Mailman 3 January 2001 - Python-announce-list

[Wrapper] CodeBase Interface For Python
by Hakki Dogusan 22 Jan '01

22 Jan '01

CodeBase Interface For Python ----------------------------- Wrapper for Sequiter's (www.sequiter.com) dbase api. Wrapper for Sequiter's (www.sequiter.com) dbase api. Win32. Binary Only. CodeBase library is NOT included. Mimics CodeBase C++ Api. Most of the examples are translated to Python. URL: http://home.tr.net/dogusanh/ Platform: Win32 Requires: CodeBase C4DLL.DLL Categories: Database Hakki Dogusan (dogusanh(a)tr.net) http://home.tr.net/dogusanh/ -- <a href="http://home.tr.net/dogusanh/">CodeBase Interface For Python</a> -- Wrapper for Sequiter's (www.sequiter.com) dbase api.

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[ANN] Macromedia Director Python Xtra Mini-HowTo
by Janos BEKESI 22 Jan '01

22 Jan '01

A small Howto for the usage of Python-Xtra with Macromedia Director 7 or 8 for Win32 can be found at http://lingo-cvs.sourceforge.net . . . m e t a - w a r e . . . . . . . . dr. janos bekesi schoenbrunnerstrasse 135 A--1050 Wien Tel. +43 1 548 2788 www.meta-ware.at Austria Tel./Fax +43 1 548 1595

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[Module] Pylibpcap 0.2
by David Margrave 22 Jan '01

22 Jan '01

Pylibpcap 0.2 ------------- Python Module for libpcap packet capture library This is a python module for the libpcap packet capture library, based on the original PY-libpcap module by Aaron Rhodes. This new module uses SWIG shadow classes to make the interface more OO URL: http://pylibpcap.sourceforge.net License: BSD Style Platform: Unix Requires: libpcap library Binaries: Linuk Categories: Networking David Margrave (davidma(a)eskimo.com) -- <a href="http://pylibpcap.sourceforge.net">Pylibpcap 0.2</a> -- Python Module for libpcap packet capture library

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python-dev summary, Jan. 1-15
by A.M. Kuchling 19 Jan '01

19 Jan '01

Python-dev summary, January 1-15, 2001 ====================================== To comment on material in this python-dev summary, you can simply post to comp.lang.python / <python-list(a)python.org>. These summaries are archived at <URL:http://www.amk.ca/python/dev/>. Heading for 2.1alpha1 ===================== The pace of checkins has been steadily increasing in preparation for the release of the first alpha of Python 2.1, still scheduled for Friday, January 19 (but don't be surprised if it's a few days late). The following PEPs had their implementations committed: PEP 208, "Reworking the Coercion Model"; PEP 230, "Warning Framework"; PEP 232, "Function Attributes". PEP 222, "Web Library Enhancements", has been abandoned, or at least deferred to some future Python release. Speeding up file.readline() =========================== Improving the speed of line-by-line file access generated the most discussion during this period. New users wanting to compare Python and Perl often try the benchmark of writing simple loops in both languages to read all the lines in the file. Python 2.0 comes out slower in this test, but no one had ever looked into the cause. As a datapoint, Tim Peters measured a "while 1: line = file.readline()" loop at 30 seconds on Windows, while a Perl loop took 6 seconds, for a factor of 7 difference; the numbers are somewhat better on most Unix machines, but Python is still consistently slower. This benchmark came up for discussion in comp.lang.python. The python-dev discussion started with a patch submitted by Jeff Epler that added an xreadlines() function, analogous to xrange(), so you could write "for line in file.xreadlines(): ...". "The desire is to iterate over file contents in a way that satisfies the following criteria: * Uses the 'for' syntax, because this clearly captures the underlying operation. (files can be viewed as sequences of lines when appropriate) * Consumes small amounts of memory even when the file contents are large. * Has the lowest overhead that can reasonably be attained." http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011265.html Many false paths were followed in the resulting lengthy threads. I don't propose to summarize every single red herring, but will instead jump right to the conclusions. The loop inside Python's readline() function is a straightforward while loop using getc(). In multithreaded environments, getc() has to lock the file object, and this adds additional overhead. On Windows the overhead is startling: "It looks like we're paying (on Win98SE) approximately: 17 seconds for compiling with _MT (threadsafe libc) 6 seconds to do the work <wink> 5 seconds for "other stuff", best guess mostly a poor platform malloc/realloc 2 seconds for not optimizing the loop -- 30 total" http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011339.html Perl is fast because it accesses the internals of C's FILE objects, accessing the stream's buffers directly. The problem is that this is nonportable and, as Tim Peters discovered, complicated: "20 years ago I may have thought this was fun. I thought debugging large systems of m4 macros was fun then, and I'm not sure this is either better or worse than that -- well, it's worse, because I understood m4's implementation." http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011317.html Windows has very high locking overhead for some reason, but this overhead is still present on Unix platforms. The Single Unix Specification includes a getc_unlocked() function that does no locking and saves this overhead; the flockfile() and funlockfile() functions can be used to lock the stream outside of an inner loop. Most Unix platforms seem to gain an improvement of a factor of 4 or so, but Mark Favas reported an extreme value: Tru64, the simple while loop went from 322 seconds to 10 seconds, a factor of 32. Windows doesn't have a getc_unlocked(), so a different solution needs to be used there. Tim came up with a scheme using fgets(); fgets on its own isn't suitable for reading lines, because there's no way to detect embedded nulls, but you can fill a buffer with non-null bytes, read a line into the buffer, and then search from the left for a newline. "Surprise? Despite all the memsets, memchrs (looking for a newline), and one-at-a-time backward searches (looking for a null byte), it's a huge win on Windows." The simple while loop went from 30 seconds to 13 seconds. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011379.html Some improvements were also made to the fileinput module, and Jeff Epler's xreadlines module was added, with the right glue to add an .xreadlines() method to file objects that automatically imports the module. 'for line in file.xreadlines()' usually takes about half the time of the simple while loop. Therefore, Python 2.1 will have significantly faster file I/O for the common task of processing a file line-by-line. pydoc ===== Ka-Ping Yee announced pydoc, a tool for browsing the python documentation: "At the shell prompt, 'pydoc <name>' displays documentation on <name>, very much like 'man'." ?!ng posted a sample transcript of pydoc in action: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011538.html It's been checked into the sandbox area of the CVS tree: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/python/nondist/sandbox/help/?… Try it out! The more favorable reaction to pydoc and the more testing it gets, the better the chance of it slipping into 2.1. Exporting names from a module ============================= Patch #102808 adds a mechanism to export names from a module. GvR's description: "... if there's a variable __exports__ in the module, it is a list of identifiers, and any access from outside the module to names not in the list is disallowed. This affects access using the getattr and setattr protocols (which raise AttributeError for disallowed names), as well as "from M import v" (which raises ImportError)." http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=detailpatch&patch_id=102808&group_id=5470 Reactions were mixed. Some people liked the idea, and thought it would make some additional optimizations possible. To quote Neil Schemenauer, "It should allow some attribute access inside of modules to become faster (like LOAD_FAST for locals). I think that optimization could be implemented without too much difficulty." Other people thought that applying it only to modules would cause people to assume that it would also work for classes, but the patch didn't implement that. The final decision was to reject the patch. However, one part of the patch was added; 'from Module import *' will now look for a variable named __all__ containing a list of strings, and will only import the symbols listed in __all__. Other things ============ Christian Tismer released a set of Stackless Python patches for 2.0. Note that a bugfix release was made on January 15th. http://www.stackless.com/ Michel Pelletier has written a draft PEP for adding interfaces to Python. No PEP number has been allocated yet. http://www.zope.org/Members/michel/InterfacesPEP/PEP.txt Related Links ============= Python-dev archives: http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/ Python project page on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/python Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs): http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/

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ANN: Jython-2.0 released
by bckfnn＠worldonline.dk 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

I am happy to announce the release of Jython 2.0. Jython is a Java implementation of the Python programming language. It allows users to compile Python source code to Java byte codes, and run the resulting bytecodes on any Java Virtual Machine. It is a very seamless and smooth integration with Java: from Python you have complete access to all Java libraries, can build applets, can integrate with Java beans, and can subclass Java classes in Python and vice versa. Like Python, and unlike Java, Jython can also be used interactively: just type some Jython code at the prompt and see the results immediately. A java installer is available for download at the Jython website: http://www.jython.org/ Installation is started by running the installer class. Further information and tips on installation is available at: http://www.jython.org/install.html Jython 2.0 is feature compatible with Python 2.0 and among the new feature are: - Augmented assignment, e.g. x += 1 - List comprehensions, e.g. [x**2 for x in range(10)] - Extended import statement, e.g. import Module as Name - Extended print statement, e.g. print >> file, "Hello" A complete list of changes and differences are available here: http://www.jython.org/NEWS.html Bugs can be reported to the bug manager on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=12867 Cheers, the jython-developers

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[Wrapper] Milter/0.1
by Jim Niemira 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

Milter/0.1 ---------- A python wrapper for sendmail's libmilter functionality. This is a C wrapper around sendmail's libmilter functionality to implement a python module. With this module, you can have sendmail events (connect, helo, headers, etc) directly run your python code as they occur. Your code can also direct sendmail to change headers, modify the message body, etc. This is a beta version, and my first python extension. I'd appreciate any information, requests, comments, critique, and patches ;-) Email me at urmane(a)urmane.org URL: http://www.urmane.org/~urmane/milter Download: http://www.urmane.org/~urmane/tgz/milter-0.1.tar.gz License: GPL Requires: sendmail-8.11.1 or above Categories: Networking Jim Niemira (urmane(a)urmane.org) -- <a href="http://www.urmane.org/~urmane/milter">Milter/0.1</a> -- A python wrapper for sendmail's libmilter functionality.

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CFP: 2001 O'Reilly Open Source Convention
by David Beazley 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

*** CALL FOR PARTICIPATION *** O'Reilly Open Source Convention July 23-27, 2001 San Diego, California *** Python Track *** O'Reilly & Associates is pleased to announce the 3rd annual Open Source Convention. This event is the central gathering place for the Open Source community to exchange ideas, techniques, and to advance the language. The Open Source Convention is a five-day event designed for programmers, developers, and technical staff involved in Open Source technology and its applications. The convention will be held at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, San Diego, California, July 23-27, 2001. The program committee of the Python track invites submissions of tutorial and convention presentation on topics of interest to Python programmers. Tutorial Presentations ---------------------- The first two days of the convention are devoted to tutorials. Tutorial proposals must include the following: - Tutorial length (3 or 6 hours) - Target audience including any recommended prerequisites. - What attendees will learn. - Tutorial outline--a short bullet list description of the course itself. - Speaker name - Speaker biography - Complete speaker contact information. The program committee particularly encourages the submission of tutorials that are designed to present core Python topics to a technically sophisticated audience (i.e., tutorials should favor technical depth versus advocacy and high-level overviews). Conference Presentations ------------------------ Convention proposals will be considered for the following types of talks: - Focused discussions related to a specific Python technology or programming technique. Typical examples might include extension building, internationalization, programming with threads, Tkinter, and XML. - New product/technology demonstrations. - Panel discussions. - Applications and case studies that describe the use of Python in real-world applications. Convention proposals must include the following: - Type of talk -- technology, new product, panel, or case-study. - Title of talk or demonstration. - Abstract of talk, maximum of 250 words. - Speaker name. - Speaker biography. - Complete speaker contact information. Submissions of novel and unusual Python applications are particularly encouraged. Presentations by marketing staff or with a marketing focus will not be accepted. Submitting Your Proposal ------------------------ All proposals must be sent to oscon2001-proposals(a)oreilly.com Proposals should be sent in plain text with no attachments. Submit one proposal per email. The subject line of your email must follow this format: Last name: proposal type: proposal title For example: Johnson: Tutorial: Advanced Python Programming You will receive an automatic confirmation upon receipt of each proposal. Important Dates --------------- Tutorial and presentation proposals due: February 1, 2001 Notification to presenters : March 1, 2001 Tutorial presentations due : May 1, 2001 Convention presentations due : June 1, 2001 More Information ---------------- More information about the convention can be found at: http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon2001 Specific questions concerning the Python track can be sent to ora-python-pc(a)cs.uchicago.edu. Python Track Program Committee ------------------------------ Andrew Kuchling, MEMS Exchange Andy Robinson, ReportLab David Ascher, ActiveState Paul Dubois, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory David Beazley, University of Chicago, Chair Fredrik Lundh, Secret Labs AB/PythonWare Greg Stein, Technical Advisor, ActiveState Jason Asbahr, Origin/Electronic Arts Jeremy Hylton, Digital Creations Tim Peters, Digital Creations Guido van Rossum, Digital Creations

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[Module] midipy 2.0
by Simon de Bakker 16 Jan '01

16 Jan '01

midipy 2.0 ---------- midi input & output Midi input and output in python and some basic channel filtering for now. Extensive filtering and thru will be added shortly. URL: http://www2.hku.nl/~simon2 Download: http://www2.hku.nl/~simon2/python/bin/midipy/midipy20.zip Platform: Win32 Binaries: yes Categories: Sound/Audio Simon de Bakker (simon2(a)www2.hku.nl) http://www2.hku.nl/~simon2 -- <a href="http://www2.hku.nl/~simon2">midipy 2.0</a> -- midi input & output

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Quixote 0.2 released
by Andrew Kuchling 16 Jan '01

16 Jan '01

Version 0.2 of the Quixote Web development toolkit is now available. Quixote uses Python package to store all the code and HTML for a Web-based application. PTL, Python Template Language, is used to mix HTML with Python code; the basic syntax looks just like Python, but expressions are converted to strings and appended to the output. Notable changes in this version are: handler methods are now passed a single 'request' object, and not a request,response pair; added a config parser, so that Individual Quixote applications can have their own configuration settings; the session management has been overhauled; PTL modules can now have docstrings; and other various minor bug fixes and enhancements. Some of these changes, especially the first one, are incompatible with the previously released version, so existing code will have to be rewritten to work with this version. The Quixote home page is at: http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/python/quixote/ The code can be downloaded from: http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/files/quixote/ Thanks to Neil Schemenauer, who did most of the packaging of this release, and to the various developers at the MEMS Exchange who've contributed to this release. --amk

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[Announce] Kaivo Announces Python Training Partnership
by Lance Thomas 16 Jan '01

16 Jan '01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE KAIVO ANNOUNCES PYTHON TRAINING PARTNERSHIP DENVER (Jan. 16, 2001) - Kaivo, a leading Open Source solutions provider, announced that they will be partnering with Mark Lutz, one of the primary figures in the Python community, in the delivery of Python education and training. The three day course, "Python for Programmers" is an in-depth, hands-on introduction to the Python programming / scripting language. Students will learn Python language fundamentals as well as how to apply Python in a handful of common application domains, such as Internet scripting, systems programming, and user interface development. "Python for Programmers" has been successfully presented to both programming experts and novices. Therefore there are no absolute prerequisites for it other than basic computer familiarity. Some prior background in programming may help for later topics, but is not generally required. The first course will be offered February 21 to 23 in Denver, CO. Detailed course information and on-line registration is available at http://www.kaivo.com/KaivoCourses/catalog or call Kaivo at 303-539-0200 and ask for a training coordinator. Kaivo plans to co-sponsor future classes, in Denver as well as other parts of the country-check www.kaivo.com for periodic updates to the schedule. "Our customers and potential customers are constantly requesting Python training," said Kathy Gosa, Kaivo's vice president of education. "The extremely rapid growth of the Python community has driven us to provide the best training possible. We are very excited to be partnering with someone of Mark's expertise." Mark Lutz is a Python trainer, writer, and software developer, and is one of the primary figures in the Python community. He is the author of the O'Reilly books "Programming Python" and "Python Pocket Reference" and co-author of "Learning Python". Mark has been involved with Python since 1992, and began teaching Python classes in 1997. "I'm excited to be working with Kaivo," said Lutz, "especially due to their experience with open systems and open source. I think their co-sponsoring of this class and future classes indicates the continuing rapid growth of Python adoption." ABOUT KAIVO Kaivo began as a UNIX education and training provider in 1984. We have been educating customers on the benefits and power of Open Systems and Open Source tools for sixteen years. That experience has taught us how important technical training can be to the rapid adoption and successful implementation of a powerful tool like Python. ABOUT PYTHON Python is a popular object-oriented scripting language, used for a wide variety of programming tasks. Visit www.python.org for more information, and to download the most current Python release free. # # # Contacts: Kathy Gosa VP Education Kaivo 303.539.0200 www.kaivo.com Mark Lutz lutz(a)rmi.net http://www.rmi.net/~lutz

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