Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!bruce!merlin!morgana!ianh
From: ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: problem with malloc (Irix 3.3.1)
Message-ID: <ianh.656882312@morgana>
Date: 25 Oct 90 19:18:32 GMT
References: <1658@merlin.bhpmrl.oz.au>
Sender: usenet@bhpmrl.oz.au
Lines: 55

ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle) writes:

>I've got an ongoing (well it was there with 3.2.2 and we just went to
>3.3.1 today) problem with malloc. The application in question is
>Rich Burridge's mp postscript filter program, patchlevel 13.

>The following code fragment is causing problems:

>      len = strlen(ptr) ;
>      FPRINTF(stderr, "%s [] %s []  %i\n", ptr, whoami,strlen(whoami)) ;
>      timenow = malloc((unsigned)(len + 6 + strlen(whoami) + 1)) ;
>      FPRINTF(stderr,"After that error\n");

[.... other stuff from dbx ]

>I linked it using -lmalloc.  I'm completely at a loss to what may be occuring.

Well I've fixed the problem. 

When mp was being linked, the command line in the Makefile was

       $(CC) $(LDFFLAGS) -o mp $(OBJS)

where LDFLAGS = -lmalloc

My guess is that there is an implicit -lc tacked on the end of this line thus
using the malloc(3C) and *not* malloc(3X). It should have read

       $(CC) -o mp $(OBJS) $(LDFLAGS)

thus loading libmalloc *last*.

I don't think it's a case of RTFM because I've just done that and couldn't 
find reference to exactly where the library definition should go in a cc
compile line. eg. from the manual entry for malloc(3X) :

"It is found in the library "libmalloc.a", and is loaded if the option
-lmalloc is used with cc(1) or ld(1)".

But, it's probably there somewhere and I missed it ..... damn it :-(

Thanks to those people who replied to me and made lots of useful suggestions
to chase up,

			ian
--
                Ian Hoyle
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