bug python2.3+zipimport+ubuntu 10.04 amd_64

[Robin Becker]

I'm trying to run some aged software on a new machine which runs

Linux app2.reportlab.com 2.6.32-30-generic #59-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 1 21:30:46 UTC 
2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux  Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS

The software is required to use python 2.3 so first I've had some problems 
building python itself. Apparently to get rid of segfaults during the build we 
need the configure args to include

    BASECFLAGS=-U_FORTIFY_SOURCE

that certainly fixes the python build errors.

Now when we come to run the aged application we get this

$ ./xxx.cgi
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "/home/rptlab/website/develop.reportlab.com/cgi-bin/xxx.cgi", line 7, in ?
     from fastwebapp import FastWebApp
OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum


this appears to be related to the use of a zip import.

 > sys.path.insert(0,os.path.join(os.getcwd(),"fastapp.zip"))
 > from fastwebapp import FastWebApp

if we unpack the zip and remove the path insert the application appears to run fine.

Googling appears to indicate that others have seen this error but on a different 
hardware and trying to remove optimizations from the python build has had 
variable success.

Anyone had any real success with this problem? The last version of the test 
machinery ran 32bit freebsd and we had no problems on that hardware.
-- 
Robin Becker