This is Python release 1.5.2a1

==============================

What's new in this release?

---------------------------

See the Misc/NEWS file. Nothing spectacular this time. The BeOS port

is now integrated, courtesy Chris Herborth (see below).

If you don't read instructions

------------------------------

Congratulations on getting this far. :-)

To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the

current directory and when it finishes, type "make". The section

Build Instructions below is still recommended reading. :-)

What is Python anyway?

----------------------

Python is an interpreted object-oriented programming language, and is

often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java or Scheme. To find out more, point

your browser to http://www.python.org/.

A modest plug

-------------

************************************************************************

* Without your support, I won't be able to continue to work on Python! *

************************************************************************

If you use Python, please consider joining the Python Software

Activity (PSA). See http://www.python.org/psa/.

Organizations that make heavy use of Python are especially encouraged

to become corporate members!

How do I learn Python?

----------------------

The official tutorial is still a good place to start (in the Doc

directory as tut.tex; and http://www.python.org/doc/tut/tut.html).

Aaron Watters wrote a second tutorial, that may be more accessible for

some: http://www.wcmh.com/uworld/archives/95/tutorial/005.html. Both

tutorials (as well as most other sources) assume that you already know

how to program -- if you'd like to write "Python for Dummies", I know

a publisher who would like to talk to you...

There are now also several books on Python. While these are still

based on Python 1.3 or 1.4, the information in them is still 99%

correct. The first two books, both first published in October 1996

and both including a CD-ROM, form excellent companions to each other:

Internet Programming with Python

by Aaron Watters, Guido van Rossum, and James Ahlstrom

MIS Press/Henry Holt publishers

ISBN: 1-55851-484-8

Programming Python

by Mark Lutz

O'Reilly & Associates

ISBN: 1-56592-197-6

If you can read German, try:

Das Python-Buch

by Martin von Loewis and Nils Fischbeck

Addison-Wesley-Longman, 1997

ISBN: 3-8273-1110-1

Copyright issues

----------------

Python is COPYRIGHTED but free to use for all. See the full copyright

notice at the end of this file and in the file Misc/COPYRIGHT.

The Python distribution is *not* affected by the GNU Public Licence

(GPL). There are interfaces to some GNU code but these are entirely

optional and no GNU code is distributed with Python.

Build instructions

==================

Before you can build Python, you must first configure it.

Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been streamlined

for most Unix installations, so all you have to do is type a few

commands, optionally edit one file, and sit back. There are some

platforms where things are not quite as smooth; see the platform

specific notes below. If you want to build for multiple platforms

sharing the same source tree, see the section on VPATH below.

You start by running the script "./configure", which figures out your

system configuration and creates several Makefiles. (It takes a

minute or two -- please be patient!) When it's done, you are ready to

run make. You may want to pass options to the configure script -- see

the section below on configuration options and variables.

To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory.

This will recursively run make in each of the subdirectories Parser,

Objects, Python and Modules, creating a library file in each one. The

executable of the interpreter is built in the Modules subdirectory and

moved up here when it is built. If you want or need to, you can also

chdir into each subdirectory in turn and run make there manually (do

the Modules subdirectory last!).

Once you have built an interpreter, see the subsections below on

testing, configuring additional modules, and installation. If you run

in trouble, see the next section.

Troubleshooting

---------------

See also the platform specific notes in the next section.

If recursive makes fail, try invoking make as "make MAKE=make".

If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ

(http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py or

http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for hints on what can go wrong,

and how to fix it.

If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all

object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or

not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable

problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report!

If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that

should be there, inspect the config.log file. When you fix a

configure problem, be sure to remove config.cache!

If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no

longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know

whether this option is needed; all I can do is test whether it is

accepted without error. On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it

is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c,

which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000). If the

warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from

the OPT variable.

Platform specific notes

-----------------------

(Some of these may no longer apply. If you find you can build Python

on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here, let

me know so I can remove them!)

64-bit platforms: The modules audioop, imageop and rgbimg don't work.

Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They

contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a

fix, let me know!)

Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris

2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest

way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as

the "CC" environment variable when running the configure

script).

Linux: On Linux version 1.x, once you've built Python, use it to run

the regen script in the Lib/linux1 directory. Apparently

the files as distributed don't match the system headers on

some Linux versions. (The "h2py" command refers to

Tools/scripts/h2py.py.) The modules distributed for Linux 2.x

should be okay. Shared library support now works by default

on ELF-based x86 Linux systems. (Note: when you change the

status of a module from static to shared, you must remove its

.o file or do a "make clean".)

Under RedHat Linux 5.0, if upgraded from a previous version,

remove the LinuxThreads packages. This is needed because

LinuxThreads conflicts with the new thread support provided by

glibc. Before running Python's configure script, use the

following commands as root (version numbers may differ; these

are from a stock 4.2 install):

% rpm -qa | grep ^linuxthread

linuxthreads-0.5-1

linuxthreads-devel-0.5-1

% rpm -e linuxthreads linuxthreads-devel

While Python only needs this to be done to allow thread

support to be included, the conflicts these packages create

with the new glibc may cause other packages which use threads

to fail as well, so their removal is a good idea regardless of

how you configure python.

Also under RedHat Linux 5.0, the crypt module now needs the

-lcrypt option. Uncomment this flag in Modules/Setup, or

comment out the crypt module in the same file.

DEC Unix: When enabling threads, use --with-dec-threads, not

--with-thread. When using GCC, it is possible to get an

internal compiler error if optimization is used. This was

reported for GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c. Manually compile

the affected file without optimization to solve the problem.

AIX: A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in

place. See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done.

(The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases

has been worked around by a minimal code change.)

HP-UX: Please read the file Misc/HPUX-NOTES.

Minix: When using ack, use "CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure"!

SCO: The following only apply to SCO 3; Python builds out of the box

on SCO 5 (or so I've heard).

1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the

defs. This is because all the SCO header files are broken.

Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is

conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined.

2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt

stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS

needed be set to:

LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i'

SunOS 4.x: When using the standard "cc" compiler, certain modules may

not be compilable because they use non-K&R syntax. You should

be able to get a basic Python interpreter by commenting out

such modules in the Modules/Setup file, but I really recommend

using gcc.

When using the SunPro C compiler, you may want to use the

'-Xa' option instead of '-Xc', to enable some needed non-ANSI

Sunisms.

NeXT: To build fat binaries, use the --with-next-archs switch

described below.

QNX: Chris Herborth ([email protected]) writes:

configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on

ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build,

test and install Python 1.5 under QNX:

1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \

./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm=""

2) copy Modules/Setup.in to Modules/Setup; edit Modules/Setup to

activate everything that makes sense for your system... tested

here at QNX with the following modules:

array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath,

crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop,

_locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre,

posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop, rgbimg, rotor,

select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct,

syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib

Newly compiled/tested in 1.5.1:

audioop, imageop, rgbimgmodule

3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash

or, if you feel the need for speed:

make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt"

4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test

The socket test might fail in the test harness; going

through it by hand shows that they work.

A good exercise for the reader: make this work "out of the

box".

Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I

think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\

5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install

If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but

I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're

probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a

little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile

in the Modules directory to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k

BeOS: Chris Herborth ([email protected]) writes:

See BeOS/README for notes about compiling/installing Python on

BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC platform is

supported at this time, but feel free to try building it on

x86.

Cray T3E: Konrad Hinsen writes:

1) Don't use gcc. It compiles Python/graminit.c into something

that the Cray assembler doesn't like. Cray's cc seems to work

fine.

2) Uncomment modules md5 (won't compile) and audioop (will

crash the interpreter during the test suite).

If you run the test suite, two tests will fail (rotate and

binascii), but these are not the modules you'd expect to need

on a Cray.

SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make)

does not check whether a command actually changed the file it

is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make"

it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much

smarter "smake " utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If

you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake

smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make).

A bug in the MIPSpro 7.1 compiler's optimizer seems to break

Modules/pypcre.c. The short term solution is to compile it

without optimization. The bug is fixed in version 7.2.1 of

the compiler.

OS/2: If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++

compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory

and type NMAKE. Threading and sockets are supported by default

in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE.

Configuring threads

-------------------

The main switch to configure threads is to run the configure script

(see below) with the --with-thread switch (on DEC, use

--with-dec-threads). Unfortunately, on some platforms, additional

compiler and/or linker options are required. Below is a table of

those options, collected by Bill Janssen. I would love to automate

this process more, but the information below is not enough to write a

patch for the configure.in file, so manual intervention is required.

If you patch the configure.in file and are confident that the patch

works, please send me the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure

script itself -- it is regenerated each the configure.in file

changes.)

Compiler switches for threads

.............................

OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads

(POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) (1) compile only (2) compile & link

SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -mt

SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT

DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads

([email protected])

Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads

([email protected])

Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -pthread

([email protected])

AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing)

([email protected])

AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing)

([email protected])

IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing)

([email protected])

Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads

...........................................

OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads

SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread

SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread

DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc

([email protected])

Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc

([email protected])

Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc

([email protected])

AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing)

([email protected])

IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread

([email protected])

Configuring additional built-in modules

---------------------------------------

You can configure the interpreter to contain fewer or more built-in

modules by editing the file Modules/Setup. This file is initially

copied (when the toplevel Makefile makes Modules/Makefile for the

first time) from Setup.in; if it does not exist yet, make a copy

yourself. Never edit Setup.in -- always edit Setup. Read the

comments in the file for information on what kind of edits you can

make. When you have edited Setup, Makefile and config.c in Modules

will automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make in the

toplevel directory. (When working inside the Modules directory, use

"make Makefile; make".)

The default collection of modules should build on any Unix system, but

many optional modules should work on all modern Unices (e.g. try dbm,

nis, termios, timing, syslog, curses, new, soundex, parser). Often

the quickest way to determine whether a particular module works or not

is to see if it will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get

compilation or link errors, disable it -- you're missing support.

On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific

system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware.

For SunOS and Solaris, enable module "sunaudiodev" to support the

audio device.

In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local.

(the makesetup script processes both). You may find it more

convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone. Then, when

installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local

file.

Setting the optimization/debugging options

------------------------------------------

If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for

the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make

command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python

on most platforms. The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the

environment when the configure script is run overrides this default

(likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base

set of libraries to link with).

Testing

-------

To test the interpreter that you have just built, type "make test".

This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with

the compiled files left by the previous test run). The test set

produces some output. You can generally ignore the messages about

skipped tests due to an optional feature that can't be imported (if

you want to test those modules, edit Modules/Setup to configure them).

If a messages is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core

dump is produced, something's wrong. On some Linux systems (those

that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a

non-standard-compliant implementation of strftime() in the C library.

Please ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6.

IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report,

*don't* include the output of "make test". It is useless. Run the

test that fails manually, as follows:

python ../Lib/test/test_whatever.py

(substituting the top of the source tree for .. if you built in a

different directory). This runs the test in verbose mode.

Installing

----------

To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules

(see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page,

just type

make install

This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories the

directory given with the --prefix option to configure or the 'prefix'

Make variable (default /usr/local), and all binary and other

platform-specific files in subdirectories if the directory given by

--exec-prefix or the 'exec_prefix' Make variable (defaults to the

--prefix directory).

All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their

name, e.g. the library modules are installed in

"/usr/local/lib/python1.5/" by default. The Python binary is

installed as "python1.5" and a hard link named "python" is created.

The only file not installed with a version number in its name is the

manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1" by default.

If you have a previous installation of a pre-1.5 Python that you don't

want to replace yet, use

make altinstall

This installs the same set of files as "make install" except it

doesn't create the hard link to "python1.5" named "python" and it

doesn't install the manual page at all.

The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for

Emacs. (But then again, more recent versions of Emacs may already

have it!) This is the file Misc/python-mode.el; follow the

instructions that came with Emacs for installation of site specific

files.

Configuration options and variables

-----------------------------------

Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure

script.

WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you

must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule:

after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove

Modules/getpath.o.

--with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if

it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is

installed but broken on your platform, pass the option

--without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the

name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the

advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is

remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck

option.

--prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the

Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib},

you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter

binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the

library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass

--exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the

installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the

interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also

affects the default module search path (sys.path), when

Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option

prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the

prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient

than re-running the configure script if you change your mind

about the install prefix...

--with-readline: This option is no longer supported. To use GNU

readline, enable module "readline" in the Modules/Setup file.

--with-thread: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple threads.

To enable this, pass --with-thread. (--with-threads is an

alias.) If the library required for threads lives in a

peculiar place, you can use --with-thread=DIRECTORY. NOTE:

you must also enable the thread module by uncommenting it in

the Modules/Setup file. (Threads aren't enabled automatically

because there are run-time penalties when support for them is

compiled in even if you don't use them.) IMPORTANT: run "make

clean" after changing (either enabling or disabling) this

option, or you will get link errors! Note: for DEC Unix use

--with-dec-threads instead.

--with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is

supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is

ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z.

This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl

library!) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY

is the absolute pathname of the dl library. (Don't bother on

IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style

shared libraries.) Support for this feature is deprecated.

--with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumoured to be supported

on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent

Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST. This is done using a

combination of the GNU dynamic loading package

(ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an

emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation

can be found at

ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z). To

enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call the

configure passing it the option

--with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is

the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and

DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library.

(Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic

linking using shared libraries.) Support for this feature is

deprecated.

--with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative

versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library

(default the empty string) using the options

--with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. E.g.

if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C compiler

to use the shared C library, you can pass --with-libc=-lc_s.

These libraries are passed after all other libraries, the C

library last.

--with-next-archs='arch1 arch2': Under NEXTSTEP, this will build

all compiled binaries with the architectures listed. Includes

correctly setting the target architecture specific resource

directory. (This option is not supported on other platforms.)

--with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python

linked against.

Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature)

-------------------------------------------------------------

If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it

usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each

architecture you want to support. If the make program supports the

VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each

architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the

appropriate machine with the appropriate options). This creates the

necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein. The Makefiles

contain a line VPATH=... which points to directory containing the

actual sources. (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if

you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.)

For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python

in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel

directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python):

$ mkdir /usr/tmp/python

$ cd /usr/tmp/python

$ ~guido/src/python/configure

[...]

$ make

[...]

$

Note that Modules/Makefile copies the original Setup file to the build

directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can

edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this

reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked

automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy

of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The

makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be

fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it

doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local;

however this assumes that you only need to add modules.)

Building on non-UNIX systems

----------------------------

Building Python for a PC is now a piece of cake!

Enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt". Most popular

non-Unix PC platforms and compilers are supported (Unix ports to the

PC such as Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris-x86 of course use the standard

Unix build instructions).

For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available,

for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac

development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group

(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to

[email protected]).

Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these

platforms -- see http://www.python.org/python/.

To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the

effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this

has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file

config.h.in to config.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual

configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as

1 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone

otherwise; however RETSIGTYPE must always be defined, either as int or

as void, and the *_t type symbols must be defined as some variant of

int if they need to be defined at all.

Miscellaneous issues

====================

Documentation

-------------

All documentation is provided in the subdirectory Doc in the form of

LaTeX files. In order of importance for new users: Tutorial (tut),

Library Reference (lib), Language Reference (ref), Extending (ext).

Especially the Library Reference is of immense value since much of

Python's power (including the built-in data types and functions!) is

described here.

To print the documentation from the LaTeX files, chdir into the Doc

subdirectory, type "make" (let's hope you have LaTeX installed!), and

send the four resulting PostScript files (tut.ps, lib.ps, ref.ps, and

ext.ps) to the printer. See the README file there. If you don't have

LaTeX, you can ftp the PostScript files from the ftp archives (see

below).

All documentation is also available on-line via the Python web site

(http://www.python.org/, see below). It can also be downloaded

separately from the ftp archives (see below) in Emacs INFO, HTML or

PostScript form -- see the web site or the FAQ

(http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py or

http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for more info.

Emacs mode

----------

There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file

Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it

is now maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw

<[email protected]>. The latest version, along with various

other contributed Python-related Emacs goodies, is online at

<http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode>. And if you are planning to

edit the Python C code, please pick up the latest version of CC Mode

<http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode>; it contains a "python" style

used throughout most of the Python C source files.

Web site

--------

Python's own web site has URL http://www.python.org/. Come visit us!

There are a number of mirrors, and a list of mirrors is accessible

from the home page -- try a mirror that's close you you.

Ftp site

--------

Python's own ftp site is ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/. There are

numerous mirrors; the list of mirrors is accessible from

http://www.python.org/.

Newsgroups

----------

Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about

Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup

for Python-related announcements. These are also accessible as

mailing lists, see the next item.

Archives are accessible via Deja News; the Python website has a

query form for the archives at http://www.python.org/search/.

Mailing lists

-------------

See http://www.python.org/psa/MailingLists.html for an overview of the

many Python related mailing lists.

Bug reports

-----------

Bugs are best reported to the comp.lang.python newsgroup (or the

Python mailing list) -- see the section "Newsgroups" above. Before

posting, check the newsgroup archives (see above) to see if your bug

has already been reported! If you don't want to go public, send them

to me: <[email protected]>.

Questions

---------

For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's

best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see

above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or

mailing list, send questions to <[email protected]> (a group of

volunteers which does *not* include me). Because of my work and email

volume, I'm often be slow in answering questions sent to me directly;

I prefer to answer questions posted to the newsgroup.

The Tk interface

----------------

Tk (the user interface component of John Ousterhout's Tcl language) is

also usable from Python. Since this requires that you first build and

install Tcl/Tk, the Tk interface is not enabled by default. Python

supports all Tcl/Tk versions from version 7.5/4.1 through 8.0 (and it

is expected that it will also work with newer versions). Tcl/Tk

7.4/4.0 is no longer supported. 8.0 or any later non-alpha non-beta

release is recommended.

See http://sunscript.sun.com/ for more info on Tcl/Tk, including the

on-line manual pages.

To enable the Python/Tk interface, once you've built and installed

Tcl/Tk, load the file Modules/Setup in your favorite text editor and

search for the string "_tkinter". Then follow the instructions found

there. If you have installed Tcl/Tk or X11 in unusual places, you

will have to edit the first line to fix or add -I and -L options.

(Also see the general instructions at the top of that file.)

There is little documentation on how to use Tkinter; however most of

the Tk manual pages apply quite straightforwardly. Begin with

fetching the "Tk Lifesaver" document,

e.g. ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/doc/tkinter-doc.tar.gz (a gzipped

tar file containing a PostScript file) or the on-line version

http://www.python.org/doc/life-preserver/index.html. Reading the

Tkinter.py source will reveal most details on how Tkinter calls are

translated into Tcl code.

A more recent introduction to Tkinter programming, by Fredrik Lundh,

is at http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/index.htm.

There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory, in the subdirectories

guido, matt and www (the matt and guido subdirectories have been

overhauled to use more recent Tkinter coding conventions).

Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which

lives in Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter"

(lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in

Modules/_tkinter.c. Demos and normal Tk applications only import the

Python Tkinter module -- only the latter uses the C _tkinter module

directly. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled

and linked into the Python interpreter -- the _tkinter line in the

Setup file does this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module,

sys.path must be set correctly -- the TKPATH assignment in the Setup

file takes care of this, but only if you install Python properly

("make install libinstall"). (You can also use dynamic loading for

the C _tkinter module, in which case you must manually fix up sys.path

or set $PYTHONPATH for the Python Tkinter module.)

Distribution structure

----------------------

Most subdirectories have their own README file. Most files have

comments.

Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs

Doc/ Documentation (LaTeX sources)

Grammar/ Input for the parser generator

Include/ Public header files

Lib/ Python library modules

Makefile.in Source from which config.status creates Makefile

Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files

Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules

Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types

PC/ PC porting files (DOS, Windows, OS/2)

PCbuild/ Directory where you should build for Windows NT/95

Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling

Python/ The "compiler" and interpreter

README The file you're reading now

Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python

acconfig.h Additional input for the autoheader program

config.h.in Source from which config.status creates config.h

configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output)

configure.in Configuration specification (GNU autoconf input)

install-sh Shell script used to install files

The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by

the configuration and build processes:

Makefile Build rules

config.cache cache of configuration variables

config.h Configuration header

config.log Log from last configure run

config.status Status from last run of configure script

libpython1.5.a The library archive

python The executable interpreter

tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs

Author's address

================

Guido van Rossum

CNRI

1895 Preston White Drive

Reston, VA 20191

USA

E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]

Copyright notice

================

The Python source is copyrighted, but you can freely use and copy it

as long as you don't change or remove the copyright notice:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 1991-1995 by Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam,

The Netherlands.

All Rights Reserved

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its

documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,

provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that

both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in

supporting documentation, and that the names of Stichting Mathematisch

Centrum or CWI or Corporation for National Research Initiatives or

CNRI not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to

distribution of the software without specific, written prior

permission.

While CWI is the initial source for this software, a modified version

is made available by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives

(CNRI) at the Internet address ftp://ftp.python.org.

STICHTING MATHEMATISCH CENTRUM AND CNRI DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH

REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL STICHTING MATHEMATISCH

CENTRUM OR CNRI BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL

DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR

PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER

TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR

PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)