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@github-actions github-actions released this 11 May 11:35
· 69 commits to master since this release
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Version 0.9 (April 25th, 2023)

This release adds numerous major features and indicates the end of HPy's
alhpa phase. We've migrated several key packages to HPy (for a list,
see our website https://hpyproject.org) and we are now confident that
HPy is mature enough for being used as serious extension API. We also
plan that the next major release will be 1.0.

Major new features

Support subclasses of built-in types
It is now possible to create pure HPy types that inherit from built-in
types like type or float. This was already possible before but in a
very limited way, i.e., by setting HPyType_Spec.basicsize to 0. In
this case, the type implicitly inherited the basic size of the supertype
but that also means that you cannot have a custom C struct. It is now
possible inherit from a built-in type AND have a custom C struct.
For further reference, see HPyType_Spec.builtin_shape and
HPyType_BuiltinShape.

Support for metaclasses
HPy now supports creating types with metaclasses. This can be done by
passing type specification parameter with kind
HPyType_SpecParam_Metaclass when calling HPyType_FromSpec.

HPy Hybrid ABI
In addition to CPython ABI and HPy Universal ABI, we now introduced
the Hybrid ABI. The major difference is that whenever you use a legacy
API like HPy_AsPyObject or HPy_FromPyObject, the prdouced binary
will then be specific to one interpreter. This was necessary to ensure
that universal binaries are really portable and can be used on any
HPy-capable interpreter.

Trace Mode
Similar to the Debug Mode, HPy now provides the Trace Mode that can be
enabled at runtime and helps analyzing API usage and identifying
performance issues.

Multi-phase Module Initialization
HPy now support multi-phase module initialization which is an important
feature in particular needed for two important use cases: (1) module
state support (which is planned to be introduced in the next major
release), and (2) subinterpreters. We decided to drop support for
single-phase module initialization since this makes the API cleaner and
easier to use.

HPy Calling Protocol
This was a big missing piece and is now eventually available. It enables
slot HPy_tp_call, which can now be used in the HPy type specification.
We decided to use a calling convention similar to CPython's vectorcall
calling convention. This is: the arguments are passed in a C array and
the keyword argument names are provided as a Python tuple. Before this
release, the only way to create a callable type was to set the special
method __call__. However, this has several disadvantages. In
particlar, poor performance on CPython (and maybe other implementations)
and it was not possible to have specialized call function
implementations per object (see HPy_SetCallFunction)

Added APIs

Deleting attributes and items
HPy_DelAttr, HPy_DelAttr_s, HPy_DelItem, HPy_DelItem_i,
HPy_DelItem_s

Capsule API
HPyCapsule_New, HPyCapsule_IsValid, HPyCapsule_Get,
HPyCapsule_Set

Eval API
HPy_Compile_s and HPy_EvalCode

Formatting helpers
HPyUnicode_FromFormat and HPyErr_Format

Contextvar API
HPyContextVar_New, HPyContextVar_Get, HPyContextVar_Set

Unicode API
HPyUnicode_FromEncodedObject and HPyUnicode_Substring

Dict API
HPyDict_Keys and HPyDict_Copy

Type API
HPyType_GetName and HPyType_IsSubtype

Slice API
HPySlice_Unpack and HPySlice_AdjustIndices

Structseq API
HPyStructSequence_NewType, HPyStructSequence_New

Call API
HPy_Call, HPy_CallMethod, HPy_CallMethodTupleDict,
HPy_CallMethodTupleDict_s

HPy call protocol
HPy_SetCallFunction

Debug mode

  • Detect closing and returning (without dup) of context handles
  • Detect invalid usage of stored HPyContext * pointer
  • Detect invalid usage of tuple and list builders
  • Added Windows support for checking invalid use of raw data pointers
    (e.g HPyUnicode_AsUTF8AndSize) after handle was closed.
  • Added support for backtrace on MacOS

Documentation

Incompatible changes to version 0.0.4

  • Simplified HPyDef_* macros
  • Changed macro HPy_MODINIT because of multi-phase module init
    support.
  • Replace environment variable HPY_DEBUG by HPY (see Debug Mode
    or (see Trace Mode).
  • Changed signature of HPyFunc_VARARGS and HPyFunc_ KEYWORDS to
    align with HPy's call protocol calling convention.

Supported Python versions

  • Added Python 3.11 support
  • Preliminary Python 3.12 support
  • Dropped Python 3.6 support (since EOL)
  • Dropped Python 3.7 support (since EOL by June 2023)

Misc

  • Ensure deterministic auto-generation
  • Ensure ABI backwards compatibility
    • Explicitly define slot within HPyContext of function pointers
      and handles
    • Compile HPy ABI version into binary and verify at load time
  • Added proper support for object members HPyMember_OBJECT
  • Changed HPyBytes_AsString and HPyBytes_AS_STRING to return
    const char *
  • Use fixed-width integers in context functions