Software Update: Python 3.1

The developers of Python have finally released version 3.1 after one alpha, one beta and two release candidates. Python is an object-oriented programming language that can be used to develop simple to complex platform-independent applications. The 3.x series is no longer backwards compatible with the previous release branches, as the Python developers have stripped the language of old code and some design flaws present. An overview of the differences between 3.1 and 3.0 is on this page to read. The corresponding list of changes looks like this:

What’s New in Python 3.1?

Core and Builtins:

• Issue #6334: Fix bug in range length calculation for ranges with large arguments.
• Issue #6329: Fixed iteration for memoryview objects (it was being blocked because it wasn’t recognized as a sequence).

library:

• Issue #6314: logging.basicConfig() performs extra checks on the “level” argument.
• Issue #6274: Fixed possible file descriptors leak in subprocess.py
• Accessing io.StringIO.buffer now raises an AttributeError instead of io.UnsupportedOperation.
• Issue #6271: mmap tried to close invalid file handle (-1) when anonymous. (On Unix)
• Issue #1202: zipfile module would cause a struct.error when attempting to store files with a CRC32 > 2**31-1.

Extension Modules:

• Issue #5590: Remove unused global variable in pyexpat extension.