urllib2 tests fail when internet connection is not available.

$ cd ~/sandbox/2.7/lib/python2.7/test
$ python test_urllib2.py

other output, [cut]

======================================================================
ERROR: test_file (__main__.HandlerTests)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test_urllib2.py", line 711, in test_file
    h.file_open, Request(url))
  File "/home/redt/sandbox/2.7/lib/python2.7/unittest/case.py", line 456, in assertRaises
    callableObj(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/redt/sandbox/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1269, in file_open
    return self.open_local_file(req)
  File "/home/redt/sandbox/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1301, in open_local_file
    (not port and socket.gethostbyname(host) in self.get_names()):
gaierror: [Errno -5] No address associated with hostname

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 34 tests in 0.414s

FAILED (errors=1)

The issue verifies using ubuntu 8.04 LTS having this /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain speedy

::1 localhost speedy ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts 

Note that when connected to internet all the tests pass.

Further details can be found in a thread I started 
on comp.lang.python. http://bit.ly/9x9Umu.

I can't guarantee a quick answer but let me know if other info are required, I'll be glad to provide them asap. Thank you.

I believe in our python-list discussion you identified the precise line that fails. Please copy it here.

Yes, confirmed it in release27 branch. Gaierror is returned when tests are run offline.

Fixed in r83950 by adding a wrapper function for catching gaierror. It was already present in py3k. 

Thanks for the bug report.