Python Essential Reference, Second Edition

Python 2.1

• Functions now define nested scopes. Currently, this feature must be enabled by including from _ _future_ _ import nested_scopes in your program. In future releases, this feature will be enabled by default.

• Rich comparisons and the associated _ _le_ _(), _ _lt_ _(), _ _eq_ _(), _ _ne_ _(), _ _gt_ _(), and _ _ge_ _() methods.

• d .popitem() method added to dictionaries.

• f .xreadline() method added to files to support fast iteration over lines.

• Functions and methods can now have attributes attached to them.

• Support for weak references added. A new module, weakref, provides an interface.

  ▸; See Also weakref (124).

• Warning framework added. The warnings module provides an interface.

  ▸; See Also warnings (121).

• Case-sensitive import now supported on ...