[New-bugs-announce] [issue18155] csv.Sniffer.has_header doesn't escape characters used in regex

[Dave Challis]

New submission from Dave Challis:

When attempting to detect the presence of CSV headers, delimiters are passed to a regex function without escaping, which causes an exception if a delimiter which has meaning in a regex (e.g. '+', '*' etc.) is used.

Code to reproduce:
import csv
s = csv.Sniffer()
s.has_header('"x"+"y"')

Trace:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "t.py", line 4, in <module>
    s.has_header('"x"+"y"')
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.3/csv.py", line 393, in has_header
    rdr = reader(StringIO(sample), self.sniff(sample))
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.3/csv.py", line 183, in sniff
    self._guess_quote_and_delimiter(sample, delimiters)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.3/csv.py", line 268, in _guess_quote_and_delimiter
    {'delim':delim, 'quote':quotechar}, re.MULTILINE)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/re.py", line 214, in compile
    return _compile(pattern, flags)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/re.py", line 281, in _compile
    p = sre_compile.compile(pattern, flags)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_compile.py", line 494, in compile
    p = sre_parse.parse(p, flags)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 748, in parse
    p = _parse_sub(source, pattern, 0)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 360, in _parse_sub
    itemsappend(_parse(source, state))
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 696, in _parse
    p = _parse_sub(source, state)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 360, in _parse_sub
    itemsappend(_parse(source, state))
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 696, in _parse
    p = _parse_sub(source, state)
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 360, in _parse_sub
    itemsappend(_parse(source, state))
  File "/home/dsc/venv/p3compat/lib64/python3.3/sre_parse.py", line 569, in _parse
    raise error("nothing to repeat")
sre_constants.error: nothing to repeat

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 190742
nosy: davechallis
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: csv.Sniffer.has_header doesn't escape characters used in regex
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.3

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue18155>
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