[New-bugs-announce] [issue16514] Cryptic traceback when sys.path[0] is None

[Barry A. Warsaw]

New submission from Barry A. Warsaw:

When sys.path[0] is None, attempting to import a module produces a cryptic chained traceback.  This is a regression from 3.2 where the import would succeed.

The basic issue is that in 3.2's import.c, non-string/bytes items on sys.path are essentially ignored (see the loop in import.c:1708 find_module()) while they are not ignored in 3.3's importlib.  This means that because zipimporter.zipimiporter is by default the first thing on sys.path_hooks, zipimporter.zipimporter(None) gets called.  This raises a TypeError which starts the chained exception.  Note that the fact that zipimporter.zipimporter(None) raises a TypeError is *not* a regression.  The regression is that None makes its way to sys.path_hooks at all.

I think this will be relatively easy to fix, if we agree that the current regressive behavior is a bug.

----------
assignee: barry
components: Interpreter Core
keywords: 3.3regression
messages: 175996
nosy: barry
priority: high
severity: normal
status: open
title: Cryptic traceback when sys.path[0] is None
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.3, Python 3.4

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue16514>
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