Typing 'modules' in the interactive help system fails when imports fail

[dennis]

BPO	2519
Nosy	@benjaminp

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2009-04-07.20:10:54.688>
created_at = <Date 2008-03-31.07:39:54.775>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = "Typing 'modules' in the interactive help system fails when imports fail"
updated_at = <Date 2009-04-07.20:10:54.687>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/dennis'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2009-04-07.20:10:54.687>
actor = 'georg.brandl'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2009-04-07.20:10:54.688>
closer = 'georg.brandl'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2008-03-31.07:39:54.775>
creator = 'dennis'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 2519
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['64778', '64799', '64817', '82601']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['benjamin.peterson', 'dennis']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue2519'
versions = ['Python 2.5']

[dennis]

If a certain module cannot be imported, this error is not caught and
warned about by pydoc, but will cause 'modules' to fail. This could be
considered a bug in the module but it would still be nice if 3rd party
modules cannot break pydoc. Example:

dennis@mirage:~$ python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Mar 12 2008, 13:36:25) 
[GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> help()

Welcome to Python 2.5! This is the online help utility.
[... snip ...]

help> modules

Please wait a moment while I gather a list of all available modules...

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site.py", line 342, in __call__
    return pydoc.help(*args, **kwds)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pydoc.py", line 1649, in __call__
    self.interact()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pydoc.py", line 1667, in interact
    self.help(request)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pydoc.py", line 1683, in help
    elif request == 'modules': self.listmodules()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pydoc.py", line 1804, in listmodules
    ModuleScanner().run(callback)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pydoc.py", line 1855, in run
    for importer, modname, ispkg in pkgutil.walk_packages():
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/pkgutil.py", line 125, in walk_packages
    for item in walk_packages(path, name+'.', onerror):

[... snip -- the actual error isn't important ...]
OperationalError: no such table: falcon_configurationkey

>>

I think it would be relatively easy to work around such bugs in 3rd
party modules by passing a callable to walk_packages that will give a
warning when an import fails instead of breaking.

[benjaminp]

Would you like to work on a patch?

[dennis]

pydoc.py from head actually does work around it in some places, but not
all. Will send a patch.

[dennis]

I don't see this bug in python 3.0, so feel free to close this issue.

[gvanrossum]

If you got here from a commit adding docs for asyncio.timeout, there was a typo in the PR header, the correct issue for that is GH-90927. Sorry!