Bug with help (was Re: Getting a list of all modules)

[Robert Kern]

On 2014-08-02 09:33, Heinz Schmitz wrote:
> Akira Li wrote:
>
>>>> Look at how `help('modules')` is implemented. Though it crashes on my
>>>> system.
>
>>> Have you reported this at bugs.python.org or is there already an issue
>>> for the problem that you see?
>
>> It is this issue for python2.7:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python2.7/+bug/896836
>>
>> python3 doesn't crash with currently installed packages.
>
> Python 2.7 on Windows XP Sp2 doesn't crash with this. So it seems to
> be a python<->OS-problem.

Well, it's just that `help('modules')` imports every module in the calling 
process (at least in Python 2.7; I haven't checked Python 3). Some extension 
modules conflict with each other and cause a crash when both are imported 
together. It's possible that you just don't have such modules installed. While 
the proximate cause of the crash is in the 3rd party modules, Python could (and 
maybe Python 3 does) import each module in a separate subprocess and collect the 
information that way.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco