feat: fix bugs and add modern python support

[ppigazzini]

feat(parser): add modern python support

• Implement true short-circuit for 'and'/'or' returning deciding operand
• Fix chained comparisons to evaluate pairwise with short-circuit
• Restrict function calls to direct names only (reject attribute/lambda)
• Add visit_Constant for Python 3.8+ unified literals
  (keep visit_Num/visit_NameConstant for legacy)
• Make ast.parse mode explicit ('exec') for assignment compatibility
• Remove obsolete _boolean_ops mapping

tests: add coverage and move to proper file

• Add test_expression_parser.py (moved from tests/init.py)
• Add: test_chained_comparisons
• Add: test_boolean_short_circuit
• Add: test_call_requires_direct_function_name
• Add: test_starstar_kwargs_not_supported
• Add: test_attribute_access_disallowed
• Add: test_parenthesized_function_call_allowed

ci: introduce GitHub Actions

• Matrix for Python 3.8–3.14 and separate Python 2.7 job via container
• Separate non-blocking ruff lint workflow using Astral actions

chore(gitignore): sync with latest GitHub Python template

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR modernizes the expression parser by fixing bugs and adding support for Python versions 2.7-3.14. Key improvements include fixing chained comparison logic, implementing proper short-circuit evaluation for boolean operators, and adding modern Python literal support.

• Fix chained comparison evaluation (pairwise with short-circuit) and boolean short-circuit semantics
• Add Python 3.8+ visit_Constant method while maintaining backward compatibility
• Restrict function calls to direct names only and make ast.parse mode explicit
• Move comprehensive tests to proper test file structure and add GitHub CI workflows

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tests/test_expression_parser.py	New comprehensive test file with all expression parser tests including chained comparisons and boolean short-circuit behavior
tests/init.py	Simplified to package marker, moving tests to proper test file
expression/parser.py	Core fixes for chained comparisons, boolean short-circuit, Python 3.8+ support, and function call restrictions
expression/interpreter.py	Code formatting improvements with consistent string quotes
expression/init.py	Version bump and consistent string quote formatting
setup.py	Formatting improvements with consistent style
.github/workflows/lint.yml	New GitHub workflow for code linting with Ruff
.github/workflows/ci.yml	New CI workflow with multi-version Python testing (2.7-3.14)

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[lhelwerd]

Hi and thanks for your interest in updating this small module to support newer Python versions. Indeed I have not been maintaining it closely due to not using it in any projects since when these versions (2.7, 3.6) were more commonplace in distros and containerized environments.

As mentioned in the linked issue, there are likely alternatives that would work in your use case just as well (or even better, such as limiting the operands of the power operations to some maximum value). So going ahead to submit a PR is a nice thing (even if ai-ded).

Overall, the changes are fine; good to have some code formatting and a working CI (I might actually feel inspired to modernize as well, replace the build toolchain from setup.py to pyproject.toml and add a proper changelog) and thanks for the tests for the short-circuiting/chaining.

I left a few comments for cleanup, could you have a look?

After changes and approval, I can make a new release with the newer python support. Later on, 2.7 and the unsupported python3 versions could be dropped in a major version bump (I guess it's been long enough).

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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[ppigazzini]

Your package is still powering the Fishtest workers. Consider this PR a small token of appreciation - feel free to merge it whenever it's convenient for you. I’ve opened a PR, currently on hold because it requires python >= 3.8, to switch to simpleeval; Fishtest is not blocked by this issue.

[ppigazzini]

Thank you for the fast release of the new version, I updated Fishtest worker. A couple of our users are running high core count workers with python 3.6, your package keeps them up and running.