[Python-Dev] test_fcntl on Solaris 8

[Guido van Rossum]

While testing Python 2.1 on SF's Solaris 8 box, I noticed that it
hangs forever in test_fcntl, on this line:

  rv = fcntl.fcntl(f.fileno(), FCNTL.F_SETLKW, lockdata)

Why could this be?  Could it be that the NFS lock server is stuck?

But I could also note that this test is pretty silly.  It has all this
platform-specific cruft to do a locking operation the hard way, while
the fcntl module supplies two operations (flock() and lockf()) that
could be used instead!

(Unfortunately, using lockf() I get the same behavior -- not
surprising, since the C code does the same thing that the Python code
was doing. :-( )

Should I update the test, or declare the machine broken?  (I *think* I
recall that the tests succeeded yesterday.)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)