[Python-Dev] Include ctypes into core Python?

[Delaney, Timothy (Tim)]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> On 1/10/06, Thomas Heller <theller at python.net> wrote:
>> I would like to suggest to include ctypes into core Python, starting
>> with the 2.5 release.
> 
> On the one hand I agree that this is a useful module, popular, mature
> etc. 
> 
> On the other hand it breaks one of the most fundamental Python
> guidelines: if you get a core dump (segfault etc.) it's a bug in
> Python or in a 3rd party extension, not in *your* Python code. An
> exception would have to be made for any code that uses ctypes, as it
> is usually trivial to cause core dumps with ctypes (I'd venture it's
> hard to avoid them ;-).
> 
> I don't expect this to count against including ctypes; but I do want
> it to be dealt with somehow!

As was pointed out on c.l.py, the `dl` module suffers the exact same
problem (I don't know myself, as I've never used it). There are no
warnings about this in the `dl` module documentation.

I can't see how it would be possible to guarantee that such a module
could not cause crashes. I'm of the opinion that having a big red
warning at the top of the module documentation that this is a
contributed module, and incorrect use could cause segmentation
faults/crashes, etc would be sufficient.

Tim Delaney