[Python-Dev] Compiling the source without stat (original) (raw)

Petri Lehtinen petri at digip.org
Wed Dec 14 20:26:29 CET 2011

Hossein wrote:

Hi. I just started to port latest python 2.7.2 to another platform (don't think you're eager to know... well it's CASIO ClassPad). And I faced a "minor" problem... It hasn't got stat or fstat or anything. (It supports a very limited set of c std lib). As pyport.c suggested, i defined both DONTHAVESTAT and DONTHAVEFSTAT, but problems only began. It failed to compile most of import.c, particularly because it fell into the wrong `#if !defined(PYOSSomething)' blocks. Sometimes it just fell into an #else part which assumed stat are available. So although HAVESTAT is meant to control file operations, most of the source code aren't implement to use it. You see how "minor" the problem was? So now I need advice from developers. Is there a fix for it? What a question... definitely no replacement to stat. It's 99% definite that I can't compile further without touching the source code. I have to #define my own PYOSwhatever and handle files in my own way. In that case where should my special file handling cases go? I saw some marshal.c code which seemed it wants to abstract away platform's file handling from source code; but from what I understood it can't be made to use alternate file handling methods. If there is anything I should do (maybe show you my handmade pyconfig.h?) tell me.

See http://bugs.python.org/issue12082. Currently neither Python 2.x nor 3.x can be compiled without stat() or fstat(). Python 2.7 almost compiles, but Python 3 depends heavily on them.

The problem boils down to the fact that you cannot really check whether a filesystem entry is a directory without calling stat() or fstat().

My personal opinion is that support for DONT_HAVE_STAT and DONT_HAVE_FSTAT defines should be dropped because they don't work, and would only be useful in a very limited set of cases.

[My first post in a mailing list... Should I say] Best Regards, n> Hossein [in here?]

Yeah, why not? :)

Regards, Petri

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