The Bytearray type is a mutable object that support the read-write buffer interface. The fcntl.ioctl() function is supposed to handle mutable object (such as array.array) for the system calls in order to pass object that are more than 1024 bytes long.

The problem is that in Python 2.7, Bytearray type is not supported as a mutable object in the fcntl.ioctl function. In Python 3.2, it works perfectly.

In the specific case where a large C structure is needed (more than 1024 bytes), the Bytearray type is extremely useful compare to the array.array type that is adapted for C arrays.

Example :

>>> file_handle = open('/dev/my_device')
>>> arg = bytearray()
>>> arg += pack('IL',1,2)
>>> command = 0
>>> ioctl(file_handle,command,arg)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#22>", line 1, in <module>
    ioctl(file_handle,command,arg)
TypeError: an integer is required

It doesn't work in 2.7 because bytearray only supports the new buffer API (which is more secure), not the old one. I don't think it's worth trying to fix at this point, so I'm tempted to close as won't fix.

Agreed.  This is not really a bugfix.