# 18 May 2005

What's new in PyObjC 1.3.5?

Importing objc now ensures that Foundation is multi-threaded, previously it only ensured that Python was.
New objc.RegisterCFSignature used to register CFTypeRef-like signatures with the runtime.
PyObjCTools.Conversion functions now support all property list types with the following conversions:
- NSData <-> buffer
- NSDecimalNumber <-> decimal.Decimal (if present)
- NSDate <-> datetime.datetime
New toPythonDecimal, fromPythonDecimal functions which convert between NSDecimalNumber and decimal.Decimal using an intermediate string.

New serializePropertyList and deserializePropertyList functions which serialize (Objective-C) property lists to and from NSData.
OC_PythonObject, the proxy for Python objects that do not have an Objective-C superclass and are not otherwise special-cased, now act slightly more like typical Objective-C objects (supporting -isEqual:, -hash, and -compare:). This allows them to work with Key-Value Coding if they are contained by an Objective-C object, among other things.
New objc.signature decorator that allows easier specification of objc.selector wrappers for functions when using Python 2.4:
```
@objc.signature('i@:if')
def methodWithX_andY_(self, x, y):
    return 0
```
PyObjCTools.KeyValueCoding.getKeyPath now supports all of the Array Operators supported by Mac OS X 10.4.
Key-Value Coding of Python objects (whether or not using an Objective-C base class) should act like Objective-C now. In previous versions there were inconsistencies with the use of capitalization, the underscore postfix in setters, and Key-Value Observing.
The formal protocol list is now complete. A new internal function, objc.protocolsForProcess() enumerates over all mach headers and returns all of the protocols defined in the expected place. This fixes the scenario where an application uses a protocol but does not define any classes that conform to that protocol (i.e. to check plugin conformity). Previously it was not possible to reach these protocols simply by walking over all of the classes.
A special value, objc.NULL, may now be passed in the place of 'in' and 'inout' arguments. This tells the bridge to pass a NULL pointer to the Objective-C method, instead of a pointer to the value. The return value will still be a tuple of the expected size.
Some of the new Tiger frameworks now have wrappers:
- AppleScriptKit
- Automator
- CoreData
- DiscRecording
- DiscRecordingUI
- OSAKit
- Quartz
- QTKit
- SyncServices
- XgridFoundation
Documentation and tests not yet written.
New OutlineEditor example in Examples/CoreData, it is a Python version of the identically named Apple example.
The last argument of selectors that end with ':error:' is now assumed to be 'out' if its type is an object pointer.
More conveniences for list-like and dict-like objects: __reversed__, reverse, pop, remove, fromkeys.
OC_PythonDictionary and OC_PythonArray now return NSNull to Objective-C callers as appropriate.
New WebKitInterpreter example in Examples/Plugins. Uses the new WebKit Cocoa plugin API available in Safari 1.3 and later to embed a PyInterpreter in the browser.
Fixed a CFBundleRef reference counting bug in Foundation._Foundation. The symptom of this is usually a crashing application after having loaded a PyObjC-based plugin into an otherwise Objective-C app.
New PyObjCTools.AppHelper functions: callAfter and callLater, conveniences for calling Python functions on the main thread as soon as possible, or after a delay.
Twisted examples changed to use threadedselectreactor instead of cfreactor. cfreactor is deprecated. Needs Twisted newer than 2.0 (svn r13575 or later).
objc.inject now injects on main thread by default, and takes an optional third useMainThread argument to change this behavior. This is a complete rewrite which should be correct, stable, Tiger compatible, and synchronized with mach_* 1.1.
Removed an NSAutoreleasePool category hack that has been deprecated for quite some time.
New objc.removeAutoreleasePool function that will remove PyObjC's global NSAutoreleasePool, which may be useful for plugins.
Fixed bug in the NSBundle hack that caused a NULL pointer dereference if looking up a non-existent class using NSBundle API.
Added OC_PythonUnicode and OC_PythonString classes that preserve the identity of str and unicode objects across the bridge. The bridge for str now uses the default encoding of NSString, rather than sys.getdefaultencoding() from Python. For Mac OS X, this is typically MacRoman. The reason for this is that not all Python str instances could cross the bridge at all previously. objc.setStrBridgeEnabled(False) will still trigger warnings, if you are attempting to track down an encoding bug. However, the symptoms of the bug will be incorrectly encoded text, not an exception.
New Xcode project template "PyObjC Mixed Application" that is a py2app based Python application that loads an Objective-C plug-in built as a separate target.
New py2app based Xcode templates "PyObjC Application" and "PyObjC Document-based Application", these replace the older "Cocoa-Python Application" and "Cocoa-Python Document-based Application" respectively.
New InjectBrowser example in Examples/Inject that demonstrates injection of the ClassBrowser example into another application using objc.inject.
NSData and NSMutableData instances now support the Python buffer protocol.
NSData instances now support a convenience API that allow them to act like a buffer instance for str() and slicing.
Objects that support the Python buffer protocol, such as buffer and array.array (but not str or unicode) are now bridged as NSData subclasses.