Python 3.4.0 Release Candidate 2 Release

Python 3.4.0 release candidate 2

Note: Python 3.4.0rc2 has been superseded by Python 3.4.9.

Python 3.4.0 release candidate 2 was released on February 23th, 2014. This is a preview release of the next major release of Python, Python 3.4, and is not suitable for production environments.

Major new features of the 3.4 series, compared to 3.3

Python 3.4 includes a range of improvements of the 3.x series, including hundreds of small improvements and bug fixes. Among the new major new features and changes in the 3.4 release series are

PEP 428, a "pathlib" module providing object-oriented filesystem paths
PEP 435, a standardized "enum" module
PEP 436, a build enhancement that will help generate introspection information for builtins
PEP 442, improved semantics for object finalization
PEP 443, adding single-dispatch generic functions to the standard library
PEP 445, a new C API for implementing custom memory allocators
PEP 446, changing file descriptors to not be inherited by default in subprocesses
PEP 450, a new "statistics" module
PEP 451, standardizing module metadata for Python's module import system
PEP 453, a bundled installer for the pip package manager
PEP 454, a new "tracemalloc" module for tracing Python memory allocations
PEP 456, a new hash algorithm for Python strings and binary data
PEP 3154, a new and improved protocol for pickled objects
PEP 3156, a new "asyncio" module, a new framework for asynchronous I/O

More resources

Download

This is a preview release, and its use is not recommended in production settings.

We currently support these formats for download:

XZ compressed source tar ball (3.4.0rc2) (sig), ~ 14 MB
Gzipped source tar ball (3.4.0rc2) (sig), ~ 19 MB

Mac OS X 64-bit/32-bit Installer (3.4.0rc2) for Mac OS X 10.6 and later [2] (sig). [You may need an updated Tcl/Tk install to run IDLE or use Tkinter, see note 2 for instructions.]
Mac OS X 32-bit i386/PPC Installer (3.4.0rc2) for Mac OS X 10.5 and later [2] (sig)

The source tarballs are signed with Larry Hastings' key, which has a key id of F73C700D; the fingerprint is 97FC 712E 4C02 4BBE A48A 61ED 3A5C A953 F73C 700D. The Windows installer was signed by Martin von Löwis' public key, which has a key id of 7D9DC8D2. The Mac installers were signed with Ned Deily's key, which has a key id of 6F5E1540. The public keys are located on the download page.

MD5 checksums and sizes of the released files:

b9dcfd6ec136711b8ac3744b95655e9e  19216254  Python-3.4.0rc2.tgz
6725b9c9144c62ab010edb972ac16643  14075520  Python-3.4.0rc2.tar.xz
7f6c476e31bc936245506efd6d6be34f  22734400  python-3.4.0rc2-macosx10.5.dmg
ad4d312befe87b3d5820e510dfbe7fa3  22809226  python-3.4.0rc2-macosx10.6.dmg
c344fbeb5e4520a5a3df988e31dd997f  24444928  python-3.4.0rc2.msi
ab9e1d7edde6e9e59f25948e69a0350d  36646060  python-3.4.0rc2-pdb.zip
d07042110b65eff0e2c586f3c5527775  25145344  python-3.4.0rc2.amd64.msi
13599cb8b4772d01dbcd850564e5bd42  24121026  python-3.4.0rc2.amd64-pdb.zip
460888c24b083f3ff12b87ba1e0ec803   7223729  python340rc2.chm

[1]	The binaries for AMD64 will also work on processors that implement the Intel 64 architecture. (Also known as the "x64" architecture, and formerly known as both "EM64T" and "x86-64".) They will not work on Intel Itanium Processors (formerly "IA-64").

[2]	(1, 2) There is important information about IDLE, Tkinter, and Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X here.