IronPython 2.0 Alpha 4 Released

By Michael Foord -
IronPython 2.0 Alpha 4 has just been released:
The most significant changes in this release include:
• Completion of the –X:Interpret mode and its incorporation into the eval and exec functions
• The addition of the -X:PreferComDispatch mode
• Improved performance for the itertools module and the importing of CLR-based modules
• A number of bug fixes
Like previous Alpha releases, quite a bit of refactoring work has been completed and this process is still ongoing. In particular, effort has been put into making .NET interoperability easier for language implementers on the DLR.

-X:PreferComDispatch enables direct support for IDispatch COM objects, and includes support for indexers and output parameters in IDispatch-based calls. This will improve IronPython’s integration with IDispatch-based COM APIs such as in Microsoft Office.

Some of the notable bug fixes included in this release are:
• _iter_ is now available for all iterable .NET objects with the exception of System.String (CPython’s string type does not support this)
• isinstance now works on interfaces
• fixed null reference exception when attempting to read a write-only (.NET) property
• fixed invalid IL generated for Python code similar to ‘System.IComparable.CompareTo(1,1)’,

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