[Python-Dev] hey, who broke the array module?

[Jack Jansen]

> I broke it with my patches to test overflow for some of the PyArg_Parse*()
> formatting characters. The upshot of testing for overflow is that now those
> formatting characters ('b', 'h', 'i', 'l') enforce signed-ness or
> unsigned-ness as appropriate (you have to know if the value is signed or
> unsigned to know what limits to check against for overflow). Two
> possibilities presented themselves:

I think this is a _very_ bad idea. I have a few thousand (literally) routines 
calling to Macintosh system calls that use "h" for 16 bit flag-word values, 
and the constants are all of the form

kDoSomething = 0x0001
kDoSomethingElse = 0x0002
...
kDoSomethingEvenMoreBrilliant = 0x8000

I'm pretty sure other operating systems have lots of calls with similar 
problems. I would strongly suggest using a new format char if you want 
overflow-tested integers.
--
Jack Jansen             | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
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