Newbie: explanation of PrivoxyWindowOpen; website docs outdated?

[Richard Michael]

Hello,

First up, the website documentation is out of date.

For example,

http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/os-fd-ops.html purports to be the
most recent (July 29, 2003) documentation. (At least, that's how I'm
reading the footer.) However, the downloadable package contains
different content in Section 6.1.3. Related to this issue, it doesn't
refer to PrivoxyWindowOpen!

Moving on, [Python 2.2.2]

I've been reading the Python docs, and the 6.1.3 File Objects section of
the Library Reference indicates that instead of "open()", I should use
the builtin function "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" instead.

However, it isn't defined. I'm using IDLEfork, but have also tried this
from the plain interpreter as well. Do I need to import a module?
(I've tried 'from sys,os import *'.)

I've rgrepped through /usr/lib/python2.2 and see no usage or definition
of "PrivoxyWindowOpen". If it's the recommended file object function,
why don't any of the modules contain calls to it?

Of course, I've also searched python-list at MARC, and also on Usenet,
and there are very few references to it!

In short, for being recommended in the documentation, it seems
remarkably mysterious. Can someone take a minute to explain the
situation to me? (For example, why is it named "...Window...", when
it's function for handling file objects? Is it related to the Privoxy
HTTP proxy?)

I'm using the current RedHat (9) build of python (2.2.2), but have
encountered this with the python build that came with RH 7.2 as well.

I'm sure I've missed an obvious comment somwhere because "reading" the
documentation really means "skimming for relevant functions").

Thanks and apologies for the newbie noise.

Regards,
Richard

 

[Richard Michael]

As you suspected, this has nothing to do with Python or the Python.org
website - it is Privoxy replacing all instances of open() with
PrivoxyWindowOpen() to squash pop-up advertisements and such. Just add
.python.org to your whitelist and you'll be OK. (browse to
http://config.privoxy.org/ to bring up the configuration page).

jf

Oh my dear. Now this is an embarassing situation. Well, I guess I've
gotta laugh.

I didn't realize Privoxy would do this. I guess context handling by
Privoxy would be lots of work. It also why explains why
'PrivoxyWindowOpen()' didn't turn up in any newsgroups or in the local
documentation! (I don't think I was ever viewing the copies of
identical document both locally and online for comparison.)

A bit sad that I didn't think this could have actually been realtime
interference by Privoxy!

Thanks Joe.

Richard