[Python-Dev] Include ctypes into core Python?

[Thomas Wouters]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 01:14:13PM -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> On the other hand it breaks one of the most fundamental Python
> guidelines: if you get a core dump (segfault etc.) it's a bug in
> Python or in a 3rd party extension, not in *your* Python code. An
> exception would have to be made for any code that uses ctypes, as it
> is usually trivial to cause core dumps with ctypes (I'd venture it's
> hard to avoid them ;-).

Aside from 'dl', what was also pointed out in c.l.py was the crashability of
Python in general, even from pure Python code:

centurion:~ > python < .
Segmentation fault

[...]
>>> sys.setrecursionlimit(1<<30)
>>> f = lambda f:f(f)
>>> f(f)
Segmentation fault

There's more, all from Python itself. And sure, "well, don't do that then"
is a perfectly valid response to most of these harebrained tricks, but it
does put a lie to the 'uncrashable python' idea :)

Not-for-or-against-including-ctypes-anyway'ly y'rs,
-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at xs4all.net>

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