[Xastir-dev] Blame Canada for xastir segfaults

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

What are the shapefiles?  Someone want to send 'em to me?  I'll contact 
Frank and start looking into it.

Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 
> 
>>I may be naive here, but, doesn't that mean that we should improve the
>>error reporting in Xastir so that it detects this problem and informs
>>the user instead of segfaulting?
> 
> 
> You're not naive.  Well, not in this case anyway... hi hi
> 
> Problem here is that Shapelib LOVES to segfault all on it's own.
> It's not Xastir that's doing the segfaulting here.
> 
> 
> 
>>Again, I'm not an expert, but, I was always taught that a segfault indicated
>>a bug in the software.  Usually a failure to adequately check some form of
>>input before depending on it conforming to assertions.
> 
> 
> Correct.  In this case Shapelib.
> 
> 
> 
>>If we're using a library to parse these files and that library is what is
>>actually segfaulting, then, I think we have a few different options
>>(which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive):
>>
>>	1.	File a bug with the library development team.
>>	2.	Fix the library and submit appropriate patches to the
>>		development team (yeah, I know, resource issue, but,
>>		it's an option).
>>	3.	Trap the SIGSEGV from the library and produce a more
>>		helpful error message.
> 
> 
> Shapelib is another open project, so yes, it'd be good to fix up
> Shapelib (and other libraries that we use from the same site).
> 
> Frank Warmerdam is the guy to contact, and most of the projects
> there have Bugzilla bug-tracking I believe.
> 
> Anyone want to take this on?
> 
> --
> Curt, WE7U			    archer at eskimo dot com
> Arlington, WA, USA		http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Network Engineering -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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