[Release] DataStax Python Driver Version 2.6.0 Release Candidate 1

[Adam Holmberg]

Version 2.6.0c1 of the DataStax Python Driver has been released. 

This release includes support for features being introduced in Cassandra 2.2, as well as other improvements and bug fixes. We are providing this as a release candidate so we can react to any changes in Cassandra ahead of GA. We are also expanding Windows-based driver tests in the interim.

A complete list of changes can be found in the changelog (reproduced below for your convenience).

Thanks to all who provided pull requests and bug reports for this release. Your engagement is appreciated.

Discuss the driver and ask questions:
     Mailing List: https://groups.google.com/a/lists.datastax.com/forum/#!forum/python-driver-user
     IRC: #datastax-drivers on irc.freenode.net
Review and contribute source code: https://github.com/datastax/python-driver/
Report issues on JIRA: https://datastax-oss.atlassian.net/browse/PYTHON

Regards,
Adam Holmberg

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2.6.0c1 Changes

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Features

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* Default load balancing policy to TokenAware(DCAware) (PYTHON-160)

* Configuration option for connection timeout (PYTHON-206)

* Support User Defined Function and Aggregate metadata in C* 2.2 (PYTHON-211)

* Surface request client in QueryTrace for C* 2.2+ (PYTHON-235)

* Implement new request failure messages in protocol v4+ (PYTHON-238)

* Metadata model now maps index meta by index name (PYTHON-241)

* Support new types in C* 2.2: date, time, smallint, tinyint (PYTHON-245, 295)

* cqle: add Double column type and remove Float overload (PYTHON-246)

* Use partition key column information in prepared response for protocol v4+ (PYTHON-277)

* Support message custom payloads in protocol v4+ (PYTHON-280, PYTHON-329)

* Deprecate refresh_schema and replace with functions for specific entities (PYTHON-291)

* Save trace id even when trace complete times out (PYTHON-302)

* Warn when registering client UDT class for protocol < v3 (PYTHON-305)

* Support client warnings returned with messages in protocol v4+ (PYTHON-315)

* Ability to distinguish between NULL and UNSET values in protocol v4+ (PYTHON-317)

* Expose CQL keywords in API (PYTHON-324)

Bug Fixes

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* IPv6 address support on Windows (PYTHON-20)

* Convert exceptions during automatic re-preparation to nice exceptions (PYTHON-207)

* cqle: Quote keywords properly in table management functions (PYTHON-244)

* Don't default to GeventConnection when gevent is loaded, but not monkey-patched (PYTHON-289)

* Pass dynamic host from SaslAuthProvider to SaslAuthenticator (PYTHON-300)

* Make protocol read_inet work for Windows (PYTHON-309)

* cqle: Correct encoding for nested types (PYTHON-311)

* Update list of CQL keywords used quoting identifiers (PYTHON-319)

* Make ConstantReconnectionPolicy work with infinite retries (github #327, PYTHON-325)

* Accept UUIDs with uppercase hex as valid in cqlengine (github #335)