This is Python release 1.5

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

This version is officially released on Wednesday, December 31, 1997.

It doesn't differ very much from 1.5b2 (released on Dec. 12).

- It's much faster (almost twice for the Lib/test/pystone.py

benchmark.)

- There is now an assert statement: ``assert <condition>'' or

``assert <condition>, <errormessage>''. It raises AssertionError if

the condition evaluates to false. The default error message is

empty; the source text of the assertion statement is printed as part

of the traceback.

- There is now built-in support for importing hierarchical module

names (e.g. "import spam.ham.eggs"); ni is declared obsolete. Note

that the built-in package support is somewhat simpler (no __ and

__domain__) and differs in one crucial aspect: __init__.py is

required, and loaded in the package's namespace instead of as a

submodule. For more information, see

http://www.python.org/doc/essays/packages.html.

- The new "re" module (Perl style regular expressions) is here. It

is based on Philip Hazel's pcre code; the Python interfaces were put

together by Andrew Kuchling, Tim Peters and Jeffrey Ollie. The

regex module is declared obsolete.

- In support of the re module, a new form of string literals is

introduced, "raw strings": e.g. r"\n" is equal to "\\n".

- All standard exceptions and most exceptions defined in standard

extension modules are now classes. Use python -X to revert back to

string exceptions. See

http://www.python.org/doc/essays/stdexceptions.html

for more info.

- Comparisons can now raise exceptions (previously, exceptions

occuring during comparisons were swept under the rug).

- New dictionary methods: .clear(), .copy(), .update(), .get(). The

first two are obvious; d1.update(d2) is equivalent to the for loop

``for k in d2.keys(): d1[k] = d2[k]''; and d.get(k) returns d[k] if

it exists and None (or the optional second argument) if not.

- There is a new regression test harness, which tests many more

modules. (To run the tests, do "import test.autotest".)

- The interpreter is much smarter about the initial value for

sys.path; you can control it easier using $PYTHONHOME (see the usage

message, e.g. try ``python -h''). In most situations, the

interpreter can be installed at an arbitrary location without having

to recompile.

- The build process now builds a single library (libpython1.5.a)

which contains everything except for the main() entry point. This

makes life much easier for applications that embed Python.

- There is much better support for embedding, including threads,

multiple interpreters(!), uninitialization, and access to the global

interpreter lock.

- There is a -O option that removes SET_LINENO instructions, assert

statements and code prefixed with ``if __debug__: ...''. (It still

only makes a few percent difference, so don't get all worked up

about this.)

- The Grand Renaming is completed: all linker-visible symbols

defined by Python now have a "Py" or "_Py" prefix, and the same is

true for most macros and typedefs.

If you previously downloaded 1.5b2, here are the most relevant changes

since then (of course all known bugs have been fixed, leaks plugged,

and quite a bit of documentation has been added -- including doc

strings here and there). The full list of changes since 1.5b2 is

presented at the end of the Misc/NEWS file.

- Thanks to all who contributed doc strings or other documentation!

- Many small improvements to the quality of the documentation, both

PostScript, HTML and even Emacs info (library manual only).

- New module telnetlib.py.

- New tool versioncheck.

- Two bugs with ftp URLs fixed in urllib.py.

- Fixed infinite recursion when printing __builtins__.

- A bunch of small problems fixed in Tkinter.py.

- Ported zlibmodule.c and bsddbmodule.c to NT.

- Better NT support in tempfile.py.

- Fixed 4294967296==0.

- Latest re and pcre modules (versions of Dec. 22).