PyTables: tables.tests.test_basics.UnicodeFilename failures on Windows.

On the current ‘develop’ branch (commit bae4975a725fcb17dc7b6ced633962bbf48fd7da), we’re seeing the test failures below on Windows 7 (64-bit), Python 2.7.3, HDF5 1.8.11.

Additional notes from a colleague here (@itziakos):

update: the error takes place in the setUp method and the Error message is (u"Unable to open/create file ‘c:\users\itziakos\appdata\local\temp\para\u0140lelvbkwg0.h5’",)

more investigation shows that the original filename is correct but gets mangled as soon as it passes through https://github.com/PyTables/PyTables/blob/develop/tables/utilsextension.pyx#L599

Please note that on my machine the file system encoding arrives as the default for windows mbcs.

Failures and full version information below:

======================================================================
ERROR: test01 (tables.tests.test_basics.UnicodeFilename)
Checking creating a filename with Unicode chars.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tables\tests\test_basics.py", line 2341, in setUp
    self.h5file = tables.open_file(self.h5fname, "w")
  File "tables\file.py", line 318, in open_file
    return File(filename, mode, title, root_uep, filters, **kwargs)
  File "tables\file.py", line 784, in __init__
    self._g_new(filename, mode, **params)
  File "hdf5extension.pyx", line 488, in tables.hdf5extension.File._g_new (tables\hdf5extension.c:4926)
HDF5ExtError: <unprintable HDF5ExtError object>

======================================================================
ERROR: test02 (tables.tests.test_basics.UnicodeFilename)
Checking  tables.is_hdf5_file with a Unicode filename.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tables\tests\test_basics.py", line 2341, in setUp
    self.h5file = tables.open_file(self.h5fname, "w")
  File "tables\file.py", line 318, in open_file
    return File(filename, mode, title, root_uep, filters, **kwargs)
  File "tables\file.py", line 784, in __init__
    self._g_new(filename, mode, **params)
  File "hdf5extension.pyx", line 488, in tables.hdf5extension.File._g_new (tables\hdf5extension.c:4926)
HDF5ExtError: <unprintable HDF5ExtError object>

======================================================================
ERROR: test03 (tables.tests.test_basics.UnicodeFilename)
Checking is_pytables_file with a Unicode filename.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tables\tests\test_basics.py", line 2341, in setUp
    self.h5file = tables.open_file(self.h5fname, "w")
  File "tables\file.py", line 318, in open_file
    return File(filename, mode, title, root_uep, filters, **kwargs)
  File "tables\file.py", line 784, in __init__
    self._g_new(filename, mode, **params)
  File "hdf5extension.pyx", line 488, in tables.hdf5extension.File._g_new (tables\hdf5extension.c:4926)
HDF5ExtError: <unprintable HDF5ExtError object>

======================================================================
ERROR: test_store_and_load_with_non_ascii_attributes (tables.tests.test_basics.UnicodeFilename)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tables\tests\test_basics.py", line 2341, in setUp
    self.h5file = tables.open_file(self.h5fname, "w")
  File "tables\file.py", line 318, in open_file
    return File(filename, mode, title, root_uep, filters, **kwargs)
  File "tables\file.py", line 784, in __init__
    self._g_new(filename, mode, **params)
  File "hdf5extension.pyx", line 488, in tables.hdf5extension.File._g_new (tables\hdf5extension.c:4926)
HDF5ExtError: <unprintable HDF5ExtError object>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 5724 tests in 370.993s

Version information:

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PyTables version:  3.1.2dev
HDF5 version:      1.8.11
NumPy version:     1.8.1
Numexpr version:   2.4 (using VML/MKL 10.3.1)
Zlib version:      1.2.3 (in Python interpreter)
Blosc version:     1.4.0 (2014-07-04)
Blosc compressors: blosclz (1.0.2), lz4 (1.2.0), lz4hc (1.2.0), snappy (1.1.1), zlib (1.2.8)
Cython version:    0.20.2
Python version:    2.7.3 |EPD 7.3-1 (64-bit)| (default, Apr 12 2012, 15:20:16) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)]
Platform:          Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1
Byte-ordering:     little
Detected cores:    8
Default encoding:  ascii
Default locale:    (el_GR, cp1253)
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