Announce: Python for .NET 1.0 RC1 released

[Brian Lloyd]

Hi all -

I'm happy to announce the release of Python for .NET 1.0 RC1.
You can download it from:

  http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet

Highlights of this release:

    - Implemented a workaround for the fact that exceptions cannot be
      new-style classes in the CPython interpreter. Managed exceptions
      can now be raised and caught naturally from Python

    - Implemented support for invoking methods with out and ref parameters.
      Because there is no real equivalent to these in Python, methods that
      have out or ref parameters will return a tuple. The tuple will contain
      the result of the method as its first item, followed by out parameter
      values in the order of their declaration in the method signature.

    - Fixed a refcount problem that caused a crash when CLR was imported in
      an existing installed Python interpreter.

    - Added an automatic conversion from Python strings to byte[]. This
makes
      it easier to pass byte[] data to managed methods (or set properties,
      etc.) as a Python string without having to write explicit conversion
      code. Also works for sbyte arrays. Note that byte and sbyte arrays
      returned from managed methods or obtained from properties or fields
      do *not* get converted to Python strings - they remain instances of
      Byte[] or SByte[].

    - Added conversion of generic Python sequences to object arrays when
      appropriate (thanks to Mackenzie Straight for the patch).

    - Added a bit of cautionary documentation for embedders, focused on
      correct handling of the Python global interpreter lock from managed
      code for code that calls into Python.

    - PyObject.FromManagedObject now correctly returns the Python None
      object if the input is a null reference. Also added a new
AsManagedObject
      method to PyObject, making it easier to convert a Python-wrapped
      managed object to the real managed object.

    - Created a simple installer for windows platforms.


All known bugs have also been fixed - thanks to all who have sent in issue
reports and patches for past releases.

At this point, the only thing I plan to do before a 1.0 final is fix any
new issues and add to the documentation (probably including a few specific
examples of embedding Python for .NET in a .NET application).

Enjoy! ;)


Brian Lloyd        brian at zope.com
V.P. Engineering   540.361.1716
Zope Corporation   http://www.zope.com