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.)

Kneler for reporting this issue: long_mult() is faster when the
smaller argument is on the left.  Swap the arguments accordingly.

his copy of test_contains.py seems to be broken -- the lines he
deleted were already absent).  Checkin messages:


New Unicode support for int(), float(), complex() and long().

- new APIs PyInt_FromUnicode() and PyLong_FromUnicode()
- added support for Unicode to PyFloat_FromString()
- new encoding API PyUnicode_EncodeDecimal() which converts
  Unicode to a decimal char* string (used in the above new
  APIs)
- shortcuts for calls like int(<int object>) and float(<float obj>)
- tests for all of the above

Unicode compares and contains checks:
- comparing Unicode and non-string types now works; TypeErrors
  are masked, all other errors such as ValueError during
  Unicode coercion are passed through (note that PyUnicode_Compare
  does not implement the masking -- PyObject_Compare does this)
- contains now works for non-string types too; TypeErrors are
  masked and 0 returned; all other errors are passed through

Better testing support for the standard codecs.

Misc minor enhancements, such as an alias dbcs for the mbcs codec.

Changes:
- PyLong_FromString() now applies the same error checks as
  does PyInt_FromString(): trailing garbage is reported
  as error and not longer silently ignored. The only characters
  which may be trailing the digits are 'L' and 'l' -- these
  are still silently ignored.
- string.ato?() now directly interface to int(), long() and
  float(). The error strings are now a little different, but
  the type still remains the same. These functions are now
  ready to get declared obsolete ;-)
- PyNumber_Int() now also does a check for embedded NULL chars
  in the input string; PyNumber_Long() already did this (and
  still does)

Followed by:

Looks like I've gone a step too far there... (and test_contains.py
seem to have a bug too).

I've changed back to reporting all errors in PyUnicode_Contains()
and added a few more test cases to test_contains.py (plus corrected
the join() NameError).

                trailing 'L' is appended to the representation,
                otherwise not.

                All existing call sites are modified to pass true for
                addL.

                Remove incorrect statement about external use of this
                function from elsewhere; it's static!

long_str():     Handler for the tp_str slot in the type object.
                Identical to long_repr(), but passes false as the addL
                parameter of long_format().

long_pow().

long(+/- infinity) returns nonsense.

test, we forgot that z is still pointing to a real live object.
DECREF() it before returning.

(Really: moved a bunch of defs to longobject.h.)

native format, as void* (translated to Python int or long).
Also adds PyLong_FromVoidPtr and PyLong_AsVoidPtr to longobject.c.

changed to "LONG_LONG_hash" in the list of forward decls).  Discovered
by Jason Harper.

The MS compiler doesn't call it 'long long', it uses __int64,
so a new #define, LONG_LONG, has been added and all occurrences
of 'long long' are replaced with it.

- Faster conversion to string for binary bases: linear instead of quadratic!

- Allocate smaller result for certain masking ops, e.g. (1L<<30000) & 1.

for loop with z==NULL but continue to reference z later.

From: "Tim Peters" <tim_one@email.msn.com>
To: "Guido van Rossum" <guido@CNRI.Reston.VA.US>
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 21:45:53 -0400

Guido, the overflow checking in PyLong_AsLong is off a little:

1) If the C in use sign-extends right shifts on signed longs, there's a
spurious overflow error when converting the most-negative int:

Python 1.5.1 (#0, Apr 13 1998, 20:22:04) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> x = -1L << 31
>>> x
-2147483648L
>>> int(x)
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
OverflowError: long int too long to convert
>
> 2) If C does not sign-extend, some genuine overflows won't be caught.
>
> The attached should repair both, and, because I installed a new disk and a C
> compiler today, it's even been compiled this time <wink>.
>
> Python 1.5.1 (#0, May 23 1998, 20:24:58) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
> Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
> >>> x = -1L << 31
> >>> x
> -2147483648L
> >>> int(x)
> -2147483648
> >>> int(-x)
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> OverflowError: long int too long to convert
> >>> int(-x-1)
> 2147483647
> >>> int(x-1)
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> OverflowError: long int too long to convert

end-casing-ly y'rs  - tim

This makes it possible to write 1L<<1000000, memory permitting.

Surround various f.p. operations with  PyFPE_{START,END}_PROTECT macros.

(although for 32-bit hardware it's a bit slower than it was).

Make gcc -Wall happy.

floatobject.c: fix hash().
methodobject.c: support METH_FREENAME flag bit.

can now be NULL.

	entirely redone operator overloading.  The rules for class
	instances are now much more relaxed than for other built-in types
	(whose coerce must still return two objects of the same type)

	* Objects/floatobject.c: add overflow check when converting float
	to int and implement truncation towards zero using ceil/float

	* Objects/longobject.c: change ValueError to OverflowError when
	converting to int

	* Objects/rangeobject.c: modernized

	* Objects/stringobject.c: use HAVE_LIMITS instead of __STDC__

	* Objects/xxobject.c: changed to use new style (not finished?)

Add cast for Lance

  pythonrun.c: added static forward declarations
* pythonrun.h, ceval.h, longobject.h, node.h: removed declarations of
  static routines

  Added $(SYSDEF) to its build rule in Makefile.
* cgensupport.[ch], modsupport.[ch]: removed some old stuff.  Also
  changed files that still used it...  And made several things static
  that weren't but should have been...  And other minor cleanups...
* listobject.[ch]: add external interfaces {set,get}listslice
* socketmodule.c: fix bugs in new send() argument parsing.
* sunaudiodevmodule.c: added flush() and close().

* Stubs for faster implementation of local variables (not yet finished)
* Added function name to code object.  Print it for code and function
  objects.  THIS MAKES THE .PYC FILE FORMAT INCOMPATIBLE (the version
  number has changed accordingly)
* Print address of self for built-in methods
* New internal functions getattro and setattro (getattr/setattr with
  string object arg)
* Replaced "dictobject" with more powerful "mappingobject"
* New per-type functio tp_hash to implement arbitrary object hashing,
  and hashobject() to interface to it
* Added built-in functions hash(v) and hasattr(v, 'name')
* classobject: made some functions static that accidentally weren't;
  added __hash__ special instance method to implement hash()
* Added proper comparison for built-in methods and functions

* Fixcprt.py: added [-y file] option, do only files younger than file.
* modsupport.[ch]: added vmkvalue().
* intobject.c: use mkvalue().
* stringobject.c: added "formatstring"; renamed string* to string_*;
  ceval.c: call formatstring for string % value.
* longobject.c: close memory leak in divmod.
* parsetok.c: set result node to NULL when returning an error.

* various modules: added 1993 to copyright.
* thread.c: added copyright notice.
* ceval.c: minor change to error message for "+"
* stdwinmodule.c: check for error from wfetchcolor
* config.c: MS-DOS fixes (define PYTHONPATH, use DELIM, use osdefs.h)
* Add declaration of inittab to import.h
* sysmodule.c: added sys.builtin_module_names
* xxmodule.c, xxobject.c: fix minor errors

stdwinmodule.c: wsetfont can now return an error
Makefile: add CL_USE and CL_LIB*S; config.c: move CL part around
New things in imgfile; also in Makefile.
longobject.c: fix comparison of negative long ints...  [REAL BUG!]
marshal.c: add dumps() and loads() to read/write strings
timemodule.c: make sure there's always a floatsleep()
posixmodule.c: rationalize struct returned by times()
Makefile: add test target, disable imgfile by default
thread.c: Improved coexistance with dl module (sjoerd)
stdwinmodule.c: Change include stdwin.h if macintosh
rotormodule.c: added missing last argument to RTR_?_region calls
confic.c: merged with configmac.c, added 1993 to copyright message
fileobject.c: int compared to NULL in writestring(); change fopenRF ifdef
timemodule.c: simplify times() using mkvalue; include myselect.h
  earlier (for sequent).
posixmodule: for sequent, include unistd.h instead of explicit
  extern definitions and don't define rename()
Makefile: change misleading/wrong MD5 comments