ANN: SIP v4.9 Released (Python Bindings Generator)

[Phil Thompson]

SIP v4.9 has been released and can be downloaded from
http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/sip/.

SIP is a tool for generating Python modules that wrap C or C++ libraries.
It is similar to SWIG.  It is used to generate PyQt and PyKDE.

The SIP license is similar to the Python License and is also licensed under
the GPL v2 and v3.

SIP runs on Windows, UNIX, Linux and MacOS/X.

SIP requires Python v2.3 or later and fully supports Python v3.

The main focus of this release is to allow alternate, incompatible
wrappings of classes and functions to be defined which can then be
selected by an application at runtime.  This allows application developers
to manage the migration from an old, deprecated API to a new one.

Other features of SIP include:

- extension modules are implemented as a single binary .pyd or .so file (no
  Python stubs)
- support for Python new-style classes
- the ability to specify the super-type and meta-type used to wrap
  instances
- generated modules are quick to import, even for large libraries
- thread support
- the ability to re-implement C++ abstract and virtual methods in Python
- the ability to define Python classes that derive from abstract C++
  classes
- the ability to spread a class hierarchy across multiple Python modules
- support for C++ namespaces
- support for C++ exceptions
- support for C++ operators
- an extensible build system written in Python that supports over 50
  platform/compiler combinations
- the generation of API files for IDEs that support autocompletion and call
  tips.