Introduction
This PEP describes the Python 2.0 release schedule, tracking the
status and ownership of the major new features, summarizes
discussions held in mailing list forums, and provides URLs for
further information, patches, and other outstanding issues. The
CVS revision history of this file contains the definitive
historical record.
Release Schedule
[revised 5 Oct 2000]
26-Sep-2000: 2.0 beta 2
9-Oct-2000: 2.0 release candidate 1 (2.0c1)
16-Oct-2000: 2.0 final
Previous milestones
14-Aug-2000: All 2.0 PEPs finished / feature freeze
5-Sep-2000: 2.0 beta 1
What is release candidate 1?
We believe that release candidate 1 will fix all known bugs that
we intend to fix for the 2.0 final release. This release should
be a bit more stable than the previous betas. We would like to
see even more widespread testing before the final release, so we
are producing this release candidate. The final release will be
exactly the same unless any show-stopping (or brown bag) bugs are
found by testers of the release candidate.
Guidelines for submitting patches and making changes
Use good sense when committing changes. You should know what we
mean by good sense or we wouldn't have given you commit privileges
<0.5 wink>. Some specific examples of good sense include:
- Do whatever the dictator tells you.
- Discuss any controversial changes on python-dev first. If you
get a lot of +1 votes and no -1 votes, make the change. If you
get a some -1 votes, think twice; consider asking Guido what he
thinks.
- If the change is to code you contributed, it probably makes
sense for you to fix it.
- If the change affects code someone else wrote, it probably makes
sense to ask him or her first.
- You can use the SF Patch Manager to submit a patch and assign it
to someone for review.
Any significant new feature must be described in a PEP and
approved before it is checked in.
Any significant code addition, such as a new module or large
patch, must include test cases for the regression test and
documentation. A patch should not be checked in until the tests
and documentation are ready.
If you fix a bug, you should write a test case that would have
caught the bug.
If you commit a patch from the SF Patch Manager or fix a bug from
the Jitterbug database, be sure to reference the patch/bug number
in the CVS log message. Also be sure to change the status in the
patch manager or bug database (if you have access to the bug
database).
It is not acceptable for any checked in code to cause the
regression test to fail. If a checkin causes a failure, it must
be fixed within 24 hours or it will be backed out.
All contributed C code must be ANSI C. If possible check it with
two different compilers, e.g. gcc and MSVC.
All contributed Python code must follow Guido's Python style
guide. http://www.python.org/doc/essays/styleguide.html
It is understood that any code contributed will be released under
an Open Source license. Do not contribute code if it can't be
released this way.
Failing test cases need to get fixed
We need to resolve errors in the regression test suite quickly.
Changes should not be committed to the CVS tree unless the
regression test runs cleanly with the changes applied. If it
fails, there may be bugs lurking in the code. (There may be bugs
anyway, but that's another matter.) If the test cases are known
to fail, they serve no useful purpose.
test case platform date reported
--------- -------- -------------
test_mmap Win ME 03-Sep-2000 Windows 2b1p2 prelease
[04-Sep-2000 tim
reported by Audun S. Runde mailto:audun@mindspring.com
the mmap constructor fails w/
WindowsError: [Errno 6] The handle is invalid
since there are no reports of this failing on other
flavors of Windows, this looks like to be an ME bug
]
Open items -- Need to be resolved before 2.0 final release
Decide whether cycle-gc should be enabled by default.
Resolve compatibility issues between core xml package and the
XML-SIG XML package.
Update Tools/compiler so that it is compatible with list
comprehensions, import as, and any other new language features.
Improve code coverage of test suite.
Finish writing the PEPs for the features that went out with
2.0b1(! sad, but realistic -- we'll get better with practice).
Major effort to whittle the bug database down to size. I've (tim)
seen this before: if you can keep all the open bugs fitting on one
screen, people will generally keep it that way. But let it
slobber over a screen for a month, & it just goes to hell (no
"visible progress" indeed!).
Accepted and in progress
* Currently none left. [4-Sep-2000 guido]
Open: proposed but not accepted or rejected
* There are a number of open patches again. We need to clear
these out soon.
Previously failing test cases
If you find a test bouncing between this section and the previous one,
the code it's testing is in trouble!
test case platform date reported
--------- -------- -------------
test_fork1 Linux 26-Jul-2000
[28-aug-2000 fixed by cgw; solution is to create copies of
lock in child process]
[19-Aug-2000 tim
Charles Waldman whipped up a patch to give child processes a new
"global lock":
http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=detailpatch&patch_id=101226&group_id=5470
While this doesn't appear to address the symptoms we *saw*, it
*does* so far appear to be fixing the failing cases anyway
]
test_parser all 22-Aug-2000
test_posixpath all 22-Aug-2000
test_popen2 Win32 26-Jul-2000
[31-Aug-2000 tim
This died again, but for an entirely different reason: it uses a
dict to map file pointers to process handles, and calls a dict
access function during popen.close(). But .close releases threads,
which left the internal popen code accessing the dict without a
valid thread state. The dict implementation changed so that's no
longer accepted. Fixed by creating a temporary thread state in the
guts of popen's close routine, and grabbing the global lock with
it for the duration]
[20-Aug-2000 tim
changed the popen2.py _test function to use the "more" cmd
when os.name == "nt". This makes test_popen2 pass under
Win98SE.
HOWEVER, the Win98 "more" invents a leading newline out
of thin air, and I'm not sure that the other Windows flavors
of "more" also do that.
So, somebody please try under other Windows flavors!
]
[still fails 15-Aug-2000 for me, on Win98 - tim
test test_popen2 crashed -- exceptions.AssertionError :
The problem is that the test uses "cat", but there is
no such thing under Windows (unless you install it).
So it's the test that's broken here, not (necessarily)
the code.
]
test_winreg Win32 26-Jul-2000
[works 15-Aug-2000 for me, on Win98 - tim]
test_mmap Win32 26-Jul-2000
[believe that was fixed by Mark H.]
[works 15-Aug-2000 for me, on Win98 - tim]
test_longexp Win98+? 15-Aug-2000
[fails in release build,
passes in release build under verbose mode but doesn't
look like it should pass,
passes in debug build,
passes in debug build under verbose mode and looks like
it should pass
]
[18-Aug-2000, tim: can't reproduce, and nobody else
saw it. I believe there *is* a subtle bug in
regrtest.py when using -v, and I'll pursue that,
but can't provoke anything wrong with test_longexp
anymore; eyeballing Fred's changes didn't turn up
a suspect either
19-Aug-2000, tim: the "subtle bug" in regrtest.py -v is
actually a feature: -v masks *some* kinds of failures,
since it doesn't compare test output with the canned
output; this is what makes it say "test passed" even
in some cases where the test fails without -v
]
test_winreg2 Win32 26-Jul-2000
[20-Aug-2000 tim - the test has been removed from the project]
[19-Aug-2000 tim
This test will never work on Win98, because it's looking for
a part of registry that doesn't exist under W98.
The module (winreg.py) and this test case will be removed
before 2.0 for other reasons, though.
]
[still fails 15-Aug-2000 for me, on Win98 - tim
test test_winreg2 failed -- Writing: 'Test Failed: testHives',
expected: 'HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA\012'
]
Open items -- completed/fixed
[4-Sep-2000 guido: Fredrik finished this on 1-Sep]
* PyErr_Format - Fredrik Lundh
Make this function safe from buffer overflows.
[4-Sep-2000 guido: Fred has added popen2, popen3 on 28-Sep]
Add popen2 support for Linux -- Fred Drake
[4-Sep-2000 guido: done on 1-Sep]
Deal with buffering problem with SocketServer
[04-Sep-2000 tim: done; installer runs; w9xpopen not an issue]
[01-Sep-2000 tim: make a prerelease availabe]
Windows ME: Don't know anything about it. Will the installer
even run? Does it need the w9xpopen hack?
[04-Sep-2000 tim: done; tested on several Windows flavors now]
[01-Sep-2000 tim: completed but untested except on Win98SE]
Windows installer: If HKLM isn't writable, back off to HKCU (so
Python can be installed on NT & 2000 without admin privileges).
[01-Sep-200 tim - as Guido said, runtime code in posixmodule.c doesn't
call this on NT/2000, so no need to avoid installing it everywhere.
Added code to the installer *to* install it, though.]
Windows installer: Install w9xpopen.exe only under Win95/98.
[23-Aug-2000 jeremy - tim reports "completed recently"]
Windows: Look for registry info in HKCU before HKLM - Mark
Hammond.
[20-Aug-2000 tim - done]
Remove winreg.py and test_winreg2.py. Paul Prescod (the author)
now wants to make a registry API more like the MS .NET API. Unclear
whether that can be done in time for 2.0, but, regardless, if we
let winreg.py out the door we'll be stuck with it forever, and not
even Paul wants it anymore.
[24-Aug-2000 tim+guido - done]
Win98 Guido: popen is hanging on Guido, and even freezing the
whole machine. Was caused by Norton Antivirus 2000 (6.10.20) on
Windows 9x. Resolution: disable virus protection.
Accepted and completed
* Change meaning of \x escapes - PEP 223 - Fredrik Lundh
* Add \U1234678 escapes in u"" strings - Fredrik Lundh
* Support for opcode arguments > 2**16 - Charles Waldman
SF Patch 100893
* "import as" - Thomas Wouters
Extend the 'import' and 'from ... import' mechanism to enable
importing a symbol as another name. (Without adding a new keyword.)
* List comprehensions - Skip Montanaro
Tim Peters still needs to do PEP.
* Restore old os.path.commonprefix behavior
Do we have test cases that work on all platforms?
* Tim O'Malley's cookie module with good license
* Lockstep iteration ("zip" function) - Barry Warsaw
* SRE - Fredrik Lundh
[at least I *think* it's done, as of 15-Aug-2000 - tim]
* Fix xrange printing behavior - Fred Drake
Remove the tp_print handler for the xrange type; it produced a
list display instead of 'xrange(...)'. The new code produces a
minimal call to xrange(), enclosed in (... * N) when N != 1.
This makes the repr() more human readable while making it do
what reprs are advertised as doing. It also makes the xrange
objects obvious when working in the interactive interpreter.
* Extended print statement - Barry Warsaw
PEP 214
http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0214.html
SF Patch #100970
http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=detailpatch&patch_id=100970&group_id=5470
* interface to poll system call - Andrew Kuchling
SF Patch 100852
* Augmented assignment - Thomas Wouters
Add += and family, plus Python and C hooks, and API functions.
* gettext.py module - Barry Warsaw
Postponed
* Extended slicing on lists - Michael Hudson
Make lists (and other builtin types) handle extended slices.
* Compression of Unicode database - Fredrik Lundh
SF Patch 100899
At least for 2.0b1. May be included in 2.0 as a bug fix.
* Range literals - Thomas Wouters
SF Patch 100902
We ended up having a lot of doubt about the proposal.
* Eliminated SET_LINENO opcode - Vladimir Marangozov
Small optimization achieved by using the code object's lnotab
instead of the SET_LINENO instruction. Uses code rewriting
technique (that Guido's frowns on) to support debugger, which
uses SET_LINENO.
http://starship.python.net/~vlad/lineno/
for (working at the time) patches
Discussions on python-dev:
- http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2000-April/subject.html
Subject: "Why do we need Traceback Objects?"
- http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/1999-August/002252.html
* test harness for C code - Trent Mick
Rejected
* 'indexing-for' - Thomas Wouters
Special syntax to give Python code access to the loop-counter in 'for'
loops. (Without adding a new keyword.)
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