[The HTML version of this Summary is available at
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2005-05-01_2005-05-15.html]

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Summary Announcements
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----------------------------------------------
PEP 340 Episode 2: Revenge of the With (Block)
----------------------------------------------

This fornight's Python-Dev was dominated again by another nearly 400
messages on the topic of anonymous block statements. The discussion
was a little more focused than the last thanks mainly to Guido's
introduction of `PEP 340`_. Discussion of this PEP resulted in a
series of other PEPs, including

* `PEP 342`_: Enhanced Iterators, which broke out into a separate
  PEP the parts of `PEP 340`_ that allowed code to pass values into
  iterators using ``continue EXPR`` and yield-expressions.

* `PEP 343`_: Anonymous Block Redux, a dramatically simplified
  version of `PEP 340`_, which removed the looping nature of the
  anonymous blocks and the injection-of-exceptions semantics for
  generators.

* `PEP 3XX`_: User Defined ("with") Statements, which proposed
  non-looping anonymous blocks accompanied by finalization semantics
  for iterators and generators in for loops.

Various details of each of these proposals are discussed below in the
sections:

1. `Enhanced Iterators`_

2. `Separate APIs for Iterators and Anonymous Blocks`_

3. `Looping Anonymous Blocks`_

4. `Loop Finalization`_

At the time of this writing, it looked like the discussion was coming
very close to a final agreement; `PEP 343`_ and `PEP 3XX`_ both agreed
upon the same semantics for the block-statement, the keyword had been
narrowed down to either ``do`` or ``with``, and Guido had agreed to
add back in to `PEP 343`_ some form of exception-injection semantics
for generators.


... _PEP 340: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0340.html

... _PEP 342: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0342.html

... _PEP 343: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0343.html

... _PEP 3XX: http://members.iinet.net.au/~ncoghlan/public/pep-3XX.html

[SJB]


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Summaries
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------------------
Enhanced Iterators
------------------

`PEP 340`_ incorporated a variety of orthogonal features into a single
proposal. To make the PEP somewhat less monolithic, the method for
passing values into an iterator was broken off into `PEP 342`_. This
method includes:

* updating the iterator protocol to use .__next__() instead of .next()

* introducing a new builtin next()

* allowing continue-statements to pass values into iterators

* allowing generators to receive values with a yield-expression

Though these features had seemed mostly uncontroversial, Guido seemed
inclined to wait for a little more motivation from the co-routiney
people before accepting the proposal.

Contributing threads:

- `Breaking off Enhanced Iterators PEP from PEP 340
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053463.html>`__

[SJB]


------------------------------------------------
Separate APIs for Iterators and Anonymous Blocks
------------------------------------------------

`PEP 340`_ had originally proposed to treat the anonymous block
protocol as an extension of the iterator protocol. Several problems
with this approach were raised, including:

* for-loops could accidentally be used with objects requiring blocks,
  meaning that resources would not get cleaned up properly

* blocks could be used instead of for-loops, violating TOOWTDI

As a result, both `PEP 343`_ and `PEP 3XX`_ propose decorators for
generator functions that will wrap the generator object appropriately
to match the anonymous block protocol. Generator objects without the
proposed decorators would not be usable in anonymous block statements.

Contributing threads:

- `PEP 340 -- loose ends
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053206.html>`__
- `PEP 340 -- concept clarification
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053280.html>`__

[SJB]


------------------------
Looping Anonymous Blocks
------------------------

A few issues arose as a result of `PEP 340`_'s formulation of
anonymous blocks as a variation on a loop.

Because the anonymous blocks of `PEP 340`_ were defined in terms of
while-loops, there was some discussion as to whether they should have
an ``else`` clause like Python ``for`` and ``while`` loops do. There
didn't seem to be one obvious interpretation of an ``else`` block
though, so Guido rejected the ``else`` block proposal.

The big issue with looping anonymous blocks, however, was in the
handling of ``break`` and ``continue`` statements. Many use cases for
anonymous blocks did not require loops. However, because `PEP 340`_
anonymous blocks were implemented in terms of loops, ``break`` and
``continue`` acted much like they would in a loop. This meant that in
code like::

    for item in items:
        with lock:
            if handle(item):
                break

the ``break`` statement would only break out of the anonymous block
(the ``with`` statement) instead of breaking out of the for-loop. This
pretty much shot-down `PEP 340`_; there were too many cases where an
anonymous block didn't look like a loop, and having it behave like one
would have been a major stumbling block in learning the construct.

As a result, both `PEP 343`_ and `PEP 3XX`_ were proposed as
non-looping versions of `PEP 340`_.


Contributing threads:

- `PEP 340: Else clause for block statements
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053190.html>`__
- `PEP 340 -- loose ends
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053206.html>`__
- `PEP 340 -- concept clarification
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053226.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Breaking out.
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053223.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Non-looping version (aka PEP 310 redux)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053400.html>`__
- `PEP 340 - Remaining issues
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053406.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Deterministic Finalisation (new PEP draft, either a
competitor or update to PEP 340)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053503.html>`__
- `Merging PEP 310 and PEP 340-redux?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053591.html>`__
- `PEP 343 - Abstract Block Redux
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053731.html>`__

[SJB]


-----------------
Loop Finalization
-----------------

Greg Ewing pointed out that a generator with a yield inside a
block-statement would require additional work to guarantee its
finalization. For example, if the generator::

   def all_lines(filenames):
       for name in filenames:
           with open(name) as f:
               for line in f:
                   yield line=20

were used in code like::

    for line in all_lines(filenames):
        if some_cond(line):
            break

then unless the for-loop performed some sort of finalization on the
all_lines generator, the last-opened file could remain open
indefinitiely.

As a result, `PEP 3XX`_ proposes that for-loops check for a
__finish__() method on their iterators, and if one exists, call that
method when the for-loop completes. Generators like all_lines above,
that put a yield inside a block-statement, would then acquire a
__finish__() method that would raise a TerminateIteration exception
at the point of the last yield. The TerminateIteration exception would
thus cause the block-statement to complete, guaranteeing that the
generator was properly finalized.

Contributing threads:

- `PEP 340 - For loop cleanup, and feature separation
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053432.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Deterministic Finalisation (new PEP draft, either a
competitor or update to PEP 340)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053503.html>`__
- `PEP 343 - Abstract Block Redux
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053731.html>`__

[SJB]


----------------------------
Breaking out of Nested Loops
----------------------------

As a result of some of the issues of looping anonymous blocks, a few
threads discussed options for breaking out of nested loops. These
mainly worked by augmenting the ``break`` statement with another
keyword (or keywords) that would indicate which loop to break out of.

One proposal suggested that ``break`` be followed with ``for`` or
``while`` to indicate which loop to break out of. But ``break for``
would only really be useful in a while-loop nested within a for-loop,
and ``break while`` would only really be useful in a for-loop nested
within a while-loop. That is, because loops could only be named by
type, the proposal was only useful when loops of different types were
mixed. This suggestion was thus discarded as not being general enough.

A few other suggestions were briefly discussed: adding labels to
loops, using an integer to indicate which "stack level" to break at,
and pushing breaks onto a "break buffer", but Guido killed the
discussion, saying, `"Stop all discussion of breaking out of multiple
loops. It ain't gonna happen before my retirement."
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053592.html>`__

Contributing threads:

- `PEP 340: Breaking out.
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053223.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Deterministic Finalisation (new PEP draft, either a
competitor or update to PEP 340)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053503.html>`__

[SJB]


------------------------
The future of exceptions
------------------------

Ka-Ping Yee suggested that instead of passing (type, value, traceback)
tuples in exceptions it would be better to put the traceback in
value.traceback.  Guido had also suggested this (in the `PEP 340`_ murk) bu=
t
pointed out that this would not work as long as string exceptions exist
(as there is nowhere to put the traceback).

Guido noted that there are no concrete plans as to when string exceptions
will be deprecated and removed (other than in 3.0 at the latest); he
indicated that it could be sooner, if someone wrote a PEP with a timeline
(e.g. deprecated in 2.5, gone in 2.6).

Brett C. volunteered to write a PEP targetted at Python 3000 covering
exception changes (base inheritance, standard attributes (e.g. .traceback),
reworking the built-in exception inheritance hierarchy, and the future of
bare except statements). =20

Contributing threads:

- `Tidier Exceptions
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053671.html>`__

... _PEP 340: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0340.html

[TAM]


-----------------------------------
Unifying try/except and try/finally
-----------------------------------

Reinhold Birkenfeld submitted a Pre-PEP to allow both except and finally
clauses in try blocks.  For example, a construction like::

        try:
            <suite 1>
        except Ex1:
            <suite 2>
        <more except: clauses>
        else:
            <suite 3>
        finally:
            <suite 4>

would be exactly the same as the legacy::

        try:
            try:
                <suite 1>
            except Ex1:
                <suite 2>
            <more except: clauses>
            else:
                <suite 3>
        finally:
            <suite 4>

Guido liked this idea (so much that he wanted to accept it immediately),
and recommended that it was checked in as a PEP.  However, Tim Peters
pointed out that this functionality was removed from Python (by Guido) way
back in 0.9.6, seemingly because there was confusion about exactly when
the finally clause would be called (explicit is better than implicit!).
Guido clarified that control would only pass forward, and indicated that
he felt that since this is now available in Java (and C#) fewer people
would be confused.  The main concern about this change was that, while the
cost was low, it seemed to add very little value.

Contributing threads:

- `Pre-PEP: Unifying try-except and try-finally
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053290.html>`__
                                                                =20
[TAM]


-----------------
Decorator Library
-----------------

Michele Simionato asked whether a module for commonly used decorators, or
utilities to create decorators, was planned.  Raymond Hettinger indicated
that while this was likely in the long term, he felt that it was better if
these first evolved via wikis, recipes, or mailing lists, so that a module
would only be added once best practices and proven winners had emerged.
In the meantime, there is both a `Decorator Library wiki page`_ and
you can try out `Michele's library`_ [zip].

To assist with decorator creation, Michele would like a facility to copy a
function.  Phillip J. Eby noted that the informally-discussed proposal is
to add a mutable __signature__ to functions to assist with signature
preserving decorators.  Raymond suggested a patch adding a __copy__ method
to functions or a patch for the copy module, and Michele indicated that he
would also like to subclass FunctionType with an user-defined __copy__
method.

Contributing threads:

- `my first post: asking about a "decorator" module
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053316.html>`__
- `The decorator module
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053446.html>`__

 .. _Decorator Library wiki page:
http://www.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary
 .. _Michele's library:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/python/decorator.zip

[TAM]

---------------------
Hooking Py_FatalError
---------------------

Errors that invoke Py_FatalError generally signify that the internal state
of Python is in such a poor state that continuing (including raising an
exception) is impossible or unwise; as a result, Py_FatalError outputs the
error to stderr and calls abort().  m.u.k. would like to have a callback to
hook Py_FatalError to avoid this call to abort().  The general consensus
was that effort would be better directed to fixing the causes of fatal
errors than hooking Py_FatalError.  m.u.k.'s use case was for generating
additional logging information; a `callback system patch`_ (revised by
James William Pye) is available for those interested.

Contributing threads:

- `Need to hook Py_FatalError
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053218.html>`__

 .. _callback system patch: http://python.org/sf/1195571

-------------------
Chaining Exceptions
-------------------

Ka-Ping Yee suggested adding information to exceptions when they are raised
in the handler for another exception.  For example::

    def a():
        try:
            raise AError
        except:
            raise BError

raises an exception which is an instance of BError.  This instance could
have an attribute which is instance of AError, containing information about
the original exception.  Use cases include catching a low-level exception
(e.g. socket.error) and turning it into a high-level exception (e.g.
an HTTPRequestFailed exception) and handling problems in exception handling
code.  Guido liked the idea, and discussion fleshed out a tighter
definition; however it was unclear whether adding this now was feasible -
this would perhaps be best added in Python 3000.

Contributing threads:

- `Chained Exceptions
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053672.html>`__

[TAM]

------------------------
Py_UNICODE Documentation
------------------------

Nicholas Bastin started a series of threads discussing an inconsistency
between the Py_UNICODE docs and the behavior on some RedHat systems.
The docs say that Py_UNICODE should be an alias for wchar_t when wchar_t
is available and has 16 bits, but Nick found that pyconfig.h still
reports PY_UNICODE_TYPE as wchar_t, even when PY_UNICODE_SIZE is 4.

An extensive discussion between Nick, Marc-Andre Lemburg and Martin v.
L=F6wis suggests that the possible Python-internal representations for
Py_UNICODE are:

* 4-byte wchar_t encoded as UTF-32 (UCS-4)
* 2-byte wchar_t encoded as UTF-16
* unsigned short encoded as UTF-16

Python defaults to 2-byte mode, using wchar_t if available (and has 16
bits) and using unsigned short otherwise. You may end up with the
4-byte mode if TCL was built for UCS-4 (this overrides the defaults)
or if you explicitly request it with --enable-unicode=3Ducs4. To get
UCS-2 when TCL was built for UCS-4, you must explicitly request
--enable-unicode=3Ducs2. Of course, this will mean that _tkinter can't
be built anymore.

Also noted by this discussion was that even with --enable-unicode=3Ducs2,
Python continues to support surrogate pairs in the BMP. So for example,
even with a UCS-2 build, u"\U00012345" encodes as a sequence of two
characters; it does not produce a UnicodeError.

At the time of this posting, it did not appear that there was a
documentation patch available yet.

Contributing threads:

- `Py_UNICODE madness
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053264.html>`__
- `New Py_UNICODE doc
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053311.html>`__
- `Python's Unicode width default (New Py_UNICODE doc)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053574.html>`__

[SJB]


                                                 =20
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Skipped Threads
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

- `Keyword for block statements
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053189.html>`__
- `PEP 340 - possible new name for block-statement
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053195.html>`__
- `Generating nested data structures with blocks
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053204.html>`__
- `PEP 340 -- Clayton's keyword?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053377.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Only for try/finally?
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053258.html>`__
- `2 words keyword for block
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053251.html>`__
- `anonymous blocks
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053297.html>`__
- `"begin" as keyword for pep 340
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053315.html>`__
- `PEP 340: propose to get rid of 'as' keyword
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053320.html>`__
- `PEP 340 keyword: after
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053396.html>`__
- `PEP 340 keyword: Extended while syntax
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053409.html>`__
- `PEP 340 - Remaining issues - keyword
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053428.html>`__
- `PEP 340: Examples as class's.
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053423.html>`__
- `Proposed alternative to __next__ and __exit__
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053514.html>`__
- `"with" use case: exception chaining
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053665.html>`__
- `PEP 343: Resource Composition and Idempotent __exit__
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053767.html>`__
- `[Python-checkins] python/nondist/peps pep-0343.txt, 1.8, 1.9
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053766.html>`__
- `the current behavior of try: ... finally:
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053692.html>`__
- `a patch to inspect and a non-feature request
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053653.html>`__
- `Python 2.4 set objects and cyclic garbage
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053630.html>`__
- `CHANGE BayPIGgies: May *THIRD* Thurs
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053628.html>`__
- `Python continually calling sigprocmask() on FreeBSD 5
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053615.html>`__
- `Weekly Python Patch/Bug Summary
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053213.html>`__
- `problems with memory management
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053408.html>`__
- `Adding DBL_MANTISSA and such to Python
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053372.html>`__
- `python-dev Summary for 2005-04-16 through 2005-04-30 [draft]
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053383.html>`__
- `Python Language track at Europython, still possibilities to submit
talks <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053303.html>`__
- `(no subject)
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053196.html>`__
- `Kernel panic writing to /dev/dsp with cmpci driver
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-May/053627.html>`__



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Epilogue
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------------
Introduction
------------

This is a summary of traffic on the `python-dev mailing list`_ from
May 01, 2005 through May 15, 2005.

It is intended to inform the wider Python community of on-going
developments on the list on a semi-monthly basis.  An archive_ of
previous summaries is available online.

An `RSS feed`_ of the titles of the summaries is available.  You can
also watch comp.lang.python or comp.lang.python.announce for new
summaries (or through their email gateways of python-list or
python-announce, respectively, as found at http://mail.python.org).

This is the third summary written by the python-dev summary cabal of
Steve Bethard, Tim Lesher, and Tony Meyer.

To contact us, please send email:

- Steve Bethard (steven.bethard at gmail.com)
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Do *not* post to comp.lang.python if you wish to reach us.

The `Python Software Foundation`_ is the non-profit organization that
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--------------------
Commenting on Topics
--------------------

To comment on anything mentioned here, just post to
`comp.lang.python`_ (or email python-list at python.org which is a
gateway to the newsgroup) with a subject line mentioning what you are
discussing.  All python-dev members are interested in seeing ideas
discussed by the community, so don't hesitate to take a stance on
something.  And if all of this really interests you then get involved
and join `python-dev`_!


-------------------------
How to Read the Summaries
-------------------------

The in-development version of the documentation for Python can be
found at http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/ and should be used when
looking up any documentation for new code; otherwise use the current
documentation as found at http://docs.python.org/ .  PEPs (Python
Enhancement Proposals) are located at http://www.python.org/peps/ .
To view files in the Python CVS online, go to
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Please note that this summary is written using reStructuredText_.  Any
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