SourceForge patch #103140, checked in at fdrake's invitation. Minor fixes and

additions to library docs.#

Doc/lib/libascii.tex

@@ -53,7 +53,9 @@ control characters as follows:
   \lineii{DEL}{Delete}
 \end{tableii}
 
-Note that many of these have little practical use in modern usage.
+Note that many of these have little practical significance in modern
+usage.  The mnemonics derive from teleprinter conventions that predate
+digital computers.
 
 The module supplies the following functions, patterned on those in the
 standard C library:

Doc/lib/libcookie.tex

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 
 
 The \module{Cookie} module defines classes for abstracting the concept of 
-cookies, an HTTP state management mechanism. It supports both simplistic
+cookies, an HTTP state management mechanism. It supports both simple
 string-only cookies, and provides an abstraction for having any serializable
 data-type as cookie value.
 

Doc/lib/libsocket.tex

@@ -267,8 +267,8 @@ Bind the socket to \var{address}.  The socket must not already be bound.
 (The format of \var{address} depends on the address family --- see
 above.)  \strong{Note:}  This method has historically accepted a pair
 of parameters for \constant{AF_INET} addresses instead of only a
-tuple.  This was never intentional and will no longer be available in
-Python 1.7.
+tuple.  This was never intentional and is no longer be available in
+Python 2.0.
 \end{methoddesc}
 
 \begin{methoddesc}[socket]{close}{}
@@ -282,8 +282,8 @@ Connect to a remote socket at \var{address}.
 (The format of \var{address} depends on the address family --- see
 above.)  \strong{Note:}  This method has historically accepted a pair
 of parameters for \constant{AF_INET} addresses instead of only a
-tuple.  This was never intentional and will no longer be available in
-Python 1.7.
+tuple.  This was never intentional and is no longer available in
+Python 2.0 and later.
 \end{methoddesc}
 
 \begin{methoddesc}[socket]{connect_ex}{address}
@@ -295,8 +295,8 @@ operation succeeded, otherwise the value of the \cdata{errno}
 variable.  This is useful, e.g., for asynchronous connects.
 \strong{Note:}  This method has historically accepted a pair of
 parameters for \constant{AF_INET} addresses instead of only a tuple.
-This was never intentional and will no longer be available in Python
-1.7.
+This was never intentional and is no longer be available in Python
+2.0 and later.
 \end{methoddesc}
 
 \begin{methoddesc}[socket]{fileno}{}

Doc/lib/libstat.tex

@@ -97,7 +97,8 @@ Group id of the owner.
 \end{datadesc}
 
 \begin{datadesc}{ST_SIZE}
-File size in bytes.
+Size in bytes of a plain file; amount of data waiting on some special
+files.
 \end{datadesc}
 
 \begin{datadesc}{ST_ATIME}
@@ -112,6 +113,16 @@ Time of last modification.
 Time of last status change (see manual pages for details).
 \end{datadesc}
 
+The interpretation of ``file size'' changes according to the file
+type.  For plain files this is the size of the file in bytes.  For
+FIFOs and sockets under most Unixes (including Linux in particular),
+the ``size'' is the number of bytes waiting to be read at the time of
+the stat(2)/fstat(2)/lstat(2) call; this can sometimes be useful,
+especially for polling one of these special files after a non-blocking
+open.  The meaning of the size field for other character and block
+devices varies more, depending on the local implementation of the
+underlying system call.
+
 Example:
 
 \begin{verbatim}