[Python-Dev] Python 1.6 status

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

Guido van Rossum writes:
>I'm hoping for several kind of responses to this email:

My list of things to do for 1.6 is:

   * Translate re.py to C and switch to the latest PCRE 2 codebase
(mostly done, perhaps ready for public review in a week or so).

   * Go through the O'Reilly POSIX book and draw up a list of missing
POSIX functions that aren't available in the posix module.  This
was sparked by Greg Ward showing me a Perl daemonize() function
he'd written, and I realized that some of the functions it used
weren't available in Python at all.  (setsid() was one of them, I
think.)

   * A while back I got approval to add the mmapfile module to the
core.  The outstanding issue there is that the constructor has a
different interface on Unix and Windows platforms.

On Windows:
mm = mmapfile.mmapfile("filename", "tag name", <mapsize>)

On Unix, it looks like the mmap() function:

mm = mmapfile.mmapfile(<filedesc>, <mapsize>, 
                       <flags> (like MAP_SHARED),
		       <prot> (like PROT_READ, PROT_READWRITE) 
                      )

Can we reconcile these interfaces, have two different function names,
or what?

>- suggestions for new issues that maybe ought to be settled in 1.6

Perhaps we should figure out what new capabilities, if any, should be
added in 1.6.  Fred has mentioned weak references, and there are other
possibilities such as ExtensionClass.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow.
    -- Arthur Stringer, _The Silver Poppy_