Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: What does "Infinite Spill" error message indicate?
Message-ID: <892@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Oct-87 06:41:07 EST
Article-I.D.: sugar.892
Posted: Thu Oct 22 06:41:07 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 08:36:19 EST
References: <99@citcom.UUCP> <344@transys.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 21
Summary: Uh, what happened to the stack?

In article <344@transys.UUCP>, baron@transys.UUCP (Joe Portman) writes:
> Eric Griswold of SCO explained it to me as follows:
> 
> Infinite spill errors occur when the compiler runs out of registers in which
> to "spill" intermediate results in a complcated expression. This usuall occurs 
> in large and huge model programs. 

The compiler is, therefore, broken. Ritchie's PDP-11 compiler had the
same bug, but at least it produced a meaningful error message.

Cure:

	(1) Change the message to something like "expression too complex".

	(2) Get the compiler to stick the intermediate results onto the
	stack, the usual place to put temporaries once you run out of
	registers. If an 8080 can handle the expression with effectively
	only 1 usable register, surely the 8086 can do better.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.