Re: Why is malloc being defined as rpl_malloc ??

[Dr. David Kirkby]

"Thomas E. Dickey" wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 3 May 2003, Paul Eggert wrote:
> 
> > Possibly you invoked AC_FUNC_MALLOC either directly or indirectly;
> > it defines malloc to rpl_malloc if malloc isn't GNU compatible.
> 
> given the obscurity of the defect, this ranks as yet another designed-in
> bug rather than a feature.

I can confirm that was the problem. Removing the AC_FUNC_MALLOC solved
it. I'm not sure why I had it there in the first place - probably
taken from someone else's configure.ac when I knew even less about
autoconf than I do now (which is not very much). I also have
AC_FUNC_MEMCMP and AC_FUNC_STRTOD, but will check whether or not I
really need them. 

I tend to agree with your comments about a designed-in bug, rather
than a feature. I would think that if the macro is looking for a GNU
compatible malloc, it should have GNU in the name somewhere. The name
would tend to suggest its looking for malloc, which of course does
exist. 

I'm running on a Dec Alpha Personal Workstation 600a and are using the
Dec/HP/Compaq Tru64 UNIX and their cc. There is a fresh install of
Tru64 - there is no software beyond a full install of the operating
system. 

$ uname -a
OSF1 dobermann.localhost.ntlworld.co V5.1 2650 alpha

$ cc -V
Compaq C V6.5-011 on Compaq Tru64 UNIX V5.1B (Rev. 2650)
Compiler Driver V6.5-003 (sys) cc Driver

FWIW, I bought the Dec Alpha since these machines tend to show up
problems (especially floating point) that tend to be missed by other
machines. If anyone wants to test any code on a huge range of
machines, check this site out, where you can get access to many boxes,
including a 10 or so processor Beowulf cluster, all for no charge. 
http://www.testdrive.compaq.com/

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
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