# Release notes for PyTables 2.3 series

Author

  PyTables maintainers

Contact

  pytables@googlemail.com

## Changes from 2.3 to 2.3.1

- Fixed a bug that prevented to read scalar datasets of UnImplemented types (closes gh-111). Thanks to Kamil Kisiel.

- Fixed a bug in setup.py that caused installation of PyTables 2.3 to fail on hosts with multiple python versions installed (closes gh-113). Thanks to sbinet.

## Changes from 2.2.1 to 2.3

### Features coming from (now liberated) PyTables Pro

- OPSI is a powerful and innovative indexing engine allowing PyTables to perform fast queries on arbitrarily large tables. Moreover, it offers a wide range of optimization levels for its indexes so that the user can choose the best one that suits her needs (more or less size, more or less performance). Indexation code also takes advantage of the vectorization capabilities of the NumPy and Numexpr packages to ensure really short indexing and search times.

- A fine-tuned LRU cache for both metadata (nodes) and regular data that lets you achieve maximum speed for intensive object tree browsing during data reads and queries. It complements the already efficient cache present in HDF5, although this is more geared towards high-level structures that are specific to PyTables and that are critical for achieving very high performance.

### Other changes

- Indexes with no elements are now evaluated as non-CSI ones. Closes #312.

- Numexpr presence is tested now in setup.py, provided that user is not using setuptools (i.e. `easy_install` or `pip` tools). When using setuptools, numexpr continues to be a requisite (and Cython too). Closes #298.

- Cython is enforced now during compilation time. Also, it is not required when running tests.

- Repeatedly closing a file that has been reopened several times is supported now. Closes #318.

- The number of times a file has been currently reopened is available now in the new File.open_count read-only attribute.

- The entire documentation set has been converted to sphinx (close gh-85 and gh-86) that now also has an index (closes :issue`39`).

- The entire test suite has been updated to use unittest specific assertions (closes gh-66).

- PyTables has been tested against the latest version of numpy (v. 1.6.1 and 2.0dev) and Cython (v, 0.15) packages. Closes gh-84.

- The setup.py script has been improved to better detect runtimes (closes gh-73).

### Deprecations

Support for some old packages and related features has been deprecated and will be removed in future versions:

- Numeric (closes gh-76)

- numarray (closes :issue`76` and gh-75)

- HDF5 1.6.x (closes :issue`96`)

At the API level the following are now deprecated:

- the tables.is_pro constant is deprecated because PyTables Pro has been released under an open source license.

- the netcdf3 sub-package (closes gh-67)

- the nra sub-package

  Enjoy data!

  – The PyTables Team