We start with a boring example.
>>> import profile
>>> profile.Profile().runctx('print len',{},{})
<built-in function len>
<profile.Profile instance at 0x3c9ccd8>

No news here. But if we do exactly the same using hotshot, we 
get:
>>> import hotshot
>>> hotshot.Profile('/tmp/hs').runctx('print len',{},{})
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<input>", line 1, in ?
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/
python2.4/hotshot/__init__.py", line 65, in runctx
    self._prof.runcode(code, globals, locals)
  File "<string>", line 1, in ?
NameError: name 'len' is not defined

The following workaround works:
>>> hotshot.Profile('/tmp/hs').runctx('print len',{'__builtins__':
__builtins__},{})
<built-in function len>
<hotshot.Profile instance at 0x3cba6e8>
But I don't believe this is the way hotshot is supposed to work.

This is on Mac Python, IDE, both 2.3 and 2.4, but I think that 
doesn't matter at all!
- Jurjen

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54869, Apr 18 2007, 22:08:04) 
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import hotshot
>>> hotshot.Profile('/tmp/hs').runctx('print len',{'__builtins__':
... __builtins__},{})
<built-in function len>
<hotshot.Profile instance at 0x6a940>
>>> 

Can we close this now?

oh crap here goes my ego... pasted the wrong line.

Well, since I brought that issue back, I might as well supply a patch. So 
if indeed it is decided that hotshot.Profile.runctx() should have 
__builtins__ in its globals by default, here is it.