Utils4

Changes

**NOTE:**
This is the last version which officially support Python 3.7-3.9. All
future updates will be focused on 3.10+ support. Wheels will no longer be
built for Python <3.10.

UTL4-6: Integrate new functionality from badsnakes.
- A new C module (_futils) has been introduced, whose functions are
wrapped by the current utils.py module for easy access and documentation.
- The functions are C implementations of the file-checking utilities from
badsnakes and include: isascii, isbinary and iszip.
- Added the exclude_dirs function from badsnakes to the utils module.

UTL4-7: Wrong badge links.
- Addressed an issue where some badge links in the README file pointed to
preqs, rather than to utils4.

Compatibility warning:
- Some functions have had keyword parameters enforced, which may break
backwards compatibility.

Testing:
- All test cases pass for Python 3.12, with 100% code coverage.
- Note: A couple tests fail for Python 3.7 - 3.9 owing to a reduction in
underlying library support (e.g. matplotlib, cryptography) and the use
of the walrus operator.
- Pylint completes successfully with 10/10 for all modules.

Released: 2025-01-04

Changes

UTL4-1:
- Added a 'get_removable_drives' function to the utils module.
- This is a Windows-only function. If run on Linux, a NotImplementedError
is raised.

UTL4-4:
- Added a 'strip_ansi_colour' function to the utils module to strip
colour ANSI escape sequences from a string.

UTL4-5: Snyk vulnerability
- Addressed a Snyk vulnerability issue with the cryptography library.
- Installed cryptography v43.0.3 into the development venv. The build
script will generate a new requirements.txt file with this upgraded
installation.

Testing:
- Test cases added for the new strip_ansi_colour and get_removable_drives
functions.
- Testing completes successfully with 100% code coverage.
- Pylintr completes successfully with all modules reporting 10/10.

Released: 2024-11-13

Changes

Wheel files:
- All applicable wheels embedded into the dist directory for upload to
PyPI.

Testing:
- Testing completes successfully with 100% code coverage.
- Pylintr completes successfully at 100%.

Released: 2024-09-18

Changes

Changes for release candidate 3 (relative to rc2)

Changes:
- Addressed a bug in setup.cfg where the new [build] table worked for
Windows, but not Linux.
- The [build] table is now added dynamically for Windows only.
- Updated the homepage of the documentation to include a more accurate
build instruction for Windows.

Changes for release candidate 2 (relative to rc1)

Changes:
- Added a compiler entry to setup.cfg (for Windows building).
- Minor accuracy updates to the README file.
- Updated the release checklist.
- Updated minimum Python version to 3.7.
- Updated references to Python 3.6 to Python 3.7.
- Removed Python 3.6 from the documentation.

Python 3.6 deprecation:
- Although Python 3.6 is no longer *officially* supported, the library
will still work on 3.6 in most cases. The reason for pulling official
support is due to the difficulty in getting hold of a build environment
for 3.6 as it's no longer supported.

Changes for release candidate 1 (relative to dev1)

Changes:
- Added a README file for GitHub and PyPI.
- Migrated the build from setup.py to pyproject.toml.
- Minor documentation updates, primarily on the homepage.

Testing:
- Python 3.8 testing and coverage completed successfully at 100%.
- Python 3.11 testing and coverage completed successfully at 100%.

Released: 2024-08-14