[issue24045] Behavior of large returncodes (sys.exit(nn))

New submission from Ethan Furman:
Not sure if this is a bug, or just One of Those Things:
sys.exit(large_value) can wrap around if the value is too large, but this is O/S dependent.
linux (ubuntu 14.04)
$ python Python 2.7.8 (default, Oct 20 2014, 15:05:29) [GCC 4.9.1] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. --> import sys --> sys.exit(256) $ echo $? 0
$ python Python 2.7.8 (default, Oct 20 2014, 15:05:29) [GCC 4.9.1] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. --> import sys --> sys.exit(257) $ echo $? 1
M$ (Windows 7)
python
Python 2.7... --> import sys --> sys.exit(65535)
echo %errorlevel%
65535
python
Python 2.7... --> import sys --> sys.exit(100000)
echo %errorlevel%
100000
Perhaps a minor doc update that talks about return codes and why they might not be exactly what was given to Python?
---------- assignee: docs@python messages: 241903 nosy: docs@python, ethan.furman priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Behavior of large returncodes (sys.exit(nn)) versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.5
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org http://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________

Changes by Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis Arfrever.FTA@GMail.Com:
---------- nosy: +Arfrever
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org http://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________

Changes by Ethan Furman ethan@stoneleaf.us:
---------- nosy: -ethan.furman
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org http://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________

Martin Panter added the comment:
Is this a duplicate of Issue 24052?
---------- nosy: +martin.panter
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org https://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________

Eryk Sun added the comment:
Unix waitpid() packs the process exit status and terminating signal number into a single status value. As specified by POSIX [1], the WEXITSTATUS function returns only the lower 8 bits of the process exit status. In theory, waitid() and wait6() can return the full 32-bit status value in the siginfo_t si_status. Apparently NetBSD does this [2], but evidently Linux does not:
>>> p = subprocess.Popen(['python3', '-c','import os; os._exit(257)']) >>> os.waitid(os.P_PID, p.pid, os.WEXITED).si_status 1
For Windows, programs sometimes return 16-bit WinAPI error codes or 32-bit HRESULT error codes. A critical error or unhandled exception may even result in returning a 32-bit NTSTATUS code (e.g. if you cancel the Windows error reporting dialog).
Currently the Python 3 implementation of sys.exit and os._exit converts to a signed long, but the Windows exit code is an unsigned long. To use integer return codes in the range 0x80000000-0xFFFFFFFF requires manually converting to the corresponding negative signed value.
Technically the two error types that require 32-bit values are signed (i.e. HRESULT and NTSTATUS), so this shouldn't be a problem. However, in practice sometimes a function -- and definitely subprocess.Popen -- returns an HRESULT error code as an unsigned value.
It would be convenient, at least on Windows, if handle_system_exit in Python/pythonrun.c converted the value using PyLong_AsUnsignedLongMask instead of PyLong_AsLong. Similarly os._exit could use Argument Clinic's "unsigned int" format, which also calls PyLong_AsUnsignedLongMask.
The problem with using PyLong_AsLong on Windows (32-bit or 64-bit) is that it overflows with an error value of -1 for values greater than 0x7FFFFFFF. In this case, os._exit raises OverflowError. handle_system_exit, on the other hand, ignores the exception. It just uses the -1 error value as the exit code, i.e. 0xFFFFFFFF.
[1]: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/wait.html [2]: https://www.daemon-systems.org/man/wait.2.html
---------- nosy: +eryksun
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org https://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________

Eryk Sun eryksun@gmail.com added the comment:
It's still the case in 3.10 that unsigned status codes are limited to 0x7FFF_FFFF, and any larger value gets mapped to -1 (0xFFFF_FFFF). For example:
>>> rc = subprocess.call([sys.executable, '-c', 'raise SystemExit(0x7FFF_FFFF)']) >>> hex(rc) '0x7fffffff' >>> rc = subprocess.call([sys.executable, '-c', 'raise SystemExit(0x8000_0000)']) >>> hex(rc) '0xffffffff' >>> rc = subprocess.call([sys.executable, '-c', 'raise SystemExit(0xC000_0005)']) >>> hex(rc) '0xffffffff'
WinAPI ExitProcess() and GetExitCodeProcess() use unsigned values. The latter is called by subprocess.Popen.wait(). In practice, this return code, which may be larger than 0x7FFF_FFFF, might get passed to SystemExit() or os._exit().
---------- type: -> behavior versions: +Python 3.10, Python 3.8, Python 3.9 -Python 2.7, Python 3.5
_______________________________________ Python tracker report@bugs.python.org https://bugs.python.org/issue24045 _______________________________________
participants (4)
-
Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis
-
Eryk Sun
-
Ethan Furman
-
Martin Panter