[python-list] Re: Strange crash issue on Windows w/ PyGTK, Cairo...

[MRAB]

CJ Kucera wrote:
> bieffe62 at gmail.com wrote:
>> It looks like some of the C extension you are using is causing a
>> segfault or similar in python
>> interpreter (or it could be a bug in the interpreter itself, but it is
>> a lot less likely).
> 
> Okay...  I assume by "C extension" you'd include the PyGTK stuff, right?
> (ie: pycairo, pygobject, and pygtk)  Those are the only extras I've got
> installed, otherwise it's just a base Python install.
> 
> Would a bad extension really cause this kind of behavior though?
> Specifically the working-the-first-time and crash-subsqeuent-times?  Do
> C extensions contribute to the bytecode generated while compiling?
> 
[snip]
One time I was doing some speed tests and I found that the code was
faster the first time it ran, when it had to compile to .pyc. If there
had been caching then it would've been faster after the first time, but
_slower_?

My conclusion was that it was down to memory allocation. If the
interpreter had claimed memory from the OS because it had to compile to
.pyc then more would be immediately available during my timing, hence
higher speed.

So perhaps your problem is that one of the C extensions segfaults unless
more memory is immediately available because the interpreter had to
compile to .pyc.