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find_library("c") defers to find_msvcrt() #72469
Description
| BPO | 28282 |
|---|---|
| Nosy | @pfmoore, @tjguk, @vadmium, @zware, @zooba |
Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.
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GitHub fields:
assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2016-09-27.01:27:44.977>
labels = ['ctypes', '3.7', 'OS-windows', 'docs']
title = 'find_library("c") defers to find_msvcrt()'
updated_at = <Date 2016-09-27.01:27:44.977>
user = 'https://github.com/vadmium'bugs.python.org fields:
activity = <Date 2016-09-27.01:27:44.977>
actor = 'martin.panter'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Documentation', 'Windows', 'ctypes']
creation = <Date 2016-09-27.01:27:44.977>
creator = 'martin.panter'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 28282
keywords = []
message_count = 1.0
messages = ['277479']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['paul.moore', 'tim.golden', 'docs@python', 'martin.panter', 'zach.ware', 'steve.dower']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue28282'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.5', 'Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7']
Activity
vadmium commentedon Sep 27, 2016
bpo-1793 added ctypes.util.find_msvcrt(), and special cases that map find_library("c") and "m" to the new function. However this contradicts the documentation <https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/ctypes.html#finding-shared-libraries\>:
‘On Windows, . . . a call like find_library("c") will fail and return None.’
I think the documentation needs updating or clarifying.
encukou commentedon Feb 23, 2026
I'm proposing to soft-deprecate
ctypes.util.find_library: https://discuss.python.org/t/106232encukou commentedon Mar 20, 2026
As discussed in #67794,
find_msvcrtitself will fail (with reasonably recent MSVC versions), so you will get None.