build.py passes invalid arguments to subprocess.Popen

[ivan-kalev]

Since I upgraded to the latest version of conda (3.2.1) and conda-build (1.3.0), the following commands fail:

C:\> conda build coverage 
C:\> conda build coverage --test 
[...]
TypeError: environment can only contain strings

The problem is that conda_build/conda.py passes an env argument to subprocess.Popen, containing entries of invalid data types (e.g. unicode strings). Full stack trace:

C:> conda build coverage --test
TEST START: coverage-3.7-py33_1
Fetching package metadata: ....
Solving package specifications: ...
The following packages will be downloaded:

    package                    |            build
    ---------------------------|-----------------
    coverage-3.7               |           py33_1         186 KB

The following packages will be linked:

    package                    |            build
    ---------------------------|-----------------
    coverage-3.7               |           py33_1   hard-link
    python-3.3.5               |                0   hard-link

Fetching packages ...
coverage-3.7-py33_1.tar.bz2 100% |##################| Time: 0:00:00  27.18 MB/s
Extracting packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ] |#################################################| 100%
Linking packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ] |#################################################| 100%
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Anaconda\Scripts\conda-build-script.py", line 4, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\main_build.py", line 76, in main
    args.func(args, p)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\main_build.py", line 189, in execut
    build.test(m)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\build.py", line 347, in test
    env=env, cwd=tmp_dir)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 537, in check_call
    retcode = call(*popenargs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 524, in call
    return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 711, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 948, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
TypeError: environment can only contain strings

[asmeurer]

Are you in Python 3?

[ivan-kalev]

My root environment is python 2.7-based (full anaconda, i.e. not miniconda). This bug is reproducible with either value of %CONDA_PY% (33 and 27).

[ivan-kalev]

Here is a simple test case:

>>> import subprocess
>>> subprocess.Popen(["cmd.exe"], env={u"TEST": ""})
  File "C:\Anaconda\envs\py27\lib\subprocess.py", line 957, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
TypeError: environment can only contain strings

>>> subprocess.Popen(["cmd.exe"], env={"TEST": ""})
<subprocess.Popen object at 0x0000000002A37748>

Note that this is an issue on Python 2 only, because in Python 3 u"str" is "str".

[asmeurer]

The important thing is the version of Python that conda itself is running in. Python 3 has no "unicode strings".

[asmeurer]

I guess an easy fix would be to call str on each variable. This will be a no-op in Python 3 and convert unicode to str in Python 2. If any of the strings contain non-ascii characters it will fail, but looking through the code, I don't think that can happen.

[H0R5E]

There is a similar problem with "conda skeleton pypi" for 2.7 on win-64.

> conda skeleton pypi watchdog
Using url https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/w/watchdog/watchdog-0.8.0.tar.gz (152770) for watchdog.
Downloading watchdog (use --no-download to skip this step)
Unpacking watchdog...
done
working in c:\users\matthe~1\appdata\local\temp\tmphybgnbconda_skeleton_watchdog
Fetching package metadata: ....
Solving package specifications: .
The following packages will be downloaded:

    package                    |            build
    ---------------------------|-----------------
    python-2.7.8               |                0        17.1 MB

The following packages will be UN-linked:

    package                    |            build
    ---------------------------|-----------------
    python-2.7.7               |                2

The following packages will be linked:

    package                    |            build
    ---------------------------|-----------------
    python-2.7.8               |                0   hard-link
    pyyaml-3.11                |           py27_0   hard-link

Fetching packages ...
python-2.7.8-0 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:27 659.82 kB/s
Extracting packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ] |#################################################| 100%
Unlinking packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ] |#################################################| 100%
Linking packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ] |#################################################| 100%
Applying patch: u'c:\\users\\matthe~1\\appdata\\local\\temp\\tmphybgnbconda_skeleton_watchdog\\pypi-distutils.patch'
patching file core.py
Hunk #1 succeeded at 169 with fuzz 2 (offset 2 lines).
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Anaconda\Scripts\conda-skeleton-script.py", line 4, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\main_skeleton.py", line 124, in main
    args.func(args, p)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\main_skeleton.py", line 135, in execute
    pypi.main(args, parser)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\pypi.py", line 313, in main
    run_setuppy(src_dir, tempdir, args)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\conda_build\pypi.py", line 491, in run_setuppy
    subprocess.check_call(args, env=env)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 535, in check_call
    retcode = call(*popenargs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 522, in call
    return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 709, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\subprocess.py", line 957, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
TypeError: environment can only contain strings

> conda info
Current conda install:

             platform : win-64
        conda version : 3.5.5
       python version : 2.7.6.final.0
     root environment : C:\Anaconda  (writable)
  default environment : C:\Anaconda
     envs directories : C:\Anaconda\envs
        package cache : C:\Anaconda\pkgs
         channel URLs : http://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/free/win-64/
                        http://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/pro/win-64/
          config file : C:\Users\matthewtopper\.condarc
    is foreign system : False

[asmeurer]

This should be fixed in the latest version of conda-build. conda update conda-build.

[H0R5E]

Yes, thanks. I was using 1.3.1. Perhaps worth including this update in the anaconda package? I updated anaconda to 2.0.1 yesterday.

[github-actions]

Hi there, thank you for your contribution!

This issue has been automatically locked because it has not had recent activity after being closed.

Please open a new issue if needed.

Thanks!