Release Date: Dec. 21, 2001

release.--> See <a href="../2.2.3/">Python 2.2.3</a> for a patch release which supersedes 2.2.</i> </blockquote>

<blockquote>

<b>Important:</b> This release is vulnerable to the problem described in <a href="/news/security/PSF-2006-001/">security advisory PSF-2006-001</a> "Buffer overrun in repr() of unicode strings in wide unicode builds (UCS-4)". This fix is included in <a href="../2.4.4/">Python 2.4.4</a> and <a href="../2.5/">Python 2.5</a>. If you need to remain with Python 2.2, there's a patch available from the security advisory page.

</blockquote>

<p>We are extremely pleased to announce the release of <b>Python 2.2</b> (final), on December 21, 2001. Our thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Python 2.2 development cycle, our CVS committers, PEP authors, alpha and beta testers, bug and patch submitters, etc. You know who you are! :)

<p>Please see the separate <a href="bugs">bugs page</a> for known bugs in Python 2.2 final, and the bug reporting procedure.

<h3>Download the release</h3>

<p><b>Windows</b> users should download <i>Python-2.2.exe</i>, the Windows installer, from one of the <i>download locations</i> below, run it, and follow the friendly instructions on the screen to complete the installation. Windows users may also be interested in Mark Hammond's <a href="https://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/" >win32all</a>, a collection of Windows-specific extensions including COM support and Pythonwin, an IDE built using Windows components.

<p><b>Update (2002/04/23):</b> Windows users should download a new <a href="/ftp/python/2.2/UNWISE.EXE">UNWISE.EXE</a> from Wise that fixes a bug which could cause the uninstaller to disappear in some circumstances. Just drop it over the old uninstaller, which will be at <tt>C:Python22UNWISE.EXE</tt> unless you chose a different directory at install time.

<p><b>Macintosh</b> users can find Python 2.2 prereleases on Jack Jansen's <a href="https://www.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython.html">MacPython page</a> (after following the link, scroll towards the bottom). This is sometimes one or two releases behind, so be patient. (MacOS X users who have a C compiler can also build from the source tarball below.)

<p><b>All others</b> should download <i>Python-2.2.tgz</i>, the source tarball, from one of the <i>download locations</i> below, and do the usual "gunzip; tar; configure; make" dance.

<!-- <p><b>Red Hat Linux</b> users may also try to download the <a href="rpms.html">RPMs</a> made available by Sean Reifschneider. -->

<h4>Download locations</h4>

<ul>

<li>Python.org: <a href="/ftp/python/2.2/" >HTTP</a>. > </ul>

<h4><a href="md5sum.py">MD5</a> checksums and sizes</h4>

<pre>

568cf638ef5fc4edfdb4cc878d661129 <a href="/ftp/python/2.2/Python-2.2.exe">Python-2.2.exe</a> (7074248 bytes) 87febf0780c8e18454022d34b2ca70a0 <a href="/ftp/python/2.2/Python-2.2.tgz">Python-2.2.tgz</a> (6542443 bytes) 9ae1d572cbd2bfd4e0c4b92ac11387c6 <a href="/ftp/python/2.2/UNWISE.EXE">UNWISE.EXE</a> (162304 bytes)

</pre>

<h3>What's New?</h3>

<h4>Highlights</h4>

<ul>

<p><li>Tim Peters developed a brand new Windows installer using Wise 8.1, generously donated to us by <a href="https://www.wisesolutions.com/">Wise Solutions</a>.

<p><li>Type/Class Unification: A new way of introspecting instances of built-in types (<a href="/dev/peps/pep-0252.html">PEP 252</a>) and the ability to subclass built-in types (<a href="/dev/peps/pep-0253.html">PEP 253</a>) have been added. Here is a <a href="descrintro">tutorial</a> on these features.

<p><li>Iterators (<a href="/dev/peps/pep-0234.html">PEP 234</a>) and generators (<a href="/dev/peps/pep-0255.html">PEP 255</a>) were added. The second PEP adds a new reserved word, "yield", which must be enabled by adding "from __future__ import generators" to the top of every module that uses it. Without that, "yield" is treated as an identifier but a warning is issued.

<p><li>The floor division operator // has been added as outlined in <a href="/dev/peps/pep-0238.html">PEP 238</a>. The / operator still provides classic division (and will until Python 3.0) unless "from __future__ import division" is included, in which case the / operator will provide true division.

<p><li>Integer overflow is now a thing of the past; when small integer operations have a result that's too large to represent as a small integer, a long integer is now returned. See <a href="/dev/peps/pep-0237.html">PEP 237</a>.

<p><li> Barry Warsaw's <a href="https://mimelib.sf.net/">mimelib</a> package is now part of the standard library. It has been renamed to the <a href="https://python.sourceforge.net/devel-docs/lib/module-email.html" >email</a> package, and there have been some API changes.

<p><li> Fredrik Lundh's <a href="https://python.sourceforge.net/devel-docs/lib/module-xmlrpclib.html" >xmlrpclib</a> is now a standard library module. This provides full client-side XML-RPC support. A server class is also provided (module SimpleXMLRPCServer).

<p><li>Large file support is now enabled on Win32 and Win64 platforms, and automatically configured (at least on Linux and Solaris).

</ul>

<h4>Other sources of information on 2.2</h4>

<ul>

<p><li><a href="descrintro">Unifying types and classes in Python 2.2</a> by Guido van Rossum -- a tutorial on the material covered by PEPs 252 and 253.

<p><li><a href="/doc/2.2.3/whatsnew/whatsnew22.html">What's New in Python 2.2</a> by Andrew Kuchling describes the most visible changes since <a href="../2.1/">Python 2.1</a>.

<p><li>Guido gave a talk on what's new in 2.2 at the ZPUG-DC meeting on September 26, 2001; here are his <a href="https://zpug.org/dc/">powerpoint slides</a>.

<p><li><a href= "https://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-pycon.html?n-l-9271" >Charming Python: Iterators and simple generators</a> by David Mertz on IBM developerWorks.

<p><li>For a detailed list of all but the most trivial changes, see the <a href="NEWS.txt">release notes</a>.

<p><li>In the source distribution, the file Misc/NEWS has all the news.

</ul>

<h3>Documentation</h3>

<p>The documentation has been updated too:

<ul>

<li><a href="/doc/2.2/">Browse</a> HTML on-line

<li>Download using <a href="/ftp/python/doc/2.2/" >HTTP</a>.

</ul>

Full Changelog