Python 2.6 - ctypes (specifically _ctypes) cannot be imported - Eclipse pydev integration broken as a result

["Kay Drangmeister" <kay at drangmeister dot net>]

Hi.

I updated cygwin a day ago and thus upgraded from python 2.5 to python 2.6.
Now the eclipse integration (pydev plugin) does no longer work correctly,
I drilled down the problem to the issue that ctypes cannot be imported
correctly. (This worked with python 2.5.)

(Starting up a cygwin-bash)
$ python
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 12 2010, 17:07:01)
[GCC 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
> > > import ctypes
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/ctypes/__init__.py", line 10, in <module>
    from _ctypes import Union, Structure, Array
ImportError: No such file or directory
> > > import _ctypes
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No such file or directory
> > > import somethingunknown
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named somethingunknown


As you can see, _ctypes is well known to python, because the error is "No such file
or directory". Otherwise (see last command) the error message would be "No module
named _ctypes".

A look in the directory for DLLs gives the following:

$ ls -l /usr/lib/python2.6/lib-dynload/ | grep cty
-rwxr-xr-x 1 dran01 root  91150 2010-06-12 23:11 _ctypes.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 dran01 root  14862 2010-06-12 23:11 _ctypes_test.dll

Other DLLs from this directory import correctly, e.g. _ctypes_test :

$ python
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 12 2010, 17:07:01)
[GCC 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
> > > import _ctypes_test

So the problem is "clearly" a broken _ctypes.dll

Can I do something specific to track down the problem further?

Kind regards,
Kay Drangmeister

P.S. For the interested: The problem with Eclipse-Plugin pydev is:
No output was in the standard output when trying to create the interpreter info.
The error output contains:
> > Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Java\eclipse35SR1\plugins\org.python.pydev_1.5.7.2010050621\PySrc\interpreterInfo.py", line 33, in <module>
    import ctypes
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/ctypes/__init__.py", line 10, in <module>
    from _ctypes import Union, Structure, Array
ImportError: No such file or directory
<<

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