odd runtime error

[Chris Rebert]

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 4:49 PM, David Brown <dmlb2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> So I'm not subscribed to python-list but would like to get an answer
> to my question. I've made a small test program that dumps a
> RuntimeError and I'd like to know why.
>
> $ python test2.py
> doing stuff
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "test2.py", line 3, in <module>
>    import test
> RuntimeError: not holding the import lock
> child 3693 exited with 256
> $
>
> Here's the setup, there's two files test.py and test2.py
>
> $ cat test.py
> #!/usr/bin/python
>
> import os, sys
>
> if os.fork() == 0:
>        print "doing stuff"
>        sys.exit()
>
> print "child %d exited with %d" % os.wait()

It's *quite* strange for a module that's being imported to execute a
fork() in its body; this is almost assuredly the cause of the
RuntimeError. Why are you fork()ing in an importable module in the
first place?

Cheers,
Chris
--
http://blog.rebertia.com