[New-bugs-announce] [issue13171] Bug in tempfile module

[Alexander Steppke]

New submission from Alexander Steppke <asteppke at gmail.com>:

The tempfile module shows strange behavior under certain conditions. This might lead to data leaking or other problems. 

The test session looks as follows:

Python 2.7.2 (default, Jun 12 2011, 15:08:59) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import tempfile
>>> tmp = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
>>> tmp.read()
''
>>> tmp.write('test')
>>> tmp.read()
'P\xf6D\x02\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\ [ommitted]'

or similar behavior in text mode: 

Python 2.7.2 (default, Jun 12 2011, 15:08:59) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import tempfile
>>> tmp = tempfile.TemporaryFile('w+t')
>>> tmp.read()
''
>>> tmp.write('test')
>>> tmp.read()
'\x00\xa5\x8b\x02int or long, hash(a) is used instead.\n    i\x10 [ommitted]'
>>> tmp.seek(0)
>>> tmp.readline()
'test\x00\xa5\x8b\x02int or long, hash(a) is used instead.\n'

This bug seems to be triggered by calling tmp.read() before tmp.seek(). I am running Python 2.7.2 on Windows 7 x64, other people have reproduced the problem on Windows XP but not under Linux or Cygwin (see also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7757663/python-tempfile-broken-or-am-i-doing-it-wrong).

Thank you for looking into this.
Alexander

----------
components: Library (Lib), Windows
messages: 145477
nosy: Alexander.Steppke
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Bug in tempfile module
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.7

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue13171>
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