Mailman 3 June 2009 - Python-Dev

Re: [Python-Dev] Status of 2.7 and 3.2
by Raymond Hettinger June 8, 2009

June 8, 2009

How about we just continue to improve both branches, doing forward or backports as appropriate. No need to develop a policy of crippling one branch on the theory that it will make the other seem more attractive. Besides, if 2.7 and 3.2 get released within a few months of each other, any inversion of incentives will be temporary and fleeting. Most likely people's decisions on switching to 3.x will be dominated by other factors such as the availability of third-party modules or other dependencies. IIRC, Benjamin's current merge procedures flow from the trunk to the py3k branch. Probably, it is best to continue with that practice lest we muck-up his merge/block entries. Raymond

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py3k buildbots
by Antoine Pitrou June 7, 2009

June 7, 2009

Hello Only one of the py3k buildbots seems up: http://www.python.org/dev/buildbot/3.x.stable/ cheers Antoine.

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Mercurial, linefeeds, and Visual Studio
by Jason R. Coombs June 6, 2009

June 6, 2009

I just wanted to share my experience with the mercurial checkout. I cloned http://code.python.org/hg/branches/py3k to continue work on http://bugs.python.org/issue1578269 but I found that when I click on PC/VS8.0/pcbuild.sln, nothing happens. This appears to be due to a bug/limitation in vslauncher in that it doesn't recognize LF as a line separator. vslauncher is the default association for sln files and its purpose is to parse out the .sln file and launch it with the appropriate Visual Studio version based on the header. What makes matters worse is if vslauncher fails to recognize the format, it does nothing, so it just appears as if the file fails to launch anything. It seems that within the hg repository, everything has been converted to LF for line endings. I suspect this is because HG provides no integrated support for line-ending conversions and because the hg to svn bridge is probably running on a Unix OS. So converting the pcbuild.sln file to CRLF line endings resolved the problem and the file would launch normally. Also, without conversion, it was possible to open the .sln file in Visual Studio explicitly. I wanted to share this with the community in case anyone else runs into this issue. Also, if there's a recommended procedure for addressing this issue (and others that might arise due to non-native line endings), I'd be interested to hear it. Regards, Jason

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Summary of Python tracker Issues
by Python tracker June 5, 2009

June 5, 2009

ACTIVITY SUMMARY (05/29/09 - 06/05/09) Python tracker at http://bugs.python.org/ To view or respond to any of the issues listed below, click on the issue number. Do NOT respond to this message. 2207 open (+37) / 15822 closed (+27) / 18029 total (+64) Open issues with patches: 868 Average duration of open issues: 653 days. Median duration of open issues: 403 days. Open Issues Breakdown open 2178 (+37) pending 29 ( +0) Issues Created Or Reopened (66) _______________________________ string module requires bytes type for maketrans, but calling met 05/31/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue5675 reopened rhettinger IDLE - an extension to clear the shell window 05/29/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6143 created serwy [IDLE] UnicodeDecodeError when invoking force-open-completions 05/29/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6144 created jamesie distutils.extension.read_setup_file misinterprets -C switch 05/29/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6145 created donlorenzo patch markup error in Doc/library/rlcompleter.rst 05/29/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6146 created Trundle patch multithreading.Pool.map() crashes Windows computer 05/30/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6147 created ac.james Help well execute code it is called on 05/30/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6148 created imiers1 WeakValueDictionary constructor ported to Python 3.0 incorrectly 05/30/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6149 created zzzeek patch test_unicode fails in wide unicode build 05/30/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6150 created hagen Make PyDescr_COMMON conform to standard C 05/30/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6151 created alexandre.vassalotti patch, patch, needs review Parallel regression testing 05/31/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6152 created pitrou patch email parsing - Rare Failure 05/31/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6153 created WinstonEwert Python 3.1 rc1 will not build on OS X 10.5.7 with macports libin 05/31/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6154 created brett.cannon patch "logging" example uses unavailable cPickle module 05/31/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6155 created mnewman Error compiling valid regex 05/31/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6156 created Eloff patch Tkinter.Text: changes for bbox, debug, and edit methods. 05/31/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6157 created gpolo patch test_aifc failing on 32bit windows in python 3.1 rc 1 05/31/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6158 created rhettinger patch Tkinter.PanedWindow: docstring fixes, change in paneconfigure an 05/31/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6159 created gpolo patch Tkinter.Spinbox: fix for bbox and removed some uninteresting ret 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6160 created gpolo patch httplib: HTTPResponse not storing response body 06/01/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6161 created Guthur What should happen to signals when the main thread dies? 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6162 created eggy [HP-UX] ld: Unrecognized argument: +s -L<dir> 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6163 created srid patch [AIX] Patch to correct the AIX C/C++ linker argument used for 'r 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6164 created srid patch strftime incorrectly processes DST flag when passed time touples 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6165 created jonathan.cervidae encoding error for 'setup.py --author' when read via subprocess 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6166 created srid Tkinter.Scrollbar: the activate method needs to return a value, 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6167 created gpolo patch Missing Shell menu in Linux IDLE 06/01/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6168 created sirgimp Important comparison bug in ipaddr 06/01/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6169 created shields Mac 'make frameworkinstall' error: [...]/Python.framework/Versio 06/02/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6170 created srid Class Browser selection in Ubuntu 06/02/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6171 created sirgimp 'make framework...' fails on Mac ([...]/bin/pythonw3.1: No such 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6172 created srid Minor typo in socket.py 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6173 created ptn patch What's new in 2.6, wrong indentation in code sample 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6174 created joe.amenta patch inet_aton documentation kind of lies 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6175 created dsvensson Reference to a wrong version of flock's documentation 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6176 created pakal unittest.main testRunner default argument changed from None 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6177 created michael.foord patch, easy Core error in Py_EvalFrameEx 2.6.2 06/02/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6178 created tsavannah Documentation of for statement in Reference says that range() re 06/02/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6179 created MLModel Tkinter.Entry: fix for xview and some doc clarifications 06/02/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6180 created gpolo patch Tkinter.Listbox several minor issues 06/02/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6181 created gpolo patch Remove ipaddr library from py3k before 3.1rc2 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6182 created gregory.p.smith test_time fails on VC6 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6183 created ocean-city patch py3k build gets spurious errors from libinstall target compile o 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6184 reopened nad 2to3 misses buffer slicing 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6185 created joe.amenta patch test_thread occasionally reports unhandled exceptions on OS X 06/03/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6186 created nad Improvement in doc of "Extending and Embedding the Python Interp 06/03/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6187 created blubdiebla Error Evaluating float(x) ** float(y) 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6188 created Zero subprocess module not compatible with python 2.5 06/03/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6189 created itsadok patch Tutorial 3.1.2 (Strings) has duplicate lines 06/03/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6190 created cofi patch HTMLParser attribute parsing - 2 test cases when it fails 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6191 reopened momat add disable_nagle_algorithm to SocketServer.TCPServer 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6192 created krisvale patch, patch, easy urllib: ... IOError: ... unknown url type: 'c' 06/04/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6193 created srid fcntl footnote about O_SHLOCK and O_EXLOCK is misleading 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6194 created r.david.murray easy Serious regression in doctest in Py3.1rc1 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6195 created dalcinl patch tarfile.extractall(readaccess=True) 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6196 created srid test__locale fails with RADIXCHAR on Windows 06/05/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6197 created abbeyj patch test_float fails on Windows 06/05/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6198 created abbeyj test_unittest fails on Windows 06/05/09 CLOSED http://bugs.python.org/issue6199 created abbeyj patch test_winreg fails 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6201 created abbeyj Obsolete default file encoding "mac-roman" on OS X, not influenc 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6202 created nad 3.x locale does not default to C, contrary to the documentation 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6203 created nad Missing reference in section 4.6 to chapter on classes 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6204 created cofi patch sdist doesn't include data_files 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6205 created purpleidea Correct a trivial typo introduced by r73238. 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6206 created vshenoy patch Simple For-Loops 06/05/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue6207 created gabrielkfl Function-level import in os triggering an threaded import deadlo 06/04/09 http://bugs.python.org/issue1590864 reopened brett.cannon Issues Now Closed (67) ______________________ Load tests from path (patch included) 615 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1207 michael.foord patch S_unpack_from() Read Access Violation 421 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2590 amaury.forgeotdarc Py3k warn on unicode escapes in raw strings 401 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2713 amaury.forgeotdarc patch example code does not work 392 days http://bugs.python.org/issue2742 fogus patch time.strftime() always decodes result with UTF-8 356 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3061 loewis patch pkg-config support 285 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3585 loewis patch, needs review base64.encodestring does not actually accept strings 288 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3613 georg.brandl patch Python 2.6 can't read sets pickled with Python 3.0 283 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3675 alexandre.vassalotti patch traceback.format_exception_only() misplaces the caret for certai 283 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3684 georg.brandl patch bsddb not completely removed 271 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3791 georg.brandl patch, patch select.epoll calling register with the same fd fails 261 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3848 r.david.murray patch Add Google's ipaddr.py to the stdlib 251 days http://bugs.python.org/issue3959 belopolsky Long jumps with frame_setlineno 178 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4547 amaury.forgeotdarc patch, needs review Refcount error and file descriptor leaks in pwd, grp modules 142 days http://bugs.python.org/issue4873 loewis patch Subversion problem with PythonLauncher after building 3.0 or 3.1 109 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5267 ronaldoussoren profile and cProfile do not report C functions called with keywo 99 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5330 pitrou patch TypeError when '\x00' in docstring 98 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5373 alexandre.vassalotti patch Locale-based date formatting crashes on non-ASCII data 65 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5562 loewis test_memoryio fails for py3k on windows 65 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5645 jaraco patch OS X Installer: do not install obsolete documentation within Pyt 64 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5648 ronaldoussoren string module requires bytes type for maketrans, but calling met 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5675 georg.brandl Segfault when loading not recompiled module 51 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5735 amaury.forgeotdarc patch, needs review xmlrpclib loads invalid documents 49 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5767 georg.brandl patch test_asynchat fails on Mac OSX 46 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5798 MrJean1 patch strftime fails in non UTF-8 locale 27 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5903 loewis Multi-with patch 26 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5922 Merwok patch PyList_GetSlice does not indicate negative ranges dont work as i 27 days http://bugs.python.org/issue5967 georg.brandl patch Test discovery for unittest 18 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6001 michael.foord patch, patch, needs review test_distutils leaves a 'foo' file behind in the cwd 16 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6022 rpetrov Python fails to build with Subversion 1.7 7 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6094 benjamin.peterson patch Encoded surrogate characters on command line not escaped in sys. 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6097 loewis patch Expanding arrays inside other arrays 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6100 tjreedy When the package has non-ascii path and .pyc file, we cannot imp 5 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6102 tjreedy IDLE rendering issue with oriental characters on OSX 7 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6109 benjamin.peterson Fix O(n**2) performance problem in socket._fileobject 7 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6117 krisvale patch, patch, easy, needs review Typo in email.base64mime 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6139 georg.brandl patch missing first argument on subprocess.Popen w/ executable 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6141 r.david.murray patch markup error in Doc/library/rlcompleter.rst 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6146 georg.brandl patch multithreading.Pool.map() crashes Windows computer 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6147 benjamin.peterson Help well execute code it is called on 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6148 georg.brandl WeakValueDictionary constructor ported to Python 3.0 incorrectly 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6149 pitrou patch test_unicode fails in wide unicode build 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6150 loewis email parsing - Rare Failure 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6153 amaury.forgeotdarc "logging" example uses unavailable cPickle module 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6155 georg.brandl test_aifc failing on 32bit windows in python 3.1 rc 1 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6158 loewis patch httplib: HTTPResponse not storing response body 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6161 Guthur Important comparison bug in ipaddr 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6169 gregory.p.smith 'make framework...' fails on Mac ([...]/bin/pythonw3.1: No such 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6172 ronaldoussoren Minor typo in socket.py 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6173 marketdickinson patch What's new in 2.6, wrong indentation in code sample 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6174 georg.brandl patch inet_aton documentation kind of lies 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6175 georg.brandl Reference to a wrong version of flock's documentation 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6176 georg.brandl unittest.main testRunner default argument changed from None 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6177 michael.foord patch, easy Documentation of for statement in Reference says that range() re 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6179 benjamin.peterson Remove ipaddr library from py3k before 3.1rc2 2 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6182 rhettinger test_time fails on VC6 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6183 ocean-city patch py3k build gets spurious errors from libinstall target compile o 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6184 benjamin.peterson 2to3 misses buffer slicing 1 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6185 benjamin.peterson patch Error Evaluating float(x) ** float(y) 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6188 marketdickinson Tutorial 3.1.2 (Strings) has duplicate lines 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6190 georg.brandl patch urllib: ... IOError: ... unknown url type: 'c' 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6193 r.david.murray test__locale fails with RADIXCHAR on Windows 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6197 ocean-city patch test_float fails on Windows 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6198 eric.smith test_unittest fails on Windows 0 days http://bugs.python.org/issue6199 michael.foord patch SRE: (?flag:...) is not supported 2912 days http://bugs.python.org/issue433028 georg.brandl Update pickle docs to describe format of persistent IDs 1838 days http://bugs.python.org/issue956303 alexandre.vassalotti easy hide tests from TestProgram 1408 days http://bugs.python.org/issue1244929 michael.foord patch Top Issues Most Discussed (10) ______________________________ 33 Python 3.1 rc1 will not build on OS X 10.5.7 with macports libi 5 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue6154 32 improved allocation of PyUnicode objects 12 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue1943 27 Add Google's ipaddr.py to the stdlib 251 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue3959 17 Mac 'make frameworkinstall' error: [...]/Python.framework/Versi 4 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue6170 15 pydoc reports misleading failure if target module raises an Imp 113 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue5230 14 Make pickle generated by Python 3.x compatible with 2.x and vic 8 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue6137 10 Distutils doesn't remove .pyc files 7 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue6142 10 LOAD_CONST followed by LOAD_ATTR can be optimized to just be a 9 days open http://bugs.python.org/issue6133 9 test_float fails on Windows 0 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue6198 8 test_asynchat fails on Mac OSX 46 days closed http://bugs.python.org/issue5798

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Roundup improvements use-cases
by Mario June 5, 2009

June 5, 2009

Hello, in the last few weeks I have been working on defining use-cases which will lead the improvement of the Roundup tracker. As this is very important, I would like your valuable input in form of comments, criticism and advices. Use-cases in-lined: ============== Daniel is a great hacker, but the only time he has time to hack is when his child is asleep. And his child wakes up every now and then, pretty often actually. So when it starts crying, Daniel commits fix to that silly bug that has been hunting us for ages, but forgets to close down the bug so it stays open. Looking over bug tracker, Jane finds the same bug and starts working on the same bug. Wasted time. Daniel should be able to format commit message in such a way that would automatically close the bug. Maria is a student, and got involved in FOSS recently. With all the studies she has to do, she would prefer not to spend her time changing bug status. She should be able to format commit message in such a way that would change bug status to something other then the current status. Technical talk: USE CASE A: Integrate issue property editing with Mercurial, including: * USE CASE A1: Allow users to close issues via tokens embedded into commit messages. * USE CASE A2: Allow users to change issue status via tokens embedded into commit messages. Ronny is about to fix a torny bug, so he has a public branch for that. He is making great progress, but the issue that tracks the bug only contains a very out-of-date patch, prompting other developers to try to fix the same bug. Ronny should be able to tell Roundup about where his code lives, so users can get up-to-date patches/diffs automatically. This also allows other users to know all the code that changed to fix a given bug. Technical talk: Integrate branch and rich patch handling into Roundup * USE CASE B: Track all changesets that relate to a given issue: o USE CASE B1: Using tokens embedded into commit messages. (Post commit) o USE CASE B2: Using named branches, bookmarks. (Pre or post commit) o USE CASE B3: Using patchsets, bundles or whatchacallit for fat Mercurial patches. (Pre or post commit) Brett wants to fix a couple of related issues and has a local Mercurial branch for that. He would like his commit messages to include useful information for when his patch/branch lands in the Python repository. Besides the Mercurial->Roundup integration, a Roundup->Mercurial one that would allow one to fetch issue details and existing patches/branches with metadata would make Brett's work more valuable. Technical talk: USE CASE C: Add a CLI interface for Roundup so VCSs can query the tracker. * USE CASE C1: Automatically fetch issue data. * USE CASE C2: Pre-format output for greater usefulness in commit messages: o USE CASE C2.1: Setting issue properties. o USE CASE C2.2: Grouping changesets. * USE CASE C3: Fetch branch information for local cloning. * USE CASE C4: Add a Mercurial extension to exercize the CLI client. USE CASE D: Antoine is merging lots of branches and applying lots of patches to his local branch of the Python repository. He goes to each issue with a patch/branch and tells people whether their patches apply cleanly, just to avoid merge issues in the main branch. While he could use Mercurial Patch Queues (mq), Roundup would need to learn to both listen to and to submit patches to mq in order to completely replace Antoine's work with automated tools. Having a quick 'check if this patch applies cleanly' button would make triaging issues much easier. USE CASE E: David is checking the python-commits list for avoiding bad code from landing and nesting in the Python code base. He only sees the patches: while informative, it requires a bit of mental gymanstics to see how it would merge with the surrounding code. Whenever he thinks some code has tabs and spaces or lines that are too long, he runs pylint and reindent.py locally. He can only raise concerns about the code after it lands on the main repository. It should be easier to see the code changes in context. Having a way to check the code for mistakes in the tracker would make David's life a lot easier. USE CASE F: Van Lindberg is concerned about code submissions from non-core developers: how can the PSF re-license this code in the future without talking to each contributor, whether the PSF is safe from litigation based on copyrights of these contributions and related questions are always bugging him. While the PSF has Contributor Agreements exactly for these cases, it would be great to have the issue tracker and the VCS talk to each other, so they could ask contributors to sign (or declare to have already signed) the CAs when necessary. USE CASE G: Use Transplant/Patch Branch to generate patches from branches linked from Roundup. USE CASE J: Integrate the code/commits navigation interface with Roundup, so changesets, branches, etc., can be easily linked/browsed (starting) from the Roundup UI and issues can be created/linked to commits (starting) from the navigation tool UI. USE CASE K: For a given issue, add per patched file links for RSS logs (see http://selenic.com/hg/rss-log/tip/mercurial/hgweb/hgweb_mod.py). USE CASE M: Besides links to files, allow adding links to files at given versions/tags/branchs, links to tarballs and easy to clone links to branches and repositories. USE CASE V: Handle small branches (and maybe suggest using them for small patches?) generated using the convert extension with --filemap. ============== Improvements to the use cases will follow on the wiki page: http://www.roundup-tracker.org/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/GSoC09 Thanks for your attention and time. Respectfully, Mario

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Serious regression in doctest in Py3.1rc1
by Stefan Behnel June 5, 2009

June 5, 2009

Hi, I can't currently file a bug report on this, but I was told by Lisandro Dalcín that there is a serious problem with the doctest module in Py3.1rc1. In Cython, we use doctests to test the compiler in that we compile a Python/Cython module with doctests into a C module and then run doctest on the imported extension module. >From the error report it seems to me that doctest is now trying to read the module itself through linecache for some reason, which horribly fails for a binary module. Could someone please look into this? I'll open up a bug report tomorrow unless someone beats me to it. Thanks, Stefan

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Issues with Py3.1's new ipaddr
by Clay McClure June 5, 2009

June 5, 2009

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org > wrote: > I haven't read the bug, but given the extensive real-life use that > ipaddr.py has seen at Google before inclusion into the stdlib, I think > "deep conceptual flaws" must be an overstatement. When the users of the library are also the authors of the library, it is not surprising that the library enjoys "extensive real-life use." The real test of a library is not how well it succeeds at one installation, but how well it meets the needs of the larger user base. Having read the code and the author's comments, it seems to me that networking concepts not employed at Google have been neglected. While some of these features are easily added to ipaddr, their omission exposes a narrow view of the problem domain that has resulted in more fundamental problems in the library, such as the conflation of addresses and networks. > I think we should just stick to "sorry, too late, try again for 3.2". > We've done that with plenty of more important flaws that were > discovered on the verge of a release, and I don't recall ever > regretting it. We can always add more features to the module in 3.2. My concerns are not so much about adding features as they are about changing the API. Addressing the concerns that I and others have raised requires making backwards-incompatible changes. Doing that now, before ipaddr enjoys widespread deployment as part of the stdlib, seems prudent. Removing ipaddr from 3.1 appears to me less painful than fixing apps when ipaddr's API changes in 3.2. If this were a core feature that many developers were anxiously awaiting, I could understand the desire to release and iterate. But is there really a pressing need for an IP library in the stdlib? Until a satisfactory library is available for inclusion in the stdlib, the few developers that do require such functionality can easily enough download a library that meets their needs. Clay

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Re: [Python-Dev] Issues with Py3.1's new ipaddr
by Mike Pennington June 4, 2009

June 4, 2009

Raymond solicited a comment from me about the design of ipaddr. By way of full disclosure, I have a small competing project called pynet. That said, I test drove ipaddr for about 30 minutes and so far like the big-picture API design quite a bit. I'll specifically address Clay's concern about hosts vs networks, because this issue is important to me; I've been in the network engineering field for over 15 years, worked on Cisco's product development team, and held a CCIE (consider it the equivalent of a CPA for network engineers) for 10 years... Clay seems to object to ipaddr's IP object because it is not the same as the object model used in the BSD ip stack. Indeed, I'm one of the raving fans of what BSD has done for the quality of ip networking, but let's also consider their requirements. BSD must approach ip networking from a host perspective, it is the consumer of individual IP packets and their payloads. ipaddr's whole point of existence is really driven towards the manipulation of potentially massive lists of ip addresses. This is no small difference in requirements, and I believe ipaddr's different approach makes their code much simpler for the tasks it needs to do. Incorporating host addresses as a special case of a /32 IPv4 network or /128 IPv6 network makes a lot of sense to me, in fact, I also chose this same object model. Perl's NetAddr::IP does this too, it is considered the gold standard for perl's address manipulation module. Whether python includes ipaddr now, later, or uses another module entirely does not bother me. Whatever is included should have a very stable API, and major bugs should be worked out. Documentation should be good enough for the average consumer, and if anything this is where ipaddr to be lacking a bit. I hope that python does include something to manipulate IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks in the future, since this is a big hole is python's batteries-included philosophy. However, I'd need more time at the wheel of ipaddr before I could comment whether this truly is ready for inclusion in stdlib. All the best, \m

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Issues with Py3.1's new ipaddr
by Raymond Hettinger June 3, 2009

June 3, 2009

In http://bugs.python.org/issue3959 , Clay McClure is raising some objections to the new ipaddr.py module. JP Calderone shares his concerns. I think they were the only commenters not directly affiliated with one of the competing projects. The issues they've raised seem serious, but I don't know enough about the subject to make a meaningful comment. Am hoping python-dev participants can provide some informed judgments. At issue is whether the module has some deep conceptual flaws that would warrant pulling it out of the 3.1 release. Also at issue is whether the addition was too rushed (see David Moss's comment on the tracker and later comments by Antoine Pitrou). Does anyone here know if Clay's concern about subnets vs netmasks in accurate and whether it affects the usability of the module? Raymond

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Re: [Python-Dev] Issues with Py3.1's new ipaddr
by Bugbee, Larry June 3, 2009

June 3, 2009

> The chances of a problem being introduced due to its removal > are vanishingly small. But that provides little consolation to the user who sees it in the standard library, is not aware to this discussion, and builds it into his app. Changes to the lib later may cause subtle but significant effects. ...perhaps undetected for a while. > > > I don't hear a public outcry - only a single complainer. > > > > Clay repeatedly pointed out that other people have objected > > to ipaddr and been ignored. It's really, really disappointing > > to see you continue to ignore not only them, but the repeated > > attempts Clay has made to point them out. > > I don't have time to argue this issue, but I agree with > essentially everything Clay has said in this thread.... I too agree. If it is not ready, it is not ready. Please don't create problems for others. Remove the lib until it is ready. Larry

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