Does dbx foul-up on programs that write to pipes?

[Jitendra Apte]

I have C a program that writes to a file descriptor got by doing a popen(3S).
The pipe is read by the program compress(1).  When I use dbx on my program,
it comes back with :

signal PIPE (broken pipe) in write at <_your_favorite_location_>

This does not happen when I run the program outside of dbx. I looked at the
status of the "compress" using ps(1), and it seems to die a little while after
the dbx starts it up. None of this happens when I run my program directly
(without using dbx). ie. if I run my program directly, writes to the pipe do
not fail and the compress is alive when needed.

Does anybody know why this happens? Please inform me at the following email
address. I will summarize to the net if there are many replies, or if I get
many requests for a copy of the answer.

Thank you.
Jitendra (apte at cs.duke.edu | ...!mcnc!duke!apte)

(Internet) apte at cs.duke.edu; (UUCP) {decvax|ihnp4|allegra}!duke!apte
"Let us save the kid from abortion, so that he can grow up to steal bread,
 rob banks and murder people. Then we can kill him in the electric chair".