[New-bugs-announce] [issue7273] struct.pack adding extra '\x00' character in very specific case

[Caleb Madrigal]

New submission from Caleb Madrigal <caleb.madrigal at gmail.com>:

struct.pack("17scBH", 'a'*17, 'c', 255, 65535)
produces 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaac\xff\x00\xff\xff'.

Notice the extra '\x00' character between '\xff' and '\xff\xff'.

I have noticed that this happens when there is an odd-length string
(like '17s'), followed by a character ('c'), followed by a byte ('B'),
followed by an unsigned short ('H').

Other variations reproduce it also (such as using a 19-character string).

However, if any one of the following modifications are made to the
format, the problem goes away:
* Change the string to 16s
* Remove the byte ('B')
* Remove the character ('c')
* Remove the unsigned short ('H')

So obviously, this is a seriously deep, dark corner-case.

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 94980
nosy: cmadrigal
severity: normal
status: open
title: struct.pack adding extra '\x00' character in very specific case
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.5, Python 2.6, Python 3.0

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue7273>
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