pylint is unable to import distutils.version under virtualenv

[pylint-bot]

Originally reported by: Chris Rebert (BitBucket: cvrebert, GitHub: @cvrebert?)

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Testcase:

#!python

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
import distutils.version

Output:

#!txt

************* Module foo
foo.py:1: [C0111(missing-docstring), ] Missing module docstring
foo.py:2: [F0401(import-error), ] Unable to import 'distutils.version'
foo.py:2: [E0611(no-name-in-module), ] No name 'version' in module 'distutils'
foo.py:2: [W0611(unused-import), ] Unused import distutils

Which doesn't agree with Python itself:

#!python

$ python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Apr 10 2013, 06:20:15) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import distutils.version
>>> # no error

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• Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/logilab/pylint/issue/73

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by BitBucket: notsqrt, GitHub: @NotSqrt?:

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Came across this issue with the following config:

#!text
No config file found, using default configuration
pylint 1.0.0, 
astroid 1.0.0, common 0.60.0
Python 2.7.3 (default, Apr 10 2013, 06:20:15) 
[GCC 4.6.3]

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Sylvain Thénault (BitBucket: sthenault, GitHub: @sthenault?):

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PYTHONPATH pb ?

#!python
[syt@host pylint]$ cat x.py 
import distutils.version
print distutils.version
[syt@host pylint]$ pylint -rn x.py 
************* Module pylint.x
C:  1, 0: Missing module docstring (missing-docstring)
[syt@host pylint]$ pylint --version
pylint 1.0.0, 
astroid 1.0.0, common 0.60.0
Python 2.7.4 (default, Apr 19 2013, 18:28:01) 
[GCC 4.7.3]

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Sylvain Thénault (BitBucket: sthenault, GitHub: @sthenault?):

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can't reproduce

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by BitBucket: notsqrt, GitHub: @NotSqrt?:

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Seems to be messed up by virtualenvs.

Steps to reproduce :

1. create virtualenv and activate it (with virtualenvwrapper, in 1 command : mktmpenv)
2. pip install pylint
3. pylint x.py

(with the same x.py as above)

Fails with version:

pylint 1.0.0, 
astroid 1.0.1, common 0.60.0
Python 2.7.5+ (default, Sep 19 2013, 13:48:49) 
[GCC 4.8.1]

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Jan Vermaete (BitBucket: jan.vermaete):

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I confirm it's related to virtualenv (python -m venv env).
-> it's not 'invalid', IMHO

Python 3.3.2 (v3.3.2:d047928ae3f6, May 16 2013, 00:03:43) [MSC v.1600 32 bit (In
tel)] on win32

Astroid: Changeset: 1073 (4b0a497acee0) Merged in AndroWiiid/astroid/dev (pull request #12) …
common: Changeset:1589 (e9fc9f452231) merge default heads
pylint: Changeset:1149 (656d711815bc) fix tests broken due to Windows line ending or by output format change introduced in ed904ee30bc5

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by BitBucket: fbretel, GitHub: @fbretel?:

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Confirmed on Ubuntu 13.10, Python 2.7.5+, pylint 0.26.0 or 1.0.0, astng 0.24.3, common 0.60.0, virtualenv 1.10.1.
May be related to http://stackoverflow.com/a/14293787/421846

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by BitBucket: elmirjagudin, GitHub: @elmirjagudin?:

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This is caused by the monkey-patched distutils package which virtualenv creates.

The virtualenv script only creates distutils/init.py inside it's sandbox, it does not create the distutils/versions.py file. When you do 'import distutils.version', the distutils module will be loaded from the sandbox, but the version module will be loaded from the global location. For example, this is run from inside of "~boris/tst" sandbox:

#!python

$ python
>>> import distutils.version
>>> distutils.__file__
'/home/boris/tst/lib/python2.7/distutils/__init__.pyc'
>>> distutils.version.__file__
'/usr/lib/python2.7/distutils/version.pyc'

However, due to how modules look-up is implemented in logilab.common.modutils, pylint can't locate distutils.version. Pylint will only look for version module in the same directory where it have found it's parent module distutils.

IMHO, the problem lies in logilab.common.modutils._module_file() function. It calls find_module() to locate the module. For any child modules it specifies only parent's directory as the search path.

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Sylvain Thénault (BitBucket: sthenault, GitHub: @sthenault?):

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Removing version: 1.0 (automated comment)

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Buck Evan (BitBucket: bukzor, GitHub: @bukzor?):

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@elmirjagudin What is your proposed change? From what I can see, the distutils.__init__ does a fair bit of work to make the namespace work as it does, and the only way pylint could know what's done there is to execute it, which would break the contract of "pylint is a static analysis tool".

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Buck Evan (BitBucket: bukzor, GitHub: @bukzor?):

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Is there any conceivable way this will be fixed?

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Claudiu Popa (BitBucket: PCManticore, GitHub: @PCManticore):

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Probably, it just needs someone to write the patch. We'll look into it after finishing with pylint 1.5.0, that's the main priority for now.