This is similar to the situation with threading._DummyThread. The methods (incl. __del__()) of interpreters.Interpreter objects must be careful with interpreters not created by interpreters.create(). The simplest thing to start with is to disable any method that modifies or runs in the interpreter. As part of this, the runtime keeps track of where an interpreter was created. We also handle interpreter "refcounts" properly.
I had meant to switch everything to InterpreterError when I added it a while back. At the time I missed a few key spots.
As part of this, I've added print-the-exception to _PyXI_InitTypes() and fixed an error case in `_PyStaticType_InitBuiltin().
This brings the code under test.support.interpreters, and the corresponding extension modules, in line with recent updates to PEP 734.
(Note: PEP 734 has not been accepted at this time. However, we are using an internal copy of the implementation in the test suite to exercise the existing subinterpreters feature.)
We need the TracebackException of uncaught exceptions for a single purpose: the error display. Thus we only need to pass the formatted error display between interpreters. Passing a pickled TracebackException is overkill.
When an exception is uncaught in Interpreter.exec_sync(), it helps to show that exception's error display if uncaught in the calling interpreter. We do so here by generating a TracebackException in the subinterpreter and passing it between interpreters using pickle.
Eric Snow