ActivePython User Guide

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ActivePython 2.4.5.14 Release Notes

Table of Contents

• Release History and Changes
• Known Issues

Release History and Changes

ActivePython 2.5.1.1: May 2007

New Features & Upgrades

• Upgrade core to Python 2.5.1.

Noteworty Changes & Bug Fixes

• [windows] Fix instructions in pydoc.py so can get help(KEYWORD) easily working (Bug 46059).
• [windows] Fix pydoc.py so 'python -m pydoc ...' works (Bug 43711).

Internal Build Changes

• [un*x] Move to more reliable and available install-dir relocation system (relocate_python() in activestate.py).

ActivePython 2.5.0.0: Mar 2007

New Features & Upgrades

• [windows] Install a "python25.exe" beside "python.exe". This is akin to the "python2.5" setup on all other platforms. You can have multiple Python versions installed and on your PATH and call specific ones.
• [macosx] Switch to a universal build.
• Add full OpenSSL support.
• [windows] PyWin32 update to build 209.2 (actually to a CVS snapshot just before the PyWin32 build 210 release).
• Tcl/Tk 8.4.14 and Tix 8.4.2 upgrades.
• Added all the new core extensions in Python 2.5: ctypes, SQLite (sqlite3), ElementTree (xml.etree).
• Updated extra docs to the latest: Python FAQs, Python HOWTOs, PEPs snapshot.

Noteworty Changes & Bug Fixes

• [linux] Drop the separate "libcppN" builds. The "libcpp" indicated the system "libstdc++.so" with which the given ActivePython was compatible. However, the dependence on "libstdc++" was only accidental and only in the main python executable. The only significant system library dependence of the ActivePython linux build is now "libc.so.6". The old "linux2.2-x86" build (which is built against "libc.so.5") may be dropped: libc 5 is ancient.
• [macosx] Improved the uninstall procedure. An "uninstall" script is included in the package receipt (instead of the old "pydistro.py"). This script is more reliable and knows how to restore an older existing Python framework as the default.

Internal Build Changes

• [windows] Switched to use Wix for the installer (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix).

ActivePython 2.4.3.12: Apr 2006

• [Windows] Fix a bug that results in ".pyo" and ".pyc" being placed on the PATHEXT environment variable before ".py" for clean installs. Bug 33311. This can cause surprises for command-line usage for Python scripts when not specifying the ".py" extension. The new installer will fix PATHEXT on machines that hit this bug.

ActivePython 2.4.3.11: 03 Apr 2006

• [Windows] Update to recent PyWin32 (build 208.1+)
• Update to bzip2 1.0.3 (from 1.0.2) [bug 45239]
• Update to Python 2.4.3
• [Windows, docs] Fix bug 44765: no PyWin32 docs in CHM TOC
• [Mac OS X] Fix errors in the build number in the Python.framework Info.plist and version.plist (change 252117).

ActivePython 2.4.2.10: 17 Jan 2006

• Add support for a Mac OS X for Intel (x86) build (macosx-x86). This should be considered an early build. Currently there are two separate builds for Mac OS X: one for PowerPC and Intel, rather than one universal build. This will likely change in future ActivePython builds. There are some known issues in this release.
• Add support for Windows/x64 (win64-x64) and Linux/x86_64 (linux-x86_64) platforms. "x64" and "x86_64" are both also known as the "AMD64" architecture. Note: the Windows/x64 build does not include the Python for Windows Extensions (PyWin32) because it currently has 64-bit issues to be resolved.
• Upgrade to PyWin32 build 207.
• Drop 3-digit ActivePython build numbers in favour of simply counting from zero (0). The 3-digit build numbers attempted to encode the major.minor core Python version number as part of the build. However, the result was a limit of ten ActivePython builds for one core Python X.Y stream and the encoding did not hold enough value. (Note: Build "9" was an internal build that was not released publicly.)
• Upgrade to Tcl/Tk 8.4.12.
• Change the Windows "debug libraries" package to allow installation into a non-ActivePython Python installation of the same version as discussed on python-dev here and here.
• Fix Mac OS X/PowerPC bug where the Python "bz2" and "curses" extensions unintentionally depended on one having Fink installed. (Bug 44165)
• Change the name used for the Intel 32-bit architecture from "ix86" to "x86" in platform names. This changes the package names for some ActivePython builds.

ActivePython 2.4.2 Build 248: 31 October 2005

• Upgrade to core Python 2.4.2.
• Upgrade to zlib 1.2.3, which eliminates a potential security vulnerability.

ActivePython 2.4.1 Build 247: June 2005

• Correct some issues (including py2app compatibility) on Mac OS X.
• Update the license to clarify that usage of ActivePython with wrapping tools such as "py2app" and "py2exe" is allowed.
• Make Solaris 10/x86 builds freely available.
• Make HP-UX/PA-RISC builds freely available.
• Make AIX/PowerPC builds freely available.

ActivePython 2.4.1 Build 246: June 2005

• Add support for Mac OS X/PowerPC.

ActivePython 2.4.1 Build 245: March 2005

• Update to core Python 2.4.1.
• Update to Tcl/Tk 8.4.9.

ActivePython 2.3.5 Build 236: February 2005

• Update to core Python 2.3.5. In particular this includes a fix for the security advisory for SimpleXMLRPCServer.py.

ActivePython 2.4.0 Build 244: February 2005

• Fix the security advisory for SimpleXMLRPCServer.py.

• [Windows] Upgrade to PyWin32 build 203+.
• Add Tix support (Tix is a popular set of Tk widgets).

• [Windows] Upgrade to PyWin32 (a.k.a. win32all) build 163.
• [Windows] Fix issues regarding win32com cache (bug 28173).

• [Windows] Upgrade to PyWin32 (a.k.a. win32all) build 162.
• [Windows] Fix issues regarding win32com cache (bug 28173).

• [Windows] Upgrade to PyWin32 (a.k.a. win32all) build 161.
• Re-add the _tkinter module that was mistakenly not included in build 230 on Linux and Solaris.

• [Windows] Upgrade to PyWin32 (a.k.a. win32all) build 160.
• Update to Tcl/Tk 8.4.4.

Known Issues

This section lists known issues with ActivePython and Python.

Windows

• The Windows "debug bits" package is not included in ActivePython 2.5.0.0. See bug 67940 for details.
• PyWin32 is not supported on 64-bit Windows builds. PyWin32 is not yet ported to 64-bit.
• The following Microsoft knowledge base articles may be helpful in solving MSI problems:
  • Q236597 - OFF2000: Error Message: The Installation Package Could Not Be Opened ...
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q236/5/97.ASP
  • Q224094 - OFF2000: Error Message: This Application Requires the Windows Installer to Run
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/0/94.ASP
  • Q247532 - Works 2000 Error Message: Installer Terminated Prematurely
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q247/5/32.ASP
  • Error 1303: The installer has insufficient privileges... (while running Office Setup)
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q228/6/58.ASP
  • Error 1316: Running Setup for Admin Installation
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q228/5/92.ASP
  • Error 1327: Invalid Drive During Office Installation
    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/6/66.ASP
• On Windows 98, popen() functions may crash the PC when certain versions of Norton Anti Virus are installed. This includes os.popen(), popen2.popen*() and win32pipe.popen*()
• On Windows 95, Python COM integration will not work, because win32com registration does not work.
• In certain situations, attempting to use any COM functions may fail. The error message will usually indicate an inability to load one of pythoncomxx.dll or pywintypesxx.dll. This generally indicates that your COM .dlls need to be updated. Visit the COM/DCOM download pages at http://www.microsoft.com/com , select Resources|Downloads and download the COM/DCOM update for your system. More details are available on Mark Hammond's Python for Win32 pages at http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/InstallationProblems.html .

Mac OS X

• [macosx-x86] py2app does not work ("ValueError: got magic of cefaedfe, expecting fat magic cafebabe", bug 44154)
• [macosx-x86] Tkinter does not work (bug 44152)
• [macosx-x86] The following core Python tests fails: test_aepack test_applesingle test_macostools.