Obtain cleaner coding and a system wide
performance boost by using the fast, pre-parsed
PyArg_Unpack function instead of PyArg_ParseTuple
function which is driven by a format string.
Most of these patches are from Thomas Heller, with long lines folded
by Tim. The change to test_descr.py is from Guido. See the bug report.
Not a bugfix candidate -- METH_CLASS is new in 2.3.
Just van Rossum showed a weird, but clever way for pure python code to
trigger the BadInternalCall. The C code had assumed that calling a class
constructor would return an instance of that class; however, classes that
abuse __new__ can invalidate that assumption.
interning. I modified Oren's patch significantly, but the basic idea
and most of the implementation is unchanged. Interned strings created
with PyString_InternInPlace() are now mortal, and you must keep a
reference to the resulting string around; use the new function
PyString_InternImmortal() to create immortal interned strings.
The staticforward define was needed to support certain broken C
compilers (notably SCO ODT 3.0, perhaps early AIX as well) botched the
static keyword when it was used with a forward declaration of a static
initialized structure. Standard C allows the forward declaration with
static, and we've decided to stop catering to broken C compilers. (In
fact, we expect that the compilers are all fixed eight years later.)
I'm leaving staticforward and statichere defined in object.h as
static. This is only for backwards compatibility with C extensions
that might still use it.
XXX I haven't updated the documentation.
di_dict field when the end of the list is reached. Also make the
error ("dictionary changed size during iteration") a sticky state.
Also remove the next() method -- one is supplied automatically by
PyType_Ready() because the tp_iternext slot is set. That's a good
thing, because the implementation given here was buggy (it never
raised StopIteration).
PEP 285. Everything described in the PEP is here, and there is even
some documentation. I had to fix 12 unit tests; all but one of these
were printing Boolean outcomes that changed from 0/1 to False/True.
(The exception is test_unicode.py, which did a type(x) == type(y)
style comparison. I could've fixed that with a single line using
issubtype(x, type(y)), but instead chose to be explicit about those
places where a bool is expected.
Still to do: perhaps more documentation; change standard library
modules to return False/True from predicates.
The fix makes it possible to call PyObject_GC_UnTrack() more than once
on the same object, and then move the PyObject_GC_UnTrack() call to
*before* the trashcan code is invoked.
BUGFIX CANDIDATE!
PyDict_UpdateFromSeq2(): removed it.
PyDict_MergeFromSeq2(): made it public and documented it.
PyDict_Merge() docs: updated to reveal <wink> that the second
argument can be any mapping object.
Rather than tweaking the inheritance of type object slots (which turns
out to be too messy to try), this fix adds a __hash__ to the list and
dict types (the only mutable types I'm aware of) that explicitly
raises an error. This has the advantage that list.__hash__([]) also
raises an error (previously, this would invoke object.__hash__([]),
returning the argument's address); ditto for dict.__hash__.
The disadvantage for this fix is that 3rd party mutable types aren't
automatically fixed. This should be added to the rules for creating
subclassable extension types: if you don't want your object to be
hashable, add a tp_hash function that raises an exception.
Also, it's possible that I've forgotten about other mutable types for
which this should be done.
outer level, the iterator protocol is used for memory-efficiency (the
outer sequence may be very large if fully materialized); at the inner
level, PySequence_Fast() is used for time-efficiency (these should
always be sequences of length 2).
dictobject.c, new functions PyDict_{Merge,Update}FromSeq2. These are
wholly analogous to PyDict_{Merge,Update}, but process a sequence-of-2-
sequences argument instead of a mapping object. For now, I left these
functions file static, so no corresponding doc changes. It's tempting
to change dict.update() to allow a sequence-of-2-seqs argument too.
Also changed the name of dictionary's keyword argument from "mapping"
to "x". Got a better name? "mapping_or_sequence_of_pairs" isn't
attractive, although more so than "mosop" <wink>.
abstract.h, abstract.tex: Added new PySequence_Fast_GET_SIZE function,
much faster than going thru the all-purpose PySequence_Size.
libfuncs.tex:
- Document dictionary().
- Fiddle tuple() and list() to admit that their argument is optional.
- The long-winded repetitions of "a sequence, a container that supports
iteration, or an iterator object" is getting to be a PITA. Many
months ago I suggested factoring this out into "iterable object",
where the definition of that could include being explicit about
generators too (as is, I'm not sure a reader outside of PythonLabs
could guess that "an iterator object" includes a generator call).
- Please check my curly braces -- I'm going blind <0.9 wink>.
abstract.c, PySequence_Tuple(): When PyObject_GetIter() fails, leave
its error msg alone now (the msg it produces has improved since
PySequence_Tuple was generalized to accept iterable objects, and
PySequence_Tuple was also stomping on the msg in cases it shouldn't
have even before PyObject_GetIter grew a better msg).
many types were subclassable but had a xxx_dealloc function that
called PyObject_DEL(self) directly instead of deferring to
self->ob_type->tp_free(self). It is permissible to set tp_free in the
type object directly to _PyObject_Del, for non-GC types, or to
_PyObject_GC_Del, for GC types. Still, PyObject_DEL was a tad faster,
so I'm fearing that our pystone rating is going down again. I'm not
sure if doing something like
void xxx_dealloc(PyObject *self)
{
if (PyXxxCheckExact(self))
PyObject_DEL(self);
else
self->ob_type->tp_free(self);
}
is any faster than always calling the else branch, so I haven't
attempted that -- however those types whose own dealloc is fancier
(int, float, unicode) do use this pattern.
