[Python-Dev] Adding timeout to socket.py and httplib.py

[Alan Kennedy]

[Josiah]
> Error-wise, I agree that it would be better to pass timeout explicitly
> with a keyword, but generally users will notice their mistake if they
> try to do create_connection(host, port) by ValueError("tuple expected as
> first argument, got str instead") Is it better than
> TypeError("create_connection takes 1 argument (2 given)") ?

Yes, it is better.

Currently, the socket.connect() method takes a tuple, and fails with
the following exception if 2 separate parameters are passed

TypeError: connect() takes exactly one argument (2 given)

Which is fine because the function does take exactly one argument. But
we're discussing a function with an optional timeout parameter, so
that TypeError wouldn't be raised if I called
create_connection("localhost", 80).

The patch as it currently is, if I am reading it right, would raise
one of the following if a string was passed as the address argument,
depending on the length of the string.

ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack # len(address) == 1
ValueError: too many values to unpack           # len(address) > 2

since it extracts the host and port like so

host, port = address

Which succeeds, somewhat surprisingly, if a string is passed that is 2
characters long. I was a little surprised to find that this didn't
give rise to an error: host, port = "ab".

So with a two character hostname, the second letter would be unpacked
as a port number.  And the function would then fail with the following
exception when it reaches the getaddrinfo ("a", "b", 0, SOCK_STREAM)
call.

socket.gaierror: (10109, 'getaddrinfo failed')

I suggest updating the patch to

 - Explicitly check that the address passed is a tuple of (string, integer)
 - To raise an exception explaining the parameter expectation when it is not met
 - To require that the user explicitly name the timeout parameter

Regards,

Alan.