I found this problem while using PySNMP and trying to load a custom MIB
converted to python code. Inside the PySNMP, it uses execfile() to load
the python MIBs, and I assume so it won't be put into a separate
namespace. On one particular MIB, which I cannot modify because it's a
company product MIB, this error of unable to take in more than 255
arguments occurs. The problem line is quite long, but surely in this
day and age of 32 bit to 64 bit machines this 255 constraint could be
done away with in the execfile function. I'm assuming the 255
constraint has something to do with unsigned 8 bit number.

Can you please be more specific? What code exactly are you executing,
and what is the exact error message that you get?

In the entire Python source code, the error message "Execfile unable to
take arguments beyond 255!" is never produced. Very few error messages
in Python include an exclamation mark at all.

Error message from ipython console:
In [28]: mibBuilder2 = builder.MibBuilder().loadModules('ADTRAN-TC')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

<class 'pysnmp.smi.error.SmiError'>       Traceback (most recent call last)

C:\Documents and Settings\Jack Atkinson\<ipython console> in <module>()

c:\python25\lib\site-packages\pysnmp\v4\smi\builder.py in
loadModules(self, *mod
Names)
80 del self.__modPathsSeen[modPath]
81 raise error.SmiError(
---> 82 'MIB module \"%s\" load error: %s' %
(modPath, why)
83 )
84

<class 'pysnmp.smi.error.SmiError'>: MIB module
"c:\python25\lib\site-packages\p
ysnmp\v4\smi\mibs\ADTRAN-TC.py" load error: more than 255 arguments
(ADTRAN-TC.p
y, line 33)

Here's the code that loads it:
try:
execfile(modPath, g)
except StandardError,
why: del self.__modPathsSeen[modPath]
raise error.SmiError( 'MIB module \"%s\" load error: %s' % (modPath, why) )

This comes from line 1845 in ast.c.

It has nothing to do with execfile(), it's just a constraint on the
generated bytecode.

Fixing this would be quite complex, and referring to "this day and age"
isn't going to raise its priority. However, I'd be happy to accept a
patch that does away with this limit or at least raises it considerably.

While you can't modify the MIB, I'm sure it would be possible to change
the generator code that compiles the MIB into Python source code, to
work around the restrictions in the byte code.

I don't have much to contribute other than a simple test to reproduce the issue:

>>> code = """                                                                                                                                                                                  
... def f(%s):                                                                                                                                                                                  
...   pass                                                                                                                                                                                      
... """ % ','.join('a%d' % i for i in range(300))
>>> exec(code)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 2
SyntaxError: more than 255 arguments

Closing it as "won't fix": nobody is really interested in working on the problem.