[Python-Dev] Proposal for new core module: UserFIle (original) (raw)

Oren Tirosh oren-py-d at hishome.net
Sat Dec 13 12:16:19 EST 2003

On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 10:54:28AM -0500, Phillip J. Eby wrote:

At 10:35 AM 12/13/03 -0500, Oren Tirosh wrote:

>The signal module has been reluctantly accepted into Python but if you >want to actually use it you are on your own - don't use the builtin >file object and implement all I/O calls yourself with the os module so >you can retry on EINTR. Maybe this should be added as a prominent warning at the top of the signal module docs? While this: """When a signal arrives during an I/O operation, it is possible that the I/O operation raises an exception after the signal handler returns"""

Nice. Would you like to submit a doc patch?

does seem to imply what you're pointing out, your phrasing above seems to be much clearer about the scope and consequences of the issue. :)

Clearer, but I'm not sure it's the whole story. Guido hints at some other unspecified evil lurking there. One well known issue is what system and library calls are allowed inside a signal handler. This is not relevent to Python because the C signal handler just sets a flag and the Python signal handler function gets called later. Can anyone point out other specific issues?

Oren

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