strange core dumps

From: Sarah Officer <officers_at_nemesis.tucson.saic.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:20:58 -0700 (MST)

I have written a simple application using STk that reads data in from
a file and plots graphs. I have a vanilla installation of STk-1.1.6
running on a SUN4 OS. Dynamic loading is allowed, but I have not written
any extensions to STk. Depending on what is in the input file, I may
create a couple of canvasses with plots or I may create a couple hundred
canvasses with plots.

During development, I had a place in my code where I wrote
        (display "blah blah blah")
        (newline)
so I could verify that I was doing the right thing. Around the call
that initiates the bulk of the work, I had a call to (time ...), so
I could take some measurements.

When I was satisfied that things were working correctly, I removed the
(display) & (newline) commands. The next time I ran my program with
the same input, it core dumped. I put the call to (display) back in,
and it ran fine. Took it out, it core dumped. I then removed the call
to (time), and the program ran fine.

The program I have created is pretty simple, though it may create many
TK widgets depending on the input. There have been several times in
developing this code the system would core dump. By rearranging some
commands a little, the problem disappeared. Unfortunately I did not
save an example that causes this behavior repeatedly.

Has anyone else experienced problems with strange core dumps? Are there
any commands that are known to cause this behavior? I am preparing this
program for others to use, and I would like to know how I can be certain
that it is stable. Any ideas & suggestions would be welcomed.

Sarah Officer
officers_at_aries.tucson.saic.com
Received on Fri Feb 24 1995 - 19:20:13 CET