Mailman 3 June 2009 - Python-announce-list

[ANN] PuDB 0.92.1 - a console-based visual debugger
by Andreas Klöckner 22 Jun '09

22 Jun '09

What is it? ----------- PuDB is a full-screen, console-based visual debugger for Python. Its goal is to provide all the niceties of modern GUI-based debuggers in a more lightweight and keyboard-friendly package. PuDB allows you to debug code right where you write and test it--in a terminal. If you've worked with the excellent (but nowadays ancient) DOS-based Turbo Pascal or C tools, PuDB's UI might look familiar. Where can I get it? -------------------- You may find the most recent version (0.92.1 as of this writing) here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pudb (like screencasts? there is one!) Main Features ------------- * Syntax-highlighted source, the stack, breakpoints and variables are all visible at once and continuously updated. This helps you be more aware of what's going on in your program. Variable displays can be expanded, collapsed and have various customization options. * Simple, keyboard-based navigation using single keystrokes makes debugging quick and easy. PuDB understands cursor-keys and Vi shortcuts for navigation. Other keys are inspired by the corresponding pdb coomands. * Use search to find relevant source code, or use "m" to invoke the module browser that shows loaded modules, lets you load new ones and reload existing ones. * Breakpoints can be set just by pointing at a source line and hitting "b" and then edited visually in the breakpoints window. Or hit "t" to run to the line under the cursor. * Drop to a Python shell in the current environment by pressing "!". * PuDB places special emphasis on exception handling. A post-mortem mode makes it easy to retrace a crashing program's last steps. License and Dependencies ------------------------ PuDB is distributed under the MIT license. It is based on Ian Ward's Urwid library and can optionally make use of Georg Brandl's Pygments for syntax highlighting. Andreas <inform(a)tiker.net>

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dbf converter
by mail.motzarella.org 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

Good day. dbfconverter.py 0.02 has been released. What is dbfconverter.py? dbfconverter.py is platform independent python script. It converts database with dbf files or single dbf file into sql code, wich you can load into any sql database. dbfconverter.py supports encoding changing, changing sql file format (now it has 3 formats: mssql, mysql, postgresql). If you need, you can create your own sql file format. dbfconverter.py need python to be installed. it is available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/dbfconverter Version 0.02 changes: * Removed db api sinchronization * Added some extended sql formats. Now user can change, what format will be the sql file. * Now you can create your own format of sql file (see formats.txt in docs folder)

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[ANNOUNCE] PyGTK 2.15.2 - unstable
by Gian Mario Tagliaretti 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

A new unstable development release of the Python bindings for GTK+ has been released. The new release is available from ftp.gnome.org and its mirrors as soon as its synced correctly: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/pygtk/2.15/ Thanks to Paul Pogonyshev who has done all the hard job preparing this release. Blurb: GTK+ is a toolkit for developing graphical applications that run on systems such as Linux, Windows and MacOS X. It provides a comprehensive set of GUI widgets, can display Unicode bidi text. It links into the Gnome Accessibility Framework through the ATK library. PyGTK provides a convenient wrapper for the GTK+ library for use in Python programs, and takes care of many of the boring details such as managing memory and type casting. When combined with PyORBit and gnome-python, it can be used to write full featured Gnome applications. Like the GTK+ library itself PyGTK is licensed under the GNU LGPL, so is suitable for use in both free software and proprietary applications. It is already in use in many applications ranging from small single purpose scripts up to large full features applications. What's new since 2.15.1? - Rename gtk.Statusbar.remove() to gtk.Statusbar.remove_message (Paul) - Allow pango.Context creation (Paul, #550855) - Make gtk.gdk.Pixbuf.add_alpha accept integers, retaining backward compatibility accepting also chars (Paul, #586094) - Protect window obj from GC in gtk.window_get_toplevels (Gustavo, #574259) - Plug huge number of memory leaks in Pango wrappers (Paul) - Add gtk.gdk.WINDOWING constant (Paul, #555112) - Wrap gdk_pixbuf_apply_embedded_orientation (Chris Wilson) - Modernize constructors of seven more types (Paul) - Don't free a string we don't own (Paul, #585458) - Some docs tweaking (Gian) Bug reports, as always, should go to Bugzilla; check out http://pygtk.org/developer.html and http://pygtk.org/feedback.html for links to posting and querying bug reports for PyGTK. cheers -- Gian Mario Tagliaretti GNOME Foundation member gianmt(a)gnome.org

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Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Jun 20)
by Gabriel Genellina 20 Jun '09

20 Jun '09

QOTW: "... open recursion with abstraction is supported in OOP but it requires elaborate and rather tedious boilerplate in FP ..." - Martin Odersky http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A--scala--usefulness-of-OOP-p23273389.html How to write a method that may act both as an instance method and as a class method: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/41e360… How to check the Python version? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/105dd4… Exceptions alter the normal lifetime of some objects: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/7f9056… Are exit() and sys.exit() the same thing? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/72b318… "Exotic" logics http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/75d688… A compilation of good books in Computer Science/Software Engineering: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/952fac… itertools.intersect is missing? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/4772d9… From Perl to Python: Lexical (private) scope: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2b2536… Multiple sequence subscripts: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/61c1d8… None, vacuous truth, denotational semantics, and other philosophical aspects of emptyness: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/3c5397… Walking a directory containing many many files: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/ff3905… How to get the total size of a local hard disk in a cross-platform way :) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/c6c09fa6b3b62f84 ======================================================================== Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in these pages: Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional center of Pythonia http://www.python.org Notice especially the master FAQ http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the marvelous daily python url http://www.pythonware.com/daily Just beginning with Python? This page is a great place to start: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers The Python Papers aims to publish "the efforts of Python enthusiasts": http://pythonpapers.org/ The Python Magazine is a technical monthly devoted to Python: http://pythonmagazine.com Readers have recommended the "Planet" sites: http://planetpython.org http://planet.python.org comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be sure to scan this newsgroup weekly. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python.announce/topics Python411 indexes "podcasts ... to help people learn Python ..." Updates appear more-than-weekly: http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html The Python Package Index catalogues packages. http://www.python.org/pypi/ Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group mailing lists http://www.python.org/sigs/ Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're subject with a vision of what the language makes practical. http://www.pythonology.com/success The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official responsibility for Python's development and maintenance. http://www.python.org/psf/ Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation. http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ The Summary of Python Tracker Issues is an automatically generated report summarizing new bugs, closed ones, and patch submissions. http://search.gmane.org/?author=status%40bugs.python.org&group=gmane.comp.p… Although unmaintained since 2002, the Cetus collection of Python hyperlinks retains a few gems. http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html Python FAQTS http://python.faqts.com/ The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and interesting recipes. http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/ Many Python conferences around the world are in preparation. Watch this space for links to them. Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available, see: http://www.python.org/channews.rdf For more, see: http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?ShowMatch=python&ShowStatus=all The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a SourceForge reincarnation. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0042/ del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary. It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence. http://del.icio.us/tag/python Enjoy the *Python Magazine*. http://pymag.phparch.com/ *Py: the Journal of the Python Language* http://www.pyzine.com Dr.Dobb's Portal is another source of Python news and articles: http://www.ddj.com/TechSearch/searchResults.jhtml?queryText=python and Python articles regularly appear at IBM DeveloperWorks: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/search/searchResults.jsp?searchSite=dW&se… Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here: http://search.gmane.org/?query=python+URL+weekly+news+links&group=gmane.com… http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=Python-URL!+group%3Acomp.lang.pyth… http://lwn.net/Search/DoSearch?words=python-url&ctype3=yes&cat_25=yes There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments for and against are occasionally entertained. Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome. E-mail to <Python-URL(a)phaseit.net> should get through. To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning (approximately), ask <claird(a)phaseit.net> to subscribe. Mention "Python-URL!". Write to the same address to unsubscribe. -- The Python-URL! Team-- Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and sponsor the "Python-URL!" project. Watch this space for upcoming news about posting archives.

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ANN: W3C HTML batch Validator in Python
by Christof Hoeke 20 Jun '09

20 Jun '09

what is it ---------- A simple script calling the W3C HTML Validator in batch mode. Adapted from Perl version. changes since the last full release ----------------------------------- - BUGFIX: checks for Valid or Invalid adapted to changes of W3C HTML Validator HTML (the check is really naive!) - BUGFIX: fixed saving of reports - improvement of output - added valid and invalid example HTML download -------- download validate-1.7 - 090620 from http://cthedot.de/batchvalidator/ tested on Python 2.6.2 only but should work on other versions as it is really simple... Included is a (modified) httplib_multipart.py script (originally from http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/146306) to be able to POST fields and files to an HTTP host as multipart/form-data. any comment appreciated... thanks, Christof

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discover: automatic test discovery for unittest
by Fuzzyman 20 Jun '09

20 Jun '09

The discover module is a backport of the automatic test discovery from python-trunk (what will become Python 2.7 & 3.2) to work with Python 2.4 or more recent (including Python 3.0). Test discovery allows you to run all the unittest based tests (or just a subset of them) in your project without you having to write your own test collection or running machinery. Once installed, test discovery can be invoked with ``python -m discover``. I've tested the discover module with Python 2.4 and 3.0. The discover module also implements the ``load_tests`` protocol which allows you to customize test loading from modules and packages. Test discovery and ``load_tests`` are implemented in the ``DiscoveringTestLoader`` which can be used from your own test framework. * discover module on PyPI http://pypi.python.org/pypi/discover discover can be installed with pip or easy_install. After installing switch the current directory to the top level directory of your project and run:: python -m discover python discover.py This will discover all tests (with certain restrictions) from the current directory. The discover module has several options to control its behavior (full usage options are displayed with ``python -m discover -h``):: Usage: discover.py [options] Options: -v, --verbose Verbose output -s directory Directory to start discovery ('.' default) -p pattern Pattern to match test files ('test*.py' default) -t directory Top level directory of project (default to start directory) For test discovery all test modules must be importable from the top level directory of the project. For example to use a different pattern for matching test modules run:: python -m discover -p '*test.py' (Remember to put quotes around the test pattern or shells like bash will do shell expansion rather than passing the pattern through to discover.) Test discovery is implemented in ``discover.DiscoveringTestLoader.discover``. As well as using discover as a command line script you can import ``DiscoveringTestLoader``, which is a subclass of ``unittest.TestLoader``, and use it in your test framework. This method finds and returns all test modules from the specified start directory, recursing into subdirectories to find them. Only test files that match *pattern* will be loaded. (Using shell style pattern matching.) All test modules must be importable from the top level of the project. If the start directory is not the top level directory then the top level directory must be specified separately. The ``load_tests`` protocol allows test modules and packages to customize how they are loaded. This is implemented in ``discover.DiscoveringTestLoader.loadTestsFromModule``. If a test module defines a ``load_tests`` function then tests are loaded from the module by calling ``load_tests`` with three arguments: `loader`, `standard_tests`, `None`. If a test package name (directory with `__init__.py`) matches the pattern then the package will be checked for a ``load_tests`` function. If this exists then it will be called with *loader*, *tests*, *pattern*. If ``load_tests`` exists then discovery does *not* recurse into the package, ``load_tests`` is responsible for loading all tests in the package. The pattern is deliberately not stored as a loader attribute so that packages can continue discovery themselves. *top_level_dir* is stored so ``load_tests`` does not need to pass this argument in to ``loader.discover()``. discover.py is maintained in a google code project (where bugs and feature requests should be posted): http://code.google.com/p/unittest-ext/ The latest development version of discover.py can be found at: http://code.google.com/p/unittest-ext/source/browse/trunk/discover.py Michael Foord

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Karrigell-3.0 released
by Pierre Quentel 20 Jun '09

20 Jun '09

Hi there, I am glad to announce the version 3.0 of the Python web framework Karrigell Karrigell has been around since 2002 and after numerous versions, until 2.4.0 last year, it needed a complete rewriting. Some modules had been written long ago, using out-of-date patterns ; the global architecture needed cleaning up, to replace an accumulation of modules added one release after the other ; most important, the previous versions were unable to run reliably in a multithreaded environment, which was a serious limitation for professional web developement The decision was taken more than one year ago to rewrite almost everything, while stricking to the same guidelines of simplicity for the programmer and administrator : - no configuration needed to get started : just unzip the package and run "python Karrigell.py" to start the built-in web server - URLs match scripts in the file system - no imposed ORM, templating engine : all you need to know is Python and HTML, plus a few built-in names for access to environment, form data, etc - the most usual tasks in web programing (sessions, user management, redirection, etc) are accessible though built-in functions and exceptions with a very intuitive syntax : Session() returns the session object, Login() checks if a user is logged in and redirects to a login page otherwise, "raise HTTP_REDIRECTION, url" redirects to the specified url, etc - clear debugging info - a choice between a variety of coding styles : while the recommended way is to use "Karrigell services" (Python scripts with the whole logic of a web application in one script), other options are possible, including a PHP-like format with Python code inside HTML markup The most efficient and flexible way to run Karrigell is to use the built-in multithreaded or multi-process web server ; for Windows user, an exe file is available and allows running the framework from a USB key on any machine, even if no Python interpreter is installed. The built-in server has been tested by hundreds of users on all possible configurations, it is robust, reliable and fast enough for 99% of web sites Of course, it can also be integrated to other web servers, with a special effort on Apache integration (CGI mode, mod_python) ; you can also configure your server to serve static files and proxy the requests to the built-in server Karrigell does not impose anything on database choice : since scripts are pure Python, any db engine with a Python API can be used, either directly or through an ORM like SQLAlchemy. All template engines are also supported Though it's an almost complete rewriting, the syntax remains almost 100% compatible with previous versions. Migrating from 2.x to 3.0 should be easy (much easier than from Python 2.x to 3.0). The two main changes, introduced for multithread support, are relative to : - relative paths in the file system : in previous versions, they were converted to absolute path relative to the script's path ; in version 3.0, they must be converted by a built-in function REL() - import of user-defined modules : instead of the standard Python statement "import foo", the syntax is now foo = Import("foo") A tool to detect potential migration issues in provided in the package I thank all the people on the Karrigell group who helped by their advices, suggestions, support and code Enjoy ! Pierre

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Announce: rst2pdf 0.11 is out
by Roberto Alsina 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

It's my pleasure to announce the release of rst2pdf version 0.11, available at http://code.google.com/p/rst2pdf/downloads/list Rst2pdf is a tool to generate PDF files directly from restructured text sources via reportlab. This version includes many bugfixes and some new features compared to the previous 0.10.1 version, including but not limited to embedding PDF images, much improved image sizing, nicer list layouts, better styling, page backgrounds, and more than 15 bugs fixed. A full changelog is included at the bottom of this message. Rst2pdf aims to support the full restructured text feature set, and is very close to that goal, while also including some of the more experimental features, like a source code directive with syntax highlighting and math notation support with LaTeX-like syntax. It supports embedding arbitrary fonts, both True Type and PS Type 1, both raster and vector images (including SVG), page transition effects, multiple, flexible page layouts, cascading styles, and much, much more. You can find more information about rst2pdf in its home page ( http://rst2pdf.googlecode.com), and ask anything you want in the rst2pdf- discuss mailing list (http://groups.google.com/group/rst2pdf-discuss) Here are the changes in this version compared to 0.10.1: * Degrade more gracefully when one or more wordaxe hyphenators are broken (currently DWC is the broken one) * Fixed issue 132: in some cases, with user-defined fontAlias, bold and italic would get confused (getting italic instead of bold in inline markup, for instance). * New stylesheet no-compact-lists to make lists... less compact * SVG images now handle % as a width unit correctly. * Implemented issue 127: support images in PDF format. Right now they are rasterized, so it's not ideal. Perhaps something better will come up later. * Fixed issue 129: make it work around a prblem with KeepTogether in RL 2.1 it probably makes the output look worse in some cases when using that. RL 2.1 is not really supported, so added a warning. * Fixed issue 130: use os.pathsep instead of ":" since ":" in windows is used in disk names (and we still pay for DOS idiocy, in 2009) * Fixed issue 128: headings level 3+ all looked the same * Ugly bugfix for Issue 126: crashes when using images in header + TOC * New tstyles section in the stylesheet provides more configurable list layouts and more powerful table styling. * Better syntax highlighting (supports bold/italic) * Workaround for issue 103 so you can use borderPadding as a list (but it will look wrong if you are using wordaxe <= 0.3.2) * Added fieldvalue style for field lists * Added optionlist tstyle, for option lists * Added collection of utility stylesheets and documented it * Improved command line parsing and stylesheet loading (guess extension like latest rst2latex does) * Fixed Issue 67: completely new list layouting code * Fixed Issue 116: crashes caused by huge images * Better support for %width in images, n2ow it's % of the container frame's width, not of the text area. * Fixed bug in SVG scaling * Better handling of missing images * Added missing styles abstract, contents, dedication to the default stylesheet * Tables style support spaceBefore and spaceAfter * New topic-title style for topic titles (obvious ;-) * Vertical alignment for inline images (:align: parameter) * Issue 118: Support for :scale: in images and handle resizing of inline images * Issue 119: Fix placement of headers and footers * New background property for page templates (nice for presentations, for example) * Default to px for image width specifications instead of pt * Support all required measurement units ("em" "ex" "px" "in" "cm" "mm" "pt" "pc" "%" "") * New automated scripts to check test cases for "visual differences" * Respect images DPI property a bit like rst2latex does. * Issue 110: New --inline-footnotes option * Tested with reportlab from SVN trunk * Support for Dinu Gherman's svglib. If both svglib and uniconvertor are available, svglib is preferred (for SVG, of course). Patch originally by rute. * Issue 109: Separate styles for each kind of admonition * For Issue 109: missing styles are not a fatal error * Issue 117: TOCs with more than 6 levels now supported (raised limit to 9, which is silly deep) -- ("\''/").__..-''"`-. . Roberto Alsina `9_ 9 ) `-. ( ).`-._.`) KDE Developer (MFCH) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._`. " -.-' http://lateral.netmanagers.com.ar _..`-'_..-_/ /-'_.' The 6,855th most popular site of Slovenia (l)-'' ((i).' ((!.' according to alexa.com (27/5/2007) "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs, I said. We have a protractor. Okay, I’ll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string." — Neal Stephenson

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ErrorHandler 1.0.0 Released!
by Chris Withers 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

I'm pleased to finally get around to announcing the release of ErrorHandler. This is a handler for the python standard logging framework that can be used to tell whether messages have been logged at or above a certain level. This can be useful when wanting to ensure that no errors have been logged before committing data back to a database. Here's an example: First, you set up the error handler: >>> from logging import getLogger >>> from errorhandler import ErrorHandler >>> logger = getLogger() >>> e = ErrorHandler() The handler started off being un-fired: >>> e.fired False Then you do whatever else you need to do, which may involve logging: >>> logger.info('some information') >>> e.fired False However, if any logging occurs at an error level or above: >>> logger.error('an error') Then the error handler becomes fired: >>> e.fired True You use this as a condition to only do certain actions when no errors have been logged: >>> if e.fired: ... print "Not updating files as errors have occurred" Not updating files as errors have occurred If your code does work in batches, you may wish to reset the error handler at the start of each batch: >>> e.reset() >>> e.fired False For more information, please see: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/python/errorhandler or http://pypi.python.org/pypi/errorhandler cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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MailingLogger 3.3.0 Released!
by Chris Withers 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

I'm pleased to announce a new release of Mailinglogger. Mailinglogger provides two handlers for the standard python logging framework that enable log entries to be emailed either as the entries are logged or as a summary at the end of the running process. The handlers have the following features: - customisable and dynamic subject lines for emails sent - emails sent with an X-Mailer header for easy filtering - flood protection to ensure the number of emails sent is not excessive - support for SMTP servers that require authentication - fully documented and tested In addition, extra support is provided for configuring the handlers when using ZConfig, Zope 2 or Zope 3. The latest releases of ZConfig, in particular, provide a great way to configure the python logging framework without having to resort to the appalling .ini-based configuration stuff: >>> from ZConfig import configureLoggers >>> configureLoggers(''' ... <logger> ... level INFO ... <logfile> ... PATH STDOUT ... format %(levelname)s %(name)s %(message)s ... </logfile> ... </logger> ... ''') This release of MailingLogger adds the ability to use %(levelname)s in subject-line formatting for SummarisingLoggers to include the highest level logged. For more information, please see: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/python/mailinglogger or http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mailinglogger cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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