Mailman 3 May 2003 - Python-announce-list

ANN: Python Imaging Library 1.1.4 final (may 10, 2003)
by Fredrik Lundh May 13, 2003

May 13, 2003

the labs proudly presents PIL 1.1.4 final: The Python Imaging Library (PIL) adds image processing capabilities to your Python interpreter. This library supports many file formats, and provides powerful image processing and graphics capabilities, including display support for Windows and Tkinter. Version 1.1.4 adds improved build scripts, truetype/opentype font support, memory mapping support also for non-Windows platforms, screen and clipboard grabbing on Windows, support for CSS-style color strings, support for IPTC/NAA and EXIF metadata, and more. See below for a full list. Get your copy of the source kit here: http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ enjoy, the pil team "Secret Labs -- makers of fine pythonware since 1997." -- changes in this version (relative to 1.1.3) -- + Improved building on Mac OS X (from Jack Jansen). + Improved building on Windows with MinGW (from Klamer Shutte). + If no font is specified, ImageDraw now uses the embedded default font. Use the "load" or "truetype" methods to load a real font. + Added embedded default font to the ImageFont module (currently an 8-pixel Courier font, taken from the X window distribution). + Added experimental EXIF support for JPEG files. To extract EXIF information from a JPEG file, open the file as usual, and call the "_getexif" method. If successful, this method returns a dictionary mapping EXIF TIFF tags to values. If the file does not contain EXIF data, the "_getexif" method returns None. The "ExifTags" module contains a dictionary mapping tags to tag names. This interface will most likely change in future versions. + Fixed a bug when using the "transparency" option with the GIF writer. + Added limited support for "bitfield compression" in BMP files and DIB buffers, for 15-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit images. This also fixes a problem with ImageGrab module when copying screen- dumps from the clipboard on 15/16/32-bit displays. + Added experimental WAL (Quake 2 textures) loader. To use this loader, import WalImageFile and call the "open" method in that module. + Added updated SANE driver (Andrew Kuchling, Abel Deuring) + Use Python's "mmap" module on non-Windows platforms to read some uncompressed formats using memory mapping. Also added a "frombuffer" function that allows you to access the contents of an existing string or buffer object as if it were an image object. + Fixed a memory leak that could appear when processing mode "P" images (from Pier Paolo Glave) + Ignore Unicode characters in the BDF loader (from Graham Dumpleton) + Added experimental RGBA-on-RGB drawing support. To use RGBA colours on an RGB image, pass "RGBA" as the second string to the ImageDraw.Draw constructor. + Added support for non-ASCII strings (Latin-1) and Unicode to the truetype font renderer. + The ImageWin "Dib" object can now be constructed directly from an image object. + The ImageWin module now allows you use window handles as well as device contexts. To use a window handle, wrap the handle in an ImageWin.HWND object, and pass in this object instead of the device context. + Improved support for 16-bit unsigned integer images (mode "I;16"). This includes TIFF reader support, and support for "getextrema" and "point" (from Klamer Shutte). + Made the BdfFontFile reader a bit more robust (from Kevin Cazabon and Dmitry Vasiliev) + Changed TIFF writer to always write Compression tag, even when using the default compression (from Greg Couch). + Added "show" support for Mac OS X (from Dan Wolfe). + Added clipboard support to the "ImageGrab" module (Windows only). The "grabclipboard" function returns an Image object, a list of filenames (not in 1.1.4), or None if neither was found. + Improved support for drawing RGB data in palette images. You can now use RGB tuples or colour names (see below) when drawing in a mode "P" image. The drawing layer automatically assigns color indexes, as long as you don't use more than 256 unique colours. + Moved self test from MiniTest/test.py to ./selftest.py. + Added support for CSS3-style color strings to most places that accept colour codes/tuples. This includes the "ImageDraw" module, the Image "new" function, and the Image "paste" method. Colour strings can use one of the following formats: "#f00", "#ff0000", "rgb(255,0,0)", "rgb(100%,0%,0%)", "hsl(0, 100%, 50%)", or "red" (most X11-style colour names are supported). See the documentation for the "ImageColor" module for more information. + Fixed DCX decoder (based on input from Larry Bates) + Added "IptcImagePlugin.getiptcinfo" helper to extract IPTC/NAA newsphoto properties from JPEG, TIFF, or IPTC files. + Support for TrueType/OpenType fonts has been added to the standard distribution. You need the freetype 2.0 library. + Made the PCX reader a bit more robust when reading 2-bit and 4-bit PCX images with odd image sizes. + Added "Kernel" class to the ImageFilter module. This class allows you to filter images with user-defined 3x3 and 5x5 convolution kernels. + Added "putdata" support for mode "I", "F" and "RGB". + The GIF writer now supports the transparency option (from Denis Benoit). + Added support for Palm pixmaps (from Bill Janssen). This change was listed for 1.1.3, but the "PalmImagePlugin" driver didn't make it into the distribution. + Improved decoder error messages. -- end --

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less than two weeks left for Python 11 - OSCON 2003 early bird registration
by Kevin Altis May 12, 2003

May 12, 2003

The deadline for Python 11 - OSCON 2003 early bird registration is May 23rd, 2003. The conference will be held July 7-11, 2003 in Portland, Oregon, USA. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2003/ http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/23/register.html Save up to $400 when you register by May 23rd for the Python 11/OSCON 2003 conference. Additional discounts are available. I'm including the text of the special discounts available for the conference below since they are quite significant; see the URL above for further info and mailto links. All of the discounts listed at the bottom of the registration page are in addition to the early bird discount. The early bird discount is (obviously) time-limited, but the others are not. Special Discounts ================= Early Bird Pricing - Save up to $400 when you register by May 23, 2003. SPECIAL TUTORIAL OFFER - Buy 2 tutorials, get 2 free (when you purchase a full conference pass). Full Time Student - 65% off with proof of status, a copy of ID & class schedule. Fax to 707-829-1342. Please use os03st in discount field. Academic Instructor - 50% off with proof of full time academic instructor status on organization letterhead. Fax to 707-829-1342. Please use os03ac in discount field. Academic Staff - 25% off with proof of full time academic employee status on organization letterhead. Fax to 707-829-1342. Please use os03sa in discount field. Company Team Discount - 10% off per person if you register 3 or more people from one company. Please use os03team in discount field. Proof of status of employment for each attendee must be faxed to 707-829-1342. Federal Government Discount - 20% off with proof of agency connection. Use discount code, os03gov, and fax to 707-829-1342. User Group Members - UG discounts are available. For discount information or to see if your group is eligible please email Marsee Henon for details. To sign your group up with the O'Reilly User Group Program please go to http://ug.oreilly.com/. Alumni - Have you attended one of our O'Reilly conferences? If so, you are eligible for a 30% alumni discount. Please email Linda Holder for verification and your special discount code. ka --- Kevin Altis, Python 11 co-chair altis(a)semi-retired.com http://altis.pycs.net/ http://www.pythoncard.org/

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PyTables 0.5.1
by Francesc Alted May 12, 2003

May 12, 2003

PyTables 0.5.1 -------------- This is a maintenance release of PyTables. Due to a problem with an specific optimization in PyTables 0.5, it does not work with numarray 0.4 (although it works just fine with numarray 0.5). Thanks to Marc Gehling for reporting that. Todd Miller has already warned me that this optimization was not safe, so I am *disabling* it in 0.5.1. The consequence is that the 20% of improvement during reading tables has almost evaporated to a rather small 4%, but that's life!. If you already have installed PyTables 0.5, I strongly suggest you to upgrade to 0.5.1, even if you are already using numarray 0.5. I will try to further investigate the problem, and, if a good solution is found, I will enable again the optimization in a future release. Another new thing you can find in 0.5.1 is that the use of "UInt64" data types has been removed (it has been replaced by the "Int64" type) of the tutorial chapters in User's Manual. I've done that because the numarray Windows version does not support such a type (due to MSVC compiler limitations). Now, the tutorial section should run fine in all the supported platforms (even Windows). My apologies for being a sinner and trying to optimize too soon ;-) Web site -------- Go to the PyTables web site for more details: http://pytables.sourceforge.net/ Share your experience --------------------- Let me know of any bugs, suggestions, gripes, kudos, etc. you may have. Have fun! -- Francesc Alted

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[ANN] EuroPython 2003
by Michael Hudson May 12, 2003

May 12, 2003

CHARLEROI, MAY 12th 2003 - Second Annual European Python and Zope Conference to be held in Charleroi, Belgium on June 25-27, 2003. Announcing: European Python and Zope Conference 2003 Annual event for growing developer community in Europe. Open source leaders to give keynotes European Python and Zope Conference 2003 (EuroPython 2003) June 25-27, 2003 Charleroi, Belgium http://www.europython.org Only once a year do European software developers have the opportunity to learn about Python, the fastest growing, sophisticated open source application development platform. The second annual Europython conference, being held this year in Charleroi, Belgium on June 25-27, 2003, is also an opportunity to meet with fellow developers and exchange ideas and experiences. With keynote speeches that include the creator of Python; a renowned trainer and mentor in the C++ world; as well as major developer activities, the conference promises to be a breakthrough event for open software in Europe. The EuroPython conference is the premiere venue for meeting Python and Zope developers from Europe and beyond. As one of the first community-organized Python and Zope conferences, the EuroPython Conference delivers the atmosphere and information developers want. Hundreds of new and experienced developers attending the conference will see a full program, including: Keynote by Guido van Rossum, creator of Python. He created Python in the early 1990s at CWI in Amsterdam (the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands). He is still actively involved in the development of the language. In 1995 he moved to the US where he now works for Zope Corporation as Director of PythonLabs, the core Python development group hosted by the same company. Keynote by Francis Glassborow, a renowned trainer and mentor in the C++ world. Over 8 years as Chairman of the Association of C & C++ Users, he built up a flourishing organisation which hosts a successful conference and associated standards committee meetings, publishes several journals, and has a strong community embracing the authors and leading lights of C++, Java and now Python. The conference program has over 50 presentations and tutorials in 5 tracks, including Python In Business, Python Frameworks, Python Language, Python In Science and Industry, and Zope. The program contains tutorials, presentations, lightning talks, and "birds of a feather" gatherings. Additional events include a PyPy and Zope3 sprint. EuroPython 2003 will be held in Charleroi, Belgium, a city close to Brussels. Space is filling quickly, so early registration at the EuroPython website (http://www.europython.org) is encouraged. Student discounts are available. The EuroPython 2003 conference continues this year's series of open source developer events in Europe, including FOSDEM and Python-UK, which each attracted thousands of attendees. Like these conferences, EuroPython 2003 is organized by a volunteer group of open source developers. About Python Python is a leading object-oriented open source programming language that runs on all modern platforms. By integrating ease-of-use, clarity in coding, enterprise application connectivity and rapid application design, Python is an ideal programming platform for todays IT challenges. More information, including the Python source code and binaries for Linux and Windows, are available at http://www.python.org. About Zope Zope is a leading open source application server, specializing in content management, portals, and custom applications. Since Zope Corporation introduced Zope as an open source product in 1998, it has become the platform of choice for content publishers, managers and application developers. Zope comes with complete source code, most of which is written in Python. More information, including the Zope source code and binaries for Linux and Windows, are available at http://www.zope.org. Python and Zope are maintained and enhanced in open source fashion by an international community of programmers and companies. Contacts Conference Organization EuroPython Conference Team P3B c/o Aragne Boulevard Giniral Michel 1E B-6000 Charleroi. tel:+32(0)71/270.389 mailto:europython@p3b.org International Contacts Belgium Denis Frhre, mailto:denis@aragne.com, tel: +32(0)479.651.442 Tom Deprez, mailto:tom@aragne.com, tel: +32(0)2.479.63.88 France Nicolas Chauvat, mailto:nicolas.chauvat@logilab.fr, tel: +33 (0)1.45.32.03.12 Germany Marc-Andri Lemburg, mailto:mal@egenix.com, tel: +49(0) 211.9304112 Netherlands Martijn Faassen, mailto:faassen@vet.uu.nl, tel: +31(0) 10.243.7051 United Kingdom ReportLab Europe Ltd, tel: +44-20-8540-9926 Tim Couper, mailto:tim@2wave.net, tel: +44 (0)1582 463120

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M2Crypto 0.10
by ngps＠netmemetic.com May 11, 2003

May 11, 2003

Hi, M2Crypto 0.10 is now available. This release updates to OpenSSL 0.9.7a and provides AES-128/192/256. Thanks to Toby Allsopp, Dave Berkeley and Gian Paolo Ciceri for patches. As usual, M2Crypto is here: http://www.post1.com/home/ngps/m2 Cheers. -- Ng Pheng Siong <ngps(a)netmemetic.com> http://firewall.rulemaker.net -+- Manage Your Firewall Rulebase Changes http://www.post1.com/home/ngps -+- Open Source Python Crypto & SSL

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ANNOUNCE: Naja 0.7.9 is now available
by webmaster＠keyphrene.com May 11, 2003

May 11, 2003

Naja is a freeware tool written in Python/wxPython. Naja is a download manager and a website grabber. It can be used for extract JPEG images from news server. Version 0.7.9 of Naja has been released and is available for download from the Keyphrene web site: http://www.keyphrene.com products/naja

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PyTables 0.5 released
by Francesc Alted May 10, 2003

May 10, 2003

Announcing PyTables 0.5 ----------------------- This is the second public beta release. On this release you will find a 20% of I/O speed improvement over the previous one (0.4), some bugs has been fixed and support for a couple of compression (LZO and UCL) libraries has been added, and... a long awaited Windows version is finally available!. More in detail: What's new ----------- - As a consequence of some twiking the write/read performance has been improved by a 20% overall. One particular case were performance has largely increased (0.5 is up to 6 times faster than 0.4) is when column elements are unidimensional arrays. This impressive speed-up is mainly because of the recent improvements in numarray 0.5 performance (good work, folks!). With that, the reading speed is reaching its theoretical maximum (at least when using the current data access schema). - When reading a Table object, and the user wants to fetch column elements which are unidimensional arrays, a copy of the array from the I/O buffer is delivered automatically to him, so that there is no need to make a call to .copy() method of the numarray arrays anymore. It think this is more comfortable for the user. - The compression was enabled by default in version 0.4, despite of what was stated in the documentation. Now, this has been corrected and compression is *disabled* by default. - Support for two new compression libraries: LZO and UCL (http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/). These libraries are made by Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer, and they stand for allowing *very* fast decompression. Now, if your data is compressible, you can obtain better reading speed than if not using compression at all!. The improvement is still more noticeable if your are dealing with extremely large (and compressible) data sets. Read the online documentation for more info about that: http://pytables.sourceforge.net/html-doc/usersguide-html3.html#subsection3.… - A couple of memory leaks has been isolated and fixed (it was hard, but I finally did it!). - A bug with column ordering of tables that happens in some special situations has been fixed (thanks to Stan Heckman for reporting this and suggesting the patch). - File class has now an 'isopen' attribute in order to check if a file is open or not. - Updated documentation, specially for giving advice about the use of the new compression libraries. See "Compression issues" subsection, (also on the web: http://pytables.sourceforge.net/html-doc/usersguide-html.html) - Added more unit tests (up to 218 now!) - PyTables has been tested against newest numarray 0.5 and it works just fine. It even works well with Python 2.3b1. - And last, but not least, a Windows version is available!. Thanks to Alan McIntyre for its porting!. There is even a binary ready for click and install. What it is ---------- In short, PyTables provides a powerful and very Pythonic interface to process and organize your table and array data on disk. Its goal is to enable the end user to manipulate easily scientific data tables and Numerical and numarray Python objects in a persistent hierarchical structure. The foundation of the underlying hierarchical data organization is the excellent HDF5 library (http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HDF5). A table is defined as a collection of records whose values are stored in fixed-length fields. All records have the same structure and all values in each field have the same data type. The terms "fixed-length" and strict "data types" seems to be quite a strange requirement for an interpreted language like Python, but they serve a useful function if the goal is to save very large quantities of data (such as is generated by many scientific applications, for example) in an efficient manner that reduces demand on CPU time and I/O resources. Quite a bit effort has been invested to make browsing the hierarchical data structure a pleasant experience. PyTables implements just two (orthogonal) easy-to-use methods for browsing. What is HDF5? ------------- For those people who know nothing about HDF5, it is is a general purpose library and file format for storing scientific data made at NCSA. HDF5 can store two primary objects: datasets and groups. A dataset is essentially a multidimensional array of data elements, and a group is a structure for organizing objects in an HDF5 file. Using these two basic constructs, one can create and store almost any kind of scientific data structure, such as images, arrays of vectors, and structured and unstructured grids. You can also mix and match them in HDF5 files according to your needs. Platforms --------- I'm using Linux as the main development platform, but PyTables should be easy to compile/install on other UNIX machines. This package has also passed all the tests on a UltraSparc platform with Solaris 7 and Solaris 8. It also compiles and passes all the tests on a SGI Origin2000 with MIPS R12000 processors and running IRIX 6.5. With Windows, PyTables has been tested with Windows 2000 Professional SP1 and Windows XP, but it should also work with other flavors. An example? ----------- For online code examples, have a look at http://pytables.sourceforge.net/tut/tutorial1-1.html and http://pytables.sourceforge.net/tut/tutorial1-2.html Web site -------- Go to the PyTables web site for more details: http://pytables.sourceforge.net/ Share your experience --------------------- Let me know of any bugs, suggestions, gripes, kudos, etc. you may have. Have fun! -- Francesc Alted

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MacPython-2.3b1 binary installers available
by Jack Jansen May 9, 2003

May 9, 2003

Binary installers for MacPython 2.3b1 are available at <http://www.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython.html>. For 2.3 MacPython will come in two flavors: MacPython-OS9 which runs on MacOS8.6, MacOS9 and MacOSX and the all-new MacPython-OSX which includes a normal unix-Python. In addition to all the normal Python goodies both contain an IDE and a large collection of modules that give access to MacOS functionality (Carbon, QuickTime, AppleScript). MacPython-OSX also has a Package Manager, which allows easy installation of selected packages (either in source or binary form) such as Numeric, PIL, wxPython and PyObjC. The latter is an exciting new package that allows transparent bidirectional bridging with Objective-C, thereby giving full access to Cocoa from Python. -- - Jack Jansen <Jack.Jansen(a)oratrix.com> http://www.cwi.nl/~jack - - If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman -

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ANN: eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter, Version 1.0.5
by M.-A. Lemburg May 9, 2003

May 9, 2003

________________________________________________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENT EGENIX.COM mxODBC Zope Database Adapter Version 1.0.5 Available for Zope 2.3 - 2.6 on Windows, Linux and Solaris ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION The eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter (Zope DA) allows you to easily connect your Zope installation to just about any database backend on the market today, giving you the reliability of the commercially supported eGenix.com product mxODBC and the flexibility of the ODBC standard as middle-tier architecture. Unlike Zope's ZODBC Zope DA, the mxODBC Zope DA works on Windows XP/NT/2000/98/95, Linux and Solaris using the same interface on all platforms. The mxODBC Zope DA implements thread-safe connection pooling and multiple physical connects per logical Zope connection. You can safely run Z SQL Methods in parallel, achieving a much better performance than ZODBC Zope DA or similar Zope database adapters under heavy load. This makes it ideal for deployment in Zope Clusters and Zope hosting environments where stability and high performance are a top priority. ________________________________________________________________________ FEATURES * Zope Level 3 Database Adapter: the mxODBC Zope DA is fully multi-threaded and can handle multiple connections to multiple databases. * Fully compatible to Z SQL Methods. * Drop-in compatible to the ZODBC DA: the mxODBC Zope DA provides the same interfaces as Zope's ZODBC DA to allow a smooth upgrade path from this simplistic adapater to the high performance mxODBC Zope DA. * Fully compatible to the Znolk SQL Wizard Product and other similar products relying on the common database schema access methods .tables() and .columns(). * Connection Pooling: physical database connections are pooled and kept open, to reduce the connection overhead to a minimum. This is especially important for high latency database connections and ones like Oracle which take a considerable amount of time to setup * Parallel Execution of Queries on a single logical connection: the mxODBC Zope DA can manage any number of physical connections on a single logical connection. This enables running truly parallel Z SQL Method queries -- a feature not available in other Zope DAs. * Robust Mode of Operation: connections which have timed out or go away due to network problems are automatically reconnected. * Cross-platform Connection Objects: The Zope DA will automatically choose the right platform specific ODBC manager for you. * Per Connection Adjustable ODBC Interface: mxODBC comes with many different subpackages to choose from on Unix. The Zope DA allows you to select these subpackages on a per-connection basis. * Per Connection Error Handling: you can tell each connection whether it should report ODBC warnings or not; furthermore all warnings and errors are made available as list .messages on the DatabaseConnection object. * Transaction safe automatic reconnect: when the DA finds that a connection has timed out, it automatically tries a reconnect and replays the transaction on the connection (unlike other DAs which break the transaction scheme by doing a reconnect without replay). * Built-in Schema Cache: this results in improved performance under heavy load. * Database Schema Access: all ODBC catalog methods are made available for much better database schema inquiry. The catalog methods allow building generic database interrogation or manipulation tools and facilitates writing database independent Zope products. * Lazy Connect: the mxODBC Zope DA only connects to the database backends when a connection is actually requested. This results in a better use of resources compared to other Zope DAs. ________________________________________________________________________ NEWS Version 1.0.5 introduces the following new features compared to version 1.0.4: * Support for multi-statement queries. Z SQL Methods allow multiple statements in a single query via the <dtml-var sql_delimiter> feature. mxODBC Zope DA 1.0.5 now supports this feature as well. * Lazy Connect: mxODBC Zope DA 1.0.5 only reconnects mxODBC Connection objects if Zope requests a connection object. This results in better use of available resources. Other Zope DAs tend to always reconnect when loading the connection objects into memory, e.g. when loading the folder containing the connection object, even though the connection is not really used for anything. In short: mxODBC Zope DA is continuing to become the number one solution for integrating relational databases with Zope applications. ________________________________________________________________________ UPGRADING If you have already bought mxODBC Zope DA licenses, you can use these license for the updated version as well. There is no need to buy new licenses. The same is true for evaluation license users. ________________________________________________________________________ MORE INFORMATION For more information on the mxODBC Zope DA, licensing and download instructions, please visit our web-site: http://www.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ Thank you, -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Software directly from the Source (#1, May 09 2003) >>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ EuroPython 2003, Charleroi, Belgium: 46 days left

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Quixote 0.6 released
by Andrew Kuchling May 9, 2003

May 9, 2003

We've just issued the final release of Quixote 0.6. With this release, 0.6 becomes the new stable version of Quixote; it has already seen production use on our web site. The change list from 0.5.1 is extensive: * A new and preferred syntax for declaring PTL templates has been added. Instead of 'template func(): ...', the new form is 'def func [plain] ()'. This uses a notation that's been suggested for adding type information to Python functions. The Emacs Python mode already handles this properly, and it may be more compatible with future versions of Python. The 'template' keyword is still supported, but we encourage you to switch to the new syntax when you get a chance. * Rename _q_getname() to _q_lookup(). The name '_q_getname' is still supported, but will log a warning whenever it's encountered. This change will require users to modify their applications. * Quixote now supports a new kind of template that automatically performs HTML escaping. Here's an example. (Notice that the '[plain]' annotation is changed to '[html]' to enable this feature.) def header [html] (title): "<title>%s</title>" % title If the 'title' argument is something like "R&D", it will automatically be converted to "R&D" following the rules for escaping HTML special characters. The aim is to avoid cross-site scripting attacks by automatically quoting unsafe characters in text. See http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/quixote/doc/PTL.html for more information about how this works. This escaping is implemented using either a Python 'htmltext' class or a C implementation. Both implementations have seen production use on our web site. * The form framework now uses this automatic HTML escaping. This means that applications using the form framework will have to either be changed to use automatic HTML escaping themselves, or to use str() to convert 'htmltext' instances back to Python strings. As part of this change, form/form.py and form/form_templates.ptl were merged into form/form.py. See http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/quixote/doc/upgrading.html for more information. * Added a new hook, _q_resolve(), that can be used to delay importing modules until they're actually accessed. Consult doc/programming.txt for an explanation. (Original suggestion and patch by Jon Corbet. In the process of adding it, Publisher.get_component() was rearranged to clarify the logic.) Smaller changes: * Make Quixote a bit more friendly to multi-threaded applications by allowing multiple simultaneous requests (patch by Titus Brown). * Make util.xmlrpc() return an HTTP 405 Method Not Allowed error if the method isn't a POST. * Added demo/run_cgi.py, a script that makes it easy to write one file CGI applications that use Quixote. See the comments at the top of the demo/run_cgi.py file for instructions. * Added StaticFile and StaticDirectory classes to quixote.util. Consult doc/static-files.txt for examples. (Contributed and documented by Hamish Lawson.) * Added quixote.server.twisted_http, which serves a Quixote application using the Twisted event-driven framework (www.twistedmatrix.com). Contributed by Graham Fawcett. We don't use this code ourselves, but patches and bug fixes from Twisted users will be gratefully accepted. * If Quixote looks for _q_index() in a namespace and doesn't find it, it raises AccessError (resulting in an HTTP 403 Forbidden error) rather than failing with an ImportError. A minor side effect of this change: Quixote will never attempt to import a module named '_q_index', nor will it pass '_q_index' to any _q_resolve() function. We don't expect this to be a backward compatibility problem . * Factored out the traverse_url() and get_component() method from the Publisher class. * Fix generation of temporary filenames in upload.py: filename collisions should be impossible now. * Documented _q_exception_handler(). Please send comments and questions to c.l.python or to the quixote-users mailing list. --amk (www.amk.ca) "Amberley excelled at chess -- one mark, Watson, of a scheming mind." -- Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman"

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