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Python 2.3.6

Release Date: Nov. 1, 2006

Python 2.3 is now well and truly in bugfix-only mode; no new features are being added, and only security critical bugs have been fixed. There are 3 bugs fixed in this release - a problem with the email package's handling of RFC2231 headers, the unicode repr() fix for PSF-2006-01, and a fix for the deprecated PCRE module.

See the detailed release notes for more details.

Python 2.5 and Python 2.4 are newer releases of Python. This release of the older 2.3 code is to provide bug fixes for people who are still using Python 2.3. Most vendors shipping 2.3 should have already released patched versions of 2.3.5 - this release is for other people who want to build their own version, but don't want to have to fool around with patch or svn. You will only need to worry about rebuilding if you are using a UCS-4 build of Python - see the security announcement for details on how to determine if your build is vulnerable.

This is a source only release. The Windows and Mac binaries of 2.3.5 were built with UCS-2 unicode, and are therefore not vulnerable to the problem outlined in PSF-2006-001. The PCRE fix is for a long-deprecated module (you should use the 're' module instead) and the email fix can be obtained by downloading the standalone version of the email package.

For more information on the new features of Python 2.3 see the 2.3 highlights or consult Andrew Kuchling's What's New In Python for a more detailed view.

Please see the separate bugs page for known issues and the bug reporting procedure.

See also the license

Download the release

As noted, python.org is not providing binary installers for 2.3.6. Windows and Mac OS X users who cannot compile their own versions should continue to use the 2.3.5 installers. These installers are not vulnerable to PSF-2006-001.

gzip-compressed source code: Python-2.3.6.tgz

bzip2-compressed source code: Python-2.3.6.tar.bz2, the source archive.

The bzip2-compressed version is considerably smaller, so get that one if your system has the appropriate tools to deal with it.

Unpack the archive with tar -zxvf Python-2.3.6.tgz (or bzcat Python-2.3.6.tar.bz2 | tar -xf -). Change to the Python-2.3.6 directory and run the "./configure", "make", "make install" commands to compile and install Python. The source archive is also suitable for Windows users who feel the need to build their own version.

What's New?

  • See the highlights of the Python 2.3 release.
  • Andrew Kuchling's What's New in Python 2.3 describes the most visible changes since Python 2.2 in more detail.
  • A detailed list of the changes in 2.3.6 can be found in the release notes, or the Misc/NEWS file in the source distribution. This is a very short list - only security fixes have been included.
  • For the full list of changes, you can poke around in Subversion.

Documentation

The documentation for 2.3.5 is still current for this release.

Files, MD5 checksums, signatures and sizes

357c79f9c914b671c9401f70853ebf3b Python-2.3.6.tgz (8610359 bytes, signature)

1bd475e69e20481c6301853eef7018f1 Python-2.3.6.tar.bz2 (7350182 bytes, signature)

The signatures above were generated with GnuPG using release manager Anthony Baxter's public key which has a key id of 6A45C816.

Full Changelog

Files

Version Operating System Description MD5 Sum File Size GPG
Gzipped source tarball Source release 119b624a0f109674666b452a26b5865f 34.6 MB SIG
bzip2 compressed source tarball Source release 1bd475e69e20481c6301853eef7018f1 7.0 MB SIG