[Python-Dev] Include ctypes into core Python?

Wed Jan 11 00:12:43 CET 2006

On 1/10/06, Delaney, Timothy (Tim) <tdelaney at avaya.com> wrote:
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
>> > On 1/10/06, Thomas Heller <theller at python.net> wrote:
> >> I would like to suggest to include ctypes into core Python, starting
> >> with the 2.5 release.
> >
> > On the one hand I agree that this is a useful module, popular, mature
> > etc.
> >
> > On the other hand it breaks one of the most fundamental Python
> > guidelines: if you get a core dump (segfault etc.) it's a bug in
> > Python or in a 3rd party extension, not in *your* Python code. An
> > exception would have to be made for any code that uses ctypes, as it
> > is usually trivial to cause core dumps with ctypes (I'd venture it's
> > hard to avoid them ;-).
> >
> > I don't expect this to count against including ctypes; but I do want
> > it to be dealt with somehow!
>> As was pointed out on c.l.py, the `dl` module suffers the exact same
> problem (I don't know myself, as I've never used it). There are no
> warnings about this in the `dl` module documentation.

Good point. I think there should be such warnings though.
> I can't see how it would be possible to guarantee that such a module
> could not cause crashes.

And I'm not asking for that.
> I'm of the opinion that having a big red
> warning at the top of the module documentation that this is a
> contributed module, and incorrect use could cause segmentation
> faults/crashes, etc would be sufficient.

Works for me.
--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)