From: Elia Pinto Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:22:01 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add MALLOC_CHECK_ and MALLOC_PERTURB_ libc env to the test suite for detecting heap corruption Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <7vzk4otmwb.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> Ok. Please use the patch that you have already queued in the ep integration branch. Thank you 2012/9/17, Junio C Hamano : > Elia Pinto writes: > >>> - That "165" thing I mentioned earlier. >> >> Thank you so much for the comments, that's fine. A single >> consideration for MALLOC_PERTURB. >> >> You can use any value between 1..255 for MALLOC_PERTURB_ >> That chooses the byte that glibc will use to memset all freed buffers. >> In general it is defined as >> >> export MALLOC_PERTURB_=$(($RANDOM % 255 + 1)) >> >> (as drepper pointed out http://udrepper.livejournal.com/11429.html) > > Drepper never recommends RANDOM there. > >> Using a random value is slightly better than using a fixed one >> in case your fixed value is someday just the right/wrong value to mask >> a problem. > > Quite the contrary. When you use a fixed pattern, it is easy which > other pieces of memory has uninitailized contents. When you use a > random value, you sometimes get an error and sometimes the test > mysteriously pass, which does not help debugging. > > openSUSE folks seem to use a fixed value for this exact reason of > repeatability of tests. > > http://jaegerandi.blogspot.com/2012/01/finding-subtile-malloc-bugs.html > >> So OK per the original expression? > > No. > > I am not convinced 165 is the perfect value, but I am fairly certain > any fixed value is better than using a random to deliberately worsen > repeatability of the tests. > -- Inviato dal mio dispositivo mobile