All the NEWS that I could finish in 15 minutes (and then some)

jeremyhylton · jeremyhylton · commit 24c3d6080d69 · 2000-09-05T19:36:26.000Z
Removed some attributions from the shorter entries in Changed Modules,
because that section is so long.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ There are many new modules (including brand new XML support through
 the xml package, and i18n support through the gettext module); a list
 of all new modules is included below.  Lots of bugs have been fixed.
 
+The process for making major new changes to the language has changed
+since Python 1.6.  Enhancements must now be documented by a Python
+Enhancement Proposal (PEP) before they can be accepted.
+
 There are several important syntax enhancements, described in more
 detail below:
 
@@ -59,6 +63,21 @@ Other important changes:
 
   - Optional collection of cyclical garbage
 
+Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP)
+---------------------------------
+
+PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal.  A PEP is a design
+document providing information to the Python community, or describing
+a new feature for Python.  The PEP should provide a concise technical
+specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature.
+
+We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new
+features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for
+documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python.  The PEP
+author is responsible for building consensus within the community and
+documenting dissenting opinions.
+
+The PEPs are available at http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/.
 
 Augmented Assignment
 --------------------
@@ -127,7 +146,7 @@ This prints
     [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
 
 List comprehensions originated as a patch set from Greg Ewing; Skip
-Montanaro and Thomas Wouters also contributed.
+Montanaro and Thomas Wouters also contributed.  Described by PEP 202.
 
 
 Extended Import Statement
@@ -157,7 +176,7 @@ Note that 'as' is not a new keyword -- it is recognized only in this
 context (this is only possible because the syntax for the import
 statement doesn't involve expressions).
 
-Implemented by Thomas Wouters.
+Implemented by Thomas Wouters.  Described by PEP 221.
 
 
 Extended Print Statement
@@ -181,7 +200,7 @@ is equivalent to
 
     print "Hello world"
 
-Design and implementation by Barry Warsaw.
+Design and implementation by Barry Warsaw.  Described by PEP 214.
 
 
 Optional Collection of Cyclical Garbage
@@ -211,7 +230,7 @@ A new function zip() was added.  zip(seq1, seq2, ...) is equivalent to
 map(None, seq1, seq2, ...) when the sequences have the same length;
 i.e. zip([1,2,3], [10,20,30]) returns [(1,10), (2,20), (3,30)].  When
 the lists are not all the same length, the shortest list wins:
-zip([1,2,3], [10,20]) returns [(1,10), (2,20)].
+zip([1,2,3], [10,20]) returns [(1,10), (2,20)].  See PEP 201.
 
 sys.version_info is a tuple (major, minor, micro, level, serial).
 
@@ -227,8 +246,11 @@ does the same work as this common idiom:
         dict[key] = []
     dict[key].append(item)
 
-New exceptions, TabError and IndentationError, thate are subclasses on
-SyntaxError.  XXX
+There are two new variants of SyntaxError that are raised for
+indentation-related errors: IndentationError and TabError.
+
+Changed \x to consume exactly two hex digits; see PEP 223.  Added \U
+escape that consumes exactly eight hex digits.
 
 The limits on the size of expressions and file in Python source code
 have been raised from 2**16 to 2**32.  Previous versions of Python
@@ -271,6 +293,12 @@ webbrowser - a platform-independent API to launch a web browser.
 Changed Modules
 ---------------
 
+array -- new methods for array objects: count, extend, index, pop, and
+remove
+
+binascii -- new functions b2a_hex and a2b_hex that convert between
+binary data and its hex representation
+
 calendar -- Many new functions that support features including control
 over which day of the week is the first day, returning strings instead
 of printing them.  Also new symbolic constants for days of week,
@@ -291,10 +319,17 @@ gzip -- readline and readlines now accept optional size arguments
 httplib -- New interfaces and support for HTTP/1.1 by Greg Stein.  See
 the module doc strings for details.
 
+locale -- implement getdefaultlocale for Win32 and Macintosh
+
+marshal -- no longer dumps core when marshaling deeply nested or
+recursive data structures
+
+os -- new functions isatty, seteuid, setegid, setreuid, setregid
+
 os/popen2 -- popen2/popen3/popen4 support under Windows.  popen2/popen3
 support under Unix.
 
-os/pty -- support for openpty and forkpty by Thomas Wouters.
+os/pty -- support for openpty and forkpty
 
 os.path -- fix semantics of os.path.commonprefix
 
@@ -306,12 +341,14 @@ readline -- new functions to read, write and truncate history files.
 The readline section of the library reference manual contains an
 example.
 
+select -- add interface to poll system call
+
 shutil -- new copyfileobj function
 
 SimpleHTTPServer, CGIHTTPServer -- Fix problems with buffering in the
 HTTP server.
 
-Tkinter -- flatten optimization by Fredrik Lundh
+Tkinter -- optimization of function flatten
 
 urllib -- scans environment variables for proxy configuration,
 e.g. http_proxy. 
@@ -348,7 +385,8 @@ of header files.  (Few of these ever need to be included explicitly;
 they are all included by Python.h.)
 
 Trent Mick ensured portability to 64-bit platforms, under both Linux
-and Win64, especially for the new Intel Itanium processor.
+and Win64, especially for the new Intel Itanium processor.  Mick also
+added large file support for Linux64 and Win64.
 
 The C APIs to return an object's size have been update to consistently
 use the form PyXXX_Size, e.g. PySequence_Size and PyDict_Size.  In
@@ -357,7 +395,9 @@ concrete interfaces used PyXXX_Size.  The old names,
 e.g. PyObject_Length, are still available for backwards compatibility
 at the API level, but are deprecated.
 
-PyOS_CheckStack - XXX
+The PyOS_CheckStack function has been implemented on Windows by
+Fredrik Lundh.  It prevents Python from failing with a stack overflow
+on Windows.
 
 The GC changes resulted in creation of two new slots on object,
 tp_traverse and tp_clear.  The augmented assignment changes result in
@@ -366,10 +406,16 @@ the createion of a new slot for each in-place operator.
 The GC API creates new requirements for container types implemented in
 C extesion modules.  See Include/objimpl.h for details.
 
-PyString_Decode / PyString_Encode. ???
+PyErr_Format has been updated to automatically calculate the size of
+the buffer needed to hold the formatted result string.  This change
+prevents crashes caused by programmer error.
+
+New C API calls: PyObject_AsFileDescriptor, PyErr_WriteUnraisable.
 
-Numerous new APIs were added, e.g.
+PyRun_AnyFileEx, PyRun_SimpleFileEx, PyRun_FileEx -- New functions
+that are the same as their non-Ex counterparts except they take an
+extra flag argument that tells them to close the file when done.
 
-	XXX: Fill this out.
+XXX There were other API changes that should be fleshed out here.
 
 ======================================================================
