Re: osx test

[Ben Pfaff]

Jason Stover <address@hidden> writes:

> I just compiled successfully without the gui on OSX. But
> pspp segfaults. gdb tells me this:
>
> Unable to find Mach task port for process-id 268865: (os/kern) failure (0x5)
>
> PSPP never even executed.

When I get a fault like this that I can't diagnose, I use a
search strategy to try to find the failure point.  I start by
inserting "exit(77);" or "for(;;);" or something along those
lines at a likely point.  Then I run the program.  If it reaches
that point and exits with code 77 or goes into an infinite loop,
respectively, the program got to that point, so the problem must
be later on, and so I move the point where I insert that
statement later.  If it segfaults, then the program didn't get to
that point, so the problem must be earlier on, and so I move the
point where I insert that statement earlier.  This often works to
quickly pinpoint the trouble spot.
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org