A few moons ago we have discussed on the dev list a tool for automatic segfault detection (including multiple segfaults during 'make test') and core backtrace generation. I'm quite frankly tired of explaining again and again that we need a core file backtrace, how to get the core file dumped and generating trace (no offense, just facts). I'm sure there is a better way to do. If we can automate this process, like many other apps do (e.g. gnome/kde apps) this will save us a lot of traffic on the list and frustration on users' behalf and make us all happier.
I've planned on working on this idea for a long time, but other things seem to get on my way. (like helping getting the core dumped :) Any takers? If you are interested, here is some more info: There are two situations when we want this. 1. during 'make test'. which is sort of very easy, because the new test suite already scans for core files. And there is a perl module on CPAN that automatically extracts the backtrace from a given core file (which almost works). The catch is that there can be more than one core dumped and they all be overwritten by the last core dumped. Therefore it's better to install a SIGSEGV to do the work. You will probably need to do it in XS (could write a prototype with Inline). I think I've tried in Perl and it didn't work (since SIGSEGV is caught on the C level by httpd). If this works, you will be able to generate as many backtraces as the number of segfaults 2. during normal use. Those users who get segfaults will load something like Apache::SEGV2BT and it'll write a backtrace every time segfault happens. Therefore it's most likely case 2 which can be used as case 1. For generating segfaults for testing, see my Bad::Segv module, updated by Kevin A. McGrail at http://www.peregrinehw.com/downloads/apache/mod_perl and discussed here: http://perl.apache.org/preview/modperl-docs/dst_html/docs/2.0/devel/debug_c/debug_c.html#Getting_the_core_File_Dumped p.s. I'm talking about mod_perl 2.0 mainly, but it probably should be easy to make it work for 1.x as well once it works for 2.0. __________________________________________________________________ Stas Bekman JAm_pH ------> Just Another mod_perl Hacker http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide ---> http://perl.apache.org mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://use.perl.org http://apacheweek.com http://modperlbook.org http://apache.org http://ticketmaster.com
