[Python-Dev] Bug in inspect module

[Collin Winter]

On 3/17/07, Ewan Mellor <ewan at xensource.com> wrote:
> I have a problem being reported (by Xen users) where inspect.stack() is
> throwing IndexError.  I think that this is a bug in inspect.py -- findsource
> generally throws IOError when it can't find a particular source file, but in
> the case where it finds a source file, but that file is shorter than expected,
> then findsource throws IndexError, and this is propagated all the way out of
> inspect.stack().
>
> I'm not sure why inspect.py is finding source files that don't match the code
> being executed -- it seems to be dependent upon the install environment,
> because it's not affecting most people.  That said, I think that it's
> reasonable to cope with a too-short source file in the same way as we cope
> with missing source files -- by throwing IOError from findsource and handling
> that exception later.

FYI: this has been reported at least once before: see bug #1628987
(http://python.org/sf/1628987). The problem (in the bug report, at
least) is that the source file changes between compilation and when
findsource() is called, and findsource() picks up the modified
version.

Collin Winter