unexplained cores after compiles

[Michael "Ford" Ditto]

In article <1667 at umbc3.UMBC.EDU> alex at umbc3.umbc.edu.UMBC.EDU (Alex S. Crain) writes:
>In article <5977 at cbmvax.UUCP> ditto at cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) writes:
>>I have seen it happen on the Unix PC when compiling gcc, because of the
>>way it compiles a program like "genoutput" and then runs it to generate
>>some more code.
>
>	I had attributed this to a bug in make, in that make is execing
>genoutput with too many open file descriptors, and genoutput being unable
>to cope. Usually when this happens, genoutput spits a bunch of stuff out
>to stderr before it dies, the output being what should have gone to stdout.

I just did a simple test, and make doesn't seem to leave any file
descriptors other than 0,1,2 open in forked processes.  It wasn't a very
thorough test, but it did verify that 3,4,5,6,7,8 were all available with
the simple Makefile I used.

I think a program with a page or two full of garbage might do just about
anything before it died, so the 1>&2 phenomenon is somewhat believable.
-- 
					-=] Ford [=-

"The number of Unix installations	(In Real Life:  Mike Ditto)
has grown to 10, with more expected."	ford at kenobi.cts.com
- The Unix Programmer's Manual,		...!sdcsvax!crash!kenobi!ford
  2nd Edition, June, 1972.		ditto at cbmvax.commodore.com