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<title>13 Build and C API Changes</title>
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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a>

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<LI><A href="node14.html#SECTION0001410000000000000000">13.1 Port-Specific Changes</a>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION0001400000000000000000">
13 Build and C API Changes</A>
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<P>
Some of the changes to Python's build process and to the C API are:

<P>

<UL>
<LI>Three new convenience macros were added for common return
  values from extension functions: Py_RETURN_NONE,
  Py_RETURN_TRUE, and Py_RETURN_FALSE.
  (Contributed by Brett Cannon.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>Another new macro, Py_CLEAR(<var>obj</var>),
  decreases the reference count of <var>obj</var> and sets <var>obj</var> to the
  null pointer.  (Contributed by Jim Fulton.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>A new function, <tt class="cfunction">PyTuple_Pack(<var>N</var>, <var>obj1</var>,
  <var>obj2</var>, ..., <var>objN</var>)</tt>, constructs tuples from a variable
  length argument list of Python objects.  (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>A new function, <tt class="cfunction">PyDict_Contains(<var>d</var>, <var>k</var>)</tt>,
  implements fast dictionary lookups without masking exceptions raised
  during the look-up process.  (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>The Py_IS_NAN(<var>X</var>) macro returns 1 if
  its float or double argument <var>X</var> is a NaN.
  (Contributed by Tim Peters.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>C code can avoid unnecessary locking by using the new
   <tt class="cfunction">PyEval_ThreadsInitialized()</tt> function to tell
   if any thread operations have been performed.  If this function
   returns false, no lock operations are needed.
   (Contributed by Nick Coghlan.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>A new function, <tt class="cfunction">PyArg_VaParseTupleAndKeywords()</tt>,
  is the same as <tt class="cfunction">PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords()</tt> but takes a
  <tt class="ctype">va_list</tt> instead of a number of arguments.
  (Contributed by Greg Chapman.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>A new method flag, <tt class="constant">METH_COEXISTS</tt>, allows a function
  defined in slots to co-exist with a <tt class="ctype">PyCFunction</tt> having the
  same name.  This can halve the access time for a method such as
  <tt class="method">set.__contains__()</tt>.  (Contributed by Raymond Hettinger.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>Python can now be built with additional profiling for the
  interpreter itself, intended as an aid to people developing the
  Python core.  Providing <b class="programopt">---enable-profiling</b> to the
  <b class="program">configure</b> script will let you profile the interpreter with
  <b class="program">gprof</b>, and providing the <b class="programopt">---with-tsc</b>
  switch enables profiling using the Pentium's Time-Stamp-Counter
  register.  Note that the <b class="programopt">---with-tsc</b> switch is slightly
  misnamed, because the profiling feature also works on the PowerPC
  platform, though that processor architecture doesn't call that
  register ``the TSC register''.  (Contributed by Jeremy Hylton.)

<P>
</LI>
<LI>The <tt class="ctype">tracebackobject</tt> type has been renamed to <tt class="ctype">PyTracebackObject</tt>.

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<H2><A NAME="SECTION0001410000000000000000">
13.1 Port-Specific Changes</A>
</H2>

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<UL>
<LI>The Windows port now builds under MSVC++ 7.1 as well as version 6.
  (Contributed by Martin von Loewis.)

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