[Python-Dev] Strange bug only happens with Python 2.2

[Gerhard Häring]

This is somewhat off-topic, but I'm hoping maybe someone can give a hint
why this only happens on Python 2.2.1.

Ok, here's the story:

I've had a bug report against our pyPgSQL database interface package that
retrieving Large Objects doesn't work with Python 2.2.1. The reproducible
traceback we get is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "p.py", line 20, in ?
    res = cs.fetchone()
  File "pyPgSQL/PgSQL.py", line 2672, in fetchone
    return self.__fetchOneRow()
  File "pyPgSQL/PgSQL.py", line 2281, in __fetchOneRow
    for _i in range(self.res.nfields):
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute '__bases__'

This traceback is quite obviously bogus, as self.res.nfields is a Python
int and no strings are involved here whatsoever. After some debugging, I
found that something very strange happens in a function call that
happens in this for loop. Inside the for loop, a function typecast is
called, which has this code within:

if isinstance(value, PgBytea) or type(value) is PgLargeObjectType:

This code is causing the problems which result in the bogus traceback
later on.

Now in my case, 'value' is of type PgLargeObjectType, which is a custom
type from our extension module. PgBytea is a Python class.

Now comes the first very strange observation: Swapping the checks, so
that the 'type(value) is PgLargeObjectType' check comes first makes the
problem go away. So my conclusion is that there's some problem with
isinstance and my custom extension type.

The second strange thing is that this only happens on Python 2.2.1
(Linux, FreeBSD, Windows), but _not_ on Python 2.1.3 or Python 2.3-CVS.

Oh, the problem isn't tied to isinstance(value, PgBytea). Any isinstance
check causes it later on.

Of course I'm suspecting that there's some problem with the extension
type. Looks like some internal interpreter data gets corrupted. No idea
how to debug that, too.

Does anybody have any tips where to look or how to debug this further?

-- Gerhard