Re: Massive recursion -> SEGV

[Jan Schampera]

On 02.07.2012 15:57, Eric Blake wrote:

> > > Look for FUNCNEST variable. In recent release it is available.
> >
> > I more meant the shell interpreter, less the code I can write.
>
> It would be possible to link bash with libsigsegv to install a graceful
> stack overflow handler that allows a nicer exit message on failure;
> other GNU projects that have done so include awk and m4.  But short of
> introducing arbitrary limits (which goes against GNU philosophy), it is
> not possible to detect stack overflow until after it happens, and the
> only recovery possible after detecting stack overflow is a graceful
> message and exit unless you go to extreme lengths to block signals
> around every call to malloc or any other library function that grabs a lock.

Hi Eric,


yes, it's more about helpful messages (not neccesarily a recovery), less 
about limits in Bash or application (script, etc.).

The origin of this all was a "bugreport" to me about the manual lying 
about no limits on recursion - it turned out it was massive recursion 
and little stack - and a resulting SEGV.

I'm interested in people's thoughts there, like is it okay to just crash 
or would a message be better?

libsigsegv - I'll have a look.

Thanks.

--
Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
- jbp, master of the net, in RFC793