Hi Dennis,
> > a 1997 Digital DEC AlphaStation 600
> > ...
> > Alarm clock
> > FAIL test-regex (exit status: 142)
>
> Anyways, I think the test should be safe to ignore. Here is the alarm
> snippet from the test:
>
> #if HAVE_DECL_ALARM
> /* In case a bug causes glibc to go into an infinite loop.
> The tests should take less than 10 s on a reasonably modern CPU. */
> int alarm_value = 1000;
> signal (SIGALRM, SIG_DFL);
> alarm (alarm_value);
> #endif
>
> I don't think your system has a "reasonably modern CPU", no offense. But
> maybe Paul, who wrote this comment, has a different definition than
> mine. :)
I wouldn't ignore/discard this report immediately because
- A test that should take less than 10 seconds on a modern CPU
should take less than 100 seconds on an old alpha machine.
Not 1000 seconds.
- Even on my slowest QEMU-emulated VMs, I don't recall having seen this
test fail.
My gut feeling is that it could be some gcc compiler bug.
If you want to spend time narrowing it down, I would modify the 'alarm_value'
and the CFLAGS. Or run the test under gdb and see what it is doing after 900
seconds.
Bruno
