Merge branch 'master' into jbrill-msvc-detect

Manually resolve conflicts:
	CHANGES.txt
	RELEASE.txt
	SCons/Tool/MSCommon/vc.py

Author: jcbrill

CHANGES.txt

@@ -87,6 +87,10 @@ RELEASE  VERSION/DATE TO BE FILLED IN LATER
       new msvc installations, internal runtime caches are cleared and the installed vcs
       list is reconstructed.
 
+  From Thaddeus Crews:
+    - Implemented SCons.Util.sctyping as a safe means of hinting complex types. Currently
+      only implemented for `Executor` as a proof-of-concept.
+
   From William Deegan:
     - Fix sphinx config to handle SCons versions with post such as: 4.6.0.post1
 
@@ -97,6 +101,46 @@ RELEASE  VERSION/DATE TO BE FILLED IN LATER
     - Fix of the --debug=sconscript option to return exist statements when using return
       statement with stop flag enabled
 
+  From Prabhu S. Khalsa:
+    - Fix typo in user documentation (issue #4458)
+
+  From Andrew Morrow:
+    - The NewParallel scheduler is now the default, the `tm_v2` flag is removed,
+      and the old scheduler is opt-in under `--experimental=legacy_sched`. Additionally,
+      the new scheduler is now used for -j1 builds as well.
+    - A python interpreter with support for the `threading` package is now required,
+      and this is enforced on startup. SCons currently sets its minimum supported
+      Python to 3.6, and it was not until Python 3.7 where `threading` became
+      default supported. In practice, we expect most real world Python 3.6 deployments
+      will have `threading` support enabled, so this will not be an issue.
+    - CacheDir writes no longer happen within the taskmaster critical section,
+      and therefore can run in parallel with both other CacheDir writes and the
+      taskmaster DAG walk.
+    - The NewParallel scheduler now only adds threads as new work requiring execution
+      is discovered, up to the limit set by -j. This should reduce resource utilization
+      when the achievable parallelism in the DAG is less than the -j limit.
+
+  From Mats Wichmann:
+    - Add support for Python 3.13 (as of alpha 2). So far only affects
+      expected bytecodes in ActionTests.py.
+    - sconsign cleanup - remove some dead code, minor manpage tweaks.
+    - Be more cautious about encodings fetching command output on Windows.
+      Problem occurs in piped-spawn scenario, used by Configure tests.
+      Fixes #3529.
+    - Clarify/fix documentation of Scanners in User Guide and Manpage.
+      Fixes #4468.
+    - Fix bad typing in Action.py: process() and strfunction().
+    - Add Pseudo() to global functions, had been omitted. Fixes #4474.
+    - Improve handling of file data that SCons itself processes - try
+      harder to decode non-UTF-8 text. SCons.Util.to_Text now exists
+      to convert a byte stream, such as "raw" file data.  Fixes #3569, #4462.
+      The Pseudo manpage entry was updated to provide more clarity.
+    - The internal routine which implements the PyPackageDir function
+      would fail with an exception if called with a module which is
+      not found.  It will now return None.  Updated manpage entry and
+      docstring..
+    - Improve SharedLibrary docs a bit.
+
 
 RELEASE 4.6.0 -  Sun, 19 Nov 2023 17:22:20 -0700
 
@@ -1442,12 +1486,12 @@ RELEASE 3.1.0 - Mon, 20 Jul 2019 16:59:23 -0700
       scons: rebuilding `file3' because:
            the dependency order changed:
            ->Sources
-           Old:xxx	New:zzz
-           Old:yyy	New:yyy
-           Old:zzz	New:xxx
+           Old:xxx  New:zzz
+           Old:yyy  New:yyy
+           Old:zzz  New:xxx
            ->Depends
            ->Implicit
-           Old:/usr/bin/python	New:/usr/bin/python
+           Old:/usr/bin/python  New:/usr/bin/python
     - Fix Issue #3350 - SCons Exception EnvironmentError is conflicting with Python's EnvironmentError.
     - Fix spurious rebuilds on second build for cases where builder has > 1 target and the source file
       is generated. This was causing the > 1th target to not have it's implicit list cleared when the source
@@ -7987,4 +8031,3 @@ A brief overview of important functionality available in release 0.01:
   - Linux packages available in RPM and Debian format.
 
   - Windows installer available.
-

CONTRIBUTING.rst

@@ -297,13 +297,13 @@ You may specifically list one or more tests to be run::
 
         $ python runtest.py SCons/BuilderTests.py
 
-        $ python runtest.py test/option-j.py test/Program.py
+        $ python runtest.py test/option/option-j.py test/Program.py
 
 You also use the ``-f`` option to execute just the tests listed in a specified
 text file::
 
         $ cat testlist.txt
-        test/option-j.py
+        test/option/option-j.py
         test/Program.py
         $ python runtest.py -f testlist.txt
 

RELEASE.txt

@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ CHANGED/ENHANCED EXISTING FUNCTIONALITY
 - Add an optional argument list string to configure's CheckFunc method so
   that the generated function argument list matches the function's
   prototype when including a header file. Fixes GH Issue #4320
+- Now supports pre-release Python 3.13
+- Support for Python versions without support for the `threading` package has been removed
 - MSVC: For msvc version specifications without an 'Exp' suffix, an express
   installation is used when no other edition is detected for the msvc version.
   This was the behavior for Visual Studio 2008 (9.0) through Visual Studio 2015
@@ -73,12 +75,30 @@ FIXES
   VSWHERE and found additional msvc installations, the new installations were not
   reflected in the installed vcs list. Now, when a user-specified vswhere
   executable finds new msvc installations, the installed vcs list is reconstructed.
+- On Windows platform, when collecting command output (Configure checks),
+  make sure decoding of bytes doesn't fail.
+- Documentation indicated that both Pseudo() and env.Pseudo() were usable,
+  but Pseudo() did not work; is now enabled.
+- Improve handling of file data that SCons itself processes - as in
+  scanners - try harder to decode non-UTF-8 text.
+- PyPackageDir no longer fails if passed a module name which cannot be found,
+  now returns None.
 
 IMPROVEMENTS
 ------------
 
 - Use of NotImplemented instead of NotImplementedError for special methods
   of _ListVariable class
+- The NewParallel scheduler is now the default, the `tm_v2` flag is removed,
+  and the old scheduler is opt-in under `--experimental=legacy_sched`. Additionally,
+  the new scheduler is now used for -j1 builds as well.
+  NOTE: This should significantly improve SCons performance for larger parallel builds
+        (Larger -j values)
+- CacheDir writes no longer happen within the taskmaster critical section, and therefore
+  can run in parallel with both other CacheDir writes and the taskmaster DAG walk.
+- The NewParallel scheduler now only adds threads as new work requiring execution
+  is discovered, up to the limit set by -j. This should reduce resource utilization
+  when the achievable parallelism in the DAG is less than the -j limit.
 - MSVC: Visual Studio 2015 Express (14.0Exp) does not support the sdk version
   argument. Visual Studio 2015 Express does not support the store argument for
   target architectures other than x86.  Script argument validation now takes into
@@ -95,14 +115,18 @@ PACKAGING
 DOCUMENTATION
 -------------
 
-- List any significant changes to the documentation (not individual
-  typo fixes, even if they're mentioned in src/CHANGES.txt to give
-  the contributor credit)
+- Fixed the Scanner examples in the User Guide to be runnable and added
+  some more explantion. Clarified discussion of the scanner function in
+  the Scanner Objects section of the manpage.
+- The manpage entry for Pseudo was clarified.
+- The manpage entry for SharedLibrary was clarified.
 
 DEVELOPMENT
 -----------
 
 - Fix sphinx config to handle SCons versions with post such as: 4.6.0.post1
+- Created SCons.Util.sctyping to contain complex type information, allowing
+  for repo-wide type hinting without causing cyclical dependencies.
 
 Thanks to the following contributors listed below for their contributions to this release.
 ==========================================================================================