Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.4. The most

recent changes are listed first.

From 1.5.2a1 to 1.5.2a2

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

General

-------

- It is now a syntax error to have a function argument without a

default following one with a default.

- __file__ is now set to the .py file if it was parsed (it used to

always be the .pyc/.pyo file).

- Don't exit with a fatal error during initialization when there's a

problem with the exceptions.py module.

- New environment variable PYTHONOPTIMIZE can be used to set -O.

- New version of python-mode.el for Emacs.

Miscellaneous fixed bugs

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

- No longer print the (confusing) error message about stack underflow

while compiling.

- Some threading and locking bugs fixed.

- When errno is zero, report "Error", not "Success".

Documentation

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

- Documentation will be released separately.

- Doc strings added to array and md5 modules by Chris Petrilli.

Ports and build procedure

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

- Stop installing when a move or copy fails.

- New version of the OS/2 port code by Jeff Rush.

- The makesetup script handles absolute filenames better.

- The 'new' module is now enabled by default in the Setup file.

- I *think* I've solved the problem with the Linux build blowing up

sometimes due to a conflict between sigcheck/intrcheck and

signalmodule.

Built-in functions

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

- The second argument to apply() can now be any sequence, not just a

tuple.

Built-in types

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

- Lists have a new method: L1.extend(L2) is equivalent to the common

idiom L1[len(L1):] = L2.

- Better error messages when a sequence is indexed with a non-integer.

- Bettter error message when calling a non-callable object (include

the type in the message).

Python services

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

- New version of cPickle.c fixes some bugs.

- pickle.py: improved instantiation error handling.

- code.py: reworked quite a bit. New base class

InteractiveInterpreter and derived class InteractiveConsole. Fixed

several problems in compile_command().

- py_compile.py: print error message and continue on syntax errors.

Also fixed an old bug with the fstat code (it was never used).

- pyclbr.py: support submodules of packages.

String Services

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

- StringIO.py: raise the right exception (ValueError) for attempted

I/O on closed StringIO objects.

- re.py: fixed a bug in subn(), which caused .groups() to fail inside

the replacement function called by sub().

- The struct module has a new format 'P': void * in native mode.

Generic OS Services

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

- Module time: Y2K robustness. 2-digit year acceptance depends on

value of time.accept2dyear, initialized from env var PYTHONY2K,

default 0. Years 00-68 mean 2000-2068, while 69-99 mean 1969-1999

(POSIX or X/Open recommendation).

- os.path: normpath(".//x") should return "x", not "/x".

- getpass.py: fall back on default_getpass() when sys.stdin.fileno()

doesn't work.

- tempfile.py: regenerate the template after a fork() call.

Optional OS Services

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

- In the signal module, disable restarting interrupted system calls

when we have siginterrupt().

Debugger

--------

- No longer set __args__; this feature is no longer supported and can

affect the debugged code.

- cmd.py, pdb.py and bdb.py have been overhauled by Richard Wolff, who

added aliases and some other useful new features, e.g. much better

breakpoint support: temporary breakpoint, disabled breakpoints,

breakpoints with ignore counts, and conditions; breakpoints can be set

on a file before it is loaded.

Profiler

--------

- Changes so that JPython can use it. Also fix the calibration code

so it actually works again

.

Internet Protocols and Support

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

- imaplib.py: new version from Piers Lauder.

- smtplib.py: change sendmail() method to accept a single string or a

list or strings as the destination (commom newbie mistake).

- poplib.py: LIST with a msg argument fixed.

- urlparse.py: some optimizations for common case (http).

- urllib.py: support content-length in info() for ftp protocol;

support for a progress meter through a third argument to

urlretrieve(); commented out gopher test (the test site is dead).

Internet Data handling

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

- sgmllib.py: support tags with - or . in their name.

- mimetypes.py: guess_type() understands 'data' URLs.

Restricted Execution

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

- The classes rexec.RModuleLoader and rexec.RModuleImporter no

longer exist.

Tkinter

-------

- When reporting an exception, store its info in sys.last_*. Also,

write all of it to stderr.

- Added NS, EW, and NSEW constants, for grid's sticky option.

- Fixed last-minute bug in 1.5.2a1 release: need to include "mytime.h".

- Make bind variants without a sequence return a tuple of sequences

(formerly it returned a string, which wasn't very convenient).

- Add image commands to the Text widget (these are new in Tk 8.0).

- Added new listbox and canvas methods: {xview,yview}_{scroll,moveto}.)

- Improved the thread code (but you still can't call update() from

another thread on Windows).

- Fixed unnecessary references to _default_root in the new dialog

modules.

- Miscellaneous problems fixed.

Windows General

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

- Call LoadLibraryEx(..., ..., LOAD_WITH_ALTERED_SEARCH_PATH) to

search for dependent dlls in the directory containing the .pyd.

- In debugging mode, call DebugBreak() in Py_FatalError().

Windows Installer

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

- Install zlib.dll in the DLLs directory instead of in the win32

system directory, to avoid conflicts with other applications that have

their own zlib.dll.

Test Suite

----------

- test_long.py: new test for long integers, by Tim Peters.

- regrtest.py: improved so it can be used for other test suites as

well.

- test_strftime.py: use re to compare test results, to support legal

variants (e.g. on Linux).

Tools and Demos

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

- Four new scripts in Tools/scripts: crlf.py and lfcr.py (to

remove/add Windows style '\r\n' line endings), untabify.py (to remove

tabs), and rgrep.yp (reverse grep).

- Improvements to Tools/freeze/. Each Python module is now written to

its own C file. This prevents some compilers or assemblers from

blowing up on large frozen programs, and saves recompilation time if

only a few modules are changed. Other changes too, e.g. new command

line options -x and -i.

- Much improved (and smaller!) version of Tools/scripts/mailerdaemon.py.

Python/C API

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

- New mechanism to support extensions of the type object while

remaining backward compatible with extensions compiled for previous

versions of Python 1.5. A flags field indicates presence of certain

fields.

- Addition to the buffer API to differentiate access to bytes and

8-bit characters (in anticipation of Unicode characters).

- New argument parsing format t# ("text") to indicate 8-bit

characters; s# simply means 8-bit bytes, for backwards compatibility.

- New object type, bufferobject.c is an example and can be used to

create buffers from memory.

- Some support for 64-bit longs, including some MS platforms.

- Many calls to fprintf(stderr, ...) have been replaced with calls to

PySys_WriteStderr(...).

- The calling context for PyOS_Readline() has changed: it must now be

called with the interpreter lock held! It releases the lock around

the call to the function pointed to by PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer

(default PyOS_StdioReadline()).

- New APIs PyLong_FromVoidPtr() and PyLong_AsVoidPtr().

- Renamed header file "thread.h" to "pythread.h".

- The code string of code objects may now be anything that supports the

buffer API.

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