Python for .NET Changes

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PythonNet 2.0 alpha 2

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- First work on Python 2.5 compatibility. The destination version can be

set by defining PYTHON24 or PYTHON25. Python 2.6 compatibility is in

work. [tiran]

- Added VS 2005 solution and project files including a UnitTest

configuration which runs the unit test suite. [tiran]

- Enhanced unit test suite. All test cases are combined in a single

test suite now. [tiran]

- Fixed bugs in generics support for all Python versions. [tiran]

- Fixed exception bugs for Python 2.5+. When compiled for Python 2.5+ all

managed exceptions are based on Python's exceptions.Exception class.

[tiran]

- Added deprecation warnings for importing from CLR.* and the CLR module.

[tiran]

- Implemented support for methods with variable arguments

spam(params object[] egg) [tiran]

- Fixed Mono support by adding a custom marshaler for UCS-4 unicode,

fixing a some ref counter bugs and creating a new makefile.mono.

[tiran]

- Added a standard python extension to load the clr environment.

The src/monoclr/ directory contains additional sample code like a

Python binary linked against libpython2.x.so and some example code

how to embed Mono and PythonNet in a C application.

[tiran]

- Added yet another python prompt. This time it's a C application that

embedds both Python and Mono. It may be useful as an example app for

others and I need it to debug a nasty bug. [tiran]

- Implemented ModuleFunctionAttribute and added ForbidPythonThreadsAttribute.

The latter is required for module functions which invoke Python methods.

[tiran]

- Added clr.setPreload(), clr.getPreload(), clr.AddReference("assembly name"),

clr.FindAssembly("name") and clr.ListAssemblies(verbose). Automatic

preloading can be enabled with clr.setPreload/True). Preloading is

automatically enabled for interactive Python shells and disabled in all

other cases. [tiran]

- New Makefile that works for Windows and Mono and autodetects the Python

version and UCS 2/4 setting. [tiran]

- Added code for Python 2.3. PythonNet can be build for Python 2.3 again

but it is not fully supported. [tiran]

- Changed the PythonException.Message value so it displays the name of

the exception class ("Exception") instead of its representation

("<type 'exceptions.Exception'>").

- Added Python.Runtime.dll.config

PythonNet 2.0 alpha 1

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- Moved the Python for .NET project to Sourceforge and moved version

control to Subversion.

- Removed CallConvCdecl attributes and the IL hack that they supported.

.NET 2.x now supports UnmanagedFunctionPointer, which does the right

thing without the hackery required in 1.x. This removes a dependency

on ILASM to build the package and better supports Mono (in theory).

- Refactored import and assembly management machinery. The old 'CLR.'

syntax for import is deprecated, but still supported until 3.x. The

recommended style now is to use 'from System import xxx', etc. We

also now support 'from X import *' correctly.

- Implemented a (lowercase) 'clr' module to match IronPython for code

compatibility. Methods of this module should be used to explicitly

load assemblies. Implicit (name-based) assembly loading will still

work until 3.x, but it is deprecated.

- Implemented support for generic types and generic methods using the

same patterns and syntax as IronPython. See the documentation for

usage details.

- Many small and large performance improvements, switched to generic

collections for some internals, better algorithms for assembly

scanning, etc.

- Fixed an unboxing issue in generated delegate implementation code

that affected delegates that return value types.

PythonNet 1.0 final

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- Backported the refactored import and assembly management from the 2.x

line, mainly to improve the possibility of code-compatibility with

IronPython.

PythonNet 1.0 release candidate 2

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- Changed some uses of Finalize as a static method name that confused the

Mono compiler and people reading the code. Note that this may be a

breaking change if anyone was calling PythonEngine.Finalize(). If so,

you should now use PythonEngine.Shutdown().

- Tweaked assembly lookup to ensure that assemblies can be found in the

current working directory, even after changing directories using things

like os.chdir() from Python.

- Fixed some incorrect finalizers (thanks to Greg Chapman for the report)

that may have caused some threading oddities.

- Tweaked support for out and ref parameters. If a method has a return

type of void and a single ref or out parameter, that parameter will be

returned as the result of the method. This matches the current behavior

of IronPython and makes it more likely that code can be moved between

Python for .NET and IP in the future.

- Refactored part of the assembly manager to remove a potential case of

thread-deadlock in multi-threaded applications.

- Added a __str__ method to managed exceptions that returns the Message

attribute of the exception and the StackTrace (if available).

PythonNet 1.0 release candidate 1

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- Implemented a workaround for the fact that exceptions cannot be new-style

classes in the CPython interpreter. Managed exceptions can now be raised

and caught naturally from Python (hooray!)

- Implemented support for invoking methods with out and ref parameters.

Because there is no real equivalent to these in Python, methods that

have out or ref parameters will return a tuple. The tuple will contain

the result of the method as its first item, followed by out parameter

values in the order of their declaration in the method signature.

- Fixed a refcount problem that caused a crash when CLR was imported in

an existing installed Python interpreter.

- Added an automatic conversion from Python strings to byte[]. This makes

it easier to pass byte[] data to managed methods (or set properties,

etc.) as a Python string without having to write explicit conversion

code. Also works for sbyte arrays. Note that byte and sbyte arrays

returned from managed methods or obtained from properties or fields

do *not* get converted to Python strings - they remain instances of

Byte[] or SByte[].

- Added conversion of generic Python sequences to object arrays when

appropriate (thanks to Mackenzie Straight for the patch).

- Added a bit of cautionary documentation for embedders, focused on

correct handling of the Python global interpreter lock from managed

code for code that calls into Python.

- PyObject.FromManagedObject now correctly returns the Python None object

if the input is a null reference. Also added a new AsManagedObject

method to PyObject, making it easier to convert a Python-wrapped managed

object to the real managed object.

- Created a simple installer for windows platforms.

PythonNet 1.0 beta 5

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- Refactored and fixed threading and global interpreter lock handling,

which was badly broken before. Also added a number of threading and

GIL-handling tests.

- Related to the GIL fixes, added a note to embedders in the README

about using the AcquireLock and ReleaseLock methods of the PythonEngine

class to manage the GIL.

- Fixed a problem in Single <--> float conversion for cultures that use

different decimal symbols than Python.

- Added a new ReloadModule method to the PythonEngine class that hooks

Python module reloading (PyImport_ReloadModule).

- Added a new StringAsModule method to the PythonEngine class that can

create a module from a managed string of code.

- Added a default __str__ implementation for Python wrappers of managed

objects that calls the ToString method of the managed object.

PythonNet 1.0 beta 4

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- Fixed a problem that made it impossible to override "special" methods

like __getitem__ in subclasses of managed classes. Now the tests all

pass, and there is much rejoicing.

- Managed classes reflected to Python now have an __doc__ attribute that

contains a listing of the class constructor signatures.

- Fixed a problem that prevented passing null (None) for array arguments.

- Added a number of new argument conversion tests. Thanks to Laurent

Caumont for giving Python for .NET a good workout with managed DirectX.

- Updated the bundled C Python runtime and libraries to Python 2.4. The

current release is known to also run with Python 2.3. It is known

*not* to work with older versions due to changes in CPython type

object structure.

- Mostly fixed the differences in the way that import works depending

on whether you are using the bundled interpreter or an existing Python

interpreter. The hack I used makes import work uniformly for imports

done in Python modules. Unfortunately, there is still a limitation

when using the interpreter interactively: you need to do 'import CLR'

first before importing any sub-names when running with an existing

Python interpreter.

The reason is that the first import of 'CLR' installs the CLR import

hook, but for an existing interpreter the standard importer is still

in control for the duration of that first import, so sub-names won't

be found until the next import, which will use the now-installed hook.

- Added support to directly iterate over objects that support IEnumerator

(as well as IEnumerable). Thanks to Greg Chapman for prodding me ;)

- Added a section to the README dealing with rebuilding Python for .NET

against other CPython versions.

- Fixed a problem with accessing properties when only the interface for

an object is known. For example, ICollection(ob).Count failed because

Python for .NET mistakenly decided that Count was abstract.

- Fixed some problems with how COM-based objects are exposed and how

members of inherited interfaces are exposed. Thanks to Bruce Dodson

for patches on this.

- Changed the Runtime class to use a const string to target the

appropriate CPython dll in DllImport attributes. Now you only

have to change one line to target a new Python version.

PythonNet 1.0 beta 3

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- A dumb bug that could cause a crash on startup on some platforms was

fixed. Decided to update the beta for this, as a number of people

were running into the problem.

PythonNet 1.0 beta 2

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- Exceptions raised as a result of getting or setting properties were

not very helpful (target invokation exception). This has been changed

to pass through the inner exception the way that methods do, which is

much more likely to be the real exception that caused the problem.

- Events were refactored as the implementation was based on some bad

assumptions. As a result, subscription and unsubscription now works

correctly. A change from beta 1 is that event objects are no longer

directly callable - this was not appropriate, since the internal

implementation of an event is private and cant work reliably. Instead,

you should the appropriate OnSomeEvent method published by a class

to fire an event.

- The distribution did not include the key file, making it a pain for

people to build from source. Added the key file to the distribution

buildout for beta 2.

- Assemblies can now be found and loaded if they are on the PYTHONPATH.

Previously only the appbase and the GAC were checked. The system now

checks PYTHONPATH first, then the appbase, then the GAC.

- Fixed a bug in constructor invokation during object instantiation.

PythonNet 1.0 beta 1

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- Added the baseline of the managed embedding API. Some of the details

are still subject to change based on some real-world use and feedback.

The embedding API is based on the PyObject class, along with a number

of specific PyDict, PyList, (etc.) classes that expose the respective

interfaces of the built-in Python types. The basic structure and usage

is intended be familar to anyone who has used Python / C++ wrapper

libraries like CXX or Boost.

- Started integrating NUnit2 to support unit tests for the embedding

layer - still need to add the embedding tests (many already exist,

but were written for an older version of NUnit).

- Added Python iteration protocol support for arrays and managed objects

that implement IEnumerable. This means that you can now use the Python

idiom 'for item in object:' on any array or IEnumerable object.

- Added automatic conversion from Python sequence types to managed array

types. This means, for example, that you can now call a managed method

like AddRange that expects an array with any Python object that supports

the Python sequence protocol, provided the items of the sequence are

convertible to the item type of the managed array.

- Added new demo scripts, mostly more substantial winforms examples.

- Finished the unit tests for event support, and fixed lots of problems

with events and delegates as a result. This is one of the trickier

parts of the integration layer, and there is good coverage of these

in the unit tests now.

- Did a fair amount of profiling with an eval version of ANTS (which is

quite nice, BTW) and made a few changes as a result.

- Type management was refactored, fixing the issue that caused segfaults

when GC was enabled. Unit tests, stress tests and demo apps now all run

nicely with Python GC enabled. There are one or two things left to fix,

but the fixes should not have any user impact.

- Changed to base PythonNet on Python 2.3.2. This is considered the most

stable release, and a good 25 - 30% faster as well.

- Added a new 'CLR.dll' that acts as an extension module that allows an

existing unmodified Python 2.3 installation to simply 'import CLR' to

bootstrap the managed integration layer.

- A bug was causing managed methods to only expose overloads declared in

a particular class, hiding inherited overloads of the same name. Fixed

the bug and added some unit tests.

- Added a virtual '__doc__' attribute to managed methods that contains

the signature of the method. This also means that the Python 'help'

function now provides signature info when used on a managed class.

- Calling managed methods and events 'unbound' (passing the instance as

the first argument) now works. There is a caveat for methods - if a

class declares both static and instance methods with the same name,

it is not possible to call that instance method unbound (the static

method will always be called).

- Overload selection for overloaded methods is now much better and uses

a method resolution algorithm similar to that used by Jython.

- Changed the managed python.exe wrapper to run as an STA thread, which

seems to be more compatible with winforms apps. This needs a better

solution long-term. One possibility would be a command line switch

so that -sta or -mta could control the python.exe apartment state.

- Added support for the Python boolean type (True, False). Bool values

now appear as True or False to Python.

PythonNet Preview 2

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- Added a Mono makefile. Thanks to Camilo Uribe for help in testing and

working out problems on Mono. Note that it not currently possible to

build PythonNet using mono, due to the use of some IL attributes that

the mono assembler / disassembler doesn't support yet.

- Preliminary tests show that PythonNet *does* actually run under mono,

though the test suite bombs out before the end with an "out of memory"

error from the mono runtime. It's just a guess at this point, but I

suspect there may be a limited pool for allocating certain reflection

structures, and Python uses the reflection infrastructure quite heavily.

- Removed decoys like the non-working embedding APIs; lots of internal

refactoring.

- Implemented indexer support. Managed instances that implement indexers

can now be used naturally from Python ( e.g. someobject[0] ).

- Implemented sequence protocol support for managed arrays.

- Implemented basic thread state management; calls to managed methods

no longer block Python. I won't go so far as to say the thread

choreography is "finished", as I don't have a comprehensive set of

tests to back that up yet (and it will take some work to write a

sufficiently large and evil set of tests).

- Fixed a bug that caused conversions of managed strings to PyUnicode to

produce mangled values in certain situations.

- Fixed a number of problems related to subclassing a managed class,

including the fact that it didn't work :)

- Fixed all of the bugs that were causing tests to fail. This release

contains all new bugs and new failing tests. Progress! :)

PythonNet Preview 1

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- Initial (mostly) working experimental release.