Virtualenv breaks if python-configparser is installed

[Thomi Richards]

The virtualenv package fails when the python-configparser is installed and I try and create a python3.3 virtualenv:

 virtualenv --system-site-packages -v -p python3.3 ve3
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python3.3
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 42, in <module>
    import ConfigParser
ImportError: No module named 'ConfigParser'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 44, in <module>
    import configparser as ConfigParser
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/configparser.py", line 398
    _KEYCRE = re.compile(ur"%\(([^)]+)\)s")
                                         ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook
    from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/apport/__init__.py", line 5, in <module>
    from apport.report import Report
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/apport/report.py", line 30, in <module>
    import apport.fileutils
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/apport/fileutils.py", line 15, in <module>
    from configparser import ConfigParser, NoOptionError, NoSectionError
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/configparser.py", line 398
    _KEYCRE = re.compile(ur"%\(([^)]+)\)s")
                                         ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 42, in <module>
    import ConfigParser
ImportError: No module named 'ConfigParser'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 44, in <module>
    import configparser as ConfigParser
  File "/usr/share/pyshared/configparser.py", line 398
    _KEYCRE = re.compile(ur"%\(([^)]+)\)s")
                                         ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

This is because virtualenv re-executes itself with the target python version, but runs the virtualenv.py file in /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages, which in turn adds that directory to sys.path. Since I have the configparser module installed, it tries to import the v2 version of that module, which then fails with a SyntaxError

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Crap. Now that python-configparser is required by configglue, which is required by ubuntuone, I guess I have to actually fix this now. Note how Software Center got equally broken in LP: #1038429

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

https://bitbucket.org/ambv/configparser/issue/5/installing-configparser-is-dangerous

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

This doesn't appear to still be a problem with configparser 3.3.0r2-2 in Vivid. There's a newer version on PyPI which will hopefully get into Debian after Jessie and then W, but it still seems to no longer be a problem afaict.

[Casey Marshall (cmars)]

This is still broken on trusty.