6.0 wheels fail broken on `ucs4` unicode pythons

[truthbk]

For general questions:

The latest 6.0 release appears to have an issue (had this on linux ubuntu/16.04) with the unicode version python was compiled with. I believe the wheels were built assuming a python with ucs2 unicode support, while the actual target python is ucs4 unicode.

We hit an ImportError:

ImportError: /foo/bar/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cx_Oracle.so: undefined symbol: PyUnicodeUCS2_Decode

Target python is ucs4:

$ python -c "import sys; opts = {1114111: 'ucs4', 65535: 'ucs2'}; print(opts.get(sys.maxunicode));"
ucs4

1. What is your version of Python? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
   64-bit

2. What is your version of cx_Oracle?
   6.0

3. What is your version of the Oracle client (e.g. Instant Client)? How was it
   installed? Where is it installed?
   instantclient version installed: 12.1.0. Installed via npm @ /opt/oracle/instantclient.

4. What is your version of the Oracle Database?
   irrelevant.

5. What is your OS and version?
   Ubuntu 16.04

6. What compiler version did you use? For example, with GCC, run
   gcc --version.
   gcc (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4) 5.4.0 20160609 (irrelevant)

7. What environment variables did you set? How exactly did you set them?
   ORACLE_HOME, set ld cache via sudo ldconfig and the corresponding file in /etc/ld.so.conf.d

8. What exact command caused the problem (e.g. what command did you try to
   install with)? Who were you logged in as?

python -c "import cx_Oracle;"

9. What error(s) you are seeing?

ImportError: /foo/bar/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cx_Oracle.so: undefined symbol: PyUnicodeUCS2_Decode

[anthony-tuininga]

I can confirm that the packages were made incorrectly. I've made a note to correct this in future releases. There is no way (that I am aware of) of correcting the issue with the existing builds since PyPI doesn't permit files to be corrected.

[marksteward]

I'm not sure how to read that - is a new release planned? I was about to raise the same ticket as it's broken dev machines for us.

[anthony-tuininga]

Yes, a new release will be made. And soon. :-)

[zzzeek]

hmm no way to hide the existing .whl files for unix? I don't see the value in having linux .whls, everyone that runs linux has to install C-source python libraries all the time.

[zzzeek]

(the .whl file is generated by pip and then cached on the user's computer. works great)

[zzzeek]

workaround: use pip install cx_Oracle --no-binary :all:

[anthony-tuininga]

I plan to have a new release out today to correct this. Although there may be limited value to having Linux wheels, I think they have some value. :-)

[zzzeek]

here is something I don't understand about .whl then. What if someone's python was built with --enable-unicode=ucs2 ? is the wheel capable of being universal regarding that flag? or will those pythons break?

[anthony-tuininga]

Wheels differentiate between UCS2 and UCS4 but the Python build environment does not. The problem was due to me using the two different Pythons (UCS2 and UCS4) but forgetting about that fact -- so the UCS2 build was used for both the UCS2 and UCS4 wheels! I have corrected that oversight in my release process.

[anthony-tuininga]

6.0.1 was just released and I have verified that the two different Linux wheels for Python 2.7 are in fact different.