Mailman 3 July 2004 - Python-Dev

file() or open()?
by Guido van Rossum 12 Jul '04

12 Jul '04

I recently saw a checkin that changed a call to open() into a call to file(), suggesting that using file() is more "politically correct" than open(). I'm not sure I agree with this. While open() and file() are currently aliases for the same object, this may not always be the case (it certainly wasn't always the case :-). In the future, I could see open() become a factory function again that could return an instance of a different class depending on the mode argument, the default encoding for files, or who knows what; but file will always remain a class. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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Re: decorators and 2.4
by Martin Zarate 12 Jul '04

12 Jul '04

I'm not sure if I should be writing this, I apologise in advanced if I'm wasting anyone's time - I've read over all of the arguments on decorators (last time I posted on the subject I hadn't, and I apologise for that as well). I know Guido wants no new concepts of syntax, but it seems that all the concepts have merit - so why not a little synergy? Best of both worlds? first complaint: @ is currently used in many projects, and is an ugly character. second complaint: > [descriptors] > def blah blah blah: is currently valid Python, and looks like valid Python, so it will confuse people. third complaint: many suggestions are ungreppable. So, a solution, mixing them all so that it becomes more than a simple list declaration: as [descriptors] def blah blah blah: or, an alternate, simply using the "as" keyword in the place of Guido's Java- style "@" character. as descriptor1 as descriptor2 def blah blah blah: Both of these are far more unique than other suggested blocks of code (like the [] header), allowing easier grepping and syntax highlighting, without having to go using the @ character that a) takes up one of the few unused Python special characters and b) breaks compatibility with some external processor programs. IIRC, the "as" keyword became a protected keyword in recent versions, did it not? So it doesn't break anything to convert into a full keyword. It also makes syntactic sense, as you read "as staticmethod define myfunction" or "as functor(member1, member2, member3) define myfunction" when you read aloud. It makes sense, keeping Python code legible and friendly. In my personal tastes, I'd prefer the "as" keywords to go below the function header before the docstring, but I see that most others disagree. Anyhow, my suggestion is a little more verbose, but I find it very legible and sensible (and given how Python is often used as a learning language, those features should be near the forefront). I hope I haven't wasted anyone's time. -- Martin Z.

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Queue.Queue guts replaced
by Tim Peters 12 Jul '04

12 Jul '04

Here's the checkin comment. Note the last item: I haven't done comparative timings, because I don't care. If you do, feel encouraged. I can't be convinced to care even if it's 10x slower than before, so if it is, complain here and get a constituency if you care enough to re-obfuscate it. """ Bug #788520: Queue class has logic error when non-blocking I don't agree it had a bug (see the report), so this is *not* a candidate for backporting, but the docs were confusing and the Queue implementation was old enough to vote. Rewrote put/put_nowait/get/get_nowait from scratch, to use a pair of Conditions (not_full and not_empty), sharing a common mutex. The code is 1/4 the size now, and 6.25x easier to understand. For blocking with timeout, we also get to reuse (indirectly) the tedious timeout code from threading.Condition. The Full and Empty exceptions raised by non-blocking calls are now easy (instead of nearly impossible) to explain truthfully: Full is raised if and only if the Queue truly is full when the non-blocking put call checks the queue size, and similarly for Empty versus non-blocking get. What I don't know is whether the new implementation is slower (or faster) than the old one. I don't really care. Anyone who cares a lot is encouraged to check that. """

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posixpath.py CVS contains tabs
by Simon Percivall 11 Jul '04

11 Jul '04

The CVS version of posixpath.py contains tabs at lines 409, 428, 431 and 433, making installation fail.

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Equal but different keys in dicts
by Michael Chermside 11 Jul '04

11 Jul '04

Suppose you create two objects which are, in fact, different, but which are == to each other. >>> class AllEqual: ... def __init__(self, name): ... self.name = name ... def __repr__(self): ... return self.name ... def __eq__(self, other): ... return 1 ... def __hash__(self) ... return 47 ... >>> a = AllEqual('a') >>> b = AllEqual('b') >>> a == b 1 Now use one as a key in a dict, then try re-setting that value: >>> map = {a:'one'} >>> map {a: 'one'} >>> map[b] = 'two' >>> map {a: 'two'} That last line could just as well have read "{b: 'two'}", but the implementation of dict keeps the ORIGINAL key rather than using the NEW key. This is the behavior of both CPython and Jython. My question is this: is this behavior intentional, or is it an "implementation detail"? If intentional, is there a reason for the choice, or is it just that one or the other behavior needed to be chosen? [PS: I'm hoping that a good answer to this question will allow me to close bug 748126] -- Michael Chermside

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Python 2.4a1 use of c:\winnt directory
by Joseph Klepach 11 Jul '04

11 Jul '04

[Klepach, Joseph] >>The python 2.4a1 release using the msi installer insists on copying >>python24.dll to the C:\WINNT\system32 directory instead the of requested >>user >>directory. >> >>This did not occur in the past and is causing a problem because my company >>locks the c:\winnt directory on all user pc's. ... >>Will this functionality be part of the official release? [Martin v. Löwis] >Yes. Chose a per-user installation if you don't want to install Python >into the system directory. Ah, OK, you're saying this is *already* available ... and it is. Joseph, when you run the .msi thingie, click the Advanced button in the second screen. Then there's a radio button controlling whether to install for all users, or just the current user. I selected the latter, and python24.dll was installed under my Python24 directory instead of under a system directory. [Joseph Klepach] That's what I tried to do. Since I do not have admin privileges on my C:\ drive, I expected the python24.dll to be installed under my Python24 directory. The Advanced button informed me that I did not have admin privileges and would install under my local user directory: it did not. The only other thing different was that I did not use the default c:\python24 directory, but chose another one. Regards _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

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Python 2.4a1 use of c:\winnt directory
by Klepach, Joseph 11 Jul '04

11 Jul '04

The python 2.4a1 release using the msi installer insists on copying python24.dll to the C:\WINNT\system32 directory instead the of requested user directory. This did not occur in the past and is causing a problem because my company locks the c:\winnt directory on all user pc's. Will this functionality be part of the official release? Regards, joe ============================================================================== This message is for the sole use of the intended recipient. If you received this message in error please delete it and notify us. If this message was misdirected, CSFB does not waive any confidentiality or privilege. CSFB retains and monitors electronic communications sent through its network. Instructions transmitted over this system are not binding on CSFB until they are confirmed by us. Message transmission is not guaranteed to be secure. ==============================================================================

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Why is Bytecode the way it is?
by Paul Prescod 11 Jul '04

11 Jul '04

So I gave a tutorial last night on Python's implementation. I had a pretty clear idea of the parser, compiler, AST branch etc. But the bytecodes were fuzzy. For instance: >>> def foo(a): ... b = a + 5 ... return b ... >>> dis.dis(foo) 2 0 LOAD_FAST 0 (a) 3 LOAD_CONST 1 (5) 6 BINARY_ADD 7 STORE_FAST 1 (b) 3 10 LOAD_FAST 1 (b) 13 RETURN_VALUE 14 LOAD_CONST 0 (None) 17 RETURN_VALUE Why does the RETURN_VALUE opcode have to return something from the stack? Why not have a RETURN_VAR opcode that would directly return a variable or constant? (a leading bit could indicate whether to look in the const or var tuple). Similarly, what if BINARY_ADD could work directly on constants and variables? I see the virtue of using the stack for objects that do not otherwise have a name. But if a value is in a contant or variable, why not refer to it by its position in co_consts or co_varnames. And as long as we are talking about referring to things more directly, wouldn't it be possible to refer to constants by pointer rather than indirecting through the index? You'd have to fix up pointers when you first loaded the code but only once per function. Paul Prescod

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Bug day reminder
by A.M. Kuchling 10 Jul '04

10 Jul '04

The bug day is currently going on in #python-dev on irc.freenode.net. --amk

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Weekly Python Bug/Patch Summary
by Kurt B. Kaiser 10 Jul '04

10 Jul '04

Patch / Bug Summary ___________________ Patches : 294 open ( +8) / 2434 closed (+12) / 2728 total (+20) Bugs : 778 open ( +7) / 4197 closed (+29) / 4975 total (+36) RFE : 144 open ( +2) / 129 closed ( +0) / 273 total ( +2) New / Reopened Patches ______________________ crach link c++ extension by mingw (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/981773 opened by Alexandr Zamaraev webbrower support for firebird / firefox (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/981794 opened by Thenault Sylvain applesingle endianness issue (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/982340 opened by Bob Ippolito add SO_EXCLUSIVEADDRUSE constant in socketmodule.c (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/982665 opened by Garth Bushell asyncore.dispatcher.set_reuse_addr() is broken on windows (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/982681 opened by Garth Bushell Making weakref.ref subclassable (2004-06-30) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/983019 opened by Fred L. Drake, Jr. MSVC6/7 issues with bdist_wininst and --target-version (2004-07-01) http://python.org/sf/983164 opened by Mark Hammond Allow ldshared to be overridden by environment var (2004-07-01) http://python.org/sf/983206 opened by Liam Routt Allow bdist_wininst to install for non-admin users (2004-07-02) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/983775 opened by Mark Hammond Address bug 980938, add set_debug_output() function (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/984492 opened by James Lamanna Fix bug 982806 - allow for optional 2nd argument (2004-07-02) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/984495 opened by James Lamanna socket module does not support AF_NETLINK (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984654 opened by Matthias Klose Fix bug 982806 - allow for optional 2nd argument (2004-07-03) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/984672 opened by James Lamanna fix regression on 2.3 branch: Lib/threading (2004-07-04) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/984880 opened by Matthias Klose bug skipping optional keyword arguments of type "w#" (2004-07-05) http://python.org/sf/985713 opened by Mark D. Roth add missing doc for datetime C API (2004-07-06) http://python.org/sf/986010 opened by Anthony Tuininga Is there a nested loop limit? (2004-07-07) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/986720 opened by chimeda Add support for sync and use "wish" options (2004-07-07) http://python.org/sf/986929 opened by Greg Couch cgitb: escape title of page (2004-07-08) http://python.org/sf/987052 opened by Thomas Guettler decimal.py signal/exception fix (2004-07-08) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/987300 opened by David Goodger Patches Closed ______________ Parser/acceler.c: PyObject_MALLOC return is not checked (2004-06-17) http://python.org/sf/974633 closed by akuchling Patch for feature request 491033 (2004-05-20) http://python.org/sf/957240 closed by mwh unblock signals in threads (2004-05-25) http://python.org/sf/960406 closed by mwh Making weakref.ref subclassable (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/983019 closed by fdrake Fix for 754449: hiding exc in threading during interp shutdn (2004-05-16) http://python.org/sf/954922 closed by bcannon Allow bdist_wininst to install for non-admin users (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/983775 closed by mhammond Fix bug 982806 - allow for optional 2nd argument (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984495 closed by akuchling Fix bug 982806 - allow for optional 2nd argument (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984672 closed by akuchling fix regression on 2.3 branch: Lib/threading (2004-07-04) http://python.org/sf/984880 closed by bcannon partially initialized heap allocated type objects (2004-06-26) http://python.org/sf/980475 closed by ehuss Is there a nested loop limit? (2004-07-07) http://python.org/sf/986720 closed by mwh decimal.py signal/exception fix (2004-07-08) http://python.org/sf/987300 closed by goodger New / Reopened Bugs ___________________ Missing space in sec 3.3.1 (2004-06-27) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/980986 opened by Christopher Ingram Rsync protocol missing from urlparse (2004-06-28) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/981299 opened by Morten Kjeldgaard UnboundLocalError in shutil.rmtree() (2004-06-28) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/981530 opened by Guido van Rossum PyObject_Str() and PyObject_Repr() corrupt object type (2004-06-29) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/982008 opened by Kevin Gadd Relative Path causing crash in RotatingFileHandler (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/982049 opened by David London Next button not greyed out during file copy. (2004-06-29) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/982215 opened by Phil Rittenhouse Bad state of multi btree database file after large inserts (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/982679 opened by Elerion Elrond gdbm.open () fails with a single argument (2004-06-30) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/982806 opened by Roy Smith incorrect len (2004-07-01) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/983269 opened by calvinlow simple attribute access causing segfault in certain cases (2004-07-01) http://python.org/sf/983311 opened by Simon Michael test_repr() fails with id() values that appear negative (2004-07-01) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/983585 opened by Fred L. Drake, Jr. Buffer Protocol Prototypes Incorrect (2004-07-02) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/984017 opened by Timothy Stranex hotspot.stats.load is very slow (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/984219 opened by Viktor Ferenczi Useless question in bdist_winst installers (2004-07-02) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/984290 opened by Thomas Heller Tiny suggestion to improve optparse doc (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984691 opened by Laura Creighton unknown parsing error (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984714 opened by Igor Sidorenkov Py_BuildValue loses reference counts on error (2004-07-03) http://python.org/sf/984722 opened by Pete Shinners curses: getmaxyx() breaks when the window shrinks (2004-07-04) http://python.org/sf/984870 opened by Matthias Klose PEP 307 pickle extensions not documented (2004-07-04) http://python.org/sf/984952 opened by Greg Chapman plistlib crashes too easily on bad files (2004-07-04) http://python.org/sf/985064 opened by Jack Jansen getattr(object,name) accepts only strings (2004-07-05) http://python.org/sf/985094 opened by Viktor Ferenczi HAVE_FDATASYNC incorrectly set for 2.3.4 under cygwin (2004-07-04) http://python.org/sf/985154 opened by Gregory Smith bdist_rpm license documented, but not accepted as valid (2004-07-05) http://python.org/sf/985478 opened by Charles BaseHTTPServer to take host from cmdline? (2004-07-05) http://python.org/sf/985651 opened by Tom Lynn valgrind/memcheck alert: Python 2.3.4 Objects/obmalloc.c (2004-07-05) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/985708 opened by Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve weakref should have a WeakSet (2004-07-06) http://python.org/sf/985753 opened by Leonardo Rochael Almeida bsddb/weakref error (2004-07-07) http://python.org/sf/986528 opened by Skip Montanaro New mandatory 2nd argument to site.addsitedir breaks compat (2004-07-07) http://python.org/sf/986795 opened by Jp Calderone Configure bugs (2004-07-07) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/986884 opened by Dr. Tom TimedRotatingFileHandler problems (2004-07-08) http://python.org/sf/987166 opened by Amaury Forgeot d'Arc Python 2.4a1, interpreter hanging on Keyboard Interrupt (2004-07-08) CLOSED http://python.org/sf/987287 opened by Simon Percivall Typo in cgi doc (2004-07-08) http://python.org/sf/987486 opened by Cory Dodt pep 311 functions missing documentation (2004-07-09) http://python.org/sf/987835 opened by Simon Dahlbacka Windows installer for 2.4a1 shows non-standard version (2004-07-09) http://python.org/sf/987870 opened by Paul Moore bdist_wininst improvements (2004-07-09) http://python.org/sf/988022 opened by Thomas Heller httplib.HTTPResponse.read() not updating the length correctl (2004-07-09) http://python.org/sf/988120 opened by Mihai Ibanescu Compiler warnings for Modules/readline.c:flex_complete() (2004-07-09) http://python.org/sf/988300 opened by Brett Cannon Bugs Closed ___________ Missing space in sec 3.3.1 (2004-06-27) http://python.org/sf/980986 closed by bcannon Possible contradiction in "extending" and PyArg_ParseTuple() (2004-06-27) http://python.org/sf/980925 closed by bcannon Rsync protocol missing from urlparse (2004-06-28) http://python.org/sf/981299 closed by bcannon UnboundLocalError in shutil.rmtree() (2004-06-28) http://python.org/sf/981530 closed by gvanrossum Crash when reading "import table" of certain windows DLLs (2004-05-11) http://python.org/sf/951851 closed by theller Over restricted type checking on eval() function (2000-09-22) http://python.org/sf/215126 closed by rhettinger 2.3a2 import after os.chdir difference (2003-02-25) http://python.org/sf/693416 closed by akuchling urllib2 checks for http return code 200 only. (2004-03-09) http://python.org/sf/912845 closed by akuchling Broken URLs in sha module docs (2004-06-23) http://python.org/sf/978556 closed by akuchling PyExc_* not in index (2004-05-06) http://python.org/sf/948970 closed by akuchling PyObject_Str() and PyObject_Repr() corrupt object type (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/982008 closed by janusfury Next button not greyed out during file copy. (2004-06-29) http://python.org/sf/982215 closed by theller gdbm.open () fails with a single argument (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/982806 closed by akuchling incorrect len (2004-07-01) http://python.org/sf/983269 closed by effbot A leak case with cmd.py & readline & exception (2004-03-27) http://python.org/sf/924301 closed by mwh test_repr() fails with id() values that appear negative (2004-07-01) http://python.org/sf/983585 closed by fdrake bdist_winist post-install script fails on non-admin Python (2004-04-15) http://python.org/sf/935091 closed by mhammond Buffer Protocol Prototypes Incorrect (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/984017 closed by akuchling Useless question in bdist_winst installers (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/984290 closed by theller removing extensions without admin rights (2002-05-14) http://python.org/sf/555810 closed by mhammond installing extension w/o admin rights (2002-05-14) http://python.org/sf/555812 closed by mhammond Exceptions when a thread exits (2003-06-14) http://python.org/sf/754449 closed by bcannon valgrind/memcheck alert: Python 2.3.4 Objects/obmalloc.c (2004-07-06) http://python.org/sf/985708 closed by tim_one httplib: HTTPS does not close() connection properly (2004-03-10) http://python.org/sf/913619 closed by akuchling _Subfile.readline( ) in mailbox.py ignoring self.stop (2004-03-28) http://python.org/sf/925107 closed by akuchling Configure bugs (2004-07-07) http://python.org/sf/986884 closed by bcannon Spurious errors taking bool of dead proxy (2004-06-23) http://python.org/sf/978308 closed by nnorwitz Funny keywords in library index (2004-05-12) http://python.org/sf/952737 closed by fdrake Python 2.4a1, interpreter hanging on Keyboard Interrupt (2004-07-08) http://python.org/sf/987287 closed by mwh New / Reopened RFE __________________ md5 and sha1 modules should use openssl implementation (2004-06-30) http://python.org/sf/983069 opened by Gregory P. Smith Support "hybrid" framework/unix style (2004-07-02) http://python.org/sf/984242 opened by Bob Ippolito

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