gprolog --entry-goal crashes (gprolog 1.3.1, RHEL 5.5, x86-64)

[Paul Eggert]

gprolog is dumping core for us.  Here are the symptoms, as a shell command:

  $ gprolog --entry-goal true

  Fatal Error: Segmentation Violation

This is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Tikanga),
on a server with an Intel Xeon E5620.  "uname -a" reports
"Linux _._.ucla.edu 2.6.18-194.17.1.el5 #1 SMP Mon Sep 20 07:12:06 EDT 2010 
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux".

The gprolog version is 1.3.1.  I get the same results regardless
of whether I compile with stock gcc (4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48))
or with my own copy of GCC 4.5.1.  I can reproduce the problem by
doing this:

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gprolog/gprolog-1.3.1.tar.gz
tar xf gprolog-1.3.1.tar.gz
cd gprolog-1.3.1/src
./configure
make
TopComp/gprolog --entry-goal true

If I do "./configure CFLAGS=-g" and "make CFLAGS=-g"
and then "gdb TopComp/gprolog", I get this backtrace:

(gdb) r --entry-goal true
Starting program: /dev/shm/eggert/gprolog-1.3.1/src/TopComp/gprolog 
--entry-goal true

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x000000000049f6f3 in Pl_Term_Size (start_word=-1358292903) at term_supp.c:286
286           n += 1 + Pl_Term_Size(*adr++);
(gdb) where
#0  0x000000000049f6f3 in Pl_Term_Size (start_word=-1358292903)
    at term_supp.c:286
#1  0x0000000000473ada in G_Assign_Element (g_elem=0x297b1f0,
    gval_word=-1358292903, backtrack=0, copy=1) at g_var_inl_c.c:592
#2  0x000000000047390d in G_Assign (gvar_word=4249659, gval_word=-1358292903,
    backtrack=0, copy=1) at g_var_inl_c.c:529
#3  0x00000000004734ba in Pl_Blt_G_Assign (x=4249659, y=-1358292903)
    at g_var_inl_c.c:186
#4  0x000000000040339c in Main_Wrapper ()
#5  0x000000000040342b in main ()