[Rd] Re: Sys.time dumps core at start-up (PR#822)

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Peter Kleiweg wrote:

> Prof Brian D Ripley skriver...
>
> > Is this the RH5.0 you mentioned earlier (that gdb is pretty
> > ancient)?
>
> Yes, it is. Using it quite a while now.
>
> > Did you set TZ as advised in ?DateTimeClasses to work around
> > bugs in deficient Linux distros? RH6.2's strftime will crash
> > on POSIXly (and its man page) correct inputs.
>
> Setting TZ has no effect. R still dumps core. I don't see the
> point of setting TZ, since it is unset in datetime.c

It is only unset (if possible) if it was initially unset. You do seem to
give the idea that you think the R developers do not know what they are
doing! Did you actually test your hypothesis?  If you did, and it is
correct, that is another bug of your system. On RH6.2

blackcap% setenv TZ GMT0DST
blackcap% R
> Sys.getenv("TZ")
       TZ
"GMT0DST"
> Sys.time()
[1] "2001-01-24 08:47:26 GMT"
> Sys.getenv("TZ")
       TZ
"GMT0DST"


> I now do remember I had inexplicable core dump with strftime (or
> a similar function) in another program. It was a while back, I
> can't recall the details, nor do I remember the program.
>
> In another mail you ask me to debug the problem. I have no
> experience debugging large programs, and if the problem is
> caused by a faulty library function I don't see the point
> trying.

But you did send a debug log to R-devel shortly after I asked
which told me the error was in strftime....  It would have been
helpful to have put that (and your Linux distro) in the original message.

Please do remember that there is not a technical support section receiving
these bug reports, but a group of volunteers,  those who in the main
provided you with the software in the first place.  Incomplete and
inaccurate reports make their task harder than necessary, and that's
unkind.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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