The glib documentation lacks many important things that I think API documentation absolutely should include. For instance the entry for g_malloc says nothing about that it will crash upon memory allocation failure (in direct contrast to the behaviour of the standard malloc, which the name implies that it mimics). Only if you happen to notice that there also is a variant named g_try_malloc and read its description you will be informed that g_try_malloc
Attempts to allocate n_bytes, and returns NULL on failure. Contrast
with g_malloc(), which aborts the program on failure.
Now for the question, glib have a function g_strdup which also does not mention anything about possibly returning NULL. I assume that it will not since it is implied that it will be using g_malloc internally. Will it?
The documentation does say it, though. Check the introductory section to the "Memory Allocation" page in the GLib manual:
If any call to allocate memory fails, the application is terminated. This also means that there is no need to check if the call succeeded.
This goes for any library call that allocates memory, and therefore for g_strdup() too.
Related
I wrote vulkan code on my laptop that worked, and then I got a new laptop and now running it, the program aborts because vkAllocateDescriptorSets() returns VK_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY.
I doubt that it is actually out of memory, and I know it can allocate some memory because VkCreateInstance() doesn't fail like in this stack overflow post: Vulkan create instance VK_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY.
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention, vkAllocateDescriptorSets() only returns VK_OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY the second time I run it.
vkAllocateDescriptorSets allocates descriptors from a pool. So while such allocation could fail due to a lack of host/device memory, there are two other things that could cause failure. There may simply not be enough memory in the pool to allocate the number of descriptors/sets you asked for. Or there could be enough memory, but repeated allocations/deallocations have fragmented the pool such that the allocations cannot be made.
The case of allocating more descriptors/sets than are available should never happen. After all, you know how many descriptors&sets you put into that pool, so you should know exactly when you'll run out. This is an error state that a working application can guarantee it will never encounter. Though the VK_KHR_maintenance1 extension did add support for this circumstance: VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_POOL_MEMORY_KHR.
However, if you've screwed up your pool creation in some way, you will get this possibility. Of course, since there's no error code for it (outside of the extension), the implementation will have to provide a different error code: either host or device memory exhaustion.
But again, this is a programming error on your part, not something you should ever expect to see with working code. In particular, even if you request that extension, do not keep allocating from a pool until it stops giving you memory. That's just bad coding.
For the fragmentation case, they do have an error code: VK_ERROR_FRAGMENTED_POOL. However, the Khronos Group screwed up. See, the first few releases of Vulkan didn't include this error code; it was added later. Which means that implementations from before the adding of this error code (and likely afterwards) had to pick an inappropriate error code to return. Again, either host or device memory.
So you basically have to treat any failure of this function as either fragmentation, programming error (ie: you asked for more stuff than you put into the pool), or something else. In all cases, it's not something you can recover from at runtime.
Since it appeared to work once, odds are good that you probably just allocated more stuff than the pool contains. So you should make sure that you add enough stuff to the pool before allocating from it.
The problem was that I had not allocated enough memory in the pool. I solved it by creating multiple pools. One for each descriptor set.
I have a ChibiOS application where I'm using dynamic memory allocation via malloc().
However, I observed that 100% of the time I call malloc(), it returns NULL. I have confirmed that:
The microcontroller memory is not full
The error also occurs for size-1 malloc calls, so the memory chunk size is not the cause of the issues.
errno is always ENOMEM after the malloc() call
How can I resolve this issue?
When you look at the definition of _sbrk in os/various/syscalls.c, you can clearly see that it always returns a ENOMEM error if CH_CFG_USE_MEMCORE == FALSE.
Unless you set CH_CFG_USE_MEMCORE = TRUE in chconf.h, the ChibiOS core memory manager is disabled completely and _sbrk and other memory-related functions are only included in the object files so no linking errors occur.
In order to properly configure ChibiOS correctly, ensure that the following is set in chconf.h:
#define CH_CFG_USE_MEMCORE TRUE
In order to avoid running into reliability issues, you might want to use memory pools or alternative algorithms instead where possible. See this detailed explanation for a description why malloc() is often a bad idea on embedded systems (it's actually forbidden in most embedded coding standards entirely).
I am using Keil's ARM-MDK 4.11. I have a statically allocated block of memory that is used only at startup. It is used before the scheduler is initialised and due to the way RL-RTX takes control of the heap-management, cannot be dynamically allocated (else subsequent allocations after the scheduler starts cause a hard-fault).
I would like to add this static block as a free-block to the system heap after the scheduler is initialised. It would seem that __Heap_ProvideMemory() might provide the answer, this is called during initialisation to create the initial heap. However that would require knowledge of the heap descriptor address, and I can find no documented method of obtaining that.
Any ideas?
I have raised a support request with ARM/Keil for this, but they are more interested in questioning why I would want to do this, and offering alternative solutions. I am well aware of the alternatives, but in this case if this could be done it would be the cleanest solution.
We use the Rowley Crossworks compiler but had a similar issue - the heap was being set up in the compiler CRT startup code. Unfortunately the SDRAM wasn't initialised till the start of main() and so the heap wasn't set up properly. I worked around it by reinitialising the heap at the start of main(), after the SDRAM was initialised.
I looked at the assembler code that the compiler uses at startup to work out the structure - it wasn't hard. Subsequently I have also obtained the malloc/free source code from Rowley - perhaps you could ask Keil for their version?
One method I've used is to incorporate my own simple heap routines and take over the malloc()/calloc()/free() functions from the library.
The simple, custom heap routines had an interface that allowed adding blocks of memory to the heap.
The drawback to this (at least in my case) was that the custom heap routines were far less sophisticated than the built-in library routines and were probably more prone to fragmentation than the built-in routines. That wasn't a serious issue in that particular application. If you want the capabilities of the built-in library routines, you could probably have your malloc() defer to the built-in heap routines until it returns a failure, then try to allocate from your custom heap.
Another drawback is that I found it much more painful to make sure the custom routines were bug-free than I thought it would be at first glance, even though I wasn't trying to do anything too fancy (just a simple list of free blocks that could be split on allocation and coalesced when freed).
The one benefit to this technique is that it's pretty portable (as long as your custom routines are portable) and doesn't break if the toolchain changes it's internals. The only part that requires porting is taking over the malloc()/free() interface and making sure you get initialized early enough.
i am working on an application which calls the COM component of a partner's application. Ours is .Net, theirs isn't. I don't know much about COM; I know that the component we're calling is late-bound i.e.
obj As Object = CreateObject("THIRDPARTY.ThirdPartyObject")
We then call a method on this COM object (Option Strict Off in the head of the VB file):
obj.AMethod(ByVal Arg1 As Integer, ByVal Arg2 As Integer, ByVal Arg3 as Boolean)
I am a bit nonplussed that even though this call works, this overload doesn't exist in the COM interop .dll that is created if I instead add a reference to the COM server using Add Reference. The only available call to this method that it says is available is AMethod().
However, this in itself is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that this call works for a while, THEN throws a TargetParameterCountException after a few dozen calls have executed successfully.
I ask thee thus, StackOverflow:
What. The. Hell.
The only thing I can guess at is that the documentation for the COM component states that this method is executed synchronously - so therefore maybe whatever's responsible for throwing that exception is being blocked until some indeterminate point in time? Other than that, I'm completely stumped at this bizarre, and more importantly inconsistent behaviour.
edit #1:
More significant information that I've just remembered - from time to time the call throws an ExecutionEngineException instead. It only took one glance at the documentation to realise that this is VERY BAD. Doing a little bit of digging suggests to me that the late-binding call is causing stack corruption, crashing the entire CLR. Presumably this means that the runtime is shooting down bad calls (with TargetParameterCountException) some of the time and missing them (ExecutionEngineException) others.
edit #2:
Answering David Lively's questions:
The call with zero arguments that's currently in the code has been there for a long time. I haven't been able to get hold of a manual for the third party's COM implementation past two major revisions ago, so it's possible that they've withdrawn that signature from service
There is only one location that this method is called from
This is one desktop app calling another, on the same machine. Nothing fancy
The object is persisted throughout the scope of the user's interaction with the application, so there's never a new one created.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that there is indeed a bug in the implementation, as you suggest. The trouble with this vendor is that, when we report a bug, their response tends to follow the general form: i) deny there's a problem; ii) deny it's their problem; iii) refuse to fix it. These three steps tend to span a frustratingly long period of time.
No, it can't cause stack corruption. IDispatch::Invoke() is used to call the method, the arguments are packaged in an array. The stock implementation of IDispatch certainly would detect the argument mismatch, it uses the type library info to check. But it is conceivable that the COM server author implemented it himself. Imperfectly. It is something a C++ hacker might do, the stock implementation is dreadfully slow. The GC heap getting corrupted is the kind of thing that happens when imperfect code executes.
I haven't played with calling COM objects from VB in quite a while, but I'll take a wild guess:
I would expect an exception to be thrown if you're calling the object with too few or too many arguments, but it appears that's not the case. What is the real signature of the method you're calling?
In some languages and some situations, when you call a method, arguments are placed on the stack. If you place too many arguments, it's possible for the extraneous ones to remain on the stack after the method completes. This should cause lots of other problems, though.
Some possibilities/considerations:
The object is throwing this exception internally. This should be taken up with the author.
You're calling with too many parameters. If, as you said, the overload you're trying to call isn't published in the object's type library, you may actually be calling a different published method with a different signature. I'd REALLY expect a compiler error if this is the case.
Are your later calls taking place in the same part of your code, or is there a different execution branch that might be doing things a bit differently, and causing the error?
Are you running this from a desktop app/script, or a website? If a website, are you receiving a valid, expected response, or does the request hang as if an internal long-running process doesn't complete?
The object may be allocating and not releasing resources, which could cause undefined behavior when those resources are exhausted.
Are you releasing the object between calls, or is it recreated every time?
Also, re: your comments about late binding: the .CreateObject() method of instantiating a COM object is the normal, accepted way to do this. That shouldn't have anything to do with the issue. Based on the exceptions you listed, I'm strongly inclined to believe that there is an internal issue with the object.
Good luck.
OK, basically - false alarm. I've done it wrong - I've copied some code over from somewhere improperly and the thing I'm calling was never supposed to support that overload. What I find interesting is that the component didn't reject that late-bound call out of hand, but did everything it was supposed to do, at least initially.
As the title says, my app crashes when garbage collection is not enabled. The app pops up for a few seconds and then it just crashes, with nothing but this in the debugger console:
[Session started at 2009-08-17 15:03:20 -0600.]
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-966) (Tue Mar 10 02:43:13 UTC 2009)
Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i386-apple-darwin".sharedlibrary apply-load-rules all
Attaching to process 12535.
unable to read unknown load command 0x22
unable to read unknown load command 0x22
unable to read unknown load command 0x22
unable to read unknown load command 0x22
I don't know why its happening. I think its probably a memory management issue. I used AnalysisTool (front-end to Clang Static Analyzer) to check for leaks and memory management issues, and I fixed the issues it found. Running the app through Instruments however reveals a memory leak around the time it starts. I have no idea where this leak is coming from...With garbage collection enabled the app runs fine, but Instruments still finds a leak.
Source code is available upon request
Thanks
Since the error says it occurs when calling [CFArray countByEnumeratingWithState:objects:count:] on a deallocated object, that gives you a fairly good idea of where to look. That method is part of part of NSFastEnumeration, so unless you're calling that method directly (highly unlikely), it is being invoked from within a for (... in ...) loop on your array object. If you can figure out where that is, you can set a breakpoint on (or just before) the for loop and check whether your object has been deallocated. The most likely cause of the problem is failing to properly retain the array, and it is probably released by the run loop draining an NSAutoReleasePool.
XCode has a bunch of memory profiling support built in - turning those on might reveal more information. I found these links particularly helpful:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2004/tn2124.html#SECMALLOC
http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?NSZombieEnabled
http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?DebuggingTechniques
http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?DebuggingAutorelease
You're probably releasing an object when you shouldn't, then sending it a subsequent message. unfortunately, the crash (where the subsequent message is sent) isn't where the problem is - it's where you are releasing (or worse, deallocing) where you shouldn't. The clang static analyser isn't foolproof, and blindingly following the advice won't necessarily have helped.
If it crashes after showing something for a few seconds, it may indicate that something that needed to be retained was released by the autorelease pool at the end of the run loop. Have a look at places where you assign variables with objects returned by other methods. Any method without "new", "copy", "alloc" (there's a few others I think) in the name usually indicates that you'll need to retain it if you want to keep using it.
It could also mean that you have released something that you shouldn't have and it was released again by the autorelease pool. Have a look at all the places you are releasing objects and make sure that you are only releasing objects that you have either retained yourself, or releasing objects returned by methods that explicitly state ownership, such as "new", "alloc", "copy", "mutableCopy" and so on.