Mailman 3 April 2005 - Python-announce-list

IPython 0.6.13 is out.
by Fernando Perez 15 Apr '05

15 Apr '05

Hi all, I'm glad to announce the release of IPython 0.6.13. IPython's homepage is at: http://ipython.scipy.org and downloads are at: http://ipython.scipy.org/dist I've provided RPMs (for Python 2.3 and 2.4, built under Fedora Core 3), plus source downloads (.tar.gz). Fedora users should note that IPython is now officially part of the Extras repository, so they can get the update from there as well (though it may lag by a few days). There is also a native win32 installer which should work correctly for both Python 2.3 and 2.4. Debian, Fink and BSD packages for this version should be coming soon, as the respective maintainers (many thanks to Jack Moffit, Andrea Riciputi and Dryice Liu) have the time to follow their packaging procedures. Many thanks to Enthought for their continued hosting support for IPython, and to all the users who contributed ideas, fixes and reports. In particular, thanks to Frederic Mantegazza for extensive discussions on embedding features which make ipython suitable for use in the kind of complex environments I had always wanted it to be used. Release notes ------------- *** WARNING to pysh users *** A backwards-incompatible change has been made. 1. You must update your pysh profile (~/.ipython/ipythonrc-pysh): a) Add to it the line: import_all IPython.Extensions.InterpreterExec b) Delete the line execfile pysh.py 2. You must also delete from ~/.ipython/ the file pysh.py. *** END pysh warning. As always, the NEWS file can be found at http://ipython.scipy.org/NEWS, and the full ChangeLog at http://ipython.scipy.org/ChangeLog. The highlights of this release follow. * Improved variable capture from system commands. The %sc and %sx magics (and hence the !!syntax in Pysh) now capture to special objects which, while looking like strings/lists, provide automatic conversion between the various modes: In [12]: sc a=ls s*py In [13]: a # the returned object looks like a plain string Out[13]: 'sanner.py\nscopes.py\nsplot.py\nstrings.py' In [14]: a.s # but you can see it as a string with pure whitespace Out[14]: 'sanner.py scopes.py splot.py strings.py' In [15]: a.l # as a list Out[15]: ['sanner.py', 'scopes.py', 'splot.py', 'strings.py'] In [16]: a.n # or as a string with newlines Out[16]: 'sanner.py\nscopes.py\nsplot.py\nstrings.py' If you capture the result split as a list, the returned object exhibits the exact same interface with .s, .l and .n attributes: In [18]: sc -l b=ls s*py In [19]: b Out[19]: ['sanner.py', 'scopes.py', 'splot.py', 'strings.py'] In [20]: b.s Out[20]: 'sanner.py scopes.py splot.py strings.py' In [21]: b.l Out[21]: ['sanner.py', 'scopes.py', 'splot.py', 'strings.py'] In [22]: b.n Out[22]: 'sanner.py\nscopes.py\nsplot.py\nstrings.py' Try the above and use a? and b? to see the full docstrings of these special objects, which can be extremely convenient when manipulating system commands output. * By default, IPython now binds the up/down arrow keys to search only in the history which matches your input so far. If you are an old user your ipythonrc file is NOT automatically updated, but you can get this effect by putting the following in it: readline_parse_and_bind "\e[A": history-search-backward readline_parse_and_bind "\e[B": history-search-forward * Many changes and improvements to make it easier to embed ipython into complex interactive environments. These changes were motivated by the needs of Frederic Mantegazza, and more details can be found on the -dev list archives and at this wiki page specially created for this discussion: http://www.scipy.org/wikis/featurerequests/IPython In particular, ipython now exposes the ability to set custom exception handlers, docstring extraction methods, custom tab-completion routines, and more. That wiki page also serves as documentation (with code examples) for some of these more complex features. IPython also now exposes its own input execution routine (the runlines() method). You can thus feed this method snippets of input (even multiline) with magic syntax and all other special extensions, which it will process as if they had been typed at the command line. * Multi-line specials are now active by default. This means that you can use special syntax, like !cmd, in python multi-line input. A silly example: In [26]: for i in range(3): ....: !ls $i ....: ls: 0: No such file or directory ls: 1: No such file or directory ls: 2: No such file or directory * Magics can also be called in multi-line input, and python variables can be expanded in magics just like in system calls or aliases: In [36]: mydir='/usr/include/atlas' In [37]: cd mydir [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'mydir' /home/fperez In [38]: cd $mydir /usr/include/atlas This brings consistency to the various special subsystems in ipython: they ALL expand python expressions with the same rules (those of Itpl linked to above), and they can all be used in multiline input. * Dynamic prompt strings. Now, the following ${foo()+x+bar.baz()} is a valid prompt string, where foo, x and bar will be evaluated at runtime from your interactive namespace. Arbitrary Python expressions, according to the Itpl design, can be thus used (see http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0215.html for details on Itpl). * Fixes for (X)Emacs prompt support (hung file queue when executing files from an emacs buffer). * Fixes (thanks to John Hunter) for tab-completion in the face of broken objects on which dir() returns anything other than a list of pure strings (such as the ITK library). * Other small fixes and cleanups. Enjoy, and as usual please report any problems. Regards, Fernando.

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ZODB 3.3.1 (final) released
by Tim Peters 15 Apr '05

15 Apr '05

I'm pleased to announce the release of ZODB 3.3.1 (final). You can download a source tarball or Windows installer from: http://zope.org/Products/ZODB3.3 Note that there are two Windows installers this time, for Python 2.3 and Python 2.4. Choose the one appropriate for your version of Python. There were no substantial changes since the 3.3.1 release candidate two weeks ago; some of the threaded ZEO tests are less likely to fail intermittently, due to changes in the test (not ZEO) code. See the news file for details: http://zope.org/Products/ZODB3.3/NEWS.html Note that ZODB 3.3.1 does not support any version of Zope 2.6 or 2.7. Current Zope 2.8 and Zope 3 development have moved to ZODB 3.4, so ZODB 3.3.1 is expected to be the last release in the ZODB 3.3 line.

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PyAr - Python Argentina 8th Meeting, today
by Batista, Facundo 14 Apr '05

14 Apr '05

The Argentine Python User Group, PyAr, will have its eighth meeting today at 7:00pm. Agenda ------ Despite our agenda tends to be rather open, this time we would like to cover these topics: - Conclusions of PyAr in PyCon 2005. - See what we'll do with the t-shirts, and how we'll export them. - Analyze a future meeting point. Where ----- We're meeting at Hip Bar, Hipólito Yirigoyen 640, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, starting at 19hs. We will be in the back room, so please ask the barman for us. About PyAr ---------- For more information on PyAr see http://pyar.decode.com.ar (in Spanish), or join our mailing list (Also in Spanish. For instructions see http://pyar.decode.com.ar/Members/ltorre/listademail) We meet on the second Thursday of every month. . Facundo

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ANN: numarray-1.3.0
by Todd Miller 14 Apr '05

14 Apr '05

Release Notes for numarray-1.3.0 Numarray is an array processing package designed to efficiently manipulate large multi-dimensional arrays. Numarray is modelled after Numeric and features c-code generated from python template scripts, the capacity to operate directly on arrays in files, arrays of heterogeneous records, string arrays, and in-place operation on memory mapped files. I. ENHANCEMENTS 1. Migration of NumArray.__del__ to C (tp_dealloc). Overall performance. 2. Removal of dictionary update from array view creation improves performance of view/slice/subarray creation. This should e.g. improve the performance of wxPython sequence protocol access to Nx2 arrays. Subclasses now need to do a.flags |= numarray.generic._UPDATEDICT to ensure that dictionary based attributes are inherited by views. NumArrays no longer do this by default. 2. Modifications to support scipy.special. 3. Removal of an unnecessary getattr() from ufunc calling sequence. Ufunc performance. II. BUGS FIXED / CLOSED 1179355 average() broken in numarray 1.2.3 1167184 Floating point exception in numarray's dot() 1151892 Bug in matrixmultiply with zero size arrays 1160184 RecArray reversal 1156172 Incorect error message for shape incompatability 1155538 Incorrect error message when multiplying arrays See http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=450446&group_id=1369&func=browse for more details. III. CAUTIONS This release should be backward binary compatible with numarray 1.1.1 and 1.2.3. WHERE ----------- Numarray-1.3.0 windows executable installers, source code, and manual is here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369 Numarray is hosted by Source Forge in the same project which hosts Numeric: http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/ The web page for Numarray information is at: http://stsdas.stsci.edu/numarray/index.html Trackers for Numarray Bugs, Feature Requests, Support, and Patches are at the Source Forge project for NumPy at: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=1369 REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------ numarray-1.3.0 requires Python 2.2.2 or greater. Python-2.3.4 or Python-2.4.1 is recommended. AUTHORS, LICENSE ------------------------------ Numarray was written by Perry Greenfield, Rick White, Todd Miller, JC Hsu, Paul Barrett, Phil Hodge at the Space Telescope Science Institute. We'd like to acknowledge the assitance of Francesc Alted, Paul Dubois, Sebastian Haase, Chuck Harris, Tim Hochberg, Nadav Horesh, Edward C. Jones, Eric Jones, Jochen Kuepper, Travis Oliphant, Pearu Peterson, Peter Verveer, Colin Williams, Rory Yorke, and everyone else who has contributed with comments and feedback. Numarray is made available under a BSD-style License. See LICENSE.txt in the source distribution for details. -- Todd Miller jmiller(a)stsci.edu

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[ANN] pylint 0.6.4
by Sylvain Thénault 14 Apr '05

14 Apr '05

Hello all, I'm pleased to announce a new release of PyLint. This release mainly fixes multivalued options bug and a systematic crash with python 2.2. Users should also use the latest logilab's common library (0.9.3). What's new ? ------------ * allow to parse files without extension when a path is given on the command line (test noext) * don't fail if we are unable to read an inline option (e.g. inside a module), just produce an information message (test func_i0010) * new message E0103 for break or continue outside loop (close #8883, test func_continue_not_in_loop) * fix bug in the variables checker, causing non detection of some actual name error (close #8884, test func_nameerror_on_string_substitution) * fix bug in the classes checker which was making pylint crash if "object" is assigned in a class inheriting from it (test func_noerror_object_as_class_attribute) * fix problem with the similar checker when related options are defined in a configuration file * new --generate-man option to generate pylint's man page (require the latest logilab.common (>= 0.9.3) * packaged (generated...) man page What is pylint ? ---------------- Pylint is a python tool that checks if a module satisfy a coding standard. Pylint can be seen as another pychecker since nearly all tests you can do with pychecker can also be done with Pylint. But Pylint offers some more features, like checking line-code's length, checking if variable names are well-formed according to your coding standard, or checking if declared interfaces are truly implemented, and much more (see http://www.logilab.org/pylint/ for the complete check list). The big advantage with Pylint is that it is highly configurable, customizable, and you can easily write a small plugin to add a personal feature. The usage it quite simple : $ pylint mypackage.mymodule This command will output all the errors and warnings related to the tested code (here : mypackage.mymodule), will dump a little summary at the end, and will give a mark to the tested code. Pylint is free software distributed under the GNU Public Licence. Home page --------- http://www.logilab.org/projects/pylint Download -------- ftp://ftp.logilab.org/pub/pylint Mailing list ------------ mailto://python-projects@logilab.org -- Sylvain Thénault LOGILAB, Paris (France). http://www.logilab.com http://www.logilab.fr http://www.logilab.org

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ANN: matplotlib-0.80
by John Hunter 13 Apr '05

13 Apr '05

matplotlib is a 2D graphics package that produces plots from python scripts, the python shell, or embeds them in your favorite python GUI -- wx, gtk, tk, fltk and qt. Unlike many python plotting alternatives is written in python, so it is easy to extend. matplotlib is used in the finance industry, web application servers, and many scientific and enginneering disciplines. With a large community of users and developers, matplotlib is approaching the goal of having a full featured, high quality, 2D plotting library for python. A lot of development has gone into matplotlib since the last major release, which I'll summarize here. For details, see the notes for the incremental releases at http://matplotlib.sf.net/whats_new.html. Improvements since 0.70 -- contouring: Lots of new contour funcitonality with line and polygon contours provided by contour and contourf. Automatic inline contour labeling with clabel. See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#pcolor_demo -- QT backend Sigve Tjoraand, Ted Drain and colleagues at the JPL collaborated on a QTAgg backend -- Unicode strings are rendered in the agg and postscript backends. Currently, all the symbols in the unicode string have to be in the active font file. In later releases we'll try and support symbols from multiple ttf files in one string. See examples/unicode_demo.py -- map and projections A new release of the basemap toolkit - See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#plotmap -- Auto-legends The automatic placement of legends is now supported with loc='best'; see examples/legend_auto.py. We did this at the matplotlib sprint at pycon -- Thanks John Gill and Phil! Note that your legend will move if you interact with your data and you force data under the legend line. If this is not what you want, use a designated location code. -- Quiver (direction fields) Ludovic Aubry contributed a patch for the matlab compatible quiver method. This makes a direction field with arrows. See examples/quiver_demo.py -- Performance optimizations Substantial optimizations in line marker drawing in agg -- Robust log plots Lots of work making log plots "just work". You can toggle log y Axes with the 'l' command -- nonpositive data are simply ignored and no longer raise exceptions. log plots should be a lot faster and more robust -- Many more plotting functions, bugfixes, and features, detailed in the 0.71, 0.72, 0.73 and 0.74 point release notes at http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/whats_new.html http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net JDH

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ANNOUNCE: Kamaelia 0.1.2 Released
by Michael Sparks 13 Apr '05

13 Apr '05

Kamaelia 0.1.2 has been released! What is it? =========== Kamaelia is a collection of Axon components designed for network protocol experimentation in a single threaded, select based environment. Axon components are python generators are augmented by inbox and outbox queues (lists) for communication in a communicating sequential processes (CSP) like fashion. The architecture is specifically designed to try and simplify the process of designing and experimenting with new network protocols in real environments. This release contains components allowing the creation of TCP based clients and servers, and includes a few (very) simple protocol handlers to show usage. Other components include vorbis decode and playback, asynchronous file reading, and equivalents of "tee" and "strings". (Writing systems is much like building unix pipelines, hence the need for similar tools) The system is known to work under Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and a subset works on Series 60 mobiles. We've also started a weblog which will form an informal discussion forum for issues generally surrounding kamaelia. (We might put things like tutorials there for example) * http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/bl What's new in version 0.1.2 ? ============================= Additionally tested under Windows ME, 2000 and Mac OS X, along with a subset tested on Series 60 mobiles and compatibility updates made as a result. Ability to make simple multicast servers, clients and transceivers added. Test harnesses for network servers tightened up. Collection of examples added in the Examples directory: * Example 1 : Contains a simple "FortuneCookie" protocol system. Includes a server and client as part of a single system. * Example 2 : This has much the same structure, but rather than serve and display fortune cookies, serves (ogg vorbis) audio over a TCP connection to a client which decodes and plays back the audio. * Example 3 : Splits the structure in example 2 into a specific server application and a client application. This puts the two halves at odds, *competing* with each other for CPU time. Thus if both are run on the same (single CPU) system you will hear audio breakage. If run on separate machines (as client and server(!)) you won't hear this. In practice, part of the issue is that there is no buffering in the receiver. * Example 4 : Simple multicast based streaming system. Since it uses raw ogg vorbis with no resends and no codebook facility, you will need to *start all the client machines first* and *then* the server. Uses the multicast transceiver object exclusively. Requirements ============ * Python 2.3 or higher recommended, though please do report any bugs with 2.2. * Axon (Any released version, 1.0.3 recommended, 1.0.4 when released) * vorbissimple (if you want to use the vorbis decode component) (Both Axon and vorbissimple are separate parts of the Kamaelia project, and available at the same download location - see below) Platforms ========= Kamaelia has been used successfully under both Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. A subset of Kamaelia has been successfully tested on Series 60 Nokia mobiles when used with the Axon SERIES 60 branch. Where can I get it? =================== Web pages are here: http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/Docs/ http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ (includes info on mailing lists) ViewCVS access is available here: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/kamaelia/ Weblog * http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/bl Licensing ========= Kamaelia is released under the Mozilla tri-license scheme (MPL/GPL/LGPL). Specifically you may choose to accept either the Mozilla Public License 1.1, the GNU General Public License 2.0 or the Lesser General Public License 2.1. Proprietary terms and conditions available upon request. Best Regards, Michael. -- Michael.Sparks(a)rd.bbc.co.uk British Broadcasting Corporation, Research and Development Kingswood Warren, Surrey KT20 6NP This message (and any attachments) may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.

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[ANN]: mkapachepw 1.21 Released And Available
by Tim Daneliuk 12 Apr '05

12 Apr '05

'mkapachepw' Version 1.121 is now released and available for download at: http://www.tundraware.com/Software/mkapachepw This is the first public release of the program. A FreeBSD port has been submitted as well. What Is 'mkapachepw'? ------------------ 'mkapachepw' is an Apache user/group management package with a rich set of features: - Automatically Create Apache Users/Groups From Underlying OS Users/Groups: 'mkapachepw' can extract any or all Unix system users and/or groups and automatically include them in the production Apache user and group files. This makes it easy to manage users via the traditional Unix tools and propagate this information for Apache's use. Note that for this to work, Apache has to understand the hash algorithm the underlying Unix system uses to encrypt password. - Break Large, Complex User & Group Data Into Separately Managed Files: User/Group files can be constructed out of any number of subsidiary files. This allows the webmaster to combine separate user and group files that are independently managed by, say, Marketing, Engineering, Sales, and so on, into single, production Apache user and group files. - Specify Which Particular Users/Groups Are To Be Included Or Excluded: Specific users and/or groups can be explicitly included or excluded in the final user and group files. This can be done by name, UID, or GID. These in/exclusions are applied to both system users/groups, as well as those found in the subsidiary files. - Catch (And Prevent) Redefinition Of User/Groups: "Collisions" of users or groups are caught, and optionally, prevented. Say the Marketing user file has a user named "bob", and so does Engineering. If an attempt is made to consolitate these two subsidiary files into a single Apache user file, 'mkapachepw' will, by default, issue a warning (and the last definition will be that one loaded into the Apache user file). A command line switch is available to prevent this entirely by issuing an error and exiting on the first collision encountered. 'mkapachepw' is a pure-Python application and should run on any Unix system that support Python 2.4 or later. The program is known to work on FreeBSD. See the web page for licensing terms and the complete documentation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tim Daneliuk tundra(a)tundraware.com

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SoCal Python Interest Group, April 19
by Grig Gheorghiu 12 Apr '05

12 Apr '05

If you live in the Los Angeles/Orange County area and would like to meet fellow Pythonistas, please consider attending the SoCal Piggies meeting on Tuesday April 19 at 7:30 PM, at the Kerckhoff Marine Lab in Newport Beach. Details are available at http://agile.unisonis.com/socalpiggies . There's also a mailing list you can join at http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/socal-piggies . Hope to see you there! Grig

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NetworkX first public release (NX-0.2)
by ahagberg＠gmail.com 12 Apr '05

12 Apr '05

NetworkX is a Python package for the creation, manipulation, and study of the structure, dynamics, and functions of complex networks. The potential audience includes mathematicians, physicists, biologists, computer scientists, and social scientists. http://networkx.sourceforge.net Aric Hagberg Pieter Swart Dan Schult

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