This adds new test cases for bugs reported by Thomas Heller against IronPython for ctypes and winreg:
   ctypes: the variant bool type isn't supported
   winreg: errno is not correctly set when QueryValue fails

Rather than calling QueryValue and using fail(...) if it doesn't throw, assertRaises(...) would do the trick.

Also assertEqual(..., True) can be replaced by assertTrue(...) (same for False and assertFalse).

The problem with assertRaises is I need to actually check the errno on the exception and assertRaises doesn't let me do that.

Hmm... assertTrue(...) is semantically different from assertEqual(True, ...).

Dino - if you use assertRaises as a context manager the exception is kept as an attribute on the context. You can make assertions about the exception after the with block has executed.

I'll switch to the context manager form in the 3.x branch - it looks like that's not available in the 2.x branch.

Ezio: I'm going to stick w/ assertEqual here as Michael points out these are different.  In particular I want to make sure that you can assign any true value to the ctypes field but when you read it back you get True or False regardless of the value assigned.

For your purpose indeed assertTrue() is not appropriate, however assertEqual(x, True) works for several different x, including 1.0 or 1.
Also assertRaises can be used as a context manager on 2.7 too.

Ahh, so it is in 2.7, apparently I was in a 2.6 enlistment.  I've updated the 2.x patch to use the context manager as well.

I've also switched to using assertTrue(x is True) and assertTrue(x is False) so that it's not checking precisely for the bool value based upon Ezio's feedback.

Does this need committing? Dino - do you have checkin rights?

Brett Cannon was going to try and look at it and commit it.  If you think it looks good you can commit it :)

I do not yet have commit privledges simply because I need to gen my SSH key and send that off to Brett.  I'm also hoping to get a little hand holding on the 1st few check-ins.

Well, probably better for you to get the commit bit and DIY then. :-)

Now that Dino has commit privileges and I just gave him the coordinator role, he can do the commit himself. =) Went ahead and assigned this issue to him.

And Dino, it would be helpful if you changed your username on the tracker to match your username on python-dev under "Your Details".

Gentle poke in ribs can this be committed por favor?

I made the latest 3.x patch hg import-able and cleaned up a few nits (whitespace, naming conventions, and used assertIs).
I have 2 comments though:
  1) the winreg test is defined in Win64WinregTests.  Is it specific to x64 or should it go in BaseWinregTests instead?
  2) the test_wintypes should be skipped on platforms where it's not supported.  Currently if I try to run test_ctypes I get:
test test_ctypes crashed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/wolf/dev/py/3.2/Lib/test/regrtest.py", line 1116, in runtest_inner
    indirect_test()
  File "/home/wolf/dev/py/3.2/Lib/test/test_ctypes.py", line 11, in test_main
    skipped, testcases = ctypes.test.get_tests(ctypes.test, "test_*.py", verbosity=0)
  File "/home/wolf/dev/py/3.2/Lib/ctypes/test/__init__.py", line 64, in get_tests
    mod = __import__(modname, globals(), locals(), ['*'])
  File "/home/wolf/dev/py/3.2/Lib/ctypes/test/test_wintypes.py", line 3, in <module>
    from ctypes import wintypes
  File "/home/wolf/dev/py/3.2/Lib/ctypes/wintypes.py", line 20, in <module>
    class VARIANT_BOOL(ctypes._SimpleCData):
ValueError: _type_ 'v' not supported

I get this error on 2.7/3.2/3.3/3.4 when I try to import wintypes.
Maybe this should be an ImportError instead?
Unfortunately I'm on Linux, so I can test and commit the patch myself, but feel free to address my comments and commit it.

Dino, what's the status of this?

The attached patch now passes on Linux.  I raised a SkipTest on non-Windows platforms and changed Lib/ctypes/test/__init__.py to handle it.  If someone can confirm that the patch works on Windows I'll commit it.

The ValueError I reported in my previous message has also been reported in #16396 and should be fixed.

The patch works fine on Win 7 for me.  I left a couple comments on Rietveld, neither of which is of great importance.

New changeset 5f82b68c1f28 by Ezio Melotti in branch '3.3':
#7855: Add tests for ctypes/winreg for issues found in IronPython.  Initial patch by Dino Viehland.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/5f82b68c1f28

New changeset df655ebf74d7 by Ezio Melotti in branch 'default':
#7855: merge with 3.3.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/df655ebf74d7

New changeset e71406d8ed5d by Ezio Melotti in branch '2.7':
#7855: Add tests for ctypes/winreg for issues found in IronPython.  Initial patch by Dino Viehland.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/e71406d8ed5d

This should be fixed now.
Thanks for the report and the patch (and thanks Zach for confirming that it works on Windows and for the review)!