Routes 0.2 released

Routes 0.2 has been released. The change-log is pitifully short:

• Added prefix option
• Fixed Python 2.3 bug with thread-local singleton

But hey, its a small package to begin with so what the heck. Though its only 0.2 I'm rather pleased with it so far, its performance is great and quite reliable so I'm using it in production environments already.

If you haven't been following my blog long, Routes is a feature-complete implementation of Rails routes system. I talk more about my reasons for re-implementing Routes in Python in an earlier post so I won't repeat them all here.

It's fairly unique in the Python world as it will do a route lookup search to turn a dictionary back into the URL (URL Generation) that will ensure the same values are created. This allows you to generate URL's from inside your web pages and easily add new URL schemes without touching all your web pages.

The Routes package is aimed directly at integration with Python web frameworks that support the MVC style paradigm as it returns a controller and action value with the assumption your framework will know what to do with it.

Tired of writing big regexp's to match URL's to a class/method for dispatch in your webapp? Pester the framework creator to integrate Routes. :)

Here's some Python Web Frameworks that currently or will shortly have Routes support/integration:

• Aquarium has a URL Connector that uses Routes. Not sure if its been added to the core or only exists as an add-on right now.
• Myghty will have Routes integration packaged with it in 0.99 which is on track to be released this week hopefully. It will also bring Python Paste support and integration which will bring a whole bunch of goodies to webapp developers and users. (Note that Python Paste requires Python 2.4)

I'll be talking more about Python Paste and why you should care later this week. Any comments/suggestions on Routes are greatly appreciated.