Python: HTTP Fixes and Interpreter Hardening
CPython closed two long-standing HTTP gaps around 100-Continue and proxy auth for secure URLs, alongside a cluster of C-level crash and stall fixes. The pattern is edge-case reliability, with most changes already backported to 3.14 and 3.15.
Duration: PT2M26S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from Python.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: Python
- Published: 2026-11-12T14:08:46Z
- Audio duration: PT2M26S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
It's November 12th, 2026 — you're listening to Python in brief.
Today's signal is reliability at the edges: the H T T P stack learned to play by the rules, while core C code got safer against crashes and stalls.
First, H T T P. PR 133276, tracking issue 42550, adds Expect 100 Continue support to the H T T P client. Previously it sent the request body immediately and swallowed 100 responses. Now it waits for a continue when that header is set, and can return 100 responses instead of eating them. Paired with that, PR 161596…
Second, crash and corruption hardening. PR 161061 fixes a pyexpat crash when the default handler is cleared from inside a callback, by installing a no-op instead of null. PR 160304 fixes byte array state after a failed delete of the front slice, so a memory error no longer leaves the object pointing outside its…
Finally, polish. PR 161790 stops the new REPL from syntax-highlighting text typed to input, PR 154850 makes virtual environment activation scripts honor umask and directory access rules, and PR 150631 fixes JSON dump encoding dict subclasses as empty.
What's next: test proxy and Expect header paths if you rely on them, and expect many of these to land in…
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