http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-June/079988.html

Python 2.6 should stick with PyString_* in its codebase.  The PyBytes_* names
in the spirit of 3.0 are available via a #define only.  See the email thread.

on OS X.

failure in the shelve module.  Thanks Thomas Herve.

#1629: Renamed Py_Size, Py_Type and Py_Refcnt to Py_SIZE, Py_TYPE and Py_REFCNT. Macros for b/w compatibility are available.

backwards compatibility. Add Py_Refcnt, Py_Type, Py_Size, and
PyVarObject_HEAD_INIT.

PyArg_ParseTuple.

Use Py_UnpackTuple instead of PyArg_ParseTuple where possible.

Probably should be backported.

datum.dsize can apparently be long on some systems.
Ensure we pass an int* to PyArg_Parse("s#"), not &datum.dsize

Will backport.

for Py_Main().

Thanks to Kalle Svensson and Skip Montanaro for the patches.

The staticforward define was needed to support certain broken C
compilers (notably SCO ODT 3.0, perhaps early AIX as well) botched the
static keyword when it was used with a forward declaration of a static
initialized structure.  Standard C allows the forward declaration with
static, and we've decided to stop catering to broken C compilers.  (In
fact, we expect that the compilers are all fixed eight years later.)

I'm leaving staticforward and statichere defined in object.h as
static.  This is only for backwards compatibility with C extensions
that might still use it.

XXX I haven't updated the documentation.

library.  Since multiple versions can be installed simultaneously, it's
crucial that you only select libraries and header files which are compatible
with each other.  Version checking is done from highest version to lowest.
Building using version 1 of Berkeley DB is disabled by default because of
the hash file bugs people keep rediscovering.  It can be enabled by
uncommenting a few lines in setup.py.  Closes patch 553108.

  Modules/
    _hotshot.c
    dbmmodule.c
    fcntlmodule.c
    main.c
    pwdmodule.c
    readline.c
    selectmodule.c
    signalmodule.c
    termios.c
    timemodule.c
    unicodedata.c

type.__module__ behavior.

This adds the module name and a dot in front of the type name in every
type object initializer, except for built-in types (and those that
already had this).  Note that it touches lots of Mac modules -- I have
no way to test these but the changes look right.  Apologies if they're
not.  This also touches the weakref docs, which contains a sample type
object initializer.  It also touches the mmap test output, because the
mmap type's repr is included in that output.  It touches object.h to
put the correct description in a comment.

Changes to error messages to increase consistency & clarity.

This (mostly) closes SourceForge patch #101839.

based on the available headers.

Update comments on the filename extensions used to reflect library
differences.

Added get() and setdefault() methods to the dbm object.

Added docstrings, convert all methods to PyArg_ParseTuple() so that
error messages will have the method names.

layer.  If that is available, consider that as an option as well.

This should match the situation in the 1.6b1 tree.

For more comments, read the patches@python.org archives.
For documentation read the comments in mymalloc.h and objimpl.h.

(This is not exactly what Vladimir posted to the patches list; I've
made a few changes, and Vladimir sent me a fix in private email for a
problem that only occurs in debug mode.  I'm also holding back on his
change to main.c, which seems unnecessary to me.)

PyArg_ParseTuple() format string arguments as possible.

on BeOS or Windows.

(1) Use PyErr_NewException("module.class", NULL, NULL) to create the
    exception object.

(2) Remove all calls to Py_FatalError(); instead, return or
    ignore the errors -- the import code now checks PyErr_Occurred()
    after calling a module's init function, so it's no longer a
    fatal error for the initialization to fail.

Also did some small cleanups, e.g. removed unnecessary test for
"already initialized" from initfpectl(), and unified
initposix()/initnt().

I haven't checked this very thoroughly, so while the changes are
pretty trivial -- beware of untested code!