[Python-Dev] PyOS_snprintf() (original) (raw)

[Python-Dev] PyOS_snprintf() / PyOS_vsnprintf()

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Thu, 02 Aug 2001 11:58:26 +0200

Tim Peters wrote:

[MAL] > How about always enabling our version in the alpha cycle and then > reverting back to the native one in the betas ? If we have to ship our own code for it anyway, why ever revert to the native one? Historically, all that gives us is boundless opportunities to catalog and #ifdef our way around gratuitous discrepancies among platform C libraries. since-we-switched-to-our-own-getopt-everywhere-we-no-longer-get- getopt-bug-reports-anywhere-ly y'rs - tim

Well, the emulation is not as robust and fast as the native implementation is, plus it cannot recover from a buffer overrun; such an overrun is likely to cause a core dump due to sprintf() writing into the heap -- still better than allowing a cracker to hack your system by exploiting a stack overrun, but not as good as a true snprintf() implementation will do.

If we do get complaints about snprintf() failures on systems which do have a native API, then we can still switch to the emulation for all platforms.

-- Marc-Andre Lemburg CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH

Consulting & Company: http://www.egenix.com/ Python Software: http://www.lemburg.com/python/