[New-bugs-announce] [issue37844] PyRun_SimpleFile should provide a version that does not need a FILE*

[Christian Biesinger]

New submission from Christian Biesinger <cbiesinger at google.com>:

Because FILE* requires that the runtime library matches between Python and a program using it, it is very hard to use this correctly on Windows. It would be nice if Python provided either:

- A function to open a FILE* given a filename, suitable for passing to the various PyRun_* functions, or
- Versions of the functions that take a filename and internally open the file

(ref: https://docs.python.org/3.9/c-api/veryhigh.html, which talks about this but provides no useful guidance:
"One particular issue which needs to be handled carefully is that the FILE structure for different C libraries can be different and incompatible. Under Windows (at least), it is possible for dynamically linked extensions to actually use different libraries, so care should be taken that FILE* parameters are only passed to these functions if it is certain that they were created by the same library that the Python runtime is using."
)

----------
components: Windows
messages: 349598
nosy: cbiesinger, paul.moore, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: PyRun_SimpleFile should provide a version that does not need a FILE*
type: crash
versions: Python 3.8

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue37844>
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