PEP 214 completed after channeling and encouragement from Tim Peters.

The referenced SF patch is current with this description.

The proposal section is moved to before the justification.

pep-0214.txt

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@ PEP: 214
 Title: Extended Print Statement
 Version: $Revision$
 Author: bwarsaw@beopen.com (Barry A. Warsaw)
-Python-Version: 2.1
+Python-Version: 2.0
 Status: Draft
 Created: 24-Jul-2000
-Post-History:
+Post-History: 16-Aug-2000
 
 
 Introduction
@@ -21,6 +21,37 @@ Introduction
     record.
 
 
+Proposal
+
+    This proposal introduces a syntax extension to the print
+    statement, which allows the programmer to optionally specify the
+    output file target.  An example usage is as follows:
+
+        print >> mylogfile, 'this message goes to my log file'
+
+    Formally, the syntax of the extended print statement is
+    
+        print_stmt: ... | '>>' test [ (',' test)+ [','] ] )
+
+    where the ellipsis indicates the original print_stmt syntax
+    unchanged.  In the extended form, the expression just after >>
+    must yield an object with a write() method (i.e. a file-like
+    object).  Thus these two statements are equivalent:
+
+	print 'hello world'
+        print >> sys.stdout, 'hello world'
+
+    As are these two statements:
+
+        print
+        print >> sys.stdout
+
+    These two statements are syntax errors:
+
+        print ,
+        print >> sys.stdout,
+
+
 Justification
 
     `print' is a Python keyword and introduces the print statement as
@@ -40,12 +71,11 @@ Justification
     method, but it can be rebound to redirect output to files other
     than specifically standard output.  A typical idiom is
 
-	oldstdout = sys.stdout
         sys.stdout = mylogfile
 	try:
 	    print 'this message goes to my log file'
 	finally:
-	    sys.stdout = oldstdout
+	    sys.stdout = sys.__stdout__
 
     The problem with this approach is that the binding is global, and
     so affects every statement inside the try: clause.  For example,
@@ -53,55 +83,10 @@ Justification
     to stdout, this output too would get redirected to the logfile.
 
     This approach is also very inconvenient for interleaving prints to
-    various output streams.
+    various output streams, and complicates coding in the face of
+    legitimate try/except or try/finally clauses.
 
 
-Proposal
-
-    This proposal introduces a syntax change to the print statement,
-    which allows the programmer to optionally specify the output file
-    target.  An example usage is as follows:
-
-        print >> mylogfile, 'this message goes to my log file'
-
-    Formally, the syntax of the extended print statement is
-
-        print_stmt: "print" [">>" expr ","] [ expr ("," expr)* [","] ]
-
-    Where the the expression just after >> must yield an object with a
-    write() method (i.e. a file-like object).  Thus these two
-    statements are equivalent:
-
-	print 'hello world'
-        print >> sys.stdout, 'hello world'
-
-
-Open Issues
-
-    What should the following do?
-
-        print >> file
-        print >> file,
-
-    In the current implementation (see below), the first is a
-    SyntaxError and the second prints nothing to file.  This is likely
-    counterintuitive; the first should print just a newline, making
-    these equivalent:
-
-        print >> sys.stdout
-        print
-
-    The second should print just a space and no newline to file.  It
-    doesn't have a non-extended print equivalent, since this is
-    illegal:
-
-        print ,
-
-    The closes equivalent is:
-
-        print '',
-    
-
 Reference Implementation
 
     A reference implementation, in the form of a patch against the