[Python-Dev] Python 2.6.3 (original) (raw)

Scott Dial scott+python-dev at scottdial.com
Thu Oct 1 19:47:08 CEST 2009

Nick Coghlan wrote:

Scott Dial wrote:

I would appreciate this bug being resolved before the next release as it effects me on a daily basis. I have submitted a patch, which reflects my local solution. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly too late to get this into 2.6.3. It really needed to be brought up back when Barry called for identification of significant 2.6 bugs and patches rather than after the RC had already been released.

I understand. I didn't figure out the bug until after rc1 landed. It was only happening spuriously with my mail server, never when I manually tried to invoke the problem. I was forced to let my cronjob run until the kernel killed getmail for OOM, giving me the trace shown in the issue.

It is impossible to break anything with this patch, as no program could proceed. The 3-line patch merely converts it back into the exception that was originally raised prior to 2.6, so it's not a new behavior in that respect either. I wouldn't have anticipated this much resistance to removing an infinite loop from the standard library. I could also for this patch from the angle that it allows a remote host the ability to execute a denial-of-service attack (even by accident!) since the infinite loop appends an empty string to a list on every loop, taking CPU time and memory with it. Allow me to be naive for a moment and say, is this not the point of rc1 but to catch bugs that should not be in the final?

Of course, it's Barry's call.

-- Scott Dial scott at scottdial.com scodial at cs.indiana.edu

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