[R] mapply() gives seg fault
Robin Hankin
rksh at soc.soton.ac.uk
Wed Oct 15 13:16:57 CEST 2003
Thanks for this everyone.
I didn't know that a seg fault was an operating system error message
(in fact, I don't really know what a seg fault is... I'm not a C
programmer, just plain Mr Joe Q Public, R user).
I would say the FAQ makes sense only if you know what kind of error
messages operating systems are likely to report. Mentioning seg
faults explicitly in FAQ-9.1 might be helpful for nonprogrammers
like me. Something like "a seg fault is always a bug" would be good.
best wishes
robin
>On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Robin Hankin wrote:
>
>> Hello again
>>
>> thanks for this. What I should have asked is, should one always report
>> repeatable seg faults (even if functions are called with
>> inappropriate arguments)?
>>
>
>Yes. Reproducible segfaults that occur `in the wild' are fairly important
>bugs even if they result from errors.
>
>Segfaults from trying to break the system are a much lower priority, but
>even they should probably be reported.
>
>The FAQ (9.1) says
> If R executes an illegal instruction, or dies with an operating system
> error message that indicates a problem in the program (as opposed to
> something like "disk full"), then it is certainly a bug.
>and goes on to explain that the only time this doesn't apply is when you
>call compiled code with the wrong arguments or call your own compiled
>code.
>
> -thomas
>
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