DECOMPYLE-2.4-CHANGELOG.txt

This is the changelog from *decompyle*'s release 2.4 and before
passed on by Dan Pascu


release 2.4 (Dan Pascu)
  - Replaced the way code structures are identified by the parser.
    Previously, the scanner introduced some COME_FROM entries in the
    dissasembly output to mark all the destinations of jump instructions.
    Using these COME_FROM labels the parser was then able to identify the
    code structures (if tests, while loops, etc). Up to python-2.3 this was
    possible because the code structures were clearly defined and jump
    targets were always to the same points in a given strcuture making it
    easy to identify the structure. Python 2.3 however introduced optimized
    jumps to increase code performance. In the previous version of decompyle
    (2.3) we used a technique to identify the code structures and then used
    these structures to determine where the jump targets would have been if
    not optimized. Using this information we then added COME_FROM labels at
    the points where they would have been if not optimized, thus emulating
    the way decompyle worked with versions before python 2.3. However with
    the introduction of even more optimizations in python 2.4 this technique
    no longer works. Not only the jump targets are no longer an effective
    mean for the parser to identify the code structures, but also trying to
    emulate the old way things were solved when it clearly no longer works
    is not the right solution. To solve this issue, the code to identify the
    structures that we had developed in version 2.3, was used to add real
    start/end points for strcuture identification, instead of the COME_FROM
    labels. Now these new start/end labels are used by the parser to more
    precisely identify the structures and the COME_FROM labels were removed
    completely. The scanner is responsible to identify these code structures
    and use any knowledge of optimizations that python applies to determine
    the start/end points of any structure and then mark them with certain
    keywords that are understood by the parser.
  - Correctly identify certain `while 1' structures that were not
    recognized in the previous version.
  - Added support for new byte code constructs used by python 2.4

release 2.3.2
  - tidied up copyright and changelog information for releases 2.3 and later

release 2.3.1 (Dan Pascu)
  - implemented a structure detection technique that fixes problems with
    optimised jumps in Python >= 2.3. In the previous release (decompyle 2.3),
    these problems meant that some files were incorrectly decompiled and
    others could not be decompiled at all. With this new structure detection
    technique, thorough testing over the standard python libraries suggests
    that decompyle 2.3.1 can handle everything that decompyle 2.2beta1 could,
    plus new Python 2.3 bytecodes and constructs.

release 2.3 (Dan Pascu)
  - support for Python 2.3 added
  - use the marshal and disassembly code from their respective python
    versions, so that decompyle can manipulate bytecode independently
    of the interpreter that runs decompyle itself (for example it can
    decompile python2.3 bytecode even when running under python2.2)

——————————————————

release 2.2beta1 (hartmut Goebel)
  - support for Python 1.5 up to Python 2.2
  - no longer requires to be run with the Python interpreter version
    which generated the byte-code.
  - requires Python 2.2
  - pretty-prints docstrings, hashes, lists and tuples
  - decompyle is now a script and a package
  - added emacs mode-hint and tab-width for each file output
  - enhanced test suite: more test patterns, .pyc/.pyo included
  - avoids unnecessary 'global' statements
  - still untested: EXTENDED_ARG

  internal changes:
  - major code overhoul: splitted into several modules, clean-ups
  - use a list of valid magics instead of the single one from imp.py
  - uses copies of 'dis.py' for every supported version. This ensures
    correct disassemling of the byte-code.
  - use a single Walker and a single Parser, thus saving time and memory
  - use augmented assign and 'print >>' internally
  - optimized 'Walker.engine', the main part of code generation
release 0.6.0: (hartmut Goebel)
  - extended print (Python 2.0)
  - extended import (Python 2.0) (may not cover all cases)
  - augmented assign (Python 2.0) (may not cover all cases)
  - list comprehensions (Python 2.0)
  - equivalent for 'apply' (Python 1.6)
  - if .. elif .. else are now nested as expected
  - assert test, data
  - unpack list corrected (was the same as unpack tuple)
  - fixed unpack tuple (trailing semicolon was missing)
  - major speed up :-)
  - reduced memory usage (pre-alpha-0.5 has increased it a lot)
  - still missing: EXTENDED_ARG

pre-alpha-0.5: (hartmut Goebel)
  - *args, **kwargs
  - global
  - formal tuple parameters (eg. def a(self, (x,y,z)) )
  - actual lambda parameters (eg.  X(lambda z: z**2) )
  - remove last 'return None' in procedures
  - remove last 'return locals()' in class definitions
  - docstrings

pre-alpha-0.4: (hartmut Goebel)
  - assert
  - try/except/finally
  - parentheses in expressions
  - nested expressions
  - extracted dissassemble() from module dis and
    removed ugly redirect of stdout, thus saved a lot of
    ugly code and a lot of memory

pre-alpha-0.3: (hartmut Goebel)
  - keyword arguments
  - some boolean expressions
  - and/or
  - complex conditions in if/while
  - read byte-code from .pyc without importing
  - access to the body of classes and modules
  - class and function definitions
  - a = b = c = xxx

pre-alpha-0.1 -> pre-alpha-0.2:
  -  SET_LINENO filtered out in lexer now
  -  added support for subscripts (just for Christian Tismer :-)
  -  fixed bug with handling of BUILD_{LIST,TUPLE} & CALL_FUNCTION
  -  dict-building support
  -  comparison support
  -  exec support
  -  del support
  -  pass support
  -  slice support
  -  no more extraneous (albeit legal) commas
  -  finally, it excepts try [sic] but not all 42 variations of it