insertdict_clean: Assertion error

Question

I get the following error in python 2.6.6:

python: Objects/dictobject.c:501: insertdict_clean: Assertion 'ep->me_value == ((void *)0)' failed.

Following is the distilled source:

pool = multiprocessing.Pool(32)
mutation_counts = pool.map(mutate, enumerate(data))
mutation_count = reduce(lambda a, b: a + b, mutation_counts)
args = [(interval, mutation_count) for interval in sub_intervals]
pool_results = pool.map(validate, enumerate(args)) # Issue occurs here

I suspect mutation_count is causing the issue, it is a counter defined by:

from operator import itemgetter
from heapq import nlargest
from itertools import repeat, ifilter

class Counter(dict):
    '''Dict subclass for counting hashable objects.  Sometimes called a bag
    or multiset.  Elements are stored as dictionary keys and their counts
    are stored as dictionary values.

    >>> Counter('zyzygy')
    Counter({'y': 3, 'z': 2, 'g': 1})

    '''

    def __init__(self, iterable=None, **kwds):
        '''Create a new, empty Counter object.  And if given, count elements
        from an input iterable.  Or, initialize the count from another mapping
        of elements to their counts.

        >>> c = Counter()                           # a new, empty counter
        >>> c = Counter('gallahad')                 # a new counter from an iterable
        >>> c = Counter({'a': 4, 'b': 2})           # a new counter from a mapping
        >>> c = Counter(a=4, b=2)                   # a new counter from keyword args

        '''        
        self.update(iterable, **kwds)

    def __missing__(self, key):
        return 0

    def most_common(self, n=None):
        '''List the n most common elements and their counts from the most
        common to the least.  If n is None, then list all element counts.

        >>> Counter('abracadabra').most_common(3)
        [('a', 5), ('r', 2), ('b', 2)]

        '''        
        if n is None:
            return sorted(self.iteritems(), key=itemgetter(1), reverse=True)
        return nlargest(n, self.iteritems(), key=itemgetter(1))

    def elements(self):
        '''Iterator over elements repeating each as many times as its count.

        >>> c = Counter('ABCABC')
        >>> sorted(c.elements())
        ['A', 'A', 'B', 'B', 'C', 'C']

        If an element's count has been set to zero or is a negative number,
        elements() will ignore it.

        '''
        for elem, count in self.iteritems():
            for _ in repeat(None, count):
                yield elem

    # Override dict methods where the meaning changes for Counter objects.

    @classmethod
    def fromkeys(cls, iterable, v=None):
        raise NotImplementedError(
            'Counter.fromkeys() is undefined.  Use Counter(iterable) instead.')

    def update(self, iterable=None, **kwds):
        '''Like dict.update() but add counts instead of replacing them.

        Source can be an iterable, a dictionary, or another Counter instance.

        >>> c = Counter('which')
        >>> c.update('witch')           # add elements from another iterable
        >>> d = Counter('watch')
        >>> c.update(d)                 # add elements from another counter
        >>> c['h']                      # four 'h' in which, witch, and watch
        4

        '''        
        if iterable is not None:
            if hasattr(iterable, 'iteritems'):
                if self:
                    self_get = self.get
                    for elem, count in iterable.iteritems():
                        self[elem] = self_get(elem, 0) + count
                else:
                    dict.update(self, iterable) # fast path when counter is empty
            else:
                self_get = self.get
                for elem in iterable:
                    self[elem] = self_get(elem, 0) + 1
        if kwds:
            self.update(kwds)

    def copy(self):
        'Like dict.copy() but returns a Counter instance instead of a dict.'
        return Counter(self)

    def __delitem__(self, elem):
        'Like dict.__delitem__() but does not raise KeyError for missing values.'
        if elem in self:
            dict.__delitem__(self, elem)

    def __repr__(self):
        if not self:
            return '%s()' % self.__class__.__name__
        items = ', '.join(map('%r: %r'.__mod__, self.most_common()))
        return '%s({%s})' % (self.__class__.__name__, items)

    # Multiset-style mathematical operations discussed in:
    #       Knuth TAOCP Volume II section 4.6.3 exercise 19
    #       and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiset
    #
    # Outputs guaranteed to only include positive counts.
    #
    # To strip negative and zero counts, add-in an empty counter:
    #       c += Counter()

    def __add__(self, other):
        '''Add counts from two counters.

        >>> Counter('abbb') + Counter('bcc')
        Counter({'b': 4, 'c': 2, 'a': 1})


        '''
        if not isinstance(other, Counter):
            return NotImplemented
        result = Counter()
        for elem in set(self) | set(other):
            newcount = self[elem] + other[elem]
            if newcount > 0:
                result[elem] = newcount
        return result

    def __sub__(self, other):
        ''' Subtract count, but keep only results with positive counts.

        >>> Counter('abbbc') - Counter('bccd')
        Counter({'b': 2, 'a': 1})

        '''
        if not isinstance(other, Counter):
            return NotImplemented
        result = Counter()
        for elem in set(self) | set(other):
            newcount = self[elem] - other[elem]
            if newcount > 0:
                result[elem] = newcount
        return result

    def __or__(self, other):
        '''Union is the maximum of value in either of the input counters.

        >>> Counter('abbb') | Counter('bcc')
        Counter({'b': 3, 'c': 2, 'a': 1})

        '''
        if not isinstance(other, Counter):
            return NotImplemented
        _max = max
        result = Counter()
        for elem in set(self) | set(other):
            newcount = _max(self[elem], other[elem])
            if newcount > 0:
                result[elem] = newcount
        return result

    def __and__(self, other):
        ''' Intersection is the minimum of corresponding counts.

        >>> Counter('abbb') & Counter('bcc')
        Counter({'b': 1})

        '''
        if not isinstance(other, Counter):
            return NotImplemented
        _min = min
        result = Counter()
        if len(self) < len(other):
            self, other = other, self
        for elem in ifilter(self.__contains__, other):
            newcount = _min(self[elem], other[elem])
            if newcount > 0:
                result[elem] = newcount
        return result


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    print doctest.testmod()

I only see this issue when I have approx 1M keys and occurs in about 20% of runs.

Answer 1

If you go to the dictobject.c source (on Python trunk, I did not bother to look for 2.6), you can read that the function insertdict_clean is an

Internal routine used by dictresize() to insert an item which is known to be absent from the dict. This routine also assumes that the dict contains no deleted entries.

What the exception is telling you is that the assert(ep->me_value == NULL);, on line 574 in the current trunk, is actually finding an element in the dictionary, when it should be missing. Probably, you are hitting this line because you subclassed Python's built-in dict, instead of holding a dict within your Counter class.

I would suspect the implementation of the __missing__ magic method. It returns a 0 instead of a None. Also, why don't you use the collections.Counter class? It is already in Python 2.6.