Mailman 3 November 2004 - Python-announce-list

ANN: ActivePython 2.4b2 is available
by Trent Mick 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

We are pleased to announce that ActivePython 2.4b2 is now available from: http://www.ActiveState.com/Products/ActivePython This is a beta release matching the recently tagged core Python 2.4b2. Builds for Windows, Linux and Solaris are available. We would welcome any and all feedback to: ActivePython-feedback(a)ActiveState.com Please file bugs against ActivePython at: http://bugs.ActiveState.com/ActivePython What is ActivePython? --------------------- ActivePython is ActiveState's quality-assured binary build of Python. Builds for Windows, Linux and Solaris and made freely available. In addition to the Python core, ActivePython includes commonly used external modules such as expat for XML processing, zlib and bzip2 for data compression, the bsddb database library, Tcl/Tk 8.4.4 (with Tix); the PyWin32 suite of Windows tools developed by Mark Hammond, including the Pythonwin IDE, bindings to the Win32 API and Windows COM; and more. ActivePython also includes a wealth of Python documentation, including: - the core Python docs; - Andrew Kuchling's "What's New in Python" series; - the Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python; - Mark Pilgrim's excellent "Dive into Python"; and - a snapshot of the Python FAQs, HOWTOs and PEPs. Thanks, and enjoy! Trent -- Trent Mick trentm(a)activestate.com

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ANN: PyTables 0.9 released
by Francesc Altet 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

Announcing PyTables 0.9 ----------------------- I'm proud to announce the availability of the newest and most powerful incarnation of PyTables ever <wink>. On this release you will find a series of exciting new features, being the most important the indexing capabilities, in-kernel selections, support for complex datatypes and the possibility to modify values in both tables *and* arrays. What is ------- PyTables is a hierarchical database package designed to efficiently manage extremely large amounts of data (supports full 64-bit file addressing). It features an object-oriented interface that, combined with C extensions for the peformance-critical parts of the code, makes it a very easy to use tool for high performance data saving and retrieving. It is built on top of the HDF5 library and the numarray package, and provides containers for both heterogeneous data (Tables) and homogeneous data (Array, EArray). It also sports a container for keeping lists of objects of variable length on a very efficient way (VLArray). A flexible support of filters allows you to compress your data on-the-flight by using different compressors and compression enablers. Moreover, its powerful browsing and searching capabilities allow you to do data selections over tables exceeding gigabytes of data in just tenths of second. Changes more in depth --------------------- New features: - Indexing of columns in tables. That allow to make data selections on tables up to 500 times faster than standard selections (for ex. doing a selection along an indexed column of 100 milion of rows takes less than 1 second on a modern CPU). Perhaps the most interesting thing about the indexing algorithm implemented by PyTables is that the time taken to index grows *lineraly* with the length of the data, so, making the indexation process to be *scalable* (quite differently to many relational databases). This means that it can index, in a relatively quick way, arbitrarily large table columns (for ex. indexing a column of 100 milion of rows takes just 100 seconds, i.e. at a rate of 1 Mrow/sec). See more detailed info about that in http://pytables.sourceforge.net/doc/SciPy04.pdf. - In-kernel selections. This feature allow to make data selections on tables up to 5 times faster than standard selections (i.e. pre-0.9 selections), without a need to create an index. As a hint of how fast these selections can be, they are up to 10 times faster than a traditional relational database. Again, see http://pytables.sourceforge.net/doc/SciPy04.pdf for some experiments on that matter. - Support of complex datatypes for all the data objects (i.e. Table, Array, EArray and VLArray). With that, the complete set of datatypes of Numeric and numarray packages are supported. Thanks to Tom Hedley for providing the patches for Array, EArray and VLArray objects, as well as updating the User's Manual and adding unit tests for the new functionality. - Modification of values. You can modifiy Table, Array, EArray and VLArray values. See Table.modifyRows, Table.modifyColumns() and the newly introduced __setitem__() method for Table, Array, EArray and VLArray entities in the Library Reference of User's Manual. - A new sub-package called "nodes" is there. On it, there will be included different modules to make more easy working with different entities (like images, files, ...). The first module that has been added to this sub-package is "FileNode", whose mission is to enable the creation of a database of nodes which can be used like regular opened files in Python. In other words, you can store a set of files in a PyTables database, and read and write it as you would do with any other file in Python. Thanks to Ivan Vilata i Balaguer for contributing this. Improvements: - New __len__(self) methods added in Arrays, Tables and Columns. This, in combination with __getitem__(self,key) allows to better emulate sequences. - Better capabilities to import generic HDF5 files. In particular, Table objects (in the HDF5_HL naming schema) with "holes" in their compound type definition are supported. That allows to read certain files produced by NASA (thanks to Stephen Walton for reporting this). - Much improved test units. More than 2000 different tests has been implemented which accounts for more than 13000 loc (this represents twice of the PyTables library code itself (!)). Backward-incompatible API changes: - The __call__ special method has been removed from objects File, Group, Table, Array, EArray and VLArray. Now, you must use walkNodes() in File and Group and iterrows in Table, Array, EArray and VLArray so as to achieve the same functionality. This will provide better compatibility with IPython as well. 'nctoh5', a new importing utility: - Jeff Whitaker has contributed a script to easily convert NetCDF files into HDF5 files using Scientific Python and PyTables. It has been included and documented as a new utility. Bug fixes: - A call to File.flush() now invoke a call to H5Fflush() so to effectively flushing all the file contents to disk. Thanks to Shack Toms for reporting this and providing a patch. - SF #1054683: Security hole in utils.checkNameValidity(). Reported in 2004-10-26 by ivilata - SF #1049297: Suggestion: new method File.delAttrNode(). Reported in 2004-10-18 by ivilata - SF #1049285: Leak in AttributeSet.__delattr__(). Reported in 2004-10-18 by ivilata - SF #1014298: Wrong method call in examples/tutorial1-2.py. Reported in 2004-08-23 by ivilata - SF #1013202: Cryptic error appending to EArray on RO file. Reported in 2004-08-21 by ivilata - SF #991715: Table.read(field="var1", flavor="List") fails. Reported in 2004-07-15 by falted - SF #988547: Wrong file type assumption in File.__new__. Reported in 2004-07-10 by ivilata Where PyTables can be applied? ------------------------------ PyTables is not designed to work as a relational database competitor, but rather as a teammate. If you want to work with large datasets of multidimensional data (for example, for multidimensional analysis), or just provide a categorized structure for some portions of your cluttered RDBS, then give PyTables a try. It works well for storing data from data acquisition systems (DAS), simulation software, network data monitoring systems (for example, traffic measurements of IP packets on routers), very large XML files, or for creating a centralized repository for system logs, to name only a few possible uses. What is a table? ---------------- 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" seem to be quite a strange requirement for a language like Python that supports dynamic data types, 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. What is HDF5? ------------- For those people who know nothing about HDF5, it 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 (Intel 32-bit) as the main development platform, but PyTables should be easy to compile/install on many 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, with the MIPSPro compiler and running IRIX 6.5. It also runs fine on Linux 64-bit platforms, like AMD Opteron running GNU/Linux 2.4.21 Server, Intel Itanium (IA64) running GNU/Linux 2.4.21 or PowerPC G5 with Linux 2.6.x in 64bit mode. It has also been tested in MacOSX platforms (10.2 but should also work on newer versions). Regarding Windows platforms, PyTables has been tested with Windows 2000 and Windows XP (using the Microsoft Visual C compiler), but it should also work with other flavors as well. Web site -------- Go to the PyTables web site for more details: http://pytables.sourceforge.net/ To know more about the company behind the PyTables development, see: http://www.carabos.com/ Share your experience --------------------- Let me know of any bugs, suggestions, gripes, kudos, etc. you may have. Bon profit! -- Francesc Altet

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ANN: EasyDialogs for Windows version 1.16.0
by Jimmy Retzlaff 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

EasyDialogs for Windows is available at: http://www.averdevelopment.com/python/ EasyDialogs for Windows is a ctypes based emulation of the EasyDialogs module included in the Python distribution for Macintosh. It attempts to be as compatible as possible. Code using the Macintosh EasyDialogs module can often be run unchanged on Windows using this module. The module has been tested on Python 2.3 running on Windows NT, 98, XP, and 2003. I would appreciate feedback at jimmy(a)retzlaff.com about experience running this on other versions of Windows (I attempted to avoid APIs that weren't available on Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0). EasyDialogs is written in pure Python using Thomas Heller's ctypes module (http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/ctypes/) to call Windows APIs directly. No Python GUI toolkit is used. This means that relatively small distributions can be made with py2exe (or its equivalents). A simple test of all the dialogs in EasyDialogs bundled up using py2exe results in a distribution that is about 1.25MB. Using py2exe in concert with NSIS as shown at http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/moin.cgi/SingleFileExecutable allows the same test to run as a single file executable that is just under 500KB. Prerequisites: EasyDialogs for Windows requires Windows, Python 2.3, and ctypes 0.6.3. License: MIT Change history: Version 1.16.0 - Removed resource DLL, resources are now in a Python source file which simplifies distribution of apps with py2exe - Spelling corrections - File open/save dialogs did not display on Windows 98 - AskString edit boxes were too short on Windows 98 - Improved display of drop down lists on Windows 98 and NT - Made minor changes to bring inline with CVS version 1.16 for Macintosh Version 1.14.0 - Initial public release Jimmy

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ANN: PyMedia-1.2.3.0-pre2 is out
by Dmitry Borisov 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

Hi all, Finally I have managed to make a pre-release for version 1.2.3.0 What is it ? ---------------------------------------------------------------- PyMedia is a Python module for avi, mp3, ogg, wma, divx and other media formats processing. It is crossplatform and can work on Windows, Linux and cygwin. PyMedia is based upon the following libraries : libavcodec, libavformat, libdvdcss, libdvdread It has simple and yet powerful interface. Check out the tutorial section: http://pymedia.org/tut/ Features ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Audio decoding/encoding for the following types: - mp2, mp3, ac3, ogg, wma, aac 2. Video decoding/encoding for the following types: - mpeg1,2 ( dvd, vcd, svcd ), mpeg4, xvid, asf 3. Video/Audio muxing for mpeg files only 4. Direct access to sound device( Input/Output ). Input is synchronous in Linux. 5. Sound manipulation classes such as Resampler and SpectrAnalyzer 6. Direct access to cdda tracks for easy grabbing and encoding Audio CDs 7. Direct access to dvd tracks for playing DVD movies( all types ) 8. Ability to convert video frames from YUV<->BMP formats 9. Simple interface and portability( Windows/Linux/cygwin ) Changelog ---------------------------------------------------------------- - VFrame has new method: convert(). Allow you to convert it to any other format( RGB<->YUV ) - resampler works as expected now - VFrame can be created explicitly( allows to create your own movies from the set of pics ) - wma can play small chunks - windows ISound interface get fixed( patch from Raefer Gabriel ) - windows OSound interface get fixed, no freezing anymore - windows binary supports MMX optimization( 30% boost ) - audio.muxer has new method mux and flush. To be compatible with every stream format not only MPEG. - CLE266 chipset support included for HW DVD playback on Linux with Directfb/pydfb( experimental ! ) - seeking supported for video/audio - new Mixer interface - meta tags for ogg, wma and mp3 can be changed and written back to the file - aac playback support( experimental ! ) Downoad ---------------------------------------------------------------- Just check the http://pymedia.org and download the latest version (1.2.3.0-pre2). You may download Windows binaries as well. How to use ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the tutorial on how to install and use: http://pymedia.org/tut/ License ---------------------------------------------------------------- At the moment the whole module is GPL because of libdvdread and libdvdcss. I have plans to make it LGPL eventually. Enjoy, Dmitry/

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RELEASED Python 2.4, beta 2
by Anthony Baxter 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm happy to announce the second beta of Python 2.4. Python 2.4b2 is a beta release. We'd greatly appreciate it if you could download it, kick the tires and let us know of any problems you find, but it is probably not suitable for production usage. ~ http://www.python.org/2.4 Notable changes in beta2 include another bug fix in the intersection of weakrefs and the garbage collector, time.strptime() correctly handling %U and %W arguments, and a fix for a problem of old source code being cached and shown in tracebacks. There's a number of other bugfixes as well, see either the highlights, the What's New in Python 2.4, or the detailed NEWS file -- all available from the Python 2.4 webpage. This is the second beta release of Python 2.4. Python 2.4 is now in the beta part of the release cycle - there should be few or no new features, merely bug fixes. From here, we plan to have a release candidate in a couple of weeks, and a final release at the start of December - but obviously this plan is subject to change, based on any problems that might crop up. Please log any problems you have with this release in the SourceForge bug tracker (noting that you're using 2.4b2): ~ http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470 Enjoy the new release, Anthony Anthony Baxter anthony(a)python.org Python Release Manager (on behalf of the entire python-dev team) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFBiW7YDt3F8mpFyBYRAq7DAKCskVfPO4LEQlC3zijupOnd9snCWACgpMHX bH7xepODsyo1115TMQ9CQkw= =0UOq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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First Release of spyse, the Secret Python Multi-Agent System Engineering platform
by Andre Meyer 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

http://spyse.sf.net/ Spyse is the Secret Python Multi-Agent System Engineering platform. It allows Python developers to build distributed systems of multiple cooperative agents and makes use of various standards, such as FIPA and OWL, as well as Zope. It is very spicy. The first pre-alpha release of spyse is now available. Have a look, try it out and comment, please. Lots of features are still missing, so help is appreciated ;-) Thanks and regards Andre

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ANN: New configuration module released
by vinay_sajip＠yahoo.co.uk 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

I've just made available the first general release of a configuration module for Python. It has grown out of the need to make configuration easier and more powerful (for developers and end users) than ConfigParser. It's one of the implementations which could be considered in the ConfigParser shootout, mentioned on the Python Wiki at http://www.python.org/moin/ConfigParserShootout What Does It Do? ================ The config module allows you to implement a hierarchical configuration scheme with support for mappings and sequences, cross-references between one part of the configuration and another, the ability to flexibly access real Python objects, facilities for configurations to include and cross-reference one another, simple expression evaluation and the ability to change, save, cascade and merge configurations. This module has been developed on python 2.3 but should work on version 2.2 or greater. A test suite using unittest is included in the distribution. A very simple configuration file (simple.cfg): # starts here message: Hello, world! #ends here a very simple program to use it: from config import Config cfg = Config(file('simple.cfg')) print cfg.message results in: Hello, world! Configuration files are key-value pairs, but the values can be containers that contain further values A simple example - with the example configuration file: messages: [ { stream : `sys.stderr` message: 'Welcome' name: 'Harry' } { stream : `sys.stdout` message: 'Welkom' name: 'Ruud' } { stream : $messages[0].stream message: 'Bienvenue' name: Yves } ] a program to read the configuration would be: from config import Config f = file('simple.cfg') cfg = Config(f) for m in cfg.messages: s = '%s, %s' % (m.message, m.name) try: print >> m.stream, s except IOError, e: print e which, when run, would yield the console output: Welcome, Harry Welkom, Ruud Bienvenue, Yves The above example just scratches the surface. There's more information about this module available at http://www.red-dove.com/python_config.html Comprehensive API documentation is available at http://www.red-dove.com/config/index.html As always, your feedback is most welcome (especially bug reports, patches and suggestions for improvement). Enjoy! Cheers Vinay Sajip Red Dove Consultants Ltd.

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Python Bug Day this Sunday
by Johannes Gijsbers 01 Nov '04

01 Nov '04

The fourth Python Bug Day is coming up this Sunday, November 7 2004. What's a bug day? ================= Participants meet in an IRC channel or in real life and collaboratively go through the Python bug database, fixing and closing bugs as they go. You don't need to have previous experience with modifying the Python source; in fact bug days offer a good opportunity to learn the basics by asking questions and working on relatively simple bugs. Bug day participation also helps the developers and makes Python 2.4 a better release by reducing the backlog of bugs and patches. Plus, it's fun! When? ===== This Sunday, November 7, 2004. I'll be online at least from 11AM to 6PM CET (10AM to 5PM GMT/ 6AM to 1PM EDT). There'll probably be some other people with CVS access dropping in to extend the bug day for those in the US. Oh, you don't need to be around all day either, we'll love you for every bug you fix. ;) Where? ====== * The #python-dev channel on irc.freenode.net. * In real life, at the Amaze office: Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 12 1017 RC Amsterdam The Netherlands More information ================ For instructions and more information, see http://www.python.org/moin/PythonBugDay Cheers, Johannes

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ANN: PyOpenOffice 0.3 released
by me.simon＠t-online.de 01 Nov '04

01 Nov '04

New since release 0.23: # Generate PDF with arbitrary page sizes (Letter, DIN A5, portrait or landscape etc.) and arbitrary text margins # page sizes and text margins are now taken exactly from the SXW-Template by using an XML-DOM-API (more functions using this API will follow in the next versions) # PyOpenOffice now comes with two modules: pyopenoffice.py (main module) and textutilities_pyopenoffice (helper classes and functions). Have a look at: http://www.bezirksreiter.de/PyOpenOffice.htm Martin Simon

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[ANN] Soya 0.8.2
by Jiba 01 Nov '04

01 Nov '04

Soya 0.8.2 is out. Soya is a very high level 3D engine for Python. Soya aims at being to 3D what Python is to programming : fast to learn, easy to use, while keeping good performances ! Contrary to most of existing 3D engines, Soya is not a C/C++ engine that supports Python scripting, it is a 3D engine for Python. 0.8.2 version adds cell-shading, shadows and ODE integration (not stable yet), and fix lots of bugs from the 0.7.x series. It also features terrain rendering, character animations, Blender exporters,... Soya is written in Python and Pyrex (though you don't need Pyrex to install it). It requires SDL, OpenGL, Cal3D, FreeType2 and PIL. Soya is available under the GNU GPL. http://home.gna.org/oomadness/en/soya/index.html Slune, my racing game that uses Soya, is now complete ; chek out for version 1.0.4 here : http://home.gna.org/oomadness/en/slune/index.html You can find Soya developpers and users on #slune on FreeNode. Jiba

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