Mailman 3 January 2003 - Python-announce-list

M2Crypto 0.09 and Win32 binaries
by ngps＠netmemetic.com 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

Hi, M2Crypto 0.09 is now available: - Now bundles the correct version of ZServer/__init__.py, so ZServerSSL should really work for Zope 2.6.0. ;-) - Fixed xmlrpc-over-https for Python 2.2.2. (Apparently it works for Python 2.2.1.) Thanks to prashanth for patches. - Win32 binaries for Pythons 1.5.2, 2.1.3 and 2.2.2. The 2.1.3 binary tested successfully with a binary distribution of Zope 2.6.0. Thanks to Adam Karpierz for the binaries and patches. - Also contributed by Adam Karpierz: Win32 binaries for OpenSSL 0.9.6h. Cheers. -- Ng Pheng Siong <ngps(a)netmemetic.com> * http://www.netmemetic.com

1 0

ANN: PAGE-2.2c - A Python Automatic GUI Generator
by Don Rozenberg 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

PAGE-2.2c - Python Automatic GUI Generator What is PAGE? ----------- PAGE is an automatic GUI generator which bears a resemblance to Visual Basic. It allows one to easily create GUI window containing a selection of Tk and Tix widgets and bind actions associated with events in those widgets with a straight-forward, visual paradigm. It is a Tcl/Tk/Tix program that generates a Python module that realizes the desired GUI. Further, it supports rework in that one can generate a Python GUI module, debug it in the Python space, and yet be able to return to the Tcl/Tk realm to modify or update the appearance of the GUI or change the bindings on the widgets. There is a large user's guide and several useful examples. What's new? ----------- Fixed numerous problems in PAGE-2.2c. Fixed and documented the generation of menus. Fixed and documented the bindings window so now it is highly usable. Removed preferences that were hard to fathom. Added Python colorization to some of the PAGE windows. Rewrote p2t. It is now much more solid than previously and improves rework capabilities. p2t.py converts a Python GUI generated with PAGE into a tcl module that can be opened by PAGE. Includes Vrex as an example. This is a very useful visual program for developing and checking regular expressions. It is similar to Visual REGEXP. Includes an extension package that enhances python-mode.el in executing a python module with both the interpreter and debugger. It also allows one to run PyChecker from emacs. Improved the documentation. Home Page --------- http://page.sourceforge.net/ Download ---------- http://sourceforge.net/projects/page License --------- GPL --------- Don Rozenberg [rozen(a)mcn.org] <P><A HREF="http://page.sourceforge.net "> PAGE 2.2c</A> A drag and drop GUI generator for Python similar to Visual Basic (7-Jan-03)

1 0

Strip-o-Gram 1.4 Released!
by Chris Withers 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

Strip-o-Gram is an HTML Conversion Library that can convert HTML to Plain Text and strip specified tags and Javascript from HTML. See http://www.zope.org/Members/chrisw/StripOGram for more details. This release enables Strip-O-Gram to work as a Zope Product as well as a Python Package. cheers, Chris

1 0

Deleting rexec.py and Bastion.py
by Guido van Rossum 06 Jan '03

06 Jan '03

There have been reports of serious security problems with rexec.py and Bastion.py starting with Python 2.2. We do not have the resources to fix these problems. Therefore, I will disable these modules in the next 2.3 alpha release and in the next 2.2 release (2.2.3, no release date scheduled). If you are using rexec.py or Bastion.py with any version of Python 2.2 or 2.3 to safeguard anonymously submitted source code, I strongly recommend that you stop doing so immediately, because it is *not* safe. There are also known security problems with older versions of Python, but the holes created by Python 2.2 are much bigger (big enough to drive an airplane carrier through). --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

1 0

Sydney Australia Python Interest Group: Monday 13th January 2003.
by Mary 05 Jan '03

05 Jan '03

Hi everyone, We're holding the January meeting a week early because of the clash with linux.conf.au: For our first meeting in 2003, Adrian van den Dries: ZODB Adrian van den Dries will introduce the ZODB (Zope Object Database) - a persistent object database for Python. This will be a his taster for a talk on Zope which he will give at a future SLUG meeting. Date: Monday January 13th Time: 7:00pm Location: Univerity of Technology Syndey, Broadway campus, building 10, room 2.440 (computer lab, on the entrance level). -Mary ---- SLUG Python Interest Group meetins are announced on: * comp.lang.python.announce and python-announce-list(a)python.org[0] * the Australasian Python users list[1] * The Sydney Linux User's Group announce list[2] [0] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-announce-list [1] http://starship.python.net/mailman/listinfo/python-au [2] http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/announce/ ---- The Sydney Python Interest Group is, while not restricted to Python on Linux, a Special Interest Group of the Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG), and would like to thank SLUG for its support. See the PIG webpage: http://pig.slug.org.au/ for previous talks.

1 0

ANNOUNCE: PythonD 2.2.1 Release 1.1
by deckerben 05 Jan '03

05 Jan '03

Greetings. PythonD 1.1 based on Python sources 2.2.1 has been uploaded to: http://members.lycos.co.uk/bdeck This is a bug-fix and minor-enhancement level release. Downloading is not neccessary but encouraged. PythonD is the DJGPP-based MSDOS port of Python. Fixes/enhancements include: Numberous token exports added for dynamically-linked modules. xslt module removed from pyxml; doesn't work under PythonD anyway (threading) (is also incompatible with Ft 12) libxml.py, libxsl.py, and libxml2.py removed from standard python library (they were accidentally left there from a previous pre-beta test). Python Include files now properly located in the "python2.2" subfolder. path configuration files (".pth") in $DJDIR/site-python are supported. Like %PYTHONPATH%, %PYTHONHOME% is also supported. It must point to the top of your binary tree(if "python2.2" library is found under C:\python\lib, set PYTHONHOME=c:/python). A rudimentary 'os.startfile' (normally on Win32) has been implemented. Only usable when PythonD is used during a running Windows95 (and newer) session. Requires presence of "rundll32.exe" in the Windows %PATH%. The "webbrowser" module has been modified for PythonD. A number of browsers are supported by default. May also use %BROWSER%. New experimental SSL support in Socketmodule. READLINE MODIFICATIONS (can be disabled by commenting out appropriate lines from site.py): A default "readline history file" has been implemented in $DJDIR/etc/_pythist.txt See site.py if you wish to change this setting. The default "command completion key" has been assigned to 'TAB'. There is also a pre-alpha port of "tkinter" included (the TK-Wish module), using a partially complete xlibemu port to GRX2. Don't get excited yet, it is still pretty broken, but is a glimse of possible things to come with the second major drop of PythonD 2.2.1. Ben

1 0

[ANN] zxDateTime 0.2
by bzimmer＠ziclix.com 04 Jan '03

04 Jan '03

zxDateTime 0.2 is available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/zxpy/ zxDateTime is a Java implementation of the popular CPython mx.DateTime module. This release includes bug fixes as well as a new DataHandler for zxJDBC to convert all java.[util|sql] Date-like objects into appropriate mx.DateTime objects when queried or sent to the JDBC driver. It has been tested with both Jython 2.1 and current CVS. Feel free to contact me with any comments, suggestions, questions or complaints. thanks, brian zimmer, (bzimmer(a)ziclix.com)

1 0

[ANN] zxSet 0.1
by bzimmer＠ziclix.com 04 Jan '03

04 Jan '03

zxSet 0.1 is available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/zxpy/ zxSet is a Java implementation of the standard Python distribution's sets module until such time as Jython supports new style classes. It passes all but two of the test_sets.py unit tests: (1) Pickling operator.add (2) A string on the left hand side of an 'in' neither of which is really related to the set operations. It has only been tested with the current CVS version of Jython since it makes use of the iterator protocol not available in Jython 2.1. Feel free to contact me with any comments, suggestions, questions or complaints. thanks, brian zimmer, (bzimmer(a)ziclix.com)

1 0

Bullet-proof, complaint-resistant web hosting. Guaranteed.
by sales＠net4india.com 04 Jan '03

04 Jan '03

1 0

python-dev Summary for 2002-12-16 through 2002-12-31
by drifty＠bigfoot.com 04 Jan '03

04 Jan '03

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ python-dev Summary for 2002-12-15 through 2002-12-31 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ between December 16, 2002 and December 31, 2002 (inclusive). It is intended to inform the wider Python community of on-going developments on the list that might interest the wider Python community. To comment on anything mentioned here, 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 something. And if all of this really interests you then get involved and join python-dev! This is the eighth summary written by Brett Cannon (last one covering 2002!). All summaries are archived at http://www.python.org/dev/summary/ . Please note that this summary is written using reStructuredText_ which can be found at http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html . Any unfamiliar punctuation is probably markup for reST_; you can safely ignore it (although I suggest learning reST; its simple and is accepted for PEP markup). Also, because of the wonders of programs that like to reformat text, I cannot guarantee you will be able to run the text version of this summary through Docutils_ as-is unless it is from the original itself. .. _python-dev mailing list: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev .. _Docutils: http://docutils.sf.net/ .. _reST: .. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html .. contents:: ====================== Summary Announcements ====================== `Python 2.3a1`_ has been released! Please download it and try it out. The testing of the code helps python-dev a lot. So at the very least download it and run the test suite to see if any errors or failures come up. I did skip a thread on some proposed changes to ``ConfigParser``. If you care about that module you can read the thread at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031505.html . This summary is a bit on the thin side. I decided to enjoy my winter holiday and so this summary was pushed off to the last minute (and beyond; that is why this is late). Shouldn't happen again for a while. =) Those of you viewing this on the web or by running it through Docutils will have noticed the table of contents preceding this section. I am giving this a try to see if I like it. If you have an opinion, let me know. Go to PyCon_ (and yes, I am going to say this every summary until PyCon is upon us)! .. _Python 2.3a1: http://www.python.org/2.3/ .. _PyCon: http://www.python.org/pycon/ ====================================================== `Adding decimal (aka FixedPoint) numbers to Python`__ ====================================================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031171.html Michael McLay brought to the attention of the list `patch #653938I`_ which not only adds the FixedPoint_ module (originally by Tim Peters) to the library but the ``d`` suffix for numeric constants to be used for numbers to be of the FixedPoint type. For those of you unfamiliar with fixed-point math, it is basically decimal math where the issue of rounding and representation are eliminated except for division. It would allow 0.3 + 0.3 to actually equal 0.6 and not 0.59999999999, which is what you get now with binary floating-point math. Consensus was quickly reached that Michael should first work on getting the module accepted into the language. This is done so that python-dev can gauge the usefulness of the module to the rest of the world and thus see if integrating it into the language is called for. It was also said that a PEP should be written (which Michael's first email practically is). Oren Tirosh, though, stated that programs that require fixed-point math don't encode the numbers as literals in their code anyway, and thus adding a prefix would be uncalled for. There was a discussion of what a constructor method should be named that finally came down to Guido saying fixedpoint, fixed, or fixpoint all are acceptable. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of this discussion read Michael's and Tim's emails from the threads. You can also look at http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/ for another way to do fixed-point; Aahz has been working on an implementation since the dawn of man but he has been busy with other things and thus has yet to finish it. .. _patch #653938I: http://www.python.org/sf/653938I .. _FixedPoint: http://fixedpoint.sf.net/ ========================================= `New Import Hooks PEP, a first draft`__ ========================================= __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031322.html Related threads: - `Zip Import and sys.path manipulation <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031197.html>`__ - `Zipping Zope3 <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031319.html>`__ - `Write All New Import Hooks (PEP 302) in Python, Not C <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031382.html>`__ - `Packages and __path__ <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031369.html>`__ - `PEP 203 and __path__ <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031380.html>`__ So the thread that I am supposedly summarizing here is not the first thread in terms of chronology, but it has the best title, so I am using that as the thread to be summarized. Once again, the new import hooks mechanism was a big topic of discussion. For the latter half of this month most of the discussions were around `PEP 302`_ and its rough draft. It was accepted and was merged into the CVS tree in time for `Python 2.3a1`_. Since the implementation has already been accepted I will not summarize it here nor its objections since the PEP does an admirable job of covering all the bases. The other big discussion that was brought up was whether ``__path__`` should be removed or at least discourage the modification of it. Just van Rossum pushed for the removal since it would simplify the import hooks and he didn't see the use. But Guido said that Zope used it and that it can be useful, so it is staying. This discussion is what caused the creation of the pkgutil_ module. .. _PEP 302: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0302.html .. _pkgutil: http://www.python.org/doc/2.3a1/lib/module-pkgutil.html ======================================== `known obvious thing or bug (rexec)?`__ ======================================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031160.html A question about something in ``rexec_`` ended up leading to a discussion over the value of rexec since it is not close to being truly secure. The module is still in the library but I would not expect it to be in there forever; Py3k will most likely be its undoing unless someone gets the jump now and rewrites the module to actually make it do its job well. .. _rexec: http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-rexec.html ===================== `deprecating APIs`__ ===================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031255.html Neal Norwitz came up with a way to deprecate APIs by having them emit warnings during compile-time (at least for gcc). It can be found in `pyport.h`_ and the macro is called ``Py_DEPRECATED()``. .. _pyport.h: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/python/python/dist/src/Inclu… =============================== `Mersenne Twister copyright`__ =============================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031403.html Splinter Threads: - `Mesenne Twister copyright notice <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031402.html>`__ - `Third-Party Licenses <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031485.html>`__ Raymond Hettinger asked how he should handle the copyright requirement for the Mersenne Twister (now a part of the random_ module) that the authors be given credit in the documentation. Various ideas were thrown around from adding a ``__copyright__`` value to any module requiring it and having that contain the required notice to having a text file for each file that needed it. The last thing on this thread was Raymond suggesting a license directory that contained the required notices (this has not been done yet, though). .. _random: http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/lib/module-random.html ============================================== `Extension modules, Threading, and the GIL`__ ============================================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031424.html David Abrahams brought up a question about extension modules calling a Python interpreter but not knowing it is Python and thus not knowing about the GIL (the "summary" David gives to explain what he is asking about is four paragraphs, so if this sounds interesting to you then read the original email). This whole thread has still yet to be worked out, but if threading in extension modules interests you, have a read (time restraints prevent me from doing a thorough summary of this thread since it is so complicated). ================ `GC at exit?`__ ================ __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031429.html Aahz pointed out that a cycle of objects will not have their respective ``__del__()`` methods called unless you break the cycle or call ``gc.collect()``. But as Martin v. Löwis said, "If you need to guarantee that __del__ is called at the end for all objects, you have probably much bigger problems". So just watch out for those cycles. =================================================== `PEP 303: Extend divmod() for Multiple Divisors`__ =================================================== __ http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-December/031511.html `PEP 303`_ by Thomas Bellman proposes changing ``divmod()`` so as to allow it to take an arbitrary number of arguments to chain together a bunch of ``divmod()`` calls. Guido has says that he does not like the change because it causes the function to act in a way that is not necessary and since it is a built-in that goes against keeping the the language simple. This thread has started a big discussion on what built-ins are needed, but that started after January 1 and thus will be covered in the next summary. .. _PEP 303: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0303.html

1 0