Importing ROOT(6) in ipython causes unusual backspace/navigation behaviour.

[william.shields.2010@…]

Hi,

I've been trying to use pyROOT and have been encountering problems in that the backspace and arrow keys no longer behave as normal. Backspace does not appear to remove the characters in the terminal, but upon hitting return they actually have been removed, and using the arrow keys left and right does not move the cursor. Several of my colleagues have also noticed the same behaviour. The version of ROOT I have is:

root6      @6.06.02_0+cocoa+gcc5+graphviz+gsl+http+minuit2+opengl+python27+roofit+soversion+ssl+tmva+xml

This problem had already been submitted by another user to the ROOT support forum which suggests a separate install of one of their binaries should fix it: ​https://root.cern.ch/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=21234

I downloaded their binary (root_v6.06.04.macosx64-10.9-clang60) and deactivated root6 in macports, but this created a new problem in that ROOT can only then be imported in the system version of python rather than the macports install. Importing ROOT in the macports version caused the following:

Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Get: no current thread
Abort trap: 6

I don't know where/how to even begin fixing the problem with the binary version (I'm very unsure and inexperienced in these sort of problems), so I downloaded, built and installed ROOT from source (v6.06.04) instead which appears to have been successful and restored normal behaviour in the macports version of ipython. My system currently uses :

OS X 10.10.5

Xcode 7.2

Python 2.7.11

Ipython 4.0.0

Apple LLVM version 6.0 (clang-600.0.57) (based on LLVM 3.5svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0
Thread model: posix

Whilst I appear to have navigated around the issue, the unusual behaviour still exists with the macports version of root6, so I thought I should make someone aware of it.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

In the future, please fill in the Port field and Cc the port maintainers (port info --maintainers root6), if any.

[cjones051073 (Chris Jones)]

Thanks for the report.

I confess I don't have an immediate good idea as to the problem... I am also not a big user of the python API, so I'm afraid a fix might be a while coming..

[cjones051073 (Chris Jones)]

Just stumbled over

​https://trac.macports.org/ticket/48807

Suggested fix there, installing py<N>-readline, sadly does not seem to help here. Still, cannot help but wonder if its related in some way ....

Chris

[cjones051073 (Chris Jones)]

This no long seems to be an issue, which the latest root6 version (6.14.02) and using the now default python 3.6 variant. So closing.