Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: Sun4os4 /bin/sh dumps core.
Message-ID: <2468@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 19 Sep 89 17:50:28 GMT
References: <2439@auspex.auspex.com> <68400003@sts> <2441@auspex.auspex.com> <4095@hemuli.atk.vtt.fi>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 25


 >Various people write about the perl test suite failing with a
 >memory fault and dumped core on Sun 4 machines, a few even
 >thinking that it is /bin/sh that dumps core.
 >
 >The problem with perl 3.0 on SPARC machines probably lies in
 >malloc.c, where the overhead union needs more strict alignment.
 >Adding a double field in the union takes care of that.  At least
 >this was the case on the HP9000 Series 800 (HP-PA, aka Spectrum),
 >which also is a strict-alignment RISC machine.

And again....

The problem with perl 3.0 beta on SPARC machines that causes it to drop
core in the perl test suite absolutely, positively, certainly lies in
"util.c", not in "malloc.c"; changing "popen" in "util.c" not to use
"vfork" fixes it in beta, and the change in 3.0 gamma that has it
include <vfork.h> on SPARC machines fixes it in gamma (although I think
I tried that in beta and it wasn't sufficient there).

A version compiled with the "malloc" distributed with "perl" worked in
both the beta and gamma versions on a SPARC machine.  There may be other
sequences that cause it to drop core on a SPARC machine due to alignment
problems in "malloc", but the one generated by "make test" on the Sun-4
here is *not* one of them.