[Rd] R uses private function in libc (PR#9107)

[ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, quanah at stanford.edu wrote:

> Full_Name: Quanah Gibson-Mount
> Version: 2.3.0, 2.3.1
> OS: Linux

That's not adequate information: see below.

> Submission from: (NULL) (171.66.155.86)
> 
> 
> libc used to export the symbol:
> 
> __libc_stack_end;
> 
> however, newer versions of libc no longer export it.  R has some serious

Please tell us what these `newer versions of libc' are.
>g<libc does on e.g. 2.3.6 and 2.4, which is AFAICS current.

> problems around this, because the code has:
> 
> # ifdef linux
> extern void * __libc_stack_end;
> # endif
> 
> 
> and
> 
> #if defined(linux)
>     R_CStackStart = (uintptr_t) __libc_stack_end;
> #elif defined(HAVE_KERN_USRSTACK)
> 
> 
> in r-2.3.1/src/unix/system.c
> 
> This code needs to be fixed.  It is causing all sorts of problems when trying to
> run R across multiple systems with different libc versions.

What are the 'all sorts of problems'?  It seems they are affecting no one 
else, and R is very widely used on Linux systems.  So there is nothing 
here we can reproduce.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at 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 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595