pip install --upgrade can return zero even when it failed

[wimglenn]

Description

pip install --upgrade commands which fail to reach the index should return nonzero.

I expect this to be nonzero so that e.g. a CI script will crash out when the pip install --upgrade line is not successful.

Expected behavior

pip install --upgrade <something> should return non-zero when the package could not be upgrade due to errors

pip version

current

Python version

3.10

OS

rhel7

How to Reproduce

• make sure package XYZ is already installed
• intentionally break SSL (for example by renaming/moving the _ssl .so file away)
• pip install --upgrade XYZ

Output

[builder@6c720825086a ~]$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
Defaulting to user installation because normal site-packages is not writeable
WARNING: pip is configured with locations that require TLS/SSL, however the ssl module in Python is not available.
Requirement already satisfied: pip in ./.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages (22.2.1)
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=4, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=3, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=2, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=1, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=0, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")': /simple/pip/
Could not fetch URL https://pypi.org/simple/pip/: There was a problem confirming the ssl certificate: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='pypi.org', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /simple/pip/ (Caused by SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")) - skipping
[builder@6c720825086a ~]$ echo $?
0

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.

[zhuofeng6]

#8473

[uranusjr]

Looks like the actual complaint (for lack of a better word?) is that not finding any distributions should probably result in a non-zero return code.

[wimglenn]

That's right. We had a script which went on to attempt to do things that it shouldn't have done, because of an outdated pip & setuptools. A non-zero return code would have stopped it in its tracks earlier. Although there is no chance to fix this for older releases, where it matters most, it's probably still worth fixing in main (because it's the same problem still when the target package to be upgraded is not pip itself).