Mailman 3 February 2001 - Python-announce-list

ANN: eGenix.com mx Extensions -- Version 2.0.0 (mxODBC, mxDateTime, ...)
by M.-A. Lemburg 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

________________________________________________________________________ ANNOUNCING: eGenix.com mx Extension Series for Python Version 2.0.0 Full Source Python extensions providing important and useful services for Python programmers. ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT IS IT ? The eGenix.com mx Extensions for Python are a collection of professional quality software tools which enhance Python's usability in many important areas such as ODBC database connectivity, fast text processing, date/time processing and web site programming. Python is an open-oriented Open Source programming language which runs on all modern platforms. By integrating ease-of-use, clarity in coding, enterprise application connectivity and rapid application design, Python establishes an ideal programming platform for todays IT challenges. The tools have a proven record of being portable across many Unix and Windows platforms, e.g. you can write applications which use an ODBC database on Windows which then run on Unix platforms without change due to the consistent platforms independent interfaces. All available packages have proven their stability and usefulness in many mission critical applications and various commercial settings all around the world. The two most well-known subpackages from the eGenix.com mx Extension Series are mxDateTime and mxODBC providing date/time services and professional ODBC database connectivity on practically all supported Python platforms. These two packages enable database software which is portable not only across platforms, but also across database backends. ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT'S NEW ? mxODBC, mxDateTime and all other mx packages are now maintained by my new company eGenix.com Software GmbH, Langenfeld in Germany (http://www.egenix.com/). This move will provide a better base for future development and also assures the availability of commercial support, which is important for companies building applications based on the eGenix.com mx Extensions. The new versions of the eGenix.com mx Extensions use the Python 2.0 distutils packaging technology to simplify installation and use of the many different subpackages. This is expected to greatly enhance the installation and usage experience of the software. In additions to many subpackage enhancements, this new release repackages all mx Extensions under a new top-level package named 'mx'. This will allow you to use the subpackages side-by-side with other Python tools using similar names. The software is now delivered in two download archives: the eGenix.com mx BASE package which holds all the Open Source tools from the series and provides the basis for the other add-ons and the eGenix.com mx COMMERCIAL package which currently only contains the mxODBC package. The two packages are covered by the eGenix.com Public License and the eGenix.com Commercial License respectively. Details about the licenses can be found at: http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/mxLicense.html ________________________________________________________________________ SPECIAL OFFER theKompany.com has licensed the COMMERCIAL package (which includes mxODBC) for inclusion in their brand new Qt-based Python IDE BackAdder. It allows developing portable GUI-based database applications which run on Windows and Linux platforms without any change to the source code. BlackAdder includes a 1 CPU license for this package at no extra cost, so you may want to check out their great new product. See http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html#BlackAdder for details. ________________________________________________________________________ EGENIX.COM MX BASE PACKAGE OVERVIEW: mxDateTime - Generic Date/Time Types mxDateTime is an extension package that provides three new object types, DateTime, DateTimeDelta and RelativeDateTime, which let you store and handle date/time values in a much more natural way than by using ticks (seconds since 1.1.70 0:00 UTC; the encoding used by the time module). You can add, subtract and even multiply instances, pickle and copy them and convert the results to strings, COM dates, ticks and some other more esoteric values. In addition, there are several convenient constructors and formatters at hand to greatly simplify dealing with dates and times in real-world applications. In addition to providing an easy-to-use Python interface the package also exports a comfortable C API interface for other extensions to build upon. This is especially interesting for database applications which often have to deal with date/time values (the mxODBC package is one example of an extension using this interface). mxTextTools - Fast Text Processing Tools mxTextTools is an extension package for Python that provides several useful functions and types that implement high-performance text manipulation and searching algorithms in addition to a very flexible and extendable state machine, the Tagging Engine, that allows scanning and processing text based on low-level byte-code "programs" written using Python tuples. It gives you access to the speed of C without the need to do any compile and link steps every time you change the parsing description. Applications include parsing structured text, finding and extracting text (either exact or using translation tables) and recombining strings to form new text. mxStack - Fast and Memory-Efficient Stack Type mxStack is an extension package that provides a new object type called Stack. It works much like what you would expect from such a type, having .push() and .pop() methods and focusses on obtaining maximum speed at low memory costs. mxTools - Collection of Additional Builtins mxTools is an extension package that includes a collection of handy functions and objects giving additional functionality in form of new builtins to the Python programmer. The package auto-installs the new functions and objects as builtins upon first import. This means that they become instantely available to all other modules without any further action on your part. Add the line import NewBuiltins to your site.py script and they will be available to all users at your site as if they were installed in the Python interpreter itself. mxProxy - Generic Proxy Wrapper Type mxProxy is an extension package that provides a new type that is suitable to implement Bastion like features without the need to use restricted execution environments. The type's main features are secure data encapsulation (the hidden objects are not accessible from Python since they are stored in internal C structures), customizable attribute lookup methods and a cleanup protocol that helps in breaking circular references prior to object deletion. The latest version adds a very interesting new feature: weak references which help you work with circular references in a way that doesn't cause memory leakage in a Python system. mxBeeBase - On-disk B+Tree Based Database Kit mxBeeBase is a high performance construction kit for disk based indexed databases. It offers components which you can plug together to easily build your own custom mid-sized databases (the current size limit is <CODE>sizeof(long)</CODE> which gives you an address range of around 2GB on 32-bit platforms). The two basic building blocks in mxBeeBase are storage and index. Storage is implemented as variable record length data storage with integrated data protection features, automatic data recovery and locking for multi process access. Indexes use a high performance optimized B+Tree implementation built on top of Thomas Niemann's Cookbook B+Tree implementation (http://epaperpress.com/). Note: mxBeeBase is new in this release and still in beta. ________________________________________________________________________ EGENIX.COM MX COMMERCIAL PACKAGE OVERVIEW: mxODBC - Generic ODBC 2.0 interface mxODBC is an extension package that provides a Python Database API compliant interface to ODBC 2.0 capable database drivers and managers. In addition to the capabilities provided through the standard DB API it also gives access to a rich set of catalog methods which allow you to scan the database for tables, procedures, etc. Furthermore, it uses the mxDateTime package for date/time value interfacing eliminating most of the problems these types normally introduce (other in/output formats are available too). The latest version of the interface allows you to interface to more than one database from one process. It includes a varity of preconfigured setups for many commonly used databases such as MySQL, Oracle, Informix, Solid and many more. A precompiled version of the extension for use with the Windows ODBC manager is also included. ________________________________________________________________________ WHERE CAN I GET IT ? The download archives and instructions for installing the packages can be found at: http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/ ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT DOES IT COST ? The BASE packages come with a Python 2.0 style license, which means that you can use them in both commercial and non-commercial settings without fee or charge. All packages come with full source code. mxODBC comes with a new licenses which allows non-commercial use at no charge, but costs a moderate fee for commercial use. Please see http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html#mxCOMMERCIAL for details. ________________________________________________________________________ WHERE CAN I GET SUPPORT ? Commercial quality support for these packages is available from eGenix.com Software GmbH. Please see http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html#Support for details about the eGenix support offerings. ________________________________________________________________________ REFERENCE: <P><A HREF="http://www.lemburg.com/files/python/">eGenix.com mx Extension Series</A> - eGenix.com mx Extension Series with distutils support and precompiled binaries for Windows and Linux. (22-Feb-2001) ________________________________________________________________________ ...thanks for reading this far ;-) In the spirit of Python software announcements, I am leaving off for the Python Conference in Long Beach, California tomorrow. If you have any problems with these packages or the downloads, please email me at mal(a)egenix.com. I will read your mail once I get back from the conference and will do my best make the eGenix.com mx Extensions a success for you. See you at the conference, -- Marc-Andre Lemburg ______________________________________________________________________ Company & Consulting: http://www.egenix.com/ Python Pages: http://www.lemburg.com/python/

1 0

ANNOUNCE: Release 3.0b3 of bsddb3 is available
by Robin Dunn 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

The Python wrappers for BerkeleyDB 3.1.17 (http://www.sleepycat.com/) are available at http://pybsddb.sourceforge.net/. Berkeley DB is a programmatic toolkit that provides high-performance built-in database support for desktop and server applications. The Berkeley DB access methods include B+tree, Extended Linear Hashing, Fixed and Variable-length records, and Queues. Berkeley DB provides full transactional support, database recovery, online backups, multi-threaded and multi-process access, etc. The Python wrappers allow you to store Python string objects of any length, keyed either by strings or integers depending on the database access method. With the use of another module in the package standard shelve-like functionality is provided allowing you to store any picklable Python object! Changes in this release include the following: * Lots of bugs fixed. * General code cleanup and some refactoring. * Better support for building on many different platforms. * Better build/install docs. * More and better unit tests. * Added DBLock type and methods to DBEnv for acquiring and releasing arbitrary locks. * Partial record reads/writes, and class for doing it in a file-like way. * Classes added for doing lightweight table-like access using a DB for storage. * Various other methods added. The focus of the next release will be support for the recently released BerkeleyDB 3.2.9. -- Robin Dunn Software Craftsman robin(a)AllDunn.com Java give you jitters? http://wxPython.org Relax with wxPython!

1 0

Sybase module 0.12 (Aki Yamashita release) released
by Dave Cole 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

What is it: The Sybase module provides a Python interface to the Sybase relational database system. The Sybase package supports almost all of the Python Database API, version 2.0 with extensions. The module works with Python versions 1.5.2 and later and Sybase versions 11.0.3 and later. It is based on the Sybase Client Library (ct_* API), and the Bulk-Library Client (blk_* API) interfaces. Changes: - A bug has been fixed in the bulkcopy object which caused FLOAT columns to be corrupted on transfer to the server. Where can you get it: http://www.object-craft.com.au/projects/sybase/ - Dave -- http://www.object-craft.com.au -- http://www.object-craft.com.au

1 0

Zope Directions Roadmap Posted
by Amos Latteier 20 Feb '01

20 Feb '01

Hello Pythoneers, I am excited to announce a Zope Directions Roadmap. http://dev.zope.org/Resources/ZopeDirections.html This document summarizes current thinking at Digital Creations about where the Zope platform is going from an architectural point of view. It summarizes informal conversations that we've been having internally for the past couple months. This paper talks about how we'd like to improve Zope to make it easier for Python developers. It puts some existing initiatives (e.g. Presentation Templates, and the Content Management Framework) in context, and discusses potential future projects like moving to a component architecture. I should point out that this document is not a concrete plan so much as a statement of what's on our minds. Zope development will continue to operate openly in the fishbowl (http://dev.zope.org/). We'd love to hear what you have to say. Are we heading in the right direction? Is there something else that we should be doing instead to help developers? Let us know. (Follow up should be on the zope-dev mailing list.) And when we begin new fishbowl projects (look for a component architecture project soon) jump in and help define Zope's future! -Amos <P><A HREF="http://dev.zope.org/Resources/ZopeDirections.html">Zope Directions Roadmap</A> - Paper describing Zope development plans. (20-Feb-2001) -- Amos Latteier mailto:amos@digicool.com Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com

1 0

ANN: 4Suite and 4Suite Server 0.10.2
by Uche Ogbuji 19 Feb '01

19 Feb '01

Fourthought, Inc. (http://Fourthought.com) announces the release of 4Suite 0.10.2 and 4Suite Server 0.10.2 ---------------------------- Open source XML processing tools and an XML data server http://4Suite.org http://Fourthought.com/4SuiteServer 4Suite News ----------- * ODS: optimized back end * ODS: Better collection support * ODS: DBM and Oracle driver fixes * XSLT: format-number overhaul * XPath: C boolean extension implemented for performance * XPath: Added extension functs search-re, base-uri * RDF: serialization fixes * RDF: shelve (DBM) driver * Localization support * Friendlier error messages * URI handling fixes * Many misc bug-fixes 4Suite Server News ------------------ * Many usability improvements * omniNotify: Removed our implementation of Event Channel and replaced with omniNotify * TxFactory: Rewrote to avoid common race conditions * Strobe: (formerly Reaper) Added a test harness * UserServer: Moved many user specific things out of the common IDL * UserServer: Added a test harness * RdfServer: Now uses system exceptions for common exception cases. * RdfServer: Added a test harness * XmlServer: Allow Raw files * XmlServer: Now uses the standard system exceptions * XmlServer: Added a proper test harness * XmlServer: Added XSLT-based API to 4SS * MetaUserServer: Completed the implementation * MetaUserServer: Added a proper test harness * MetaXmlServer: Completed the implementation * MetaXmlServer: Added a proper test harness * HTTPListener: Added a test harness * HTTPListener: XSLT support * HTTPListener: Custom handler support * webDAV: Incorporated pydav into 4SS * webDAV: Finished initial implementation * All: Renamed interfaces (where approriate) to follow Create/Fetch/Update/Delete naming convention. * All: Added command-line tools * All: Added console * All: Added populate script to bootstrap useful resources * All: More comprehensive documentation * All: Many, many fixes and optimizations 4Suite is a collection of Python tools for XML processing and object database management. It provides support for XML parsing, several transient and persistent DOM implementations, XPath expressions, XPointer, XSLT transforms, XLink, RDF and ODMG object databases. 4Suite Server is a platform for XML processing. It features an XML data repository, a rules-based engine, and XSLT transforms, XPath and RDF-based indexing and query, XLink resolution and many other XML services. It also supports related services such as distributed transactions and access control lists. Along with basic console and command-line management, it supports remote, cross-platform and cross-language access through CORBA, WebDAV, HTTP and other request protocols to be added shortly. 4Suite Server is not meant to be a full-blown application server. It provides highly-specialized services for XML processing that can be used with other application servers. All the software is open-source and free to download. Priority support and customization is available from Fourthought, Inc. For more information on this, see the http://FourThought.com, or contact Fourthought at info(a)fourthought.com or +1 303 583 9900 More info and Obtaining 4Suite and 4Suite Server ------------------------------------------------ Please see http://4Suite.org http://Fourthought.com/4SuiteServer >From where you can download source, Windows and Linux binaries. 4Suite is distributed under a license similar to that of the Apache Web Server.

1 0

[Module] HTML ACL 1.1
by Brian Gallew 19 Feb '01

19 Feb '01

HTML ACL 1.1 ------------ CGI access control This class provides a really easy way to add access control to a Python CGI. This if for use in addition to whatever "normal" authentication module you use. In our case, we use Kerberos for authentication, and then this module is used for authorization. This allows the two functions to be easily split. To check access is simple: import html_acl ACL = html_acl.ACL('/path/to/access/storage', None) my_privs = ACL[os.environ['REMOTE_USER']] my_privs now contains a list of "priveleges" that have been granted to the current user. To generate a page which will allow interactive updates to the permission database is almost as easy: import sys, cgi, html_acl print 'Content-Type: text/html\n\n' form = cgi.FieldStorage() ACL = html_acl.ACL('/path/to/access/storage', 'update.py') ACL.update(form, os.environ['REMOTE_USER']) try: dummy = ACL[os.environ['REMOTE_USER']] except: permission_error() # Define this yourself print "\n\n" print ACL print "\n" Suggestions are always welcome. URL: http://www.as.cmu.edu/~geek/transferables/html_acl.html Download: http://www.as.cmu.edu/~geek/transferables/html_acl.py License: Public Domain Requires: cPickle, base64 Categories: CGI Modules Brian Gallew (geek+python(a)cmu.edu) http://www.as.cmu.edu/~geek -- <a href="http://www.as.cmu.edu/~geek/transferables/html_acl.html">HTML ACL 1.1</a> -- CGI access control

1 0

ANN: PIL 1.1.1 binaries for Windows
by PythonWare 19 Feb '01

19 Feb '01

at last: Secret Labs now offer "official" PIL builds for Windows. The binary kit is based on 1.1.1, and includes JPEG and PNG support, optional Tkinter support, and a patch for PNG transparency support: http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil Binary kits are available for Python 1.5.2, Python 2.0, and Python 2.1a2 (experimental). The Tkinter binding requires Tcl/Tk 8.2.3 for the 1.5.2 versions, and 8.3.2 for the 2.X versions. The patched PNG driver can be downloaded separately from http://effbot.org. enjoy, the pythonware team "Secret Labs -- makers of fine pythonware since 1997."

1 0

ANN: SRE 2.1a2 (separate distribution)
by PythonWare 19 Feb '01

19 Feb '01

(trying again) Secret Labs' Regular Expression Engine (SRE) is the regular expression engine shipped with Python 1.6 and 2.0. The latest SRE version (from Python 2.1a2) is now available separately: http://www.pythonware.com/products/sre Changes from the 2.0 version include a couple of bug fixes, and improved portability; this version works with Python 1.5.2 and later versions. The distribution includes library source code, and prebuilt Windows binaries for Python 1.5.2 and 2.0. enjoy, the pythonware team "Secret Labs -- makers of fine pythonware since 1997."

1 0

[Module] pysp/0.01
by Parnassus Submission 18 Feb '01

18 Feb '01

pysp/0.01 --------- A wrapper for the SP SGML parser Provides a very simple event-based interface to the SP SGML parser, allowing SGML processing applications to be written in Python. This release is an experimental release and not particularly well tested. URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/software/pysp/ Download: /download/software/pysp/pysp.zip License: Python Style Requires: SP Categories: Parsing/Formatting Lars Marius Garshol -- <a href="http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/software/pysp/">pysp/0.01</a> -- A wrapper for the SP SGML parser

1 0

python-dev summary, 2001-02-01 - 2001-02-15
by Michael Hudson 15 Feb '01

15 Feb '01

It is with some trepidation that I post: This is a summary of traffic on the python-dev mailing list between Feb 1 and Feb 14 2001. It is intended to inform the wider Python community of ongoing developments. To comment, just post to python-list(a)python.org or comp.lang.python in the usual way. Give your posting a meaningful subject line, and if it's about a PEP, include the PEP number (e.g. Subject: PEP 201 - Lockstep iteration) All python-dev members are interested in seeing ideas discussed by the community, so don't hesitate to take a stance on a PEP if you have an opinion. This is the first python-dev summary written by Michael Hudson. Previous summaries were written by Andrew Kuchling and can be found at: <http://www.amk.ca/python/dev/> New summaries will probably appear at: <http://starship.python.net/crew/mwh/summaries/> When I get round to it. Posting distribution (with apologies to mbm) Number of articles in summary: 498 80 | ]|[ | ]|[ | ]|[ | ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ 60 | ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ 40 | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ 20 | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ | ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ 0 +-029-067-039-037-080-048-020-009-040-021-008-030-043-027 Thu 01| Sat 03| Mon 05| Wed 07| Fri 09| Sun 11| Tue 13| Fri 02 Sun 04 Tue 06 Thu 08 Sat 10 Mon 12 Wed 14 A fairly busy fortnight on python-dev, falling just short of five hundred articles. Much of this is making ready for the Python 2.1 release, but people's horizons are beginning to rise above the present. * Python 2.1a2 * Python 2.1a2 was released on Feb. 2. One of the more controversial changes was the disallowing of "from module import *" at anything other than module level; this restriction was weakened after some slightly heated discussion on comp.lang.python. <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/012815.html> It is possible that non-module-level "from module import *" will produce some kind of warning in Python 2.1 but this code has not yet been written. * Performance * Almost two weeks ago, we were talking about performance. Michael Hudson posted the results of an extended benchmarking session using Marc-Andre Lemburg's pybench suite: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/012330.html> to which the conclusion was that python 2.1 will be marginally slower than python 2.0, but it's not worth shouting about. The use of Vladimir Marangoz's obmalloc patch in some of the benchmarks sparked a discussion about whether this patch should be incorporated into Python 2.1. There was support from many for adding it on an opt-in basis, since when nothing has happened... * Imports on case-insensitive file systems * There was quite some discussion about how to handle imports on a case-insensitive file system (eg. on Windows). I didn't follow the details, but Tim Peters is on the case (sorry), so I'm confident it will get sorted out. * Sets & iterators * The Sets discussion rumbled on, moving into areas of syntax. The syntax: for key:value in dict: was proposed. Discussion went round and round for a while and moved on to more general iteration constructs, prompting Ka-Ping Yee to write a PEP entitled "iterators": <http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0234.html> Please comment! Greg Wilson announced that BOFs for both sets and iterators have been arranged at the python9 conference in March: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/012824.html> * Stackless Python in Korea * Christian Tismer gave a presentation on stackless python to over 700 Korean pythonistas: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/012601.html> I think almost everyone was amazed and delighted to find that Python has such a fan base. Next stop, the world! * string methodizing the standard library * Eric Raymond clearly got bored one evening and marched through the standard library, converting almost all uses of the string module to use to equivalent string method. * Python's release schedule * Skip Montanaro raised some concerns about Python's accelerated release schedule, and it was pointed out that the default Python for both debian unstable and Redhat 7.1 beta was still 1.5.2. Have *you* upgraded to Python 2.0? If not, why not? * Unit testing (again) * The question of replacing Python's hoary old regrtest-driven test suite with something more modern came up again. Andrew Kuchling enquired whether the issue was to be decided by voting or BDFL fiat: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/012830.html> Guido obliged: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/012831.html> There was then some discussion of what changes people would like to see made in the standard-Python-unit-testing-framework-elect (PyUnit) before they would be happy with it. Cheers, M.

1 0