Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekgen!tekigm2!marks
From: marks@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Mark D. Salzman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: MicroSoft C Ver 5.0 BUG!!
Message-ID: <2276@tekigm2.TEK.COM>
Date: 19 Dec 87 00:49:06 GMT
Reply-To: marks@tekigm2.UUCP (Mark D. Salzman)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 30

Hi out there,

A friend of mine just discovered a bug in Microsoft C Ver. 5.0 that
crashes the "cl" compiler. I offer it so others can avoid the problem
until Microsoft produces a fix (if ever). BTW, Microsoft has been informed
on the matter. The following short program produces the bug.

double a,b = 3.0;
main()
{
 a = (b * 1.7E-9) + ((b * 1.9E-9) * 1.0E-4);   /* <-- This crashes "cl" */
}

The "cl" compiler crashes with the following error message:

run-time error R6000
- stack overflow

Note that this works fine under Ver 4.0 and if you use Quick C. It also
works fine if you replace any of the constants with a variable. The value
of the constants have no effect on the bug as long as they are still clearly
floating point constants. The variable names used also have no effect.

I hope this prevents some headaches. Happy Programming.

-- 
Mark D. Salzman     Phone (206) 253-5542.  |  The more complex the mind,
Tektronix Inc., P.O. Box 3500, M/S C1-937  |  the greater the need for 
Vancouver, Washington. 98668               |  the simplicity of play.
{world_at_large}!tektronix!tekigm2!marks   |       James T. Kirk