ensurepip fails if cwd contains illformed setup.cf

[htgoebel]

BPO	42050
Nosy	@ncoghlan, @dstufft, @pradyunsg, @con-f-use, @FFY00
Files	shell-session.txt

^{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 = None
created_at = <Date 2020-10-16.08:27:23.104>
labels = ['3.8', '3.7', 'library', 'type-crash']
title = 'ensurepip fails if cwd contains illformed setup.cf'
updated_at = <Date 2021-01-30.11:31:05.012>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/htgoebel'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-01-30.11:31:05.012>
actor = 'con-f-use'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2020-10-16.08:27:23.104>
creator = 'htgoebel'
dependencies = []
files = ['49779']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 42050
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['378706', '385980']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['htgoebel', 'ncoghlan', 'dstufft', 'pradyunsg', 'con-f-use', 'FFY00']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'crash'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue42050'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8']

[htgoebel]

If the current directory contains a ill-formed setup.cfg, setting up a virtual env fails, caused by ensurepip failing:

Expected behaviour:
running ensurepip should completely ignore the content of the current working directory.

How to reproduce:

$ rm -rf /tmp/v2
$ mkdir /tmp/v2
$ cd /tmp/v2
$ cat > setup.cfg <<EOF
> [options]
> setuptools_requires
> EOF
$ python3 -m venv /tmp/v2/_venv
Error: Command '['/tmp/v2/_venv/bin/python3', '-Im', 'ensurepip', '--upgrade', '--default-pip']' returned non-zero exit status 2.
$ /tmp/v2/_venv/bin/python3 -Im ensurepip --upgrade --default-pip
Looking in links: /tmp/tmpimoh6tke
Collecting setuptools
Collecting pip
Installing collected packages: setuptools, pip
Exception:
…
configparser.ParsingError: Source contains parsing errors: 'setup.cfg'
        [line  2]: 'setuptools_requires\n'

Environment:
Tested with both Python 3.8.2 and 3.7.6

[con-f-use]

Just wanted to say, I ran into this while using direnv. See the issue I opened before knowing of this one: https://bugs.python.org/issue43038

[iritkatriel]

I'm unable to reproduce this on 3.12. Since (according to https://bugs.python.org/issue43038) it is related to distutils, it may no longer be relevant.

[pradyunsg]

This is related to pip's usage of distutils as the source of truth for figuring out where to install things (i.e. "locations"). Starting Python 3.10, pip now uses sysconfig for that, which means that it won't try using the code path that invoked distutils to trigger this crash.

The relevant portion of pip's codebase is https://github.com/pypa/pip/tree/22.3.1/src/pip/_internal/locations (__init__.py has the logic for picking between sysconfig vs distutils).

[iritkatriel]

So this issue is out date?

[pradyunsg]

Given that 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9 are in a security-fix status, I don't think we're gonna be fixing/changing the behaviour of distutils for this case. 3.10+ aren't affected unless CPython is patched by a downstream redistributor.

This would've been the first time I'm gonna click close on an issue on CPython with my "new" triage permissions. But, I'm gonna be cautious and avoid doing things wrong -- and defer to a core dev or another triager to close this. :)

[iritkatriel]

Closing on @pradyunsg's recommendation :)