From: Jeffrey A Law <law@hurl.cygnus.com>
To: Ian Lance Taylor <ian@cygnus.com>
Cc: hjl@lucon.org, bfd@cygnus.com
Subject: Re: A patch for elf.c
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 10:03:00 -0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <5560.913226553@hurl.cygnus.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <199812091735.MAA29788@subrogation.cygnus.com>
In message < 199812091735.MAA29788@subrogation.cygnus.com >you write:
> > introduced with a change to the function a few months ago. The fix is
> > to avoid introducing bugs; clearing memory is just treating the
> > symptom.
>
> To me, clearing memory is the super set of setting one field to
> zero. I am a better safe than sorry person. I have no time
> to second guess if there is another field I should clear.
>
> I know you don't mean this, but to me ``I have no time to second
> guess'' sounds like ``I have no time to figure out how the code works,
> or what the right patch is.'' In a long running project like GNU,
> anybody who wants to make changes has to take the time to understand
> them. We're not quickly hacking stuff together for the big demo next
> Wednesday; we're writing code that should, ideally, survive for twenty
> years.
>
> I also agree with Roland's point.
IMHO, clearing a block of memory to fix a problem without understanding
precisely why clearing the block fixes the problem is just papering over a
bug.
Once one understands precisely why clearing one or more memory locations is
fixing a bug, once can decide if clearing one or more fields or a whole
structure/array is the best solution.
I believe gdb operates under a similar guidelines.
jeff
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-12-09 10:03 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <Pine.LNX.3.96.981208082500.26204A-100000@beezer.med.miami.edu>
1998-12-08 9:57 ` H.J. Lu
1998-12-08 10:28 ` Christopher C Chimelis
1998-12-08 11:26 ` Ian Lance Taylor
1998-12-08 11:34 ` Christopher C Chimelis
1998-12-09 7:42 ` H.J. Lu
1998-12-09 8:04 ` Roland McGrath
1998-12-09 9:35 ` Ian Lance Taylor
1998-12-09 10:03 ` Jeffrey A Law [this message]
1998-12-09 16:27 ` Stan Shebs
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