Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

(Tracker notes:

I added as nosy the people listed as active 'experts' for ctypes on 
https://docs.python.org/devguide/experts.html#experts.  This was easily done by 
going to the end of the nosy list, typing a comma ',', typing 'ctypes', and 
then clicking the box that appeared.  This can be done for any module and the 
other topics listed on the page.

The Documentation component is for issues that only change the docs, and not 
the code.  That is why Documentation issues are auto-assigned to docs@python.  
Adding 'Documentation' amounts to rejecting this patch or anything else that 
changes the code.

asyncio, ctypes, IDLE (idlelib), IO, and (T)tkinter are all parts of the stdlib 
and AFAIK, issues marked for them do not have to also be marked 'Library'.)
---

I looked at ctypes.py with hg annotate.  Create_string_buffer is part of Thomas 
Heller's original 2006-03-08 patch that moved ctypes from an external source 
into the stdlib.  The only changes are in the isinstance class checks and the 
raise statement; the conditional bodies, including the one in question, are 
unchanged.

Tom, we disagree on our reading of the current docs.  The default number of 
NULL bytes added is 1.  Is the second argument required to be large enough to 
keep the number positive?  You think yes, I think no, though I agree with Eryk 
that the second quoted sentence could and should be clearer.  I will not assume 
that T. Heller meant 'yes' when he wrote 'no' in the code.  What do the listed 
experts think?

If the doc matches the code, there is no implementation bug and this is not a 
behavior issue. It is still possible to request a design change as an 
enhancement.  I think this would require agreement of at least two core 
developers.  A deprecation notice would normally be needed.  A third 
possibility is to decide that this is a security issue severe enough to 
possibly break code in 3.6 and possibly sooner.  I think this would require 
pydev discussion.

One problem with changing ctypes is that it is not used in the stdlib, so we 
have no local examples to draw on.  In this case, the question would be how 
often is 'size' used to suppress the default NULL byte and how legitimate are 
such uses.

----------
components: +Devguide -Documentation, Library (Lib), ctypes
nosy: +amaury.forgeotdarc, belopolsky, ezio.melotti, meador.inge, terry.reedy, 
willingc

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