On 2017-02-21 11:01-0800 Alan W. Irwin wrote: > Yesterday for the second time in two months an interactive > comprehensive test failed with a "ValueError: bad marshal data > (unknown type code)" error for bindings/python/Plframe.py. [.... These errors were so common] > that the python developers list in 2013 became > concerned that python would be subject to race conditions when > generating these files and thus was the author of at least some of > these corruptions (see discussion thread at > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2013-May/126241.html> > with the subject line "[Python-Dev] Mysterious Python pyc file > corruption problems".
I have now been in contact with the OP, Barry Warsaw of python.org, of that thread who was quite helpful. For example, Barry told me that Python is designed so it is frankly impossible for import Plframe from Plframe import * to race (i.e., the first import completely finishes before the second one starts). And I cannot find any other cases where Plframe is imported. So I think the best bet for explaining this *.pyc Python-generated file corruption is some unknown Python 2 bug that does not have anything to do with races. I got the sense from what Barry said that he feels Python 3 is now much more reliable than Python 2. So this may be another instance of that general idea. Anyhow, I think the next step is to test whether this corruption occurs for Python 3. (And if it does I get the sense that Barry would be anxious to figure out what that Python 3 bug was.) @Hazen: This issue lends lots of additional motivation for making PLplot work correctly with Python 3. So please go ahead and push your Python 3 topic as soon as it is in reasonable state, and we can mature it further (if necessary) from there. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
