eGenix mx Base and Commercial 3.0 Release Candidate 2
Introduction
eGenix mx Base and Commercial Distributions are two sets of packages which help you with everyday programming tasks when working with Python.
The mx Base distributions contains our open-source offerings:
- mxDateTime - date/time types, parsers, tools
- mxTextTools - fast text parsing
- mxTools - set of new built-ins
- mxURL - fast and easy-to-use URL data type
- mxUID - unique identifiers
- mxStack - fast stack data type with C interface
- mxQueue - fast queue data type with C interface
- mxProxy - access control and weak reference for Python objects
- mxBeeBase - on-disk B+Tree database kit
The mx Commercial distribution comes with:
- mxODBC, our universal ODBC database interface for Python
News
The 3.0 releases of the eGenix mx Base and mx Commercial distributions contain a huge number of enhancements, bug fixes and additions.
Some highlights:
- mxDateTime has support for working with Python's datetime module types, so you can use and combine both if necessary. The parser was enhanced to support even more formats and make it more reliable than ever before.
- mxTextTools now fully supports Unicode, so you can parse Unicode data just as fast as you can 8-bit string data. The package also includes a tag table compiler and new jump target support to simplify working with tag tables.
- mxURL and mxUID were previously released as part of our mx Experimental distribution. They have now been integrated into the base distribution, providing easy-to-use data types for common tasks in web programming.
- mxODBC has received a large number of enhancements and supports more ODBC drivers than ever.
We've worked a lot on the Unicode support and made it more robust, especially on Unix platforms where the ODBC Unicode support has stabilized over the last few years. You can now issue commands using Unicode and exchange Unicode data with the database in various configurable ways.
We've also added a few more methods to give you more control of the connections and cursors as well as the .callproc() method that mxODBC 2.0 was missing.
Multiple result sets via the .nextset() are also supported, so working with stored procedures should be a lot easier now.
Another highlight is the added support for Python's datetime module types and the option to use strings for date/time processing (e.g. to be able to use timezones in timestamps if that's supported by the database).
And finally, mxODBC received full 64-bit support, so that you can run mxODBC (and all other mx Extensions) on e.g. AMD64 platforms. - We've switched from the old distutils wininst installer to the new MSI installer for the Windows build. This gives you a lot more options for automatic installs, including unattended installs. See http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/msi/ for details.
Upgrading
Please note that the 2.0 series of the eGenix mx Base and Commercial Distribution do not support Python 2.5 on 64-bit platforms.
You are encouraged to upgrade to the new 3.0 series, if you plan to deploy on 64-bit platforms and use Python 2.5 as basis for your applications.
Licenses
This release brings you all the new features and enhancements that were previously only available in our mxODBC Zope Database Adapter.
Like the Zope product, mxODBC now requires that you install a license in order to use it. You can request 30-day evaluation licenses by writing to sales@egenix.com, stating your name (or the name of the company) and the number of eval licenses that you need. We will then issue you licenses and send them to you by email. Please make sure that you can receive ZIP file attachements on the email you specify in the request, since the license files are send out as ZIP attachements.
The eGenix mx Base distribution does not require installation of licenses, so you can use straight away.
Downloads
eGenix mx Base Distribution:
- Windows Installer for Python 2.5
To install, download and then run the installer file. - Linux 32-bit Pre-Built Binary for Python 2.5 UCS4
To install, run "python setup.py build --skip install". - Linux 64-bit Pre-Built Binary for Python 2.5 UCS4
To install, run "python setup.py build --skip install". - Source (all other platforms and Python versions)
To install, run "python setup.py install".
eGenix mx Commercial Distribution:
- Windows Installer for Python 2.5
To install, download and then run the installer file. - Linux 32-bit Pre-Built Binary for Python 2.5 UCS4
To install, run "python setup.py build --skip install". - Linux 64-bit Pre-Built Binary for Python 2.5 UCS4
To install, run "python setup.py build --skip install".
Note that in order to use the eGenix mx Commercial Distribution you need to install the eGenix mx Base Distribution first.
Documentation is included in the mx/Doc/ directory of the installation in form of PDF files. This will also be posted on our web-site for easy access.
The final release will include downloads for more platforms and combinations of Python version, Unicode version and 32-/64-bit versions.
If you have special needs, please let us know. Write to support@egenix.com for information on whether we can support your particular platform. It's likely that we can, given the portability of our code.
More Information
For more information on the eGenix mx Distributions, licensing and download instructions, please write to sales@egenix.com.
If you experience problems with the release candidate, we'd appreciate a short description of the problem to support@egenix.com, so that we can fix the problem in the final release.
-- Marc-Andre Lemburg, eGenix.com