, the speed is academic.  So why not just use Python!?

Python purists would say, develop a C extension for that 1-5% and link it
into your Python interpreter.  That can work.  But if your app must be up
24-7 under heavy load, a little lost garbage here and there is not an
option.  You need to bring in tools like Purify to make sure absolutely
nothing is amiss, and then you're dealing with the C level anyway.

Also, linking Python code into existing apps which "aren't" under Python's
umbrella can be a challenge.  It might be more straightforward to convert
the Python to C, and then just call it.  

Admitedly there are some non-trivial problems (full dynamic typing versus
typed variables, is a full interpreter needed or just basic data type
classes, etc.), many of which I'm sure I haven't thought of, but the
concept sounds interesting at least!

Good luck.

Randall

A few links I just found that might be useful to you:

http://www.python.org/workshops/1996-06/papers/hugunin.IPCIV.html
http://lima.mudlib.org/~rassilon/p2c/  (Broken Pipe right now)
http://www.python.org/sigs/compiler-sig/dev-day-notes.txt
  Py2C (Bill Tutt, Greg Stein)

-- 
Randall Hopper
aa8vb at yahoo.com

From fgeiger at datec.at  Tue Oct  3 13:01:06 2000
From: fgeiger at datec.at (Franz GEIGER)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 19:01:06 +0200
Subject: Reg Exp: Need advice concerning "greediness"
References: <8r4om7$9bd$1@newsreaderm1.core.theplanet.net>  <8r7mul$njc$1@newsreaderg1.core.theplanet.net> 
Message-ID: <8rd3fn$q29$1@newsreaderg1.core.theplanet.net>

Thanks, that clarified the use of htmllib (at least I think so). Great
module if one wants to extract certain information out from an HTML file!

As I played around I saw, that it does not fully fit my needs: I do not want
to extract information, I do want to change or insert information. If I got
everything right, I would have to define methods for EVERY tag occurring in
the HTML file, because otherwise the parser would omit information.

Or is there a way to let HTMPParser write the unextracted data into a buffer
for displaying them?

I want to change certain parts of HTML files e.g. font tags. All other parts
should remain unchanged. After having done my changes I'd like to save the
unchanged parts and the changed parts into a file for publishing on a
server.

Do I have to stick with regexp?

Or is it a good idea to write my own parser, taking idea and concept from
HTMLParser (really good idea to call hooks on the occurrence of certain
tags)?

Many thanks
and best regards
Franz GEIGER

Alex  schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
etdn1gosdag.fsf at w20-575-36.mit.edu...
>
> > Sounds promising. It's a Python std module, isn't it? Yet I could not
> > find sample scripts showing me how to use it? Any idea how to begin
> > with?
>
> Yeah, the docs for it are a bit hard to figure out.  Here's some sample
> code from Alex Martelli.
>
> http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2000-August/114566.html
>
> Alex.
>
> --
> Speak softly but carry a big carrot.
>

From samschul at pacbell.net  Wed Oct 18 02:11:15 2000
From: samschul at pacbell.net (Sam Schulenburg)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 06:11:15 GMT
Subject: calldll and python20
Message-ID: <8sjeu1$4h6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I tried to recompile calldll for python20 and get the following error
when I try to load the dll>

Python 2.0 (#8, Oct 16 2000, 17:27:58) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
IDLE 0.6 -- press F1 for help
>>> import calldll
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
    import calldll
ImportError: dynamic module does not define init function (initcalldll)
>>>

The initcalldll function is defined as follows:

__declspec(dllexport) void
initcalldll(void)
{
	PyObject *dict, *module;
	module = Py_InitModule ("calldll", calldll_functions);
	dict = PyModule_GetDict (module);
	calldll_module_error = PyString_FromString ("calldll error");
	PyDict_SetItemString (dict, "error", calldll_module_error);

	/* initialize our thread local storage index */
	thread_state_tls_index = TlsAlloc();

	/* This is not actually needed, we could just use
	   calldll.get_proc_address to get them! */

	PyDict_SetItemString (
	  dict,
	  "addrs",
	  Py_BuildValue (
		"(lll)",
		&Py_BuildValue,
		&PyInt_AsLong,
		/* &PyEval_CallObject */ /* OR */
&thread_safe_call_object
		)
	);

I can not find any problems with the above function declaration. Any
ideas?

Sam Schulenburg

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sun Oct  1 10:32:18 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 10:32:18 -0400
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References:  <8qss6t$7i$1@saltmine.radix.net> <8erA5.37729$dZ2.13446193@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>  
Message-ID: 

> No, I can't.  I believe there is a delay based on the way that pages
> appear: the ad appears quickly, then there is a considerable delay
> before the rest of the content is sent. This is common technique on
> the internet.
> 
> On the other hand, if you've looked at the source, and the delay isn't
> there, then I'm wrong and I retract my comments.

Banner ads are usually served from a completely unrelated machine
administered by the company brokering the ad space, aren't they?  I
would have expected those machines to work faster than the ones serving
up the sourceforge content proper.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From owen at astroNOJNK.washington.edu.invalid  Thu Oct 12 00:20:27 2000
From: owen at astroNOJNK.washington.edu.invalid (Russell E. Owen)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 22:20:27 -0600
Subject: Question about a simple Tk client
Message-ID: <8s3e6i$17ag$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>

I'm trying to make a simple Tk client that receives data and displays it 
in various forms. The connection is likely to be a bit flakey, and I'd 
like to warn the user if the connection is lost, while continuing to 
display data. I'd also like the system to self-refresh when the 
connection is established or reestablished.

Any suggestions are welcome.

What I've been working on is a simple database in the client the records 
data as it comes in, time stamps it, and knows if the connection is down 
and when it last went up, so it can figure out if data is current or 
needs a refresh.

I was hoping to make the data easy to display, so my plan was to copy 
the StringVar system (for instance a Label will automatically track the 
contents of a StringVar). I made a subclass of StringVar, called 
StringDBVar. When one calls "set", it updates the time stamp and then 
sets the variable. When one calls a new method "getData", it returns the 
data and whether the data needs a refresh (and initiates a refresh, if 
appropriate).

I then planned to subclass Label to take a StringDBVar and have it 
automatically call "getData" whenever the variable changes -- using the 
Variable callback mechanism. The Label subclass would check validity and 
set the background color accordingly (e.g. red for disconnected).

The basics work, but some useful things don't. If I call "set" directly 
all is well. But I'd like to also be able to set a StringDBVar via an 
entry widget by simply setting textvar=myStringDBVar. Unfortunately, 
entry widgets don't seem to call "set" for their textvars (nor do Labels 
call "get"). I guess this automatic updating is happening at a lower 
level, and I don't know how to break into it.

I'm also worried that callbacks will be dreadully slow compared to 
whatever Tk normally does to synchronize widgets to StringVars.

Any ideas? Is there a Better Way?

Also, is there a simple way to get hold of the source code for _tkinter? 
Tkinter.py is included in my distribution, but _tkinter.py (is it 
written in Python?) is not.

-- Russell

From pete at petes-place.com  Sat Oct  7 19:02:42 2000
From: pete at petes-place.com (David T. Grove)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 23:02:42 GMT
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: <39d1d3b2.43465571@news.telus.net>  <39D19EBB.ABF18F23@engcorp.com> <39def2ae.8929692@news.davesworld.net>  <8ro52a0q1o@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39dfa617.25953118@news.davesworld.net>

On Sat, 7 Oct 2000 23:35:02 +0200, "Alex Martelli" 
wrote:

>"Frank Sergeant"  wrote in message
>news:MqLD5.1338$G5.25319 at read1.centurytel.net...
>    [snip]
>> I noticed on the web site that you said
>>
>> > The true beauty of perl is shown in how rapidly a program can be
>created:
>> > a good average for comparison is 1 line of perl for every 25 lines of C,
>> > TclTk, Python, or Visual Basic, and every 100 lines of C++.
>
>Such an assertion can only come from a mind that's totally out of
>synch with reality.  400% *more* lines of code for C++ than for

OOP over a procedural language has more lines, no matter how you look
at it. C++ is especially guilty in this, because for "standard" C++,
in certain areas like the STL, you end up programming classes with
overloaded operators just to begin coding... not much of a time saver
over basic ADT's from a programmer's pov. OOP can be a convenience
when it comes to hiding code, but there's code in that black box, and
it has to be anough to make it work. Plus in C++, though not in all
object languages, you have syntactic overhead (a.k.a. fluff). Even
Stroustroup complains about this in "The Design and Evolution of C++".
But then, what do you expect from a language that trades no strings
with bad strings. ;-)

>C?!  That's even crazier than the 2500%-more assertion for Python

If that's all you saw in that line, you're not paying attention. The
comparison is not based on just everyday programming, but what
programming can be in its worst case. Perl is notorious for one-liners
that take other languages anywhere from multiple lines to hundreds of
lines to reproduce, especially where text processing and data
structures are concerned. Regular expressions in Python/Tcl/Perl are
unbelievably abbreviated over the huge character-by-character
equivalents of pascal, c, vb, and other languages without them. Python
and Perl are pretty unique in that they allow arbitrarily nested data
structures.

Anyway, if you'll notice, I did some lumping there, not hard figures
for each language. You take it any way other than lumping, you're
misreading the text and skipping the meaning behind it.

Granted, python is very close to Perl in these respects, but it's
still more verbose.

Also, I must admit that "good programming practices" have hit me
pretty hard recently, when I've had to babysit some newbies from
another planet... er... country. My elses got unsnuggled and

die unless @d = map {"$basedir/$_"} grep {!-d && -w} readdir(dir);

...which is perfectly logical and readable to me as a single
"thought"... "get me all the filenames in that directory or halt
immediately because you'll screw something up". Single thoughts don't
translate into code very well without one-liners like this, because
you're so busy with sub thoughts that you forget what you're
programming until your current thought is done.

became multiple lines, most of which hold just a { or a }.

Without the newbies, you can't match it with any python that I'm aware
of. But then, I was also comparing VB and C in there, and I challenge
anyone to do that in less than 25 lines of C or VB (1 line = 1
semicolon per line, no cheating)

>vs Perl.  If this quote is correct, then the site must clearly be one
>devoted to silly humour.

Bah. Be nice and pay attention. You just totally zapped the entire
meaning of this thread. I'm not python-bashing... quite the opposite
if you'd take time to read up a little in the thread.

From jon+python-list at unequivocal.co.uk  Tue Oct 10 13:42:35 2000
From: jon+python-list at unequivocal.co.uk (Jon Ribbens)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 18:42:35 +0100
Subject: Python 2.0 release candidate 1
In-Reply-To: <200010100652.XAA74600@python.beopen.com>; from jeremy@beopen.com on Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 11:52:48PM -0700
References: <200010100652.XAA74600@python.beopen.com>
Message-ID: <20001010184235.A4613@snowy.squish.net>

Jeremy Hylton  wrote:
> The final release of Python 2.0 will be next week.  We would
> appreciate feedback on the release candidate in order to fix any
> remaining bugs before the final release.  Confirmation of build and
> test success on less common platforms is also helpful.n

It works fine on OpenBSD 2.7. 'make test' fails due to a threading-related
bug in OpenBSD 2.7's libc (that is already fixed for 2.8) but I have patched
this bug on my local system and everything works fine now.

Could I suggest that it might be an idea in Modules/Setup.in to add a comment
by the bit for SSL-enabled _socket module, to the effect that if you uncomment
the SSL stuff you need to comment-out the non-SSL _socket module just above?

Cheers

Jon

From effbot at telia.com  Wed Oct 11 15:34:24 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 19:34:24 GMT
Subject: python training?
References: <39E4BCBF.1E7781E9@sage.att.com>
Message-ID: <4h3F5.393$jv2.33990@newsc.telia.net>

Garry wrote:
> a friend of mine would like to learn python.  since he's a manager,
> the easiest way to learn something is to go off site for a few days,
> where he can focus on it without interruption.  does anyone know of
> opportunities for python training?

http://home.rmi.net/~lutz/mytrain.html

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Mon Oct 30 06:25:01 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:25:01 -0000
Subject: Is Python development applicable to commerce?
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B136C@intrepid>

> From:	Peter Moore [SMTP:pmoore at mjs400.co.uk]
> Yeah, one day the Python might make a fair number of people a decent
> living.
> 
> If this isn't the case let me know a few good reasons why and I'll skulk
> about to comp.sys.ibm.as400 and stay coding in RPG (which works just
> fine in an industrial setting but falls short in linguistic expression.)
> Who knows maybe the "random usenet poster" wasn't coding just for the
> fun of it and could use a decent IDE, I know I could.

Well, speaking as someone who codes RPG as my day-job, I must point out that
SEU* hardly counts as a 'decent IDE'. PythonWin and IDLE both piss all over
it. Compile & run without exiting the source? No way. Undo? What do you need
that for? Auto-completion? Auto-what? Source highlighting? If it was good
enough for my Grandfather...

Certainly RPG works, but programmer productivity is woeful. Well, mine
certainly is!

RPG's status is pretty much the same as that of COBOL, IMHO - there are
thousands of huge applications written in it, so it isn't going to go away,
and you'll always be able to get a job. But no-one is going to write
anything *new* using it.

Hence I'm learning Java**. Well, I *plan* to, but I'm enjoying Python too
much, and I don't seem to be getting around to it...

If anyone could get Python, (or JPython, or Jython, or whatever) working on
the '400, and tell me how, I would probably marry them. Not much of an
incentive, I'm afraid.

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk
* Source Entry Utility. If you think that the name sounds old-fashioned,
then you should see the interface!
** IBM is betting the farm on Java, so if you want to make use of your
existing '400 skills, it's the only way to go.

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accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 03:27:21 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 09:27:21 +0200
Subject: Python 2.0 naive question
References:  <4_jy5.1275$n4.112327@newsc.telia.net>  <3xBy5.1604$F5.207617@newsb.telia.net>   
Message-ID: 

David Bolen  writes:

> I submitted a patch that reads the import table in any newly loaded
> module to determine which python DLL it was importing directly (as
> opposed to just existing in the process) and comparing it to the
> version of Python that was doing the importing.

I like that idea, and the patch.

Martin

From maxm at normik.dk  Thu Oct 12 06:41:14 2000
From: maxm at normik.dk (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Max_M=F8ller_Rasmussen?=)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:41:14 +0200
Subject: Where can I find more generel information about using the htmllib
	 ??
Message-ID: <7BD10B680501D411B9DF009027E06F32197A89@exchange>

I am in need of a parser that subtracts all urls in a html page, both hrefs
for links and src for images.

Instead of mucking around with regular expressions as I ussually do I will
try to use the htmllib for the parsing as it seems much easier.

I have pretty much made it work by copying and pasting from documentation
and examples, but I still don't feel I understand how it work.

I guess that's one of the pleasures of being self-taught. Sometimes there is
areas where you miss a basic understanding and for somebody who knows about
parser it fits into some kind of reference frame. So the documentation is
implicit assuming that one knows what a parser is.

So I just wondered if there is somewhere on the web where I can find out
more about parsing. What kind of parsers there is and how the htmllib fits
into this.

Regards

	Max M

From tariq.rashid at iname.com  Tue Oct 17 04:39:32 2000
From: tariq.rashid at iname.com (taz)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 09:39:32 +0100
Subject: all i want to do is plot a matrix!!!
Message-ID: 

anyone help?

i've looked in DISLIN, numpy, Pthyon imaging library...

all i want to do is import an image (say .png, .gif) to a matrix of colour
values (rgb) so i can manipulate them with my own maths functions, do
lookups etc etc ...

and be able to plot the images in a window...

i just can't find any documentation - looked in the python-docs

any help?

From piet at cs.uu.nl  Sun Oct  8 08:41:42 2000
From: piet at cs.uu.nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 14:41:42 +0200
Subject: How can you copy (clone) a string?
References:   <8ripra$pr3$1@panix2.panix.com>  <8rkto9$832$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) (AM) writes:

AM> Because it's normally considered immutable, and here you're using it in
AM> a mutable way.  I just don't think it's Pythonic.

It is not only normally considered immutable, it IS immutable, So you
cannot use it in a mutable way.
I am just using it to implement a linked list. Nothing wrong with that.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum 
URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP]
Private email: P.van.Oostrum at hccnet.nl

From max at alcyone.com  Wed Oct 25 00:14:13 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 21:14:13 -0700
Subject: C's syntax
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com> <8t1964$v8a$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk> <17WI5.58198$oN2.2362868@news20.bellglobal.com> <39F45B51.320AA63F@alcyone.com> <8t1nr90105v@news1.newsguy.com> <39F4FEAF.FA466927@alcyone.com> <8t3nt4027fk@news2.newsguy.com> <8t4gv3$81f$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk> <8t4q8s01lpv@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39F65E15.E48A2144@alcyone.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> No.  But the desperate need for warnings to ameliorate
> some of the ill-effects of its tortured syntax, oh yes, it
> most definitely _is_ one of C's weaknesses.

There is no need for amelioration, because what you describe is a novice
error, extremely rarely made by competent C programmers.  If you're so
worried about accidentally invoking that bit of trivial user error, then
there's no need to use weird syntax (always putting the lvalue on the
right-hand side of the comparison) to avoid doing that; you can turn on
a compiler warning.

That's all.  If you _don't_ have that problem, as most C programmers do
not, then you never had an "ill-effect" to "ameliorate" in the first
place, so your complaint about "weaknesses" is moot.

You are doing a fairly good job of misrepresenting what other people are
saying.

> > It's not even C, it's *Microsoft* C. A bastard hybrid child.
> 
> C89 compliant, as far as I've been able to determine.

Microsoft compilers have many compliance problems.  Read comp.lang.c.*
for a few minutes and that will become readily obvious.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ Blood is the god of war's rich livery.
\__/ Christopher Marlowe
    The laws list / http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws/
 Laws, rules, principles, effects, paradoxes, etc. in physics.

From jcea at argo.es  Wed Oct 18 12:00:23 2000
From: jcea at argo.es (Jesus Cea Avion)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 18:00:23 +0200
Subject: www.python.org
Message-ID: <39EDC917.B95E3A4C@argo.es>

What happens to http://www.python.org/ ?.

-- 
Jesus Cea Avion                         _/_/      _/_/_/        _/_/_/
jcea at argo.es http://www.argo.es/~jcea/ _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
                                      _/_/    _/_/          _/_/_/_/_/
PGP Key Available at KeyServ   _/_/  _/_/    _/_/          _/_/  _/_/
"Things are not so easy"      _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
"My name is Dump, Core Dump"   _/_/_/        _/_/_/      _/_/  _/_/
"El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz

From jkraska1 at san.rr.com  Sun Oct 29 22:17:03 2000
From: jkraska1 at san.rr.com (Courageous)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 03:17:03 GMT
Subject: Python Labs Move
References: 
Message-ID: <39FCE915.C1DC844C@san.rr.com>

> ???  You mean Guido was almost on the list?

Even if it were true, it doesn't matter that much any more.
Guido's a good fellow, I'm sure, but Python is bigger than
him now. Look at it on the bright side: so far Python has
avoided being hijacked by an ANSI committee, in which countless
creeping features would insidiate their way into the language
until all that would remain would be some horrible aberration
of Frankenstein's monster.

C//

From stadt at cs.utwente.nl  Thu Oct 26 17:31:30 2000
From: stadt at cs.utwente.nl (Richard van de Stadt)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:31:30 +0100
Subject: File locking (Re: How do I force a single instance of a python app?)
References: <8esfvssua5andnu28ui2otqvdkkugqde5l@4ax.com> <39f5e46f_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>  <39f731ff_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8t9jbj$e84s$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <39F8A2B2.8B41349B@cs.utwente.nl>

Donn Cave wrote:
> 
> Quoth Dale Strickland-Clark :
> | "Joshua Muskovitz"  wrote:
> |>"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
> |>news:urodvssp7e7cmbv1ljlqnqgej9rjhfqbli at 4ax.com...
> |>> Open a flag file exclusively for writing. If successful you are alone,
> |>> if not, another instance already has the file.
> |>>
> |>> The OS should close the file and free the exclusive lock if the app
> |>> crashes.
> |>
> |> This would be great, but on my Win2k box, I can open up the same file for
> |> write in two separate Python instances at the same time.  :-(
> |>
> |> The second instance of open("foo","w") does not fail.
> |
> | This is pretty naf, isn't it. I get the same.
> |
> | I can even open for append from two different instances of the same
> | program and get interleaved output.

Of course. This is another issue than the original question (see my
other posting in this thread for my solution), but if you want an
application to have exclusive rights to write to a file, you need
to lock the file after opening it:

f = open ('somefile', 'w')
f.lock('w|')
f.write ('stuff')
f.lock('u')
f.close()

Still, this only works if all programs that want to write 'somefile' use this.

This also works in case the program wants to write to a file which is located
on a remote system, and which is down. The program waits until the remote system
is up again.

> | Does this occur with other languages/libraries?  I haven't tested it
> | but I can't help wondering if Python is using inappropriate options
> | when opening output files.

It is not inappropriate. What if you _want_ or don't care about interleaved
output? You're just confused about the defaults :-)

> Normal, correct results for C library stdio, which is the basis for
> the Python file object.
> 
>         Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu

Richard.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 11 05:45:08 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 11:45:08 +0200
Subject: an example Re: Connecting to running win32com server
References: <39E3539D.559BB60E@sandia.gov> <8rvqku093a@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <8s1d5002ikb@news1.newsguy.com>

"Alex Martelli"  wrote in message
news:8rvqku093a at news1.newsguy.com...
    [snip]
> > things to communicate, but it seems that the C++ program always starts
> > a new python process to handle the request, rather than using the
> > already running one.  This won't work for me, as the purpose is to
> > grab data being collected by the already running python script.
> >
> > Is there some way around this, other than tricks like shared memory
> > between the running python process and the win32com server?  The
> > C++ code and the data collection program run on different computers.
>
> Sure.  The server must register itself with the system as
> REGCLS_MULTIPLEUSE (in the CoRegisterClassObject API call),
> so that only one instance of its process will be run (and the
> classobject it registers must return either references to one
> and the same instance [singleton], or, my preference [for
> reasons that may be slightly obscure to explain], instances
> that all share their state [delegating it to a shared singleton
> internal non-com-exposed object in the process]).
>
> (I thought that's what win32com.server.factory did by
> default... the multi-use part, I mean... are you sure that
> multiple _processes_ are starting, rather than just there
> being multiple instances within the same Python process?)

I checked, and this is indeed so -- local servers created
by Python are indeed registered as multiple-use.

So, your problem is probably related to actually having
multiple instances (within the same Python process!), not,
as it seemed to you, to having multiple processes.

Here's a test you can try.  Go to the win32com/servers
directory and copy, for example, dictionary.py to a file
named shareddictionary.py in the same directory.  Then,
do the following changes:

add a line
shared_dict = {}
before the definition of class DictionaryPolicy;

change the classes' registration attributes slightly, to:
  _reg_desc_ = 'Python Shared-Dictionary'
  _reg_clsid_ = '{8760aa40-9f4e-11d4-9e41-0060b0eb1d67}'
  _reg_progid_ = 'Python.SharedDictionary'
  _reg_verprogid_ = 'Python.SharedDictionary.1'
  _reg_policy_spec_ = 'win32com.servers.shareddictionary.DictionaryPolicy'

change the very first line of its _CreateInstance method to:
    self._wrap_(shared_dict)
(instead of similarly wrapping a new empty dictionary)

and run the script with /regserver to register it.

Basically, what we're doing here is, let a new COM object
be generated (from the same class-factory, i.e. in the same
process, thanks to the multiple-use registration of the
class-factory object that the Python infrastructure will
do for us) for each request; BUT, let all the COM objects
thus generate SHARE STATE, since they all wrap the same
underlying process-unique Python object (the shared_dict)
rather than each wrapping a separate instance.

You _could_ do it differently (caching and returning the
same COM object every time a create-instance is requested)
but, personally, I prefer this style (there are issues with
COM singletons, and with singletons in general, that are
well finessed by this alternate shared-state-pattern).

Now, in some long-running Python process, e.g. in IDLE, do:

>>> import win32com.client
>>> import pythoncom
>>>
sd1=win32com.client.Dispatch("Python.SharedDictionary",clsctx=pythoncom.CLSC
TX_LOCAL_SERVER)
>>> sd1["foo"]="Bar"

and from another process, e.g. PythonWin, you can see that
you're getting to the same server process:

>>>
sd1=win32com.client.Dispatch("Python.SharedDictionary",clsctx=pythoncom.CLSC
TX_LOCAL_SERVER)
>>> sd1

>>> sd1.Count
1
>>> sd1.Item("Foo")
u'Bar'
>>>

Here's a simple VC++ console application to check the same
thing:

#include "stdafx.h"

#undef GetFreeSpace
#import "scrrun.dll" rename("FreeSpace","SpaceFree")

int step = 0;

int work(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    HRESULT hr;
    CLSID clsid;
++step;
    hr = CLSIDFromProgID(L"Python.SharedDictionary", &clsid);
    if(FAILED(hr)) _com_raise_error(hr);
++step;
    IClassFactoryPtr pClassFactory;
    hr = CoGetClassObject(clsid,CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER,NULL,
        IID_IClassFactory,(void**)&pClassFactory);
    if(FAILED(hr)) _com_raise_error(hr);
++step;
    IDispatchPtr pDisp;
    hr = pClassFactory->CreateInstance(NULL,IID_IDispatch,(void**)&pDisp);
    if(FAILED(hr)) _com_raise_error(hr);
++step;
    printf("Created OK\n");

    LPOLESTR name = L"Count";
    DISPID dispid = DISPID_UNKNOWN;
    hr = pDisp->GetIDsOfNames(IID_NULL, &name, 1, LOCALE_NEUTRAL, &dispid);
    if(FAILED(hr) || dispid==DISPID_UNKNOWN) _com_raise_error(hr?hr:13);
++step;

    VARIANT varResult; VariantInit(&varResult);
    DISPPARAMS dispparamsNoArgs = {NULL, NULL, 0, 0};

    hr = pDisp->Invoke(dispid, IID_NULL, LOCALE_NEUTRAL,
        DISPATCH_METHOD|DISPATCH_PROPERTYGET,
        &dispparamsNoArgs, &varResult, NULL, NULL);
    if(FAILED(hr)) _com_raise_error(hr);
++step;
    hr = VariantChangeType(&varResult, &varResult, 0, VT_I4);
    if(FAILED(hr)) _com_raise_error(hr);
++step;
    printf("Count is %d\n", varResult.lVal);

    VariantClear(&varResult);

    return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    CoInitialize(0);
    int rc = 0;
    try {
        rc = work(argc, argv);
        printf("Terminated OK, rc=%d\n", rc);
    } catch(_com_error& er) {
        const char* ermes = er.ErrorMessage();
        printf("step=%d, COM error (%x): %s\n",
            step, er.Error(), ermes);
    }
    CoUninitialize();

 return rc;
}

Building and running this will also confirm that you're accessing
the same underlying dictionary-object (you can double check by
runs of this with the sd1 "dictionary" in various states, even
though the only thing this shows is the "Count"...).

Let us know...

Alex

From the_brain at mit.edu  Sun Oct 15 08:15:06 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 15 Oct 2000 08:15:06 -0400
Subject: Testing existance of variable
References: 
Message-ID: 

> if os.environ.has_key('REMOTE_HOST') or os.environ.has_key('REMOTE_ADDR'):
> 	  remote_id = os.environ['REMOTE_HOST'] or os.environ['REMOTE_ADDR']
> 
> However, this fails with an exception for KeyError if one of them
> doesn't exist.

Try this:

new_remote_id = os.environ.get('REMOTE_HOST') or \
                os.environ.get('REMOTE_ADDR')
if new_remote_id:
    remote_id = new_remote_id

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 26 05:07:01 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 11:07:01 +0200
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org> <8t6vj70spd@news1.newsguy.com> <39F73E41.C8EE143F@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: <8t8sgn0ahc@news1.newsguy.com>

"Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
news:39F73E41.C8EE143F at seebelow.org...
    [snip]
> > > Sounds like you have the makings of a "Python Guru Available For
> > > Contract Work". 
> >
> > I might become one, should I ever become unhappy with my current
> > employer (or vice-versa:-).  Right now, the mission of bringing
> > "3D to everyone, everywhere" keeps our mutual enthusiasm as high
> > as it was over the last 12 years, so head-hunters need not apply.
>
> (Sounds like you didn't read the "Python Guru Available for Contract
> Work" thread. ;-)

Right, I didn't.  I do have to read selectively.

> > > Just for curiosity, could you be a little more specific here?  Sure, C
> > > has its several known pitfalls.  But those aside, what's so bad about
> > > it's syntax overall?
> >
> > Apart from its various defects (quirks and flaws, as Dennis Ritchie,
> > C's inventor, calls them), there's nothing much wrong with it.  (I
> > have yet to meet anything that -- aparts from pitfalls, defects,
> > quirks, flaws, etc -- has anything wrong with it... by definition
> > of flaws, quirks, and so on).
>
> (I think you forgot "QED" or something. ;-)

Natural language is not really suitable for that.  Cfr Wittgenstein's
heroic (but doomed to failure) attempts in the "Tractatus", on one
hand, and all of his later works (particularly the Untersuchungen, of
course) on the other.

> > > did Pascal ever need that bogus ":=" thing in the first place?
> > > <>
> >
> > I don't know why you think that Backus "didn't use much" the
> > assignment statement at the end of the '50s -- I think he
> > switched to functional programming only a good while later.
>
> I was thinking more of Nicholas Wirth, the inventor of Pascal (the
> computer language, not the person. ;-)

Wirth used Pascal and Pascal-like languages in some excellent
articles and texts.  I strongly recommend "Algorithms Plus
Data Structures Equals Programs", for example, to anybody who
is looking for a classic introduction to imperative programming
along strict-and-statically-typed lines.

And I have news for you -- his typewriter (or fountain-pen, or
goose-quill) was not ruined by the extra typing of := vs =, nor
did his publisher go bankrupt because of horridly high printing
costs.  The secret, you see, is that is very little extra ink
in the two dots of that leading-colon, so it's really cheap.

So, Wirth had no motivation to change that particular facet of
Algol.  Maybe there's a worldwide secret conspiracy of colon
manufacturers behind it (the same cabal who bought off Guido
to have him make the trailing-: in Python control statements
mandatory, when it could well have been implied by the line
end; notice that the manufacturers of _semi_-colons lost out
there -- they consume more ink, after all).

> Actually, I think Backus was the guy who played "Mr. Howell" on
> "Gilligan's Island".

Sorry, I'm a specialist in everything _except_ TV, of which
I only know about a very few shows (Monty Python, Black Adder,
Saturday Night Live back when Belushi was there, the Simpsons...
i.e., the obvious stuff).  However, I suspect homonimy was at
play, since Backus was probably slightly too engaged inventing
programming languages, meta-syntax notations, techniques for
compiling and optimizing, and such, to moonlight as a TV actor.

> people-who-take-themselves-too-seriously-are-endless-fun-
>    -ly y'rs,

Are they?  Sorry, I don't know any.  I do know guys who miss
the subtleties of deadpan humor -- you know, the type who'd
be unable to follow Monty Python without the laugh-track, or
equivalent "here-is-where-it's-funny" signaling devices, such
as smilies, tags, and bogus adverbs -- they're easier to spot,
as they often overburden their posts with such devices (like
the laugh track on a doesn't-manage-to-be-funny TV comedy, I
think the hope is to hide the unfunniness behind such signals,
although, of course, it does fall flat).  When I feel nasty I
do find some fun in them, although, more often, in my typical
grandmotherly compassionate mood, I know they're just pathetic.

Alex

From hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu  Sat Oct 28 19:23:41 2000
From: hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu (Hwanjo Yu)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 18:23:41 -0500
Subject: Q: The getcwd() doesn't return the directory that the source file is located.
Message-ID: 

Hi,

When I try the getcwd(), it returns the python2.0 root directory.
How to get the current directory that the source file is located ?
Thanks

From see at my.sig  Fri Oct  6 13:37:53 2000
From: see at my.sig (Matthias Blume)
Date: 07 Oct 2000 02:37:53 +0900
Subject: Class Browsers vs Static Types (Re: Inefficiency of 	__getattr__)
References: 
  <39DB62F6.EF943473@geneva-link.ch>

 <8rfslr$335$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu>
  <39DDE20F.DB979FC3@ps.uni-sb.de>
Message-ID: 

Andreas Rossberg  writes:

> David Bolen wrote:
> > 
> > I actually disagree about your every line of code comment.  Perhaps
> > not repeatedly in regression tests or automated testing, but I do
> > expect every line of code that I write to be executed during
> > development at some point - even if I have to write dedicated code to
> > do it.  So pretty much the same stuff that the compiler would catch my
> > tests will catch.
> 
> Note however, that a static type system gives you a certain set of
> guarantees not only for every line of code, but for every possible
> execution path (to speak in imperative terms). A test suite can almost
> never achieve that.

Even better: Static typing can give you guarantees about every line of
code that will ever be *linked* with the current code inthe *future*
(i.e., about code that nobody has even written yet).

Matthias

--
Matthias Blume 
Kyoto University, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences
(remove those spam-preventing underscores from mail address)

From gtalvola at nameconnector.com  Thu Oct 12 12:38:25 2000
From: gtalvola at nameconnector.com (Geoff Talvola)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:38:25 -0400
Subject: Programmer-Wanna-Be (Is Python for me?)
References:  <8s49f601ic4@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39E5E901.CE40F236@NameConnector.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> See, for example:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/hta/overview/htaoverview.asp
> for one possibility, "HTML Applications" -- note that this page,
> authored by Microsoft, recommends that the GUI be an HTA "while the
> C++ or Visual Basic developers program the underlying functionality".

[snip]

> But Python (in the activescripting-compliant installation that
> comes with win32all) is perfectly able *and suited* to fulfill all
> of these roles -- it can perfectly well be the scripting language
> used within the page[s] of the HTA (

--

- Geoff Talvola
  Parlance Corporation
  gtalvola at NameConnector.com

From nospam at nospam.com  Mon Oct 16 10:48:50 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:48:50 GMT
Subject: Newbie problem with wxListCtrl
References:  <39E936E0.3BADC7D8@home.com>  <8sd7gc$8bcc$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: 

"Frank Miles"  wrote in message
news:8sd7gc$8bcc$1 at nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> In article ,
> Tom  wrote:
> >Frank,
> >
> >You need to insert items, as well as setting the item's string.
> >
> >So, before your line:
> >             self.lc.SetStringItem(i, 0, "%d" % i)
> >Add a line like this:
> >            self.lc.InsertStringItem(i, label);
> >
> >Where label is a string that serves no purposes (doesn't get displayed)
that
> >I've deteremined.  It's all the same on the Win32 api - this is a common
> >mistake.
>
> Thanks!  That does it (at least for the entries, column widths are of
> lesser importance).
>
> My only complaint (whine?) now is that the documentation for this is
pretty
> much missing.  Didn't see any reference to this on the wxpython mailing
> lists, either.
>
> Ah, but now a search yields something from the Hammond book on programming
> python for win32, Ch 20:
>
> "For the report mode, you insert an item for the first
>                  column and then set values for the remaining columns."
> [ shows some code, too ]
>
> Too bad the book focuses on win32 stuff, and relatively little about
> wxpython, AFAICT.

Yes, that's a good book, but not the place one would expect to find the
answer to a wxPython question.  I'm surprised you didn't find anything
searching on the mailing list archive - that's usually the best bet.

Places I look for wxPyton info:
- wxPython demo
- wxWindows docs
- mailing list archives
- Win32 Platform SDK on MSDN

Tom.

> Thanks again...
>
> -frank
>
> --

From wware at world.std.com  Sat Oct 28 07:02:39 2000
From: wware at world.std.com (Will Ware)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 11:02:39 GMT
Subject: how to build DLLs with Cygwin
Message-ID: 

-- 
# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
# Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.
# Will Ware	email:    wware @ world.std.com

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Tue Oct 31 17:23:00 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 17:23:00 -0500
Subject: Python Labs Move
References: <39FCD29E.BD8EDF68@gte.net>
Message-ID: <39FF4644.E1297A8@holdenweb.com>

I hope you enjoyed your smoke.

regards
 Steve

Steve Williams wrote:
> 
> From the Register:
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/11762.html
> 
>                 Also honoured are Lou Perazzoli (NT design),
>                 Peter Spiro (SQL Server), Anders Hejlsberg
>                 (Visual J++, C#), Mohsen Al-Ghosein
>                 (middleware), Suryanarayanan Raman (apps
>                 and Internet), Brad Lovering (tools), Antoine
>                 Leblond (Office - and the man most culpable
>                 for letting the Power Pup slip through -
>                 thanks, Antoine), Michael Toutonghi (.NET)
>                 and software Veep Darryl Rubin.
> 
> Borland and Delphi took it way hard when they lost Anders to the Borg.
> They've never really recovered, IMHO.
> 
> You guys are within a heartbeat of losing Python.

-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From jwbnews at scandaroon.com  Thu Oct 19 20:18:49 2000
From: jwbnews at scandaroon.com (John W. Baxter)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 17:18:49 -0700
Subject: Python2.0 for Mac... but where is it?
References:  
Message-ID: 

In article , "Robert" 
 wrote:

> If it is anywhere it is here:
> 
> http://www.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython.html
> 
> Bob
> 
> "jason keith"  wrote in message
> news:B6156787.1555%jasonkeith at ozemail.com.au...
> > Apologies if this is staring me in the face but I've checked the web 
> > site
> > and ftp sites and the only Python for mac I can find is the 1.5.2. IS
> there
> > a final release Python2.0 for mac yet?
> > Thanks in advance.
> > Jason
> >
> 
> 

It is at the above URL, but it seems still to be a 2.0c1 release as the 
most recent.  The candidate was pretty solid...I don't know the schedule 
for the final.

  --John

-- 
John W. Baxter   Port Ludlow, WA USA  jwbnews at scandaroon.com

From vogler at innercite.com  Tue Oct 17 20:33:53 2000
From: vogler at innercite.com (vogler at innercite.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 00:33:53 GMT
Subject: tk scaling in python problem, HELP!
Message-ID: <8sir5h$lc9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi -

In the past I haven't gotten any response on my tcl/tk questions on
this forum, but here goes nothing (keeping my fingers crossed).

I'm using tcl/tk8.0 with python1.5.2. Everything was working fine with
the old tcl/tk version, but on 8.0 the scaling has changed. To set the
scaling to 1.0 (for example) in tk8.0 one issues the following command:

     tk scaling 1.0

I tried this with the tcl/tk interpretor wish80.exe and it worked
beautifully.

How do I call it within python? I tried the following command without
any success:

     self.master.tk.call( 'tk', 'scaling', '1.0' )

It appears that python passed it on to tcl/tk, but the scaling does not
change. I didn't get any error messages and python went on its merry
way.

I looked all over for documentation for tk.call(), but found nothing.
Am I using the API correctly?

TIA

Bill

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk  Thu Oct  5 07:12:36 2000
From: robin at jessikat.fsnet.co.uk (Robin Becker)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 12:12:36 +0100
Subject: BDFL hailed as Sf #7
Message-ID: 

Sourceforge's top 10 developers are 

1 - (12.0229) Tim Perdue
2 - (11.5487) Eric S. Raymond
3 - (10.9766) M. Drew Streib
4 - (10.7934) Uriah Welcome
5 - (9.9563) Tony Guntharp
6 - (9.8617) Mark A Peters
7 - (9.3784) Guido van Rossum
8 - (9.2508) Itzchak Rehberg
9 - (8.7577) Joseph Engo
10 - (8.2873) Jorrit Tyberghein

T Perdue is an SF hacker E Raymond is well known, but how this rating is
arrived at is not clear.

I certainly couldn't see easily how to apply ratings; my feeling is that
as in Science publishing there will be a lot of cliques. It's
interesting that certain people are absent.
-- 
Robin Becker

From entropiamax at jazzfree.com  Mon Oct  9 04:12:35 2000
From: entropiamax at jazzfree.com (entropia)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 10:12:35 +0200
Subject: future of Python: Stackless, Standard -> fragmentation ?
References: <8rk7e5$47u$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>  <39DF1E75.5589C2D7@seebelow.org> <39E0A674.6444E3A9@appliedbiometrics.com>
Message-ID: <39E17DF3.5D4B800A@jazzfree.com>

Most of the people think that Stackless is better then Python (is more stable,
permits pickling, coroutines and microthreads), but, as JVM has its
limitations, JPython is incompatible with Stackless. I don't know, but I
suppose then Python .NET has its own limitations. I want a good and powerful
programing language, and not one limited by Sun or Microsoft. If we (python
comunity) follow this two companies Python  can never be better than Java or
C# (except in clear syntax ;-)).
If I am a CEO of a big firm and I should choose between Java or Python, then
Python is my last choice (but I, as a programmer, like most). I don't know to
much things about C#, but if it exists a C# language then all the programmers
will work with this.
I prefer a "strong" Python Virtual Machine, Stackless or whatever, with
bindings to other language. We have:
*Minotaur: a Python, Perl and Tcl binding
*PyFort: extensions of Python in Fortran
*Python for Delphi. A wrap of Python dll into Delphi
*JPI: a Java Python Interface, allows the two language to primitively
interoperate
*PyJava: Java Embedded in Pytohn
** and more (I know that it exists a Perl to Python port in Zope)
** Corba

Having two virtual machines in the same computer is not the better form
performance, but now the other languages can use python for microthreads and
coroutines. This bindings should be extended and bettered (can they be in the
standard python distro?). If this can be done, then Pytohn can use Perl, Tcl
and Java libraries (or part of them).
JPython and Python .NET don't dissapear, they only can use all the Python
Power. The incompatibilities should be noted in Python documentation.

In conclusion: There are modules that only work in Windows or Unix. There are
some modules that don't work in Mac but work in Windows and Unix. This modules
exists and are used. Why Python is limited by other languages? Compatibility
is better than incompatibility, but it's not the only choice to be made.

PD: My mother language is not english, sorry for the mistakes.
PDD: I am not a Python or C or whatever guru, sorry for the mistakes

From max at alcyone.com  Mon Oct 23 11:37:53 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 08:37:53 -0700
Subject: C's syntax
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com> <8t1964$v8a$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk> <17WI5.58198$oN2.2362868@news20.bellglobal.com>
Message-ID: <39F45B51.320AA63F@alcyone.com>

Olivier Dagenais wrote:

> To get around this, we were taught to put the constant on the other
> side, so
> that if we forgot an '=', we would get a compiler error:
> 
> if ( 0 = a )   /* is bad */
> if ( 0 == a )  /* is good */

Which is a common coding style, but is really unnecessary.  Any
reasonable compiler will warn against statements such as `if (a = 0)
...'.  Simply look at the warnings, there's no reason to write things in
an unnatural order.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.
\__/ Charles Schultz
    Crank Dot Net / http://www.crank.net/
 Cranks, crackpots, kooks, & loons on the Net.

From erno-news at erno.iki.fi  Wed Oct 11 08:22:17 2000
From: erno-news at erno.iki.fi (Erno Kuusela)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 15:22:17 +0300
Subject: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
References: 
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Peters  writes:

 | So the remaining question is why the same exp from the same library has
 | different errno behavior depending on which version of Python it's called
 | from.  *That* one we couldn't answer, after a fruitless time digging thru
 | the Byzantine glibc source code trying to reverse engineer it.

maybe it's a symbol versioning things. if an incompatible bugfix/change
is introduced, it is possible to just increment the symbol version
so new programs compiled against the library use the newer
version of the function, and older binaries (potentially relying
on the old behaviour) get the old one. try recompiling
1.5.2 and see if it starts behaving the same as 2.0...

  -- erno

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 19 06:24:57 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:24:57 +0200
Subject: How to statically bind modules written in Python
References: 
Message-ID: <8smig001jbh@news1.newsguy.com>

"Travis Nixon"  wrote in message
news:mailman.971899655.18689.python-list at python.org...
    [snip]
Solution 3: I just thought of this, but it probably would be possible to
include the .py files (or rather the .pyc files) in the resources, and
rewrite the python's import to grab them from there instead of going to
disk.  The major problem here is that our final platform is not going to be
windows.  I suppose I could do something similar though, with a file that's
loaded into memory at startup, and then do the same sort of modifications to
import to search there instead.  This is actually a fairly workable option,
but it's still just not as clean and elegant as simply being able to somehow
statically bind the .py module to the executable itself.  (which as I'm
writing this I'm realizing is probably impossible anyway)

I think you can simulate Windows resources in a portable way (and import
hooks will let your Python import statements look to those simulated
resources instead of looking to the filesystem).  A simple utility can
take any "resource" file you would like (e.g. "foo.pyc" -- using the
.pyc seems better than using the .py, clearly) and turn it into a .c
source file that stuffs those bytes into an array of bytes, and sets
its name as a key into some simple global structure.  Compiling and
linking those generated C sources with the rest of your application
should let you be on your way.  See http://www.python.org/sigs/import-sig/
for more (also builtin module imp, and example module knee, in the
Python 2 standard distribution).

Alex

From pearu at ioc.ee  Sun Oct 15 17:37:37 2000
From: pearu at ioc.ee (Pearu Peterson)
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 23:37:37 +0200
Subject: Status (was Re: ANNOUNCE: PySymbolic - ...)
In-Reply-To: 
References:  <8s6c8g022ph@news1.newsguy.com>  
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Phlip wrote:

> > *** I started to create a list for TODO. See the `Help needed' section on
> >     the homepage. Contributions and comments are most welcome.
> >
> Any chance this could emit MATHML output?

Yes, but in future when somebody cares to implement it. 

Pearu

From ulf.engstrom at b2b-link.com  Mon Oct  2 04:54:33 2000
From: ulf.engstrom at b2b-link.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Ulf_Engstr=F6m?=)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 09:54:33 +0100
Subject: smtplib authentication
References:  <20000924175958.E20757@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <01de01c02c4e$64b61660$184b9fc3@none>

Don't know how many have replied to this later, since I've been away for
some time and probably did miss a few postings. Anyway.
I've put the auth-login to smtplib and also posted it to the 'patches'. I
can send it to anyone who wants it. Anyone has any other requests to RFC2554
or anything else to the smtplib as you mention, I could probably do it. :)
Regards
Ulf

 "Thomas Wouters" 
> You're looking for RFC 2554, which describes the AUTH command. There were
a
> few other requests for rfc2554 support in smtplib, but as far as I know
> noone is working on it.

From sabren at manifestation.com  Sun Oct  8 12:37:35 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 12:37:35 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
In-Reply-To: <8rphog029t3@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, Alex Martelli wrote:

Hey Alex,

I gave up perl a long time ago, and I use python for EVERYTHING, but
I gotta step in here..

> Here's the Python equivalent:
> 
> import fileinput
> 
> themap = {}
> 
> for line in fileinput.input():
>     for word in line.split():
>         themap.setdefault(word,[]).append(fileinput.lineno())
> 
> words = themap.keys()
> words.sort()
> 
> for word in words:
>     print word+":",
>     for linum in themap[word]:
>         print linum,
>     print

Wait a second. setdefault is new in 1.6/2.0, neither of which
are the "real" python yet... So add two lines while themap.setdefault
becomes:

        if not themap.has_key(word):
            themap[word] = []
        themap[word].append(fileinput.lineno())

(You've also got string methods in there, but changing it to "import
fileinput, string" and "string.split" doesn't add any lines)

> for a total of 12.  Where's the 0.48-line equivalent perl program, by
> the way?

.. for a total of 14 ... 

I couldn't find a way to do it in less than one full line in perl, but
I'm not a perl hacker anymore, and even then, I don't think I ever
wrote a oneliner.. even so:

while(<>){for(split){$i{$_}.=++$L." "}}for(sort keys %i){print"$_:$i{$_}\n"}

anyway, that's half a line away from being 1/25th the size of the
python version.. :)

But so what? Who wants to write code like that? 

hey-wasn't-someone-just-asking-for-a-code-obsfucator-ly-yr's,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct  2 01:02:58 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 1 Oct 2000 22:02:58 -0700
Subject: Organizing Python Code
References: <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <8r94u2$dbt$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7 at ix.netcom.com>,
Thomas Gagne   wrote:
>
>I'm trying to do a project with Python and I'm not convinced I've set things
>up properly.  In writing C code I've grown accustomed to creating separate
>files for each function.  This doesn't seem to really be the right thing to do
>in Python since the top of each would include a bunch of "import" or "from"
>statements.  On the other extreme, I don't like having really big files
>either.

I suggest you look in the Python Lib directory to see how various
modules are set up.  There are no hard-and-fast rules.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

There may or may not be a smiley above.  --Aahz

From just at letterror.com  Tue Oct 31 03:20:30 2000
From: just at letterror.com (Just van Rossum)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 09:20:30 +0100
Subject: A Suggestion  (please read and respond)
References:  <39FDAE7D.2259B2EC@san.rr.com> 
Message-ID: <39FE80C9.71D5780C@letterror.com>

bowman wrote:
> 
> Courageous  wrote:
> 
> !Scripting languages don't require that someone declare a variable.
> 
> Perl doesn't require a declaration, but does offer the option with
> 'use strict;'. Then, for instance, a variable must be introduced with
> 'my' or an error will be flagged.
> 
> Does this help? Yes, it has saved me grief when I try to use $foobar,
> but 20 lines back I said I would use 'my $fubar;'.  OTOH, you can get
> pretty sick of 'my', even with the 'my ($this, $that, $and, $them);'
> construct.

But I don't think you can compare Perl to Python in this respect. In Perl,
if you _don't_ use strict, you don't even get a NameError if you try to
use a variable which hasn't been initialized/declared, so it's much more
needed in Perl than it'll ever be in Python. (I hope I got that right,
I'm not a Perler after all...)

Just

From amused at webamused.com  Sun Oct 29 12:38:56 2000
From: amused at webamused.com (Joshua Macy)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:38:56 GMT
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References:   <8tfa4l$3ns$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39fcdbf9.67323218@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: <39FC8BFE.D5E8795@webamused.com>

"Thaddeus L. Olczyk" wrote:
> Ok. But debuggers should be. They are an important tool that
> determines the productivity of programmers.
> An IDE where you can make minor changes and then debug
> are important. ( Note generic tangent comming up.)
> Being able to see the value of variables as you step through code is
> too. As well as specifiying commandline arguments
> to the debugged script ( as well as evaluating scripts ).

  I used to think that before I started using Python, Tim Peters'
Doctest module, and some of the ideas about test-first programming and
refactoring from the Extreme Programming movement.  I'm sure that in
some cases it's still helpful, but I actually can't remember the last
time it took me more than a couple minutes to track down a bug, without
even touching a debugger.  Once in a while, I do have to put a print
statement in the middle of something and a debugger could save me
that--generally, though, treating code that's so complex that I really
need a debugger as needing refactoring until it's once again simple
enough that doctest is sufficient has done more for my productivity (as
measured by code that really works rather than lines I've pounded out)
than the most whiz-bang IDE I've ever used.

  Joshua

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Fri Oct  6 13:40:00 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 17:40:00 GMT
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com> <39DDEC25.CEE0E16A@gssec.bt.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 06 Oct 2000 16:13:41 +0100, Alan Gauld 
wrote: 
>Thomas Gagne wrote:
>> while line = fp.readline():
>>     do something with 'line'
>> 
>> but that doesn't work because Python doesn't allow assignments 
>
>correct, so at the expense of typing a line twice, do 
>the assignment externally:

The expense could be high in real codes, not just a line or two.  See
http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/ififif.txt

I quote an example here:

if val = dict1[key1]:
	process1(val)
elif val = dict2[key2]:
	process2(val)
elif val = dict3[key3]:
	process3(val)
...

The entirely equivalent python code would require nested ifs

val = dict1[key1]
if val:
	process1(val)
else:
	val = dict2[key2]
	if val:
		process2(val)
	else:
		val = dict3[key3]
		if val:
			process3(val)
		else:
			...

Huaiyu

From itsfree at hananet.net  Thu Oct 19 18:42:39 2000
From: itsfree at hananet.net (Cho Yoonbae)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 07:42:39 +0900
Subject: I want to use python as PHP..
Message-ID: 

Hi,

I want to use python scripts as PHP on apache.

How can I web-programming in python as PHP?

Is there any module for web-programming?

Have a nice day.

byebye~

From johann at physics.berkeley.edu  Sun Oct  8 21:02:14 2000
From: johann at physics.berkeley.edu (Johann Hibschman)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 18:02:14 -0700
Subject: Python2.0 beta 2 on MacOSX/Darwin
References:   
Message-ID: 

Edward Mozley Roche writes:
>> 
> Is there a "how to" document on how to get Python running under OS X?

Have you tried:
   http://tony.lownds.com/macosx/

That did it for me.  I now have Python 2.0b2, SWIG 1.3a1, and
Numeric-17.0 existing together happily.  I can finally get some real
work done on my PowerBook!

If you run into problems, I'll be happy to answer questions.  Or,
well, try to.

--J

-- 
Johann Hibschman                           johann at physics.berkeley.edu

From parkw at better.net  Thu Oct  5 04:06:42 2000
From: parkw at better.net (William Park)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 04:06:42 -0400
Subject: adding matrices of strings
In-Reply-To: <39DBA479.1179C63E@northwestern.edu>; from lluang@northwestern.edu on Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 04:43:21PM -0500
References: <39DBA479.1179C63E@northwestern.edu>
Message-ID: <20001005040642.A10633@better.net>

On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 04:43:21PM -0500, Louis Luangkesorn wrote:
> Is there a way to add matrices of strings?  In other words, if I have
> matrices A and B, whose elements are strings, can i add them so I get C
> = A + B where C[i,j] = concatonate(A[i,j], B[i,j])

Since string addition is concatenation (ie. 'a' + 'b' == 'ab'), your __add__
method should work, assuming you used '+' operator to define your addition.

> 
> It does not seem like the NumPy array accepts strings, and I was
> thinking about adding lists of lists together, but all I get is the set
> of lists in A with the lists in B.
> 
> the other thing I need to do is to take that matrix A, and pull a
> particular element from it (without removing that element like a
> a.pop(x) would do)

I don't get this.  What's wrong with A[i][j]?

> 
> Thanks

---William Park, Open Geometry Consulting

From kc5tja at garnet.armored.net  Thu Oct 12 18:31:42 2000
From: kc5tja at garnet.armored.net (Samuel A. Falvo II)
Date: 12 Oct 2000 15:31:42 -0700
Subject: Zope tag nesting madness!
References: <8rrt4i$f05$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8FC86DD8Bduncanrcpcouk@194.238.50.13>
Message-ID: 

On 9 Oct 2000 08:39:40 GMT, Duncan Booth wrote:
>Since id probably has a string value, try this:
>   

Don't forget about sequence_index instead of id if the ordinal position in
the iterated list is needed (that is, the first item picked by dtml-in is
index 0, the next is 1, etc).  Depends on what you need, though.

-- 
KC5TJA/6, DM13, QRP-L #1447 | Official Channel Saint, *Team Amiga*
Samuel A. Falvo II	    |
Oceanside, CA		    |

From db3l at fitlinxx.com  Wed Oct 25 23:11:24 2000
From: db3l at fitlinxx.com (David Bolen)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 23:11:24 -0400
Subject: popen2.popen2,3,4 from Python 2.0 on NT 4.0 SP5
References: <39F767B2.266F4965@home.com>
Message-ID: 

Mark Tompkins  writes:

> I was doing some testing, and have hit the wall right off the bat.  When
> I use popen2.popenX('cmd') to call the sqlplus utility, reading stdout
> of the cmd appears to hang when the read is past the last character in
> the buffer, or when there is no data (as what happens, if there is an
> error)????

Using normal file I/O on the pipe to the child stdout will typically
block if the handle is still valid (e.g., it hasn't been closed by the
client) but there is currently no data.

>From your problem, it sounds like it may have something to do with how your
sqlplus utility deals with its file handles, particularly in an error
condition.

> import popen2
> 
> # it doesn't matter which popen function? that I use, only difference is
> how failure occurs
> # (whether stdout and stderr are mixed or not)
> 
> x=popen2.popen3('sqlplus pf/pf at dds230pf3 @rowcount.sql')
> y=x[0].readline()
> 
> # if rowcount.sql doesn't exist, hang occurs here immediately

A question would be what is sqlplus doing with that error.  If, for
example, it's writing an error message to stderr, and then flushing
that before exiting, you could be in a deadlock situation.  Until you
read the data from stderr, your sqlplus utility isn't going to exit
and close stdout, and until stdout is closed, your readline() is going
to block waiting for more data.

Alternatively, the sqlplus utility could be waiting for stdin to close
for some reason - if you aren't going to be feeding input to the child
process that way, I'd suggest closing that handle, or not using a
popen# that gives it to you.  Unless you've found that sqlplus doesn't
run without a valid stdin.

I (like Mark's post) find that if I actually have an invalid command,
that the readline() returns immediately with the empty string.  And
for me this is under NT4, not Win2K.  But actually failing to start
the sqlplus utility (since I don't have it) is different from starting
it, but the utility itself deciding there's an error, since that may
control how it uses its output streams.

You might try just using a normal os.popen and adding a "2>&1" to the
end of the command - if only to see if the behavior varies.  This will
use stdout for both normal output and perhaps the error and should
avoid the deadlock.  You could then check for the exit code of the
sqlplus utility to see if there was an error.  If you need a popen#
that maintains stdin to make sqlplus work, then you could still try
redirecting the stderr and just use popen2.

> x[0] is the stdout of the shelled command, which is where I read from
> for input to my program -> file in read mode.
> 
> 1.  Why does it hang?  This seems like a bug.  It should return with
> some known response, or nothing.

Not if the handle is still a valid link to the child but there is no
data pending.  In that case, the I/O request to the pipe to the child
is just going to block waiting for something new to arrive from the
child.  It's the nature of the pipe to the child process.  If my guess
is right, you've just managed to create a case where your script and
the utility are both waiting for each other but on the opposite
stream.

> 2.  Is there a way to find out how many characters are left in the
> stdout/stderr buffers?

I'm not sure that there's any portable way to do this.  I suppose
under Unix you could select on the filesystem descriptor for the
pipes, but select under NT only handles sockets.  Under NT a more
native way would be to set up an overlapped I/O, but that's getting
pretty far afield from Python (I'm not even positive you could do it).

> 3.  This test is for winnt.  Is unix different, and should I use
> win32all to workaround (I would rather not, if possible)?

I don't think you'll see any difference with win32all, especially
since you're using Python 2.0 - the popen# code is pretty much
identical to win32all when being run under Windows.

> 4.  Should I use threading, and use another thread to see when the
> readline() fails to return (messy)?

Well, not to see when it fails to return, but if you really need
stdout and stderr distinct, then having two threads to be able to
drain the two streams simultaneously may be one answer.  It should at
least let you avoid the potential deadlock of you and your child
process blocking on different streams.

> 5.  Is this a shelled process state problem, or a buffer state problem?

Not sure.

> 6.  Does this problem throw any exception?

It shouldn't.

--
-- David
-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\
 \               David Bolen            \   E-mail: db3l at fitlinxx.com  /
  |             FitLinxx, Inc.            \  Phone: (203) 708-5192    |
 /  860 Canal Street, Stamford, CT  06902   \  Fax: (203) 316-5150     \
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/

From wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net  Tue Oct 31 18:53:14 2000
From: wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 23:53:14 GMT
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org>  <39F89C51.BF720481@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:04:17 +0100, Grant Griffin wrote:
>William Tanksley wrote:

>> The pitfalls, for one ;-).  C also makes pointers look terrible.

>Yeah, I greatly appreciate reference parameters that C++ supplies for
>passing stuff into and out of functions.  If there were such as thing as
>"C+", that would be one of its features.

Interesting point.  I don't care one way or the ather about references; I
usually prefer to work with pointers.  I was talking more about things
like the distinction between -> and . (why? there's never any semantic
confusion), or the way pointers are declared (which works, but seems
really stretched once you start typedefing or looking at C++).

And just in general use, it's odd that pointers have to be treated as such
advanced concepts in C, when they're such a basic part of so many other
languages.

>That being said, I think Python's paradigm of (being able to) return a
>"list" (actually a "tuple") is a much better way to pass things out of
>functions.  The fact that a C function can pass 0 or 1 return items is
>very artificial: we routinely defeat that using pointer arguments or
>references when we need to "return" multiple values.

Absolutely.  S-Lang did a very good job of that as well (by providing
access to the stack itself inside of a C-style syntax).

>> Ugh.  I HATE the C preprocessor.  Wouldn't it be beautiful to be able to
>> parse the language using the language's own capabilities?  Or at least to
>> be able to have some limited parsing and computation at compile-time?

>I can see the value of that, to an extent.  But I really like the "dumb
>substitution" that "#define" does.  I've worked with assemblers and
>other tools where they had dopey restrictions on what you could and
>couldn't substitute.  In a way, I think the text-substitution paradigm
>is powerful in many ways for the fact that it _doesn't_ understand the
>code!

I wasn't saying that the substitution should be able to understand what it
is that it's substituting -- I was only pointing out that it should be
_able_ to parse it.

This becomes especially silly with C99's vararg macros, but anyone who's
ever tried to compute a #defined value will appreciate the problem.

>> Once you play with Forth, you're pretty much ruined for any other
>> language...  Even Lisp just doesn't cut it.

>So why are you here? 

I'm being unfaithful.  Shh, Forth doesn't know.

Python doesn't even try to be able to process its own macros.  It does
this by the surprisingly economical method of not having any macros at
all.  Therefore, it can't compete against Forth ;-).

>I have friend who has tried hard to sell me Forth, and I've been trying
>hard to sell him Python.  (What should I tell him?)

Oof.  That's a tough one.  Not because Python sucks compared to Forth, but
rather because switching languages is rare.

There are a lot of areas where I'd use Python but not Forth.  Some of
those areas are simply there because I'm more familiar with the Python
style of programming, thanks to years of training on Python-style
languages (C, Pascal, Lisp, etc.); others are there because Forth doesn't
detect errors or have automatic memory management.

Of course, there's now a strongly staticly typed Forth, so I might still
disappear.  I've never seen such a simple but powerful typechecking/static
polymorphism system.

>evangelistic-ly y'rs,
>Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley

From g2 at seebelow.org  Wed Oct  4 03:17:22 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 08:17:22 +0100
Subject: Number of Python Users
References: <8rb8an$jfl$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7DD36DE71CAA3CA4.89695785C739D34A.A0EFCBE9BC541CE9@lp.airnews.net> <8rdkle$hif$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39DAD982.45C0E20A@seebelow.org>

echuck3 at my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> In article
> <7DD36DE71CAA3CA4.89695785C739D34A.A0EFCBE9BC541CE9 at lp.airnews.net>,
>   claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird) wrote:
> > In article <8rb8an$jfl$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,  
> wrote:
> > >Is there any kind of estimate on the number of Python users? Or even
> > >related numbers, like # of downloads of 1.5.2?
> >                       .
> >                       .
> >                       .
> > A couple of years ago, gossip circulated "half a million" as
> > a number which I believe originated with the O'Reilly empire.
> > It's a very fuzzy question, by the way--you do understand
> > that, right?  What's the use of the estimate?  Is it for com-
> > parison with a Java head-count, as diagnostic for a policy
> > decision about the wisdom of reliance on a "minority language"?
> > --
> >
> > Cameron Laird 
> 
> Yes, I do understand that it's fuzzy.
> 
> And in response to someone else's question: I meant actual developers,
> not people who happen to run Python programs (and may not even know it).
> 
> Also, thanks to Martin von Loewis who pointed me to a FAQ which pointed
> me to: http://www.python.org/stats/ which doesn't answer the question
> directly, but has some related numbers.
> 
> The purpose of my question is to tell the client something like "there
> are an estimated 500,000 people using Python" so they don't panic about
> a technology they haven't heard of before.

My favorite objective statistic is the number of books published about
Python.  A lot of new Python books have been published in the last
year.  The last time I was at a "Borders" bookstore, I found 4 different
Python books.

and-bought-two-of-'em-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From daniel.hops at eed.ericsson.se  Sun Oct 22 08:28:26 2000
From: daniel.hops at eed.ericsson.se (Daniel Hops)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 14:28:26 +0200
Subject: Python 1.5.2->2.0 undocumented incompat.?
Message-ID: <39F2DD6A.F416A500@eed.ericsson.se>

I just installed the new Pyton 2.0 on my SUN Solaris machine and tried
my current script with it, but got an error.
Changing the 1st line of the script back to 1.5.2 binary helps.
The error is related with regular expression matching. I get an
attribute error: "None has no attribute group"
The only thing I do is dividing a html page with one main-table into 3
parts.
head,main,bottom =
list(all.match(html_page_string).group('head','main','bottom'))

And that is the precompiled r.e.:
all = re.compile
("(?P\A.*?\s+)(?P
.*?)(?P(?!.*).*)",
re.S)

Does anyone know what is the cause for this error?

Regards
Daniel Hops

From mballen at NOSPAM_erols.com  Sun Oct  8 05:30:40 2000
From: mballen at NOSPAM_erols.com (Michael B. Allen)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 05:30:40 -0400
Subject: concurrent access to dbms (was best way to store dbm records?)
References: <8rnu4o$emc$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <9f2vtss06scg26psv7gvfv8agt68jc91h3@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <8rpeko$4jd$1@bob.news.rcn.net>

Shelve works great Tim, thanks. I have implemented this and it works very
well for my purposes.

I may have a different issue however. The docs on shelve(and I would imagine
dbm's in general) report that you cannot concurrently read from it if it is
open by a writer. If I have interpreted the docs correctly this is true even
if it is only open by a single writer.

Can I have may readers with one writer or might this corrupt the database?.
Or in the worst case will it mearly display possibly incomplete information
to a reader?

In my case I don't care if readers get realtime info. Can I just
periodically make a copy of the dbm for readers?

Also, how many records can I put in a dbm without taking a big performance
hit? 10000?

Thanks,
Mike

Tim Roberts wrote in message <9f2vtss06scg26psv7gvfv8agt68jc91h3 at 4ax.com>...
>"Michael B. Allen"  wrote:
>>Hi!
>>
>>I was wondering what the best/simplest way to store dbm records is? This
is
>>how I am currently adding records:
>>
>> # create dbm record
>> p = '102'
>> s = getfield(msg, 'from')
>> a = getfield(msg, 'authors')
>> v = getfield(msg, 'version')
>> d = getfield(msg, 'description')
>> x = getfield(msg, 'fixes')
>> o = getfield(msg, 'obsoletes')
>> r = getfield(msg, 'requires')
>> f = getfield(msg, 'flags')
>> dbmrecord = (a,v,d,x,o,r,f)
>> db[p] = `dbmrecord`
>
>A shelve can do this all for you.  A shelve is just a dbm that holds
>pickled objects.  Create a class to hold the data:
>
>  class EMailIndex:
>    self.key = ''
>    ...
>
>  fields =

>    'from',
>    'authors',
>    'version',
>    'description',
>    'fixes,'
>    'obsoletes',
>    'requires',
>    'flags'
>  )
>
>  idx = EMailIndex()
>  idx.key = '102'
>  for name in fields:
>    idx.__dict__[name] = getfield(msg, name)
>
>  db = Shelve.open( dbname, 'w' )
>  db[idx.key] = idx
>  db.close()
>
>Later, you can get the object back intact.
>
>  >>>db = Shelve.open( dbname, 'r' )
>  >>>xxx = db['102']
>  >>>xxx.authors
>  ds-0.1
>
>--
>- Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
>  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

From gallegoj at unican.es  Mon Oct  9 14:13:47 2000
From: gallegoj at unican.es (Jos� Luis Gallego)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 20:13:47 +0200
Subject: Gnuplot.py for win32
Message-ID: <8rt1mm$p8m5@cchp4.unican.es>

Hi all,

Does anyone know how to configure the Gnuplot.py (version 1.4) module for
Win32? I have installed Python20, Numpy, Gnuplot (gp371w32) and win32all.

Thanks,

-jose luis

From ljohnson at resgen.com  Fri Oct 27 13:59:09 2000
From: ljohnson at resgen.com (Lyle Johnson)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 12:59:09 -0500
Subject: Association for .py suffix on Windows: why doesn't Python 2.0 make it use IDLE?
References: <39f974d2.6490312@news.cs.hut.fi>
Message-ID: 

I think it's pretty standard practice in Windows that when you double-click
on a "program" (whether it's a .exe file, or a batch file, or in this case a
Python program) it runs the program; so associating the default action for
.py files with the Python interpreter (pythonw.exe) makes sense. I do agree,
however, that the "Edit" action for such files could launch IDLE on that
file. In fact, if you install PythonWin, it sets up the default "Edit"
action for Python source code to launch the PythonWin IDE.

"Jukka Korpela"  wrote in message
news:39f974d2.6490312 at news.cs.hut.fi...
> I just decided to learn Python, and I was positively surprised to see
> how nice the IDLE GUI is in Python 2.0 for Windows. But the problems is
> that Python doesn't seem to come with a nice description of how Python
> is used on Windows. I was able to figure out the basics to some extent,
> but it seems that it's unnecessarily difficult to an average Windows
> user. It's a pity that the GUI is so nice but it's difficult to get
> started with it.
>
> In particular, the installation seems to associate .py and .pym suffixes
> with pythonw.exe, with the effect that clicking on the icon of such a
> file runs the program in the simple command line mode - and the command
> line window closes automatically when the program ends. Not convenient.
>
> Changing the association manually, setting the action to
> C:\Python20\pythonw.exe C:\Python20\Tools\idle\idle.pyw "%1" %*
> (assuming the Python interpreter is in C:\Python20 of course) seems to
> make things work smoothly. But I'm afraid the average Windows user has
> some difficulties in doing that, not to mention inventing it.
>
> Am I missing something simple? Why doesn't the installer set things up
> so that such an operation is not needed?
> --
> Yucca, http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/
> De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.

From Marc.Poinot at onera.fr  Thu Oct 12 05:23:12 2000
From: Marc.Poinot at onera.fr (Marc Poinot)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:23:12 +0200
Subject: Student practical training
Message-ID: <39E58300.ACD2ED2D@onera.fr>

Have a look at an practical training proposal using Python:

http://www.onera.fr/stages/stages2001/dsna2001-06.html

Open to all students (Europe, USA and many other countries)

Probable added keyword: CXX

Marcvs [alias Page is french, keywords are english ;]

From jurgen.defurne at philips.com  Thu Oct 19 03:02:30 2000
From: jurgen.defurne at philips.com (jurgen.defurne at philips.com)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:02:30 +0200
Subject: Python functions
Message-ID: <0056900013041171000002L012*@MHS>

The original pun is :
You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

Likewise, it should be :
You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish.

(B.t.w. The first pun is the title of an album of REO Speedwagon,
but the pun itself could of course be much older).

Jurgen

kalle at gnupung.net@SMTP at python.org on 18/10/2000 20:17:43
Sent by:	python-list-admin at python.org
To:	python-list at python.org@SMTP
cc:	 
Subject:	Re: Python functions
Classification:	

On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, joonas wrote:

> Where can i find all python functions.

http://www.pythonlabs.com/doc/manuals/python2.0/lib/

HTH,
  Kalle
--
Email: kalle at gnupung.net     | You can tune a filesystem, but you
Web: http://www.gnupung.net/ | can't tune a fish. -- man tunefs(8)
Not signed due to logistical difficulties (I'm not at home).
If you doubt the authenticity of this message, please tell me.

--
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From see at my.signature  Thu Oct  5 21:17:35 2000
From: see at my.signature (Greg Ewing)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 14:17:35 +1300
Subject: adding matrices of strings
References: <39DBA479.1179C63E@northwestern.edu> 
Message-ID: <39DD282F.25740DAF@my.signature>

William Park wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 04:43:21PM -0500, Louis Luangkesorn wrote:
> > It does not seem like the NumPy array accepts strings,

I don't have a working NumPy installation right now
to test this, but I'm fairly sure you can create a
NumPy array of general Python objects. You could
try to put strings into those and see if you can add 
them.

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,	  
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:	  
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg

From effbot at telia.com  Fri Oct 13 11:05:35 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:05:35 GMT
Subject: This is really cheesing me off...
References: 
Message-ID: <3xFF5.1126$QH2.41213@newsb.telia.net>

Dale wrote:
> What's the answer?

use an IDE that runs your program in a separate
process?  (emacs, works, etc...)

From echuck at mindspring.com  Fri Oct  6 21:18:08 2000
From: echuck at mindspring.com (Chuck Esterbrook)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 21:18:08 -0400
Subject: Proposal: Python Class Files
In-Reply-To: 
References: <8rlr6h$6bc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20001006211651.00c9a770@mail.mindspring.com>

At 09:14 PM 10/6/00 -0400, Michal Wallace wrote:
>On Sat, 7 Oct 2000 echuck at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > In article ,
> >   Michal Wallace  wrote:
> > > Class files would work like this:
> > >
> > > 1. Each class file contains one and only one class.
> >
> > Why? If we have Foo.pc, but the Foo class requires some supporting
> > internal classes, I should be allowed to create them in the same
> > module. However, they wouldn't get put in the containing name space.
>
>You can still do that. Just make the internal class... well,
>internal.. :)
>
> >>> class Foo:
> >>>    class Bar:
> >>>        x = 1
> >>>    def __init__(self):
> >>>        aBar = Foo.Bar()
> >>>        print aBar.x
> >>>
> >>> f = Foo()
>1
>
>Then the Bar class is just a member of Foo.
>I guess I should say one and only one TOP LEVEL class..

Or you could say that the top level class whose name matches the file gets 
exported.

>Cheers,
>
>- Michal
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
>------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Chuck
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://webware.sourceforge.net  http://webware.sourceforge.net
--------------------------------------------------------------

From piet at cs.uu.nl  Wed Oct 18 04:47:02 2000
From: piet at cs.uu.nl (piet at cs.uu.nl)
Date: 18 Oct 2000 10:47:02 +0200
Subject: copy protection
References:  <39ED12BB.89A0D056@smith-house.org> <39ed24b1_1@corp.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Joshua Muskovitz"  (JM) writes:

JM> Well, given that he's talking about *porting* their app, I would say that
JM> their entire client base would be that stupid.  Licensing code to a
JM> particular machine is actually quite common, especially for expensive
JM> software.  Using the network adapter ID or other unique identifiers is no
JM> big deal.  I'm sure that if they need to move to another machine, it is
JM> probably just a phone call or an email to get a new key.

Until the company goes out of business. 
-- 
Piet van Oostrum 
URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP]
Private email: P.van.Oostrum at hccnet.nl

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 21 09:59:36 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 15:59:36 +0200
Subject: request for advice: "PyString_FromStringAndSize(0, ..."?
References: <8srsrn111gm@news1.newsguy.com> <3dhf66l79s.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <8ss7n701aa6@news1.newsguy.com>

"Andrew Kuchling"  wrote in message
news:3dhf66l79s.fsf at kronos.cnri.reston.va.us...
    [snip]
> "Alex Martelli"  writes:
> > the docs.  _Am_ I then allowed to "initialize" it (and if so
> > how -- getting at the buffer with PyString_AS_STRING, or,
> > how else...?) -- all the docs say is that "The data must not
> > be modified in any way".
>
> Since you've just created the string, no other part of the system can
> have a reference to it, therefore modifying the string's data is OK.

Thanks!  Excellent.  Just what I was hoping to hear.

Now, I'll do a little bug submission regarding the docs on this...
thanks again!

Alex

From daimun at home.com  Sun Oct 22 03:24:03 2000
From: daimun at home.com (Alex McHale)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:24:03 GMT
Subject: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC)
Message-ID: 

Hi there,
  I have started work on a project that I *think* is unique.  If not,
someone please send me a URL to such a project's site.
  The object may sound like an odd one.  But I'll give the rundown.  If you
think it sounds stupid and pointless, good for you -- consider this all
academic.  Just tell me so - no need to flame me if it's a horrible idea.
If you like the idea, awesome, let me know.
  First off, let me say; I have a working prototype, with extremely limited
functionality.
  The project is, as I call it, a Python Formatted C Converter.  What this
means, is that it takes a python-style coded C program and converts it into
compilable C code.  For example, consider this bastardized looking simple
program below:
---
main( ):
  int x=3, y=2
  if ( x < y ):
    printf( "%d %d\n", x,y )
  else:
    printf("heres another condition\n")
---
This compiles using my prototype preprocessor.
  The big question may be 'WHY?'  Easy.  I love the structure of programming
in python.  I think it is a very beautiful style, and wonderfully easy to
read.
  The simple preprocessor I have now was fairly easy coding, and will act as
the groundwork for the rest of the project.  The preprocessor is written in
python.  Below are my thoughts on what will be required.
  1) Full debug information (the most of the debugging information
neccessary will be parse error detection and location)
  2) Automatic prototyping of functions.  I've got a few ideas on what to do
with this, but don't have a fully structured image of exactly what I want
yet.
  3) Problem areas:  anywhere that uses :'s, such as switch statements.  I
believe this shouldn't be an issue, based on the current preprocessor
prototype.
***
The Details of My Algorithm in the current preprocessor:
  Please don't dismiss this algorithm for gaping holes such as switch
statements issues.  The idea is to get the basic preprocessor working, and
expand.  The code I have will be flexible enough to not turn to bloat
(assuming its not too bad now).
  The way the preprocessor works [abstractly], is that I use var =
fd.readlines( ) to load the whole file into a list, then do a
roc_block( var ).  proc_block is a recursive function (though a somewhat
bastardized one) that takes one argument.
  The base case is when it's argument (which will always be a list of lines)
has a length of 0.  The function consists mainly of a while x <
len(argument) loop.  Inside the loop, argument[x] is taken as line.  line is
stripped of its newline characters at the end.  Then, it is stripped of any
trailing whitespace.
  Next, we check if line ends in :.  If so, use a loop to determine the end
of the block nested by line.  We taper the value we will return such that it
goes statement { proc_block( block_nested_by_statement ) }.  If the line
doesn't end in :, we taper the value we will return by statement + '\n'.
***
  That is *basically* the way it goes, as it stands.  The aim is to
eventually be able to code something like this:
---
def main( ):
   int x, y = 2, 3
   int w,z
   w,z = 4,5
   if z < y:
      printf('%d %d\n', w,z)
   else:
      printf('another else\n')
---
  You get the idea.  The def call will probably be used - as an aide in
prototyping.
  Sorry for the newsgroup plague - this hellish post.  If I have garnered
any interest, please let me know.  I am personally very interested to see
what I come up with.

  Alex

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 17 11:33:17 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:33:17 +0200
Subject: Linked Lists and Trees
References: <8sb6f9$rgj$1@news.nuri.net> <8sfaal$igh$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: <8shrpl02e69@news1.newsguy.com>

"Aahz Maruch"  wrote in message
news:8sfaal$igh$1 at panix3.panix.com...
> In article <8sb6f9$rgj$1 at news.nuri.net>,
> June Kim  wrote:
> >
> >Can you refer me to,
> >"Any good and robust (in terms of memory management and speed)
> >implementation of general data structures like double-linked lists and
> >trees"?
>
> Although there are other ways, I usually just use a Python class to
> simulate a C record (with prev/next for lists and right/left for trees).
> That makes it easy to swipe algorithms.  Note that you'll need to be as
> careful as in C to free memory structures or you'll leak memory.

With Python 2's gc, you shouldn't leak memory unless your
class-instances have __del__ methods (if I understand
the issue correctly...) but might want to set gc to warn
you on collection (if you consider uncollected cycles a
bug in your code...).

Alex

From alfred6465 at my-deja.com  Mon Oct 23 16:15:36 2000
From: alfred6465 at my-deja.com (alfred6465 at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 20:15:36 GMT
Subject: Need help creating variable for unpack statement
References: <8t24rf$hg0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8t268v$iva$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

WOULDN'T YA KNOW IT -- I POST A MESSAGE AND MINUTES LATER FIGURE IT OUT
FOR MYSELF!!!  MY PROBLEM HAS BEEN FIXED.

In article <8t24rf$hg0$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
  alfred6465 at my-deja.com wrote:
> I'm new to Python and have a dumb question (please be patient with
> me!!!!)....
>
> I have a variable called length which contains a value of 6 and a
> variable called fmt which contains 's'.
>
> length = 6
> fmt = 's'
>
> How do I combine those into one variable with the value of '6s'.
>
> Once I have a variable called fmt holding the value of 6s, I want to
> place it into a struct.unpack statement (see below).
>
> test = struct.unpack(fmt,  f[38:44])
>
> Thanks for the help in advance.
> Alfred
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From knightsofspamalot-factotum at mail1.stofanet.dk  Fri Oct 27 07:45:25 2000
From: knightsofspamalot-factotum at mail1.stofanet.dk (Martin Christensen)
Date: 27 Oct 2000 13:45:25 +0200
Subject: Python scoping
References: <39f5e57b_1@corp.newsfeeds.com>  
Message-ID: <87g0li7bje.fsf@fangorn.stofanet.dk>

>>>>> "William" == William Park  writes:
William> Good programmers always use indentation, with or without
William> braces.  But, I personally wouldn't mind "end" statements
William> (ie. endif, endfor, endwhile, etc.) for situations where
William> blocks are longer than one screen.

You're free to put an # End this_or_that in such places. I almost
always do with class and function definitions and large
blocks. However, that's a help to you, and enforcing it seems to have
no purpose.

Martin

-- 
GPG public key: http://home1.stofanet.dk/factotum/gpgkey.txt

From gillet at hermes.scripps.edu  Wed Oct 25 19:27:51 2000
From: gillet at hermes.scripps.edu (Alexandre Gillet)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 18:27:51 -0500
Subject: problem making package with python2.0
Message-ID: <39F76C77.BC68BF7B@scripps.edu>

Dear All,

I am trying to install package on sgiIRIX646 with python
2.0
When I do:
	make -f Makefile.pre.in 
The makefile that result do not have the line CCC=CC, which I get doing
the same command with python 1.5.
To make the package, I had to edit the Makefile and add CCC=CC.
How can we fix this problem?

For version 1.5 the Makefile is:
# === Variables from configure (through sedscript) ===

VERSION=        1.5
CC=             cc
LINKCC=         $(PURIFY) $(CC)
SGI_ABI=        
OPT=            -O -OPT:Olimit=0
LDFLAGS=        
LDLAST=                         
DEFS=           -DHAVE_CONFIG_H
LIBS=           -ldl  -lpthread -lmpc
LIBM=           -lm
LIBC=           
RANLIB=         :
MACHDEP=        irix646
SO=             .so
LDSHARED=       ld  -shared -all
CCSHARED=       
LINKFORSHARED=  
CCC=CC 	

For version 2.0 the Makefile is:
	# === Variables from configure (through sedscript) ===

VERSION=	2.0
CC=		cc
LINKCC=		CC
SGI_ABI=	
OPT=		-O -OPT:Olimit=0
LDFLAGS=	
LDLAST=				
DEFS=		-DHAVE_CONFIG_H
LIBS=		-lpthread -ldl  -lmpc
LIBM=		-lm
LIBC=		
RANLIB=		ranlib
MACHDEP=	irix646
SO=		.so
LDSHARED=	ld  -shared -all
CCSHARED=	
LINKFORSHARED=	

-- 
**********************************
Alexandre Gillet
The Scripps Research Institute,       tel: (858) 784-9702
Dept. Molecular Biology,  MB-5,       fax: (858) 784-2860
10550  North Torrey Pines Road,       email: gillet at scripps.edu
La Jolla,  CA 92037-1000,  USA.

From aahz at panix.com  Fri Oct 13 14:23:45 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 11:23:45 -0700
Subject: File tests in Python
References:  
Message-ID: <8s7jvh$s9n$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
Joakim Hove   wrote:
>Following up on my own post:
>
>> [...]  Writing 
>> 
>>    List = [1,2,["List","in","List"]]
>>  
>> in Python is just the way it _should_ be, really nice!
>
>In this case List[0] and List[1] are simple scalars - whearas List[2]
>is a new list (or is this a "unPythonlike" way of thinking ??). Is
>there a way of testing this, i.e.

import types
if type(foo) == types.ListType:
  ...
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop III

From r.b.rigilink at cable.a2000.nl  Mon Oct  2 05:48:44 2000
From: r.b.rigilink at cable.a2000.nl (Roeland Rengelink)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 11:48:44 +0200
Subject: newbie help needed factoring methods and params in class defs
References: 
Message-ID: <39D859FC.6E3015FC@cable.a2000.nl>

Hi Jason,

A couple comments on your code, and, hopefully, some helpful
explanation.

Jason Cunliffe wrote:
> 
> I am writing a module 'caldict.py' with classes to manage 'timeline'
> dictionaries. Timestamps (as strings) are lookup keys and the event data
> they fetch is any string.
> I am using Marc-Andr? Lemburg's  mxDateTime package
> http://starship.python.net/~lemburg/mxDateTime.html
> plus 'seqdict' and 'mseqdict' modules by Wolfgang Grafen
> http://home.germany.net/100-366919/Python/Modules/Modules.html
> A great combination - thanks to both authors.
> 
> So far so good.
> I have a class CalDict() which has various methods: init(), append(),
> sort(), findnth(), etc..
> I want to use key arguments for various options for all my functions in a
> consistent manner.
> 
> import caldict
> cd = caldict.CalDict()
> cd.append(year=1955, month=4, day=5, hour=14, minute=30, 'birthday')

I'm surprised whis works. If I try something similar, I get

>>> SyntaxError: non-keyword arg after keyword arg

I would expects the following to work correctly

cd.append('birthday', year=1955, month=4, day=5, hour=14, minute=30)

provided your method definition is something like

def append(event, year=0, month=0, day=0, hour=14, minute)

> cd.append(year= -2500, 'Bronze age')
> cd.append(year = 1789, 'French Revolution')
> cd.append(str(now()), 'here and now')
> #now put everything in order beautifully thanks to seqdict and mxDateTime
> cd.sort()
> #Timeline events can be returned by date...
> cd.getevent('1955-04-05 14:30:00.00')
> #or by index...
> cd.findnth(index='last')
> cd.findnth(index=1)
> cd.findnth(index= -2)  #returns penultimate event ie: 'French Revolution'
> #cool!
> #now I need the option to have other arguments also for example:
> cd.findnth(index='last', display=1)
> #or
> cd.findnth(index='last', showdate=1)
> 
> These will overide defaults and display the result, or show the date as well
> as the event string for whatever the last item in the timeline is.
> 
> At present I do this very simply as follows inside class Caldict:
> 
>    def reverse(self, display = 0):
>         s = self.eventdict
>         if display:
>             self.display()
> 
> But as I look down my list of growing class methods, I see the same code
> repeated again and again.
> There must be a much more elegant pythonic way to factor the "if display"
> condition out. But not sure how..
> I have a method display () in the top of my Class.but when I  try to detect
> there to see if the passed parameter  display =1 it does not work.
> 
> I seem to be not undersrtanding something basic about passing parameters
> and reusing methods within a class definition.
> 
> Another perhaps related problem also concernt best way to factor:
> 
> 1 class Caldict:
> 2   def __init__(self, size=12, months=1, days=0, hours=0):
> 3    #default creates 12 months from the present day and time
> 4        self.eventdict = seqdict.seqdict()
> 5        self.indexdict = {}
> 6        s = self.eventdict

No need to this. You're just telling Python that you want to use s to
refer to self.eventdict, but why not use self.eventdict to refer to 
self.eventdict

> 7        for x in range (size):
> 8            #initialize our delta values
> 9            dmonths = months * x
> 10            ddays = days * x
> 11           dhours = hours * x
> 12           ddate = now()+RelativeDateTime( months=+dmonths, days=+ddays,
> hours=+dhours)
> 13            s.append(str(ddate), "entry" + str(x))
> 14           s.sort()
You can simply do
                self.eventdict.append(str(ddate), "entry" + str(x))
                self.eventdict.sort()

> 15   #showme
> 16   def display(self):
> 17      s = self.eventdict
> 18      if display:
> 19         for x in range(len(s)):
> 20                print x, s.keys()[x]
> 
> Why can do I have to redefine in line 17 's = self.eventdict' when I alrady
> did so in  line 6. Same for all teh followng methods?
> 

Well, the answer is that the s is in the local scope of both __init__()
and display(), which means it is only defined within those functions,
and Python forgets about it at soon as it returns from the function.
But, as I said, you 
don't need s.

>
> This must be Python101..
> I someone can help me get to grips with Python classes better..
> 

OK. 

In Python names are references to objects. What this means is best shown
by example.

>>> class A:                    # define a class object and name it A
...     def do(self):
...         print self
...
>>> A                           # What does A refer to?

>>> A()	                        # make an instance of A
<__main__.A instance at 80e6668>
>>> a = A()                     # make another instance of A and name it a
>>> a                           # What does a refer to?
<__main__.A instance at 80d91c8>
>>> a.do()			# call a.do
<__main__.A instance at 80d91c8>
>>> A.do(a)			# a.do() == A.do(a)
<__main__.A instance at
80d91c8>                                                
>>> A.do()
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
TypeError: unbound method must be called with class instance 1st
argument

So, whenever Python encounters a name it has to look up what that name
refers
to. To do that Python looks the name up in a dictionary. At any point in
the program Python has access to two dictionaries, the global and the
local 
dictionary (You can have a look at these using the build-in functions
globals() 
and locals()) Each function has it's own local dictionary that is
created when the function is called, and destroyed when the function
returns. 

>>> class A:
...     def do(self, x):
...         y = 1
...         print locals()
...
>>> a = A()
>>> a.do('Hi')
{'self': <__main__.A instance at 80f6a00>, 'x': 'Hi', 'y': 1}
>>> A.do(a, 'Ho')
{'self': <__main__.A instance at 80f6a00>, 'x': 'Ho', 'y':
1}                   

Note how calling the method do() fills the locals() dictionary with the
names 
self and and x. The rule for the name lookup is simple if the name is
assigned to anywhere in the function look in the locals() dictionary,
else look in the globals() dictionary. 

There are other places where references to objects are stored, in
classes, instances and modules. There is a special syntax to refer to
these dictionaries:
class_name.__dict__, instance_name.__dict__, module_name.__dict__.
Moreover, there is a convenient shorthand notation to refer to the
contents of these dictionaries, namely:

name.attrribute_name is shorthand for:
name.__dict__[attribute_name],

with the special rule that for retrieving references in instances:

if instance_name.__dict__[attribute_name] raises a KeyError, then
instance_name.__class__.__dict__[attribute_name] should be returned.

To illustrate

>>> class A:
...     x = 1               # A.__dict__['x'] = 1
...     def do(self, y):
...             self.y = y  # self.__dict__['y'] = y 
...
>>> a = A()
>>> a.__dict__      
{}
>>> a.do(2)                 # self=a ; self.__dict__['y'] = 2
>>> a.__dict__
{'y': 2}
>>> A.__dict__
{'__doc__': None, '__module__': '__main__', 'x': 1, 'do': >> a.__class__.__dict__
{'__doc__': None, '__module__': '__main__', 'x': 1, 'do': }
>>> a.x	                    # a.__dict__['x'] gives KeyError, return A.x
1
>>> A.x = 3                 # A.__dict__['x'] = 3
>>> a.x			    # a.__dict__['x'] still gives KeyError
3
>>> a.x = 2                 # a.__dict__['x'] = 2
>>> a.x
2
>>> A.x                     # A.__dict__['x'] still contains 3
3                                                                               

It should be clear now, why we pass a refrence to an instance to class
methods.
To give the methods access to the instance's dictionary. Note that
classes don't know when they are instantiated (sp?), nor does the class
method know which instance called it. In python the method has to be
told explicitly which instance called it, hence the argument 'self'. 
The only convenience Python provides is
that 

instance.method()

is converted automatically in

instance.__dict__['method'](instance)

I hope you now understand why you don't have to do

s = self.eventdict 

within each method.

I also hope you understand why the display() method and the display=1
method-argument are completely unrelated. One is a function object
referred
to in CalDict.__dict__ the other is a name in the locals()- dictionary
of the findnth() method.

> Thanks
> - Jason
> 
> ________________________________________________________________
> Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director

Hope this help,

Roeland

From j.spies at hccnet.nl  Sat Oct 28 18:53:53 2000
From: j.spies at hccnet.nl (Jaap Spies)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 00:53:53 +0200
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References: 
Message-ID: <39FB5901.5DBA3E5C@hccnet.nl>

Guido van Rossum schreef:
> 
> To all Python users and developers:
> 
> Less than half a year ago, I moved with my team to BeOpen.com, in the
> hope of finding a new permanent home for Python development.  At
> BeOpen, we've done several good things for Python, such as moving the
> Python and Jython development process to SourceForge, and the
> successful release of Python 2.0.
> 
> Unfortunately, BeOpen.com's original plans for PythonLabs didn't work
> out as hoped, and we weren't able to reach mutual agreement on
> workable alternative plans -- despite trying for months.
> 
> I am proud to have found a new home for my entire team: starting
> today, Tim Peters, Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, Fred Drake and myself
> are working for Digital Creations.  We will be spending part of our
> time on core Python development (including Jython and Mailman) and
> part of our time on Python infrastructure improvements that also
> benefit Zope.
> 
> Python will remain Open Source; Digital Creations has no desire to
> monetize or brand the Python language or specific Python
> distributions.  All future work we do on Python as Digital Creations
> employees will be owned by a non-profit organization yet to be
> created.  We think of this new organization as the Python Software
> Foundation.  In the meantime (while the PSF is under construction) I
> will own such copyrights personally.
> 
> We're excited to be working for Digital Creations: they are one of the
> oldest companies active in the Python community, one of the companies
> most committed to Python, and they have a great product!  Plus, we
> know they have deep financial backing.  We trust that Digital
> Creations will provide a stable home for Python for many years.
> 
> Digital Creations has also offered to take over hosting of the
> python.org and starship sites.  On behalf of the Python community,
> we're grateful for this support of the two prime community sites for
> Python, and we expect to be implementing the transitions shortly.
> 
> These are exciting times for the PythonLabs team -- and also for
> Python and its community.  Mainstream successes for Python are showing
> up everywhere, and we're proud to be a part of such a smart and
> friendly community.  A great year lies ahead!
> 
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

Hi,

Congratulations!
I hope this will work out.
We need a sort of stability. Python forever!
But Jython? How do you misspell JPython??

Good luck.

Jaap Spies

Let's keep Peace in Mind

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 04:06:40 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 10:06:40 +0200
Subject: Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)
References:  <39d3a26a.31812876@news.telus.net>
Message-ID: 

root at 127.0.0.1 (David) writes:

> 'zactly.  I was talking about the XML-SIG code, which doesn't/didn't.

Apparently, you did not use the Windows package of the XML-SIG code,
then.

Regards,
Martin

From bill at replywillfail.com  Thu Oct 12 05:15:42 2000
From: bill at replywillfail.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Bill_de_h=D3ra?=)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:15:42 +0100
Subject: Zope & Python
References: <39c208eb$0$231@hades.is.co.za> <39E4B7DA.2C18D688@motorola.com>
Message-ID: <8s3vik$b5u$1@taliesin2.netcom.net.uk>

> > I have had a look at the "Zope" application server at www.zope.org, and
feel
> > that it cannot be considered for use (on the server side) in an
enterprise
> > application because of the following weaknesses:
> >
> > The business-logic extensions must be written in Python, which is a fine
> > "glue language" for whipping up scripts and small applications in as
short a
> > time and as few lines of code as possible, but is simply not robust
enough
> > for enterprise applications.  For example, it does not allow
compile-time
> > enforcement of interface specifications, as C++ and Java do.

This is precisely why you would want a dynamically typed language for web
applications. There is very little empirical evidence that static typing
actually protects programmers or adds robustness by punting type checks to
the compiler. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it leads to brittle,
bloated, and eventually unmaintainable code.

Python is ideal not as a glue language, but in parts where you need real
flexibility. That's why Google uses it to write spiders. Python's ability to
rewrite itself is fantastically powerful.

Anyway XML should be your glue now.

Vignette and Arsdigita use tcl. Tcl is light weight easy to learn and use
and compact as we might expect from a scripting language. Both these
companies build enterprise level web applications. Using a scripting
language to build applications is not hurting them.

Smalltalk is widely used at the enterprise level in the back tier, it has
similar typing properties to Python. There are very probably more correctly
functioning Smalltalk programs in the world than C++ programs: and that's
actual programs not in proprotion. Almost no-one has written a correctly
functioning C++ enterprise level application. For what it's worth, dynamic
typing and functional programming is becoming ascendent within the OO
coomunity (by community I mean the 100 or so people who tell the rest of us
what good OO is). The value of static typing is a myth born of dealing with
crap C code in the seventies and eighties when C went far outside its
comfort zone.

> > a) It does not even support the concept of private, protected and public
> > instance variables and methods. The whole concept of
"design-by-contract"
> > relies on the availability of these features.  You cannot rely on
> > programmers to have the discipline to comply with (nonexistent)
interface
> > specifications.

Design by contract assumes you have a contract in place. PPP access alone
won't give you that, nor will static type checking. You need argument
assertion semantics in the language (which java doesn't have by the way and
C++s is highly ambiguous) and exception handling. Python has excellent
exception handling.

> > b) If we develop web applications in accordance with the Java Servlet
API,
> > we can upgrade the platform from Apache+Tomcat running on Linux to Sun's
> > Java Webserver, or IBM Websphere, or BEA Weblogic (BEA is the industry
> > leader in OLTP middleware), or any number of other commercial
> > implementations.  What is the upgrade path for Zope?

You'll only need that upgrade path when some architect or business decision
makers decides that we must have J2EE/EJB compliance on the middle tier. But
tell me, in 2-5 years time when we decide that we need fully
parallel/distributed architectures not tiering, what is your upgrade path
from Java middleware?

> > c) Java allows a wide choice of compilers, debugging and profiling
tools,
> > modelling tools, middleware, and libraries for everything under the sun.
It
> > is a mainstream language for commercial applications, with a relatively
> > large pool of programming expertise and with support from most major
> > industry players (besides Microsoft). Python may be gaining popularity,
but
> > is way behind Java.

Finding python programmers is a problem, yes. But if you're hiring against a
skill-set rather than looking for real talent, you have an intellectual
capital issue that's probably more serious than decisions of architecture.
No amount of compile time handholding can protect you from weak programmers
who are bandwagonning on Java. And a talented programmer will be writing
useful python code in a week.

Look, this is really about software layering. I would not write my network
systems layers in Python. But I would write application level code in
Python. Equally, I would certainly not want to code business or templating
logic in a static language like C++ or Java. In that space servlets/JSP are
a three legged dog, a sideshow at best.

-Bill de h?ra

From andrew.markebo at telelogic.com  Sun Oct  1 16:14:13 2000
From: andrew.markebo at telelogic.com (Andrew Markebo)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 22:14:13 +0200
Subject: Win32com and unicode problems -  ordinal not in range(128)
Message-ID: 

I am messing around with strings returned from the internet explorer
com-object.. 

What happens is.. 
>>> foo.body.innerHTML
u'\015\012>> print foo.body.innerHTML
Traceback (innermost last):  
        File "", line 1, in ?
        UnicodeError: ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)

uhmm It seems to barf on "·".. grumble.. how do I convert it to
somehing useful.. either normal 8bit latin1 string.. or well I just
browse such sites at the moment..

        /Andy

From max at alcyone.com  Wed Oct 18 12:40:10 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:40:10 -0700
Subject: Integer -> String
References: <39EDD184.B97C3A39@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <39EDD26A.9F5F2418@alcyone.com>

joonas wrote:

> How can i convert integer into srtring and string into integer.

The int and str functions.  You can also use eval and repr (or
backticks), respectively.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ To love without criticism is to be betrayed.
\__/ Djuna Barnes
    Kepler's laws / http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/kepler/
 A proof of Kepler's laws.

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Fri Oct  6 15:14:54 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 15:14:54 -0400
Subject: busting-out XML sections
References: <39DCFFC2.A26BF159@ix.netcom.com> <39DDB4F8.60ECF23C@milagrosoft.com>
Message-ID: <39DE24AE.71AD86C1@ix.netcom.com>

I thought about using DOM, until I considered the size of the input files.  If
there was a way to position the file so that you could essentially read
documents out of the file this would work wonderfully.  Since DOM (as I
understand) will build the entire tree in memory, it makes processing
multi-megabyte files unadviseable.  Even given a system with a lot of memory
it is wrong to assume you have complete use of the system's memory.

--
.tom

From thomas at cintra.no  Tue Oct 10 06:17:08 2000
From: thomas at cintra.no (Thomas Weholt)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:17:08 +0200
Subject: COM+ in Python
Message-ID: <8ruqc9$mtb$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>

Hi,

Has anybody made COM+ servers in Python? Is there any information about this
available ? Anything ? Any information related to COM+ and Python would be
highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Thomas

From benny at nairobi.demon.nl  Sat Oct 14 16:23:34 2000
From: benny at nairobi.demon.nl (benny)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:23:34 GMT
Subject: SMTP receive as well as send
Message-ID: <39e8bfe4.2248931@news.demon.nl>

Hi,

I'm in need of an SMTP setup that will allow me to receive as well as
send messages. The Python SMTPlib looked like a good bet but it seems
to be send-only (kind of like the POP3 lib stuff seems to be read
only).

Can a kind soul help out a Python newbie and give me a few hints about
how/where/etc. I could get an SMTP setup that works both ways please?
(The PC is a Linux box.)

Many thanks.

--

Benny (who apologises if this has been discussed recently or if this
is obviously posted somewhere but days of searching hasn't helped)

From alq666 at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 18 15:33:36 2000
From: alq666 at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Alexis_L=EA-Qu=F4c?=)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:33:36 -0400
Subject: How to use sys.exc_info()???
In-Reply-To: <8sksit$mj1$1@panix6.panix.com>
Message-ID: <004f01c0393a$4ee6d150$8cfea8c0@neomeo.com>

I believe it's in sys.exc_info()[1]. If you 'dir' the object, you can see
that it has 'args' and 'strerror' among its members. I believe both are the
ones you're interested in.

Alexis Le-Quoc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: python-list-admin at python.org
> [mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of Roy Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 15:10
> To: python-list at python.org
> Subject: How to use sys.exc_info()???
>
>
> I'm stuped with how sys.exc_info() is supposed to work.  If I do:
>
> open ('xxx')
>
> I get:
>
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
> IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'xxx'
>
> Which is what I expect.  But when I do:
>
> try:
>      open ('xxx')
> except:
>      foo = sys.exc_info()
>
> What I end up with in foo is
>
> (,  instance at 80c82d0>, )
>
> What I don't understand is how to go from the 3-tuple I get back from
> exc_info() to the string "No such file or directory"?
>
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

From kragen at dnaco.net  Wed Oct  4 01:41:01 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 05:41:01 GMT
Subject: Inefficiency of __getattr__
References: 
Message-ID: 

In article ,
  wrote:
>>Every time I've argued static versus dynamic typing with a
>>static-typing fan, they've ended up concluding that what they really
>>hate is not dynamic typing but silent coercions.
>
>You haven't argued with me. :)
>C++ allows silent coercions in a few places that make sense -- cast to base
>class, call of user defined "operator T()" and call of user defined
>constructor, besides the "usual" numeric conversions and conversion of 0 to
>any pointer type (this can actually be a problem, like where stuff is
>defined to operate on integers and pointers, the language would be much
>better off with magic like
>#define NULL __null
>than #define NULL 0 where "_null" is compiler magic for the null pointer of
>any type and 0 favors being an integer before being a pointer..
>std::vector's constructor runs into this problem).
>
>To keep things from a exploding combinatorially in the compiler, the
>language only allows one level of silent conversion.

OK, so you agree that silent coercions cause problems in some cases in
C++, some of which cases are built into the language.

So what's the advantage of static typing over dynamic typing?  Does it
help you catch bugs, and if so, which ones?
-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From JamesL at Lugoj.Com  Sun Oct 22 22:09:19 2000
From: JamesL at Lugoj.Com (James Logajan)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 19:09:19 -0700
Subject: Getting Python 2.0 without pythonlabs.com
References: 
Message-ID: <39F39DCF.1017C0F4@Lugoj.Com>

Tim Peters wrote:
> If both of those sites go down too, we'll look into attaching free Python
> CDs to boxes of major breakfast cereals.

Could you be more specific which cereal(s) Python CDs will be in? We're a
Corn Flakes family and I'm hoping that is one of them.

From g_will at cyberus.ca  Tue Oct 31 16:10:20 2000
From: g_will at cyberus.ca (Gordon Williams)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 16:10:20 -0500
Subject: Rounding Bug in Python 2.0! - ugh
Message-ID: <8tncdk$frm$1@news2.ottawa.cyberus.ca>

When I switched from python 1.5.2 to 2.0 final I had a surprise in some code
that was working previously.

It comes down to:

>>> x=3.8999999999999999
>>> round(x,3)
3.8999999999999999
>>>

>>> x=3.123456
>>> round(x,3)
3.1230000000000002

Someone is going to start talking about machine round off errors, but this
is a BIG UGH!!
It is not what is intuitively expected.  Can we go back to the good old days
when 1.5.2 lied to us and gave us the answer that we expect and need!!

Gordon Williams

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 05:09:23 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:09:23 +0200
Subject: question about Distutils
References: <39D3487C.21ADC425@unice.fr>
Message-ID: 

Jerome Alet  writes:

> It only seems to be designed for modules or packages (libraries), not
> for python scripts we want to be installed in /usr/local/bin (for
> example) like complete software. Am I wrong ?
> 
> The documentation doesn't give any hint (to me) on how to do that
> easily.

At least the more recent distutils versions support installing
scripts. You pass a scripts= keyword argument to setup, and then the
build_scripts/install_scripts commands will process them. In
particular, they will update the interpreter name in #! to the true
location of Python.

Hope this helps,
Martin

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 27 07:27:16 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 13:27:16 +0200
Subject: How do I force a single instance of a python app?
References:  
Message-ID: <8tbp5c0rj3@news1.newsguy.com>

"Mark Hammond"  wrote in message
news:xM2K5.894$Tq6.8420 at news-server.bigpond.net.au...
    [snip]
> The idea of creating a directory was one I saw in a very old source
> control system.  They documented that they used a directory as a lock,
> as it was the only reasonable, cross platform, atomic operation with

This classic approach is also exposed in Python documentation material,
such as the talk Guido gave at SD '99 East; see "A simple lock solution":
    http://www.python.org/doc/essays/ppt/sd99east/sld054.htm

Alex

From nickatvideosystemdotcodotuk  Fri Oct 13 05:20:16 2000
From: nickatvideosystemdotcodotuk (Nick Trout)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 10:20:16 +0100
Subject: Python Guru Available For Contract Work
References: <8s2m8b$co$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39e516c3.13120104@news.telus.net>
Message-ID: <39e6d410@news.xtml.co.uk>

"David"  wrote in message
news:39e516c3.13120104 at news.telus.net...
> On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 21:31:55 GMT, revtracyj at my-deja.com wrote:
> >If interested in contacting Mr. Jarvis about his unique abilities,
> >please write me directly at the following email address:
> >xxxxx at teleport.com
>
> >My last IQ test came in at 161,
> >although I have tested as low as 145.
>
> My penis is 10.5" long.  Beat that!

Blimey, a 10.5" python. He he.

>> "But I miss the social aspects of working with other people"

Wonder if they miss you?

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Tue Oct 10 05:25:42 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 02:25:42 -0700
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word? 
Message-ID: <02d501c0329c$10798420$0101a8c0@jayk3>

What do the leading underscores do? In my example I was sure to use three
levels because when I had tried to figure out something like this in the
past the more derived super's kept replacing the less derived ones, so it
didn't work. I couldn't find that the underscores accomplished anything.

class Food:
  def Print(self):
    print("Food")

class Dessert(Food):
  __super = Food
  def Print(self):
    self.__super.Print(self)
    print("Dessert")

class Pie(Dessert):
  __super = Dessert
  def Print(self):
    self.__super.Print(self)
    print("Pie")

Pie().Print();

Hm..actually, ok, I removed the __. That makes Python crash, stack overflow.
I couldn't find what this is doing in the docs. Looking through the code, _
seemed used mainly to preflight string comparisons against strings that
start (and end) with double _.

Anyway, cool, thanks, I wanted this in Python a few weeks ago and couldn't
figure out how to do it.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Tanzer 
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Monday, October 09, 2000 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?

Michal Wallace  wrote:

> you could also call it __super and then you don't have to put the
> classnames in the __init__ (because python does it for you for
> variables starting with [and not ending with] double underscores):
>
>
> class Pie(Dessert):
>     __super = Dessert
>     def __init__(self):
>         print "pie is a..."
>         self.__super.__init__(self)
>
> class BananaCremePie(Pie):
>     __super = Pie
>     def __init__(self):
>         print "banana creme pie is a..."
>         self.__super.__init__(self)

If you do that, then you'd better not call one of your classes `_X'
and one of its descendent classes `X' -- if you do, you'll get a name
clash between `_X.__super' and `X.__super'. That name clash leads to
infinite recursion in turn.

Cheers,
Christian

PS: Is that a bug or a feature?

--
Christian Tanzer                                         tanzer at swing.co.at
Glasauergasse 32                                       Tel: +43 1 876 62 36
A-1130 Vienna, Austria                                 Fax: +43 1 877 66 92

--
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From ransen_spam_me_not_ at nemo.it  Tue Oct 31 13:23:15 2000
From: ransen_spam_me_not_ at nemo.it (Owen F. Ransen)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:23:15 GMT
Subject: Licencing Python as extension in commercial app?
Message-ID: <39ff02b1.849871@news.newsguy.com>

Licensing Python as extension in commercial app?

What is the deal? I'd like to use Python to extend
a new graphics app I am writing, but I need to sell
the app to buy bread.

So...do I need to buy a license, or is it free or
what?

TIA

Owen

--
Owen F. Ransen
http://www.ransen.com/
Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators

From matthias.oberlaender at daimlerchrysler.com  Mon Oct  9 03:27:40 2000
From: matthias.oberlaender at daimlerchrysler.com (matthias.oberlaender at daimlerchrysler.com)
Date: 9 Oct 2000 07:27:40 GMT
Subject: swapping (was Re: Changing class membership)
References: <8qt1ci$ecj$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de> <8r1ng6$hef$1@news.sns-felb.debis.de> 
	<8rkt6o03g8@news2.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <8rrs1c$n1l$1@news.sns-felb.debis.de>

Thanks a lot for the "lesson". Yes, tuples truly make it much more elgant.

In <8rkt6o03g8 at news2.newsguy.com> "Alex Martelli" wrote:
> 
> In general, the Python swap idiom is
>     a, b = b, a
> or, of course:
>     a.something, b.whatever = b.whatever, a.something
> etc, although the idiom of
>     temp = a
>     a = b
>     b = temp
> (mutuated from languages without tuple packing/unpacking
> abilities:-) will also work, of course (less elegant, IMHO).
> 
> 
> Alex
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- Matthias

From cullman at my-deja.com  Wed Oct 18 15:11:08 2000
From: cullman at my-deja.com (cullman at my-deja.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 19:11:08 GMT
Subject: Stopping a python thread
Message-ID: <8sksk4$b6c$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Is there any support for stopping a thread that
was spawned from the main thread?

I have experimented with _Thread__stop, and that
does seems to at least let the calling program
exit without hanging for the child thread.  But
if the calling program does not exit, the child
thread continues to run.

Is this not featured, as it is not available on
all thread platforms?  Is there any talk of
exposing more of the pthread stuff as an option?

Thanks,

Cayce

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From s713221 at student.gu.edu.au  Sun Oct  8 06:38:05 2000
From: s713221 at student.gu.edu.au (Joal Heagney)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 20:38:05 +1000
Subject: Audioop: How do I load info into it?
Message-ID: <39E04E8D.265870DB@student.gu.edu.au>

Okay, I'll be short and sweet. The documentation says that audioop takes
audio data in signed integer samples. How do I create these signed
integer samples? Either a pointer to the documentation or a piece of
example code would be great.

What I'm planning to do is create a fractal sound generator with a
slight difference. Rather than create different types of noise, I hope
to create one that can mimic natural sounds. Any case, thank you for
your help on audioop.

Joal Heagney/AncientHart

From kragen at dnaco.net  Sun Oct  1 21:43:19 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 01:43:19 GMT
Subject: You can never go down the drain...
References:    
Message-ID: 

In article ,
Suchandra Thapa  wrote:
>Alex  wrote:
>>I wasn't snickering.  I just think that asking for a workaround to a bug
>>for which a patch exists is silly.
>
>    But the thing is you aren't always able to patch the software. E.g. the
>software is on a client's machine, you can't change to a newer version w/o
>testing for breakage, etc.  

. . . or the newer version is, in fact, broken.  Or you have a size 
limit on your software that prevents you from including a new version
of Python.

I've been suffering through programming in JavaScript.  Even if we find
a bug in Mozilla we can fix, we have to work around it --- we can't
distribute a new version of Mozilla to everybody who uses our
software.
-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Sun Oct  8 14:05:14 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 14:05:14 -0400
Subject: msvcrt.getch() and raw_input() get same key
In-Reply-To: <39E05D9E.79A8C162@bnmsp.de>
Message-ID: 

[Georg Simon]
> Python 2.0b2 and Windows 98
> ----------------------------
> import msvcrt
> key = msvcrt.getch()
> if key == '\000' :
>     key = key+msvcrt.getch()
> line = raw_input(': ')
> print key, line
> ----------------------------
> In this test script raw_input() is called after msvcrt.getch() .
> In this case raw_input() receives as first character the same character
> already received by by msvcrt.getch() :
>
> Running the script in the DOS-box and pressing 'a' and 'Enter'
> gives the output 'a a'
>
> The DOS-box then looks like this :
>
> : a
> a a
> >>>
>
> Is there a way to make msvcrt.getch() eat completely it's character ?

Not really, and regardless of Python version.  The msvcrt.*ch*() functions
are thin wrappers around MS's functions of the same names, and, as the MS
docs say, are incompatible with std C I/O (which raw_input and print use).
To make this work reliably, and across all flavors of Windows, once you use
one msvcrt console I/O function, you should do all I/O with the console
using those functions.  So instead of raw_input, use msvcrt.putch() to print
the ":" and the space, and use msvcrt.getche() in a loop to read the rest of
the line.  See win_getpass in the std getpass.py for the basic idea.

MS's implementation of the console-mode I/O functions uses different buffers
than MS's implementation of std C I/O, and treat the raw keyboard buffer in
undocumented and surprising (when mixing them) ways:  MS didn't bother to
synch them up, and Python doesn't know how to.

can't-get-there-from-here-ly y'rs  - tim

From entropiamax at jazzfree.com  Mon Oct  2 06:17:57 2000
From: entropiamax at jazzfree.com (entropia)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 12:17:57 +0200
Subject: "CPAN" SIG?
References:   <39D833B2.61072A1@jazzfree.com>
Message-ID: <39D860D4.BCF2BB64@jazzfree.com>

entropia escribi?:

> I like PAIN
>
> Ben Wolfson escribi?:
>
> > In article ,
> > Mike Fletcher   wrote:
> > >Alternatives:
> > >
> > >       PANC[ake] (Python Archive Network, Comprehensive -- all known
> > >extensions)
> > >       (Out of the) Coding-PAN (into the compiler)
> > >       PythAN (use a flat southern "an" for the AN)
> > >       PyAN (pronounce as Pie-an, or even Pain, I suppose)
> > >       PytAN (pittan)
> > >       Dist-sys (carrying on from dist-utils)
> >
> > PAIN: Python Archive International Network.
> >
> > --
> > Barnabas T. Rumjuggler's page of dumbth: members.home.net/rumjuggler
> >
> > puto deus fio.
> >  -- Vespasian, last words
> > --
> > http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From robin at alldunn.com  Wed Oct 25 17:21:39 2000
From: robin at alldunn.com (Robin Dunn)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 21:21:39 GMT
Subject: Where is wxPython?
References: <39E33757.E9F81F9C@cicei.ulpgc.es>   <8t216i$dvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t54hu$hl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <8t77t1$ndf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <8t7isq$1qj$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

>
> > Actually, I believe that you should be able to put the DLL in the
same
> > directory as the DLL which uses it (ie, the wxPython PYD file). I've
> > done this with other modules and it seems to work.
> >
> > Basically, Python itself loads DLLs (PYDs) from explicit directories
> > in sys.path. If these DLLs load other DLLs, I believe that the
search
> > path includes the directory in which the loading DLL is located,
> > rather than the directory in which the original EXE is located. The
> > Windows documentation seems to imply otherwise - all I can say is
that
> > it seems to work.
>
> I'm sure I tried that before and it didn't work...  But it *is*
working
> for me now with both 1.5.2 and 2.0.  Perhaps it is a win2k thing,
which
> version of windows are you running?
>

Well I just tried it on win98 and it worked, so I must have screwed
something up when experimenting before.  I'll change my installer script
right now.

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From olczyk at interaccess.com  Tue Oct 10 10:01:25 2000
From: olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L. Olczyk)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 14:01:25 GMT
Subject: Compilation of Python 2.0c1
References:  
Message-ID: <39e32120.383049437@nntp.interaccess.com>

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000 22:08:35 -0700, Neil Schemenauer 
wrote:

>On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 01:42:39PM +0200, Frederic Gobry wrote:
>> I've problems with python compilation (be it 1.6 or 2.0c1) on my
>> Mandrake system : the executable python produces a segmentation fault
>> in Modules/getbuildinfo.c, in the sprintf call... according to gdb at
>> least...
>
>It should be a compiler bug.  Do you have a package that gives
>you kgcc?  You could try using that compiler by runnning:
>
That's a new one on me. kgcc?

From greg at mad-scientist.com  Sat Oct 28 02:13:36 2000
From: greg at mad-scientist.com (Gregory P . Smith)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 23:13:36 -0700
Subject: socket.error (0, "Error") on win98 with python 2.0?
Message-ID: <20001027231336.I32706@mad-scientist.com>

I just started running our software (mojonation) under python 2.0 on
windows 98 and am noticing at various odd times that select() when
calling asyncore.poll() raises an error (0, "Error").  Our poll() loop
logs it and ignores it.  It doesn't seem fatal, but does anyone have
any idea why it might have started happening?  I didn't notice this
behavior with 1.6 or 1.5.2.

I've seen it happen when there were only a handful of sockets open so
it doesn't appear to be related to the number of sockets.

(It's running under ActivePython 2.0 if that matters.)

thanks,
-greg

PS please CC me in any responses, I'm not on the python-list at the moment.

From mfletch at tpresence.com  Sun Oct 29 21:42:59 2000
From: mfletch at tpresence.com (Mike Fletcher)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 21:42:59 -0500
Subject: Shall we declare Tkinter dead?  No-one seems interested in it ;o)
Message-ID: 

Third time for this question, still no (as in nada, zip, zero, zilch)
responses. I'm beginning to suspect that, like me, everyone has already
moved to wxPython :o) .

Can anyone tell me what event to bind in a Tkinter system that says "the
root window has been closed", or, more precisely, "it's safe to shut down
the mainloop now"?  Even if you don't know, feel free to tell me you love
Tkinter, or I'll just have to conclude it's an unloved orphan ;o) and stop
trying to get it working with micro-threads.  (Hey, we could even drop Togl
support for PyOpenGL and save a few more headaches ;o)  ).

Meritocracy requires speech, and copious amounts thereof.  Start your
campaigns now!
Mike(y)

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Fletcher [mailto:mfletch at tpresence.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 4:53 PM
To: Python List (E-mail)
Subject: Retry: Help: Tkinter mainloop rewrite, when do we want to
exit/wh ere is the "app.OnExit" callback?

Seems this didn't go through (or the subject wasn't clear enough).  I've
been asked how to run Tkinter under micro-threads.  I only use wxPython, so
I'm not really sure how to write the mainloop substitute for Tkinter.  For
wxPython I use the OnExit handler for the wxApp to kill the mainloop
micro-thread.  Could some Tkinter guru suggest the correct test/event for
when to shut down the mainloop?

Side note: are all the mouse interactions under Tkinter atomic C functions?
For instance, dragging or resizing the window stops all other micro-threads
until the drag/resize stops.

Any pointers appreciated,
Mike

8<_________________ Tkinter test ____________
import uthread9
from Tkinter import *
from _tkinter import dooneevent
def go():
	print 'starting TK'
	global root
	root=Tk()
	while 1: # should use some TK-specific mechanism for determining
when the root is closed, don't know what...
		if not dooneevent( tkinter.DONT_WAIT ):
			uthread9.wait( 0.01 )
	print 'somehow exited loop'

def yo( finishedThread ):
	i=0
	for x in range(1000000):
		if x % 10000 == 0:
			print '.',
	finishedThread.exit()
	print 'exited mainloop'

uthread9.new(yo, uthread9.new(go) )
uthread9.run()

8<______________ wxPython mainloop (from larger codebase) _______
	def MainLoop(self):
		# This outer loop determines when to exit the application,
for
		# this example we let the main frame reset this flag when it
		# closes.
		self.mainloopThread = uthread9.new( self.__mainLoop )
		uthread9.new( self.StartMUTech )
		if not uthread9.microThreadsRunning():
			uthread9.run()
	def __mainLoop( self ):
		try:
			while 1:
				# This inner loop will process any GUI
events until there
				# are no more waiting.
				while self.Pending():
					uthread9.atomic( self.Dispatch )

				# Send idle events to idle handlers.  You
may want to throtle
				# this back a bit so there is not too much
CPU time spent in
				# the idle handlers.  For this example, I'll
just snooze a
				# little...
				uthread9.switchContext()
				uthread9.atomic( self.ProcessIdle )
				uthread9.wait( 0.01 ) # hack!
		except:
			traceback.print_exc()
	def OnExit( self, event ):
		print 'closing mutech'
		self.MUTech.close()
		print 'exiting'
		event.Skip()
		if self.mainloopThread:
			self.mainloopThread.exit()

__________________________________
 Mike C. Fletcher
 Designer, VR Plumber
 http://members.home.com/mcfletch

-- 
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From a at b.c  Tue Oct  3 22:43:25 2000
From: a at b.c (lynx)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 21:43:25 -0500
Subject: Newbie: How to convert "<" to "<" ( encoding? )
References:  <8rdq3j$qm0$1@panix6.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch), in <8rdq3j$qm0$1 at panix6.panix.com>:

> Actually, it appears that there is in fact no HTMLescape() function.

what about cgi.escape() ?

From tyler at tylereaves.com  Fri Oct 27 14:19:09 2000
From: tyler at tylereaves.com (Tyler Eaves)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:19:09 -0400
Subject: PyCounter Website Fixed
Message-ID: 

You can now actually download it :)
---
Tyler Eaves

Visit Ultra Coaster Central!
The internet's largest repository
of Ultra Coaster Tracks!

http://www.ultracoastercentral.com

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From edgington at ccdc.cam.ac.uk  Fri Oct  6 05:17:14 2000
From: edgington at ccdc.cam.ac.uk (Paul Edgington)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:17:14 GMT
Subject: CIF parser
References: <39DC1A25.9E7504D8@proceryon.at> <8rjn2e$ea9$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>
Message-ID: <39dd9112.5208483@nntp-serv.cam.ac.uk>

On Thu, 5 Oct 2000 23:08:41 -0600, "Andrew Dalke" 
wrote:

>Horst Gassner wrote:
>>Does anyone know if there is a parser for the CIF (Crystallographic
>>Information File) format? I only found parsers written in C language but
>>none written in Python.
>>
>>The following URL is the one where I have looked for a parser:
>>http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/cif/home.html
>
>I haven't come across any.  That link you mentions points to HICCuP from
>CCDC which requires Python, but I can't find documentation for it and
>I don't like the license enough to download the package.
>
>Then again, I've had a long dislike of CIF - more specifically, mmCIF -
>so it would't take much for me to keep from downloading a CIF package.
>(Eg, the CIF format is protected by patent law (!), is strongly FORTRAN
>biased and doesn't really have namespaces.)  Luckily, I haven't come
>across anyone in molecular modelling who's actually used the format,
>even though mmCIF's been out for 6 years or so.
>
As the author of HICCuP and until recently on the CIF maintainence
committee I would like to say....

Sorry the documentation never got finished as the project was
effectively mothballed (which is why it has been 'beta' for ever!)
However I would hope that users find the interface is fairly
intuative. I would also like to apologise for the coding. It was might
first bit of serious python from a Fortran background. 

The licence is a general one used for free software from the CCDC.
Until it was mentioned I didn't realise it had been added to HICCuP.
Anyway its a bit inapplicable in places (i.e. how do you reverse
engineer a python .py file??).

I am amazed by the comment about CIF being FORTRAN biased. Having had
to write some fortran code to read and process CIF's for processing to
database entries I can say its one of the worst languages for CIF
handling.

Anyway. Back to the original point. From a little private project of
my own I have put some CIF passing code at:

http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/~edgington/CIFparsing.py

Which might be useful.

Paul

--
http://i.am/am.i.not/ Paul Edgington
Senior Scientific Software Engineer
Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre

From mertz at gnosis.cx  Fri Oct 20 13:28:20 2000
From: mertz at gnosis.cx (Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 13:28:20 -0400
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython (fwd)
Message-ID: <0CI85kKkXcme092yn@bellatlantic.net>                

"Alex Martelli" 
|And "Nike" was a term for "victory" (in Greek) from since
|well before anybody raised coffee in the island of Java.
|So why would it be 'more protectable' as a trademark...?

'Nike' we can probably date from around 8th Century B.C., I imagine (I
am not a Greek philologist, however).  When did coffee cultivation
begin? When did it begin on Java?

Just curious.

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Fri Oct  6 10:27:33 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 10:27:33 -0400
Subject: FIXED: Calling the parent class' __init__
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <39DDE155.369C28B8@ix.netcom.com>

Thanks for the help.  I think there was a problem that the parent class' name
may have overlapped the name of another class from another file.  I'm unsure.
In any case it appears to be working.  Your examples gave me confidence that I
had the right idea, I just may not have implemented it very well.

--
.tom

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Thu Oct 12 09:22:16 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 09:22:16 -0400
Subject: Most Effective Way to Build Up a Histogram of Words?
References: <8s4b6f$5ch$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: <39E5BB08.D978078B@holdenweb.com>

June Kim wrote:
> 
> What is the most effective way, in terms of the execution speed,
> to build up a histogram of words from a multiple of huge text
> files?
> 
Ignoring the obvious consideration that it depends what you mean
by a *word*, I assume you know how you can split the text lines in
an appropriate way.

If not, then this will doubtless become a long and interesting thread.

> (NOTE: I meant HISTOGRAM a list of all words occuring from texts,
> with their frequency)
> 
Again, I assume you are more concerned with frequency counts than
a pretty graphic (which again can be done relatively easily in Python).

> Can anyone give me an insight?

The key would be to use a dictionary to hold the frequency counts.
If you have a candidate word in variable w, and have initialised the
dict variable with:

	dict = {}

the key statement would be

	dict[w] = w.get(w,0)+1

which adds one to the current entry for the word, unless this is the
first occurrence, in which case it adds one to zero and stores that in
the dictionary.

As far as reading lots of file goes, take a look at the fileinput
module, which is good at dealing with multiple input streams without
you having to deal with them.

Does this help?

hoping-I'm-not-completely-off-track-ly y'rs  -  Steve
--
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct  4 10:21:16 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 16:21:16 +0200
Subject: Python equivalent of Java Vector
References: <8rau5e$afv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8rfemq0cpl@news2.newsguy.com>

"Christopher Browne"  wrote in message
news:slrn8ti28n.3vuf8tf.cbbrowne at test.sdt.com...
    [snip]
> Which means that safely accessing entries requires something like:
>   if a.has_key(k):
>     do something with a[k]
>   else:
>     do whatever is needed if there is no a[k]

    dosomething(a.get(k,some_default))

is often handier.

Alex

From adavidow at my-deja.com  Wed Oct  4 13:02:58 2000
From: adavidow at my-deja.com (adavidow at my-deja.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 17:02:58 GMT
Subject: passing variables to Oracle via mxODBC
References: <8rclsl$lbg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39DA0686.1DFE5E7C@cable.a2000.nl> <39DB0CCC.DFD1F4F5@infercor.no>
Message-ID: <8rfnrt$75k$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <39DB0CCC.DFD1F4F5 at infercor.no>,
  Paul Boddie  wrote:
> Roeland Rengelink wrote:
> >
> > cursor.execute seems to take a string as argument. The way to tell
> > Python to replace part of a string with the values of variables is
by
> > using the %
> > operator.

> You would be better off using the parameter passing features of
mxODBC:
>
> cursor.execute("""
> 	insert (mystring,mydate) into bar.test values
> 	(:1 ,TO_DATE(:2,'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS'))
> 	""", (foo, str(now)))

Thanks! Indeed, I wish I had explored the parameter passing yesterday.
The TO_DATE seemed to bury things a level deeper than I was figuring
out how to parse, so I ended up constructing the entire TO_DATE(..,..)
statement using "prefix" and "postfix" strings attached to my variable,
and then embedded =that=.

I'll be curious to see if I encounter similar problems with this method
in today's programming.

ari

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu  Tue Oct 24 14:45:55 2000
From: hwanjoyu at uiuc.edu (Hwanjo Yu)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 13:45:55 -0500
Subject: Q: saving error... in python2.0 GUI tool
Message-ID: 

Hi,
When I try to save a source file after I modify it in IDLE (Python GUI), it
generates the following error.
What is wrong?

>>> Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\program files\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1287, in
__call__
    return apply(self.func, args)
  File "C:\PROGRA~1\Python20\Tools\idle\IOBinding.py", line 128, in save
    if self.writefile(self.filename):
  File "C:\PROGRA~1\Python20\Tools\idle\IOBinding.py", line 154, in
writefile
    f.write(chars)
UnicodeError: ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)

From root at rainerdeyke.com  Tue Oct 31 14:17:38 2000
From: root at rainerdeyke.com (Rainer Deyke)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 19:17:38 GMT
Subject: destructors order not guaranteed?
References: <39FDBC9E.5030204@netscape.com> <8tkj6o05dm@news1.newsguy.com> <87snpduoxg.fsf@lisa.zopyra.com>
Message-ID: 

"William S. Lear"  wrote in message
news:87snpduoxg.fsf at lisa.zopyra.com...
> I don't see why it is not possible to "unwind" objects using a simple
> stack of object pointers, but then I don't know the Python interpreter
> internals.

You can explicitly control the lifetime of objects by using del.  You can
also reference the objects through a utility object which defines __del__ to
delete the objects it references in order (which can be automated).

--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor

From the_brain at mit.edu  Thu Oct  5 20:59:42 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 05 Oct 2000 20:59:42 -0400
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: 

> I have a file that I want to read line-by-line, and stop reading when I run
> out of lines.  My first desire was to attempt:
> 
> while line = fp.readline():
>     do something with 'line'

I know what you mean.  It's really a superficial problem, but it
grates.  One thing you can do  is wrap the file object in a class, like

class Whileable_File:

    def __init__(self, file_object):
        self.file = file_object

    def readline(self, size=None):
        if size is None:
            self.line = self.file.readline()
        else:
            self.line = self.file.readline(size)
        return self.line

Another is to check out the fileinput class.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Thu Oct 26 00:53:45 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:53:45 -0400
Subject: [Distutils] error: invalid distribution option 'extensions'
Message-ID: <39F7B8D9.56058E8C@ix.netcom.com>

The setup.py:

from distutils.core import setup, Extension

setup (name = "isect",
 version = "1.0",
 description = "Python interface to isect",
 author = "Thomas Gagne",
 author_email = "tgagne at ix.netcom.com",
 url = "http://home.netcom.com/~tgagne",
 py_modules = [ "CStructure", "IsdIO", "echo", "isdclient"],
 extensions = [Extension("isdio", ["isdio.c"])])

and the result:

$python setup.py sdist
error in setup script: invalid distribution option 'extensions'

--
.tom

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct  8 10:23:48 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 14:23:48 GMT
Subject: Why can't instance methods be pickled?
References: <39DE58F3.3A582AAA@lbl.gov>
Message-ID: 

Nicholas wrote:
> Is there a fundamental reason why instance method pickling is not
> implemented?

quoting the pickle docs:

    http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-pickle.html

    "Note that when class instances are pickled, their class's code
    and data are not pickled along with them. Only the instance
    data are pickled. This is done on purpose, so you can fix bugs
    in a class or add methods and still load objects that were
    created with an earlier version of the class."

> Has anyone written code to solve this problem?

What do you want pickle to do in this case?

If you want to pickle the actual code, you can register a method
pickler using copy_reg (use marshal to serialize the code object).

If you want to ignore the function pointer, implement __getstate__
and __setstate__ methods in your class (see the pickle docs for
details).

From Olav.Benum at bigfoot.com  Wed Oct 25 11:18:11 2000
From: Olav.Benum at bigfoot.com (Olav.Benum at bigfoot.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:18:11 +0200
Subject: XML DOM to JavaScript
Message-ID: <39F6F9B3.167A78A1@bigfoot.com>

 Greetings!

 My basic question is:

 How can I convert XML DOM to JavaScript
 data-structures?

 I have some XML-files that represents a
 data-structure, I would like to generate HTML in
 the browser from the same structure with
 JavaScript, I am already converting the DOM to
 CFML (ColdFusion) code.  In ColdFusion there is
 this WDDX framework which converts the CFML DOM
 to Javacript statements which generates a
 similar structure in JavaScript.
 (WDDX seems to be intended as a standard for
 this kind of things, but I haven't found any
 references to WDDX and Python)

 Is there some way I can do this directly from
 Python.  Essentially I would like to generate
 a .js file from the corresponding .xml file

 One alternative could be if I could somehow
 process the XML directly with JavaScript)

 Thanks!
 Olav

-------------- next part --------------
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From tim_one at email.msn.com  Tue Oct 31 21:48:01 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 21:48:01 -0500
Subject: Rounding Bug in Python 2.0! - ugh
In-Reply-To: <20001031224153.L12812@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: 

[Gordon Williams]
> When I switched from python 1.5.2 to 2.0 final I had a surprise
> in some code that was working previously.
>
> It comes down to:
> >>> x=3.8999999999999999
> >>> round(x,3)
> 3.8999999999999999
> >>>
>
> >>> x=3.123456
> >>> round(x,3)
> 3.1230000000000002
>
> Someone is going to start talking about machine round off
> errors, but this is a BIG UGH!!

As Thomas said, nothing changed here except the precision to which the
interactive prompt *displays* floats.  Note also:

>>> 3.123
3.1230000000000002
>>> 3.9
3.8999999999999999
>>>

That is, these numbers aren't exactly representable in binary
floating-point, and never were, and "round" has nothing to do with it (well,
not with *these* examples; the builtin "round" is sloppier than it should
be, but these examples don't show that).

If your machine had 5-bit floating-point, the best approximation to 3.123
would be 3.125 (3 + 1/8); if 4-bit floating-point, 3.0; that "the junk"
shows up "so far to the right" is just a consequence of your machine having
53-bit floating-point.  If it had 1000000-bit floating-point, these numbers
still wouldn't be exactly representable (to be exactly representable in
binary floating-point, it's necessary that a number be of the form I/2**n
for some integers I and n; but "most" decimal fractions cannot be put in
that form).

[Thomas Wouters]
> Gosh-now-I-know-what-Tim-must-feel-like-when-people-ask-him-about-FP-ly
> 	y'rs, ;)

You may yet achieve those depths of depression, but not for about 20 years
<0.75 wink>.

still-if-god-had-meant-us-to-use-integers-he-wouldn't-have-given-us-
    irrational-brains-ly y'rs  - tim

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Fri Oct 13 15:00:55 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:00:55 -0400
Subject: SQL server module??????
References: <8s7i1j$vkv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39E7502B.2EE777AE@holdenweb.com> <8s7ku1$28a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39E75BE7.9E35DBC6@holdenweb.com>

muwanda at my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> thanks Steve...
> in the past I work with MySql, but we change to sqlserver....
> 
> if I have a trouble.... I ask you....
> 
> bye.
> 
> regards
> oscar (muwanda)
> 
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

One point: I've been unable so far to locate an mxODBC or an mxDateTime
which will work with 2.0c1, so this information for the moment appears
to relate only to 1.5.2 (final).

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From the_brain at mit.edu  Fri Oct  6 00:02:24 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 06 Oct 2000 00:02:24 -0400
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com>  <39DCE8B8.3100BE89@seebelow.org>
Message-ID: 

> I'm always bugged by "elif" because I can never remember whether it's
> "elif", "elsif", or "elseif".

Use an editor with syntax highlighting.  That way, you'll know you've
got it when it lights up.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From effbot at telia.com  Thu Oct  5 11:06:36 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:06:36 GMT
Subject: Capturing exit
References: <39DC8855.DAB3D2E1@inenco.no>
Message-ID: <0O0D5.209$Y32.13956@newsb.telia.net>

Hans Kristian Ruud wrote:
> Is there any way of capturing the event "Exit" in Tkinter
> ( for Window users, this occurs when the user
> clicks the 'x'-button in the upper right corner of the window)

sure.  see "Protocols" towards the end of this page:
http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/events-and-bindings.htm

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Sat Oct 21 08:15:43 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 08:15:43 -0400
Subject: request for advice: "PyString_FromStringAndSize(0, ..."?
References: <8srsrn111gm@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <3dhf66l79s.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

"Alex Martelli"  writes:
> the docs.  _Am_ I then allowed to "initialize" it (and if so
> how -- getting at the buffer with PyString_AS_STRING, or,
> how else...?) -- all the docs say is that "The data must not
> be modified in any way".  

Since you've just created the string, no other part of the system can
have a reference to it, therefore modifying the string's data is OK.
The implementation of join() in stropmodule.c does this, for example,
and I'm pretty sure I've seen this technique used in other places, too.

> And in such "authoritative"
> example sources as arrayobject.c in the NumPy sources
> I see usage patterns such as:

The author of arrayobject may simply have not known about the ability
to do this.  You could probably speed up the array module a tiny bit
by changing it to use the (0, length) form.

> So, I wonder.    What role does the 0 as the first argument
> to PyString_FromStringAndSize possibly play, unless that
> uninitialized data can then be gotten at and initialized?  Is

There's a comment at the top of Objects/stringobject.c:
   A common practice to allocate a string and then fill it in or
   change it must be done carefully.  It is only allowed to change the
   contents of the string if the obect was gotten from
   newsizedstringobject() with a NULL first argument, because in the
   future these routines may try to do even more sharing of objects.

So I would think you can rely on this behaviour.

--amk

From parkw at better.net  Wed Oct 18 11:33:51 2000
From: parkw at better.net (William Park)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 11:33:51 -0400
Subject: Python Guru Available For Contract Work
In-Reply-To: ; from bwinton@tor.dhs.org on Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 03:34:15AM +0000
References: <8s2m8b$co$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8p6snq32emx.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM> 
Message-ID: <20001018113351.A3814@better.net>

On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 03:34:15AM +0000, Blake Winton wrote:
> On 11 Oct 2000 15:32:06 -0700, Mike Coffin wrote:
> >revtracyj at my-deja.com writes:
> >
> >> If interested in contacting Mr. Jarvis about his unique abilities,
> >> please write me directly at the following email address:
> >> tracyj at teleport.com
> >Yeah. Right. He sounds delightful.  Humble, too.
> 
> Hey, it's a resume.  He's got to sell himself.

But, putting up resume doesn't really work, because employers don't go
back to the archive to see who was available.  They would advertise to
see who is available now.

> Now, my resume, on the other hand is crap, but that's because I
> get all my jobs from references by friends working at the company.
>
> (Now to convince Paul Prescod to open a Toronto Office. ;)
> 
> Later,
> Blake.
> -- 
> 9:40pm up 52 days, 21:07, 2 users, load average: 0.02, 0.09, 0.07
> -- 
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

---William Park, Open Geometry Consulting

From g2 at seebelow.org  Sun Oct  8 16:42:12 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 21:42:12 +0100
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: 
Message-ID: <39E0DC24.8B3D6040@seebelow.org>

Michal Wallace wrote:
> 
...
> Reading super-concise perl is (similar to what dave said) like reading
> an academic paper. Each line has a lot of information crammed into it.
> 
> The more ideas you cram into a line, the harder the code is to read.
> That's why I like the idea of encapsulating the tricky stuff in a
> friendly method or object.. :)

That's a good (and familiar) idea.  So why don't academics apply that
principle to their papers?

they-seem-to-get-paid-per-"smoke-blow"--ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From akuchlin at mems-exchange.org  Tue Oct 24 16:27:09 2000
From: akuchlin at mems-exchange.org (Andrew Kuchling)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 16:27:09 -0400
Subject: need advanced curses module
References: 
Message-ID: <3du2a2ugrm.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>

sill at localhost.kitenet.net (Oldayz) writes:
> I found it at
> ftp://starship.python.net/pub/crew/andrich/mystuff/cursesmodule-1.5b2.tar.gz
> but the download don't work (starship's down again isn't it?).

This module was fixed up, made more complete, and added to Python 2.0.
I'd recommend grabbing the 2.0 source code and compiling it;
back-porting the code to Python 1.5.2 shouldn't be very difficult.
You'd be concerned with Lib/curses/*.py and Modules/_cursesmodule.c.

--amk

From tseaver at starbase.neosoft.com  Wed Oct  4 10:13:15 2000
From: tseaver at starbase.neosoft.com (Tres Seaver)
Date: 4 Oct 2000 09:13:15 -0500
Subject: Organizing Python Code
References: <39D7F3DE.D4104FE7@ix.netcom.com> <39D82B17.81958D15@esatclear.ie>
Message-ID: 

In article <39D82B17.81958D15 at esatclear.ie>,
Russell Wallace   wrote:
>Thomas Gagne wrote:
>> 
>> I'm trying to do a project with Python and I'm not convinced I've set things
>> up properly.  In writing C code I've grown accustomed to creating separate
>> files for each function.
>
>For each function, not for each module?  I wouldn't recommend this in
>any language, but whatever works for you.
>
>> This doesn't seem to really be the right thing to do
>> in Python since the top of each would include a bunch of "import" or "from"
>> statements.  On the other extreme, I don't like having really big files
>> either.
>> 
>> What's everyone else doing?  What's idiomatic?
>
>I do basically the same as in C.  I have one file per module.  Each of
>these has at the top:
>
>    from foo import *
>
>where foo is the name of my project.  Foo.py consists of:
>
>    from first import *
>    from second import *
>
>etc, where first, second etc are the names of the modules.  So each
>module can access what it needs without having to carry a lot of import
>statements around.

Talk about Esau "trading away his birthright for a mess of pottage"!

Urg!  You are trading away the scoping provided by Python's module
system, along with the clarity of specifiying your dependencies
explicitly, for the convenience of not having to do the imports
yourself (and of not having to type module prefixes).

Just as '#include "kitchensink.h"' reduces maintainability in a
C/C++ program (where 'kitchensink.h' then #includes all the other
project headers), your strategy is going to cause the future
maintainer of your code (likely, you!) to take your name in vain
after chasing down a few obscure buglets which it enables.

IMHO-of-course'ly,

Tres.
-- 
===============================================================
Tres Seaver                                tseaver at digicool.com
Digital Creations     "Zope Dealers"       http://www.zope.org

From kc5tja at garnet.armored.net  Mon Oct 23 13:30:50 2000
From: kc5tja at garnet.armored.net (Samuel A. Falvo II)
Date: 23 Oct 2000 10:30:50 -0700
Subject: ANY NEWS ON THE STARSHIP?
References: <8su1su$euq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39F47496.22449099@holdenweb.com>
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:25:42 -0400, Steve Holden wrote:
>Who has a web server and bandwidth to spare for this noble cause?

Just out of curiosity, just what kind of bandwidth does something like
Python Starship pull a day/month?

-- 
KC5TJA/6, DM13, QRP-L #1447 | Official Channel Saint, *Team Amiga*
Samuel A. Falvo II	    |
Oceanside, CA		    |

From bsdunix at bellatlantic.net  Wed Oct  4 18:38:48 2000
From: bsdunix at bellatlantic.net (BSD UNIX)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 22:38:48 GMT
Subject: imaplib & except
Message-ID: 

Hello all,

I'm not a programmer by trade, but am enjoying Python's efficiency and
power... it's quite amazing what it can do in just a few lines.

I've been playing with the various Internet modules, and I just can't seem
to figure this out on my own, and no amount of searching docs, deja, or
websites has turned much up.

I'm sure you guys know this in your sleep, but...

I'm trying to talk to an IMAP server using imaplib.  I can not figure out
how to catch an exception on the initial request.

I know once a connection is established that "except .error" will
work, however if the initial request never succeeds, then the  is
never created--so how do I catch the exception?

Example of the error:

-----------------------------
Python 1.5.2 (#2, May  9 2000, 20:21:59)  [GCC 2.95.2 19991024 (release)] on
openbsd2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> import imaplib
>>> i = imaplib.IMAP4('testhost')
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "/usr/local/lib/python1.5/imaplib.py", line 151, in __init__
    raise self.error(self.welcome)
imaplib.error: * BAD Sorry, we don't allow that
-----------------------------

Okay, so I see "imaplib.error" printed there so maybe I should try that:

-----------------------------
>>> try:
...     i = imaplib.IMAP4('testhost')
... except imaplib.error:
...     print 'caught'
...
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 3, in ?
AttributeError: error

-----------------------------

So "error" isn't an attribute of imaplib.  Using  gives:

-----------------------------
>>> try:
...     i = imaplib.IMAP4('admin')
... except i.error:
...     print 'caught'
...
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "", line 3, in ?
NameError: i

-----------------------------

...I assume because  is never created because the request failed.

At any time *after the initial request* using  works fine, as the
docs say, but not here.

So I am at a complete loss.  Could some kind soul help me out by showing me
the correct way to catch this exception?

Thanks well in advance!

bsdunix at bellatlantic.net

From gsez020 at kryten.bedford.waii.com  Thu Oct 26 10:34:23 2000
From: gsez020 at kryten.bedford.waii.com (Pete Forman)
Date: 26 Oct 2000 15:34:23 +0100
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich , comparison
References:  <8t65060en@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

Most of this thread is concerned with whether doing an operation with
two integers should produce a result which is not an integer.

What has not been mentioned is that the "2" and "3" are integers.  If
you want them to be floats they should be spelt "2." and "3." in the
same way that longs would be spelt "2L" and "3L".  It may be possible
to change the language so that unadorned numbers are floats and some
suffix is introduced for integers.  I don't think that you'd get many
takers for that.
-- 
Pete Forman                 -./\.- Disclaimer: This post is originated
Western Geophysical           -./\.-  by myself and does not represent
pete.forman at westgeo.com         -./\.-  the opinion of Baker Hughes or
http://www.crosswinds.net/~petef  -./\.-  its divisions.

From tonys111 at erols.com  Tue Oct 10 11:59:53 2000
From: tonys111 at erols.com (Tony Sideris)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 11:59:53 -0400
Subject: Newbie Q: (NumPy) how to write an array in a file ?
References: <39E33793.ADEDAAEC@Noveltis.fr>
Message-ID: <8rvedo$2bj$1@bob.news.rcn.net>

"Nicolas Decoster"  wrote in message
news:39E33793.ADEDAAEC at Noveltis.fr...
> Hi !
>
> First, I must say that it is my first steps in Python and NumPy.
>
> I want to write an array in a file in binary format. Is there something
> as simple and as _fast_ as 'fwrite' from C ?
>
> I don't find anything like that in the documentation. I need something
> that is portable, so I think that pickle will not work.
>
> Thanks for help.
>
> Nicolas.
>
> --
> T?l. : 00 (33) 5 62 88 11 16
> Fax  : 00 (33) 5 62 88 11 12
> Nicolas.Decoster at Noveltis.fr
>
> Noveltis
> Parc Technologique du Canal
> 2, avenue de l'Europe
> 31520 Ramonville Saint Agne - France

use the 'struct' module with pack for writing, and unpack for reading for
instance.

##    Untested
import struct;
file = open('file', 'wb'); ## open output file for binary write
file.write(struct.pack('bb', 0, 1)); ## write 0 and 1 to file (in bytes)
file.close();

to read the file back in use file.read() and struct.unpack()

-Tony

From jasonic at nomadicsltd.com  Sat Oct  7 19:20:15 2000
From: jasonic at nomadicsltd.com (Jason Cunliffe)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 19:20:15 -0400
Subject: JPtyhon book
References: 
Message-ID: 

Amazon says:

Sams Teach Yourself Jpython in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself Hours)
by Rick Hightower

List Price: $19.99
Our Price: $17.99

Availability: This title is currently on back order.
We expect to be able to ship it to you within 3-5 weeks.
Paperback (June 1999)
Sams; ISBN: 067231584X

- Jason

Robert Hicks  wrote in message
news:B6059224.644%bob at wildthink.com...
> There is a JPython book by Rick Hightower...anyone get it yet?
>

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Fri Oct 13 18:18:27 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 00:18:27 +0200
Subject: no singletons, please (was Re: an example Re: Connecting to running win32com server)
References: <39E3539D.559BB60E@sandia.gov> <8rvqku093a@news1.newsguy.com> <8s1d5002ikb@news1.newsguy.com>  <8s40po01ar9@news1.newsguy.com>  <8s5afj0cov@news2.newsguy.com> 
Message-ID: <8s81um015v5@news1.newsguy.com>

"spahievi"  wrote in message
news:mailman.971453318.20272.python-list at python.org...
    [snip]
> AM> in the "instances sharing state" pattern (which needs a flashier
> AM> name:-), one blissfully gives out instances at will, and just
> AM> has each of them delegate its state.
>
> What about "Proxy to Singleton"? ;)

It's slightly more general than that.  For example, one place
to which I like to "delegate the state" in many case of
"instances sharing state" is a relational database... not
really "a Singleton" (in the Design Pattern sense).

Alex

From just at letterror.com  Tue Oct 10 11:47:00 2000
From: just at letterror.com (Just van Rossum)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 16:47:00 +0100
Subject: [Stackless] Stackless Python 1.2 + Continuations 0.9
In-Reply-To: <39E2F080.86ED1DA3@appliedbiometrics.com>
Message-ID: 

In response to the new release of Stackless Python (see
http://www.stackless.com/), here's a new stackless binary for MacPython
1.5.2:

  http://starship.python.net/~just/MacStacklessPython.sit.hqx

(The archive contains a replacement for the PythonCore shared library)

Just

From nas at arctrix.com  Thu Oct  5 14:27:04 2000
From: nas at arctrix.com (Neil Schemenauer)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 11:27:04 -0700
Subject: hack to auto-define variables?
In-Reply-To: ; from sabren@manifestation.com on Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 08:51:14PM -0400
References: 
Message-ID: <20001005112704.B2721@glacier.fnational.com>

On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 08:51:14PM -0400, Michal Wallace wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to come up with a way to make something like this happen:
> 
> >>> x
> None
> 
> WITHOUT saying "x=None":

Python is not Perl.  Why do you want this?

  Neil

From hzhu at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 10 03:46:03 2000
From: hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 07:46:03 GMT
Subject: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison
References: 
Message-ID: 

Well, maybe this is a 2.0 bug (or feature)?

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000 22:25:59 -0400, Tim Peters  wrote:
>
>While that's inherited from your libc.
...
>
>I haven't used Numeric, but I do guess you're simply hosed without resorting
>to C.

I thought so, BUT 

$ /usr/bin/python
Python 1.5.2 (#1, Sep 17 1999, 20:15:36)  [GCC egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux
(egcs- on linux-i386
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> from math import *
>>> exp(-745)
4.94065645841e-324
>>> exp(-746)
0.0

$ /usr/local/bin/python
Python 2.0b2 (#2, Oct  6 2000, 17:54:55) 
[GCC egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)] on linux2
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from math import *
>>> exp(-745)
4.9406564584124654e-324
>>> exp(-746)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in ?
OverflowError: math range error

This is on the same machine. Notice that GCC?  Exactly the same version.  So
what's going on here?  I was wondering why I hadn't noticed this underflow
for such a long time ... 

Maybe 2.0 fixes Window's bug wile introducing Linux bug? One thing I can
confirm is that Numeric behaves the same as math in this regard.

Huaiyu

From pete at petes-place.com  Sun Oct  8 10:01:39 2000
From: pete at petes-place.com (David T. Grove)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 14:01:39 GMT
Subject: Is this a dream or a nightmare? (Was Re: XML)
References: 
Message-ID: <39e077e8.79673792@news.davesworld.net>

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000 03:25:17 -0400, "Tim Peters"
 wrote:

>[David T. Grove]
>> die unless @d = map {"$basedir/$_"} grep {!-d && -w} readdir(dir);
>
>1. You skipped over the code to open the directory handle (dir).
>   Presumably you need a few more lines, like
>
>    $basedir = "/code";
>    die $! unless opendir(dir, $basedir);

It's not the complete program (otherwise die would be superfluous
anyway, because it would immediately return, and I wouldn't be using
the list in any way). This is just a task I commonly perform, usually
in a recursive function. When not in the directory, I'd need

!-d "$basedir/$_" && -w "$basedir/$_"

or I could map first

grep {!-d && -w} map {"$basedir/$_"} readdir(dir)

if you want a complete program:

perl -MFile::Slurp -e 'for(grep{!-d && -w} map{"./$_"}
read_dir("./")){print "$_\n"}'

Anyway, it's just an example of a higher-order thought. Lzh in
undernet #perl could give you some that will make your head spin, but
he's a bit off the deep end. I try to keep my thoughts readable.

>3. Inserting a forward slash is not platform-independent (think e.g.
>   Macs, or even Windows if the paths are to be passed on to a DOS
>   command).

It is between Unices and Win32, which are the only platforms I use. I
don't even know what macperl looks like, and I believe it's developed
by an independent group IIRC.

>Python (2.0) code for doing all that correctly is no more lines (it could be
>squashed into fewer but not profitably), but they are longer; OTOH, they do
>more, and don't change the current directory:
>
>import os, stat
>basedir = os.path.normpath("/code")
>paths = [os.path.join(basedir, f) for f in os.listdir(basedir)]
>d = [p for p in paths if os.path.isfile(p)
>                      if os.stat(p)[stat.ST_MODE] & 0222]

>directly is about as good as it gets.  OTOH, people are sometimes surprised
>by what "-w" means in Perl!  That you're not mucking with the mode bits

cgi programmers? (vb grunts gone web)

>directly there means Perl gets to surprise you by picking a meaning you may
>not have intended -- at least in Python you can see exactly what "writable"
>is testing.  Although, if your background isn't Unix, it's utterly

In Perl, what has surprised me most is how often it has worked when I
was _guessing_ at grammar when I was first learning Perl 5. Either I
made some miraculous guesses or Perl correctly figured out what I was
trying to say and did it right anyway.

Anyway, we're seriously tangented. I'm not here to advocate Perl. My
original intention was just to express my admiration of Python and
give serious warnings about getting involved with ActiveState. (If I'm
going to use Python, I'd prefer my elders be wise enough to eschew
Dick into neverneverland. I don't want to have to fight to defend
against the death of a second language at the hands of that company.)

From bend at ecollege.com  Mon Oct 23 12:28:39 2000
From: bend at ecollege.com (Benjamin Derstine)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 16:28:39 GMT
Subject: Pythonwin can't resolve WMI instances
References:  
Message-ID: 

Thank you- that was the solution.

"Roger Upole"  wrote in message
news:TjMI5.122986$86.9744286 at pouncer.easynews.com...
> If you've run makepy on WMI, only the properties defined in the object
> library can be accessed
> with the 'object.property' notation.  You can use the more verbose
notation
> print cpu.Properties_('Name'), cpu.Properties_('CurrentClockSpeed'),
> cpu.Properties_('Description'), cpu.Properties_('L2CacheSize')
> to access properties from the WMI provider itself with makepy support.
>
>     Roger Upole
>
> "Benjamin Derstine"  wrote in message
> news:X5_H5.7008$rD3.235678 at newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> > When I try to run the exact code below (except for changing the computer
> > name) I get an "AttributeError: Name" error for the last line.  I
inspect
> > the object type and the object type is correct- ISWbemObject.  It seems
> that
> > Pythonwin can only see the generic classes for WMI and can't seem to
> access
> > instances and their dynamic properities. I also tried enumerating the
> > software products on my machine and got the same result- the returned
> > objects have class types that are correct but no instance information is
> > accessible.  I'm running a Win2000 system and when I run the equivalent
> code
> > using VBS (with WSH) everything works fine. Is there something else I
need
> > to do to make Pythonwin aware of WMI?
> >
> > Ben
> >
> > Subject: Re: System information on Windows?
> > Date: 09/19/2000
> > Author: Roger Upole 
> >
> >
> >       If you don't mind installing WMI (a free download from Microsoft)
on
> > all the machines in question, you can do things like this:
> >
> >       import win32com.client
> >       wmi = win32com.client.Dispatch('wbemscripting.swbemlocator')
> >       rmt_mach = wmi.ConnectServer('machine name')
> >       cpus = rmt_mach.InstancesOf('Win32_Processor')
> >       for cpu in cpus:
> >           print cpu.Name, cpu.CurrentClockSpeed, cpu.Description,
> > cpu.L2CacheSize
> >
> >       For my machine, this returns
> >           Intel Pentium III processor 450 x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping
3
> > 512
> >
> >       HTH
> >       Roger Upole
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Mon Oct 23 07:16:45 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 07:16:45 -0400
Subject: Save text from Tk widget?
References: <39F37A5E.329BFE84@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <39F41E1D.8FA90A60@holdenweb.com>

Steve wrote:
> 
> I have a function inside my main class to open a file in a ScrolledText
> widget.
> The default Windoze key bindings work for simple text editing, so I
> added
> a save function, but I declare a global variable to get the widget
> contents to the save function.  There must be a better way?
> 

Make zd an instance variable instead: this even allows you to have
multiple instances which won't interfere with each other.

        def viewDict(self):
                new = Toplevel()
                self.zd = ScrolledText(new, height = 30, width = 70)
                self.zd.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=YES)
                self.zd.insert('0.0', open('c:/mytools/mydict.py', 'r').read())
                Button(new, text='Save', fg='red',
command=self.saveDict).pack()

        def saveDict(self):
                contents = self.zd.get(1.0, END)
                output = open('c:/mytools/mydict.py', 'w')
                output.write(contents)
                output.close()

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Mon Oct 30 08:24:28 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 13:24:28 GMT
Subject: Using more than 7 bit ASCII on windows.
References: <8tdlgd$r0t$1@news.nuri.net> <39FA90D9.7070403@ActiveState.com> <8tfpf7$jnn$2@troll.powertech.no> <39FCB40B.6090509@ActiveState.com> <8tjfrs02jte@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39FD75B0.1010103@ActiveState.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> Not sure what's going on here...?  Perhaps an 'OEM codepage'
> in the dos-box versus another in PythonWin...?

That is quite possible.  However, I was already out of my depth ages ago 
with this stuff!  Although some will accuse Australian's of having their 
own language, we do get by on ASCII characters ;-)

The changes I posted here aren't actually the changes I have applied - 
the "mbcs" and "utf-8" constants have been moved into variables - thus, 
it will be trivial to change from mbcs to any other encoding.

However, I have no idea how to track this down further, and no idea how 
significant the differences you posted are!

Mark.

From sandipan at vsnl.com  Sun Oct  1 18:42:49 2000
From: sandipan at vsnl.com (Sandipan Gangopadhyay)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 04:12:49 +0530
Subject: Using Python under apache
References:  <8r50iv$v51$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <003201c02bf8$edad1140$020000c3@inxbom5>

The link to mod_python.org is broken. Google comes up with 0 results. This
seems like a must-have. Does anyone know the location ?

Regards,

Sandipan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Landrum" 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: 
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Using Python under apache

> In article ,
>   "Plato"  wrote:
> > Can anyone tell me how to use python cgi scripts under apache. Is
> there a
> > module I have to install? I have a standard apache installation under
> Redhat
> > 6.1.
> >
>
> If you just want to do standard cgi stuff, you can just use the
> standard cgi module and put your scripts somewhere that Apache
> knows about (and where the Apache permissions are set properly).
>
> If you want to have a bit more flexibility, you may want to look
> into mod_python (www.mod_python.org).
>
> -greg
>
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>

From jasonic at nomadicsltd.com  Sun Oct  1 17:07:50 2000
From: jasonic at nomadicsltd.com (Jason Cunliffe)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 17:07:50 -0400
Subject: How to extend PythonWin auto-completion - ?
References:  
Message-ID: 

> Use the source, Luke. I haven't checked it myself, but I guess the
> completion is implemented in 100% pure Python, so it should not be too
> hard to find the place where it's done, and improve it. Don't forget
> to send your patches to Mark Hammond afterwards.

ok I will try...

Q1: Does anyone know where the detection source code  which determsni what
happens  when you type "." after some text in PythonWin shell?

From parkw at better.net  Fri Oct 27 02:45:27 2000
From: parkw at better.net (William Park)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 02:45:27 -0400
Subject: Python scoping
In-Reply-To: ; from mikael@isy.liu.se on Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 08:33:49AM +0200
References:  
Message-ID: <20001027024527.A8790@better.net>

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 08:33:49AM +0200, Mikael Olofsson wrote:
> This has been said before on numerous occations:
> 
> These delimiters do exist in python. Just do
> 
> for a in A:
>   whatever
> #endfor

Ha, ha... Good one.

---William Park, Open Geometry Consulting

From blacherez at free.fr  Wed Oct  4 11:55:21 2000
From: blacherez at free.fr (Benoit Lacherez)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 15:55:21 GMT
Subject: French Translation of Python Documentation
Message-ID: <39DB36C1.87EC6997@free.fr>

Hello,
I'm happy to announce that the website of the project for a French
translation of Python Documentation is online on
http://pythonfr.free.fr/
Bye
-- 
Benoit Lacherez
Libourne - France
Projet de traduction de la documentation de Python:
http://pythonfr.free.fr/

From zxo102 at my-deja.com  Fri Oct  6 17:40:05 2000
From: zxo102 at my-deja.com (zxo102 at my-deja.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 21:40:05 GMT
Subject: telnet.py in Python-1.5.2/Demo doesn't work in HP-UX....
Message-ID: <8rlgrk$u4t$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

telnet.py in Python-1.5.2/Demo does not work on
HP-UX. Does anybody know how to solve this
problem? The attached is what I got. Also,
whenever I use threads with a socket (python) on
HP-UX, I have problems to read message from the
socket. W. Richard Stevens in his book "UNIX
Network Programming, Volume 1" mentioned a similar
problem (see page 612) and suggests a solution of
Using Thread-Specific Data (pp 612-622).

Thanks for your help.

Ouyang
*********************************************
Here is what I did:
python telnet.py 127.0.0.1
Then I got:

(IAC) (DO) 36
(IAC) (DO) 24
(IAC) (DONT) 24
(IAC) (DO) 32
(IAC) (DONT) 32
(IAC) (WILL) 1
(IAC) (WILL) 3
(IAC) (DO) 31
(IAC) (DO) 33
(IAC) (DO) 1

HP-UX marge.unrrts.com B.10.20 A 9000/782 (ttyp8)

login: (IAC) (WONT) 1
(IAC) (WONT) 3
(IAC) (DONT) 31
(IAC) (DONT) 33
(IAC) (DONT) 1
***********************************************

I input my userid to login, telnet.py does not
repond to it.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From chrism at digicool.com  Sun Oct 29 21:03:11 2000
From: chrism at digicool.com (Chris McDonough)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 02:03:11 GMT
Subject: Python Labs Move
References: <39FCD29E.BD8EDF68@gte.net>
Message-ID: 

I don't think I understand this.  Can you elaborate?

> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/11762.html
>
>
>
>                 Also honoured are Lou Perazzoli (NT design),
>                 Peter Spiro (SQL Server), Anders Hejlsberg
>                 (Visual J++, C#), Mohsen Al-Ghosein
>                 (middleware), Suryanarayanan Raman (apps
>                 and Internet), Brad Lovering (tools), Antoine
>                 Leblond (Office - and the man most culpable
>                 for letting the Power Pup slip through -
>                 thanks, Antoine), Michael Toutonghi (.NET)
>                 and software Veep Darryl Rubin.
>
> Borland and Delphi took it way hard when they lost Anders to the Borg.
> They've never really recovered, IMHO.
>
> You guys are within a heartbeat of losing Python.

From sjuranic at condor.ee.washington.edu  Tue Oct 10 14:07:06 2000
From: sjuranic at condor.ee.washington.edu (Steve Juranich)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 11:07:06 -0700
Subject: How does "for" work?
Message-ID: 

I have an object that is actually just a list of other, smaller items.

In the list object, I have overridden __getitem__ to be the following:

def __getitem__(self, key):
    return self.data[key]

This should be straightforward enough.  But when I try something like:

for item in list:
	# Whatever

I get a complaint once the for loop gets to the end of the list about a
KeyError.  The length of the list is 5176 (in this case going from 0-5175).
But the for loop tries to get list[5176].  Why does this happen?  How does
"for" know how long the list is?  Is the problem in my __len__ function or
in my __getitem__ function?  If I just change __getitem__ to return the
key-1th entry of the list, will that fix it?

BTW, I should mention that __len__() for the list looks like this:

def __len__(self):
    return len(self.data)

Where data is a dictionary of the smaller items, with a time index (by ints) 
being used as the key.

Thanks so much for the help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen W. Juranich                         sjuranic at ee.washington.edu
Electrical Engineering         http://students.washington.edu/sjuranic
University of Washington             http://rcs.ee.washington.edu/ssli

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Fri Oct  6 21:36:19 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 01:36:19 GMT
Subject: join()
References: <8rjj82$dnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39DD9A9A.7130@hvision.nl> <8rlrdr$6ed$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sat, 07 Oct 2000 00:40:28 GMT, echuck3 at my-deja.com 
wrote: 
>In article <39DD9A9A.7130 at hvision.nl>,
>  ivnowa at hvision.nl wrote:
>>
>> The problem is that string.join does not work on a list... it works
>on a
>> *sequence*. These are all valid:
>
>Ah, I see your point. That brings me to my next suggestion: That types
>can inherit from each other and that we make an abstract Sequence type
>from which List, Tuple and possibly String all inherit from.

The normal kind of inheritance would not work generally.  Suppose Python
start with list only, there would be no need to have an abstract sequence
type.  Then when we have more of these, like tuples and strings and
UserList, we can see the need, but it needs retrofitting all these types.
Now of course this is not historically correct, but you get the idea.

The typical OO philosophy is to always start with the most abstract.  Java
takes this to quite some extreme.  In order to print a floating number in
the "%6.3f" format you need to go through something like
java.lang.text.format. blah, blah, blah.

What is really needed is an abstraction mechanism, so that we can define the
abstract form AFTER the special forms.  This way, somebody someday may say:
Hey, I need a writable file here, and I can use any of open(name,"w") kind
of objects, or sys.stdout, or MyOutStream, or any other object with a write
method - and he promptly defines WritableFile, and specifies these cases.

See http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/Interface/README.txt
and http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/Interface/typecheck.txt
for some further discussions related to type checking.

Huaiyu

From hove at phys.ntnu.no  Fri Oct 13 14:16:51 2000
From: hove at phys.ntnu.no (Joakim Hove)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 20:16:51 +0200
Subject: File tests in Python
References:  <8s7j9g$r1d$1@panix6.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) writes:

> Check the module os.path; it contains functions such as os.path.isfile().

Done that - looks great. Thanks a lot,

Joakim

-- 
=== Joakim Hove      www.phys.ntnu.no/~hove/   ======================
# Institutt for fysikk  (735) 93637 / E3-166  |  Sk?yensgate 10D    #
# N - 7491 Trondheim    hove at phys.ntnu.no     |  N - 7030 Trondheim #
================================================ 73 93 31 68 ========

From slim at maya.com  Fri Oct 27 15:43:23 2000
From: slim at maya.com (Seung Chan Lim)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 15:43:23 -0400
Subject: Tk with thread
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>  <00102712405206.00566@quadra.teleo.net>
Message-ID: <001d01c0404e$2b2bee60$95fe46c0@maya.com>

I'm just fooling around with threads and Tk...
I tried the following to simulate a case where
an existing Tk app could dynamically load
a module that also runs a Tk app on a thread.

It hangs on my box... could anybody tell me why
and how I can fix it? Is it the fact that another Tk
is being instantiated on a different thread?

from Tkinter import *
def bar():
        root=Tk()
        root.title("good bye world")

def foo():
        root=Tk()
        root.title("hello world")
        thread.start_new_thread(bar,())
        root.mainloop()

import thread
def go():
    foo()

go()
if __name__=="__main__":
    while 1:
        pass

From robin at alldunn.com  Mon Oct 23 14:48:53 2000
From: robin at alldunn.com (Robin Dunn)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:48:53 GMT
Subject: Where is wxPython?
References: <39E33757.E9F81F9C@cicei.ulpgc.es>  
Message-ID: <8t216i$dvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  Paul Moore  wrote:

> >try the download page at wxPython.org
>
> Looking there, I see downloadable Windows binaries for Python 1.6, and
> Python 2.0b1. I also see wxPython-2.2.1.exe, with no Python version
> mentioned. I guess this is probably a Python 1.5 version.

Correct.

>
> Is there a Python 2.0 (release) compatible version? Will the 2.0b1
> version work? I'll download and try it, but I don't know what form a
> failure would take...
>

Yes, it works, (at least as far as the bit of testing I did.)  I'm
working on getting a 2.2.2 release done now, with binaries for both
1.5.2 and 2.0.  It's almost ready to go but I'm fighting some dynamic
linking problems on Linux with the Python 2.0 version... I hope to have
it worked out in the next day or two.

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From rjroy at takingcontrol.com  Sat Oct 14 08:52:45 2000
From: rjroy at takingcontrol.com (Robert Roy)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 12:52:45 GMT
Subject: Where is wxPython?
References: <39E33757.E9F81F9C@cicei.ulpgc.es>
Message-ID: <39e85608.317654953@news1.on.sympatico.ca>

On 10 Oct 2000 16:38:16 +0000, Enrique  wrote:

>Hi:
>    I have tried to download wxPython 2.2.1 from SourceForge (file
>wxPython-2.2.1.EXE), but the file is not accesible (in fact no one file
>in the site is downloadable)
>    Where else can I find wxPython 2.2.1?
>
>Thanks
>
>Enrique Castro
>
>
www.wxpython.org

From nospam at nospam.com  Thu Oct  5 12:29:09 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 16:29:09 GMT
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References: 
Message-ID: 

"Oleg Broytmann"  wrote in message
news:mailman.970759810.26872.python-list at python.org...
> Hi!
>
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Tom wrote:
> > Personally, I've got too many ads in my life, so I prefer to pay for
things,
>
>    Not all people want this, and not all people can afford this. There
> "connected" countries with low salaries, and having free services is
really
> big advantage for poor us. Take it a bit easier :)
>
> > rather than have to put up with lots of ads.
>
>    Why not just filter ads out? To make the letter more pythonic - I can
> publish URLs of filtering proxies, and most of them are in Python. I
> actually use one these proxies - and is pretty satisfied (I hacked it a
bit
> and sent patches to author...)

Yes, I think I should.
Do I have to setup a proxy?
Do these slow things down at all?

Tom.

> Oleg.
> ----
>      Oleg Broytmann            http://phd.pp.ru/            phd at phd.pp.ru
>            Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
>
>

From jacobs at darwin.epbi.cwru.edu  Tue Oct 10 09:20:18 2000
From: jacobs at darwin.epbi.cwru.edu (Kevin Jacobs)
Date: 10 Oct 2000 13:20:18 GMT
Subject: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison
References: 
Message-ID: <8rv52i$hl7$1@slate.INS.CWRU.Edu>

Tim Peters  wrote:
> So, by the time you guys stop stabbing each other in the back <0.9 wink>,
> perhaps C99 will be widely implemented enough that Python can actually do
> something useful for you here.

Most platforms that I use have come a long way to supporting correct IEEE
arithmetic.  The major problems I've had come with libraries, third-party
compilers and interpreters (Python!) that try too hard to correct for past
sins.  Why not make a "IEEE-clean" option for Python 2.1 that strips out all
the vestigial numerical helper code and adds standard methods for getting
and testing for +-inf, nan, and floating point classes for platforms that
are close enough to C99?  I know it will require a bunch of compile-time
tweaks for every platform, but they're generally easy to write and test.  Of
course, we won't be able to control the quality of the underlying C library,
but lets focus on fixing what we can.

Thoughts?

-Kevin

-- 
----------->  Kevin Jacobs  <-----------|------->  (216) 778-8211  <--------
Informatics Consultant                  | Department of Epidemiology
Primary mail:   jacobs at theopalgroup.com |   & Biostatistics
Alternate mail: jacobs at darwin.cwru.edu  | Case Western Reserve University
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Thu Oct 26 15:05:00 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 12:05:00 -0700
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=5BNumpy-discussion=5D_=7FRe:_numpy=2C_overflow=2C_i?=
	=?iso-8859-1?Q?nf=2C_ieee=2C_and_rich_=2C_comparison?=
Message-ID: <02d901c03f7f$aba5a510$8001a8c0@jayk3.jaykhome>

But is integer division actually much faster than floating point division? I
don't believe there is a fast algorithm for integer division.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Fredrik Lundh 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2000 6:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich ,
comparison

>Donald O'Donnell wrote:
>> The compiled C code underlying a Python integer division makes
>> use of this fast hardware integer division instruction.  If
>> Python were changed so that all integer divisions were done in
>> floating point, we would loose the ability to make use of this
>> fast hardware divide instruction.  This could have a severe
>> negative impact on some compute intensive (Numpy?) programs.
>
>wow.
>
>
>
>
>--
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Mon Oct 23 00:38:01 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:38:01 +0900
Subject: All permutations of a list
References: <39F1FB22.6E9246E7@cs.utwente.nl>  <39F393B5.A978CC9D@cs.utwente.nl> <9nNI5.110763$g6.50159527@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com> <8t08bb$lnvu5$1@ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de>
Message-ID: <8t0fbq$dl8$1@news.nuri.net>

"Emile van Sebille"  wrote in message
news:8t08bb$lnvu5$1 at ID-11957.news.cis.dfn.de...
> "Rainer Deyke"  wrote in message
> news:9nNI5.110763$g6.50159527 at news2.rdc2.tx.home.com...
>
> 
>
>
> > Here's my short Pythonic permutation function:
> >
> > def perms(list):
> >   if list == []:
> >     return [[]]
> >   return [[list[i]] + p for i in range(len(list))\
> >     for p in perms(list[:i] + list[i+1:])]
> >
>
> ... which permutes into...
>
> def perms3(list):
>   return not [list] or [[list[i]] + p for i in
> range(len(list))\
>     for p in perms(list[:i] + list[i+1:])]

I guess this is a typo, which should've been a recursive
function call to "perms3" itself, instead of calling another
function perms.

However, after the modification, the code doesn't work
because "not [[]]" isn't true.

In addition to that, if someone calls the original perms function
somewhat wrongly, with a tuple argument instead of a list,
it won't give the expected result as well.

So the somewhat protective code should be:

def perms(list):
  if len(list) == 0:
    return [[]]
  return [[list[i]] + p for i in range(len(list))\
    for p in perms(list[:i] + list[i+1:])]

>>> perms((1,2,3))
[[1, 2, 3], [1, 3, 2], [2, 1, 3], [2, 3, 1], [3, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1]]

>>>perms([1,2,3])
[[1, 2, 3], [1, 3, 2], [2, 1, 3], [2, 3, 1], [3, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1]]

Any comments?

Best Regards,
June

From effbot at telia.com  Wed Oct  4 13:08:59 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 17:08:59 GMT
Subject: Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)
References:  <8r1oq1$5go$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de> <39D44213.59B6CA11@seebelow.org> <8ra9iu$bo0$1@desig-bs01-s04.adtranzsig.de> 
Message-ID: 

Bjorn Pettersen wrote:
> Every compiler has it's set of bugs, however I still haven't seen the ms
> compiler lay down incorrect assembly (not accepting legal code is a
> different issue ;-).

MSVC 5.0 without all service packs can generate some
really strange things...

...and I still remember good old MSC 6's loop optimizer,
which once changed:

    result = 0
    for x in range(large number):
        for y in range(large number):
            get pixel at (x, y)
            result = result + do some math

to

    get pixel at random coordinate
    result = do some math    
    for x in range(large number):
        for y in range(large number):
            pass

("hey, you asked me to optimize for speed, didn't you?")

MSVC 6 seems to be pretty solid, though...

From max at alcyone.com  Tue Oct 24 12:08:36 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 09:08:36 -0700
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> Bingo.  Very good word-choice.  C manages to be effective DESPITE
> its "tortured" syntax, *because* syntax, fortunately, is _not_ as
> important as all that (and people get used to almost-anything if
> they have to use it long enough -- they even grow to _like_ it,
> as a peculiar but well-known psychological phenomenon, which I've
> already compared, half-jokingly, to the Stockholm Syndrome).

People who like C don't think that C's syntax is "tortured."  People who
don't like C think that it is.  It's a religious war.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ Nobody's waited longer than me / To come clean
\__/ Jaki Graham
    Maths reference / http://www.alcyone.com/max/reference/maths/
 A mathematics reference.

From jcm at bigskytel.com  Thu Oct 19 21:26:11 2000
From: jcm at bigskytel.com (David Porter)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 19:26:11 -0600
Subject: script delimiters
In-Reply-To: ; from NOSPAM@pacificnet.net on Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 12:40:39AM +0000
References: 
Message-ID: <20001019192611.A14226@bigskytel.com>

* Ian Lipsky :

> Right now (although i havent tried this) i think i should be able to create
> html files and put  tags within the html to execute python
> code.
>  What i wanted to know if there was someway to shorten this down to using
> delimiter characters?
> 
> So i could do something like:
> 
> <% if something: %>
>     some html text saying something is true
> <%else:%>
>     some html text saying something isnt true
> 

How about:

It looks to me that this would be even shorter than what you had in mind.
This is how PMZ (Poor Man's Zope) works. See http://www.suxers.de/pmz.htm

From jkraska1 at san.rr.com  Sat Oct 28 17:37:51 2000
From: jkraska1 at san.rr.com (Courageous)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 21:37:51 GMT
Subject: Public Domain Python
References:  <39F65DE7.1DF35813@san.rr.com> <8tevmn$3re$1@srv38.cas.org> <39FB210B.A3904737@dcs.kcl.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <39FB480C.1F0714D5@san.rr.com>

> > :I disagree; once you have granted someone the right to create a derived
> > :work, and that derived work exists, ...

> > If that were the case, then a product could never have a license change -
> > but they change all the time....

> I think the generally accepted take on this is that essentially a license -
> unless it has a "this can be revoked at any time" type clause - applies in
> perpetuity to a specific version of a program. Later versions may have
> different licences but the old versions licenses still apply to those old
> versions.

Correct. And in a case like this, that has much more staying power than
you might think. While I haven't looked at the CNRI license in quite a
while, I understand it to mean "we grant you the right to create a
derived work and we further grant you the right to grant others to
create derived works from your derived work". If I don't misunderstand
the original grant, it cannot be retracted; at best, CNRI could have
new licenses for new versions. They won't be pulling anyone else's
derived works off the shelves.

C//

From jurgen.defurne at philips.com  Tue Oct 17 09:48:27 2000
From: jurgen.defurne at philips.com (jurgen.defurne at philips.com)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 15:48:27 +0200
Subject: Python threads under Cygwin
Message-ID: <0056900012996413000002L032*@MHS>

I do not know of any one has done or needed this :

I run Python under Cygwin. The standard Cygwin thread support
doesn't provide the features necessary to compile Python with
thread support.

Yesterday, when trying to build the Jabber server, I stumbled upon
GNU Pth (the portable thread library). This compiles out of the box
under Cygwin, and configuring with --enable-pthread gives
pthread support. I install this with the standard prefix /usr/local.

Configuring Python 1.5.2 with thread support is easy,
in Modules/Setup thread, modify the line 'thread' to

thread threadmodule.c -lpthread -lpth

Then 'make' Python. The library passes the regression tests.

Jurgen

From bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au  Wed Oct 25 00:01:53 2000
From: bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au (Nick Bower)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:01:53 +0800
Subject: Scripting SSH with Python
References: 
Message-ID: <39F65B31.F1E01218@ses.curtin.edu.au>

this isn't a python solution, but are you sure you want the host machine
asking for a password each time?  why not install your public key on the host
machine so it doesn't ask for a password?

nick

From herzog at online.de  Thu Oct  5 18:06:18 2000
From: herzog at online.de (Bernhard Herzog)
Date: 06 Oct 2000 00:06:18 +0200
Subject: very good reasons?
References: <8r2k0n01u30@drn.newsguy.com> <8r2r07$53d$1@la-mail4.digilink.net> <39D7F021.C2D5091D@my.signature> <8ri09002d58@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

"Alex Martelli"  writes:

> "Greg Ewing"  wrote in message
> > If you really want an obfuscated way of writing
> > it, how about
> >
> > b = (a.sort(), a.reverse(), a)[-1]
> 
> Hmmm -- it does work with the current implementation
> (because sort is called first, then reverse) but I
> wonder whether it's guaranteed to keep working for
> all time.  Is left-to-right order of evaluation for
> tuple-constructor components guaranteed somewhere in
> the language specs?  A pointer would be welcome...

It seems so. From the reference manual:

   A parenthesized form is an optional expression list enclosed in
   parentheses:

       parenth_form:      "(" [expression_list] ")"

   A parenthesized expression list yields whatever that expression list
   yields: if the list contains at least one comma, it yields a tuple;
   otherwise, it yields the single expression that makes up the
   expression list.

and

       expression_list:      expression ("," expression)* [","]

   An expression (expression) list containing at least one comma yields
   a tuple. The length of the tuple is the number of expressions in the
   list. The expressions are evaluated from left to right.

-- 
Bernhard Herzog   | Sketch, a drawing program for Unix
herzog at online.de  | http://sketch.sourceforge.net/

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Wed Oct 25 12:17:45 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:17:45 -0400
Subject: Pretty report printing
References:  
Message-ID: <39F707A9.7D007A41@holdenweb.com>

Olivier Dagenais wrote:
> 
> wxPython - through wxWindows - seems to have a nice printing framework.
> (that's the impression I get from Robin Dunn's wxPython demo)  It would
> require you to install wxPython on the target machines, so "previewable
> online" might be more difficult unless wxPython can also generate a "rough
> copy"/draft to a JPEG or PNG or something, so that you could also have a
> server generating previews.
> 

I found the wxPython printing was broken on Windows 95 -- is it just me,
or have more recent releases (this was about six months ago) fixed the
problem?

regards
 Steve

> 
> "Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
> news:frpdvsgdu444fhev877ajo5tdcbvpk69tq at 4ax.com...
> > I need to produce a bunch of standard reports from a database and am
> > considering Python.
> >
> > The reports need to be pretty but probably text only (although borders
> > and boxes would be nice). They should be previewable online and
> > printable to any Windows printer.
> >
> > I like the idea of using HTML but it doesn't understand the printed
> > page so headings, headers and footers are trickey.
> >
> > Other options include PDF (which I'd have to research cos I know
> > nothing about it) and driving Word or Excel through COM to build pages
> > - which isn't an attractive thought.
> >
> > How have others tackled this problem?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Dale Strickland-Clark
> > Out-Think Ltd
> > Business Technology Consultants
> >
> >

-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From donn at u.washington.edu  Fri Oct 27 15:55:03 2000
From: donn at u.washington.edu (Donn Cave)
Date: 27 Oct 2000 19:55:03 GMT
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References:  <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <8tcmin$fuio$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>

Quoth Dale Strickland-Clark :
| OK. I give up. 

All right!

Haven't read them all, but some followups have made helpful comments
on your approach.  (Maybe helpful to others, anyway, you look like a
lost cause.)  I would add, when proposing or requesting something
here, stifle the impulse to say "otherwise I will have to take my
marbles and go elsewhere", or "otherwise everyone will use Perl
instead of Python", or any variation on that theme.  You have no
idea how comical that is to people who have been using Python for
lo these many years.

	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu

From rol9999 at attglobal.net  Sat Oct 14 08:34:02 2000
From: rol9999 at attglobal.net (Roland Schlenker)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 07:34:02 -0500
Subject: joining list elements
References: 
Message-ID: <39E852BA.F62C8198@attglobal.net>

Johannes Zellner wrote:

> how do I join list elements ?
> 
> e.g. I want [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]] --> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>      and    [[1, 2, 3],  4, 5, 6 ] --> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>      and    [1, 2, 3], 4 --> [1, 2, 3, 4]
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^
              I am not sure what you mean this.

This will work for the other two.

def flatten(aList):
    tmpList = []
    for item in aList:
        if type(item) == type([]):
            tmpList = tmpList + flatten(item)
        else:
            tmpList.append(item)
    return tmpList

Roland Schlenker

From aahz at panix.com  Fri Oct 13 13:19:53 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 10:19:53 -0700
Subject: Writing to file
References: <39E71DEB.D543820A@hotmail.com> 
Message-ID: <8s7g7p$k09$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
Neil Schemenauer   wrote:
>On Fri, Oct 13, 2000 at 05:36:27PM +0300, j wrote:
>>
>> How can i print
>> i am a "monkey"
>
>    print 'i am a "monkey"'
>
>or if you don't want the newline:
>
>    import sys
>    sys.stdout.write('i am a "monkey"')

or

    print 'i am a "monkey"',

(note the trailing comma)
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop III

From g.blokdijk at artofservice.com  Tue Oct  3 01:44:30 2000
From: g.blokdijk at artofservice.com (g.blokdijk at artofservice.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:44:30 +1000
Subject: IT Service Management Update
Message-ID: <36802.655903819443200.90971@localhost>

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

From effbot at telia.com  Sat Oct 14 07:01:22 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 11:01:22 GMT
Subject: asyncore: where is handle_timeout() ?
References: <971520092.39e8385c3641e@webmail.cotse.com>
Message-ID: <62XF5.1217$QH2.54187@newsb.telia.net>

u7361251 at N-o_S-p-a-m-cotse.com wrote:
> Is there a reason, why asyncore.Dispatcher does not offer a
> handle_timeout().  As far as I understand it would be as simple
> as adding something like:
>
> if not (e or r or w):
>     x.handle_timeout ()

hint: what's "x" is supposed to be here?

> Of course I could implement my own loop() and poll() function
> outside asyncore, but it does not "feel" right.

doesn't make sense either: all you need to do is to
implement your own loop replacement:

    while asyncore.socket_map:
        asyncore.poll(timeout)
        # do whatever you think you need to do
        # when there hasn't been any activity on
        # *any* socket for timeout seconds...

> If not, wouldn't it be a good chance to get it into 2.0?

the 2.0 code base is frozen.

From jasonic at nomadicsltd.com  Wed Oct 25 17:31:24 2000
From: jasonic at nomadicsltd.com (Jason Cunliffe)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:31:24 -0400
Subject: detecting param type
References: 
Message-ID: <004001c03eca$edce2580$c3090740@megapathdsl.net>

From: Mike Fletcher 
To: 'Jason Cunliffe' 
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 3:54 PM
Subject: RE: detecting param type

> import types
>
> if type(date) != types.StringType:
> date = str( date )

Mike

Thanks very much.
This solves my immediate problem.

...........

Since I posted my query, I checked against David Beazley's excellent book
'Python Essential Reference'
He says on p.68:

Classses, Types and Membership Tests
"Currently there's a separation between types and classes. In particular,
builtin types such as lists and dictionaries cannot be specialized via
inheritance, nor does a class define a new type. Infact, all class
definitions have a type 'ClassType', while all class instances have a type
of InstanceType. Thus the expresssion

type(a) == type(b)

is true for any two objects that are instances of a class (even if they were
once created by different classes).

To test for membership in a class, the builtin function isinstance(obj,
cname) can be used. This function returns true is object obj belongs to
class cname or any class derived from cname.

Simliarly the builtin function issubclass(A, B) returns true if if the class
A is a subclass of class B.

It should be noted  that the isinstance() function can be used to perform
type checking against any of the builtin types. For example:

import types
isinstance(3, types.IntType)        #returns 1
isinstance(3, types.FloatType)    # returns 0

This is the recommended way to perform type checking with builtin types, as
the distinction between types and classes may disappear in  a future
release.

Jason

From tbryan at python.com  Thu Oct 26 06:25:17 2000
From: tbryan at python.com (Thomas A. Bryan)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 06:25:17 -0400
Subject: Python IDEs and eXtreme Programming
References: <8t6umj$qma$1@clematis.singnet.com.sg>
Message-ID: <39F8068D.ED61EAA@python.com>

Ng Pheng Siong wrote:

> worked with the usual Windows-type IDEs. I believe I am unlikely
> to find up to 10 Python programmers who can do vim and CVS. ;-)

Of course not...but maybe Xemacs and CVS. ;-)

Sounds like fun; tell us when/where the positions are open.

Sorry...I haven't seen any Windowsish Python IDEs other than 
PythonWin, and I still prefer Xemacs with Python mode. 

---Tom

From Robert.Harris at gmx.net  Sat Oct 21 10:56:18 2000
From: Robert.Harris at gmx.net (Robert Harris)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 16:56:18 +0200
Subject: Resuming a file download with python
References: <8srp7c$ak$07$1@news.t-online.com> 
Message-ID: <8ssapv$a36$06$1@news.t-online.com>

Yeah, that's an idea, but I think, wget is only available on unix systems,
so
it would bind the script to a specific platform.

And implementing it myself, gives me more control about how things are done
/ are
handled.

--
Regards

     Robert Harris

"David Porter"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:mailman.972129117.14150.python-list at python.org...
> * Robert Harris :
>
> > I want to resume a file download with python. It would be
> > either the http or ftp protocol used. How could I do it or isn't
> > it possible ? I browsed through the docs of the http and ftp objects
> > but didn't find anything.
>
> Why not just use an external program, like wget? [Reinventing the wheel
and
> all that...]
>
>
>
>

From hoopy_frood at my-deja.com  Tue Oct  3 11:35:49 2000
From: hoopy_frood at my-deja.com (hoopy_frood at my-deja.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:35:49 GMT
Subject: Python equivalent of Java Vector
References: <8rau5e$afv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <8rcucl$t1e$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Thanks to all for the helpful responses.  I'd buy you all a beer, but
I'm an American, and the beer here isn't much of a reward.

hoopyfrood

In article ,
  David Bolen  wrote:
> hoopy_frood at my-deja.com writes:
>
> > "Does Python have something equivalent to Java's Vector?  For
instance,
> > most of the time if you want to use an array you have to declare the
> > size up front.  Java has a Vector class which is an array of objects
> > which grows as you add things to it.
>
> The comment about "most of the time" isn't really true for Python,
> where the default tends to be dynamic more than static structure
> declarations.  Heck, even a class in Python isn't really a fixed
> definition, but is completely malleable at run-time.
>
> > "Just curiousity on my part really, but if you are serious about
using
> > Python productively, you probably need to answer that.  In Java, for
> > instance, if I want an array of String I say "String tmp[]=new
> > String[5]" and I have an array of Strings with 5 slots.  If I didn't
> > know how many Strings I was going to have though, I could say
"Vector
> > tmp=new Vector()" then every time I wanted to add a String, say
"String
> > tmpvalue" I could say "tmp.addElement(tmpvalue)".  Then, I could say
> > "tmp.size()" to see how many elements were in the Vector, and I can
even
> > to a "tmp.elementAt(int x)" to retrieve a value.  So, I think the
> > terminology would be that Java supports dynamic arrays of objects.
I
> > was wondering if Python had the equivalent."
>
> One of the fundamental Python types - a list - works this way.  You
> don't define the overall size of a list, can append to it at will (the
> .append method) in addition to inserting entries at arbitrary
> locations (the .insert method) among other methods, can query the
> length with len(), and a list is a container of a heterogenous set of
> objects, so you can add anything you want to it, including other
> lists.  For retrieval, the objects are just indexed like an array
> ([#]), and you can also extract "slices" of the list (e.g., a range of
> entries) as another list.  It's one of a general class of types called
> sequences.
>
> If you need keyed access to a heterogenous set of objects, you would
> use a dictionary type (a class of types called mappings), which would
> let you insert and retrieve the information based on a key, which
> itself can be a fairly broad range of object types.
>
> You might point the person who originally sourced the query to take a
> quick glance at the first few sections of chapter 2 of the library
> reference (Built-in Types, Exceptions and Functions) - it's short, and
> might pique their interest :-)
>
> --
> -- David
> --
>
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------
\
>  \               David Bolen            \   E-mail: db3l at fitlinxx.com
 /
>   |             FitLinxx, Inc.            \  Phone: (203) 708-5192
|
>  /  860 Canal Street, Stamford, CT  06902   \  Fax: (203) 316-5150
 \
>
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/
>

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From tyler at tylereaves.com  Sat Oct 14 16:21:26 2000
From: tyler at tylereaves.com (Tyler Eaves)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 20:21:26 GMT
Subject: SMTP receive as well as send
References: <39e8bfe4.2248931@news.demon.nl>
Message-ID: <39e8c019.21667848@news.geeksnet.com>

You will need to use both SMTP and POP. 
SMTP only works for sending mail, and POP works only for receiving
mail. That's just the way it is. 
---
Tyler Eaves

Visit Ultra Coaster Central!
The internet's largest repository
of Ultra Coaster Tracks!

http://www.ultracoastercentral.com

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
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From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Sun Oct 22 14:35:08 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 18:35:08 GMT
Subject: Better traceback information?
Message-ID: 

In my app, I exec code and class definitions that I just fished out from a
database.  The problem is, if an exception is thrown from inside one of
these definitions, the traceback usually gives me '' as the
offending "file".  Is it possible for me to give exec a more descriptive
value?  It gets really hard when one constructor creates another object
(which throws) and the traceback shows:

File "", line xx, in __init__
 (...)
File "", line yy, in __init__
 (...)

I'd prefer something like:

File "", line xx, in __init__
 (...)
File "", line yy, in __init__
 (...)

execfile (and a StringIO object) is out of the question, as it takes a file
name (not a handle to an open file) and that's the only thing I can think
of.  Ideas??

For bonus points, I'd also like to know if I can add an offset to the line
number spewed out.

Thanks!

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From moshez at math.huji.ac.il  Sun Oct 29 16:38:24 2000
From: moshez at math.huji.ac.il (Moshe Zadka)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 23:38:24 +0200 (IST)
Subject: Python equivalent of CPAN (Was: ANY NEWS ON THE STARSHIP?)
In-Reply-To: <8thhj4$v8j$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

On Sun, 29 Oct 2000, roger day wrote:

> I quite like the idea of CPAN for Python, but I find the perl CPAN difficult at
> times to find the precise elements I needed to do something. Worse, the
> modularisation of Perl had, for me, the unintended side-effect of splitting out
> much needed modules. For example, the "old" lwp.pl package now consists of a
> myriad of different modules which need hunting down if I just wanted to do
> something simple, particularly on Unix. The ActiveState perl does a lot of this
> already - batteries included.
> 
> It's not modularisation I dislike, I think it's the way of distributing the
> modules which needs looking at - and not just for ease of installation.
> 
> I think there should be some way of grouping modules, so that, say, if one
> module needed others to work, then the latter should be loaded and installed at
> the same time. Or something like that :-)

The good news: it already exists.
The great news: it's called Debian.
--
Moshe Zadka  -- 95855124
http://advogato.org/person/moshez

From dgrisby at uk.research.att.com  Tue Oct  3 12:10:36 2000
From: dgrisby at uk.research.att.com (Duncan Grisby)
Date: 3 Oct 2000 16:10:36 GMT
Subject: omniORBpy / IDL mapping question...
References:    
Message-ID: <8rd0ds$dat$1@pea.uk.research.att.com>

In article ,
 Martin von Loewis   wrote:

>The problem with __setattr__ and __getattr__ is that it does not mix
>well with inheritance. I.e. there is no simple way to inherit from a
>class that implements __setattr__, and implement __setattr__ yourself
>as well.

Also, in the context of CORBA (which is where this thread started), I
think it would be a bad thing to make a CORBA attribute look like a
Python attribute, since it would conceal the fact that a potentially
remote call was being made.

Cheers,

Duncan.

-- 
 -- Duncan Grisby  \  Research Engineer  --
  -- AT&T Laboratories Cambridge          --
   -- http://www.uk.research.att.com/~dpg1 --

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 14 09:16:58 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 15:16:58 +0200
Subject: interchanging rows and columns
References:  <87lmvr3eo9.fsf@hobbes.home.ruud.org>
Message-ID: <8s9mhl0o52@news2.newsguy.com>

"Ruud de Rooij" <*@spam.ruud.org> wrote in message
news:87lmvr3eo9.fsf at hobbes.home.ruud.org...
> johannes at zellner.org (Johannes Zellner) writes:
>
> > how can I turn
> >    [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]
> > into
> >    [[1, 4], [2, 5], [3, 6]]
>
> The pythonic way to do these things seems to be to simply write a
> nested for loop, something like this:
>
> def transpose(m):
>   n = []
>   for i in range(len(m[0])):
>     r = []
>     for j in range(len(m)):
>       r.append(m[j][i])
>     n.append(r)
>   return n

Fine, but, in 2.0, an alternative...:

    def transpose(m):
        return [ [ subm[i] for subm in m ] for i in range(len(m[0])) ]

Alex

From kalle at gnupung.net  Wed Oct 25 04:29:39 2000
From: kalle at gnupung.net (Kalle Svensson)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:29:39 +0200
Subject: MySQL
In-Reply-To: <39F617FA.A1DAB270@execulink.com>
References: <39F617FA.A1DAB270@execulink.com>
Message-ID: 

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, root wrote:

>     I;m fairly new to Python but so far I really enjoy it. I was
> wondering if someone could tell me how to go about connecting to a
> MySQL database or, more precisely, where I can download the MySQL
> modules for python.

Take a look at the database topic guide at
http://www.python.org/topics/database/
There is a link to a good MySQL module there, and a description of the
API.

HTH,
  Kalle
-- 
Email: kalle at gnupung.net     | You can tune a filesystem, but you
Web: http://www.gnupung.net/ | can't tune a fish. -- man tunefs(8)
Not signed due to logistical difficulties (I'm not at home).
If you doubt the authenticity of this message, please tell me.

From bvdpoel at uniserve.com  Tue Oct  3 11:52:51 2000
From: bvdpoel at uniserve.com (Bob van der Poel)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 08:52:51 -0700
Subject: range of mktime
References: <39D923A6.8A0A74B8@uniserve.com> <8rbq6u$89o$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: <39DA00D3.8FD6C445@uniserve.com>

Aahz Maruch wrote:
> 
> In article <39D923A6.8A0A74B8 at uniserve.com>,
> bob van der Poel   wrote:
> >
> >Using time.mktime() it appears that on my linux box the valid range is
> >1902...2038. Is this platform consistent, or, if not, is there a way to
> >determine at runtime the valid range?
> 
> That surprises me mildly; the usual range is 1970 to 2038 (matching the
> range of the Unix 32-bit clock).  You may want to use mxDateTime instead
> for greater range, precision, and utility.

Thx for the pointer to mxDateTime. Found and dl'd it, looks very neat.
I'll try using it later.

-- 
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bvdpoel at uniserve.com
WWW:   http://users.uniserve.com/~bvdpoel

From kentsin at poboxes.com  Wed Oct 18 02:42:29 2000
From: kentsin at poboxes.com (kentsin at poboxes.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 06:42:29 -0000
Subject: urllib and MS proxy. How can I debug?
Message-ID: <8sjgol+6k5r@eGroups.com>

The urllib of python 2.0 does not like the MS proxy. In my 
environment, the proxy is 192.168.83.3:80. I have the following in my 
win98 box :

autoexec.bat

set http_proxy=http://192.168.83.3:80

I try to load a page with

import urllib
a = urllib.urlopen('http://www.python.org/')
print a.read()

This only works once but return null on all other cases.

a.headers is :

>>> print a.headers
Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 06:40:54 GMT
Proxy-Authenticate: NTLM

How could I debug this?

Rgs,

Kent Sin

From read at the.sig  Sun Oct  1 05:17:05 2000
From: read at the.sig (Alexander K)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 09:17:05 +0000
Subject: do telnet-clients not connect() ?
Message-ID: <39D70111.BCA114BD@the.sig>

hello!

i am trying to make a socketserver.
dunno for what yet, mainly learning i guess.
i am on a linux(2.2.16) system with python 1.52.

so, i open a socket like this:

-> s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
-> s.bind(hostname, port)
-> s.listen(2)
-> (peer, address) = s.accept()

and then i can start another pythonprogram and connect() to that
port. send() and recv() work fine too.

so i telnetted to host:port to see if it accept() 'ed that.
it didnt.
after the telnetattempt i ran netstat and saw that s was still
in LISTEN mode.

howcome?
telnet communicates on TCP, right?

and surely it must make a connect() of some kind?
but why wont my script notice?

  tia / alex k

-- 
.
.
... ~~~:[ com dot altavista at ak42 ]:~~~ ...

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Tue Oct 10 09:17:21 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:17:21 -0400
Subject: WinScoc error
References: 
Message-ID: <39E316E1.56F003BA@holdenweb.com>

Werner Geuens wrote:
> 
> Jut ran into an error, using urllib from Windows.
> 
> Here's what I tested:
> 
> import urllib
> urllib.urlretrieve('http://www.jennicam.org/guests/cam.jpg','test.jpg')
> 
> That kind of thing works just fine under OS/2 and - I supppose - Linux. But
> not under Windows.
> 
> This is the error message I get:
> IOError: [Errno socket error] (10060, 'winsock error')
> 
> I'm using 1.5.2 under Windows, OS/2 and Linux S.U.S.E. Seems only Windows
> would have this problem, but is there a solution?
> 
> --
> 
> Werner Geuens from his new, not-yet-configured account
> werner.geuens2 at pandora.be

Werner:

I have been struggling myself lately with the idiosyncrasies of Windoze
sockets, but haven't come across this one (yet).  FWIW, the write-up at

	http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/psdk/winsock/errors_3wc2.htm

says:

WSAETIMEOUT (10060)
Connection timed out.
A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly
respond after a period of time, or the established connection failed because
the connected host has failed to respond.

Hope this helps (but somehow I doubt it).

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From nospam at nospam.com  Fri Oct 27 11:30:08 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 15:30:08 GMT
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <4chK5.3595$w6.1654505@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>

Because of the problem that you mention, I've taken to running my program
from a seperate, command-line, instance of python, then returning to
PythonWin to edit it.

Meanwhile I wait for Wingide/Boa/Python.Net to be ready.

Tom.

I use PythonWin to edit my code, but I execute my code from a command-line
"Dale Strickland-Clark"  wrote in message
news:7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si at 4ax.com...
> I've sort of mentioned this before and all I got was general murmors
> of agreement but no solution.
>
> This is such a huge irritation and time waster for me that if it isn't
> sorted out I can't really consider Python for future large projects.
>
> To test a module, I import it into PythonWin using the Import/Reload
> button and then instantiate a class in the Interactive Window.
>
> After a failure, I fix the offending code and Import/Reload again.
> However, the same failure occurs showing the original line with it's
> original contents. The changed module hasn't been loaded.
>
> Why is this?
>
> What can I do about it?
>
> The only way to fix it is to quite and reload PythonWin but then you
> have to arrange windows, reestablish breakpoints and watches, etc.
> and it all takes far too long.
> --
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants
>
>

From parkw at better.net  Tue Oct 17 00:29:22 2000
From: parkw at better.net (William Park)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 00:29:22 -0400
Subject: text files and CGI
In-Reply-To: <39EBDD6E.4A06AB50@srv.net>; from 1stv@srv.net on Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 10:02:39PM -0700
References: <39EBDD6E.4A06AB50@srv.net>
Message-ID: <20001017002922.A530@better.net>

On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 10:02:39PM -0700, R Heaps wrote:
> > Dear %(name)s,
>  We really like your %(feature)s, and have awarded
> you the %(feature)s-of-the-month award for %(month)s %(year)s.
> >From all of us here at ACMW Awards, Congradulations!
>       %(closing)s,
>       Dave Mitchell
> 
Try  instead.

---William Park, Open Geometry Consulting

From nickatvideosystemdotcodotuk  Mon Oct 30 10:24:40 2000
From: nickatvideosystemdotcodotuk (Nick Trout)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 15:24:40 -0000
Subject: wxPython 2.2.2 demo crashes
References: <8tjmds$96v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39fd92f2@news.xtml.co.uk>

Could someone just quickly tell me: does 2.2.2 work with Python 2.0 final?

Thanks,
Nick.

 wrote in message news:8tjmds$96v$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> I have just downloaded wxPython 2.2.2.
> I'm using Python 2.0 (final)
>
> Running the demo gives:
>
> PYTHONW caused an exception c06d007eH in module WX22_2.DLL at
> 016f:00b140fa.
> Registers:
> EAX=006dec18 CS=016f EIP=00b140fa EFLGS=00000246
> EBX=00000000 SS=0177 ESP=006debdc EBP=006dec0c
> ECX=c12d64c0 DS=0177 ESI=00b4e09c FS=0f47
> EDX=818732b0 ES=0177 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
> Bytes at CS:EIP:
> 8b 45 f8 e9 ff 00 00 00 57 ff 76 08 ff 15 f8 d3
> Stack dump:
> 00b1d0a4 00000000 004367d0 00000024 00b4e09c 00bec0d4 00b32910 00000000
> 00000073 00000000 00000000 00000485 006dedf0 00adb256 0000005c 006debe8
>
> Trying Python directly gives same result.
>
> Pointers Please?
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

From alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk  Fri Oct  6 11:13:41 2000
From: alan.gauld at gssec.bt.co.uk (Alan Gauld)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 16:13:41 +0100
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <39DDEC25.CEE0E16A@gssec.bt.co.uk>

Thomas Gagne wrote:
> while line = fp.readline():
>     do something with 'line'
> 
> but that doesn't work because Python doesn't allow assignments 

correct, so at the expense of typing a line twice, do 
the assignment externally:

line = fp.readline()
while line:
   # do something wiyth line
   line = fp.readline()

Alan G.
-- 
=================================================
This post represents the views of the author 
and does not necessarily accurately represent 
the views of BT.

From nospam.newton at gmx.li  Sat Oct 21 07:41:00 2000
From: nospam.newton at gmx.li (Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 11:41:00 GMT
Subject: Problem with japanese characters in filenames
References: 
Message-ID: <39f17c27.623969236@news.tiscalinet.de>

On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 21:51:49 -0700, jay.krell at cornell.edu wrote:

> At least with Unicode there is sort of only one, or at least fewer, "code
> pages". (You could consider UTF7, UTF8 and Java UTF8 as Unicode code
> pages...and I'm a bit ignorant, but the generalized terms are probably UCS7,
> UCS8, Java UCS8, UCS16, UCS32. UCS16 being the normal "big/wide/large/etc."
> representation. Java UTF8/UCS8 changing the representation of 0, how nice of
> Sun to follow standards...)

Nope; AFAIK UTF-n is "Unicode Transformation Format" and n is in bits;
UCS-n is "Universal Character Set" and n is in bytes. So you have UTF-7,
UTF-8, UTF-16 (sometimes split into UTF-16BE and UTF-16LE) and UTF-32,
as well as UCS-2 and UCS-4. I think there's also a UTF-1 that became
obsolete. http://czyborra.com/ has more on Unicode and stuff.

Cheers,
Philip
-- 
Philip Newton 
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

From mfletch at tpresence.com  Wed Oct  4 09:02:34 2000
From: mfletch at tpresence.com (Mike Fletcher)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 09:02:34 -0400 
Subject: Win32: ByRef equivalent in pythoncom for function callbacks?
Message-ID: 

Sorry for the delay in response, I've been tooling around with various other
problems, and only got back to this sub-project this evening.  Good news is,
I did get DOM events working, bad news is, it's a bit of a hack, and still
requires makepy support for defining the interfaces (at least, that's what I
used to define it).

What I did was strip the particular event handler class out of the mshtml
Makepy interface file (which will not import, likely because it's 1.9 MB),
and use it as an event sink for the IHTMLWindow2 object returned from
ie.Document.parentWindow.  That gives me the event callbacks (it appears
this should work for any DOM event), and I can use the DOM's
attributes/properties to get the current scroll position (which is a strange
way to access it, but I can't seem to find any other way to get scroll
position).

Thanks for the help, enjoy yourself,
Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hammond [mailto:MarkH at ActiveState.com]
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 8:32 AM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: Win32: ByRef equivalent in pythoncom for function
callbacks?

"Mike Fletcher"  wrote in message
news:mailman.969879038.18222.python-list at python.org...

> self.ie.Document.documentElement.attachEvent(

It looks like you are trying to use the DOM event mechanism.  I doubt
this will work.

See the docstrings for win32com.client.DispatchWithEvents, or the
newsgroup for other events discussions.  However, note there is an
outstanding bug, in that some events go missing.  This has also been
reported here, and is also in the ActivePython bug list.

Mark.

-- 
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From glyph at no.spam  Tue Oct 17 11:54:06 2000
From: glyph at no.spam (Glyph Lefkowitz)
Date: 17 Oct 2000 10:54:06 -0500
Subject: Some Q&A with Kahan on IEEE 754
References:  
Message-ID: 

Huaiyu Zhu  writes:

> But getting libm to work predictably across platforms is a whole
> other can of worms, above and beyond 754 support.

I don't know about the other posters here, but this seems like a more
important issue to me.  I mean, I would like to write cross-platform
code that works predictably with numbers bigger than 12 and smaller
than 7.  Currently the only way to do that (as far as I can tell) is
to surround every arithmetic operation and cmath call that involves a
user-input variable with a try: except: as WELL as testing for 4
different spellings of NaN and Inf -- and those are only the spellings
I've seen so far.  Maybe maybe MacOS X will spell it "Infinity -- a
very large number" and "Not A Number -- bad input, perhaps?" or
somesuch...

I know that the way that math works is a weighty religious issue to
some folk :) but I don't much care, so long as it works *predictably*.
I'll cheerfully work around whatever warts crop up in extreme cases,
so long it's only _one_ set of warts.

-- 
Glyph Lefkowitz
Professional -- Software Engineer,  Origin Systems
Amateur      -- Computer Scientist, Twisted Matrix Enterprises
(My opinions are my own and do not reflect in any way on the policies
or practices of my employer, etcetera etcetera.)

From dnew at san.rr.com  Wed Oct 18 17:05:51 2000
From: dnew at san.rr.com (Darren New)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 21:05:51 GMT
Subject: "Portability" (was: How to create a Unix Domain Socket?)
References: <39ED6C4A.CBEE94DB@schlund.de> <8skj2r$3i9k$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu> <4BE3250D4FF22FD0.C3EA83F880EAEC04.44DD6B4DD07EB906@lp.airnews.net>
Message-ID: <39EE10B7.74688E1D@san.rr.com>

Cameron Laird wrote:
> I'm getting tired of calling Python "wonderfully por-
> table" or whatever it is I say when I'm acting as an
> advocate. 

On a related note, is Python really portable, or does it just expose the
underlying OS?  (I'm *still* waiting for my books to get here. I kind of
hate the whole christmas card thing.)  In other words, could I take a
program that listens on lots of sockets and does things with the data and
put up outgoing connections, and have it work without changing the source on
Windows, Mac, and Unix? Or would I have to use the Mac version of select on
the Mac, etc etc etc?

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
The tragedy of the commons applies to monitizing eyeballs, too.

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Thu Oct 19 01:20:19 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 05:20:19 GMT
Subject: Incompatible .pyd files with Python 2.0 (and win32comm)
References: <39ED37CB.C4A4F6F7@engcorp.com>  <39EE7B4C.27544FCC@engcorp.com>
Message-ID: 

"Peter Hansen"  wrote in message
news:39EE7B4C.27544FCC at engcorp.com...

> I'm not sure exposing _all_ the semantics of the Win32 API is even a
> good idea for many uses of Python.  Something more along the lines
of a
> cross-platform API would likely work better.  Perhaps the Java comm
> stuff could be a model?  Or is that only for the Win32 environment?

Agreed.  That is one exact reason why I did not write a high-level
layer at this stage.  If a cross-platform API was designed that
covered the majority of users, this would be a far better solution.
However, I'm not going to design or champion it (I would implement it
for Windows, tho ;-)

> I wonder if a fairly simple read()/write() interface would be
suitable,

I believe that any design would have to incorporate some sort of
asynch capability - this could be a simple event/lock type object, or
could try and re-use the asynch socket API.  But this this is exactly
why _I_ don't want to design it - I would rather see someone with
fairly sophisticated serial IO requirements or experience be
involved...

Mark.

From lluang at northwestern.edu  Thu Oct  5 09:31:39 2000
From: lluang at northwestern.edu (Louis Luangkesorn)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 08:31:39 -0500
Subject: adding matrices of strings
References: <39DBA479.1179C63E@northwestern.edu> 
Message-ID: <39DC82BB.F59AB26D@northwestern.edu>

Tim et al

Many thanks.  I think it is just that I'm new to Python so I was trying
A[i,j] a la Matlab instead of A[i][j] like I should have been.  (see William
Park's post).  Things like this get easier over time, right?

Louis

Tim Hochberg wrote:

> > Is there a way to add matrices of strings?  In other words, if I have
> > matrices A and B, whose elements are strings, can i add them so I get C
> > = A + B where C[i,j] = concatonate(A[i,j], B[i,j])
>
> try:
>
> import operator
> C = map(operator.add, A, B)
>
> > the other thing I need to do is to take that matrix A, and pull a
> > particular element from it (without removing that element like a
> > a.pop(x) would do)
>
> Hmmm? Do you just want a[x]?
>
> -tim

--
Louis Luangkesorn
lluang at northwestern.edu   http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~kll560
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou
knowest, O God, I am thine.
        - Dietrich Bonhoeffer "Who am I?"

From lenny at squiggie.com  Tue Oct 24 16:21:30 2000
From: lenny at squiggie.com (Lenny Self)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 13:21:30 -0700
Subject: Scripting SSH with Python
Message-ID: 

Hello, all.

I am scripting SSH or actually rsync using ssh and I am in need of a bit of
help.  When I make the SSH connection I am prompted to enter a password...
my problem is that I don't know how to look for this promt and have the
script submit the password for me.  Can anyone give me some help on this.

I have been experimenting with os.popen and os.popen3 but I am either
looking in the wrong spot or I am not doing it correctly.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

    -- Lenny

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Fri Oct 13 06:57:38 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:57:38 +0100
Subject: newbie question: temporarily store data
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B1292@intrepid>

> From:	Bryan BZ [SMTP:bryanbz at yahoo.com]
> I am looking to store data read in from a file into a cache to dump at a
> later time into a database.  Should I use the "pickle" or "shelve"
> functions?  If not, any suggestions?

Have you considered Gadfly?

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

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copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From qyytvk at aol.com  Sat Oct 14 06:28:10 2000
From: qyytvk at aol.com (qyytvk at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 10:28:10 GMT
Subject: BE A SUPERHERO! SAVE THE INTERNET! Send the F.C.C. a MESSAGE about the AOL - TIME WARNER merger!  2117
Message-ID: <_yWF5.352127$TF4.2714532@telenews.teleline.es>

The merger between AOL & Time Warner will be approved -  
BUT - the F.C.C. is going to require some form of open access.
The question is - open access for WHOM? Will the conditions 
protect ONLY THE CORPORATIONS or will they also protect YOU 
the END USER?

This is what AOL and Time Warner have to say about censorship 
and speed capping:

IF TIME WARNER DETERMINES THAT THE SUBSCRIBER HAS FAILED TO 
COMPLY WITH THE SERVICE'S STANDARDS OF CONDUCT OR LIMITS ON 
BANDWIDTH UTILIZATION, TIME WARNER MAY SUSPEND SUBSCRIBER'S 
ACCOUNT.  TIME WARNER COMMUNICATIONS SHALL HAVE THE SOLE AND 
UNREVIEWABLE RIGHT TO DETERMINE WHETHER CONTENT VIOLATES 
THESE STANDARDS.

DID YOU KNOW:

AOL cancelled the account of the President of the Chemically 
Disabled Americans - they said it was a commercial usage!  The 
president ran it from his bedroom.  As a public service.  His 
comment expressing his outrage is contained in the F.C.C. file.

DID YOU KNOW:  

These are the things that Colette Lantelme, Security Administrator 
of Road Runner, claims are against the Road Runner Acceptable Use 
Policy.

1.  Posting a message on any "For Sale" message board.
2.  Listing a product on any Ebay, Ubid, or similar service. (Boy, is 
    EBAY gonna be PISSED!)
3.  Announcing a job availability.
4.  Replying to a job availability.
5.  Mentioning that the user had tried any product and found 
    it satisfactory - or unsatisfactory.
6.  Posting a message to any "personals" board.
7.  Asking a user for a date.  
8.  Calling attention to any commercial or non-commercial 
    website, including personal websites provided as part 
    of the purchase price of the service sold by Time-Warner.  
9.  Calling attention to any IRC chat channel.  

Want to say that Al Gore can't be elected because he is a democrat?
No problem!  Want to say that Leiberman can't be elected because he
is Jewish? BANNED FROM AOL!

A very small effort on your part can well induce the F.C.C. to 
outlaw this censorship and Speed Capping, and protect YOU as well 
as the corporations.  You have some powerful allies; Consumer's Union, 
Disney, and many commercial software companies.  Even the Attorney 
General of the State of Connecticut is on YOUR side - you may read 
their petitions at the link below.  

But YOU MUST HELP!

You can F.I.L.E YOUR C.O.M.M.E.N.T IN THE O.F.F.I.C.I.A.L C.A.S.E FILE!

---> This is NOT merely a EMAIL message which will be ignored <---

Any response which you file will be an OFFICIAL document included in 
the F.C.C. FILINGS! 
It will appear in the OFFICIAL CASE FILE as a comment 
read by ALL THE ATTORNEYS who are participating in the action, as well 
as ALL THE F.C.C. C.O.M.M.I.S.S.I.O.N.E.R.S! It will remain there 
FOREVER as part of the O.F.F.I.C.I.A.L R.E.C.O.R.D of the AOL - Time 
Warner merger! With YOUR name on it!

Since this internet campaign started, approximately 250 comments have 
been received by the F.C.C from individuals.  (Some are funny as hell!)
We need twice that!

PLEASE - can you HELP PROTECT IRC and USENET?  SEND the SAMPLE COMMENT 
to the F.C.C!

The F.C.C. is on the verge of requiring the protections this letter asks 
for.  Your letter might PUSH THEM OVER THE EDGE and make the internet 
a BETTER PLACE for EVERYONE, INCLUDING YOU!

MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO USENET AND IRC!  This letter WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE
if there are enough of them received by the F.C.C.  If at least 500
letters are received, we can probably count on the F.C.C. to take decisive
action to prohibit both censorship and speed capping - and to protect 
the users, not merely the corporations.

GET A CHAIN RESPONSE STARTED!  I can do only so much.  I can only post 
to so many newsgroups - I can't do it alone.  WE ALL NEED YOUR HELP!

Copy this message and post it to (at least) 3 newsgroups where it does 
not appear! Then, Send this message by EMAIL to (at least) 5 friends!
If everyone does that, we can FLOOD THE F.C.C. with comments and THEY 
WILL LISTEN!  

The major ccorporations and the politicians are coonducting this merger
on their terms, for their benefit, and giving no thought whatsoever to 
the users. They are all fighting over our dollars, but do they give any 
concern whatsoever to us?  Does a fish ride a bicycle?

They believe that the internet, which WE, not them, made great, is now 
too valuable to be left the users.  Their attitude is, "let them comment, 
they don't count, they are not rich corporations, they are merely poor 
users.  Will YOU let them get away with this?

They can ignore 250 users.  They can't ignore thousands of users.

Right now our comments, all 250 of them, are a minor agravation to
the "power structure."  They have to wade through them to get to the 
important stuff, the corporate, I.E. money, responses.

THOUSANDS OF COMMENTS ARE NOT AN AGRAVATION, THEY ARE A POLITICAL
PHENOMENON!  DO YOUR PART!

LET THE F.C.C. know that THE INTERNET DOSEN'T STAND FOR ANY BULL! Tell 
the F.C.C. I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!

The future of USENET and IRC depends on the F.C.C. forcing all ISP's 
starting with Time Warner and AOL to recognize free speech and fair 
marketing practices.  PLEASE HELP!

TO FILE YOUR COMMENT WITH THE F.C.C:

1.  Copy the letter to a file.  You can put it on your letterhead 
with MS Word or just use a text file.  You can make any change to 
the letter you want, or add any comment you have.  CHANGES ARE GOOD! 
They show you READ THE LETTER and REALLY CARE!  If you had a bad 
experience with AOL or Time Warner PUT IT IN!

2.  go to:

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/websql/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.hts 

(This is the official F.C.C. page where electronic filing of petitions 
is accomplished)

3.  Fill out Cover sheet

Put your name, Address, Email address, and all other required 
information on the form.  (Remember this is an OFFICIAL FILING so 
the F.C.C. requires this information.  It is not published unless you 
put it in the letter as well as the form)

Proceeding is 

             00 - 30 

(Leave out the spaces, they are there to get by the spam filter.  
Put in the -)

(this is VERY IMPORTANT, it is the case number of the AOL TIME 
WARNER APPLICATION for merger.  If you get it wrong, your comment 
WILL NOT BE FILED!)

4.  Send Cover Sheet.

5.  After you send the Cover Sheet, THEN select the filename of the 
letter you are sending, and send that.

6.  After you send the file, you will receive an official 
confirmation of the filing from the F.C.C.

7. You can TYPE a comment instead of sending this sample comment, but
DON'T PASTE THE SAMPLE COMMENT into the Short Comment box - it 
DOESN'T FIT! 

Comment will appear for all to read in about 4 hours 
(but won't appear after business hours or on the weekend.) 

8.  If you want to see your letter, or read the other submissions,
other letters, the AOL petition, the Disney or Consumer's Union 
objections, etc, here is the URL - Its long!  Put in the case 
number, 00 - 30 (no spaces) and nothing else.

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/websql/prod/ecfs/comsrch_v2.hts?ws_mode=retrieve_list&id_proceeding=00-30&start=1

IF YOU LIVE N A FOREIGN COUNTRY and wish to make a comment (This is a 
world wide problem) the Cover Sheet will not accept your address.  You
can do this:  Enter your real name and address including country in
the address lines, but in the STATE box  put CA and in the ZIP (first
field) put 90001.  Ignore the 2nd zip field.  Ignore the 2nd form, and 
TYPE your SHORT COMMENT in the 3rd form. Please identify the country 
you live in the message.  Don't use the sample letter supplied 
because it isn't appropriate for non-US residents.

***>Remember the FORM INFORMATION will NOT appear, only the letter.

NOTE:  There is NO WORD WRAPPING on the letter below, to make it 
easy for you to format so it may be hard to read until you copy it,
depending on your news reader.

        SAMPLE MESSAGE

------------cut here----------------------------------------------

To the FCC Commissioners

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing in response to the proposed merger of America Time Warner Communications. There are two elements in the proposal that greatly concern me. I would hope that the commissioners would carefully consider these in making their decisions.

The development and evolution of the Internet is a study in how a system without artificial limits can exceed anyone's expectations. The "rules of the road" for the information superhighway, such as they are, have been agreed upon by community consensus and is a marvelous example of market forces at work. One of the guiding principles which has evolved within this community is the open and free exchange of information, much as there is within the academic environment that fostered the early years of the Internet. The internet has always subscribed to and operated under the guarantees of the First amendment to the Constitution, without regard for questioning whether this was a legal requirement.

The proposed merger as set forth in proceeding # 00-30 will violate every principle of freedom of speech upon which the Internet has historically been based. Specifically, the combination of Time Warner and AOL will be powerful enough to establish the rules which everyone desiring high speed, and possibly any, access will be subject to, and those rules are truly alarming to those accustomed to freedom of the net.  They state:

IF TIME WARNER DETERMINES THAT THE SUBSCRIBER HAS FAILED TO COMPLY WITH THE SERVICE'S STANDARDS OF CONDUCT OR LIMITS ON BANDWIDTH UTILIZATION, TIME WARNER MAY SUSPEND SUBSCRIBER'S ACCOUNT.  TIME WARNER COMMUNICATIONS SHALL HAVE THE SOLE AND UNREVIEWABLE RIGHT TO DETERMINE WHETHER CONTENT VIOLATES THESE STANDARDS.

This language is quite frightening, given that it grants license to censor to a corporate entity not to the common good, but to bottom line economic forces. Our guarantees under the constitution were designed by its authors to be beyond those forces for good reason. They recognized that such a fundamental right to freedom could never be effectively overseen by a purely commercial, or even political, entity. I believe that the Commissioners would be well served to remember that example, and move to insure that access cannot be denied to the internet by the gatekeeper based on the content of the speech of the user.

My second concern is related, although it could never have been foreseen by our founding fathers.  Bandwidth is fundamental to the ability to communicate on the Internet. Here again, Time Warner Communication proposes to hold a noose around the available bandwidth, and, subject to their whim alone, choke off access to those they deem unacceptable.

Certainly this commission cannot order how much bandwidth they supply to their customer.  But this commission can and should insure that any company, as a condition of the privilege of merger, deliver to their customers what they promise.  A company which advertises and sells unlimited access, then terminates those who use this access, while retaining what, to them is the most profitable base, those who do not use this access, is defrauding the public.

I urge you, therefore, to consider these concerns in reaching your decision.  The easy course will be to merely accede to the demands of the corporations.  That, however, will require that someone eventually solve the problems that will inevitably result from that decision - and the person who must repair the damage may be you.

Thank you for your attention to my concerns.

----> YOUR NAME <----
ouvgnmpynfrjtisyyxoyxrvujiekgfhyycqtcjerhdegjxsrtqeqclwpcc

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Mon Oct 23 16:16:23 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 16:16:23 -0400
Subject: SQL server data types????
References: <8t23lq$gak$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39F49C97.75E7140B@holdenweb.com>

muwanda at my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> Hi...
> I have a problem with SQLserver's datatype...
> how I solve this...I have mxODBC module...
> 
> bye.
> 
Please provide a little more information!  The mxODBC module
documentation mentions a test program called ODBC/Misc/test.py
-- have you run this program, and if so, with what results?

I have used mxODBC with SQL Server 7.0, and haven't come across
any major problems, so probably you only need some fairly basic
information.

Note that mxODBC is still only available for 1.5.2, although for
all I know the new 2.0 version may be revealed when the starship
web site appears again.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From thomas at xs4all.net  Sun Oct 29 16:33:47 2000
From: thomas at xs4all.net (Thomas Wouters)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 22:33:47 +0100
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
In-Reply-To: ; from moshez@math.huji.ac.il on Sun, Oct 29, 2000 at 11:09:46PM +0200
References:  
Message-ID: <20001029223347.Y12812@xs4all.nl>

On Sun, Oct 29, 2000 at 11:09:46PM +0200, Moshe Zadka wrote:

> In short, I fail to see anything Zope would want Python to be which is not
> in the best interests of Python. One thing I hope is that because a lot of
> Zope is written in Python, a no-brainer optimization for Zope is a good
> optimizing byte-compiler for Python. 

> well,-a-man-can-dream-can't-he-ly y'rs, Z.

Well, hot damn, Moshe, if you hadn't been so fast in getting hired, they
could've hired *you* to do it ;) You had ideas on optimization, anyway ;)

Just-don't-tell-them-you-would've-done-it-for-free-too--ly y'rs,
-- 
Thomas Wouters 

Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread!

From jspies at ngi-box.de  Tue Oct 24 14:04:51 2000
From: jspies at ngi-box.de (jspies at ngi-box.de)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 20:04:51 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Python on Mac OS X
Message-ID: <308932829.972410346334.JavaMail.root@mouse.unimessage.net>

Maybe you are interested in some experience with Python 2.0 on Mac OS X Public Beta (+ Apple's developer tools, in order to have cc and GNU make). (On a Macintosh PowerBook G3, to be precise).

I got the source distribution of Python to compile and install in the following way:

(0) called

./config

(1) Added the line

#define WITH_DYLD 1

to config.h. (Otherwise compilation fails.)

(2) Called

make

(3) Called

mv Python/python python.exe

(4) Replaced

EXE=

with

EXE=.exe

in the root makefile

(5) Called

make install

(6) Renamed python.exe in /usr/local/bin to python

Comments: Instead of the workarounds (1) and (3) the config script should be corrected to define WITH_DYLD at compilation time (this definition is contained in acconfig.h only). You should also take some measure to enable the Python interpreter executable to live in a folder that already contains the folder 'Python' in a case-insensitive file system, thus making (3), (4), and (6) unnecessary (OK, (6) is only cosmetics :-). (Why not rename the subfolder 'Python' to something else?)

Thanks for Python!o

From moshez at math.huji.ac.il  Sun Oct 29 16:09:46 2000
From: moshez at math.huji.ac.il (Moshe Zadka)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 23:09:46 +0200 (IST)
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, Tom wrote:

> Some of this sounds good, but some is a bit scary.  In particular:
> 
> > We will be spending part of our
> > time on core Python development (including Jython and Mailman) and
> > part of our time on Python infrastructure improvements that also
> > benefit Zope.
> 
> If Python itself is good, and is being actively developed, then other
> companies and individuals will develop 'infrastructure'.  For example, it
> appears that WingIDE, Boa, and ActiveState's Visual Python IDE will all be
> ready in the near future - this is evidence of the momentum that Python
> currently has.
> 
> However, if work on the core of Python were to slow, or if it's direction
> was guided by the interests of one particularly product (ie. Zope), then
> this might discourage the development of all other 'infrastructure'
> projects, and would hurt the Python community.

Historically, Python core *was* influenced by Zope --- to good effect.
An example which comes to mind immediately is the whole pickling
infrastructure. Meta-classes is another thing which was strongly
influenced by Jim F, because he wanted to use them in Zope. 
In short, I fail to see anything Zope would want Python to be which is not
in the best interests of Python. One thing I hope is that because a lot of
Zope is written in Python, a no-brainer optimization for Zope is a good
optimizing byte-compiler for Python. 

well,-a-man-can-dream-can't-he-ly y'rs, Z.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Digital Creation, and I do not
know any details about their development efforts or their business plans.

From jjwinkelman at my-deja.com  Fri Oct 27 11:59:08 2000
From: jjwinkelman at my-deja.com (jjwinkelman at my-deja.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 15:59:08 GMT
Subject: CXX and Python Embedding
Message-ID: <8tc8o7$q0r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

I have two questions regarding using CXX that
maybe someone can help me with.  First, let me
admit that I am new to using CXX and somewhat new
to writing extensions to Python in general.

Q1) Let's say I wanted to embed Python in a C++
app. and expose some internal objects for use by
python.  Let's also say that I create these
objects using CXX... so in C++, I have something
that looks like this:

// Example C++ code
Float f(0.0);

my variable f is now an instance of the CXX Float
class, and effectively is a PyObject*.

Now, what is the easiest way for me to expose
this to the python interpreter...

I know that I could write an extension, but what
if all I want to do was use this variable
directly from Python without importing via an
extension...

Is there any way to add this to the __main__
module as a global variable?

Q2) I have been learning how to create an
extension using CXX, and the examples show how to
add methods to my extension module via the
add_varargs_method call.... how do I add a global
variable to my extension?  Do I have to create a
method to return the variable I wish to expose?

Thanks for you help in advance.

Jeff.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From mfischer at mailux.berl.tek.com  Wed Oct 25 06:54:06 2000
From: mfischer at mailux.berl.tek.com (Matthias Fischer)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:54:06 GMT
Subject: How to use BLT2.4 and Tcl/tk8.3 under Windows9X/NT ?
Message-ID: <39F6BBCD.C25D4FEA@mailux.berl.tek.com>

I use Python 2.0 under WIN32 with the included package of Tcl/Tk 8.3 and
want to use the BLT2.4 expansionspack with Pmw.
I installed the Pmw and BLT packages in the directories as explained in
the documentation. If I try to execute an example I'll get the
following Message:

Sorry. The BLT package has not been installed on this system. Please
install it and try again.

Please tell me, what may I do. (reinstall the BLT package in an other
directory or copy some DLL's in Pythons DLLs dir ?)

Thaks.

Matthias!

________________________________________________

 Matthias Fischer                       
 Fachhochschule Brandenburg    http://mfischer.de.cx
________________________________________________

From skodela at my-deja.com  Tue Oct 31 13:35:48 2000
From: skodela at my-deja.com (Sindh)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:35:48 GMT
Subject: Tkinter problems
Message-ID: <8tn3e3$5fh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi there

I have a tkinter and Pmw program, which has 6 listboxes on a page. I am
using grid to put them on, as there are a lot of buttons as well.
However I couldn't find a way to make the listboxes expand and occupy
the whole surface area available on the notebook page. I tried
sticky=W+E+N+S . Is there a equivalent of pack(expand=1,fill='both') for
grid!

code below:

nb=Pmw.NoteBook(root)
p1=nb.Add(nb,"page 1")
lb1=Pmw.ScrolledListBox(p1)
lb2=Pmw.ScrolledListBox(p1)
lb3=Pmw.ScrolledListBox(p1)
lb4=Pmw.ScrolledListBox(p1)
lb5=Pmw.ScrolledListBox(p1)
lb1.grid(row=0,column=1)
lb2.grid(row=1,column=1)
lb3.grid(row=2,column=1)
lb4.grid(row=3,column=1)
lb5.grid(row=4,column=1)

Thanks
Sreekant

--
A man needs to sleep for 36 hours a day atleast.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From bk at xk7.com  Wed Oct 25 05:13:42 2000
From: bk at xk7.com (Burkhard Kloss)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:13:42 +0100
Subject: python and distributed object like CORBA
References: 
Message-ID: <972465535.785716@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>

> Is there a distributed object supported for python like CORBA or RMI ?
> If not, isn't there any way of implementing it in python ?
> Thanks in advance.
Well, there's FNORB (http://www.fnorb.org/) , which gives you full CORBA in
Python. I seem to recall others, but fnorb did the trick for me.

From frankn=nuws at cs.vu.nl  Sat Oct  7 10:56:00 2000
From: frankn=nuws at cs.vu.nl (Frank Niessink)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 14:56:00 GMT
Subject: Proposal: Python Class Files
References: 
Message-ID: <8rndi0$h5v@cs.vu.nl>

Michal Wallace  wrote:

> 3. All statements in the file must be inside the class definition.

Hmm, and where would my test code then go?  I often use the
if '__name__' == '__main__' idiom for test code.

Cheers, Frank

-- 
Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton the
other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to
crawl out of.
	-- Douglas Adams, 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct 16 12:36:43 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 16 Oct 2000 09:36:43 -0700
Subject: Testing existance of variable
References:   
Message-ID: <8sfaqr$jj0$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article ,
Steve George   wrote:
>
>Thanks Alex - that's just the operation I wanted. According to the Quick
>Python Book I can also use it to provide a default in case the environment
>doesn't have that variable:
>
>remote_id = os.environ.get('REMOTE_HOST') or \
>			os.environ.get('REMOTE_ADDR', 'empty')

Well, yes, but you probably want the standard default of None instead of
'empty'.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop III

From thomas at cintra.no  Wed Oct 18 06:15:18 2000
From: thomas at cintra.no (Thomas Weholt)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 10:15:18 GMT
Subject: convert python into C
References: <8sjrjf$ei5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39ed77a4.95075431@news.eunet.no>

There are Python2C compilers in development, but I think Guido himself
has said it would be hard to implement a true such compiler due to the
dynamic nature of Python. You might look at  freeze and sqeeze, or
search at www.vex.net/parnassus for compilers, but I think its gonna
be hard to find anything that will fill your needs.

Thomas

On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:47:28 GMT, barbaros at my-deja.com wrote:

>  I wrote a small program in python and I wish I could use it on
>my Next computer. I have no python interpreter on the Next, but
>I do have, of course, a C compiler.
>  Is there any method to convert a python program into C or C++ code ?
>
>  Thank you,
>  Cristian Barbarosie
>  http://www.lmc.fc.ul.pt/~barbaros
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.

From ak42 at altavista.com  Thu Oct 19 15:23:27 2000
From: ak42 at altavista.com (Alexander K)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 19:23:27 +0000
Subject: Lets Talk More Threads
References: <67DH5.155361$Qx4.5103925@news1.rdc1.il.home.com>
Message-ID: <39EF4A2F.3B4C90F8@altavista.com>

hmm, you sure about that?
a quote from the 2.0 docs for 'threading':
"""
start () 
    Start the thread's activity. 

    This must be called at most once per thread object. It
arranges for the object's run() method to be invoked in a
separate
    thread of control. 
"""

it says 'at most once', no? :)

  / ak

Alex McHale wrote:
> 
> Ok,
>   Using the Thread class, which I'm extremely happy with, I've run into a
> problem.  The documentation on the class suggests that you can obj.start( )
> a thread multiple times.  Yet, when I do this, I get an error to the effect
> of "thread already started"
> What I'm needing to do is have a thread which I can resurrect over and over.
> 
> This isn't the code I'm dealing with, but it is a simple parallel (abstract,
> no imports, etc)
> 
> actions = myThread( )
> actions.start( )
> while actions.isAlive( ):
>   sleep(10)
> if not actions.isAlive( ):     # this is only to emphasize that
> ctions.run( ) has indeed finished
>   actions.start( )
> 
> and this gives the above style error, every time.  Am I missing something
> here?

-- 
.
.
... ~~~:[ com dot altavista at ak42 ]:~~~ ...

From aahz at panix.com  Tue Oct 10 15:08:33 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 10 Oct 2000 12:08:33 -0700
Subject: concurrent access to dbms (was best way to store dbm records?)
References: <8rnu4o$emc$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <9f2vtss06scg26psv7gvfv8agt68jc91h3@4ax.com> <8rpeko$4jd$1@bob.news.rcn.net>
Message-ID: <8rvpfh$933$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <8rpeko$4jd$1 at bob.news.rcn.net>,
Michael B. Allen  wrote:
>
>Shelve works great Tim, thanks. I have implemented this and it works very
>well for my purposes.
>
>I may have a different issue however. The docs on shelve(and I would imagine
>dbm's in general) report that you cannot concurrently read from it if it is
>open by a writer. If I have interpreted the docs correctly this is true even
>if it is only open by a single writer.

Without going into the details of your specific needs, have you
considered using a full-blown DBMS?  Both MySQL and PostGreSQL would
probably suit you (I have used neither, but they're both claimed to be
multi-user (read "concurrent")).
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

'Gender' isn't a definition, it's a heuristic.  --Aahz

From olczyk at interaccess.com  Fri Oct 27 17:50:34 2000
From: olczyk at interaccess.com (Thaddeus L. Olczyk)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 21:50:34 GMT
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> 
Message-ID: <39f9f7d2.49345203@nntp.interaccess.com>

On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 20:06:35 +0100, Dale Strickland-Clark
 wrote:

>
>I've just received this by email:
>
>"As a friend of the person who wrote PythonWin, I didn't see anything
>lighthearted about your message at all and although I have some ideas
>to help you improve your situation, there is no way I am going to
>bother unless you apologize. I suspect a lot of very knowledgeable
>people reading the list feel the same way.
>Paul Prescod"
>
While not advocating your posts, I will say that this is a stupid
email. The guy probably doesn't have any clue how to help you and is
just bluffing to try to make you feel bad. Invariably some call for
help which turns into a flame war draws this exact response "I could
help but I won't because I think you are an asshole." The only thing I
think it accomplishes is to make the sender look stupid and the
community he represents look a little less intelligent overall.
I wish people would stop it.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Wed Oct  4 06:15:08 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 12:15:08 +0200
Subject: Extracting method parameter and default-values?
References: <8reo27$lmn$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>
Message-ID: <8rf08o02tvs@news2.newsguy.com>

"Thomas Weholt"  wrote in message
news:8reo27$lmn$1 at oslo-nntp.eunet.no...
> Hi,
>
> I need to dig my way into an object, find its methods and extract the
> parameters to that method and their default values.

Python is quite good at such "introspection" tasks.

> A test-class:
> >>> class test:
>      def __init__(self):
>           self.a = ''
>      def met(self, b, c = [1,2,3], d = None):
>           self.a = 'thomas'
>           print self.a
> >>>x = test()
>
> I guess its somewhere here :
> >>> x.__class__.__dict__['met'].func_code

x.__class__.__dict__ will include all methods; they're the
entries with types.MethodType as their type().  So (after
an "import types", of course): [warning, untested]:

    def handle_an_object(x):
        for name, entry in x.__class__.__dict__:
            if type(entry)==types.MethodType:
                handle_the_method(name,entry)

> where x is my class and met is the name of the method. I need to get
> something like a dictionary with the parameters and their default values,

Since not all parameters have default values, you probably want
something like a pair (two-argument tuple): first, a sequence of
parameter names for parameters without default values; then, the
dictionary names->default for parameters WITH such a value.

entry.func_code.co_argcount gives you the overall count of
arguments (including self).
entry.func_code.co_varnames gives you the names of local
variables, starting with the arguments in order.

For default values, though, you must rather look at
entry.func_defaults: this is a tuple of the default
values for those arguments which have them (always the
latest, rightmost, ones, of course).

Alex

From aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com  Wed Oct  4 16:07:53 2000
From: aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com (Aleksei Guzev)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 02:07:53 +0600
Subject: Unicode and Win2k
In-Reply-To: <20001004193704.5B8681D0EF@dinsdale.python.org>
Message-ID: 

I'm sorry I had a mistake. I said  meaning  :)))

From hans.kristian.ruud at inenco.no  Fri Oct 27 06:07:00 2000
From: hans.kristian.ruud at inenco.no (Hans Kristian Ruud)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 10:07:00 GMT
Subject: Python and Excel
References: <39F8887E.208FA9AA@inenco.no> <4Z2K5.907$Tq6.8472@news-server.bigpond.net.au> 
Message-ID: <39F9522B.F8C3C814@inenco.no>

"Howard B. Golden" wrote:

> "Mark Hammond"  wrote:
> > "Hans Kristian Ruud"  wrote:
> >
> > > When the application is finished, it tries to shut Excel down by
> > calling
> > > xlBook.Close():
> > >
> > > xlBook.Close(SaveChanges=0)
> > > del xlApp
> >
> > Note that you are zapping xlApp, but _not_ xlBook.  This object still
> > holds a reference to Excel.  Try deleting this too.
> >
> > Also, you can try calling "pythoncom.CoUninitialize()" as you
> > terminate.  This _may_ prevent the crash.
> >
>
> In my experience automating Excel 97 from VBA, crashes are common.  I
> believe that there are race conditions between the threads of Excel.  I have
> generally solved the problem in VBA by adding calls to VBA's "DoEvents" as
> necessary.  In fact, I routinely call a subroutine that executes a loop of
> 50(!) DoEvents whenever necessary.
>
> I suspect you may benefit from the Python equivalent of this, which Mark
> described to me as:
>
>     pythoncom.PumpWaitingMessages()
>
> You would probably want to do this several times (though maybe not 50) each
> time it is necessary.
>
> HTH,
>
> Howard

Thank you both for your advice. After experimenting, I find that Mark Hammonds
advise
(zapping xlBook as well as xlApp) solved my problem.

--
Hans Kristian

From hzhu at users.sourceforge.net  Fri Oct 13 18:30:03 2000
From: hzhu at users.sourceforge.net (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 22:30:03 GMT
Subject: ANNOUNCE: PySymbolic - Doing Symbolics in Python
References:      <8s6e8m0248c@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:34:41 +0200, Alex Martelli  wrote:
>
>Huaiyu, I know that Pearu was testing with 1.5.2, but, might
>there be some issues with your current installation...?  Have
>you tried it with Release Candidate 1...?  Or maybe you have
>an older version of Symbolic.py earlier on sys.path...?

This is very strange, as I use Linux, which does differentiate filename
cases.  And I tested it with both 1.5.2 and 2.0b2.  In any case, the new
version works.  Thanks to both of you.  This looks promising.

Huaiyu

From lyn at handtech.com  Mon Oct  2 01:22:18 2000
From: lyn at handtech.com (Carol Cameron)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 01:22:18 -0400
Subject: python mailing list
Message-ID: <000801c02c30$c13e1ea0$62c21e26@oemcomputer>

Can i please be put on the mailing list? My address is souperclee at yahoo.com
thanx Ducky Cameron
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From josh at blast.net  Mon Oct  2 21:25:44 2000
From: josh at blast.net (J Storrs Hall, PhD)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 21:25:44 -0400
Subject: numpy problems
Message-ID: <39D93598.E1D18B37@blast.net>

I've managed to make the install appear to go thru, but whenever
anybody tries to import lapack_lite I get
ImportError: /usr/local/lib/libblas.so.2: undefined symbol: s_wsfe
which is a symbol from  f2c_lite  -- but I can't figure out how to
get it linked in.

From robin at alldunn.com  Fri Oct 27 21:47:24 2000
From: robin at alldunn.com (Robin Dunn)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 01:47:24 GMT
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
References: 
Message-ID: <8tdb7b$nm6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  Guido van Rossum  wrote:
> To all Python users and developers:
>
> I am proud to have found a new home for my entire team: starting
> today, Tim Peters, Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, Fred Drake and myself
> are working for Digital Creations.  We will be spending part of our
> time on core Python development (including Jython and Mailman) and
> part of our time on Python infrastructure improvements that also
> benefit Zope.
>

Congrats guys!  I have to say that this move actually makes sense to
me.  The move to BeOpen left me scratching my head wondering "Why?"  I
finally just accepted it on faith...  But DC is a great company and I
think both DC and Python will benefit greatly from this arraingment.

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From ejr at lotus.CS.Berkeley.EDU  Sat Oct 14 00:42:55 2000
From: ejr at lotus.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Jason Riedy)
Date: 14 Oct 2000 04:42:55 GMT
Subject: Possible bug (was Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison)
References: 
Message-ID: <8s8o8f$17u$1@agate.berkeley.edu>

Wow.  I almost missed an ieee754 discussion... ;)  Note that I'd
like to see ieee support in Python, but it's going to take a _lot_
of work.  Until then, consistent behavior makes sense.  It works
for other languages, for some definition of `works.'

And Tim Peters writes:
 - 
 - He is an entertaining writer, although his rhetoric is often more 
 - extreme than either of ours .

He's just as entertaining (and comprehensive) in person.  ;)  
There was a recent discussion about `merging' Rexx's decimal 
FP and ieee854 with the hopes of hardware implementation [1].  
It was educational.  Rexx's is still mostly a subset, although 
it does have an exceptional situation that may be useful (can't 
recall it at the moment, and my notes are in my office).  I
meant to poke at a software 854 implementation for Python 
(the I/O's easier than with 754), but other things have 
caught up with me.

 - Have you read the 754 std?  He's in favor of the 754 std.

Only because so few people are interested in ieee854 hardware
support.  (And there are a few bits that he wouldn't mind seeing
modified, as far as I can tell.  Requirements like an input NaN 
always being a signalling NaN aren't so useful after all...)

 - I agree with him there wholeheartedly:  without the 754-mandated flags,
 - *and* without raising exceptions, the subset of 754 remaining sucks.

You don't mean what you think you mean.  ;)  More later...

 - [matching experiences]:  a vast majority still want divide-by-0, 
 - invalid operation, and overflow to raise an exception the vast 
 - majority of the time.

That doesn't make them right.

 - No.  I want exactly the choices 754 lays out:  user-settable sticky flags
 - and user-maskable exceptions.

Note that ieee754 traps are not the same as the standard view of
exceptions in programming languages; they're much lower level.
Exceptions destroy things as they pass upwards, and that doesn't
help debugging an odd FP problem.  

The traps in ieee754 and 854 are of the style seen in hardware 
(and, notably, many Lisp-based languages).  You jump to a handler, 
passing it the address of the failed instruction and some stored
state (more or less a continuation).  The handler can then do 
whatever it wants, including substituting another value and 
continuing after the insn that trapped.

 - Kinda, except that each of the 5 754-defined traps must be individually
 - maskable.  754 spells out what's needed.

Not fully.  Maskable on a per-process or per-thread basis?  And
do threads and processes inherit their parent's defaults or the
ieee754 defaults?

This gets more interesting when you add in things like the 
`microthreads' people seem to like (threads as programming
language construct rather than system construct).

CPython's currently at a point where people can make fairly 
arbitrary choices on these issues and simply enforce them.  
That's because it's slow.  As it gets faster and faster, these
issues will keep coming up.  Amusingly enough, this is similar
to how Rexx slipped decimal fp into common use.  It was added
when Rexx was slow, so no one cared about speed, but they all
liked the functionality.  (Whether or not it's sufficiently
used beyond fixed-point is another question.)

[On `presubstitution']
 - The basic idea is that the programmer gets to specify, via library 
 - calls (whatever), which particular fp value each 754 exceptional 
 - case returns.

It's a straight-forward application of ieee{7,8}54 traps.  That's
essentially how software i87 emulation works, too...  

 - Then set it back to +- Inf (or anything else they needed) later.

This is the other problem with traps and the like.  When is later?
If a thread of execution is weaving between different libraries,
as is common in OO systems, when do you set up the trap handlers?
(Consider an ODE solver with plug-in functions.)  And can the
user override all lower-level choices to insert `debugging' traps?
How about some of them, possibly on a per-module basis, to keep 
from being drowned (or surprised by finding non-error traps in
an unrelated module)?

The current next implementation of decimal arithmetic in Java [2]
requires an FP environment object to be passed into every operation
to deal with some of these issues.  Obviously, that's a touch
painful.  AFAIK, no one has a good solution yet.

There's a related issue that would be nice to solve at the same
time:  Deciding in which precision to compute a quantity.  Python's
decision that all floating point numbers are doubles isn't always
the best.  I'm tired, so I'm failing to cook up an example, but
here's the general idea...  

Consider what happens when you string together different libraries 
written by different people and you need to shuttle FP numbers from 
one to the next.  How do you know you have a reasonably correct 
answer after churning through all these calculations?  Assume that 
the libraries do the best, most accurate job they can individually.
Annoyingly enough, you can't say much about your final answer.

Take an extreme reduction:  The result of every single ieee754
operation is ``the correct result correctly rounded,'' but not
all algorithms that use these operations produce an accurate 
answer to the same precision as the individual operations.

The idea that's been presented (by someone I mention far too 
often in these messages) is to pin down some intermediate 
results.  Make sure you know them, and you know how well you 
know them.  One way that works for strings of basic operations 
is the old K&R C way: floats come in, floats go out, but all 
intermediate results are doubles.  This doesn't generalize 
perfectly, as we don't have an infinite recursion of precisions 
to use, but it seems to give a good engineering guideline:  
Compute intermediate results to high precision, but use the
end result to a lower precision to have more confidence that
the answer means something.  That statement's very fuzzy,
rather like my thinking after getting up to go to a farmer's
market way too early this morning, but I think you can get 
what I mean.  The devil's in the details, as always.

How is this related to trap handlers and exceptional behavior?
Both rely on some FP context being passed across expressions,
and they need to FP context to depend on program context.  If 
an elegant solution can be found, it could work for both.  But
that's a big if.  I think it might be sensible in a dynamic
language, but I think most things might be sensible in dynamic
languages.

 - If you can find two NumPy users in favor of disabling them all by 
 - default, I'll be mildly astonished.

Do he and I count?  ;)

 - Scared the hell out of language stds committees too, which goes a lot 
 - farther than the 754 folks would like to admit toward explaining why 
 - language committees stayed away from 754 bindings in droves.  

Dr. Kahan has said as much, but he has stuck to his guns.  It is 
not a trivial point, it's a different way of thinking.  If all 
people had stuck to the overflow-will-trap way of thinking, they 
would still be looking for an optimal symmetric eigenpair algorithm.
Likewise, lazy language people would likely still be thinking too 
hard about exceptions in lazy languages (Jones, et al. seem to 
credit ieee fp's model for their inspiration).

Not having to stick silly tests around virtually every FP operation
takes a huge mental weight off.  You don't have to worry that some
odd data will cause some inconsequential calculation to go nuts
and stop the whole program.

 - C99 is 15 years(!) after the fact.

And ``common wisdom'' is that changes in thinking take about 20
years to trickle out to the world at large, so it's a bit ahead of
schedule.

 - Even $3 business calculators have a sqrt key these days, and you do
 - not want to be on the other end of email when trying to explain to 
 - a businessperson why their crappy std deviation program returned a 
 - complex number <0.1 wink>.

Because its core algorithms weren't designed by Dr. Kahan (HP71B's 
arithmetic and equation solver)?  ;)

Jason, who has negative time right now and is going more negative
by babbling...

[1] http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/
[2] http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimalj/

From johannes at zellner.org  Thu Oct 12 03:48:35 2000
From: johannes at zellner.org (Johannes Zellner)
Date: 12 Oct 2000 07:48:35 GMT
Subject: profiling python
Message-ID: 

Hi,

is there a way to profile python scripts ?

-- 
   Johannes

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 24 06:34:37 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 12:34:37 +0200
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy,  overflow, inf, ieee, and rich  comparison
References:  <39EB3D03.A00C78B6@jps.net>  <39F4A4DE.9202540A@udel.edu>
Message-ID: <8t3ota028jv@news2.newsguy.com>

"Charles Boncelet"  wrote in message
news:39F4A4DE.9202540A at udel.edu...
    [snip]
> > > >  Guido thinks that 2/3 returning 0 was a design mistake,
    [snip]
> I often want 2/3 to equal 0, but then again I learned FORTRAN years ago.
>
> My point is that if 2/3 = 0.667, then special syntax is needed for those
> applications that want 2/3=0.  The current syntax is very simple, even
> if slightly confusing to a complete newby.

Note that a prominent beginners' language, Pascal, avoids this
specific design mistake: 2/3 is 0.6666667, and you use 2 div 3
if you want truncating-division.  2/3 returns a floating-point
number also in another language that may well be the only one
a beginner knows, Visual Basic in all of its forms.  Therefore,
it is quite possible that people who have programmed before get
very surprised by the truncation -- not everybody is learning
Fortran, C or Java as their first language...:-).

I'd rather have 2/3 return a _rational_ number 2/3, as in
Scheme -- another reasonably popular beginners' language.
But that requires having rationals built-in, I guess...:-).

Alex

From thomas at xs4all.net  Mon Oct  9 17:32:23 2000
From: thomas at xs4all.net (Thomas Wouters)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 23:32:23 +0200
Subject: join()
In-Reply-To: <39E1286F.D27A1034@my.signature>; from see@my.signature on Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 03:07:43PM +1300
References: <8rjj82$dnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39E1286F.D27A1034@my.signature>
Message-ID: <20001009233223.P12812@xs4all.nl>

On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 03:07:43PM +1300, Greg Ewing wrote:
> echuck at mindspring.com wrote:

> > In Python 2.0, I was surprised to see join() had become a method of
> > string. I "naturally" expected it to be a method of list.

> Quite a lot of people screamed blue murder about
> this at the time, and were ignored. Getting it
> changed now seems to be impossible.

Now now, that's not very nice. I'm certain I saw a lot of responses to the
threads about "".join() that tried to explain the choice. I can imagine that
some postings were 'ignored', given the sheer volume, but it's not like
*all* complaints were ignored. This isn't something that was thought up by
one person and just accepted by all the other developers. And don't forget
that Guido is Guido. Not the fact that string methods, including join(),
were in the 1.6 release means it's impossible to remove them, but the fact
that Guido allowed it in in the first place, despite the violent arguments
about how improper it is ;)

I know, I tried to get 'for x in y indexing z:' and similar patches
accepted, and failed ;) Also less syntax-heavy changes, like allowing any
assignment expression in 'import-as' (so that you can say 'import sys as
x['sys']' and 'import os as mymod.os' and such), were rejected. The fact
that string methods were accepted means they were pondered, inspected,
discussed (if necessary) and scrutinized before that, even if only in
Guido's mind.

I-wonder-what-kind-of-discussions-Guido-has-in-his-mind-ly y'rs,
-- 
Thomas Wouters 

Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread!

From blablu at gmx.net  Fri Oct  6 05:02:02 2000
From: blablu at gmx.net (Mike 'Cat' Perkonigg)
Date: 6 Oct 2000 09:02:02 GMT
Subject: Why is "while" ticking me off???
References: <39DD15A1.442E5A33@ix.netcom.com>  <39DCE8B8.3100BE89@seebelow.org> 
Message-ID: <8FC56D9B7mikecat@192.168.10.38>

the_brain at mit.edu (Alex) wrote in :

>
>> I'm always bugged by "elif" because I can never remember whether it's
>> "elif", "elsif", or "elseif".
>
>Use an editor with syntax highlighting.  That way, you'll know you've
>got it when it lights up.
>
>Alex.
>

Or stop programming in other languages! ;-)

Regards,
Mike

From sabren at manifestation.com  Thu Oct  5 13:02:49 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:02:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: python logic and AI links
Message-ID: 

It seems there's at least a small handful of logic programming and AI
modules out there... Anyone interested in tying some of this stuff
together?

I've started a sourceforge project for logic programming in python
http://plato.sourceforge.net (for "python logic and truth objects")..
There's nothing there yet, but I was thinking about making a simple
prolog interpreter, plus maybe some generic AI objects..

Actually, I have two specific projects in mind: a stock trader, and an
automated therapist (like eliza, but done right..  [see
http://www.manifestation.com/sabrina/ ) for some old, mostly random
thoughts about what it might be like..]

=====================================================
PYTHON AI MODULES
=====================================================

mark summerfield's fuzzy logic stuff:
   http://www.ourobourus.com/logic.py

mark lutz's holmes expert system shell:
   http://www.python.org/ftp/python/contrib/All/holmes.tar.gz

joe strout's AI in python page:
    http://www.strout.net/python/ai/

Denys Duchier's continuations page, which includes a validity checker
and prolog engine:
    http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/python/continuations.html

Aaron Watters' pysimplex, which seems to offer some form of
constraint programming:
    http://starship.python.net/crew/aaron_watters/pysimplex/

Ken Seehof's Neural Integrator:
   http://starship.python.net/crew/seehof/NeuralPython.html

Vladimir ____ (gandalf?)'s CLIPS interface:
    http://starship.python.net/crew/gandalf/DNET/AI/

Dirk Heise's GAS (Genetic Algorithm  Stuff):
    http://starship.python.net/crew/gandalf/gas01.zip

W. Michael Petullo's pylog, which talks to prolog via a pipe:
   http://www.flyn.org/

Cyphesis, an AI/ALife engine tries to achieve 'live' virtual world
where NPCs have ambition:
   http://www.vex.net/parnassus/apyllo2.py/73044531

Neil Schemenauer's Back-Propagation Neural Networks module:
   http://www.enme.ucalgary.ca/~nascheme/python/bpnn.py

Neil Schemenauer's S-expression parser module:
   http://www.enme.ucalgary.ca/~nascheme/python/sexprmodule-0.2.tar.gz

another fuzzy package (author unknown):
   ftp://ftp.csh.rit.edu/pub/members/retrev/fuz.tar.gz

Andrew M. Kuchling's "simple neural network code" (unmaintained):
   ftp://starship.python.net/pub/crew/amk/unmaintained/nnpy.tgz

ThoughtTreasure (an ontology for AI programs.. distributed with
bindings for python):
   http://www.signiform.com/tt/htm/tt.htm

Python bindings to WordNet:
   http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~steele/sources/wordnet-python.html

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From daimun at home.com  Wed Oct 18 21:58:33 2000
From: daimun at home.com (Alex McHale)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 01:58:33 GMT
Subject: Threads, again
Message-ID: 

This may be a bit of a dumb question - but I, for the life of me, can't
understand why, when using the thread module, start_new_thread will only
pass a tuple of arguments to the function.  Can anyone explain this to me?
Does this mean any function I want to thread, has to take 3 arguments?

From dag at orion.no  Sun Oct  1 12:02:50 2000
From: dag at orion.no (Dag Sunde)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 16:02:50 GMT
Subject: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)
References: <8r7du7$86p$1@reader1.imaginet.fr>
Message-ID: 

I think you add all recipients (including the cc & bcc ones to
the comma-separated "to_addrs"-parameter of the sendmail method,
and use the MIME headers: "To: ", "From: ", "Cc: " and "Bcc: "
to specify which one to show (or not) at the receiving side...

See RFC-822...

HTH...

Dag.

"Gilles Lenfant"  wrote in message
news:8r7du7$86p$1 at reader1.imaginet.fr...
> Hi,
>
> Is there an smtp/python expert here who can tell me how to have "cc" and
> "bcc" recipients of a mail ?
> BTW, it's with python 1.5.2, I use binary extra modules that are not
> compliant with 1.6.
> Thanks in advance !
>
> Gilles Lenfant
>
>

From not.this at seebelow.org  Tue Oct 31 03:11:51 2000
From: not.this at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 08:11:51 +0000
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org> <8t6vj70spd@news1.newsguy.com> <39F73E41.C8EE143F@seebelow.org> <8t8sgn0ahc@news1.newsguy.com> <39F8985B.6909B5CF@seebelow.org> <8tbv0r01082@news1.newsguy.com> <39FB2080.D38CAD35@seebelow.org> <8tgpr201ipj@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39FE7EC7.89DC9747@seebelow.org>

Alex Martelli wrote:
> 
> "Grant Griffin"  wrote in message
> news:39FB2080.D38CAD35 at seebelow.org...
>     [snip]
> > If you speak true words of wisdom on some subject, the words stand on
> > their own.
> 
> Oh, do they?  Even to a reader whose knowledge of the subject
> is infinitesimal?  How interesting!  So (supposing for the sake
> of argument you knew no Italian), you are somehow able (is
> it divine inspiration, ESP, or...?) to tell whether the following
> assertion, for example...:
> 
> "hyphenation in Italian is best performed algorithmically,
> given the strong regularity of the language's syllabification
> rules; trying to adapt to Italian hyphenation algorithms
> designed for other languages, adjusting only a data table
> to account for the language, is vastly sub-optimal"

I sure don't know what all that stuff means, but I gotta tell you that
it leaves me even more impressed with you than when you told us about
your extensive expertise in C.  <0.2 wink>

> is made up of "true words of wisdom"?  How, pray tell, do
> these words "stand on their own", when you have no basis
> on which to apply judgment?

I hope you realize the non-applicability of your example.  (If not, I
think there's a good chance the rest of us do. )  If, instead of
tangentializing about Italian, you were to make any well-reasoned and
insightful points about failings in C's syntax (any at all: honestly, we
get more curious each time you dodge the question!) then there's a very
good chance that most everyone here would understand (if not agree.) 
The reason is that nearly all of us here speak Italian...er, I
mean..."C".

But as long as we are impressing each other with stuff that doesn't
apply, let me try to return the favor and impress you with something you
may not know much about:

"When doing peoyte beading, it is imperitive to drop a bead whenever you
_can_ drop a bead; otherwise, the bead work will invariably become
flabby at the point at which the bead might have been dropped".

(what was the question? ;-)

> Are you _seriously_ claiming that a reader's ability to judge
> the worth of my words about Italian usage is not helped by
> knowing that I am a native speaker of Italian, have lived in
> Italy for most of my life, have co-authored with Tullio De
> Mauro (a prominent Italian linguist, currently the Minister
> for Education) a book on the results of computational
> linguistic studies applied to Italian, etc?

No.  He probably doesn't speak Italian.  (And I'm pretty sure I don't.
;-)  But would you argue that the proportion of people involved in
comp.lang.python who use and understand C is similar to the proportion
who speak Italian?  I wouldn't: it seems likely that nearly all
Pythoneers speak C, but very few speak Italian.  (Now if the language in
question were not "Italian" but "Dutch", that might be another
question...)

a-poor-analogy-proves-nothing-ly y'rs,

=g2
p.s.  I'm really impressed with that stuff about co-authoring with a
prominent Italian linguist, but I'm still gonna say that when I helped
Al Gore invent the Internet, that was even cooler.  
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From ljohnson at resgen.com  Thu Oct 26 14:41:35 2000
From: ljohnson at resgen.com (Lyle Johnson)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 13:41:35 -0500
Subject: [Distutils] error: invalid distribution option 'extensions'
References: <39F7B8D9.56058E8C@ix.netcom.com> 
Message-ID: 

Umm, in Thomas' defense, *you* might want to read the documentation
yourself:

http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/doc/dist/describing-extensions.html

But of course, it is wrong :)

"Berthold H?llmann"  wrote in message
news:m2vgugaz6k.fsf at pchoel.privat.uni-hamburg.de...
> >>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Gagne  writes:
>
>     Thomas> The setup.py: from distutils.core import setup, Extension
>
>     Thomas> setup (name = "isect", version = "1.0", description =
>     Thomas> "Python interface to isect", author = "Thomas Gagne",
>     Thomas> author_email = "tgagne at ix.netcom.com", url =
>     Thomas> "http://home.netcom.com/~tgagne", py_modules = [
>     Thomas> "CStructure", "IsdIO", "echo", "isdclient"], extensions =
>     Thomas> [Extension("isdio", ["isdio.c"])])
>
>     Thomas> and the result:
>
>     Thomas> $python setup.py sdist error in setup script: invalid
>     Thomas> distribution option 'extensions'
>
> How about reading the actual documentation?
>
> ext_modules = [Extension("isdio", ["isdio.c"])
>
> Greetings
>
> Berthold
> --
> bhoel at starship.python.net / http://starship.python.net/crew/bhoel/
>         It is unlawful to use this email address for unsolicited ads
>         (USC Title 47 Sec.227). I will assess a US$500 charge for
>         reviewing and deleting each unsolicited ad.

From dalke at acm.org  Wed Oct 18 01:57:50 2000
From: dalke at acm.org (Andrew Dalke)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 23:57:50 -0600
Subject: scanf in python...?
References: <39ebd839.159714@news>
Message-ID: <8sje3e$it4$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>

Tony Waterman wrote in message <39ebd839.159714 at news>...
>Does python have any way to mimic scanf ?

http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw.py?req=show&file=faq04.033.htp

 =========

Python FAQ Entry

4.33. Is there a scanf() or sscanf() equivalent?

Not as such.
For simple input parsing, the easiest approach is usually to split the line
into whitespace-delimited words using string.split(), and to convert decimal
strings to numeric values using string.atoi(), string.atol() or
string.atof(). (Python's atoi() is 32-bit and its atol() is arbitrary
precision.) If you want to use another delimiter than whitespace, use
string.splitfield() (possibly combining it with string.strip() which removes
surrounding whitespace from a string).

For more complicated input parsing, regular expressions (see module re) are
better suited and more powerful than C's sscanf().

There's a contributed module that emulates sscanf(), by Steve Clift; see
contrib/Misc/sscanfmodule.c of the ftp site:

    http://www.python.org/ftp/python/contrib-09-Dec-1999/Misc/

 =========

Hmmm, isn't "splitfield" deprecated?  Just fixed the FAQ.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org

From borcis at geneva-link.ch  Wed Oct  4 13:03:50 2000
From: borcis at geneva-link.ch (Boris * (1+(is->cic)))
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 19:03:50 +0200
Subject: Class Browsers vs Static Types (Re: Inefficiency of __getattr__)
References:   
Message-ID: <39DB62F6.EF943473@geneva-link.ch>

Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote:
> 
> [crossposted]
> 
> Wed, 04 Oct 2000 05:41:01 GMT, Kragen Sitaker  pisze:
> 
> > OK, so you agree that silent coercions cause problems in some cases
> > in C++, some of which cases are built into the language.
> >
> > So what's the advantage of static typing over dynamic typing?
> 
> More errors are fixed at compile time, before testing.

Mmmhhh...:) one might be tempted to argue that this way of
putting it is politically loaded in the direction of disallowing
undecidable compilability... arguably (as far as I heard recently
on the c.l.f.) undecidable static typing is concievable in the
context of parametric polymorphism and type inference... and before
a language with such a feature, it becomes a bit of an abuse to
distinguish compilation from testing, does it not ?

On the other foot, then, one may argue that "more errors are fixed
early" is a desirable property of any programming system, so that,
if we concile the above idea that forbids us to distinguish
compilation and testing nor to speak of that desirable property in
the terms you used (e.g. as that consequence of static typing),
then we should promote the property as an autonomous principle.

> Sometimes tools in the language are more expressible because of
> static typing, sometimes less. The "more expressive" part relies
> on the ability to determine the meaning by the context of usage.
> 
> My favorite languages, Haskell and OCaml, have static typing and no
> implicit coercions at all.

Logical ;-)

...tempting to suggest that dynamic OO languages have natural
and efficient class browsers and method editors where static
typing languages have natural and efficient checks and
error messages. Is that anywhere close to what you wanted to
say with "more expressive tools" ?

MMmmmhhh... could it not be argued that, even when there is
no check and enforcement, distribution of methods in classes
provide a guideline "network of borders" that helps locating
bugs (relative to other forms of structuring code) ?

> > Does it help you catch bugs, and if so, which ones?
> 
> It certainly does help. It's rare that a large piece of newly written
> code compiles the first time. OTOH it usually works the first time
> once compiles.

Magical !

[...]
> Explicit type signatures are optional in both Haskell and OCaml, but
> Haskell encourages to write them more than OCaml. The effect is that
> when there is a type error in an OCaml program, sometimes I have to
> spend some time finding it, often by adding explicit type signatures
> to see if a function is incorrectly defined or incorrectly used.

Interesting.

> 
> It clearly indicates that if the program was written in a language
> without static typing *in the OCaml's style*, it would be hard to find
> that bugs basing only on runtime behavior, even if tests covered the
> whole code.

This looks as if it could be universally assumed that typing bugs
would translate to bugs during program execution if they weren't
caught during compilation... I am not totally convinced, but would
welcome a bit of convincing theory.

> One thing applying especially to Haskell:

Why Haskell and not OCaml ?

> it's harder to add debugging
> output. It's the basic functional nature, returning expressions
> instead of performing computation steps. So finding bugs at runtime is
> harder, and finding bugs at compile time is easier than in imperative
> languages.

So what we want is an analogue to debugging hooks... again, could
the "programming language organ" that is an "inferred static typing
system" not evolve to "a facility to throw tracing (e.g. recoverable)
exceptions from a lexical distance" ?

What if we assumed the real benefit (or reason for popularity) of dynamic OO
languages to stem from a particular "implicit adequation" of "class &
method-ic" division of code with IDE integration (and related advantages) ?

- where I mean "particular implicit adequation" in an almost algebraic
sense, just as if I was saying (which I am not) that because dynamic OO
languages are "abelian groups" whence static fp language are "non-abelian
groups", the former interface trivially where the latter do not.

- another angle, way to put it : the real canonical OO programming situation,
that which won OO the market, is the one provided by GUI builders; and
it was the old timer's definite feeling upon 1st contact with GUI-builders
powered OO-language IDEs, that this integration killed the role of
a classical entity : the source code file - the things we used to have
listings of. Listings felt like the more manifest and explicit form of a
before then. The change may appear trivial, but in some sense it has
to do with generalizing the notion of syntax from the case of linear
text to something sensibly different.

> I think that the functional style encourages operating on a bit higher
> level of abstraction: combining partially applied functions themselves
> instead of stating what the result is when applied to an argument,
> using wrappers like foldr (Python's reduce) instead of explicit
> recursion, using monads, using custom higher order functions, passing
> lists instead of iteration. Also more values are passed explicitly
> instead of relying on an implicit state.
> 
> In this style there are more "levels" of objects present at the same
> time: plain values, functions of varying arity, monadic actions, lists,
> tuples. Programs are shorter but denser. To manage this complexity of
> flow control and passed state, a static type system is very helpful:
> it is easy to make mistakes by confusing those "levels", and they
> are almost always catched at compile time.

Thank you for this informative exposition.

BB

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Tue Oct  3 00:40:16 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 04:40:16 GMT
Subject: PythonCOM and Unicode
References: <8ramc8$37o$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

> com_error: (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, 'Python COM
Server
> Internal Error', 'Unexpected Python Error: exceptions.UnicodeError:
> ASCII encoding error: ordinal not in range(128)', None, 0, -
> 2147467259), None)

I am fairly sure you will find this a bug that has been fixed.  In
win32com\client\__init__.py:

Line 361 (or near) should be changed from:

  elif UnicodeType==type(obj):
to
  elif NeedUnicodeConversions and UnicodeType==type(obj):

(if not at that line, a line very similar).  Or, get the latest .py
file from CVS.

This change removed one last str() conversion win32com did
automatically for you (and still does in 1.5 builds)

Mark.

From andrew.markebo at telelogic.com  Sat Oct  7 07:59:04 2000
From: andrew.markebo at telelogic.com (Andrew Markebo)
Date: 07 Oct 2000 13:59:04 +0200
Subject: Code obfuscation / decompilers?
References: <39de791e_4@corp.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: 

A thought.. in your case.. move some of the environment into the
pythin interpretator (c-code) and make the validation in there... sort of.. 

I have a application that fetches data through a c-module and also
some functionality is in there, and I make it check that it has a license.. 

mylicensedprogram.py
....................
import mymodule # c - module 

mymodule.initialize()  # checks license, sets up environment, 
                       # registers functions.. connects to the database

....................

Now if licensing fails (normal FlexLM used), it doesn't register some
funktions I need for this program, you can't access the database..

        /Andy

/ "Joshua Muskovitz"  wrote:
| Hi,
| 
| I'm sure that other commercial developers have had this concern, namely, how
| do I prevent others from figuring out how my code works (without the
| original source, that is...)?  Do code obfuscators exist for Python?
| 
| Conversely, are there any bytecode to source code decompilers?  These would
| be of great help in convincing myself that my code is relatively safe from
| prying eyes as well.
| 
| All pointers welcome...
| 
| -- josh
| 
| 
| 
| 
| -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
| http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
| -----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From ivnowa at hvision.nl  Tue Oct 17 04:51:29 2000
From: ivnowa at hvision.nl (Hans Nowak)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 10:51:29 +0200
Subject: Pointing to function from class
In-Reply-To: <8sgrd7$2u3c$1@nntp1.ba.best.com>
Message-ID: <200010170851.JAA21408@axil.hvision.nl>

On 17 Oct 00, Adam Clark wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> I want something like this:
> 
> def SomeFunc () :
>   # doesn't take self and can be called from outside a class
> 
> class Class :
>   f = SomeFunc
> 
> c = Class()
> c.f()
> 
> I can't keep the class from trying to bind the function.

Here is one way to do it...

def somefunc():
	print "I am a happy function"

class Foo:
	def __init__(self):
		self.f = somefunc

>>> foo = Foo()
>>> foo.f

>>> foo.f()
I am a happy function

This may not be exactly what you want though, because it binds f to the 
instance, rather than the class.

Here's another way, but it's kinda clumsy:

class Bar:
	funcs = [somefunc]

>>> bar = Bar()
>>> bar.funcs[0]

>>> bar.funcs[0]()
I am a happy function

HTH,

--Hans Nowak (ivnowa at hvision.nl)
Info Vision Europe BV

From tim_one at email.msn.com  Thu Oct 19 00:18:19 2000
From: tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 00:18:19 -0400
Subject: str(list) calls repr() on elements?
In-Reply-To: <39ED5964.4B00C029@home.com>
Message-ID: 

[Michael Dyck]
> It seems that the built-in function 'str', when applied to a list/tuple,
> constructs its result by calling 'repr' on the elements of the list/tuple,
> rather than 'str'. How come?

Historical accident, but hard to get away from.  All the builtin container
types (list, tuple, dict) use repr() on their containees, regardless of
whether str() or repr() was applied at the top level (in fact, the str() and
repr() methods for the builtin container types execute exactly the same
code -- they're "the same" methods).

I think that sucks (you can't truly appreciate why before you routinely
define your own __str__ and __repr__ methods in your own classes), but no
consensus on repairing it has yet been reached.  The primary reason today is
that repr(string) puts quotes around string, while str(string) cannot (for
various reasons it would be nuts if str(string) didn't return string
unchanged).  So, e.g., if str(list) "passed str() down", then

    str(["a", "b,", "c"])

would produce the string

    [a, b,, c]

instead of today's

    ['a', 'b,', 'c']

and str([42, "42"])

    [42, 42]

instead of today's

    [42, '42']

etc.  When making a string out of a container, you really want *some* way
for the fundamental builtin types to announce their nature in the string,
whether str() or repr() is applied at the top level.  "passing repr() down
regardless" satisfies that desire, but is almost certainly not what you
really want (and esp. not in the presence of your own __str__ and __repr__
methods).

Don't know whether this will ever improve.

everyone-complains-too-much-about-the-possible-hacks-out-ly y'rs  - tim

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Sat Oct 28 11:53:05 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 15:53:05 GMT
Subject: Python/C++ Engineers Wanted
References: <8tchu7$2gd$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39FA5040.625CB8E2@gte.net>
Message-ID: 

> > Our Company:
> > TSI develops custom mathematical optimization
> > models to help major retailers determine
> > merchandise markdown strategies that maximize
> > gross profit.
> [snip]
> Sounds like a perfect application for fuzzy logic.

I don't know, I'd say it sounds more like an optimization problem, where you
solve for various inequalities using something like Simplex.  It could also
be something based on game theory...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

From matt at mondoinfo.com  Sun Oct  1 15:25:46 2000
From: matt at mondoinfo.com (Matthew Dixon Cowles)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 19:25:46 GMT
Subject: tkinter toplevel widget
References: 
Message-ID: 

On 1 Oct 2000 16:29:37 GMT, Anders Olme  wrote:

>Hello is it possible to change root window title after the mainloop()
>is entered?

Yes, it is. Since the top level mainloop() only returns when the root
window is closed, you need to change the title it in a callback that's
called in response to some event. I'll append a simple example.

Regards,
Matt

from Tkinter import *

class mainWin:
  def __init__(self,root):
    self.root=root
    self.createWidgets()
    return None

  def createWidgets(self):
    b=Button(self.root,text="Change title",command=self.changeTitle)
    b.pack(side=TOP)
    spacer=Frame(self.root,width=200)
    spacer.pack(side=TOP)
    self.root.title("Test")
    return None

  def changeTitle(self):
    self.root.title("Different title")
    return None

def main():
  root=Tk()
  mainWin(root)
  root.mainloop()

if __name__=='__main__':
  main()

From jbranthoover at my-deja.com  Thu Oct  5 11:43:02 2000
From: jbranthoover at my-deja.com (jbranthoover at my-deja.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:43:02 GMT
Subject: Newbie: How Can I Print To Specific Screen Locations.
Message-ID: <8ri7i5$8gj$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hello All,
	I am looking a way to print at specific screen locations under
Python.  Possibly by controlling the cursor location?  Is there a
module that will let me do this ? screen printing?

	Any information that you can give me will be greatly
appreciated.  Thank you for your time.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 17 18:12:59 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 00:12:59 +0200
Subject: Reading a binary file in as hex
References: <8sicku$91r$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <1h3H5.1688$FU3.403358@ptah.visi.com>
Message-ID: <8sij370de@news2.newsguy.com>

"Grant Edwards"  wrote in message
news:1h3H5.1688$FU3.403358 at ptah.visi.com...
    [snip]
> If you want to read the bytes in a file and convert each to a
> hex string, you can do something like this:
>
> import string
> d = open("file.data","rb").read()
> l = map(lambda x: '%02x' % ord(x), d)
> s = string.join(l)
> print s
>
> Or mashed into a one-liner:
>
> string.join(map(lambda x: '%02x' % ord(x), open("file.data","rb").read()))
>
> If you've got Python 2.0 you can use a list comprehension
> rather than the Schemesque map/lambda

In other words...:

s = ''.join(['%02x'%c for c in open('file.data','rb').read()])

(and if map/lambda is Schemesque, surely list comprehensions
are Hasquellish...?-).

Alex

From cg at schlund.de  Thu Oct 19 09:41:12 2000
From: cg at schlund.de (Carsten Gaebler)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 15:41:12 +0200
Subject: Reading the error stream from os.popen()
References: <8smt02$8sb$1@kopp.stud.ntnu.no>
Message-ID: <39EEF9F8.B5D65B06@schlund.de>

Tov Are Jacobsen wrote:
> The msgfmt command below outputs info to the stderr stream,
> but the read() method retrieves data from stdin.
> 
> s = os.popen('/usr/bin/msgfmt  --statistics '+x[0]+'.po').read()

Redirect stderr to stdout:

s = os.popen('/usr/bin/msgfmt  --statistics '+x[0]+'.po' 2>&1).read()

cg.

From jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de  Wed Oct 11 07:22:22 2000
From: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de (Janko Hauser)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 13:22:22 +0200
Subject: ANNOUNCE: PySymbolic - Doing Symbolics in Python
References:    <8s167e02bdd@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <87og0r39n5.fsf@ifm.uni-kiel.de>

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I understood that GiNaC does not directly
expose an API, but helps a C++ programmer to write expressions
directly in C++, which would mean that the interface itself needs to
be written and beforehand defined in C++. So SWIG would not be an
option, perhaps CXX or something like that. Another system to look at
is YACAS, which has an API.

As I said, perhaps I'm off the line,

__Janko 
-- 
  Institut fuer Meereskunde             phone: 49-431-597 3989
  Dept. Theoretical Oceanography        fax  : 49-431-565876
  Duesternbrooker Weg 20                email: jhauser at ifm.uni-kiel.de
  24105 Kiel, Germany

From root at rainerdeyke.com  Tue Oct 24 15:43:55 2000
From: root at rainerdeyke.com (Rainer Deyke)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 19:43:55 GMT
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>    
Message-ID: <%DlJ5.117170$g6.53347784@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>

"Glyph Lefkowitz"  wrote in message
news:m31yx616d4.fsf at DHCP-98-129.origin.ea.com...
> "Rainer Deyke"  writes:
>
> > I like the C++ template style:
> >
> > pointer > a;
> > array > b;
> Speaking of terrible syntax decisions; it amuses me to no end that
>
> pointer> a;
>
> is illegal because it will be parsed as a
> right-shift... "implementation before design" seems to be C++'s motto.

It's annoying, but ultimately irrelevant because it is always caught at
compile time.

--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  8 12:59:44 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 08 Oct 2000 18:59:44 +0200
Subject: comparing dissimilar types?
References: <8rliia$pun$1@la-mail4.digilink.net>
Message-ID: 

"Pete Shinners"  writes:

> in reality, i really don't care for the "p==10", and will
> probably remove it. but i really want "p==(10,10)" to work.
> is there any way i can convice python to call my
> coercion/compare routines in this situation?

It's hard to say. Looking and PyObject_Compare, and taking your
description, I'd say it *does* call your coerce routine. If it
doesn't, then your code does something you forgot to mention...

Regards,
Martin

From effbot at telia.com  Sat Oct 21 10:57:58 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 14:57:58 GMT
Subject: compiling Python-2.0 on SunOS Unix machine
References: <8sqbvl$o55$1@news.nuri.net>
Message-ID: 

June Kim wrote:
> when testing the installation with "make test", I got one CRASH:
>
> test_pwd
> test test_pwd crashed -- exceptions.IndexError: list index out of range
>
> What is the problem?

the test script seems to assume that pwd.getpwall should
return at least one entry.  try this:

>>> import pwd
>>> print pwd.getpwall()

if you get back an empty list, your system doesn't expose any
password entries through getpwall (if that's a bug or not is more
than I can tell...)

From smoriano at sicon.net  Thu Oct 19 10:15:55 2000
From: smoriano at sicon.net (Sergio Boix Moriano)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 16:15:55 +0200
Subject: WRITING FILES
References: <39EEFB04.AF25E654@sicon.net>
Message-ID: <39EF021B.E7455323@sicon.net>

Sergio Boix Moriano wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>     I want to make a procedure to append lines to a file, in the
> position i want.
>
>     I've tried to do this opening the file in mode "r+", but if i do
> this, it writes in the document from a position x, but overwritting the
> text that is in the document. If i open de document with (a+) it writes
> always at the end of the document.
>
>     What i'm doing bad?

     Hi again

        I solved it, i open the file in mode 'w+', i stored the lines used
the readlines() function, and then i modify the list doing inserts, and
finally i write this list to the file.

    But, is there another way to do this?

From dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk  Tue Oct 24 10:30:07 2000
From: dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk (Dale Strickland-Clark)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 15:30:07 +0100
Subject: ActivePython 2.0 Release
References:  <634vusk9nco8qem70ddo43t4qpgid30s1l@4ax.com> <8sp2he01b00@news1.newsguy.com> <8spsoh$csm$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6p18vs8kf64ubh72rm08b3d0u6dj8qn793@4ax.com> <8t21jl$eg3$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8t3qth$rov$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

Top marks to you for making it available.

Hernan M. Foffani  wrote:

>In article <8t21jl$eg3$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
>  Robin Dunn  wrote:
>> I just started working on it the evening that 2.0 was released, mainly
>> because it wasn't until then that I could find the conversion script
>> hiding on my wife's computer (which was mine when Python 1.5.2 was
>> released and when I did the same for those docs.)  The script was
>> originally done by someone else. I forget who but I think his ID is in
>> the file somewhere...
>
>It's me. In the following page
>http://www.orgmf.com.ar/condor/pytstuff.html you can find the .chm
>files of 1.5.2 and patches 1 and 2.
>I used to update the page as soon as the docs were available but I am
>moving these days: job, home, country, continent (from Buenos Aires to
>Madrid) If I get the free time in the following days I might include
>the 2.0 docs, just for the sake of consistency.
>
>BTW, thanks Robin. I must confess I was a bit err... angry at first.
>But this is an Open Source Community so thanks again.
>
>Regards,
>-Hernan

Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Sat Oct 21 12:05:58 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 16:05:58 GMT
Subject: Eval the caller within a method?
References: <8srn4j$lr8$1@newsreaderm1.core.theplanet.net> 
Message-ID: 

You don't need to raise an exception to look at the current stack:  the
traceback module has a function called extract_stack, which returns a list
you can inspect and manipulate.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Jan Dries"  wrote in message
news:mailman.972136977.15647.python-list at python.org...
>
>
> Franz GEIGER wrote:
> >
> > I wonder if in Python there is a possibility to evaluate the method
which
> > called a method within that method like it is in Perl.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> Given you run the following python program (saved in file loginfo.py)
>
>     from sys import exc_info
>
>     def caller_info():
>         try:
>             raise StandardError
>         except StandardError:
>             caller = exc_info()[2].tb_frame.f_back.f_back.f_code
>             return
> (caller.co_name,caller.co_filename,caller.co_firstlineno)
>
>     def log_info(msg):
>         print "Message '%s' from function %s in file %s at line %s " %
> ((msg,) + caller_info())
>
>     def my_function():
>         log_info("some diagnostics")
>
>     my_function()
>
> the output is:
>
> "Message 'some diagnostics' from function my_function in file loginfo.py
> at line 13"
>
> which I believe is what you were looking for.
> The trick is in the traceback object you can obtain once you get an
> exception. That contains the current stack frame (where the exception
> occured). Each stack frame has, among other things, a ref to the
> previous (the caller) frame (named f_back) and a ref to a code object
> named f_code. The latter has various members with info about the
> function.
>
> Regards,
> Jan
>

From francois.granger at free.fr  Mon Oct  9 16:36:27 2000
From: francois.granger at free.fr (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Granger?=)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 20:36:27 GMT
Subject: What is Python?
References:  <8pqhm9$6a9$1@panix3.panix.com> <3BBC75F01B2A2291.3CC54B93C0C69DED.4E021EA85330C94C@lp.airnews.net>  <8pt65c$cbs$2@newshost.accu.uu.nl>  <39C29336.71ED41AC@seebelow.org>  <39C3E664.BCEAF741@seebelow.org>  <8q5rgv$7to$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  <39C6DF06.FF7F8A74@engcorp.com> <39C70642.D6CBF93A@alcyone.com> <39C710F7.4E72D963@seebelow.org> <39C86059.2F644D70@engcorp.com> <39C867B5.DFF9FFD3@seebelow.org> <8qat1u02g2j@drn.newsguy.com> <1eha5k2.kxgxg85fmpvrN@paris11-nas8-55-47.dial.proxad.net> <8rkk93028po@news2.newsguy.com> <1ei797z.80h2j11axifjmN@paris11-nas2-42-25.dial.proxad.net> <3dvgv2m0k4.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <1ei99nj.xzk3gmmvlbnlN@paris11-nas8-55-45.dial.proxad.net>

Andrew Kuchling  wrote:

> Really?  I'm not aware that the Quebec office comes up with terms that
> people actually use.  I remember amused columns in newspapers when it
> decreed that the proper French for "brownie" was "gateau chocolat a
> texture spongieux". 

There is allway something one can laught at fortunatelly. But overall
they tend to "try and see if it work".

> Although, browsing the Quebec Office de la Langue Francaise's online
> dictionary of computer-related terms at
> http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/termino/ressling.html#vocint

That was probably the link I was thinking of.

>, it
> seems to me that they've gotten better at coming up with decent terms.
> "freeware" -> "gratuiciel", for example, which is kind of cute, and
> "killer app" -> "application phare", which is a good metaphor.

I'll try to find back some other good ones if you want.

> Sometimes they don't even seem to be trying, though: ORB ->
> "gestionnaire ORB", and "OO programming" -> "programmation orient?e
> objet", which is graceless.  And why does "TCP/IP" become "TCP-IP" in
> French?

Ho! No!
I allways write it TCP/IP.

> Python is mentioned in the entry for "langage de script", BTW.
> Unfortunately the included terms are mostly Internet-related ones.
> There's no entry for "tree"
Arbre (?)

> or "binary tree"
Arbre binaire (?)

> or "linked list"
I don't know

> I'll never know if "arbre binaire" is correct French or not.

If the guy you speek with is a programmer, binnary tree will make it. If
he is not, why speaking of such a thing ? :-)
> 
> > "Deux choses sont en vastes quantit? dans l'univers. L'hydrog?ne et la
> > connerie humaine. L'hydrog?ne est detruit dans le coeur des ?toiles."
> > - inconnu cit? par Noelle Adam
> 
> The first sentence is usually attributed to the SF writer Harlan
> Ellison; I think the second sentence is from Adam, or from some
> intermediate source between Ellison and Adam.)

Thanks for this, i'll try to find a better reference based on this.

-- 
"De quelque mani?re que l'on divise le monde, il y a toujours la m?me
proportion d'imb?ciles et de c.." - Propos de O.L.Barenton, Confiseur
A. Detoeuf

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Sun Oct  1 17:29:14 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 23:29:14 +0200
Subject: Does Python 2.0b1 support https on Windows?
References: <39B65D22.8C3FB61B@NameConnector.com> <3dn1hl1jkh.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us> <8qtk9v$h5q$1@nnrp1.deja.com>  
Message-ID: 

Andrew Markebo  writes:

> There are always the possibility to use internet explorers
> https-functionality through win32com, check the article 're: 2000: A
> Win32 oddisey' by Michal Wallace.

Not always: How exactly do I use this function on my Solaris machine
?-) Of course, on *Windows* there probably always is that
possibility...

> I have managed to get together the socketlib.pyd for ssl, what I did
> was compiled OpenSSL for windows, compiled the socketlib with the
> flage USE_SSL, where it barfs on some error like 'Non-constant used'
> move the &PyObjectType assignment into the init-function, as done in
> some other modules that does dynamic loading on win32.
> 
> Get in touch if you want more info.

There is a bug report on SF on this problem,

http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470&func=detailbug&bug_id=110683

Would you consider posting a patch to SF to correct the error? If
there is an easy fix, it may get included into Python 2.0, still.

Regards,
Martin

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct 30 11:20:19 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 08:20:19 -0800
Subject: A Suggestion  (please read and respond)
References: 
Message-ID: <8tk743$7nk$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
D-Man   wrote:
>
>However, I think the total lack of declaration of variables reduces
>readability and can be an issue for new programmers.  

This is a known issue.  Guido deliberately decided to go this route for
Python; this issue may be revisited for Python3000.  Before you ask,
here's my standard Py3K response:

Nobody -- repeat, nobody -- has the answers to these questions.  Py3K is
a codename for a project that has not yet started.  Py3K is predicated
to a certain extent -- to what extent, nobody knows -- on the Fred
Brooks maxim, "Build one to throw away."

There are certain design decisions that were made for Python 1.x that
Guido would like to revisit.  Some of these decisions *MAY* be changed
in ways that break 1.x and 2.x code.  Py3K is the name of the version
that *MAY* have these incompatibilities.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

'Does it say something about our culture that "academic" is sometimes
used as a synonym for "irrelevant"?'  --Marc Wilson

From hans.kristian.ruud at inenco.no  Tue Oct  3 10:27:35 2000
From: hans.kristian.ruud at inenco.no (Hans Kristian Ruud)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 14:27:35 GMT
Subject: Events and the Listbox widget
Message-ID: <39D9EB57.A0382403@inenco.no>

I have generated a listbox, and wish to extract some information when a
user
  clicks on an item:

          list = Listbox(canvas,width=15 )
          list.pack(side=TOP)
          list.bind('', chooseSheet)

          def chooseSheet(event):
                  listbox = event.widget
                  selected = listbox.curselection()
                  setCurSheet( selected[0] )

  My problem is that the list of selected values from
listbox.curselection()
  is not updated until after chooseSheet is called, i.e. the function

  listbox.curselection()

  returns the PREVIOUS element that was clicked.

  Originally I had bound the function to root, and then it worked fine,
however
  I do not want the function chooseSheet to be executed when I click on
buttons
  and such that I have added later.

  Any ideas?
  Thanks in advance

--
Hans Kristian Ruud
22 18 63 08 (jobb) 22 65 22 34 (hjemme) 952 33 224 (mob)
Wash daily from nosetip to tailtip, drink deeply but not to deep
remember the night is for hunting, forget not the day is for sleep

From loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de  Mon Oct  9 10:37:59 2000
From: loewis at informatik.hu-berlin.de (Martin von Loewis)
Date: 09 Oct 2000 16:37:59 +0200
Subject: PEP 4: Deprecation of standard modules
References:  <8rl03n$c0j$1@panix3.panix.com> 
Message-ID: 

"Jason Cunliffe"  writes:

[gopher should not be deprecated]
> Yes I agree.
> 
> Although I am not using gopher myself, I am sure there is still lots of
> useful sitespeople have done in the past which deserve good access via
> Python. If anything, keeping gopherlib.py  means there is much more chance
> gophersites can be happily translated to later protocols. Python is a good
> tool for this.

Well, that is the whole point of the PEP. Without asking, I wouldn't
know which modules are still in use and which are not. I will
undeprecate the gopher module in the next revision of the PEP,
documenting who is using the module still. Then, ten years from now,
we can ask this person whether he is still using gopherlib, then in 50
years, and so on. Once he doesn't use it anymore, we can again
deprecate it and wait for somebody else to claim using it :-)

Regards,
Martin

From sholden at holdenweb.com  Fri Oct 13 14:10:51 2000
From: sholden at holdenweb.com (Steve Holden)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 14:10:51 -0400
Subject: SQL server module??????
References: <8s7i1j$vkv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39E7502B.2EE777AE@holdenweb.com>

muwanda at my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> hi...
> I need python connect with SQLserver....I find a python ODBC, but I
> want a SQL server module....(like _mysql)....
> Where find it?????
> 
> thanks
> 
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

Do you have SQL Server?  If so, then load mxODBC from M.A. Lemburg's
area on starship.python.net.  It includes a SQL Server driver which
I use daily.

regards
 Steve
-- 
Helping people meet their information needs with training and technology.
703 967 0887      sholden at bellatlantic.net      http://www.holdenweb.com/

From aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com  Fri Oct  6 00:22:21 2000
From: aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com (Aleksei Guzev)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 10:22:21 +0600
Subject: Low level parallel port control- is there module?
In-Reply-To: <39DCEDC3.ECD76147@home.com>
Message-ID: 

May be trying to use Win32 API from Python a good idea...

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: python-list-admin at python.org 
>>[mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of rob
>>Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 10:08 AM
>>To: python-list at python.org
>>Subject: Low level parallel port control- is there module?
>>
>>
>>I would like to do low level control of the parallel port on Windows NT
>>using Python.  Does such a module exist?  Thanks,  Rob.
>>-- 
>>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From aahz at panix.com  Mon Oct 23 14:08:33 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 23 Oct 2000 11:08:33 -0700
Subject: ANY NEWS ON THE STARSHIP?
References: <8su1su$euq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39F47496.22449099@holdenweb.com>
Message-ID: <8t1ur1$8jt$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <39F47496.22449099 at holdenweb.com>,
Steve Holden   wrote:
>
>Given the continued unavailability of a fairly crucial resource,
>it would be nice if we could actually see some hard information.
>
>Since the starship is, unless I'm mistaken, maintained by effort
>from volunteers, is it also time to ask whether any assistance is
>required?  Not that I think I can fix problems others can't, but
>if effort is required then I'd rather be providing it than mouthing
>off about the site's unavailability.

I think that the Starship is being hosted by PythonLabs these days; it's
understandable, I think, if their first priority is getting the main
site up.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."  --Butch Cassidy

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Tue Oct 24 23:39:05 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 03:39:05 GMT
Subject: WIN32 questions
References: 
Message-ID: 

"Drew Whitehouse"  wrote in message
news:wly9zdwudv.fsf at anu.edu.au...

> I want to have a win2k system startup (and shutdown) a full-screen
GUI
> program on a dozen other win2k systems. Can I do this without having
> the operator logon to each of the systems manually (it's a kiosk
like
> facility) ? Should I be using an NT Service ?

The easiest way is to set the registry to auto logon.  This is quite
simple, and documented at the MS site.  "autoadminlogon" is the key
name IIRC, which may help your search.

A service wont really do what you want in the general case.

> Is there a way to trap the closing of a window from a command line
> python program ? ie a user double clicks on a python app icon, it
runs
> continuously in a console window and eventually they hit the kill
> button. (try: .. finally: .. doesn't handle this). I need to do

Nope.  You should wrap it in a simple GUI, like Tkinter.  This will
allow you to do this.  Alternatively, you could use a taskbar icon
program - you should find a demo that uses win32gui for this.

> I notice that win32com clients that don't exit normally don't
properly
> cleanup server instances ie there is a pythonw.exe left running in
the
> background (motivation for the previous question). How do I
clean-out
> these orphaned instances ?

There is no support in win32com for brutally closing objects.  You
have to ensure that the Python objects are cleaned up normally.  The
user killing the process will be a problem, and I'm not sure what to
do about that (other than wrapping it in a GUI).

Mark.

From erik at pacific-shores.com  Wed Oct 25 10:04:03 2000
From: erik at pacific-shores.com (Erik Myllymaki)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:04:03 GMT
Subject: DCOracle and sqlplus?
References:  <39F6B944.53B9366A@python.com>
Message-ID: 

in article 39F6B944.53B9366A at python.com, Thomas A. Bryan at
tbryan at python.com wrote on 10/25/2000 3:43 AM:

> Erik Myllymaki wrote:
> 
>> I am quite new to Oracle and don't know how I would go about using a
>> pre-written sqlplus report through DCOracle. I am guessing I can't use
>> DCOracle for this at all but would have to hit sqlplus from a command-line
>> call and bring the text in that way.
> 
> That depends what you mean by "a pre-written sqlplus report."  If you just
> mean that someone has written a bunch of SQL and PL/SQL and put it in a file
> for you to run like
> 
> SQL> @report1
> 
> at the sqlplus prompt, then you can probably migrate some or all of it to
> Python using DCOracle.  I believe that you can call a PL/SQL block using
> DCOracle, but I'm not sure whether I have ever done it.  Once I have Python
> in the picture, I usually do all of the scrolling through cursors in Python.
> 
> If the report has a bunch of commands for sqlplus to do things like set up
> the sqlplus environment so that the output looks right (doesn't line-wrap,
> etc.), 
> then you'll need to modify the report before running it in Python.
> 
> In fact, I'm not sure why you'd bother replicating an existing sqlplus report
> in Python unless you plan to gain something by it.  Are you simply having fun
> with using Python, or are you replacing all sqlplus scripts with Python to
> restrict direct database access.  You may also be planning to process the data
> within Python to do some nifty computations or to customize the output, such
> as 
> using the Win32 extensions to write the output into a spreadsheet.
> 
> Each command in a sqlplus script is
> 1) an SQL command (trivial to move into Python)
> 2) a part of a PL/SQL block (you may want to translate it to Python)
> 3) a command to the sqlplus environment (drop these and either replicate the
> intent in Python or ignore them, depending on your goal)
> 
>> Any examples or advice would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Post an example or a simplified example of what you're trying to do and why
> you're trying to do it, and it would be much easier to give you appropriate
> examples. :)  
> 
> ---Tom

I am using DCOracle so I can access Oracle through Zope. My idea is to use
exisiting sqlplus reports and throw them on the web. They all make use of
sqlplus-only syntax/environment and I don't want to reformat them through
python OR zope. 

Thanks again,

Erik Myllymaki
erik at pacific-shores.com

From stephenk at cc.gatech.edu  Thu Oct 26 08:17:12 2000
From: stephenk at cc.gatech.edu (Stephen Kloder)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 08:17:12 -0400
Subject: Tkinter -- a window/dialog box that stays in front of everything 
 else.
References: <39f7fb9e.6037328@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: <39F820C7.FED2D3DD@cc.gatech.edu>

"Thaddeus L. Olczyk" wrote:

> The best example I have of this is the NT task manager ( I think the
> 98 task manager is similar ). What I want is to be stepping through
> one piece of code. At some line ( that I have to discover ) a second
> piece of code will be executed. In that second piece of code I
> want to popup a dialog box which I can't miss, so it has to be in
> front of everything else. Can anyone help?

There must be a cleaner way to do this, but this seems to do the trick:
window.tk.call('focus','-force',window)
window.tk.call('grab',window)

--
Stephen Kloder               |   "I say what it occurs to me to say.
stephenk at cc.gatech.edu       |      More I cannot say."
Phone 404-874-6584           |   -- The Man in the Shack
ICQ #65153895                |            be :- think.

From parkw at better.net  Tue Oct 10 08:13:38 2000
From: parkw at better.net (William Park)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:13:38 -0400
Subject: Running Python on SMP machine
In-Reply-To: ; from erno-news@erno.iki.fi on Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 02:22:31AM +0300
References:   <8rrks8$a1a$1@panix3.panix.com> <8rrrg00nle@news2.newsguy.com> <8rsssg$lcs$1@panix3.panix.com> 
Message-ID: <20001010081338.A2963@better.net>

On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 02:22:31AM +0300, Erno Kuusela wrote:
> >>>>> "Aahz" == Aahz Maruch  writes:
> 
>  | That's the Global Interpreter Lock.  But my experience is that
>  | frequently the overhead of synchronizing between two separate processes
>  | overwhelms the payback you get from actual use of SMP -- that trick works
>  | best if the two processes do no synchronization.
> 
> yes. that is true regardless of what ipc model (threads/locks or
> message passing) you use.  some tasks are inherently not
> parallelizable, while some tasks are.
> 
> this is, however, not a good reason to use python threads
> for smp if your particular task is parallelizable. quite
> the opposite.

Hi Erno,  can you elaborate on this?

My program is not particularly I/O intensive -- just slurping single
table at the beginning, and writing a smaller table at the end.  But,
within my program, there are a lot of sections where calculations are
inherently independent.  Eg.
    c = a+b	<- section 1, independent of section 2
    d = a-b	<- section 2, independent of section 1
    e = c/d	<- using result of the two sections.

---William Park, Open Geometry Consulting

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 24 05:45:48 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 11:45:48 +0200
Subject: MS Windows Clipboard
References: 
Message-ID: <8t3m1n025h1@news2.newsguy.com>

"Alex McHale"  wrote in message
news:dm7J5.8522$bj.761444 at news1.rdc1.il.home.com...
>   I was just wondering if anyone could clue me in how to read data from
the
> Windows clipboard?  I have been reading through all the past posts
regarding
> the clipboard; but none has had the information I'm needing.  They all
have
> to do with selections within the program itself.
>   The idea is I need to be able to monitor the Windows clipboard for a
> certain type of data.  Is there a way to do this in Python?

Sure, but you'll need Hammond's win32all extensions.  Module
win32clipboard exposes all of the Win32 clipboard API's.

For _monitoring_ the clipboard, specifically, you probably
want win32clipboard.SetClipboardViewer.  You need to have a
window (possibly hidden!) to pass to this function; said
window will then "receive a WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD message
whenever the content of the clipboard changes" (it must
process this message, and also WM_CHANGECBCHAIN, by using
SendMessage to pass them to the next window in the chain,
the handle to said window being the return value of the
SetClipboardViewer call).  When your monitoring ends, your
window must remove itself from the chain via a call to
ChangeClipboardChain.

Alternatively, you can make life simpler for yourself at
the cost of heavier system-load by polling periodically
rather than being alerted via message specifically when
the clipboard changes.

One way or another, IsClipboardFormatAvailable is the API
you can use to check if your supported format is on the
clipboard, if there is only one such format (it takes as
its argument the formatcode); if you want to support more
than one clipboard format, GetPriorityClipboardFormat will
take a tuple of clipboard format codes, in your preferred
priority order, and return the first one of these that is
currently in the clipboard, 0 if clipboard empty, -1 if
clipboard non-empty but none of the requested formats is
on it.  You need to OpenClipboard before you start looking
at it (so nobody else will be able to modify it while
you're looking!) and CloseClipboard when you're done looking.
OpenClipboard also takes a window-handle parameter, but you
can pass it a 0 to mean "no specific window, just give the
clipboard to `this thread'".
Note that opening/closing the clipboard does not affect
the data on it in any way, so, no worry -- just don't
call EmptyClipboard if all you want to do is look...!!!

Here is a very-toy-level example.

First, how to ensure a function of ours is called each
time the clipboard changes (assume all the import of
win32all modules implied from the calls...):

>>> def trac(*a):
...  print "trac",a
>>> dummywin=win32ui.CreateWnd()
>>> parent=win32ui.CreateWindowFromHandle(win32gui.GetActiveWindow())
>>> dummywin.CreateWindow(None,None,0,(0,)*4,parent,0)
>>> myhandle=dummywin.GetSafeHwnd()
>>> x.HookMessage(trac,win32con.WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD)
>>> previoushandle=win32clipboard.SetClipboardViewer(x.GetSafeHwnd())
trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)

[I'd really like to use .GetDesktopWindow() rather than
.GetActiveWindow() to create the dummy window's parent,
but for some reason win32gui is not exposing GetDesktopWindow
in win32all build 135, so I fudged it...]

Anyway, we're now getting a stream of traceback prints
such as
>>> trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
trac ((208340352, 776, 217252274, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
>>>
>>> trac ((208340352, 776, 217252274, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)
trac ((208340352, 776, 4130772, 0, 0, (0, 0)),)

as the clipboard gets changed, so, we see that our
"hooking" has worked.  Now, of course, we want to
do something better than just tracing when our
clipboard-monitoring reveals a need for it...:

>>> def tracecb(*a):
...  win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
...  res=[]; fmt=win32clipboard.EnumClipboardFormats(0)
...  while fmt:
...   res.append(fmt)
...   fmt=win32clipboard.EnumClipboardFormats(fmt)
...   win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
...   print "fmts on cb:", res
...
>>> x.HookMessage(tracecb,win32con.WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD)

(note that HookMessage returns the previously hooking
callable for that message, if any).

Now the messages we get are things like
fmts on cb: [1, 13, 16, 7]
when text is copied to the clipboard,
fmts on cb: [49161, 49224, 49327, 49322, 15, 49158, 49159, 49171]
when files are copied to it, etc.

I'm not sure where the standard formats (CF_TEXT, etc)
are defined as symbolic constants in win32all -- they're
not in win32con, anyway.  Worst case, you can get the
numeric values by grepping through windows' include
files (get the Windows Platform SDK if needed... it's a
free download from the Microsoft site) and getting:

/*
 * Predefined Clipboard Formats
 */
#define CF_TEXT             1
#define CF_BITMAP           2
#define CF_METAFILEPICT     3
#define CF_SYLK             4
#define CF_DIF              5
#define CF_TIFF             6
#define CF_OEMTEXT          7
#define CF_DIB              8
#define CF_PALETTE          9
#define CF_PENDATA          10
#define CF_RIFF             11
#define CF_WAVE             12
#define CF_UNICODETEXT      13
#define CF_ENHMETAFILE      14
#if(WINVER >= 0x0400)
#define CF_HDROP            15
#define CF_LOCALE           16
#define CF_MAX              17
#endif /* WINVER >= 0x0400 */

#define CF_OWNERDISPLAY     0x0080
#define CF_DSPTEXT          0x0081
#define CF_DSPBITMAP        0x0082
#define CF_DSPMETAFILEPICT  0x0083
#define CF_DSPENHMETAFILE   0x008E

So, we see that the formats available when copying a text to
clipboard (1, 13, 16, 7) are text, Unicode-text, locale, and
oem-text.  Those for copying files, apart from the predictable
HDROP ('handle for drop-files operation'), are more mysterious.
But we can learn a little bit about them by adding one line
to our tracing-function (in the while-loop, after the append):

  if fmt>17: print fmt,win32clipboard.GetClipboardFormatName(fmt)

now the trace we get on file-copy-to-clipboard is:

>>> 49161 DataObject
49224 Shell IDList Array
49327 Preferred DropEffect
49322 Shell Object Offsets
49158 FileName
49159 FileNameW
49171 Ole Private Data
fmts on cb: [49161, 49224, 49327, 49322, 15, 49158, 49159, 49171]

which is rather interesting.  However, we still have not
shown we can _fetch_ the data of a certain type once we do
know it's there.  Let's take CF_TEXT for that, i.e., the
code number 1, clearly easiest.

Calling win32clipboard.GetClipboardData(1) is clearly the
way to get at the data we want.  It's documented as
returning "the handle of a clipboard object in the specified
format", so we might worry about using a PyHANDLE to
extract the text.  But, no!  Again programming in our
explorative way, we see, experimentally, that a *string*
is returned.  Thus, adding just one more line to our
function after the "if fmt>17" one...:

  elif fmt==1: print 'CB',win32clipboard.GetClipboardData(1)

gives us just the feedback we want...!

Similarly, if we try (after copying a file to the clipboard)
with format 49158, the one named 'FileName', we do get a
string with the filename -- and a trailing 0.  This can be
handy!  Careful, though: the undocumented conversion to
string seems to take place somewhat indiscriminately; if
asking for format 49159, the FileNameW (clearly meant to
be Unicode) we still get a string back (not a Unicode
string) and displaying its repr clearly shows all of the
zero-bytes in it.  So, care must be taken to get at the
data, unless we know it IS string-data, more or less.
If you ask for format 15 (HDROP), you get back a "string"
of 54 mysterious bytes -- so you may have some problems
exploring it unless you know the format from elsewhere
and are handy with the struct module:-).

But still -- I hope I've remedied the deficiency you have
noticed in "past posts"!-)

Alex

From andy at reportlab.com  Mon Oct 16 10:44:17 2000
From: andy at reportlab.com (Andy Robinson)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:44:17 GMT
Subject: This is really cheesing me off...
References: 
Message-ID: <39eb13af.1132964404@news.demon.co.uk>

Dale Strickland-Clark  wrote:

>Env: Win2K, Python 1.6, PythonWin
>
>How do you develop multi-module projects without haveing to constantly
>quit and restart PythonWin?
>
>I run the code under PythonWin
>An error occurs.
>I fix the bug.
>Save the module.

I find this happens very occasionally with packages; PythonWin can
import 'mymodule' when it should be seeing 'mypackage.mymodule'.

When I need to be absolutely sure the environment is 'clean', I keep a
DOS box open and run command-line test programs from there;it
only needs 3 keystrokes to switch windows, recall the last line,
and run again in the DOS box.

- Andy Robinson

From mbel44 at dial.pipex.net  Thu Oct  5 12:20:54 2000
From: mbel44 at dial.pipex.net (Toby Dickenson)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 17:20:54 +0100
Subject: Recommended exception method for modules?
References: 
Message-ID: 

ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards) wrote:

> 3) a class for each type of error with value(s) that further
>    explain what is wrong:
>
>    class PosixSerialBaudError(Exception):
>        [...]
>         
>    if not validBaud(r):
>        raise PosixSerialBaudError(r)
>
>    [this last one could be done as a subclass of a general
>     PosixSerialError class, -- that way somebody can catch
>     either all of my exceptions or just individual ones.
>     Right?]

Possibly a PosixSerialBaudError is a little too specific. Are you
going to add PosixSerialParityError, PosixSerialTimeoutError, and
PosixSerialOutgoingFlowcontrolError too?

It might be more useful to have more general PosixSerialError (or
possibly PosixSerialSettingsError).

Toby Dickenson
tdickenson at geminidataloggers.com

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Thu Oct 19 09:55:46 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 08:55:46 -0500
Subject: New - Need Help
References: 
Message-ID: <46CAA856DFE77C3E.1118277713476DB8.D25F5A38728B4D03@lp.airnews.net>

In article ,
  wrote:
>I dont have any prior compiled language programing experience(I know 
>HTML, that is it) and I am looking to start learning a language. I 
>was planning on making python my first. Is this a good idea? If it 
			.
			.
			.
It's an excellent idea.  Python is the best first language
for most people, I claim.

Others are alreadying fielding the questions about tutorials
and books.  I write only to confirm the wisdom of your choice.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From ge at nowhere.none  Wed Oct 11 11:32:35 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 15:32:35 GMT
Subject: pyGTK -- how to wait for modal dialog?
Message-ID: 

I've created a modal dialog box, but can't figure out how to
wait until the dialog is dismissed so I can find out which
button was pressed.

The C language GTK examples I've found all replace the gtk main
loop with one that does nothing until the dialog box is
destroyed.  Isn't there anything like wait-for-
(where something is a window being displayed, destroyed, etc.).

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  ... Blame it on the
                                  at               BOSSA NOVA!!!
                               visi.com            

From robin at alldunn.com  Mon Oct 23 14:55:54 2000
From: robin at alldunn.com (Robin Dunn)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:55:54 GMT
Subject: ActivePython 2.0 Release
References:  <634vusk9nco8qem70ddo43t4qpgid30s1l@4ax.com> <8sp2he01b00@news1.newsguy.com> <8spsoh$csm$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6p18vs8kf64ubh72rm08b3d0u6dj8qn793@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <8t21jl$eg3$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article <6p18vs8kf64ubh72rm08b3d0u6dj8qn793 at 4ax.com>,
  dale at out-think.NOSPAM.co.uk wrote:
> Robin Dunn  wrote:
>
> >
> >>
> >> One little plus (from my POV) I noticed in their previous build is
> >> that the docs in the Windows build are in CHM, which I find quite
> >> preferable to bare HTML (built-in index and search, etc), although
> >> there were lots of defects in the .CHM themselves (missing/wrong
> >> indices, etc).
> >>
> >
> >I've built a .CHM from the BeOpen python docs.  You can get it at
> >http://alldunn.com/python/py2docs.zip.  I just did a quick hack on a
> >python script (included) I had laying around from 1.5.2 to make it
find
> >the extra docs added since then.  The script produces the stuff
needed
> >for the MS HTML Help compiler.  I havn't found anything missing yet,
but
> >no guarantees...
>
> Excellent. Really useful. How long have you been keeping this to
> yourself?

Not long.  Really!

I just started working on it the evening that 2.0 was released, mainly
because it wasn't until then that I could find the conversion script
hiding on my wife's computer (which was mine when Python 1.5.2 was
released and when I did the same for those docs.)  The script was
originally done by someone else. I forget who but I think his ID is in
the file somewhere...

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://wxPython.org     Java give you jitters?
http://wxPROs.com        Relax with wxPython!

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From glyph at no.spam  Tue Oct 24 13:44:39 2000
From: glyph at no.spam (Glyph Lefkowitz)
Date: 24 Oct 2000 12:44:39 -0500
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:   <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>   
Message-ID: 

"Rainer Deyke"  writes:

> I like the C++ template style:
> 
> pointer > a;
> array > b;
Speaking of terrible syntax decisions; it amuses me to no end that

pointer> a;

is illegal because it will be parsed as a
right-shift... "implementation before design" seems to be C++'s motto.

-- 
Glyph Lefkowitz
Professional -- Software Engineer,  Origin Systems
Amateur      -- Computer Scientist, Twisted Matrix Enterprises
(My opinions are my own and do not reflect in any way on the policies
or practices of my employer, etcetera etcetera.)

From rael at see.sig.com  Tue Oct 31 11:50:05 2000
From: rael at see.sig.com (William S. Lear)
Date: 31 Oct 2000 10:50:05 -0600
Subject: destructors order not guaranteed?
References: <39FDBC9E.5030204@netscape.com> <8tkj6o05dm@news1.newsguy.com> <87snpduoxg.fsf@lisa.zopyra.com> <8tmlsb022v4@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <878zr5ez0i.fsf@lisa.zopyra.com>

"Alex Martelli"  writes:
> "William S. Lear"  wrote in message
> news:87snpduoxg.fsf at lisa.zopyra.com...
> > "Alex Martelli"  writes:
> > >...
> > > Local namespaces, and global (module) namespaces, do indeed
> > > obey different rules regarding the order in which their entries are
> > > removed.
> >
> > This, in my opinion (and as handy as I have found Python to be), is a
> > major flaw in the Python interpreter.
> 
> That the (undocumented, liable to depend on the machine,
> release, &c) order in which entries from a local namespace
> are removed, is DIFFERENT than the (undocumented, liable
> to depend, &c) order for a global namespace?  I can't
> believe you mean that.  ...

Quite right: my complaint was more limited and not as I expressed it;
the problem I have is with the behavior of the test() function itself
in the original example:

    def test():
       a = foo(1)
       if 1:
           b = foo(2)

    if __name__ == '__main__':
       test()
       ...

What I dislike is that test() builds a, then b, but a is then
destroyed before b.  I prefer the C++ behavior in this case:

    #include 

    class foo {
    public:
        foo(int id) : m_id(id) {
            std::cout << "Constructing foo(" << this->m_id << ")\n";
        }
        ~foo() {
            std::cout << "Destroying foo(" << this->m_id << ")\n";
        }
    private:
        int m_id;
    };

    void test() {
        foo a(1);
        if (true) {
            foo b(2);
        }
    }

    int main() {
        std::cout << "Trying this in a function--\n";
        test();
        std::cout << "Now trying it here--\n";
        foo a(1);
        if (true) {
            foo b(2);
        }
    }

The output of the C++ program is:

    Trying this in a function--
    Constructing foo(1)
    Constructing foo(2)
    Destroying foo(2)
    Destroying foo(1)
    Now trying it here--
    Constructing foo(1)
    Constructing foo(2)
    Destroying foo(2)
    Destroying foo(1)

Which you cannot do with Python, even if you use a main() function
instead:

    class foo:
        def __init__(self, id):
           self.id=id
           print 'Constructing foo(%d)' % id
        def __del__(self):
           print 'Destroying foo(%d)' % self.id

    def test():
        a = foo(1)
        if 1:
            b = foo(2)

    def main():
        print 'Trying this in a function--'
        test()
        print 'Now trying it here--'
        a = foo(1)
        if 1:
            b = foo(2)

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()

Which outputs:

    Trying this in a function--
    Constructing foo(1)
    Constructing foo(2)
    Destroying foo(1)
    Destroying foo(2)
    Now trying it here--
    Constructing foo(1)
    Constructing foo(2)
    Destroying foo(1)
    Destroying foo(2)

I agree with you that the order of construction/destruction in the
global namespace is (and probably should be) indeterminate.

> Are you talking about _the class_, or _a specific instance_ of that
> class?  If the object being destroyed has a reference to another
> object ("a specific instance of class D", or "class D itself" -- do
> remember that classes ARE objects in Python), that other object
> WILL remain available as long as the reference exists.  Period.
> (This also holds for a *module* object, which is more likely to
> be "providing services").

Yes, I realize that classes ARE objects in Python.  What I don't like
is having to add references in an ad-hoc manner, when I would prefer,
within function scope, to rely on LIFO construction/destruction.

> Perhaps you can sketch a sample case that worries you, where
> you think an object A may want to "make use of the services
> of object D" (whether D is a class-object, instance-object,
> module-object, etc, no difference) in its destructor (__del__,
> the method invoked on A [if it defines it] when its reference
> counts drops to 0), yet you're worried that D may have
> disappeared prematurely.  You'll see you can't build such
> an example -- a reference to D must still be around (else
> 'making uses of its services' is impossible), so D itself
> must still be alive, too...

Ah, ok, let's see:

    class D:
        def __init__(self, id):
           self.id=id
           print 'Constructing D(%d)' % id
        def __del__(self):
           print 'Destroying D(%d)' % self.id
        def foo(self, msg):
           print msg

    class C:
        def __init__(self, id, a_d):
           self.id=id
           self.d=a_d
           print 'Constructing C(%d)' % id
        def __del__(self):
           print 'Destroying C(%d)' % self.id
           self.d.foo("Au revoir")

    def test():
        aD = D(1)
        aC = C(1, aD)
        if 1:
            a_D2 = D(2)
            a_C2 = C(2, a_D2)

    def main():
        print 'Trying this in a function--'
        test()
        print 'Now trying it here--'
        aD = D(1)
        aC = C(1, aD)
        if 1:
            a_D2 = D(2)
            a_C2 = C(2, a_D2)

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()

this outputs:

    Trying this in a function--
    Constructing D(1)
    Constructing C(1)
    Constructing D(2)
    Constructing C(2)
    Destroying C(1)
    Au revoir
    Destroying D(1)
    Destroying C(2)
    Au revoir
    Destroying D(2)
    Now trying it here--
    Constructing D(1)
    Constructing C(1)
    Constructing D(2)
    Constructing C(2)
    Destroying C(1)
    Au revoir
    Destroying D(1)
    Destroying C(2)
    Au revoir
    Destroying D(2)

Which is what I would like, but I guess this will take some getting
used to ... I really do prefer LIFO order.

Bill
-- 
William S. Lear | Who is there that sees not that this inextricable labyrinth
r a e l @       | of reasons  of state was artfully invented, lest the people
z o p y r a .   | should  understand  their own  affairs, and, understanding,
c o m           | become inclined to conduct them?    ---William Godwin, 1793

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Tue Oct 17 09:22:25 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 13:22:25 GMT
Subject: Python and Lotus Notes
References: <39EBBD7E.34ADD5BD@yieldworks.com>
Message-ID: 

Coming from a VB background myself, I recommend you check the case of your
method calls.  VB will find the correct case and adjust your methods
accordingly, but Python won't.  That's where I would start....

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"marc cheatham"  wrote in message
news:39EBBD7E.34ADD5BD at yieldworks.com...
> Has anyone used Python 1.5 and COM for Lotus Notes 5.02 and up? I am
> able to Initialize a new notes session, but cannot access the my mail
> database on the Domino server. I believe the COM call to GetDatabase
> returns an object, and this is where the problem lies. I have gotten
> this to work under VB6, but would prefer to use Python.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Marc
>

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Sat Oct  7 00:54:15 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 00:54:15 -0400
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com> <39DD865E.D97E4D09@cable.a2000.nl>  <8rkpsr$bpa$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39DE2905.1E62C763@ix.netcom.com> 
Message-ID: <39DEAC77.C4952258@ix.netcom.com>

I suppose the question came from my Smalltalk background, so I empathize.

--
.tom

From nospam at nospam.com  Sun Oct  1 17:27:55 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 21:27:55 GMT
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References:  <8qss6t$7i$1@saltmine.radix.net> <8erA5.37729$dZ2.13446193@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>  
Message-ID: 

"jepler epler"  wrote in message
news:f_KB5.1232$Qb.83034155 at news.randori.com...
> On 01 Oct 2000 10:47:28 +0200, Martin von Loewis
>   wrote:
> >I don't believe there is a deliberate after-ad delay on SF. The source
> >code of SF is available (this is the alexandria project) - can you
> >point to the exact place where such a delay is implemented?
> This may appear to be the case due to the fact that netscape does not
render
> a table until it is complete, and the ad iframe is before the table which
> includes the whole page content.

The effect is also apparent in IE5.

And, if you watch the progress indicator, one will notice two variations:
(1) the ad arrives quickly, then nothing else for a bit till suddently all
the rest arrives, (2) everything arrives (99 or 100%) but only the ad is
displayed for the first second or two.  (I am not referring specifically to
SF here, but to the web in general.)

I'm good at ignoring ads, but this technique interferes significantly with
the users productivity.  And if it is intentional and unnecessary then it is
particularly annoying.

Tom.

>
> in fully incremental browsers, such as links, mozilla(?) and ie, I don't
> think you'll see this effect.
>
> If this is the case, I doubt it's intentional since it's a consequence
> of the user's browser.
>
> Jeff

From fred at balzac.scd.ucar.edu  Fri Oct 20 20:13:09 2000
From: fred at balzac.scd.ucar.edu (Fred Clare)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 00:13:09 GMT
Subject: large file support
Message-ID: <8sqn2l$ec$1@ncar.ucar.edu>

How does one read large files into Python?  I have a 4 gigabyte
file on an SGI (that has over 30 GB main memory), but when I use

  f = open("file","rb")
  s = f.read()

on this file, I get "MemoryError".  Trying the I/O from the os module 
produces the same result.  In fact I get the MemoryError even when 
trying to read 2GB files.  When I run configure before building python, it
indicates that large file support *is* enabled.

I searched DejaNews and there are some entries indicating that
large file support is possible, but I could not find where
anyone had actually done it.

-- 
Fred Clare
fred at ucar.edu

From ge at nowhere.none  Tue Oct  3 11:58:45 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:58:45 GMT
Subject: how do I listen on a socket without sucking up all the CPU time?
References: <39d971f3_1@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39D9AA8D.EABDF6BA@businesscollaborator.com>  <8FC2A1B30mikecat@192.168.10.38>
Message-ID: 

In article <8FC2A1B30mikecat at 192.168.10.38>, Mike 'Cat' Perkonigg wrote:

>There comes another question in mind: Can I somehow tell a
>thread that there is nothing to do so another thread can
>consume more time?

I haven't done any threaded stuff in Python, but from what I've
read it looks like fairly generic threading support, so I'll
give some general multi-threading advice...

What you need to do is design the program so that the thread is
blocked when it has nothing more to do.  Then you don't have to
"tell" it.  It just stops and other stuff runs. I always have
each tread block on something: a timer, semaphore, socket,
mailbox, data-queue, hardware-interrupt, etc. until there's
something for it to do.

If a thread is "consuming" something (e.g. a TCP data stream,
Ethernet packets, serial data, commands from another thread)
then figure out how to make the thread block when there's
nothing left to consume.

If the thread just needs to run periodically, then have it
block on a timer that fires once every X ms and wakes up the
thread.

If you've got a thread that isn't strictly cyclical or a
consumer, but a mixture, you can generally do a
wait-with-timeout on whatever resource it is consuming.

>I heard the active thread changes if there are 10 byteOps are
>done. Does that mean I have just to implement a "while 1: pass"
>loop to have this thread consume less time?

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Yow!
                                  at               
                               visi.com            

From effbot at telia.com  Sat Oct 28 04:46:16 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 08:46:16 GMT
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: 
Message-ID: 

Tim Peters wrote:
> But be that as it may, Dale's got a real problem.  The interactive module
> edit<->run cycle under Python IDEs really is tricky, sometimes requiring
> non-trivial knowledge of how sys.modules is used & managed internally in
> order to avoid picking up stale definitions.

better make that "some Python IDEs" -- not all IDEs insist on
running the debugged program in the same process as the IDE
itself...

And yes, now that everyone else is plugging their new version,
I probably should mention that PythonWorks 1.1.1 will be out
shortly.  Among other news, it can debug programs written in
Python 1.4, 1.5.X, 1.6, and 2.0.

Check www.pythonware.com for more info.

From gregj at pobox.com  Sun Oct  1 00:40:08 2000
From: gregj at pobox.com (Greg Jorgensen)
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 04:40:08 GMT
Subject: manipulating bits in python
References: 
Message-ID: 

Python has a full set of bitwise operators, which can be applied (only) to
integers and long integers:

x << y    left shift x by y bits
x >> y    right shift
x & y    bitwise and
x | y    bitwise or
x ^ y    bitwise xor
~x    bitwise negation

print "%x" % a    # print a as hex integer

I recommend the excellent book "Python Essential Reference" by David
Beazley.

Greg Jorgensen
Deschooling Society
gregj at pobox.com
Reading, because life's too short for buggy people.

"Jim Richardson"  wrote in message
news:slrn8tckiq.h5.warlock at gargoyle.myth...
> I have a ??? re: manipulating bits in python. I have a need to do quick
and
> simple bit twiddling, shiftright, invert etc. THe operator module has s
shiftR
> but how can I catch the bit that falls off without a lot of grotty_code?
>  Also, I can't seem to figure a "invert" number, something that would take
> for example, 0x01 and return 0xFE, I can do this fairly simply, but am
confused
> at not finding a simple call for it. Am I missing something? thanks all
>
> --
> Jim Richardson
> Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
> WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
> Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
>

From nospam at nospam.com  Tue Oct  3 12:14:07 2000
From: nospam at nospam.com (Tom)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 16:14:07 GMT
Subject: RFC: reimplementing the Type type as an extension type.
Message-ID: 

I'm thinking about reimplementing the type type as an extension type.  The
purpose would be to make much additional information about a type available
from the type object.  This info would include the following:

 Attributes (all read-only):
__name__ - same as for the built-in type objects.
__members__ - a tuple containing the names of the special attributes
supported by all objects of the type.
__methods__ - a tuple containing the names of the methods supported by all
objects of the type.
    These are the same as the 'generic' special attributes currently
available on objects of some types, but implemented on the type object, not
the object itself.  Currently, some are implemented using the method table,
some are hard-coded (for types that don't have a method table, I suppose),
and many aren't implemented at all (why?).  Should I include info about the
object type of each attribute as well?  whether the attribute is read-only?
What about pre-defined dictionary attributes (eg. __doc__, __file__,
__path__, but these aren't guaranteed to exist).
__type__ - the object of the built-in type type corresonding to this
extended type.
__basicsize__ - in bytes, corresponds to basic size field in the types
definition structure.
__itemsize__ - in bytes, corresponds to item size field in the types
definition structure.

 Methods:
new(args) - create and return a new object of the type (like the new
module).
false() - create and return an object of the type.  This would return a
'sample' object - see types.py for sample objects of each type.  These
objects correspond to false in truth testing (for relevant types) and are
essentially null objects.
hasdict() - return true if the type has a namespace dictionary that can be
accessed through the dot operator (so, only true for ModuleType,
InstanceType, and ClassType).
numeric()
sequence()
map() - returns true if the type implements the corresponding (numeric,
sequence, and map) methods.
range() - returns the min and max value of the type (if relevant) in an XRan
ge object (with step = None).

 Attributes (but probably implemented as Methods since Python doesn't have
enums):
mutability - IsMutable()
composition - IsAtomic(),IsCompound() - both can return false if type has no
value (just special attributes).
copyable - CanCopy() - eg. how does the copy.py module handle this type.
(In honour of the recent 'how can you clone a string thread in c.p.l.)
externality - HasExternal() - refers to external resources (must be
destroyed to release the resource).
callable - IsCallable()

 A few other features/comments:
- I would also supply a function similar to the built-in type() function
(but it would return one of these 'extended' type objects).
- There would be a mechanism for registering information about other
extension types.
- I would provide seperate type objects for those that don't have them in
the built-in type system.  Currently:
  LambdaType == FunctionType
  UnboundMethodType == MethodType
  BuiltinMethodType == BuiltinFunctionType
 Given that their type fields aren't distinguishable, how do I deteremine
which is which?  Does anybody care about this distinction?  Maybe they are
the same for a good reason?

I am writing this post to ask for suggestions or requests, including
corrections to my terminology, and suggestions for member names.  But most
of all please tell me if someone has already done this, or if there are any
significant changes pending to the source code that I should know about, or
if this is just a bad idea for some reason.

Tom.

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Tue Oct 31 05:59:34 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 10:59:34 -0000
Subject: PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B137B@intrepid>

> OK, if the logos don't turn out to be Monty Python based (instead of
> snakes based), someone is going to get seriously hurt.

I got a nice set of Monty Python icons from
.

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk
Man must shape his tools lest they shape him. - Arthur Miller

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else
is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure,
copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From hzhu at yahoo.com  Tue Oct  3 17:20:59 2000
From: hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 21:20:59 GMT
Subject: Coerce that can pay attention to type of operation
References:     
Message-ID: 

On 03 Oct 2000 17:19:50 +0200, Martin von Loewis
 wrote: 
>hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu) writes:
>
>> Or more generally,
>> 
>> "%80.2.3.5s" % a  == str(a, 80, 2, 3, 5)
>
>> which could be used to format more complicated objects in a very clean and
>> efficient way.
>
>That does not look very clean to me: too much magic. Instead, I'd
>write
>
>"%s" % a.str(80,2,3,5)
>
>I.e. I'd rather invoke an explicit function to pass arguments for
>fancy formatting.
>

Well, I was thinking about stuff like:

def typeseting(headers, blocks, format):
    i = 0
    for header, block in zip(headers, blocks):
        i += 1
        print format % (i, header, parse(block))

typeseting(headers, blocks, "%d. %s\n%80.2.3.5s")

The advantage is that everything the user wants to control is outside the
function, while every useless detail is inside, yet there is only one format
string to pass around.

Huaiyu

From cobrien at Radix.Net  Mon Oct 30 11:36:06 2000
From: cobrien at Radix.Net (Cary O'Brien)
Date: 30 Oct 2000 11:36:06 -0500
Subject: Zope Learning Curve (was Re: Zope question: collaborative environments? )
References: <39F8C8EC.EB2DC75D@UTS.Itron.com>
Message-ID: <8tk81m$67t$1@saltmine.radix.net>

In article <39F8C8EC.EB2DC75D at UTS.Itron.com>,
Tom Bryan   wrote:
>I plan to search more in the Zope archives and maybe discuss this question 
>on one of their myriad of mailing lists or discussion boards, but I was 
>hoping that someone might have a quick answer.
>
>I'm a developer, and I'd like to create a combination discussion board, 
>bug tracking system, and general collaborative environment.  I was 
>thinking of using Zope, but I have never even looked at Zope.  Am I crazy 
>even to consider using Zope when we won't have any dedicated staff to 
>develop stuff for/in Zope and maintain it?  Is Zope easy enough to use, 
>simple enough to maintain, and complete enough as a product that I could 
>get something set up with just a couple of weeks of work and then simply 
>use it?
>

We are using Zope in-house for that exact purpose.  We use it for
bug tracking and we have a couple of internal discussion boards. Next
step is a revision control system for the config files used by
our system.

We use a combination of in-house built things and zope products.  The
bug-tracking system is custom, talking to PostgreSQL database.  I fixed
ZDiscussions[a] to work with the latest Zope for discussion boards.

Without being too redundant and repeating things already in this thread,
there some things you should know about zope.

0) Zope has a sigmoidal  (_/-) learning curve.  It is easy to get
   it up and running out of the box, set up a couple of static pages,
   set up common header/footers, and run a couple of simple queries
   from a database.   Then you try to do just a bit more and you have
   to deal with aquisition, dtml [b], the REQUEST object, ZClasses, and who knows
   what else all at once.  Things that are simple turn out to be complicated.
   In the end, however, if you stick with it and get a handle on everything
   you can do things pretty quickly.

1) Jerry's(?) comment about Zope Addiction is right on the mark.  The
   system is so powerful and subtle that you end up spending a *lot* of
   time figuring out how to be clever.  It is very addictive.

2) The documentation is getting better.  There is a book coming out that is
   available (draft)  on-line.  The mailing list (zope at zope.org) is pretty
   good (and very high volume).

So what should you do?  I like to have main and backup plans for stuff. I'd
first look for PHP packages that would kinda-sorta do what you want.  Make
sure they are current, and then give Zope a shot.  Prepared to be frustrated,
and prepare to bail and do things with PHP if 1/2 of the time is over and
you still haven't made much headway.

Or as plan C, if you are comfortable with SQL, HTML, and Python, use something
like mod_apache or webware (webware.sourceforge.net).  But you will be re-implementing
stuff that is already in Zope.  

Have fun!

-- cary

[a] I had to fix it to work with Zope 2.2.  A lot of stuff is like that.
[b] Not really as bad as people say.  I kind of like it.

>Any advice before I waste a lot of time digging into this topic would be 
>much appreciated.  (The time frame is very tight.  My boss is planning to 
>lend me one of his personal machines to play put on my network at home as 
>a zope or sourceforge or ??? server so that I can evaluate it next week.
>He definitely wants something in place in the next few weeks.)
>

This might be a bit tight.

>---Tom

From nas at arctrix.com  Fri Oct 13 02:41:36 2000
From: nas at arctrix.com (Neil Schemenauer)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 23:41:36 -0700
Subject: Subroutines
In-Reply-To: <39E708C2.611C97BC@hotmail.com>; from keisari_@hotmail.com on Fri, Oct 13, 2000 at 04:06:11PM +0300
References: <39E708C2.611C97BC@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20001012234136.B20054@glacier.fnational.com>

On Fri, Oct 13, 2000 at 04:06:11PM +0300, j wrote:
> For example how would a perl subroutine below be in python.
> 
> sub myfunc {
> print $_[0];
> }

Clearer? :)

How about:

    def myfunc(arg):
        print arg

From sp00fD at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 18 15:50:27 2000
From: sp00fD at yahoo.com (sp00fD)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 19:50:27 GMT
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] SICKnotes v0.6e
Message-ID: <8skuu0$d9a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

SICKnotes is a web-based "Site Inventory, Configuration, and Knowledge"
tool written in Python, using the MySQL database. It's meant to help
Systems (hopefully network eventually) administrators to track changes,
share knowledge and inventory anything from a small shop to a data
center.  It is licensed under the GPL.

I'd love it if someone wanted to hack on this a bit.

In case anyone is interested, here's the "TODO" list:
TODO (by priority):
	== Figure out how to allow modules so that people can create
		their own "types" (i.e. router, and router should be
		described as ...), as opposed to the current static
                  method which is insufficient and tries to cover the
                  addition of systems, disks, tape libraries, and other
                  using one form definition.

	== Get a grasp on real session management, the current
implementation
		works, but is fairly crappy and not secure.  Help with
this
		would be appreciated!

	== Order the Configuration Management pulldown by type.

	== Port to other databases.

	== Maybe add an auto-discover feature or something.

        == Optimize everything.  I'm really not convinced that this is
                an application that needs to be optimized.  If a few
                people out there tell me that they're having performance
                problems I'll change my attitude.  One thing that I'm
                thinking about is splitting the SICKnotes table into
                at least 2 tables (1 for CM, 1 for KB), or possibly one
                dynamically created table for each topic.  The reason
                that there's only 1 table now is for convenience, but
                seeing as there is a 2GB limit on table size in MySQL
                I think that breaking that table down would be a good
                idea, and trivial.  Why haven't I done it yet then you
		ask, I told you...I'm an Admin and therefore lazy! ;)

DEVELOPERS:
	== I'm not a programmer, I'm a Unix Administrator, so please
feel
		free to critique me on anything and everything.

	== If you have an idea about how something could be done better,
		let me know!

	== Please contribute code if you would like. I would prefer it
		if you would let me know what you changed and why also
		(not for any reason other than so I can learn from
		my mistakes).

	== This should port easily to Oracle, DB2 or whatever, feel free
		to try.  The semantics of the SICKsql.py module is the
		only change that would be needed (well, the dbinstall
script
		too)

	== The code is probably not commented, or not commented well,
I'm
		sorry, but as most Admins, I'm very lazy ;).

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Thu Oct 19 16:39:40 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 20:39:40 GMT
Subject: Somebody must know this! [was plugin problems]
References: <8sfp1f$35p$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8snk4s$ici$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

The concept of a "plugin" seems to make more sense when source isn't
included or intepreted, hence the possible confusion.  In the world of
Python, you would probably want to make the dynamic execution of an
arbitrary file of code something invoked with the method 'execfile', instead
of what you're trying to do.

I would also recommend you create your GUI seperate from the rest of your
application, instead of welding them together and making it terribly
difficult to debug.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

> I am sure someone surely knows the answer.
> Waiting patiently.......
> Thanks
> sreekant
>
>
>
>
> > Hi folks
> >
> > I am writing an application in python / Tkinter and Pmw. I am planning
> > to include plugin facility.
> > I am trying this way currently. It fails saying btnname attribute is
> not
> > available and also importing n says no module byname n, where I
> > planned to use n as a place holder to iterate over the .py plugin
> files
> > in ./plugins/ directory.
> >
> > Code follows.
> > ################################
> > Plugin loader in the application
> > #################################
> > self.pluginb=Pmw.ButtonBox(self.nb.pg_sys,orient='vertical')
> > for n in os.listdir('plugins'):
> >     import n
> >     self.pluginb.add(getattr(n,btnname),command=getattr(n,'mainrun'))
> >
> > ##########
> > example plugin
> > #####################
> > def mainrun():
> > print "hello world"
> >
> > btnname="HelloWorld"
> > ###############################
> > Any ideas and helpwould be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks
> > sreekant
> >
> > --
> > A man needs to sleep for 36 hours a day atleast.
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Before you buy.
> >
>
> --
> A man needs to sleep for 36 hours a day atleast.
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

From moshez at math.huji.ac.il  Sun Oct 29 16:32:48 2000
From: moshez at math.huji.ac.il (Moshe Zadka)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 23:32:48 +0200 (IST)
Subject: how do I exit gracefully?
In-Reply-To: <39FB6DC1.84C12A34@python.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, Thomas A. Bryan wrote:

> Andrew Pierce wrote:
> 
> > execute?  I dug around the FAQ and DejaNews and found sys.exit() and
> > os._exit() but both of these methods raise exceptions.  
> 
> sys.exit() should exit the program, not raise an exception.

os._exit() does not raise an exception
sys.exit() does raise an exception, as otherwise finally: blocks would
not execute properly.

--
Moshe Zadka  -- 95855124
http://advogato.org/person/moshez

From sabren at manifestation.com  Mon Oct  9 12:01:33 2000
From: sabren at manifestation.com (Michal Wallace)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 12:01:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> >Why do you need that? Calling a method of a class 
> >climbs the hierarchy for you, all the way up to where
> >the method was first defined or last overridden.
> 
> The example I most often run into is in an __init__ method
> where I want to initialize the features my subclass is adding
> and then pass control and the remaining arguments on up to the
> __init__ method one layer up.  The "super" that I want access
> to is the parent of the class containing the reference to
> "super", not the parent of the class of "self".

I see. I was thinking that .super would be a class member,
not an instance member. If you define it like so:

class Dessert:
    def __init__(self):
        print "dessert!"

class Pie(Dessert):
    super = Dessert
    def __init__(self):
        print "pie is a..."
        Pie.super.__init__(self)

class BananaCremePie(Pie):
    super = Pie
    def __init__(self):
        print "banana creme pie is a..."
        BananaCremePie.super.__init__(self)

then:

>>> weapon = BananaCremePie()
banana creme pie is a...
pie is a...
dessert!

It's not exactly perfect, but there you go..

you could also call it __super and then you don't have to put the
classnames in the __init__ (because python does it for you for
variables starting with [and not ending with] double underscores):

class Pie(Dessert):
    __super = Dessert
    def __init__(self):
        print "pie is a..."
        self.__super.__init__(self)

class BananaCremePie(Pie):
    __super = Pie
    def __init__(self):
        print "banana creme pie is a..."
        self.__super.__init__(self)

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From mfletch at tpresence.com  Wed Oct 11 22:35:56 2000
From: mfletch at tpresence.com (Mike Fletcher)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 22:35:56 -0400
Subject: win32com events bug fixed.
Message-ID: 

I assume everyone involved already knows this, but the ThreadState error is
common when you have two libraries linked against different python DLLs, so
probably first thing to do is make sure all the DLLs that are loaded are
really the 2.0c1 release-or-debug-but-not-both DLLs.  I think it was Robin
who suggested using dumpbin, I find using Quickview more convenient. You can
also use the debug trace window in devstudio which shows the filenames of
the dlls getting loaded when you do a debug run.

But you all knew that, so you can safely ignore me :o) ,
Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hammond
To: python-list at python.org
Sent: 10/11/2000 7:26 PM
Subject: Re: win32com events bug fixed.
...
I'm not sure what causes your thread-state error tho.  Can you try
running "win32comext\axscript\client\pyscript.py" and
"win32com\servers\dict.py", and try your example again?
...

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 19 15:09:43 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 21:09:43 +0200
Subject: DOS console control
References: <8sn6ij$pve$1@reader1.imaginet.fr>
Message-ID: <8snjpr11o4r@news2.newsguy.com>

"Gilles Lenfant"  wrote in message
news:8sn6ij$pve$1 at reader1.imaginet.fr...
> Hi everybody,
>
> Does any of you experts know how to have a control of the cursor position,
> text/background colors, clearing screen (...) of a DOS console.
> An additional iint to have a control of the keyboard (ctrl and alt
> modifiers, cursor keys, function keys...) is welcome !
> You'd say "wrong newsgroup". I reply "No, it's in Python".

Running ANSI.SYS makes your DOS console an ANSI terminal, so
you can use ANSI escape codes (e.g. via curses).  I don't think
that works under NT or other Win32's, only under DOS, but, if
it's DOS you want, as you say, then ANSI.SYS is my advice.

If it's not DOS, but win32, then I think the win32api or the calldll
package may let you get at the Win32 Console api's.  But that's
another issue.

Alex

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct  8 05:58:58 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 09:58:58 GMT
Subject: What's wrong?
References: <39E04309.524EE458@i.com.ua>
Message-ID: 

"root" wrote:> from window1Handlers import *
> class window1Widget:
>     def add_col(co=[]):
>         for cc in co:
>             print cc
>             self.li=GtkListItem('123')
>             self.list1.add(self.li)
>             self.li.show()
> 
>     def download_process(xxxxxx=None):
>        print 'now working'
>        homedir = '.'
>        main_url = 'http://www.findserendipity.com/'
>        #main_page = urllib.urlopen(main_url+'collections.html').read()
>        main_page = open('cool.html').read()
>        mainpars = extract_links(main_page)
>        collections = no_doubles(select_html(mainpars.anchorlist))
>        self.add_col(collections)         # WHY this is an error? (Name Error: self)

short answer: change your method declarations to:

    def add_col(self, co=[])
    def download_process(self, xxxxxx=None)

longer answer: python's not C++, and there's no automatic this/self
variable.  instead, the instance is passed as the first argument to the
method.

also see the tutorial, and FAQ entry 4.21 and 6.7:

    http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html#4.21
    "what is self?"

    http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html#6.7
    "Why must 'self' be declared and used explicitly in
    method definitions and calls?"

From s713221 at student.gu.edu.au  Wed Oct 18 03:54:41 2000
From: s713221 at student.gu.edu.au (Joal Heagney)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 17:54:41 +1000
Subject: evaluating a string
References: <8sgiuh$ope$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <39ED5741.AEC63540@student.gu.edu.au>

Matthew Dixon Cowles wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 04:01:24 GMT, prakash.ojha at hope.edu
>  wrote:
>
> >I am new to Python and would like to know how can I evaluate a string
> >like "1+2*3/4" to give a numeric result. Is there any built in
> >function that will give me this result. Any help would be greatly
> >appreciated.
>
> Since this is Python, the answer won't surprise you: the builtin
> eval() will do what you want:
>
> >>> eval("1+2*3/4")
> 2
>
> Anticipating what may be your next question, the reason that it
> doesn't give you 2.5 is that in Python, division of integers produces
> an integer result.
>
> Regards,
> Matt

And the quick way to get around that problem *showing of here*:

>>> eval("%s""1+2*3/4" 1.0)

*grins*

Joal Heagney/AncientHart

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Sun Oct 22 04:23:30 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:23:30 +0900
Subject: Is this a bug in Python2.0 or yet another feature of Windows?
Message-ID: <8su86i$fen$1@news.nuri.net>

With Python 2.0 Final Release,

>>> from array import array
>>> z=array('c','hello world')
>>> `z`  #Note that these are back-quotes

It returns a nice "python20.dll" error, whereas run on python 1.6,
it returns what we expect, the string form of the array.

- June

From peter at engcorp.com  Thu Oct 19 00:40:44 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 00:40:44 -0400
Subject: Incompatible .pyd files with Python 2.0 (and win32comm)
References: <39ED37CB.C4A4F6F7@engcorp.com> 
Message-ID: <39EE7B4C.27544FCC@engcorp.com>

Mark Hammond wrote:
> 
> The good news is that later win32all builds (including 134) has a
> native serial port in the win32file module.
> win32\demos\win32comport_demo.py shows how to use it...
> 
> It could do with a high-level .py interface, but capturing all the
> possible semantics of the win32 api would be hard, so I just exposed
> it natively.

Thanks Mark, that's excellent!

I'm not sure exposing _all_ the semantics of the Win32 API is even a
good idea for many uses of Python.  Something more along the lines of a
cross-platform API would likely work better.  Perhaps the Java comm
stuff could be a model?  Or is that only for the Win32 environment?

I wonder if a fairly simple read()/write() interface would be suitable,
providing Python with a generic serial port API based on the existing
file/socket views of the world.  Our current efforts created a
SerialPort class as a subclass of an "abstract" Port class, with a few
cousins in other areas (CAN, GPIB) similarly subclassed from Port.  We
didn't try to support read/write, but with a little munging it might
turn out fairly clean.  I find it easier to adapt an application design
to a simple but clean API than to try to use (not to mention
understand!) all the parts of a not-so-clean API with a zillion bells
and whistles.  Overlapped I/O?  Uggh. :)

-- 
Peter Hansen
Kaval Telecom Inc.

From junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com  Sat Oct 28 00:42:35 2000
From: junaftnoon at nospamplzyahoo.com (June Kim)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 13:42:35 +0900
Subject: anyone using Pythonwin with a different char set on Windows?
Message-ID: <8tdlgd$r0t$1@news.nuri.net>

Is there anyone who uses Pythonwin with a different character set
on Windows? -- Japanese, Chinese, European and so on.

I tried to type in Korean characters in Pythonwin but only to fail --
they broke down.

Best regards,

June.

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Wed Oct  4 10:10:33 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 4 Oct 2000 09:10:33 -0500
Subject: Options for use of Python in dynamic web-pages?
References: <8rf0u1$rlf$1@news1.xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <56E78E26BD99A2DB.6BD5E817921C0101.8C5155A4F253463D@lp.airnews.net>

In article <8rf0u1$rlf$1 at news1.xs4all.nl>,
Iwan van der  Kleyn  wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>I have to implement a website with quite a lot of dynamic web-pages for a
>non-profit organisation. Because of this the target-platforms are Linux,
>Apache and Python (budgetary reasons; Python has been selected for its ease
>of use though) . However, the present (static) site already generates quite
>a lot of traffic so, guessing from all the negative commentary considering
>the performance of Python with "plain" CGI I've found on the Web, I'll need
>a special module wich integrates the Python interpreter into Apache. (Zope
>is no option BTW, too complex for the moment :-)
>
>My question is: which one? I've found several modules wich promises fast use
>of Python: pyApache, the "Python FastCGI Wrapper",
>mod_Python and "Webware for Python". Could anyone give advice about which
>product to use? Are they stable, any disadvantages?
			.
			.
			.

has a few pointers to such comparisons.

My personal belief is that the majority of "all the negative commentary
consider the performance of Python with 'plain' CGI I've found on the Web"
is ... ill-informed.  If you like CGI, start with CGI.  If the performance
isn't adequate, ask for a tuning tip or two.  THEN, if necessary, you can
choose one of the other systems, with only a modest cost of transition.

On the other hand, I happen to like some of the in-process Python-savvy
Web servers, so I use them.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk  Tue Oct  3 11:16:47 2000
From: dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk (Dale Strickland-Clark)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 16:16:47 +0100
Subject: Global Module Index
References:  <8rcsln$3ip$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: 

aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>In article ,
>Dale Strickland-Clark   wrote:
>>
>>Is it me, or has the Global Module Index vanished in 1.6?
>
>Why do you care?  Why aren't you waiting for 2.0?  ;-)

'Cos I'm halfway through a project and I don't want to risk breaking
it.
Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants

From donn at u.washington.edu  Tue Oct  3 12:03:19 2000
From: donn at u.washington.edu (Donn Cave)
Date: 3 Oct 2000 16:03:19 GMT
Subject: how do I listen on a socket without sucking up all the CPU time?
References: <39d9df0c_1@corp.newsfeeds.com> <39d971f3_1@corp.newsfeeds.com> 
Message-ID: <8rd007$9mt0$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>

Quoth "Joshua Muskovitz" :
|> Why is the socket set to non-blocking?  Why not set it to
|> blocking so that the thread blocks until there's data to read?
|
| This is one of those "um" questions.  The answer is "um, well, the prototype
| code I was given to start with set it to non-blocking."  
|
| The only reason I can thing of is that a separate thread needs to be able to
| use the same socket to send requests (send and recv operate on the same
| socket in different threads), but this may not be a valid reason either.

Now that you have select() working, there's no reason to make the socket
non-blocking.  I have never understood the attraction of non-blocking
I/O.  In a well designed program it never seems to be needed, and it often
appears in places where it is not apparently used.

I have had some trouble with concurrent I/O on a single socket in multiple
threads.  I think concurrent access to any device is asking for trouble.

| select.select worked great, but now I've got other problems, namely
| figureing out why I'm no longer catching the KeyboardInterrupt exception I
| used to be able to catch.

Note that signals can be delivered only to the main thread, and as
already mentioned in another followup, the handler doesn't execute
immediately at the C level, but rather immediately at the Python level,
which could really be a long time later.

	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Wed Oct 18 20:26:24 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 00:26:24 GMT
Subject: Lambda Forms Question
References: <39EE3CC1.E2B07AB7@drew.edu>
Message-ID: 

You do it pretty much like in Scheme, you have to evaluate the function
object:

>>> (lambda x: x * x) (4)
16
>>> func = (lambda x: x * x)
>>> func ( 15 )
225

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Scott Weisel"  wrote in message
news:39EE3CC1.E2B07AB7 at drew.edu...
> I'm working with Python on a school project and while I was reading the
> documentation I was quite surprised to find out that Python has some
> features of Lisp.  Since we're using Scheme, a variant of Lisp in class, I
> was hoping to use the Lisp feature in Python, but I'm having trouble
> implementing it.
>
> The example that the online documentation gives is
> def make_incrementor(n):
>          return lambda x, incr=n: x+incr
> which returns a function.  Is there any way to write the program so a
value
> is returned, rather than a function.
>
> Also, how do I write the functions by themselves.  I wrote
> lambda x: x*x
> but I have no way to call it.
>
> Any advice would be appreciated
> Thanks in advance
> -Scott

From mfletch at tpresence.com  Sun Oct  1 22:18:37 2000
From: mfletch at tpresence.com (Mike Fletcher)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:18:37 -0400 
Subject: "CPAN" SIG?
Message-ID: 

Alternatives:

	PANC[ake] (Python Archive Network, Comprehensive -- all known
extensions)
	(Out of the) Coding-PAN (into the compiler)
	PythAN (use a flat southern "an" for the AN)
	PyAN (pronounce as Pie-an, or even Pain, I suppose)
	PytAN (pittan)
	Dist-sys (carrying on from dist-utils)

Incidentally, I that that a fairly simple mechanism, such as a set of
controlled-namespace certificate structures containing publicly signed
information (SHA hash, data length, filename, version, author, author keys,
yada) plus at least one well-known public file repository would be a decent
start.  Eventually you could consider distributing the certificates with the
base package or what have you.  Unfortunately, I can't work on it as it's
too close to my real job.  Those with a crypto package can check the
signatures, those without would have to trust some trusted site, crypto
would be required to check in, I would think.

Ah well, heads less encumbered than mine :o) ,
Mike
(For the record: My views, obviously, have nothing whatsoever to do with
anything my employer wants me to say :o) ).

-----Original Message-----
...
> PyPAN? ;-)  You can have your cake and eat it too?
...

From aahz at panix.com  Fri Oct 20 17:24:23 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 20 Oct 2000 14:24:23 -0700
Subject: Scheduling of Threads
References: <39F02391.D88003C7@weihenstephan.org> <39F04769.E9E56718@weihenstephan.org>  <39F0AF9F.92B6657F@weihenstephan.org>
Message-ID: <8sqd67$5me$1@panix3.panix.com>

In article <39F0AF9F.92B6657F at weihenstephan.org>,
Prof. Peter Stoehr  wrote:
>
>I always assumed that the threading of python is independent of the OS
>and is done by python itself.
>But yaybe I've learned somethin new.

It's possible you've been confused by the Global Interpreter Lock that
guarantees that only one Python thread runs concurrently.  However,
Python threads are built on top of OS-level threads, so it's the OS
scheduler that determines which Python thread grabs the lock when a
Python thread releases the lock -- it's even possible that the same
thread will regain the lock.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"In the end, outside of spy agencies, people are far too trusting and
willing to help."  -- Ira Winkler

From cba at mediaone.net  Tue Oct 17 22:48:17 2000
From: cba at mediaone.net (Craig Allen)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 02:48:17 GMT
Subject: Python and Lotus Notes
References: <39EBBD7E.34ADD5BD@yieldworks.com>
Message-ID: <39ED0F78.DE8C1FB5@mediaone.net>

> Has anyone used Python 1.5 and COM for Lotus Notes 5.02 and up? I am
> able to Initialize a new notes session, but cannot access the my mail
> database on the Domino server. I believe the COM call to GetDatabase
> returns an object, and this is where the problem lies. I have gotten
> this to work under VB6, but would prefer to use Python.
Have you tried making a local replica of your mail database (or some subset) and
using your Python code against it?  As you no doubt know, Notes allows full
access to local database but may require a password for external programs (e.g.
EasySync for PalmPilot) that access server-based databases.  I don't know if
that's your situation, nor do I know how to supply a password from a Python
program.

Also, check out http://www.zope.org/Members/cba/Domino_and_Zope _ know that
example (uses local address book) works.

Craig
-- 
Craig Allen  - Managing Partner - Mutual Alchemy
Web Architecture - http://alchemy.nu

From gregj at pobox.com  Wed Oct 18 03:39:39 2000
From: gregj at pobox.com (Greg Jorgensen)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 07:39:39 GMT
Subject: SMTP receive as well as send
References: <39e8bfe4.2248931@news.demon.nl> 
Message-ID: <%scH5.3756$d5.72479@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>

"Andrew Markebo"  wrote in message
news:ksem1flt5z.fsf at telelogic.com...
> The SMTP protocol doesn't support receiving emails. You probably need
> pop3 or some impap module to receive emails.

Not true. SMTP is for moving email between servers--both sending and
receiving. POP3 and IMAP are for managing received messages and downloading
messages from a server to a workstation.

Email messages go from your mail program to your SMTP server. That server's
Mail Transport Agent (MTA)--sendmail, qmail, etc.--determines the machine
designated to receive email for each recipient (the domain's Mail eXchanger,
from the DNS records). A connection is established between the servers using
SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol), and the message is sent. A message
may go through a few servers before it arrives at a server that knows how to
do local delivery--a server where the recipient has a mailbox. Later the
recipient retrieves the message from their mail server using POP3 or IMAP.

The confusion comes from how most people use their ISP's mail services: you
send your mail out to an SMTP server, and you retrieve your mail from a POP3
or IMAP server. The mail servers are often the same machine. The SMTP
service not only sends your outgoing emails, it receives incoming emails
addressed to you (and other users who have mailboxes on that server). The
POP3 or IMAP service is only used to retrieve messages from your mailbox.

--
Greg Jorgensen
Deschooling Society
Portland, Oregon, USA
gregj at pobox.com

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Fri Oct 20 07:33:44 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 12:33:44 +0100
Subject: The Starship
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B12E5@intrepid>

> From:	thomas at cintra.no [SMTP:thomas at cintra.no]
> And sourceforge.net ?? Vaults Of Parnassus has been bouncing around
> too. 
> 
> What is going on? 

*And* PythonLabs. The sky is falling!

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else
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copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Wed Oct 11 19:44:35 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 19:44:35 -0400
Subject: Sybase module 0.7 released
References: 
Message-ID: <39E4FB63.DB71AF2D@ix.netcom.com>

Dave, the URL seems to have stopped working.  I forwarded the link to someone
looking for a Sybase library and they pointed out to me that
object-craft.com.au doesn't seem to resolve anymore.

Where have you gone?

--
.tom

From peter at engcorp.com  Sun Oct 29 20:20:00 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 20:20:00 -0500
Subject: Weird arithmetic in Python
References: <8ti8ul$7ca$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39FCCCC0.1FCA0952@engcorp.com>

yminsky at cs.cornell.edu wrote:
> 
> Can anyone explain the following behavior of Python?  I understand that
> floating point arithmetic is not identical to real arithmetic, but this
> seems a bit odd.
> 
> Python 1.5.2 (#1, Aug 25 2000, 09:33:37)  [GCC 2.96 20000731
> (experimental)] on linux-i386
> Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
> >>> .1 * 2 - .2
> 0.0
> >>> .1 * 3 - .3
> 5.55111512313e-17

Actually, both of the above values *are* zero.  But then, I'm an
engineer...  ;-)

"Squeezing infinitely many real numbers into a finite number of bits
requires an approximate representation. Although there are infinitely
many integers, in most programs the result of integer computations can
be stored in 32 bits. In contrast, given any fixed number of bits, most
calculations with real numbers will produce quantities that cannot be
exactly represented using that many bits. Therefore the result of a
floating-point calculation must often be rounded in order to fit back
into its finite representation. This rounding error is the
characteristic feature of floating-point computation." 
--http://docs.sun.com/htmlcoll/coll.648.2/iso-8859-1/NUMCOMPGD/ncg_goldberg.html

-- 
Peter Hansen

From kragen at dnaco.net  Sun Oct  1 20:34:58 2000
From: kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 00:34:58 GMT
Subject: omniORBpy / IDL mapping question...
References:   
Message-ID: 

In article ,
Martin von Loewis   wrote:
>cbbrowne at news.hex.net (Christopher Browne) writes:
>
>> As an arguably odd-ball choice, you could use a DBM file, so that the
>> values actually reside in a database outside the Python world.  It
>> doesn't have to be a plain old variable...
>
>Indeed, this is one rationale for mapping attributes that way (Paul
>Prescod calls it "computed attributes", and complains every now and
>then that Python does not really support them).

Someone posted a nice computed-attribute system in Python here a couple
of weeks ago, using __getattr__ and __setattr__.  Someone should point
Paul at it next time he complains.
-- 
       Kragen Sitaker     
Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
                -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]

From teep at inet.co.th  Fri Oct 27 23:15:58 2000
From: teep at inet.co.th (Prateep Siamwalla)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 10:15:58 +0700
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
References: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com> <39F9AEEB.BF985F00@gssec.bt.co.uk> 
Message-ID: <8tdgcn$53l$1@news.inet.co.th>

Dale,

Since I didn't catch the beginning of this thread, I'm assuming you are
talking about how after a reload(module), and you run your tests on the
interactive window, Python still manages to catch your old code errors.
Even after editting the offending code and reloading.

I've been there before, and as a novice, all I can offer you is this:
1. After making changes/correction on the offending module, click the "run"
while that module's window is active.
2. Then go back into the interactive module and do the reload.
3. Try your tests again.

this seems to work for me.

I think what happens is that the offending bits of your code are still stuck
inside .pyc files which, is the one that is reloaded from your interactive
prompt.  By clicking "run" on your module, you forcefully overwrite the
module's pyc file with your new code, so that the next reload is of the
newly editted code.

Hope this helps,
teep

Dale Strickland-Clark  wrote in message
news:rucjvskc6hsqiojpdivjrorrrl2sf94f49 at 4ax.com...
> Alan Gauld  wrote:
>
> >Dale Strickland-Clark wrote:
> >> This is such a huge irritation and time waster for me that if it isn't
> >> sorted out I can't really consider Python for future large projects.
> >
> >What has the Pythonwin IDE got to do with using Python?
> >
> >> To test a module, I import it into PythonWin using the Import/Reload
> >> button and then instantiate a class in the Interactive Window.
> >
> >How are you importing?
>
> Using the Import/Reload button on the toolbar, which is the same as
> File -> Import or CTRL-I
>
> > You did notice that reload only
> >works if you use:
> >
> >import foo
> >
> >Whereas
> >
> >from foo import *
> >
> >will make reload ineffective.
> >That's a python limitation not a pythonwin fault.
> >
> >> After a failure, I fix the offending code and Import/Reload again.
> >> However, the same failure occurs showing the original line with it's
> >> original contents. The changed module hasn't been loaded.
> >
> >Did you delete the class instance and create a new one after
> >the reload? The original is still running the original
> >code... (I think!)
>
> In this particular case, no class was instantiated owing to a bug in
> the code.
>
> >
> >> The only way to fix it is to quite and reload PythonWin
> >> but then you have to arrange windows, reestablish
> >> breakpoints and watches, etc. and it all takes far too long.
> >
> >Too long compared to what? We have a 4 hour compile cycle
> >on one of our current C++ projects.... by comparison
> >working with python is a joy! :-)
>
> Compared to not. This is the ONLY IDE I've used that can't handle
> buggy code. (I've used, VB, Visual Studio, Delphi to name a few.)
>
> >
> >What other environment do you use that allows you to
> >load new module files into a running process?
>
> See list above.
>
> >
> >
> >BTW Have you tried IDLE?
>
> Only briefly. Is it likely to improve matters? I'll see if I can work
> with it.
>
> >What happens if you use the command line interpreter?
>
> I do for most trial runs owing to problems described but sometimes I
> want to have an interactive nose around. It's also useful to have a
> preserved program state after an error.
>
> >And what version of Pythonwin? There was a buggy version
> >about a year back. (was it winall version 125?)
>
> 133
>
> >
> >Alan G.
>
> --
> Dale Strickland-Clark
> Out-Think Ltd
> Business Technology Consultants
>
>

From keisari_ at hotmail.com  Fri Oct 13 09:06:11 2000
From: keisari_ at hotmail.com (j)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 16:06:11 +0300
Subject: Subroutines
Message-ID: <39E708C2.611C97BC@hotmail.com>

How can i use subroutines in python.
How can i transfer parameters into subs.
For example how would a perl subroutine below be in python.

sub myfunc {
print $_[0];
}

Joonas.

From josh at open.com  Fri Oct  6 22:35:19 2000
From: josh at open.com (Joshua Muskovitz)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 22:35:19 -0400
Subject: doubling slashes in a string
Message-ID: <39de8a48_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>

Man, I just have to say, I *love* python.  I was struggling with the problem
of how to take a pathname and double all of the backslashes in it, so that
(for example):

c:\foo\bar\zingo.walla.walla --> c:\\foo\\bar\\zingo.walla.walla

And I was trying for figure out how to walk the character list and build a
new string, and then it dawned on me:

newname = string.join(string.split(oldname,"\\"), "\\\\")

It just keeps getting better and better.  Thanks for inventing it, Guido!

-- josh

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

From effbot at telia.com  Mon Oct  9 16:41:20 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 20:41:20 GMT
Subject: NameError
References: <8rt8i9$hlv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: 

alfred6465 at my-deja.com wrote:
> I am a new Python user and am having some
> problems.  I have a file called test.py that
> looks like the following:
> 
> import struct
> 
> def unpack_data():
>    f=open('C:\\cudacom\\result\\1.rp1').read()
>    start = 42
>    stop = (struct.calcsize('6s') + start)
>    name = struct.unpack('6s', f[start:stop])
>    grab_data(start,stop)
>    print_results(name,desc,data)
>    f.close()
> 
> def grab_data(start, stop):
>    header = 5
>    start = stop+header
>    stop =  struct.calcsize('sh')+start
>    desc, data = struct.unpack('sh', fstart:stop])

better make that:

     desc, data = struct.unpack('sh', f[start:stop])

>    return desc,data
> 
> def print_results(name,desc,data):
>    print 'Variable Name: %s' %name
>    print 'Descriptor: %s' %desc
>    print 'Data: %s' %data
>    print ""
>    return

:::

> If I open up PythonWin and type 'import test' at
> the prompt I get the following error.
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "", line 1, in ?
>   File "GetInfo2.py", line 42
>      return (descriptor, data)
>      ^
>  SyntaxError: invalid syntax

there's no "return (descriptor, data)" in the code you posted...

From the_brain at mit.edu  Fri Oct 13 17:34:42 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 17:34:42 -0400
Subject: reference to objects
References: 
Message-ID: 

> class Lola:
>     def __init__(x):
> 	  x.y = 0
> 
> l = Lola()
> g = l       # <-- !!
> 
> now, does g.y = 1 modify l.y ?  (do both variables refer to the same
> object ?

Yes.  Do you know about the python command line interpreter?  It's good
for trying this sort of thing out.

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From g2 at seebelow.org  Sun Oct  8 10:44:24 2000
From: g2 at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 15:44:24 +0100
Subject: JPtyhon book
References:  
Message-ID: <39E08848.4CB23B14@seebelow.org>

Jason Cunliffe wrote:
> 
> Amazon says:
> 
> Sams Teach Yourself Jpython in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself Hours)
> by Rick Hightower
> 
> List Price: $19.99
> Our Price: $17.99
> 
> Availability: This title is currently on back order.
> We expect to be able to ship it to you within 3-5 weeks.
> Paperback (June 1999)
> Sams; ISBN: 067231584X

I'm confused...does the "24 Hours" include the 3-5 weeks or not?  

BTW, it only took me about 8 hours to go through Guido's CPython
tutorial.

it's-free,--and-it-ships-immediate-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From aa8vb at yahoo.com  Wed Oct 25 14:51:20 2000
From: aa8vb at yahoo.com (Randall Hopper)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:51:20 -0400
Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy,  overflow, inf, ieee,
 and rich comparison
In-Reply-To: <39F5AA7A.2C5E35CE@udel.edu>; from boncelet@udel.edu on Tue,
 Oct 24, 2000 at 11:27:54AM -0400
References: 
 <39EB3D03.A00C78B6@jps.net> 
 <39F4A4DE.9202540A@udel.edu> <8t3ota028jv@news2.newsguy.com>
 <39F5AA7A.2C5E35CE@udel.edu>
Message-ID: <20001025145120.A132700@vislab.epa.gov>

Charles Boncelet:
 |I certainly concede 2/3=0 may be startling to a newcomer, but
 |feel that its as important or more so for a language to appeal
 |to experienced programmers.

I second that.  One of Python's strengths is it's easy to learn but not a
language you outgrow.  If it makes it hard to do math that remains the same
type, some programmers will outgrow it.

-- 
Randall Hopper
aa8vb at yahoo.com

From bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au  Mon Oct 23 06:30:50 2000
From: bowern at ses.curtin.edu.au (Nick Bower)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:30:50 +0800
Subject: Automatic copies of NumPy arrays
References:  <87hf67euj0.fsf@ifm.uni-kiel.de>  <87vgunqpsu.fsf@lisboa.ifm.uni-kiel.de>
Message-ID: <39F41359.6623E21F@ses.curtin.edu.au>

It strikes me that this issue is worth a mention, at least in passing, in
the manual.  I've been using NumPy for a year, am on the discussion list,
and I have never heard of this rather important feature.

nick

From anonym at 163.net  Thu Oct 12 22:00:33 2000
From: anonym at 163.net (anonym at 163.net)
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From hzhu at yahoo.com  Wed Oct  4 05:48:32 2000
From: hzhu at yahoo.com (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 09:48:32 GMT
Subject: RFC: reimplementing the Type type as an extension type.
References: 
Message-ID: 

On Tue, 03 Oct 2000 16:14:07 GMT, Tom  wrote:
>I'm thinking about reimplementing the type type as an extension type.  The
>purpose would be to make much additional information about a type available
>from the type object.  This info would include the following:

You might also want to consider ideas contained in the following example.
The rationale is explained in

http://www.geocities.com/huaiyu_zhu/python/Interface/README.txt

Huaiyu

===================================================================

#!/usr/bin/env python
# $Id: test.py,v 1.1.1.1 2000/08/29 00:38:54 hzhu Exp $
"""
A simulated type checking system
Types are inherited by abstraction

"""

class Type:
	def __init__(self, name):
		"Define a new abstract Type"
		self.name = name
		self.types = []
		self.classes = []
		self.subs = []
		self.attrs = []
		self.objs = []

	def include(self, obj):
		"Check to see if object is of my Type"

		# If it is explicitly included objects
		for o in self.objs:
			if obj == o: return 1

		# If it is of the right type or class
		if type(obj) is type(Type):
			for c in self.classes:
				if isinstance(obj, c): return 1
		else:
			for t in self.types:
				if type(obj) == t: return 1

		# If it is one of our sub-Type
		for s in self.subs:
			if s.include(obj): return 1
		else:
			return 0

	def satisfiedby(self, obj):
		"""Check to see if object has all the required attributes
		Is this necessary? """
		for a in self.attrs:
			if not hasattr(obj, a):
				print "%s has no attr %s" %(`obj`, a)
				raise AssertionError

	def add_type(self, t):
		if t not in self.types: self.types.append(t)

	def add_class(self, c):
		if c not in self.classes: self.classes.append(c)

	def add_sub(self, s):
		if s not in self.subs: self.subs.append(s)

	def add_attr(self, m):
		if m not in self.attrs: self.attrs.append(m)

	def add_obj(self, o):
		if o not in self.objs: self.objs.append(o)

	def add_typeof(self, o): self.add_type(type(o))
	def add_classof(self, o): self.add_class(o.__class__)
	def add_attrof(self, o):
		for attr in dir(o):		self.add_attr(attr)

	def __repr__(self): return "Type(%s)" % `self.name`

def require(x, t):
	try:
		assert t.include(x)
	except AssertionError:
		print "%s is not of %s" % (`x`, t)
		raise
	t.satisfiedby(x)

def require_either(x, list):
	for t in list:
		if t.include(x):
			t.satisfiedby(x)
			return
	else:
		print "%s is not of any Type in %s" % (`x`, list)
		raise AssertionError

def require_all(x, list):
	for t in list: require(x,t)

#------------------------------------------------------------------
String = Type("String")
String.add_typeof("")

Integer = Type("Integer")
Integer.add_typeof(1)
Integer.add_typeof(1L)

Number = Type("Number")
Number.add_sub(Integer)

Float = Type("Float")
Float.add_typeof(0.0)
Number.add_sub(Float)

File = Type("File")
File.add_attr("close")

#------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == "__main__":

	def f(x):
		require(x, Number)
		print x*2

	f(1)
	f(2.3)

	def f(x):
		require_either(x, (Number, String))
		print x*2

	f("2")

	import sys
	File.add_obj(sys.stdout)
	require(sys.stdout, File)

	require_either("2", (Number, String))
	#require_all("2", (Number, String))

From jwbnews at scandaroon.com  Mon Oct  9 20:24:24 2000
From: jwbnews at scandaroon.com (John W. Baxter)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 17:24:24 -0700
Subject: join()
References: <8rjj82$dnb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39E1286F.D27A1034@my.signature> <20001009233223.P12812@xs4all.nl> 
Message-ID: 

In article , Fran?ois 
Pinard  wrote:

> [Thomas Wouters]
> 
> > On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 03:07:43PM +1300, Greg Ewing wrote:
> > > echuck at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> > > > In Python 2.0, I was surprised to see join() had become a method of
> > > > string.  I "naturally" expected it to be a method of list.
> 
> > > Quite a lot of people screamed blue murder about this at the time,
> > > and were ignored.  Getting it changed now seems to be impossible.
> 
> > Now now, that's not very nice.  I'm certain I saw a lot of responses to
> > the threads about "".join() that tried to explain the choice.
> 
> Behind each choice, good or bad, there is an explanation. :-(
> 
> > I can imagine that some postings were 'ignored', given the sheer 
> > volume,
> > but it's not like *all* complaints were ignored.
> 
> Explaining a choice does not make it good, and responding with an
> explanation, without otherwise listening, is still a way to "ignore"
> those who cannot bear that choice.  I like Python a great deal so, short
> of a better reason, I only guess that some thought that adding a bit of
> intrinsic ugliness would make it more widespread and wi[l]dely popular! 
> :-)

On the other hand, not having one's stated desires respected does not 
necessarily mean one has been ignored.  It may mean that one's 
desires--whether joined in by others or not--did not outweigh other 
considerations.  (Either way, one didn't get what one wanted, of course.)

  --John

-- 
John W. Baxter   Port Ludlow, WA USA  jwbnews at scandaroon.com

From aahz at panix.com  Thu Oct 19 17:34:57 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 14:34:57 -0700
Subject: Announcing Jython, the sucessor to JPython
References:  
Message-ID: <8snpe1$ek5$1@panix6.panix.com>

In article ,
Ivan Frohne  wrote:
>
>"Jython" kinda sticks in my larynx.  How about "Javathon", or
>"Pythonava?

Just pronounce "Jython" as "jay-python".  
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"real love can't be explained by simplistic platitudes."  --piranha

From allen at webg2.com  Mon Oct  2 16:17:46 2000
From: allen at webg2.com (allen at webg2.com)
Date: 02 Oct 2000 16:17:46 -0400
Subject: multiple embedded python interpreters?
Message-ID: 

>From the C API it appears that only a single implicit python interpreter
may be embedded in an application. Is this really the case? I was hoping
for something along the lines of Tcl_CreateInterp which would return me
a pointer to an initialized interpreter. As I am unfamiliar with the de-
sign goals of python in the embedded interpreter space, I am really cur-
ious if this is the case, and what is the rationale.

hoping I don't have to use Tcl after all... :-(

many thanks in advance,

-allen
allen at webG2.com

From max at alcyone.com  Tue Oct 31 11:49:41 2000
From: max at alcyone.com (Erik Max Francis)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 08:49:41 -0800
Subject: C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))
References:  <8t0or303ee@news1.newsguy.com>  <39F4FFB7.452EDDEC@alcyone.com>  <8t3mdv025uo@news2.newsguy.com> <39F5B404.B5626FB7@alcyone.com> <8t4q8v11lpv@news1.newsguy.com> <39F5E620.C780A71C@seebelow.org> <8t6vj70spd@news1.newsguy.com> <39F73E41.C8EE143F@seebelow.org> <8t8sgn0ahc@news1.newsguy.com> <39F8985B.6909B5CF@seebelow.org> <8tbv0r01082@news1.newsguy.com> <39FB2080.D38CAD35@seebelow.org> <8tgpr201ipj@news1.newsguy.com> <39FE7EC7.89DC9747@seebelow.org> <8tmols025jf@news1.newsguy.com>
Message-ID: <39FEF825.2078D29F@alcyone.com>

Alex Martelli wrote:

> Your reference for your contribution to Mr Gore's "invention"...?

Wow, humorless, a tad obsessive, and petty, but _also_ totally unable to
detect sarcasm.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ Love is a hole in the heart.
\__/ Ben Hecht
    REALpolitik / http://www.realpolitik.com/
 Get your own customized newsfeed online in realtime ... for free!

From gerhard_haering at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 26 03:31:40 2000
From: gerhard_haering at yahoo.com (Gerhard =?iso-8859-1?Q?H=E4ring?=)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 00:31:40 -0700
Subject: Problem compiling Python 2.0 extension under Win32
Message-ID: <39F7DDDB.B1A63D21@yahoo.com>

Hi folks,

I have just tried to make compile the MySQL database module with Python
2.0 headers/libs under Win32 with Visual C++. I have already tried
several options, but I alwyays get the following messages at the linking
stage:

_mysqlmodule.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol
__imp___Py_Dealloc
_mysqlmodule.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol
__imp___Py_RefTotal
_mysqlmodule.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol
__imp__Py_InitModule4TraceRefs

I think the __imp__ is the problem. It should not be in the identifier,
should it? I couldn't figure out where and why this gets into the
symbols. Has anybody already had this problem, any ideas?

Gerhard Haering

From linuxqna at chollian.net  Tue Oct 24 11:02:33 2000
From: linuxqna at chollian.net (junwon,Seo)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 00:02:33 +0900
Subject: [q]Best choice of Template
Message-ID: <8t47l0$sb6$1@news1.kornet.net>

Hi,
I'm programming CGI usgin Python.
In CGI programming, 'template' is required.
How can I use template?
Which method is best?

From hzhu at rocket.knowledgetrack.com  Mon Oct 23 15:41:17 2000
From: hzhu at rocket.knowledgetrack.com (Huaiyu Zhu)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 12:41:17 -0700
Subject: How to determine what called __cmp__ method?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200010231941.MAA03719@rocket.knowledgetrack.com>

In comp.lang.python, you wrote:

>Now, with rich comparisons.. =)  (If anyone is interested in taking on the
>work of creating the rich comparisons patches, pushing the PEP through,
>etc., get in touch with me).
> 

David,

I'm interested in this, as I need it for numerical computation as well.  I
thought I sent you an email before, which might be lost somewhere.
Do you already have a draft of the PEP in any form?  Otherwise I can start
an initial draft listing the features I have in mind, which may motivate
others to add to it or even implement it.  

Right now the main feature I have in mind is to allow partial orders, so
that a!=b does not imply ab.  I also want the comparison operators
to have their own names, like __lt__, __ge__, for example.

Huaiyu

From crystalc at interlog.com  Mon Oct  2 10:58:52 2000
From: crystalc at interlog.com (Brian Alexander)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 10:58:52 -0400
Subject: help with popen, one-way IPC.
References:  <39D82FC2.F597FA54@cable.a2000.nl>
Message-ID: 

Thanks for helping me with this Roeland.

Brian.

From aahz at panix.com  Thu Oct 12 20:31:07 2000
From: aahz at panix.com (Aahz Maruch)
Date: 12 Oct 2000 17:31:07 -0700
Subject: Synchronizing CGI processes?
References:  <8s5bqk$m0h$1@panix3.panix.com> 
Message-ID: <8s5l4b$i0e$1@panix2.panix.com>

In article ,
Olivier Dagenais  wrote:
>>
>> Here's a question: does your
>> service permit you to run a stand-alone process?  If so, make that a
>> socket-based database server.  This would also make your code run
>> generally faster.
>
>As far as I know, I don't think so.  I guess it won't hurt to ask them!
>(I'm using http://free.prohosting.com in case someone here would already
>know???)  You say "socket-based database server".  What do you mean?  That
>the said server would only be accessed by the running CGI processes or
>should I rather make it the full server?

The former.  Basically, each time one of the CGI processes wants to do a
database access, it "makes a call" to the other server.  asyncore will
probably do what you want here.
-- 
                      --- Aahz (Copyright 2000 by aahz at pobox.com)

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het    <*>     http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop III

From olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM  Sun Oct 29 12:35:17 2000
From: olivierS.dagenaisP at canadaA.comM (Olivier Dagenais)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:35:17 GMT
Subject: How totell a binary file from a nonbinary file.
References: <39fe4f47.100441671@nntp.interaccess.com>
Message-ID: 

Err... All files are "binary".  "Text files" are binary files that follow a
convention.  You will have to scan a file (or a good part of it) to
determine if it follows the convention.  That convention is that there's LF
(ascii 10) characters every so often and in DOS/Windows these are preceeded
by CR (ascii 13).  There's also a EOF (ascii 27) as the last byte of the
file (not always, I think) and you should not find any other lower ascii
(less than or equal to 31) characters in the file.

Of course, there's always the possibility of freak occurences, so that's all
the [useful] advice I can give!

pretending-to-know-something-ly y'rs,

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivier A. Dagenais - Software Architect and Developer
"Someone called 'Type your name here' is impersonating me on the
internet and is posting exactly the same things I am posting!"

"Thaddeus L. Olczyk"  wrote in message
news:39fe4f47.100441671 at nntp.interaccess.com...
> There are some changes that I have to make to s directory of files (
> in python of course ). Is there some simple way of telling whether
> a file is binary or not (from python of course )?
>

From andrew.markebo at telelogic.com  Sun Oct  1 16:27:30 2000
From: andrew.markebo at telelogic.com (Andrew Markebo)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 22:27:30 +0200
Subject: Does Python 2.0b1 support https on Windows?
References: <39B65D22.8C3FB61B@NameConnector.com> <3dn1hl1jkh.fsf@kronos.cnri.reston.va.us> <8qtk9v$h5q$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: 

There are always the possibility to use internet explorers
https-functionality through win32com, check the article 're: 2000: A
Win32 oddisey' by Michal Wallace.

I have managed to get together the socketlib.pyd for ssl, what I did
was compiled OpenSSL for windows, compiled the socketlib with the
flage USE_SSL, where it barfs on some error like 'Non-constant used'
move the &PyObjectType assignment into the init-function, as done in
some other modules that does dynamic loading on win32.

Get in touch if you want more info.

        /Andy

/ Martin von Loewis  wrote:
| jegerton at my-deja.com writes:
| 
| > I didn't see anything about SSL support in the httplib documentation -
| > could you please explain how to use it?    If I was connecting using:
| > 
| >         h = httplib.HTTP('www.myserver.com')
| > 
| > what would I change this to for https?
| 
| Instead of httplib.HTTP, you write httplib.HTTPS. If you need to pass
| X.509 secrets to SSL, you should use httplib.HTTPSConnection instead.
| 
| There is a bug report that documentation for SSL support is missing
| (not only in httplib, but also in the socket module). Unless somebody
| writes something really quick, that bug won't be fixed for 2.0.
| 
| Regards,
| Martin

From stadt at cs.utwente.nl  Wed Oct 25 21:37:37 2000
From: stadt at cs.utwente.nl (Richard van de Stadt)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 02:37:37 +0100
Subject: plagued by IOError: [Errno 0]?
References: 
Message-ID: <39F78AE1.AEE0C16@cs.utwente.nl>

Bill Janssen wrote:
> 
> I'm running a server that periodically, and unpredictably, keeps
> getting an IOError when opening a file.  But the Errno is 0!  What
> does this mean, and how can I get rid of it?
> 
> I'm running on a Solaris 2.6 SPARC system, and the files being opened
> are relatively large (3.4 MB) on NFS-mounted file systems.  Python 1.5.2.
> 
> IOError: [Errno 0] Error: '/docRepository/NewRepoDoc/1'
> I'm doing an "open(fname, 'r')".
> 
> Bill

Maybe the result is stored temporarily on the default tmp dir, while that
dir isn't big enough to hold the contents of the file. Try setting
os.environ['TMPDIR'] to a directory that is big enough to store any
intermediate copy of the file you're opening.

Richard.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 17 11:29:57 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:29:57 +0200
Subject: Printing multiple lines
References: <39EC67FE.447693B3@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <8shrj702dvo@news1.newsguy.com>

"joonas"  wrote in message
news:39EC67FE.447693B3 at hotmail.com...
> How can i print multiple lines for example
>
> #######
> firstline
> secondline
> thirdline
> #######
>
>
> i tried
>
> print "firstline
> secondline
> thirdline"
>
> but it didnt worked.

Use tripled quotes, e.g.:

print """firstline
secondline
thirdline"""

Alex

From jschmitt at vmlabs.com  Tue Oct 24 01:45:17 2000
From: jschmitt at vmlabs.com (jschmitt at vmlabs.com)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 05:45:17 GMT
Subject: getting a process return value from popen()?
Message-ID: <8t37ld$dfc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

If you do something like:

(instream,outstream) = popen4( "foo.exe" )

how do you get the return value from 'foo.exe' when it finally
terminates after reading everything from 'outstream'?  Say for
example, 'foo.exe' returns a non-zero integer to indicate an error
condition.

John

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From peter at engcorp.com  Mon Oct 16 09:10:20 2000
From: peter at engcorp.com (Peter Hansen)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 09:10:20 -0400
Subject: I want to impress the boss.
References: <8sdvc6$jqq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
Message-ID: <39EAFE3C.7D13B8B3@engcorp.com>

Marty Backe wrote:
> 
> How do you possibly hope to convince anyone about using Python when
> you can't even use it? Don't rush these things or you'll just end up
> looking bad. Let yourself slowly mature with the language, using it
> for your own tools along the way. With time it'll become natural to
> use it for particular projects, and you'll have management support
> (within reason anyway).
> 
> What's the mad rush all about? Python isn't going anywhere.

Hmmm... let's see.  "Mad rush"?  Nothing in the poster's inquiry implies
a rush at all.  Perhaps you mistook the phrase "quick and dirty" as
implying he was in a rush.  It didn't look to me like he was really in a
rush, just in a void of information about COM (and what else is new?).

As for the comment "when you can't even use it?", I would point out that
the poster also does not imply that he can't use Python at all.  Perhaps
you didn't really read the question, which was really asking about
Python's COM support.  How many of us, even after using Python for
months or years, can answer his question?  You?  Me?  I know I can't. 
Couldn't you provide a helpful answer instead of a flame?

Mike Fletcher's helpful answer demonstrated that (a) most people in this
forum are willing to help, not criticize, (b) Python once again rules in
easily acting as "glue", (c) there's probably no need to "slowly mature"
with this language, since you can achieve great results (even in a mad
rush) if you set yourself a challenging goal.  Python is not your
father's scripting language.

Our first project with Python involved using it to control two signal
generators and a spectrum analyzer, and perform an "intermodulation
test" on an amplifier module, with the results shown in a little Tk
window.  This was in January.  If we'd "slowly matured" with Python we'd
probably still be wasting time writing 4DOS scripts and little C
utilities, rather than having all the fun we've had using Python for
challenging and useful projects since then.  Instead, we convincingly
demonstrated the utility of the language for non-trivial applications,
and gained an unreasonable level of management support early on.  So
there, too. :-)

-- 
Peter Hansen

> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 04:15:05 GMT, chrisgarland at i-rocket.net wrote:
> 
> >I'm new to Python and am trying to get my company to adopt it as
> >a 'quick and dirty' glue tool.  I would like to assemble a
> >demonstration for my boss that would undeniably convince him.  What I'd
> >like to do is
> >get Python to:
> >- Ask the user what project they'd like updated.
> >- Open Visual Source Safe (VSS) and move the projects files into a
> >newly created directory.
> >- Run and record a checksum over every file in the directory.
> >- Open the project's Word document and have the appropriate table
> >update the checksums.
> >
> >I bought a copy of "Python Programming on Win32" which has helped speed
> >me along but I still need help.
> >- Where could I find a full set of commands that I can issue to Word
> >from Python?
> >- Is there a COM interface to VSS? or can I issue 'DOS prompt' like
> >commands to VSS to get it to release its files to me.
> >
> >Thanks, ANY help would be helpful.

From jhylton at my-deja.com  Fri Oct  6 11:08:19 2000
From: jhylton at my-deja.com (Jeremy Hylton)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 15:08:19 GMT
Subject: Calling the parent class' __init__
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com> <39DD865E.D97E4D09@cable.a2000.nl> 
Message-ID: <8rkpsr$bpa$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

In article ,
  Vetle Roeim  wrote:
> or:
>   class C(A):
>       def __init__(self, val1, **keywordvals):
>           apply(A.__init__, (self, val1), keywordvals)
>
> the-possibilities-are-endless-ly y'rs, vr
>

Here are a couple of more possibilities:

class C(A):
    def __init__(self, val, **kw):
        A.__init__(self, val, **kw)

and my personal preference

class C(A):
    __super_init = A.__init__
    # also assign any of A's methods that are overridden
    def __init__(self, val, **kw):
        self.__super_init(val, **kw)

I prefer this version for two reasons.  First, the calls to methods in
the base class don't have to pass self explicitly; they look like
regular methods calls.  Second, if you collect all the overridden method
assignments at the top of the class, it makes the class easier to read
and maintain.  All the information about what superclass methods are
overridden are collected in one place.  If you change your class
hierarchy, you don't have to search through the entire body of the class
to find references to the old superclass and update them.

--
-- Jeremy Hylton, 

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk  Fri Oct 27 09:29:47 2000
From: dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk (Dale Strickland-Clark)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:29:47 +0100
Subject: PythonWin IDE sucks!
Message-ID: <7tuivs46osods22uumpvsvsap2jocrd4si@4ax.com>

I've sort of mentioned this before and all I got was general murmors
of agreement but no solution.

This is such a huge irritation and time waster for me that if it isn't
sorted out I can't really consider Python for future large projects.

To test a module, I import it into PythonWin using the Import/Reload
button and then instantiate a class in the Interactive Window. 

After a failure, I fix the offending code and Import/Reload again.
However, the same failure occurs showing the original line with it's
original contents. The changed module hasn't been loaded.

Why is this?

What can I do about it?

The only way to fix it is to quite and reload PythonWin but then you
have to arrange windows, reestablish breakpoints and watches, etc.
and it all takes far too long.
--
Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants

From the_brain at mit.edu  Fri Oct 13 14:33:20 2000
From: the_brain at mit.edu (Alex)
Date: 13 Oct 2000 14:33:20 -0400
Subject: 
References: <39E73BC3.340D5F62@bioeng.ucsd.edu>
Message-ID: 

> When we run python, we get this error before it starts.  What does
> this mean?  Thanks
> 
> > python
> Could not find platform dependent libraries 
> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
> Python 1.5.2 (#1, Aug 26 1999, 00:12:37) [C] on irix6-n32
> Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
> >>>

What happens when you do 'python -v'?

Alex.

-- 
Speak softly but carry a big carrot.

From jtm63 at shell-3.enteract.com  Wed Oct  4 14:50:47 2000
From: jtm63 at shell-3.enteract.com (James_McNaughton)
Date: 04 Oct 2000 13:50:47 -0500
Subject: win32net without NetAddUse method
Message-ID: 

I want to write a script to mount NT network shares as local
drives in the same manner as "net use". I found a posting
via Deja.com* which advised using win32net.NetUseAdd(). For
some reason when I import win32net there's no NetUseAdd.

I have reinstalled the win32all collection thinking that
there would be an update that I was missing and apparently
there isn't. What I have is Pythonwin build 125.

Any suggestions?

Jim

* For some reason I couldn't post a follow up to the
  previosly mentioned thread through Deja.com. I must
  therefore ask myself why use Deja.com for anything?

From SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk  Mon Oct 30 08:34:59 2000
From: SBrunning at trisystems.co.uk (Simon Brunning)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 13:34:59 -0000
Subject: Initial value of sys.path
Message-ID: <31575A892FF6D1118F5800600846864D5B1371@intrepid>

> From:	Mark Hammond [SMTP:MarkH at ActiveState.com]
> 
> > >
> > > I believe the deliberate decision was simply to "leave windows alone".
> > > It wasn't clear at the time how useful the site packages would truly
> > > turn out to be, and Windows already had special registry support.
> >
> > I'd be very interested to know why this is.
> 
> I'm sorry, but which part are you still unclear on?  Why our foresight
> isn't
> as good as our hindsight?

Woops - obviously that came across as some kind of criticism. It *certainly*
wasn't intended as one. Sorry.

I really just wanted to know whether a decision was made at some point not
to have a site directory in Windows installations, or whether it was just
that *no* decision had been made *to* have a site directory. If the former,
what the reasons were.

I'm just interested to know - I'm not second-guessing anyone.

Cheers,
Simon Brunning
TriSystems Ltd.
sbrunning at trisystems.co.uk
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't
assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless
immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. TriSystems Ltd. cannot
accept liability for statements made which are clearly the senders own.

From zet at i.com.ua  Sun Oct  8 11:38:48 2000
From: zet at i.com.ua (zet)
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 18:38:48 +0300
Subject: What's wrong?
References: <39E04309.524EE458@i.com.ua> 
Message-ID: <971019560.606521@ipt2.iptelecom.net.ua>

Thanx!

From tgagne at ix.netcom.com  Fri Oct  6 15:33:25 2000
From: tgagne at ix.netcom.com (Thomas Gagne)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 15:33:25 -0400
Subject: super - is (should) it (be) a reserved word?
References: <39DD4E57.53C27A3F@ix.netcom.com> <39DD865E.D97E4D09@cable.a2000.nl>  <8rkpsr$bpa$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <39DE2905.1E62C763@ix.netcom.com>

Wouldn't it be nice if "super" were a reserved word referring to the super
class? Maybe it is... no.  Not according to the index in "The Quick Python
Book."

--
.tom

From claird at starbase.neosoft.com  Thu Oct  5 14:58:49 2000
From: claird at starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: 5 Oct 2000 13:58:49 -0500
Subject: Articles?  What articles?  (was: Stackless Python Mailing List)
References: 
Message-ID: <8DE9EA69440BF75B.0E36E8C97E5DF335.AD72F0AC7B147C5B@lp.airnews.net>

In article ,
Christian Tismer   wrote:
>Hi Pythoneers (without or not without Stack (yet:))
>
>there have been a couple of interviews, and some
>articles on Stackless Python are published or in
>preparation. I recognize an increasing number
			.
			.
			.
I'm trying to keep track of the highlights of what's been published through
.
-- 

Cameron Laird 
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html

From donn at oz.net  Wed Oct 11 01:54:48 2000
From: donn at oz.net (Donn Cave)
Date: 11 Oct 2000 05:54:48 GMT
Subject: Running Python on SMP machine
References:    <8rrks8$a1a$1@panix3.panix.com> <8rrrg00nle@news2.newsguy.com> <8rsssg$lcs$1@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: <8s0vb8$44o$0@216.39.151.169>

Quoth "Mark Hammond" :
...
| ...  Threads are often at risk of the
| C++-hammer/thumb syndrome - when your tool of preference is a thread,
| every problem becomes threaded :-)
|
| [Original: When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts
| looking like a nail.  My favourite derivation: When the hammer you
| have is C++, everything starts looking like a thumb.]

I sure agree with this sentiment.  I have a lot of threads in some
of my programs, but usually as an inevitable consequence of using
some multi-threaded toolkit interface.

Someday it would be nice to have a kind of collective wisdom document
out there that outlines some of the issues you can run into with
threads, that wouldn't necessarily be obvious to someone who hasn't
already been there.  Part of it would certainly be the theory of
multi-threaded execution in Python - global interpreter lock, the
instruction count slice, etc., as recently discussed in this thread.
But also a lot of little trivia, like which devices really support
concurrent I/O.  Common graphics toolkits and threads.  Existing
thread dispatching library code if any.

I'm sure a lot of this is out there, though possibly in bits and
pieces.  Pointers to good factual information like that would be
more effective than generalities.  I can't live without threads,
but wouldn't touch them with a stick, all depends on the context.

	Donn Cave, donn at oz.net

From MarkH at ActiveState.com  Thu Oct 19 06:47:30 2000
From: MarkH at ActiveState.com (Mark Hammond)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 10:47:30 GMT
Subject: Andy Robinson's SpamServer COM demo
References: 
Message-ID: <6jAH5.2394$Ab3.6205@news-server.bigpond.net.au>

There is a good chance that the path to the spamserver example is not
on your PythonPath.

If the COM object has a "_reg_class_spec_" attribute, remove it.
Later versions of win32com allow you to omit this, in which case they
imply both the path and the module.  spameserver predates this
enhancement.

If that is not it, look up the documentation on debugging COM objects,
and see what the "trace collector" has to say...

Mark.
--
markh at activestate.com - but if you think I speak for them, you dont
know Dick!

"Dave Dench"  wrote in message
news:mailman.971943147.4468.python-list at python.org...
>
> Dear All,
> didn't see a response to this so I'll try again.
> I am running the SpamServer and it's later brother SpamServerGPO.
> The original demo works fine. The GPO ( LOCAL_SERVER ) version
> registers correctly apparently and can be seen from the COM browser,
>  but the /test fails saying
> **** - The Python.SpamServer test server is not available
>
> I have tried registering it as
> SpamSrv = win32com.client.dynamic.Dispatch("Python.SpamServerGPO")
>
> and as
> SpamSrv =
win32com.client.Dispatch("Python.SpamServerGPO",clsctx=pythoncom.CLSCT
X_LOCAL_SERVER)
>
> without success.
> Any pointers ?
> PS running Python1.6 on an NT server ( via winframe )
>
> Thanks
> David
>
>
>
______________________________________________________________________
__________
>
>            ********************************************************
>                  *     David Dench                          *
>                  *     School of Computing & Mathematics    *
>                  *     The University of Huddersfield       *
>                  *     Tel:  01484  472083      *
>                  *     email: d.j.dench at hud.ac.uk   *
>     *     web:   http://helios.hud.ac.uk/staff/scomdjd *
>
********************************************************
>
______________________________________________________________________
__________
>

From posselt at daimi.au.dk  Tue Oct 17 11:03:05 2000
From: posselt at daimi.au.dk (Peter Posselt Vestergaard)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:03:05 +0200
Subject: Printing multiple lines
References: <39EC67FE.447693B3@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <8shpk8$571o0$1@gjallar.daimi.au.dk>

Try:
print "firstline\nsecondline\nthirdline\n"
- Peter

"joonas"  wrote in message
news:39EC67FE.447693B3 at hotmail.com...
> How can i print multiple lines for example
>
> #######
> firstline
> secondline
> thirdline
> #######
>
>
> i tried
>
> print "firstline
> secondline
> thirdline"
>
> but it didnt worked.
>
> Joonas

From etsang at my-deja.com  Mon Oct 30 13:48:37 2000
From: etsang at my-deja.com (etsang at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:48:37 GMT
Subject: com_addbyte
Message-ID: <8tkfq2$vgk$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

Hi,

I currently have the following problem:
Description:
Python has the limit for either the number of arguments or size of the
parameters.

Try SILIB_IAM_MAO.py in ~isup/ctftest/si/problem directory.
Try si_tc_S20/si_tc_S2005.py  as the test case.

At line 12270 if a line is commented out then tests are running else it
complains as
per follow :
CTF  : Error in function see traceback for details
si_tc.si_tc_S20.si_tc_S2005.SiTcC2025Tst()

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "ctf_gui_tstmgr.py", line 1311, in executeCmd
  exec("import %s"%importFile);
  File "", line 1, in ?
  File "si_tc/si_tc_S20/si_tc_S2005.py", line 90, in ?
  from SILIB_IAM_MAO import *
  SystemError: com_addbyte: byte out of range (line 12265)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
SiTcC2025Tst   UNRES   Execution stopped due to python exception
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------

It error message similar to a post earlier on regarding com_addbyte has
some issue in dealing with a tuple more than 64k.
But I am not too sure how this is related o importing SILIB_IAM_MAO.
At the eman time, I am thinking of breaking SILIB_IAM_MAO  into
multiple ones, but is there are workaround without breaking
SILIB_IAM_MAO?

I am currently ysing python 1.5.2 for Solaris.

If I can get around without breaking SILIB_IAM_MAO, it will save a lot
of trouble!!

thanks a million.

> if got a script which defines a big tuple > 64k entries.
> After the tuple I define a for loop.
>
> The compile of this script causes a SystemError : com_addbyte out of
> range.

> Is there any way around this now or in future versions, other than
> to try to change the script layout until it compiles ?

I expect this will be fixed in Python 2.0. Charles Waldman has a patch
to fix it. I believe there is still some discussion about how exactly
to fix it, but not about whether to fix it.

Jeremy

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From ingo.adler at synacon.ch  Tue Oct 31 17:23:31 2000
From: ingo.adler at synacon.ch (Ingo Adler)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 23:23:31 +0100
Subject: CPython vs. Jython/JPython
References:  <8tn36u$r8m$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>
Message-ID: <39FF4663.A7B5E81E@synacon.ch>

Bill de h?ra wrote:

> ANSI C is very possibly more portable than Java.

Really? What are the #ifdefs for in "ANSI C" - Python?

> Raw C written by a good programmer is typically more efficient in space ...

There are benchmarks that show the opposite.

> Java is owned by a company, you have to pay Sun Microsystems a tribute to
> sell Java code.

Is this really true?

I think, Guido made the point in this thread: JPython is used as glue for
Java-Apps and CPython is used as glue in C++-Apps. It's not possible to replace
one with the other (easily) for this purpose .

Ingo

From paulb at infercor.no  Mon Oct 16 05:44:23 2000
From: paulb at infercor.no (Paul Boddie)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 11:44:23 +0200
Subject: Python in WWW-development?
References: <39eab13e_1@newsflash.abo.fi>
Message-ID: <39EACDF7.A89FE1FA@infercor.no>

Jan Ekholm wrote:
> 
> Hi there!
> 
> I've been using Python for a while now, and I'm quite hooked to it. I was
> mainly wondering wether there are any nice modules for Apache that would
> allow me to write code similar to PHP? I don't want to use CGI, which works
> fine with Python too, but I'd like to embed the code into the WWW-pages.
> 
> Is this possible, and is there some module or project that does/tries to do
> this?

In a persistent fashion of self-promotion (and the promotion of many other good
people ) here's my Web modules page which might help to inform you of the
choices in this area:

  http://www.paul.boddie.net/Python/web_modules.html

Regards,

Paul

From ge at nowhere.none  Fri Oct  6 08:55:28 2000
From: ge at nowhere.none (Grant Edwards)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 12:55:28 GMT
Subject: New Python development process (SourceForge considered Harmful?)
References:  <39e0d75b.78955419@news.telus.net> <_g7D5.4318$WJ3.742225@ptah.visi.com> <39DD2E59.B4847FCF@my.signature>
Message-ID: <4ZjD5.4359$WJ3.773677@ptah.visi.com>

In article <39DD2E59.B4847FCF at my.signature>, Greg Ewing wrote:
>Grant Edwards wrote:
>> 
>> it can get annoying when you get the "ERROR 4xx
>> yadda-yadda-yadda not found" messages splattered all over the
>> page where the ads used to be.
>
>How about redirecting them to a locally-running fake server
>that returns an empty piece of HTML for any request?

Should work, but it's a bit more work.  So far it hasn't been
annoying enough for that. ;)

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  That's a decision
                                  at               that can only be made
                               visi.com            between you & SY SPERLING!!

From stephen at cerebralmaelstrom.com  Wed Oct  4 22:22:44 2000
From: stephen at cerebralmaelstrom.com (Stephen Hansen)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 02:22:44 GMT
Subject: Stupid Q: asyncore and disconnecting?
Message-ID: <20001004.192340.98221@Jeremy.cerebralmaelstrom.com>

Okay, I am using asyncore to make a little server, and am wondering how to
go about detecting a client disconnected? When I 'telnet' into it, then
close the connection, the server doesn't know its closed, each read/poll
still receives just balnk data..... and, shouldn't it not try to read if
there is nothing to be read?

Thanks. :)

--S

From jb4mt at my-deja.com  Wed Oct 18 11:51:24 2000
From: jb4mt at my-deja.com (jb4mt at my-deja.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:51:24 GMT
Subject: ftplib question
Message-ID: <8skgto$j$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

How do I use ftplib to download a text file?  My script works fine as
far as logging in and navigating to the proper directory.  I just can't
figure out how to use the various objects, such as retrlines().  I'm
not able to pass 'get whatever.file' to this object, but that is the
command I'd issue at the command prompt when using FTP.  I've looked at
the documentation but can't easily figure it out.  Help from anybody
with previous experience would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

George

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From apighin at my-deja.com  Mon Oct 30 16:23:47 2000
From: apighin at my-deja.com (apighin at my-deja.com)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 21:23:47 GMT
Subject: Python processing of an input byte stream
Message-ID: <8tkoso$84l$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

First off, I have to admit that I am entirely new
to Python.  I had been looking at possible ways
of approaching a task (to be outlined soon) and
had more or less settled on Perl, when it was
suggested: 'NO! Python, Python, Python! It's MUCH
better.'  So here I am, eliciting help.

Here is what I am trying to accomplish:  I am
trying to do processing on an incoming byte
stream, according to a template.  The template
would, in my mind (but not necessarily) be
something similar to the 'printf' formatting
codes for C.  The input byte stream would be
continuous, so the Python module should expect an
EOF, similar to running 'tail -f'.

For example, an input byte of '0x1' might
translate to 'Function (main) initialized'.  An
input byte might translate to 'A key was pressed,
that key was ?' where ? would come from the next
byte in the stream.  This means that the routine
would need to have an understanding that some
mappings have parameters associated, and other do
not.  This is sort of turning into an FSM.

I took a quick look at Compiling Little Languages
in Python (John Aycock) from the www.python.org
Website, and that outlines one possible direction.

I'd really like to know if this is Python's
forte, if I should look somewhere else (where!?),
and best of all, if this is already done!

Thanks very much in advance,
Anthony

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

From aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com  Tue Oct  3 01:09:07 2000
From: aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com (Aleksei Guzev)
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 11:09:07 +0600
Subject: Unicode and Win2k
Message-ID: 

Hello!

Russian is my mather's tongue. I've experienced a lot of problems with
cyrillic using python 1.6 on Windows 2000 Professional. The main issue is a
range check error while built-in function  tries to fit my russian
strings into 7-bit ASCII. Maybe I should take care of some conversions? But
it would be annoying to convert the strings back and forth.

Aleksei Guzev
aleksei.guzev at bigfoot.com

From jasonic at nomadicsltd.com  Mon Oct  2 20:39:40 2000
From: jasonic at nomadicsltd.com (Jason Cunliffe)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 20:39:40 -0400
Subject: 3D API interface
References: 
Message-ID: 

Check out the fabulous Blender

www.blender.nl

-Jason
________________________________________________________________
Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director

Stuart Ford  wrote in message
news:mailman.970500425.7867.python-list at python.org...
Has anyone made an interface for DirectX or any other 3D render engines?

I had someone bet me that python was too slow for 3D gaming, and I'd love to
prove them wrong!

From effbot at telia.com  Sun Oct  8 17:08:13 2000
From: effbot at telia.com (Fredrik Lundh)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 21:08:13 GMT
Subject: Python and GUI in soft real-time systems?
References: <8rqmnp$ild$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID: <1n5E5.786$YU1.80422@newsc.telia.net>

mdeaver wrote:
> So, is Python - it's interpreter and one of the
> available GUIs - worth considering for this type
> of application?

Definitely.  What you're describing isn't too far from stuff
we've been doing (industrial image processing/production
systems based on Tkinter), and performance shouldn't be
much of a problem.

Contact me directly if you want more details.

From kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us  Thu Oct 26 17:44:11 2000
From: kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us (Jeff Kunce)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 16:44:11 -0500
Subject: How do I force a single instance of a python app?
References: <39f5e46f_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>  <39f731ff_4@corp.newsfeeds.com> <8esfvssua5andnu28ui2otqvdkkugqde5l@4ax.com>
Message-ID: 

> >The second instance of open("foo","w") does not fail.

> I can even open for append from two different instances of the same
> program and get interleaved output.

Yup. It can create some very interesting data files - I had to untangle one
once :-(

You can control that problem by using msvcrt.locking(), which
provides file locking facilities for windows.

  --Jeff

From pinard at iro.umontreal.ca  Sun Oct  1 11:54:53 2000
From: pinard at iro.umontreal.ca (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Pinard?=)
Date: 01 Oct 2000 11:54:53 -0400
Subject: CGI Search Script?
In-Reply-To: kragen@dnaco.net's message of "Sun, 01 Oct 2000 02:56:21 GMT"
References: <8qu7lv$11t$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <39D4F079.F4A4A8C3@seebelow.org>

Message-ID: 

[Kragen Sitaker]

> IMHO, writing code in Perl is not an excuse for writing unmaintainable
> code.  I've been pretty impressed with Lincoln Stein's Perl code, for
> instance.  And writing code in Python is not a guarantee of writing
> maintainable code.

I've seen some horrible Python, and it was a shock to me, as I did not
thought it was possible to write so uglily in that language.

> But I think it's easier to write maintainable code in Python.

It seems that writing nicely scales better with Python than with Perl.
I wrote some big Perl systems, and worked with a huge Perl system written
by others.  I pay a lot of attention to my own style, and it was pretty
evident that the writers of the huge Perl system made very notable efforts
at keeping everything the cleanest they could.

But past a certain size, maintainability escapes language differences,
and is more a factor of overall system architecture.  However, for similar
architectures, Python legibility helps all over.

-- 
Fran?ois Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard

From jim at digicool.com  Wed Oct 11 17:14:42 2000
From: jim at digicool.com (Jim Fulton)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:14:42 -0400
Subject: pythonlabs.com website down -- 2.0c1 still available!
References: <200010102316.SAA20071@cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com>   <8s143u$2eq$1@oslo-nntp.eunet.no>
Message-ID: <39E4D842.3BEBCB32@digicool.com>

Thomas Weholt wrote:
> 
> Does this mean the problem was related to Zope ( since Digital Creations was
> in the picture )?

Not really. I got involved to help PythonLabs debug the problem.

> The main Zope homepage was also down for a long time some
> weeks ago. It doesn't exactly do a good job at marketing Zope as a viable
> platform. Could we get some info on how the problem occurred so we can avoid
> it?

The PythonLabs site application (as opposed to the Zope system code) 
used a Python method that had a logic error that could cause an 
infinite loop under some circumstances.

We sometimes use zope.org as a bit of petri dish. For example, 
during the time you refered to above, we used zope.org
to test (and, as it turned out, debug) a new release of ZEO.
Maybe we shouldn't use zope.org this way, but it sure is convenient
having a site that gets hit hard to try new software out on. :)

Jim

--
Jim Fulton           mailto:jim at digicool.com   Python Powered!        
Technical Director   (888) 344-4332            http://www.python.org  
Digital Creations    http://www.digicool.com   http://www.zope.org    

Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email
address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my
permission.  Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will
result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for
repeats.

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Sat Oct  7 06:47:56 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 12:47:56 +0200
Subject: doubling slashes in a string
References: <39de8a48_3@corp.newsfeeds.com>
Message-ID: <8rmvbo02dfo@news1.newsguy.com>

"Joshua Muskovitz"  wrote in message
news:39de8a48_3 at corp.newsfeeds.com...
> Man, I just have to say, I *love* python.  I was struggling with the
problem
> of how to take a pathname and double all of the backslashes in it, so that
> (for example):
>
> c:\foo\bar\zingo.walla.walla --> c:\\foo\\bar\\zingo.walla.walla
>
> And I was trying for figure out how to walk the character list and build a
> new string, and then it dawned on me:
>
> newname = string.join(string.split(oldname,"\\"), "\\\\")
>
> It just keeps getting better and better.  Thanks for inventing it, Guido!

Fully seconded, although:

    newname = oldname.split(r'\').join(r'\\')

or

    newname = oldname.replace(r'\', r'\\')

would strike some of us as being even better yet!-)

Alex

From skip at mojam.com  Sun Oct  1 11:23:56 2000
From: skip at mojam.com (Skip Montanaro)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 10:23:56 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Secure Passwords in Memory
In-Reply-To: <20000930160505.A2453@liddy.indy.progenylinux.com>
References: <20000930160505.A2453@liddy.indy.progenylinux.com>
Message-ID: <14807.22284.741144.900567@beluga.mojam.com>

    Eric> I need to get the root password from the user to exec a program
    Eric> which requires root privileges. 

Why not just exec su or sudo and let them worry about password problems?

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at mojam.com)
http://www.mojam.com/
http://www.musi-cal.com/

From Robert.Harris at gmx.net  Tue Oct 24 01:48:25 2000
From: Robert.Harris at gmx.net (Robert Harris)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 07:48:25 +0200
Subject: Resuming a file download with python
References: <8srp7c$ak$07$1@news.t-online.com>  <8ssapv$a36$06$1@news.t-online.com>  <8sufig$j2t$06$1@news.t-online.com> 
Message-ID: <8t37qk$gu1$01$1@news.t-online.com>

Thanks, I'll try it.

--
Regards
     Robert

"David Porter"  schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:mailman.972293374.3152.python-list at python.org...
> * Robert Harris  [on wget for win32]:
> > Could you send the url ?
> > I'm not sure yet, if the ftplib really solves the problem.
>
> http://www.interlog.com/~tcharron/wgetwin.html
>
>
> David
>

From not.this at seebelow.org  Fri Oct 20 03:36:02 2000
From: not.this at seebelow.org (Grant Griffin)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:36:02 +0100
Subject: Perl rules - Python drools
References: <8s6ksl$mea$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net> <39e77de7.28583100@news.davesworld.net> <39EEE96B.7C8C8891@holdenweb.com>  <9ZNH5.352184$Gh.10679486@news20.bellglobal.com> 
Message-ID: <39EFF5E2.5C257AD7@seebelow.org>

Alex wrote:
> 
> > > YHBT. YHL. HAND.
> >
> > I've read about that somewhere.  What does it mean??
> 
> Something like "You have been trolled.  You have lost.  Have a nice day."

I dunno...I thought it was something more like "You have been trolled. 
You have lost.  Have a nice day."

or-not--ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com

From sgclift at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 19 01:53:56 2000
From: sgclift at earthlink.net (Steve Clift)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 22:53:56 -0700
Subject: scanf in python...?
Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20001018225356.007c59d0@mail.earthlink.net>

wware at world.std.com (Will Ware) wrote:
> Steve Clift (sgclift at earthlink.net) wrote:
> > ...the sscanf module I wrote about 5 years ago...
> 
> Whenever I need to do something like sscanf(), I use eval(). Is
> sscanfmodule.c much faster? It looks like a very good thing:
> http://www.python.org/ftp/python/contrib-09-Dec-1999/Misc/sscanfmodule.c

Well, it doesn't have to parse the input as an expression, and isn't
limited to inputs that are valid Python expressions. For example,
converting 10000 lines of 100 single-digit integers to a list:

	map(int, string.split(line)):	 3.5 secs
	sscanf(line, fmt):			 2.0 secs (where fmt = 100*'%d')
	eval(line):				39.4 secs (comma separated ints)

If the input lines are in a non-trivial format that is within sscanf's
capabilities, it is much faster and much more concise than the 'pure'
Python approach. There are some other bulk-input alternatives IIRC
(Numeric, undoubtedly, and I seem to recall a FORTRAN-style input formatter
somewhere).

Soapbox mode: FWIW, I think there is a significant disparity between
Python's data input and output facilities. It has good output formatting,
but nothing comparably concise for input. I often have to write one-off
programs to process large amounts of tabular output from other programs,
usually a mixture of floats and ints, with the occasional string for good
measure. Having to write a pile of tedious code to parse this sort of guff
is irritating, considering the relative ease with which you can accomplish
other things in Python. Still, few people seem to complain about this, so I
guess it's not a common issue.

-Steve

From wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net  Thu Oct 19 14:47:17 2000
From: wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 18:47:17 GMT
Subject: using 0x1 << i where i is large HELP!!!
References: <39ECF450.A86550BD@uoguelph.ca> <39ECF4F6.3450091E@uoguelph.ca>  
Message-ID: 

On 19 Oct 2000 10:57:16 -0700, Samuel A. Falvo II wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 01:03:33 GMT, William Tanksley wrote:
>>On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 20:55:18 -0400, Mark Cunningham wrote:
>>>How do you make a long long type in Python?

>>A long type in Python is indefinitely long.  As many bits as you need.

>That didn't answer his question.

How do you know it didn't?  It may not have answered the question you
thought of when you read his question, but it may very well have answered
his.  It certainly was the answer to the question I thought of when I read
it: "how do I get an integer type which holds at least as much as an
'int', and possibly more?"

If I were to assume his question was about the C 'long long' (a seemingly
reasonable assumption): 'long long' is a valid type in gcc and ANSI C '99.
In neither case does it have a usable cross-platform definition. You'll
have to tell us what machine you're working on before we can answer that
question.

>Samuel A. Falvo II	    |

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley

From erno-news at erno.iki.fi  Sat Oct 21 04:45:09 2000
From: erno-news at erno.iki.fi (Erno Kuusela)
Date: 21 Oct 2000 11:45:09 +0300
Subject: ActivePython 2.0 Release
References:  <%84I5.366330$1h3.9686065@news20.bellglobal.com>
Message-ID: 

>>>>> "Olivier" == Olivier Dagenais  writes:

 | I believe it is analogous to saying "What's so special about RedHat (or
 | Mandrake, Debian, etc..) if I can download and build my own Linux?"  It's
 | all about packaging & distribution and I think ActiveState is on the right
 | track.

i do not think it is very accurate to compare free software distributors
with activestate (no redistribution allowed).

  -- erno

From jay.krell at cornell.edu  Tue Oct 17 00:51:49 2000
From: jay.krell at cornell.edu (jay.krell at cornell.edu)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 21:51:49 -0700
Subject: Problem with japanese characters in filenames
Message-ID: <00a401c037f6$0a4e9ae0$8001a8c0@jayk3>

Yes, backslash is the "trailing character" in one or more "multibyte"
sequences.
When scanning "multibyte" strings on Windows you are not supposed to just
add or subtract one, but use functions like CharNextA or CharPrevA, or the
Microsoft C library's similar but different _mbsinc, _mbsdec sometimes known
as _tcsinc, _tcsdec.

Yes, Unicode helps. If all your strings are unicode and you ignore the fact
that Unicode also has "multibyte" sequences, then you can go back to just
adding or subtracting one. Unicode "multibyte" sequences are apparently a
newer/rarer thing than 8bit multibyte sequences, so, though it seems wrong,
you can probably get away with this, at least for a few years.

At least with Unicode there is sort of only one, or at least fewer, "code
pages". (You could consider UTF7, UTF8 and Java UTF8 as Unicode code
pages...and I'm a bit ignorant, but the generalized terms are probably UCS7,
UCS8, Java UCS8, UCS16, UCS32. UCS16 being the normal "big/wide/large/etc."
representation. Java UTF8/UCS8 changing the representation of 0, how nice of
Sun to follow standards...)

Yes I know "multibyte" isn't the right term when talking about Unicode,
since even a "single byte" Unicode sequence is multiple bytes.

And Unicode "code page" isn't really right either, since the main variable
isn't really what "page" is used to decode the values, but rather what size
the values are.

But see Neil Hodgson's response too, even though Unicode "helps", there
aren't necessarily bugs without it.

 - Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Wender 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
To: python-list at python.org 
Date: Monday, October 16, 2000 12:07 PM
Subject: Problem with japanese characters in filenames

>With Python 1.5.2 I had problems with japanese characters in filenames
>on MS Windows. In the native character encoding (952, I believe) the
>backslash is an allowed second character of a multibyte sequence. This
>broke os.listdir, because it splits directory and file names at
>backslashes.
>Has somebody experience with this with newer Python versions? Does
>unicode help here in any way? As far as I know, the windows
>interfacing part of Python is written with the 8bit functions.
>Thanks for any light on this,
>
>Cheerio,
>--
>J.Wender at science-computing.de - Fon +4970719457-257 Fax-27
>Living With Other People: Civilization is a religion. (Talking Heads)
>--
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

From glenfant at nospam-e-pack.net  Sun Oct  1 09:27:15 2000
From: glenfant at nospam-e-pack.net (Gilles Lenfant)
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 15:27:15 +0200
Subject: cc and bcc with smtplib.py (1.5.2)
Message-ID: <8r7du7$86p$1@reader1.imaginet.fr>

Hi,

Is there an smtp/python expert here who can tell me how to have "cc" and
"bcc" recipients of a mail ?
BTW, it's with python 1.5.2, I use binary extra modules that are not
compliant with 1.6.
Thanks in advance !

Gilles Lenfant

From aleaxit at yahoo.com  Thu Oct 12 08:01:06 2000
From: aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 14:01:06 +0200
Subject: Programmer-Wanna-Be (Is Python for me?)
References: 
Message-ID: <8s49f601ic4@news1.newsguy.com>

"JTC Murphy"  wrote in message
news:mailman.971343461.23614.python-list at python.org...
    [snip]
> To learn to do GUI stuff with Python will take more effort (the drag,
> drop, double-click of VB is hard to beat) - but it will be a worthwhile

It depends on what GUI kit you want to use from Python; remember
that the original poster did say he's experienced with HTML, and
prefers a bare-bone text-editor, rather than a wysiwyg tool, to
prepare his HTML pages.  An HTML page *IS* a GUI, after all... at
least with dynamic HTML, events, &c (and, with Windows, Internet
Explorer, and Python+win32all, you do get all of this).

See, for example:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/hta/overview/htaoverview.asp
for one possibility, "HTML Applications" -- note that this page,
authored by Microsoft, recommends that the GUI be an HTA "while the
C++ or Visual Basic developers program the underlying functionality".

And this, exactly because of the VERY LITTLE effort that is needed
for the presentation part of an HTA -- and I quote Microsoft again:
"Create an HTA by writing an HTML page and saving it with the .hta
extension. It?s that simple".  At least, it's simple for somebody
who knows HTML and/or can use any of the zillion HTML-generating
tools that are around, both free and commercial.  Also, to make the
HTML _dynamic_ (==dynamically responding to user interaction or
other outside events), one will normally need to have in the page
some "scripting code" (responding to events) as well as the HTML
itself (and, probably, Cascading Style Sheets -- maybe some XML
"data island" -- maybe some ActiveX control embedded -- etc, etc).

But Python (in the activescripting-compliant installation that
comes with win32all) is perfectly able *and suited* to fulfill all
of these roles -- it can perfectly well be the scripting language
used within the page[s] of the HTA (

4.1 `if` Statements

4.2 `for` Statements

4.3 The `range()` Function

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level > > 1

I can write mail in HTML

: COLOR="#FF0000">Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

text

', '', '', '

this is the start

This is the end

>COLOR="#FF0000">Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level > >1

[+param+]

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

header

: COLOR="#FF0000">Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1

Heading Level 1