Mailman 3 June 2003 - Python-Dev

more-precise instructions for "Python.h first"?
by David Abrahams 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

Boost.Python is now trying hard to accomodate the "Python.h before system headers rule". Unfortunately, we still need a wrapper around Python.h, at least for some versions of Python, so that we can work around some issues like: // // Python's LongObject.h helpfully #defines ULONGLONG_MAX for us // even when it's not defined by the system which confuses Boost's // config // To cope with that correctly, we need to see <limits.h> (a system header) before longobject.h. Currently, we're including <limits.h>, then <patchlevel.h>, well, and then the wrapper gets a little complicated adjusting for various compilers. Anyway, the point is that I'd like to have the rule changed to "You have to include Python.h or xxxx.h before any system header" where xxxx.h is one of the other existing headers #included in Python.h that is responsible for setting up whatever macros cause this inclusion-order requirement in the first place (preferably not LongObject.h!) That way I might be able to get those configuration issues sorted out without violating the #inclusion order rule. What I have now seems to work, but I'd rather do the right thing (TM). -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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Descriptor write-up [second draft]
by Raymond Hettinger 01 Jun '03

01 Jun '03

Thanks for the first round of comments. Here is a second draft: http://users.rcn.com/python/download/Descriptor.htm Changes: * various grammatical, punctuation, etc * changed variable names between examples * discuss data and non-data descriptors * show the precedence of the data vs non-data descriptors * moved the C code references inside the Python code * eliminated the python code for obj.__getattribute__ because code was complex enough to hide the discussion points To do: When this one is done, will use it as a basis for updating the official docs. The final version of this will be done through docutils with reStructured text. That ought to take care of the vagaries of converting a Word document to html. Raymond

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Re: [Python-Dev] Descriptor write-up [Draft: Please comment]
by Phillip J. Eby 01 Jun '03

01 Jun '03

At 08:57 AM 6/1/03 -0400, Guido van Rossum wrote: >(I'd like to review this more carefully when I have more time, but one >thing jumped out at me:) > >[Phillip Eby] > > It would be a good idea to add some information about "data" and > > "non-data" descriptors, and the differences of how their attribute > > lookup is processed. I recently posted here about the "attribute > > lookup process" or something to that effect, which covered this. > > Understanding data vs. non-data descriptors is important if you want > > to do pretty much anything with descriptors beyond what property() > > does. > >Note that I recently changed the treatment of data descriptors by >super() in 2.3. typeobject.c rev 2.227/2.228: And an important change it is. If you define methods on metaclasses that might also be defined by their instances (i.e. the classes) on behalf of *their* instances, the only way to get this to work right is to use data descriptors for the metaclass level methods. Which then means super() breaks, so for 2.2 I have a custom 'super()' to work with data descriptors. I rather wish you'd considered it a bugfix rather than a new feature. :)

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Descriptor write-up [Draft: Please comment]
by Raymond Hettinger 01 Jun '03

01 Jun '03

In the spirit of Michele Simionato's write-up on method resolution order, I've written up almost everything I know about descriptors: http://tinyurl.com/d63d Key features: * Defines a descriptor * Shows the protocol and how it is called * Shows a handmade descriptor * Then covers functions, properties, static and class methods * Gives examples of each * Suggests when each would be useful * Gives a pure python definition of each * Provides exact references into C source to save efforts in hunting down details I would like to hammer this into something really useful. So, any and all suggestions are welcome. Raymond Hettinger P.S. I've borrowed Alex Martelli's style of making precise descriptions of how the CPython works by showing pure Python equivalents.

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Weekly Python Bug/Patch Summary
by Skip Montanaro 01 Jun '03

01 Jun '03

Bug/Patch Summary ----------------- 372 open / 3676 total bugs (+1) 149 open / 2183 total patches (no change) New Bugs -------- super passes bad arguments to __get__ when used w/class (2003-05-25) http://python.org/sf/743267 test_socketserver: Fatal error: Invalid thread state (2003-05-26) http://python.org/sf/743692 sum() should be renamed (2003-05-26) http://python.org/sf/744051 ipv6 addrinfo is bad (2003-05-27) http://python.org/sf/744164 anydbm and whichdb again (2003-05-27) http://python.org/sf/744687 Python-Profiler bug: Bad call (2003-05-28) http://python.org/sf/744841 urllib2 doesn't handle urls without scheme (2003-05-28) http://python.org/sf/745097 xml.sax Contenthandler passes truncated data (2003-05-28) http://python.org/sf/745145 threads broke on FreeBSD current (2003-05-28) http://python.org/sf/745320 PACKAGE_* in pyconfig.h (2003-05-30) http://python.org/sf/746012 TypeError raised when deepcopying built-in functions (2003-05-30) http://python.org/sf/746304 2.2.3c1 install-sh out of date (2003-05-30) http://python.org/sf/746366 socket.sendto(SOCK_DGRAM) very slow on OSX! (2003-05-31) http://python.org/sf/746895 indentation error in unixcompiler.py (2003-06-01) http://python.org/sf/746953 New Patches ----------- patch for new func. string.findall (2003-01-27) http://python.org/sf/675864 Remove eval() from csv (2003-05-27) http://python.org/sf/744104 FreeBSD 4 port of python-2.2.3... (2003-05-31) http://python.org/sf/746801 Closed Bugs ----------- python -S still displays 'Type "help", "cop...' (2003-01-22) http://python.org/sf/672614 patch for new func. string.findall (2003-01-27) http://python.org/sf/675864 Python does not build --with-pydebug on Tru64 with vendor cc (2003-02-25) http://python.org/sf/693094 string exceptions are deprecated (2003-04-10) http://python.org/sf/719367 test_bsddb3 fails (2003-04-25) http://python.org/sf/727571 Pimp needs to be able to update itself (2003-05-02) http://python.org/sf/731626 Package Manager needs Help menu (2003-05-02) http://python.org/sf/731635 bsddb.*open mode should default to 'r' rather than 'c' (2003-05-05) http://python.org/sf/732951 kwargs handled incorrectly (2003-05-06) http://python.org/sf/733667 Function for creating/extracting CoreFoundation types (2003-05-08) http://python.org/sf/734695 forcing function to act like an unbound method dumps core (2003-05-13) http://python.org/sf/736892 Interpreter crash: sigfpe on Alpha (2003-05-14) http://python.org/sf/738066 test_long failure (2003-05-22) http://python.org/sf/741806 WeakKeyDictionary __delitem__ uses iterkeys (2003-05-24) http://python.org/sf/742860 Memory fault on complex weakref/weakkeydict delete (2003-05-24) http://python.org/sf/742911 Closed Patches -------------- fix test_long failure on OSF/1 (2003-04-10) http://python.org/sf/719359 Fixes for setup.py in Mac/OSX/Docs (2003-04-27) http://python.org/sf/728744 Pydoc.py fixes links (2003-05-10) http://python.org/sf/735694 HP-UX support for unixccompiler.py (2003-05-20) http://python.org/sf/740301 check for true in diffrent paths, -pthread support (2003-05-24) http://python.org/sf/742741

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Python-Dev June 2003