[Python-checkins] CVS: python/dist/src/Misc HISTORY,1.8,1.9
Guido van Rossum
python-dev@python.org
Mon, 4 Sep 2000 09:26:06 -0700
Update of /cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Misc
In directory slayer.i.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv25619
Modified Files:
HISTORY
Log Message:
1.6 is history.
Index: HISTORY
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Misc/HISTORY,v
retrieving revision 1.8
retrieving revision 1.9
diff -C2 -r1.8 -r1.9
*** HISTORY 2000/09/01 22:26:44 1.8
--- HISTORY 2000/09/04 16:26:03 1.9
***************
*** 1,7 ****
! Python history
--------------
This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases.
As you read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history.
--- 1,311 ----
! Python History
--------------
This file contains the release messages for previous Python releases.
As you read on you go back to the dark ages of Python's history.
+
+
+ ======================================================================
+
+
+ What's new in release 1.6?
+ ==========================
+
+ Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.5.2.
+
+
+ Source Incompatibilities
+ ------------------------
+
+ Several small incompatible library changes may trip you up:
+
+ - The append() method for lists can no longer be invoked with more
+ than one argument. This used to append a single tuple made out of
+ all arguments, but was undocumented. To append a tuple, use
+ e.g. l.append((a, b, c)).
+
+ - The connect(), connect_ex() and bind() methods for sockets require
+ exactly one argument. Previously, you could call s.connect(host,
+ port), but this was undocumented. You must now write
+ s.connect((host, port)).
+
+ - The str() and repr() functions are now different more often. For
+ long integers, str() no longer appends a 'L'. Thus, str(1L) == '1',
+ which used to be '1L'; repr(1L) is unchanged and still returns '1L'.
+ For floats, repr() now gives 17 digits of precision, to ensure no
+ precision is lost (on all current hardware).
+
+ - The -X option is gone. Built-in exceptions are now always
+ classes. Many more library modules also have been converted to
+ class-based exceptions.
+
+
+ Binary Incompatibilities
+ ------------------------
+
+ - Third party extensions built for Python 1.5.x cannot be used with
+ Python 1.6; these extensions will have to be rebuilt for Python 1.6.
+
+ - On Windows, attempting to import a third party extension built for
+ Python 1.5.x results in an immediate crash; there's not much we can do
+ about this. Check your PYTHONPATH environment variable!
+
+
+ Overview of Changes since 1.5.2
+ -------------------------------
+
+ For this overview, I have borrowed from the document "What's New in
+ Python 2.0" by Andrew Kuchling and Moshe Zadka:
+ http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/python/writing/new-python/.
+
+ There are lots of new modules and lots of bugs have been fixed. A
+ list of all new modules is included below.
+
+ Probably the most pervasive change is the addition of Unicode support.
+ We've added a new fundamental datatype, the Unicode string, a new
+ build-in function unicode(), an numerous C APIs to deal with Unicode
+ and encodings. See the file Misc/unicode.txt for details, or
+ http://starship.python.net/crew/lemburg/unicode-proposal.txt.
+
+ Two other big changes, related to the Unicode support, are the
+ addition of string methods and (yet another) new regular expression
+ engine.
+
+ - String methods mean that you can now say s.lower() etc. instead of
+ importing the string module and saying string.lower(s) etc. One
+ peculiarity is that the equivalent of string.join(sequence,
+ delimiter) is delimiter.join(sequence). Use " ".join(sequence) for
+ the effect of string.join(sequence); to make this more readable, try
+ space=" " first. Note that the maxsplit argument defaults in
+ split() and replace() have changed from 0 to -1.
+
+ - The new regular expression engine, SRE by Fredrik Lundh, is fully
+ backwards compatible with the old engine, and is in fact invoked
+ using the same interface (the "re" module). You can explicitly
+ invoke the old engine by import pre, or the SRE engine by importing
+ sre. SRE is faster than pre, and supports Unicode (which was the
+ main reason to put effort in yet another new regular expression
+ engine -- this is at least the fourth!).
+
+
+ Other Changes
+ -------------
+
+ Other changes that won't break code but are nice to know about:
+
+ Deleting objects is now safe even for deeply nested data structures.
+
+ Long/int unifications: long integers can be used in seek() calls, as
+ slice indexes.
+
+ String formatting (s % args) has a new formatting option, '%r', which
+ acts like '%s' but inserts repr(arg) instead of str(arg). (Not yet in
+ alpha 1.)
+
+ Greg Ward's "distutils" package is included: this will make
+ installing, building and distributing third party packages much
+ simpler.
+
+ There's now special syntax that you can use instead of the apply()
+ function. f(*args, **kwds) is equivalent to apply(f, args, kwds).
+ You can also use variations f(a1, a2, *args, **kwds) and you can leave
+ one or the other out: f(*args), f(**kwds).
+
+ The built-ins int() and long() take an optional second argument to
+ indicate the conversion base -- of course only if the first argument
+ is a string. This makes string.atoi() and string.atol() obsolete.
+ (string.atof() was already obsolete).
+
+ When a local variable is known to the compiler but undefined when
+ used, a new exception UnboundLocalError is raised. This is a class
+ derived from NameError so code catching NameError should still work.
+ The purpose is to provide better diagnostics in the following example:
+ x = 1
+ def f():
+ print x
+ x = x+1
+ This used to raise a NameError on the print statement, which confused
+ even experienced Python programmers (especially if there are several
+ hundreds of lines of code between the reference and the assignment to
+ x :-).
+
+ You can now override the 'in' operator by defining a __contains__
+ method. Note that it has its arguments backwards: x in a causes
+ a.__contains__(x) to be called. That's why the name isn't __in__.
+
+ The exception AttributeError will have a more friendly error message,
+ e.g.: <code>'Spam' instance has no attribute 'eggs'</code>. This may
+ <b>break code</b> that expects the message to be exactly the attribute
+ name.
+
+
+ New Modules in 1.6
+ ------------------
+
+ UserString - base class for deriving from the string type.
+
+ distutils - tools for distributing Python modules.
+
+ robotparser - parse a robots.txt file, for writing web spiders.
+ (Moved from Tools/webchecker/.)
+
+ linuxaudiodev - audio for Linux.
+
+ mmap - treat a file as a memory buffer. (Windows and Unix.)
+
+ sre - regular expressions (fast, supports unicode). Currently, this
+ code is very rough. Eventually, the re module will be reimplemented
+ using sre (without changes to the re API).
+
+ filecmp - supersedes the old cmp.py and dircmp.py modules.
+
+ tabnanny - check Python sources for tab-width dependance. (Moved from
+ Tools/scripts/.)
+
+ urllib2 - new and improved but incompatible version of urllib (still
+ experimental).
+
+ zipfile - read and write zip archives.
+
+ codecs - support for Unicode encoders/decoders.
+
+ unicodedata - provides access to the Unicode 3.0 database.
+
+ _winreg - Windows registry access.
+
+ encodings - package which provides a large set of standard codecs --
+ currently only for the new Unicode support. It has a drop-in extension
+ mechanism which allows you to add new codecs by simply copying them
+ into the encodings package directory. Asian codec support will
+ probably be made available as separate distribution package built upon
+ this technique and the new distutils package.
+
+
+ Changed Modules
+ ---------------
+
+ readline, ConfigParser, cgi, calendar, posix, readline, xmllib, aifc,
+ chunk, wave, random, shelve, nntplib - minor enhancements.
+
+ socket, httplib, urllib - optional OpenSSL support (Unix only).
+
+ _tkinter - support for 8.0 up to 8.3. Support for versions older than
+ 8.0 has been dropped.
+
+ string - most of this module is deprecated now that strings have
+ methods. This no longer uses the built-in strop module, but takes
+ advantage of the new string methods to provide transparent support for
+ both Unicode and ordinary strings.
+
+
+ Changes on Windows
+ ------------------
+
+ The installer no longer runs a separate Tcl/Tk installer; instead, it
+ installs the needed Tcl/Tk files directly in the Python directory. If
+ you already have a Tcl/Tk installation, this wastes some disk space
+ (about 4 Megs) but avoids problems with conflincting Tcl/Tk
+ installations, and makes it much easier for Python to ensure that
+ Tcl/Tk can find all its files. Note: the alpha installers don't
+ include the documentation.
+
+ The Windows installer now installs by default in \Python16\ on the
+ default volume, instead of \Program Files\Python-1.6\.
+
+
+ Changed Tools
+ -------------
+
+ IDLE - complete overhaul. See the <a href="../idle/">IDLE home
+ page</a> for more information. (Python 1.6 alpha 1 will come with
+ IDLE 0.6.)
+
+ Tools/i18n/pygettext.py - Python equivalent of xgettext(1). A message
+ text extraction tool used for internationalizing applications written
+ in Python.
+
+
+ Obsolete Modules
+ ----------------
+
+ stdwin and everything that uses it. (Get Python 1.5.2 if you need
+ it. :-)
+
+ soundex. (Skip Montanaro has a version in Python but it won't be
+ included in the Python release.)
+
+ cmp, cmpcache, dircmp. (Replaced by filecmp.)
+
+ dump. (Use pickle.)
+
+ find. (Easily coded using os.walk().)
+
+ grep. (Not very useful as a library module.)
+
+ packmail. (No longer has any use.)
+
+ poly, zmod. (These were poor examples at best.)
+
+ strop. (No longer needed by the string module.)
+
+ util. (This functionality was long ago built in elsewhere).
+
+ whatsound. (Use sndhdr.)
+
+
+ Detailed Changes from 1.6b1 to 1.6
+ ----------------------------------
+
+ - Slight changes to the CNRI license. A copyright notice has been
+ added; the requirement to indicate the nature of modifications now
+ applies when making a derivative work available "to others" instead of
+ just "to the public"; the version and date are updated. The new
+ license has a new handle.
+
+ - Added the Tools/compiler package. This is a project led by Jeremy
+ Hylton to write the Python bytecode generator in Python.
+
+ - The function math.rint() is removed.
+
+ - In Python.h, "#define _GNU_SOURCE 1" was added.
+
+ - Version 0.9.1 of Greg Ward's distutils is included (instead of
+ version 0.9).
+
+ - A new version of SRE is included. It is more stable, and more
+ compatible with the old RE module. Non-matching ranges are indicated
+ by -1, not None. (The documentation said None, but the PRE
+ implementation used -1; changing to None would break existing code.)
+
+ - The winreg module has been renamed to _winreg. (There are plans for
+ a higher-level API called winreg, but this has not yet materialized in
+ a form that is acceptable to the experts.)
+
+ - The _locale module is enabled by default.
+
+ - Fixed the configuration line for the _curses module.
+
+ - A few crashes have been fixed, notably <file>.writelines() with a
+ list containing non-string objects would crash, and there were
+ situations where a lost SyntaxError could dump core.
+
+ - The <list>.extend() method now accepts an arbitrary sequence
+ argument.
+
+ - If __str__() or __repr__() returns a Unicode object, this is
+ converted to an 8-bit string.
+
+ - Unicode string comparisons is no longer aware of UTF-16
+ encoding peculiarities; it's a straight 16-bit compare.
+
+ - The Windows installer now installs the LICENSE file and no longer
+ registers the Python DLL version in the registry (this is no longer
+ needed). It now uses Tcl/Tk 8.3.2.
+
+ - A few portability problems have been fixed, in particular a
+ compilation error involving socklen_t.
+
+ - The PC configuration is slightly friendlier to non-Microsoft
+ compilers.