The

        list(xrange(sys.maxint / 4))
test.  Changed 4 to 2.

The belief is that this test intended to trigger a bit of code in
listobject.c's NRESIZE macro that's looking for arithmetic overflow.  As
written, it doesn't achieve that, though, and leaves it up to the platform
realloc() as to whether it wants to allocate 2 gigabytes.  Some platforms
say "sure!", although they don't appear to mean it, and disaster ensues.

Changing 4 to 2 (just barely) manages to trigger the arithmetic overflow
test instead, leaving the platform realloc() out of it.

I'll backport this to the 2.2 branch next.

diff --git a/Lib/test/test_b1.py b/Lib/test/test_b1.py
index c90cadb442eea68ca9651406b1440f21ddbb744a..65285ee7377f26df7251ea3a7caafdeacdde3a9a 100644 (file)
--- a/Lib/test/test_b1.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_b1.py
@@ -549,7 +549,7 @@ if sys.maxint == 0x7fffffff:
         # thread for the details:
 
         #     http://sources.redhat.com/ml/newlib/2002/msg00369.html
-        list(xrange(sys.maxint / 4))
+        list(xrange(sys.maxint // 2))
     except MemoryError:
         pass
     else: