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Access to errno from Python?

I am stuck with a fairly complex Python module that does not return useful error codes (it actually fails disturbingly silently). However, the underlying C library it calls sets errno.

Normally errno comes in over OSError attributes, but since I don't have an exception, I can't get at it.

Using ctypes, libc.errno doesn't work because errno is a macro in GNU libc. Python 2.6 has some affordances but Debian still uses Python 2.5. Inserting a C module into my pure Python program just to read errno disgusts me.

Is there some way to access errno? A Linux-only solution is fine, since the library being wrapped is Linux-only. I also don't have to worry about threads, as I'm only running one thread during the time in which this can fail.


1 Answers

Here is a snippet of code that allows to access errno:

from ctypes import *

libc = CDLL("libc.so.6")

get_errno_loc = libc.__errno_location
get_errno_loc.restype = POINTER(c_int)

def errcheck(ret, func, args):
    if ret == -1:
        e = get_errno_loc()[0]
        raise OSError(e)
    return ret

copen = libc.open
copen.errcheck = errcheck

print copen("nosuchfile", 0)

The important thing is that you check errno as soon as possible after your function call, otherwise it may already be overwritten.

like image 88
theller Avatar answered Sep 12 '25 11:09

theller



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