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HP OpenVMS Systemsask the wizard |
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The Question is: Is there a malloc bug in DEC C V5.2-003 C compiler? Or any other know problem that might cause strange crashes? The Answer is : The C malloc and free calls are very heavily used within OpenVMS code and within layered products and customer application code. Accordingly, any problems that might be lurking within the run-time library (RTL) code that implements these calls would typically be expected to have very obvious and very widespread effects. The Compaq C RTL ships with OpenVMS and not the compiler, and OpenVMS ECO kits for the RTL are available. That said, the OpenVMS Wizard would NOT assume that these ECOs will repair the (unspecified) behaviour reported here. The OpenVMS Wizard WOULD assume that there is an application bug here. Your Compaq C compiler is also very old, and should be upgraded to a more recent version. But paralleling the previous paragraph, the OpenVMS Wizard would again not assume that a compiler upgrade would resolve what is most often an application bug. Discussions in topics (1661), (2624), (2630), (3115), (3257), (4808), (5455), (5640), and likely a few others will be of interest when working with memory management, and particularly when debugging memory management problems. The first of these topics includes a discussion of debugging various typical types of memory allocation problems, and topic (3257) provides a detailed description of a debugging a technique occasionally known as "fenceposts".
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