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classification
Title: Py_Initialize breaks wprintf on Windows
Type: behavior Stage:
Components: IO, Unicode, Windows Versions: Python 3.3
process
Status: closed Resolution: wont fix
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: Arfrever, BreamoreBoy, ezio.melotti, jpe, makegho, steve.dower, tim.golden, vstinner, zach.ware
Priority: normal Keywords:

Created on 2012-12-01 00:23 by makegho, last changed 2022-04-11 14:57 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Messages (10)
msg176732 - (view) Author: Markus Kettunen (makegho) Date: 2012-12-01 00:23
In a C application on Windows, at least on MSVC 2010 and Windows 7, do this:

wprintf(L"Test\n");
Py_Initialize();
wprintf(L"Test\n");

Output is:
Test
 T e s t

I was able to track the issue to fileio.c to the following code block by searching where wprintf breaks:

    if (dircheck(self, nameobj) < 0)
        goto error;

#if defined(MS_WINDOWS) || defined(__CYGWIN__)
    /* don't translate newlines (\r\n <=> \n) */
    _setmode(self->fd, O_BINARY); <----- breaks it
#endif

    if (PyObject_SetAttrString((PyObject *)self, "name", nameobj) < 0)
        goto error;

This can be easily confirmed by adding wprintfs on both sides of _setmode.

This issue was also raised at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2012-February/620528.html but no solution was provided back then.
msg176734 - (view) Author: Markus Kettunen (makegho) Date: 2012-12-01 00:47
If the standard streams are not used through Python, this hack can be used to work around the bug on C side:

#ifdef WIN32
#include <fcntl.h>
#endif

...

Py_Initialize();

#ifdef WIN32
_setmode(stdin->_file, O_TEXT);
_setmode(stdout->_file, O_TEXT);
_setmode(stderr->_file, O_TEXT);
#endif
msg176828 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2012-12-03 07:23
_setmode(self->fd, O_BINARY) change was done in Python 3.2: see the issue #10841. This change introduced regressions:

 - #11272: "input() has trailing carriage return on windows", fixed in Python 3.2.1
 - #11395: "print(s) fails on Windows with long strings", fixed in Python 3.2.1
 - #13119: "Newline for print() is \n on Windows, and not \r\n as expected", fixed in Python 3.3 (and will be fixed in Python 3.2.4)

In Python 3.1, _setmode(self->fd, O_BINARY) was already used when Python is called with the -u command line option.

_setmode() supports different options:

 - _O_BINARY: no conversion
 - _O_TEXT: translate "\n" with "\r\n"
 - _O_U8TEXT: UTF-8 without BOM
 - _O_U16TEXT: UTF-16 without BOM
 - _O_WTEXT: UTF-16 with BOM

I didn't try wprintf(). This function is not used in the Python source code (except in the Windows launcher, which is not part of the main interpreter).

I don't know how to fix wprintf().
msg176837 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2012-12-03 11:49
> _setmode(self->fd, O_BINARY) change was done in Python 3.2: see the issue #10841

The main reason was to be able to read binary file from sys.stdin
using the CGI module: see the issue #4953. In _O_TEXT mode, 0x0A byte
is replaced with 0x0A 0x0D (or the opposite, I never remember) which
corrupt binary files.

Articles about _setmode() and wprintf():

"A confluence of circumstances leaves a stone unturned..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/09/23/10066660.aspx

"Conventional wisdom is retarded, aka What the @#%&* is _O_U16TEXT?"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/03/18/8306597.aspx

See also issue #1602 (Windows console doesn't print or input Unicode).
msg186852 - (view) Author: John Ehresman (jpe) * Date: 2013-04-13 21:16
One way to fix this is to use the FileRead & FileWrite api functions directly as proposed in issue 17723  I would regard this as a change in behavior and not a simple bug fix because there is probably code written for 3.3 that assumes the C level stdout is in binary after python is initialized so would target 3.4 for the change.
msg220642 - (view) Author: Mark Lawrence (BreamoreBoy) * Date: 2014-06-15 14:40
I'll let our Windows gurus fight over who gets this one :)
msg220762 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-06-16 20:57
If I understood correctly, supporting the "wide mode" for wprintf() requires to modify all calls to functions like printf() in Python and so it requires to change a lot of code. Since this issue was the first time that I heard about wprintf(), I don't think that we should change Python. I'm not going to fix this issue except if much more users ask for it.
msg221346 - (view) Author: Markus Kettunen (makegho) Date: 2014-06-23 09:38
It's quite common to use wide character strings to support Unicode in C and C++.

In C++ this often means using std::wstring and std::wcout. Maybe these are more common than wprintf? In any case the console output breaks as Py_Initialize hijacks the host application's standard output streams which sounds quite illegitimate to me.

I understand that Python isn't designed for embedding and it would be a lot of work to fix it, but I would still encourage everyone to take a look at this bug. For me, this was one of the reasons I ultimately had to decide against using Python as my application's scripting language, which is a shame.
msg221347 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2014-06-23 09:48
"In C++ this often means using std::wstring and std::wcout. Maybe these are more common than wprintf? In any case the console output breaks as Py_Initialize hijacks the host application's standard output streams which sounds quite illegitimate to me."

On Linux, std::wcout doesn't use wprintf(). Do you mean that std::wcout also depends on the "mode" of stdout (_setmode)?
msg221348 - (view) Author: Markus Kettunen (makegho) Date: 2014-06-23 09:59
> On Linux, std::wcout doesn't use wprintf(). Do you mean that std::wcout also depends on the "mode" of stdout (_setmode)?

Yes, exactly. I originally noticed this bug by using std::wcout on Windows.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:57:38adminsetgithub: 60791
2014-06-23 09:59:21makeghosetmessages: + msg221348
2014-06-23 09:48:05vstinnersetmessages: + msg221347
2014-06-23 09:38:19makeghosetmessages: + msg221346
2014-06-16 20:57:20vstinnersetstatus: open -> closed
resolution: wont fix
messages: + msg220762
2014-06-15 14:40:34BreamoreBoysetnosy: + tim.golden, BreamoreBoy, zach.ware, steve.dower
messages: + msg220642
2013-04-13 21:16:33jpesetnosy: + jpe
messages: + msg186852
2012-12-03 11:49:58vstinnersetmessages: + msg176837
2012-12-03 07:45:24Arfreversetnosy: + Arfrever
2012-12-03 07:23:52vstinnersetmessages: + msg176828
2012-12-02 18:49:53pitrousetnosy: + vstinner
2012-12-01 00:47:50makeghosetmessages: + msg176734
2012-12-01 00:23:52makeghocreate