2004-05-20 (5.4)

  • Added .
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  • Incorporated technical reviewer revisions in and .

2004-05-12 (5.3)

  • Added isalpha() example to . Thanks, Paul.
  • Incorporated copyediting revisions into and .
  • Fixed URL of .

2004-05-09 (5.2)

  • Fixed URL of .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
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  • Added .
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2004-05-05 (5.1)

  • Clarified and .
  • Clarified .
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks, Jesir.
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks, Daniel.
  • Incorporated technical reviewer revisions.
  • Incorporated copy editor revisions in , , , and .

2004-04-16 (5.0)

  • Added .
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  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Changed descriptions of how to download Python throughout to be more generic and less version-specific.
  • Changed references of module to program in and since we haven't explained modules yet.
  • Added explicit instructions in for the reader to open their Python IDE and follow along with the examples.
  • Changed all examples and descriptions that referred to truth values 1 and 0 to refer to True and False.
  • Updated to show new Python 2.3 TypeError message.
  • Fixed typo in .
  • Fixed typo in .
  • Fixed typo in .

2004-03-25 (4.9)

  • Finished .
  • Added .
  • Split unit testing introduction into two chapters, and .
  • Fixed typo in .
  • Fixed typo in .

2004-03-25 (4.8)

  • Finished .
  • Finished .
  • Fixed broken links in , , , .

2004-03-21 (4.7)

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  • Added .
  • Added (unfinished).
  • Added (unfinished).

2004-03-14 (4.6)

  • Finished .
  • Finished .
  • Finished .
  • Expanded .

2004-03-07 (4.5)

  • Added .
  • Added (incomplete).
  • Added (incomplete).
  • Added (incomplete).
  • Added .
  • Moved and to regular expressions chapter.
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added and .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Split into 2 chapters: and .
  • Split into 2 chapters: and .
  • Split into 2 chapters: and .
  • Renamed help to info in .
  • Fixed incorrect back-reference in .
  • Fixed broken example links in .
  • Fixed missing line in example in .
  • Fixed typo in .

2003-10-08 (4.4)

  • Added .
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  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Removed preface.
  • Fixed typo in .
  • Added link to PEP 257 in .
  • Fixed link to How to Think Like a Computer Scientist in .
  • Added note about implied assert in .

2003-09-28 (4.3)

  • Added .
  • Added (incomplete).
  • Fixed links in .

2003-09-17 (4.2.1)

  • Fixed links on index page.
  • Fixed syntax highlighting.

2003-09-12 (4.2)

  • Fixed typos in , , , and . Thanks, Doug.
  • Fixed external link in . Thanks, Harry.
  • Changed wording at the end of . Thanks, Paul.
  • Added sentence in to make it clearer that we're passing a function to assertRaises, not a function name as a string. Thanks, Stephen.
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks, Wellie.
  • Fixed links to dialectized examples.
  • Fixed external link to the history of Roman numerals. Thanks to many concerned Roman numeral fans around the world.

2002-07-28 (4.1)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Fixed typo in . It's os.getcwd(), not os.path.getcwd(). Thanks, Abhishek.
  • Fixed typo in . When evaluated (instead of printed), the Python IDE will display single quotes around the output.
  • Changed str example in to use a user-defined function, since Python 2.2 obsoleted the old example by defining a doc string for the built-in dictionary methods. Thanks Eric.
  • Fixed typo in , "anyway" to "anywhere". Thanks Frank.
  • Fixed typo in , doubled word "accept". Thanks Ralph.
  • Fixed typo in , C?C?C? matches 0 to 3 C characters, not 4. Thanks Ralph.
  • Clarified and expanded explanation of implied slice indices in . Thanks Petr.
  • Added historical note in now that Python 2.2 supports subclassing built-in datatypes directly.
  • Added explanation of update dictionary method in . Thanks Petr.
  • Clarified Python's lack of overloading in . Thanks Petr.
  • Fixed typo in . HTML comments end with two dashes and a bracket, not one. Thanks Petr.
  • Changed tense of note about nested scopes in now that Python 2.2 is out. Thanks Petr.
  • Fixed typo in ; a space should have been a non-breaking space. Thanks Petr.
  • Added title to note on derived classes in . Thanks Petr.
  • Added title to note on downloading unittest in . Thanks Petr.
  • Fixed typesetting problem in ; tabs should have been spaces, and the line numbers were misaligned. Thanks Petr.
  • Fixed capitalization typo in the tip on truth values in . It's True and False, not true and false. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out.
  • Changed section titles of , , and . "Dictionaries 101" was a cute way of saying that this section was an beginner's introduction to dictionaries. American colleges tend to use this numbering scheme to indicate introductory courses with no prerequisites, but apparently this is a distinctly American tradition, and it was unnecessarily confusing my international readers. In my defense, when I initially wrote these sections a year and a half ago, it never occurred to me that I would have international readers.
  • Upgraded to version 1.52 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets.
  • Upgraded to version 6.52 of the SAXON XSLT processor from Michael Kay.
  • Various accessibility-related stylesheet tweaks.
  • Somewhere between this revision and the last one, she said yes. The wedding will be next spring.

2002-04-26 (4.0-2)

  • Fixed typo in .
  • Fixed typo in .
  • Fixed Windows help file (missing table of contents due to base stylesheet changes).

2002-04-19 (4.0)

  • Expanded to include more about import search paths.
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks to Brian for the correction.
  • Rewrote the tip on truth values in , now that Python has a separate boolean datatype.
  • Fixed typo in when comparing syntax to Java. Thanks to Rick for the correction.
  • Added note in about derived classes always overriding ancestor classes.
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks to Kevin for the correction.
  • Added note in that you can define and raise your own exceptions. Thanks to Rony for the suggestion.
  • Fixed typo in . Thanks for Rick for the correction.
  • Added note in about what the return codes mean. Thanks to Howard for the suggestion.
  • Added str function when creating StringIO instance in . Thanks to Ganesan for the idea.
  • Added link in to explanation of why test cases belong in a separate file.
  • Changed to use os.path.dirname instead of os.path.split. Thanks to Marc for the idea.
  • Added code samples (piglatin.py, parsephone.py, and plural.py) for the upcoming regular expressions chapter.
  • Updated and expanded list of Python distributions on home page.

2002-01-01 (3.9)

  • Added .
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  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added simple counter for loop examples (good usage and bad usage) in . Thanks to Kevin for the idea.
  • Fixed typo in (two elements of params.values() were reversed).
  • Fixed mistake in with regards to the name of the __builtin__ module. Thanks to Denis for the correction.
  • Added additional example in to show how to run unit tests in the current working directory, instead of the directory where regression.py is located.
  • Modified explanation of how to derive a negative list index from a positive list index in . Thanks to Renauld for the suggestion.
  • Updated links on home page for downloading latest version of Python.
  • Added link on home page to Bruce Eckel's preliminary draft of Thinking in Python, a marvelous (and advanced) book on design patterns and how to implement them in Python.

2001-11-18 (3.8)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
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  • Expanded sample output in .
  • Finished .

2001-09-30 (3.7)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Cleaned up introductory paragraph in . Thanks to Matt for this suggestion.
  • Added Java tip in . Thanks to Ori for this suggestion.
  • Fixed mistake in where I implied that you could not use is None to compare to a null value in Python. In fact, you can, and it's faster than == None. Thanks to Ori pointing this out.
  • Clarified in where I said that li = li + other was equivalent to li.extend(other). The result is the same, but extend is faster because it doesn't create a new list. Thanks to Denis pointing this out.
  • Fixed mistake in where I said that li += other was equivalent to li = li + other. In fact, it's equivalent to li.extend(other), since it doesn't create a new list. Thanks to Denis pointing this out.
  • Fixed typographical laziness in ; when I was writing it, I had not yet standardized on putting string literals in single quotes within the text. They were set off by typography, but this is lost in some renditions of the book (like plain text), making it difficult to read. Thanks to Denis for this suggestion.
  • Fixed mistake in where I said that statically typed languages always use explicit variable + datatype declarations to enforce static typing. Most do, but there are some statically typed languages where the compiler figures out what type the variable is based on usage within the code. Thanks to Tony for pointing this out.
  • Added link to Spanish translation.

2001-09-06 (3.6.4)

  • Added code in BaseHTMLProcessor to handle non-HTML entity references, and added a note about it in .
  • Modified to include htmlentitydefs in the output.

2001-09-04 (3.6.3)

2001-08-31 (3.6.2)

  • Fixed typo in (the last requirement was listed twice).

2001-08-31 (3.6)

  • Finished with and .
  • Added .
  • Started with .
  • Started with .
  • Fixed long-standing bug in colorizing script that improperly colorized the examples in .
  • Added link to French translation. They did the right thing and translated the source XML, so they can re-use all my build scripts and make their work available in six different formats.
  • Upgraded to version 1.43 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets.
  • Upgraded to version 6.43 of the SAXON XSLT processor from Michael Kay.
  • Massive stylesheet changes, moving away from a table-based layout and towards more appropriate use of cascading style sheets. Unfortunately, CSS has as many compatibility problems as anything else, so there are still some tables used in the header and footer. The resulting HTML version looks worse in Netscape 4, but better in modern browsers, including Netscape 6, Mozilla, Internet Explorer 5, Opera 5, Konqueror, and iCab. And it's still completely readable in Lynx. I love Lynx. It was my first web browser. You never forget your first.
  • Moved to Ant to have better control over the build process, which is especially important now that I'm juggling six output formats and two languages.
  • Consolidated the available downloadable archives; previously, I had different files for each platform, because the .zip files that Python's zipfile module creates are non-standard and can't be opened by Aladdin Expander on Mac OS. But the .zip files that Ant creates are completely standard and cross-platform. Go Ant!
  • Now hosting the complete XML source, XSL stylesheets, and associated scripts and libraries on SourceForge. There's also CVS access for the really adventurous.
  • Re-licensed the example code under the new-and-improved GPL-compatible Python 2.1.1 license. Thanks, Guido; people really do care, and it really does matter.

2001-06-26 (3.5)

  • Added explanation of strong/weak/static/dynamic datatypes in .
  • Added case-sensitivity example in .
  • Use os.path.normcase in to compensate for inferior operating systems whose files aren't case-sensitive.
  • Fixed indentation problems in code samples in PDF version.

2001-05-31 (3.4)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Fixed yet another stylesheet bug that was dropping nested </span> tags.

2001-05-24 (3.3)

  • Added .
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  • Tweaked stylesheets in an endless quest for complete Netscape/Mozilla compatibility.

2001-05-03 (3.2)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Fixed bug in handle_decl method that would produce incorrect declarations (adding a space where it couldn't be).
  • Fixed bug in CSS (introduced in 2.9) where body background color was missing.

2001-04-18 (3.1)

  • Added code in BaseHTMLProcessor.py to handle declarations, now that Python 2.1 supports them.
  • Added note about nested scopes in .
  • Fixed obscure bug in where attribute values with character entities would not be properly escaped.
  • Now recommending (but not requiring) Python 2.1, due to its support of declarations in sgmllib.py.
  • Updated download links on the home page to point to Python 2.1, where available.
  • Moved to versioned filenames, to help people who redistribute the book.

2001-04-16 (3.0)

  • Fixed minor bug in code listing in .
  • Added link to Chinese translation on home page.

2001-04-13 (2.9)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Tightened code in , specifically ChefDialectizer, to use fewer and simpler regular expressions.
  • Fixed a stylesheet bug that was inserting blank pages between chapters in the PDF version.
  • Fixed a script bug that was stripping the DOCTYPE from the home page.
  • Added link to Python Cookbook, and added a few links to individual recipes in .
  • Switched to Google for searching on http://diveintopython.org/.
  • Upgraded to version 1.36 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets, which was much more difficult than it sounds. There may still be lingering bugs.

2001-03-26 (2.8)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Tightened up code in , using the built-in function callable instead of manually checking types.
  • Moved from to .
  • Fixed typo in code example in (added colon).
  • Added several additional downloadable example scripts.
  • Added Windows Help output format.

2001-03-16 (2.7)

  • Added .
  • Tightened up code in .
  • Changed code in to use items method instead of keys.
  • Moved section to .
  • Edited note about join string method, and provided a link to the new entry in The Whole Python FAQ that explains why join is a string method instead of a list method.
  • Rewrote to emphasize the fundamental nature of and and or and de-emphasize the and-or trick.
  • Reorganized language comparisons into notes.

2001-02-28 (2.6)

  • The PDF and Word versions now have colorized examples, an improved table of contents, and properly indented tips and notes.
  • The Word version is now in native Word format, compatible with Word 97.
  • The PDF and text versions now have fewer problems with improperly converted special characters (like trademark symbols and curly quotes).
  • Added link to download Word version for UNIX, in case some twisted soul wants to import it into StarOffice or something.
  • Fixed several notes which were missing titles.
  • Fixed stylesheets to work around bug in Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS which caused colorized words in the examples to be displayed in the wrong font. (Hello?!? Microsoft? Which part of <pre> don't you understand?)
  • Fixed archive corruption in Mac OS downloads.
  • In first section of each chapter, added link to download examples. (My access logs show that people skim or skip the two pages where they could have downloaded them (the home page and preface), then scramble to find a download link once they actually start reading.)
  • Tightened the home page and preface even more, in the hopes that someday someone will read them.
  • Soon I hope to get back to actually writing this book instead of debugging it.

2001-02-23 (2.5)

  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Moved from to .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Fixed program listing in which was missing a colon.

2001-02-12 (2.4.1)

  • Changed newsgroup links to use news: protocol, now that deja.com is defunct.
  • Added file sizes to download links.

2001-02-12 (2.4)

  • Added further reading links in most sections, and collated them in .
  • Added URLs in parentheses next to external links in text version.

2001-02-09 (2.3)

  • Rewrote some of the code in to use class attributes and a better example of multi-variable assignment.
  • Reorganized to put the class sections first.
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Merged the review section in into .
  • Colorized all program listings and examples.
  • Fixed important error in : functions that do not explicitly return a value return None, so you can assign the return value of such a function to a variable without raising an exception.
  • Added minor clarifications to , , and .

2001-02-02 (2.2)

  • Edited .
  • Added titles to xref tags, so they can have their cute little tooltips too.
  • Changed the look of the revision history page.
  • Fixed problem I introduced yesterday in my HTML post-processing script that was causing invalid HTML character references and breaking some browsers.
  • Upgraded to version 1.29 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets.

2001-02-01 (2.1)

  • Rewrote the example code of to use getattr instead of exec and eval, and rewrote explanatory text to match.
  • Added example of list operators in .
  • Added links to relevant sections in the summary lists at the end of each chapter ( and ).

2001-01-31 (2.0)

  • Split into three sections, , , and .
  • Changed notes on garbage collection to point out that Python 2.0 and later can handle circular references without additional coding.
  • Fixed UNIX downloads to include all relevant files.

2001-01-15 (1.9)

  • Removed introduction to .
  • Removed introduction to .
  • Removed introduction to .
  • Edited text ruthlessly. I tend to ramble.

2001-01-12 (1.8)

  • Added more examples to .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • More minor stylesheet tweaks, including adding titles to link tags, which, if your browser is cool enough, will display a description of the link target in a cute little tooltip.

2001-01-03 (1.71)

  • Made several modifications to stylesheets to improve browser compatibility.

2001-01-02 (1.7)

  • Added introduction to .
  • Added introduction to .
  • Added review section to [later removed]
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Added .
  • Wrote scripts to convert book to new output formats: one single HTML file, PDF, Microsoft Word 97, and plain text.
  • Registered the diveintopython.org domain and moved the book there, along with links to download the book in all available output formats for offline reading.
  • Modified the XSL stylesheets to change the header and footer navigation that displays on each page. The top of each page is branded with the domain name and book version, followed by a breadcrumb trail to jump back to the chapter table of contents, the main table of contents, or the site home page.

2000-12-11 (1.6)

  • Added .
  • Finished with .
  • Started with .

2000-11-22 (1.5)

2000-11-14 (1.4)

  • Added .
  • Added dir documentation to .
  • Added in example in .
  • Added additional note about if __name__ trick under MacPython.
  • Switched to the SAXON XSLT processor from Michael Kay.
  • Upgraded to version 1.24 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets.
  • Added db-html processing instructions with explicit filenames of each chapter and section, to allow deep links to content even if I add or re-arrange sections later.
  • Made several common phrases into entities for easier reuse.
  • Changed several literal tags to constant.

2000-11-09 (1.3)

  • Added section on dynamic code execution.
  • Added links to relevant section/example wherever I refer to previously covered concepts.
  • Expanded introduction of chapter 2 to explain what the function actually does.
  • Explicitly placed example code under the GNU General Public License and added appendix to display license. [Note 8/16/2001: code has been re-licensed under GPL-compatible Python license]
  • Changed links to licenses to use xref tags, now that I know how to use them.

2000-11-06 (1.2)

  • Added first four sections of chapter 2.
  • Tightened up preface even more, and added link to Mac OS version of Python.
  • Filled out examples in "Mapping lists" and "Joining strings" to show logical progression.
  • Added output in chapter 1 summary.

2000-10-31 (1.1)

  • Finished chapter 1 with sections on mapping and joining, and a chapter summary.
  • Toned down the preface, added links to introductions for non-programmers.
  • Fixed several typos.

2000-10-30 (1.0)

  • Initial publication