ALL-CALL0002 · unbounded_blocking_call

Count calls that can wait forever because no bound was passed.

This is a deterministic rule for all languages. Read its implementation.

Definition

Report a resolved call to a configured callable that names none of bound_names among its arguments. A network read, a subprocess wait, a lock acquisition, and a queue get all block until something else happens, and without a bound that something may never happen. The failure is a process that hangs rather than one that reports an error, which is why it survives review and testing and only appears in production.

Evidence

Each finding records the call range, the qualified name, and the argument names that were passed. The value is the number of unbounded calls.

Exceptions

A deliberate wait, such as a supervisor joining its workers at shutdown or a server accepting connections, is legitimate and belongs outside the configured list. With no configured callables the rule reports nothing. A project whose bound travels in a context or a cancellation scope rather than an argument should name that pattern instead of this rule. bounded_callables names the calls a project considers blocking, which is why the rule reports nothing until somebody states them.

Examples

With requests.get configured, requests.get(url) returns 1 and requests.get(url, timeout=5) returns 0.

References

• Cites Pylint W3101 missing-timeout. Open reference
• Cites “Release It”, timeouts and the integration point failure mode
• Cites “The Python Standard Library”, subprocess documentation on the timeout argument. Open reference