Re: SEGV on unbounded recursion

[Chet Ramey]

tjanouse@redhat.com wrote:
> Configuration Information [Automatically generated, do not change]:
> Machine: i686
> OS: linux-gnu
> Compiler: gcc
> Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='i686' 
> -DCONF_OSTYPE='linux-gnu' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='i686-redhat-linux-gnu' 
> -DCONF_VENDOR='redhat' -DLOCALEDIR='/usr/share/locale' -DPACKAGE='bash' -DSHELL 
> -DHAVE_CONFIG_H   -I.  -I. -I./include -I./lib  -D_GNU_SOURCE 
> -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -O2 -g -pipe -Wall 
> -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector 
> --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i386 -mtune=generic 
> -fasynchronous-unwind-tables
> uname output: Linux tjanouse.englab.brq.redhat.com 2.6.18-53.el5 #1 SMP Wed Oct 
> 10 16:34:02 EDT 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
> Machine Type: i686-redhat-linux-gnu
>
> Bash Version: 3.2
> Patch Level: 33
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
>         Unbounded recursion results in a SEGV instead of some error message
>         telling you what happened. And the test case I'm attaching could also
>         just run forever if something like tail recursion was handled.

I'm not inclined to change the current behavior.  Bash is perfectly
happy to allow people to shoot themselves in the foot.  We all agree
that fixed-limit recursion is not the way to go, and I don't think the
effort involved in handling tail recursion is well spent.

Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                       Live Strong.  No day but today.
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/