[Python-Dev] PyOS_snprintf() / PyOS_vsnprintf()

[Guido van Rossum]

> While working on the warning patch for modsupport.c,
> I've added two new APIs which hopefully make it easier for Python
> to switch to buffer overflow safe [v]snprintf() APIs for error
> reporting et al. 
> 
> The two new APIs are PyOS_snprintf() and 
> PyOS_vsnprintf() and work just like the standard ones in many
> C libs. On platforms which have snprintf(), the native APIs are used,
> on all other an emulation with snprintf() tries to do its best.
> 
> Please try them out on your platform. If all goes well, I think
> we should replace all sprintf() (without the n in the name)
> with these new safer APIs.

It would be easier to test out the fallback implementation if there
was a config option to enable it even on platforms that do have the
native version.

Or maybe (following the getopt example) we might consider always using
our own code -- so it gets the maximum testing.

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