I think I have found a bug in gcc, that still exists in gcc 4.4
I found the problem on 3.2.3 though.
While MVS and VM have basically been working fine, when I did
the port to MUSIC/SP I started getting strange compilation failures.
Initializing the stack to NULs made the problem go away, but I
persisted, and instead initialized the stack to x'01' to try to get
consistent failures.
Even with that, and the malloced memory initialized to consistent
garbage, I still didn't get the desired consistency in failures.
But it was consistent enough that I could just run it 6 times and
see if there were any failures.
Anyway, I tracked down the particular malloc() which gave changed
behaviour depending on whether the malloc() did a memory initialization
to NULs or not.
It's this one (showing 3.2.3):
C:\devel\gcc\gcc>cvs diff -l -c15
cvs diff: Diffing .
Index: ggc-page.c
===================================================================
RCS file: c:\cvsroot/gcc/gcc/ggc-page.c,v
retrieving revision 1.1.1.1
diff -c -1 -5 -r1.1.1.1 ggc-page.c
*** ggc-page.c 15 Feb 2006 10:22:25 -0000 1.1.1.1
--- ggc-page.c 28 Nov 2009 14:13:41 -0000
***************
*** 640,670 ****
#ifdef USING_MALLOC_PAGE_GROUPS
else
{
/* Allocate a large block of memory and serve out the aligned
pages therein. This results in much less memory wastage
than the traditional implementation of valloc. */
char *allocation, *a, *enda;
size_t alloc_size, head_slop, tail_slop;
int multiple_pages = (entry_size == G.pagesize);
if (multiple_pages)
alloc_size = GGC_QUIRE_SIZE * G.pagesize;
else
alloc_size = entry_size + G.pagesize - 1;
! allocation = xmalloc (alloc_size);
page = (char *) (((size_t) allocation + G.pagesize - 1)
& -G.pagesize);
head_slop = page - allocation;
if (multiple_pages)
tail_slop = ((size_t) allocation + alloc_size) & (G.pagesize - 1);
else
tail_slop = alloc_size - entry_size - head_slop;
enda = allocation + alloc_size - tail_slop;
/* We allocated N pages, which are likely not aligned, leaving
us with N-1 usable pages. We plan to place the page_group
structure somewhere in the slop. */
if (head_slop >= sizeof (page_group))
group = (page_group *)page - 1;
else
--- 640,670 ----
#ifdef USING_MALLOC_PAGE_GROUPS
else
{
/* Allocate a large block of memory and serve out the aligned
pages therein. This results in much less memory wastage
than the traditional implementation of valloc. */
char *allocation, *a, *enda;
size_t alloc_size, head_slop, tail_slop;
int multiple_pages = (entry_size == G.pagesize);
if (multiple_pages)
alloc_size = GGC_QUIRE_SIZE * G.pagesize;
else
alloc_size = entry_size + G.pagesize - 1;
! allocation = xcalloc (1, alloc_size);
page = (char *) (((size_t) allocation + G.pagesize - 1)
& -G.pagesize);
head_slop = page - allocation;
if (multiple_pages)
tail_slop = ((size_t) allocation + alloc_size) & (G.pagesize - 1);
else
tail_slop = alloc_size - entry_size - head_slop;
enda = allocation + alloc_size - tail_slop;
/* We allocated N pages, which are likely not aligned, leaving
us with N-1 usable pages. We plan to place the page_group
structure somewhere in the slop. */
if (head_slop >= sizeof (page_group))
group = (page_group *)page - 1;
else
I suspect that it has stayed hidden for so long because most people
probably have this mmap_anon:
/* Define if mmap can get us zeroed pages using MAP_ANON(YMOUS). */
#undef HAVE_MMAP_ANON
#ifdef HAVE_MMAP_ANON
# undef HAVE_MMAP_DEV_ZERO
# include <sys/mman.h>
# ifndef MAP_FAILED
# define MAP_FAILED -1
# endif
# if !defined (MAP_ANONYMOUS) && defined (MAP_ANON)
# define MAP_ANONYMOUS MAP_ANON
# endif
# define USING_MMAP
#endif
#ifndef USING_MMAP
#define USING_MALLOC_PAGE_GROUPS
#endif
Seems pretty clear that zeroed pages are required.
Looking at the code above and below this block, it uses xcalloc
instead.
It will take a couple of days to confirm that this is the last
presumed bug affecting the MUSIC/SP port.
In the meantime, can someone confirm that this code is wrong,
and that xcalloc is definitely required?
I had a look at the gcc4 code, and it is calling XNEWVEC which
is also using xmalloc instead of xcalloc, so I presume it is still
a problem today, under the right circumstances.
It took about a week to track this one down. :-)
One problem I have had for years, even on the MVS port, is that
I need to use -Os to get the exact same register selection on the
PC as the mainframe. -O0 and -O2 get slightly different register
allocations, although all versions of the code are correct. If I'm
lucky, this fix may make that problem go away, but as I said,
it'll take a couple of days before the results are in, as each build
takes about 2 hours (partly because i need to use -Os for
consistency).
Thanks. Paul.
