Bug report

Summary

Assigning a sequence to a slice of a ctypes array calls PySequence_Length on the value. When the value's __len__ raises, PySequence_Length returns -1 with the exception set, and the code reads the -1 as a length. The comparison -1 != slicelen is always true, so it raises its own ValueError("Can only assign sequence of same size") over the pending exception, which replaces it.

Expected: the exception from __len__ should propagate.

Reproducer

import ctypes

class BadLen:
    def __len__(self):
        raise KeyError("len raised")

arr = (ctypes.c_int * 3)()
arr[0:1] = BadLen()

ValueError: Can only assign sequence of same size

CPython versions tested on:

CPython main branch

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Linked PRs

• gh-161840: Propagate __len__() exceptions in ctypes array slice assignment #161859