% Go through and get the contributor's name for all the various changes
\title{What's New in Python 2.3}
-\release{0.02}
+\release{0.03}
\author{A.M. Kuchling}
\authoraddress{\email{akuchlin@mems-exchange.org}}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents
-% Types now callable; `new' module replaced
-%
-% Timeout sockets:
-% Executive summary: after sock.settimeout(T), all methods of sock will
-% block for at most T floating seconds and fail if they can't complete
-% within that time. sock.settimeout(None) restores full blocking mode.
-%
% Optik (or whatever it gets called)
%
% New dependency argument to distutils.Extension
%
+% The assert statement no longer tests __debug__ at runtime.
+%
+%
%\section{Introduction \label{intro}}
{\large This article is a draft, and is currently up to date for some
-random version of the CVS tree around May 26 2002. Please send any
+random version of the CVS tree around mid-July 2002. Please send any
additions, comments or errata to the author.}
This article explains the new features in Python 2.3. The tentative
-release date of Python 2.3 is currently scheduled for August 30 2002.
+release date of Python 2.3 is currently scheduled for some undefined
+time before the end of 2002.
This article doesn't attempt to provide a complete specification of
the new features, but instead provides a convenient overview. For
'0goofy'
\end{verbatim}
+\item A new type object, \class{basestring}, has been added.
+ Both 8-bit strings and Unicode strings inherit from this type, so
+ \code{isinstance(obj, basestring)} will return \constant{True} for
+ either kind of string. It's a completely abstract type, so you
+ can't create \class{basestring} instances.
+
+\item Most type objects are now callable, so you can use them
+to create new objects such as functions, classes, and modules. (This
+means that the \module{new} module can be deprecated in a future
+Python version, because you can now use the type objects available
+in the \module{types} module.)
+% XXX should new.py use PendingDeprecationWarning?
+For example, you can create a new module object with the following code:
+
+\begin{verbatim}
+>>> import types
+>>> m = types.ModuleType('abc','docstring')
+>>> m
+<module 'abc' (built-in)>
+>>> m.__doc__
+'docstring'
+\end{verbatim}
+
\item
A new warning, \exception{PendingDeprecationWarning} was added to
-provide direction on features which are in the process of being
+indicate features which are in the process of being
deprecated. The warning will \emph{not} be printed by default. To
check for use of features that will be deprecated in the future,
supply \programopt{-Walways::PendingDeprecationWarning::} on the
\begin{itemize}
-\item The \module{textwrap} module contains functions for wrapping
+\item The new \module{textwrap} module contains functions for wrapping
strings containing paragraphs of text. The \function{wrap(\var{text},
\var{width})} function takes a string and returns a list containing
the text split into lines of no more than the chosen width. The
underlies the \module{os} module. (Contributed by Gustavo Niemeyer
and Geert Jansen.)
+\item The \module{socket} module now supports timeouts. You
+can call the \method{settimeout(\var{t})} method on a socket object to
+set a timeout of \var{t} seconds. Subsequent socket operations that
+take longer than \var{t} seconds to complete will abort and raise a
+\exception{socket.error} exception.
+
+(The original timeout implementation was by Tim O'Malley. Michael
+Gilfix integrated it into the Python \module{socket} module, after the
+patch had undergone a lengthy review. After it was checked in, Guido
+van~Rossum rewrote parts of it. This is a good example of the free
+software development process.)
+
\item The \module{getopt} module gained a new function,
\function{gnu_getopt()}, that supports the same arguments as the existing
\function{getopt()} function but uses GNU-style scanning mode.
\item Two new binary packagers were added to the Distutils.
\code{bdist_pkgtool} builds \file{.pkg} files to use with Solaris
\program{pkgtool}, and \code{bdist_sdux} builds \program{swinstall}
-packages for use on HP-UX. (Contributed by Mark Alexander.)
+packages for use on HP-UX.
+An abstract binary packager class,
+\module{distutils.command.bdist_packager}, was added; this may make it
+easier to write binary packaging commands. (Contributed by Mark
+Alexander.)
\item The \module{array} module now supports arrays of Unicode
characters using the \samp{u} format character. Arrays also
contents, and the \code{*=} assignment operator to repeat an array.
(Contributed by Jason Orendorff.)
-\item The \module{grp} module now returns enhanced tuples:
+\item The \module{grp}, \module{pwd}, and \module{resource} modules
+now return enhanced tuples:
\begin{verbatim}
>>> import grp
by the platform. These functions make it possible to avoid some previously
unavoidable race conditions.
+\item The DOM implementation
+in \module{xml.dom.minidom} can now generate XML output in a
+particular encoding, by specifying an optional encoding argument to
+the \method{toxml()} and \method{toprettyxml()} methods of DOM nodes.
+
\end{itemize}
\item The interpreter can be compiled without any docstrings for
the built-in functions and modules by supplying
-\longprogramopt{--without-doc-strings} to the \file{configure} script.
+\longprogramopt{without-doc-strings} to the \file{configure} script.
This makes the Python executable about 10\% smaller, but will also
mean that you can't get help for Python's built-ins. (Contributed by
Gustavo Niemeyer.)
+\item The cycle detection implementation used by the garbage collection
+has proven to be stable, so it's now being made mandatory; you can no
+longer compile Python without it, and the
+\longprogramopt{with-cycle-gc} switch to \file{configure} has been removed.
+
\item The \cfunction{PyArg_NoArgs()} macro is now deprecated, and code
that uses it should be changed. For Python 2.2 and later, the method
definition table can specify the
Python source distribution, were updated for 2.3. (Contributed by
Sean Reifschneider.)
+Python now supports AtheOS (\url{www.atheos.cx}) and GNU/Hurd.
+
%======================================================================
\section{Other Changes and Fixes}
projects / python / commitdiff