Issue 697613: fix bug #670311: sys.exit and PYTHONINSPECT (original) (raw)

So we want to stop SystemExit from causing an actual exit() when using python -i. This patch introduces two new API calls, PyRun_BlockSysExit and PyRun_UnblockSysExit, to set a flag toavoid the exit() call in PyErr_PrintEx.

There are several other ways to fix this bug, but I think all of the others I came up with would cause more backwards compatibilty problems and/or be a lot more work. Some possibilities, if anyone is interested, would be:

1. Add a new PyCompilerFlags flag This seems a bit ugly, as it's not really a "compile flag".
2. Add some special run routines that block the exit.
3. Add another parameter to existing run routines.
4. Change PyErr_PrintEx so it doesn't exit when printing a SystemError, instead having the run routines responsible for exiting when catching that exception.

What do you think? Is my patch good enough, or would you like something else?