This is very much like a problem I am having with InstallShield.Something else that might help is an algorithm I suggested a long time ago, and which was not thought as worth the effort. Since I have not tried to run Wine with valgrind yet, I don't know whether it is or isn't.
Something, somewhere, is trashing the heap data structures, which causes
a crash some time later, often yards away from the original bug. As far
as I know, there is no good way to spot this problem, it's just C/C++
sucking.... maybe valgrind might help?
The gist of it is that you pad each and every alloc with more memory, and you fill it in with signatures. When you release the memory, you check that the signatures are ok. Tweaking the amount of extra memory can cause you to not corrupt the heap structure at some point, which will allow you reliable pin-pointing the buffer in which the overflow occures.
I have never worked with valgrind (though I love the principle behind it), so I can't say whether it is more effective at this sort of problems. My method, in any case, is not very difficult to implement, so if valgrind does not provide what you need, I may invest the time in it.
Shachar
-- Shachar Shemesh Open Source integration consultant Home page & resume - http://www.shemesh.biz/
