Catkin plugin: empty segment added to PYTHONPATH
Metadata
Current evaluation
Fixed by snapcraft PR #1522, merged as commit a2440c986 ("catkin plugin: only append PYTHONPATH if set"), which makes the Catkin plugin append the existing PYTHONPATH only when it is set, avoiding an empty path segment.
Resolution: closed resolved
Reason: Maintainer ~kyrofa closed the issue pointing to https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/pull/1522, which merged as commit a2440c986 "catkin plugin: only append PYTHONPATH if set" (plus added environment-output test coverage).
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
The Catkin plugin puts something along the following lines into the environment:
export PYTHONPATH=foo:$PYTHONPATH
Which apparently is a bad thing, because if $PYTHONPATH is empty, that puts an empty segment on the PYTHONPATH which Python interprets as `.`, thus adding the current working directory to it. There are some modules that walk the PYTHONPATH (e.g. pkg_resources), and the current working directory is often inaccessible to the snap in confinement. No idea why Python works this way, but then again, I feel that way a lot toward Python. This needs to be fixed in the Catkin plugin to only append the current PYTHONPATH if it's actually set.
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed by snapcraft PR #1522, merged as commit a2440c986 ("catkin plugin: only append PYTHONPATH if set"), which makes the Catkin plugin append the existing PYTHONPATH only when it is set, avoiding an empty path segment. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Catkin now appends the existing PYTHONPATH only when set; fixed by merged canonical/snapcraft#1522 via commit a2440c986. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed in canonical/snapcraft#1522 (commit a2440c986): the Catkin plugin now appends PYTHONPATH only when set, preventing an empty segment from exposing the working directory. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | The Catkin plugin incorrectly added an empty PYTHONPATH segment when unset, breaking snap confinement. Closed without comments or a tracked fix, likely abandoned or resolved in a later release. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Abandoned. The Catkin plugin incorrectly appends an empty PYTHONPATH segment when unset, adding the current directory and breaking snap confinement. The issue was closed without a fix or pull request. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
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Likely Fixed By:
canonical/snapcraft#1522
(confidence 98%)
Merged PR titled "catkin plugin: only append PYTHONPATH if set", landing as commit a2440c986; the closing comment cites it as the fix.
-
Related To:
canonical/snapcraft#324
(confidence 35%)
Earlier catkin/PYTHONPATH work merged as commit 0adb5cc16 (commit c845aefdd 'catkin plugin: do not overwrite the PYTHONPATH'), same area of the plugin's env handling.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1522 catkin plugin: only append PYTHONPATH if set | snapcraft | merged | Merged in commit a2440c986: the Catkin plugin now appends PYTHONPATH only when set, preventing empty path segments; environment-output coverage was added. | |
| #324 catkin plugin: do not overwrite the PYTHONPATH | snapcraft | merged | Merged PR #324 fixed the catkin plugin to preserve setup.sh’s PYTHONPATH instead of overwriting it, resolving LP #1544790. | |
| #232 Catkin plugin: Use in-snap python instead of OS-provided. | snapcraft | merged | Merged PR #232 (fe9ca74c9), fixing Catkin on Xenial by using /usr/bin/env Python shebangs and PATH-resolved Python in 10.ros.sh. | |
| #1548406 Catkin plugin: Can't handle rosdep resolving to nothing | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed by canonical/snapcraft#331, merged as commit 1c1119ce3; Catkin now treats empty rosdep output as no dependencies instead of an error. | |
| #1354 catkin plugin: fix pythonpath for catkin_find | snapcraft | closed | Closed unmerged after inactivity; its linked catkin-underlay failure was later fixed by merged PR #1526 in commit ae9fd598f. | |
| #331 Catkin plugin: Handle rosdep empty and multiple dependencies. | snapcraft | merged | PR #331 merged into snapcraft master as commit 1c1119ce3 (merge e3a2b9d03). It refactored the Catkin plugin's rosdep dependency resolution to handle empty output and multiple packages per line, fixing LP bugs #1548406 and #1548404. |