The file below makes my copy of POV-Ray stop executing.

And then "Dr. Watson" in Windows NT 4.0 (Build 1381: Service Pack 4)
claims that there has been a program fault in pwengine.exe

The PC has an AMD K6 200 MHz MMX processor and 128 MB RAM.

I am using plain POV-Ray v3.1g.watcom.win32 (Pentium II optimized)

Can someone else please also try to run the file below and tell me
about the result?

Regards

Tor Olav

mailto:tor### [at] hotmailcom
http://www.crosswinds.net/~tok/tokrays.html

//-----------------------------------------------------

#version 3.1;

#macro TestMacro(MM)

  #local QQ = array[3]
  #local QQ = MM

  QQ

#end

#declare NN = array[3] { 1, 2, 3 }
#declare TestArray = array[3]
#declare TestArray = TestMacro(TestMacro(NN))

//-----------------------------------------------------

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Tor Olav Kristensen <tor### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> The file below makes my copy of POV-Ray stop executing.
>
> And then "Dr. Watson" in Windows NT 4.0 (Build 1381: Service Pack 4)
> claims that there has been a program fault in pwengine.exe
>
> The PC has an AMD K6 200 MHz MMX processor and 128 MB RAM.
>
> I am using plain POV-Ray v3.1g.watcom.win32 (Pentium II optimized)
>
> Can someone else please also try to run the file below and tell me
> about the result?

The code you posted does not cause problems on my DOS versions of POV-Ray
3.1a or 3.1e.  However, the file does crash on my copy of 3.1d.  Changing
the #local directives within the macro to global #declare's seems to fix the
problem.

As to the cause, I can only suspect a compiler problem (or incompatibility
with your system).  I compiled my copies of 3.1a and 3.1e for myself (using
DJGPP), whereas the official copy of 3.1d (like your copy) was compiled by a
WatCom compiler.

Post a reply to this message

Thank you very much for replying!

I'm starting to get really frustrated about my array-macro-problems.

Chris Colefax wrote:

> The code you posted does not cause problems on my DOS versions of POV-Ray
> 3.1a or 3.1e.  However, the file does crash on my copy of 3.1d.  Changing
> the #local directives within the macro to global #declare's seems to fix the
> problem.
>
> As to the cause, I can only suspect a compiler problem (or incompatibility
> with your system).  I compiled my copies of 3.1a and 3.1e for myself (using
> DJGPP), whereas the official copy of 3.1d (like your copy) was compiled by a
> WatCom compiler.

Do you recommend that I use some other compiled copy of POV-Ray?
Is there any non official compiled copies available?

Or should I try to compile one myself?

Is DJGPP capable of compiling for Windows NT (and Windows 98) and
would you recommend it?

And if it shows up to really be a compiler problem, do you think there will be
made any new official copies of v3.1g ? ... Soon ?

Regards

Tor Olav

mailto:tor### [at] hotmailcom
http://www.crosswinds.net/~tok/tokrays.html

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Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:

> And if it shows up to really be a compiler problem, do you think there will be
> made any new official copies of v3.1g ? ... Soon ?

It crashes here on POV-Ray for Windows v3.1g watcom  running on my
Win98 platform. As far as new a new v3.1g the answer is no. If
the POV-Team were going to release another bug fix for POV-Ray v3.1
it would be assigned a new revision # such as v3.1h. Since the
POV-Team is working hard on POV-Ray v3.5 I doubt they will be releasing
any more bug fix versions between then and now.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Tor Olav Kristensen <tor### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Thank you very much for replying!
>
> I'm starting to get really frustrated about my array-macro-problems.
> Do you recommend that I use some other compiled copy of POV-Ray?
> Is there any non official compiled copies available?
>
> Or should I try to compile one myself?
>
> Is DJGPP capable of compiling for Windows NT (and Windows 98) and
> would you recommend it?
>
> And if it shows up to really be a compiler problem, do you think there
will be
> made any new official copies of v3.1g ? ... Soon ?

Last time I checked there was some talk about DJGPP for Windows - try
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ for more information.

What to do about fixing the problem really depends on what you plan to do
with the finished project that uses the code.  If you want to distribute a
generalised macro file then you might have to settle for a programming
compromise (i.e. no local variables).  If it's for your own use and you
don't fancy using a DJGPP DOS compile you might have to find an alternative
compile.

As regards fixing the problem in future versions, it might be helpful if
others here could test the code on their systems first.  This should help to
narrow down the problem before you set about posting an official bug-report
(after which I might hand over to Ken, who I'm sure can provide details on
how this should be done...!).

Post a reply to this message

Chris Colefax wrote:

> As regards fixing the problem in future versions, it might be helpful if
> others here could test the code on their systems first.  This should help to
> narrow down the problem before you set about posting an official bug-report
> (after which I might hand over to Ken, who I'm sure can provide details on
> how this should be done...!).

 As far as this being a verifiable bug I will go by Ron Parker's philosophy
that anything that crashes the program is a bug and should be reported.
It is clear that a good short example has been provided that can reproducibly
cause the crash to happen on more than one machine. The next step is to
hopefully get one of the programmers to step in and offer an explanation
as to why it is happening. Even if is does not get a comment by one of
the programmers the offending code and details of the problem should
be submitted to povray.bugreports on this server. The bug report should
mention that the bug has be confirmed by a couple of different people
here in .general. The POV-Team can track down and fix the problem from
there.

If any help is needed in posting or wording the bug report let me know
and I'll do what I can to help.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

Post a reply to this message

Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
>  As far as this being a verifiable bug I will go by Ron Parker's
philosophy
> that anything that crashes the program is a bug and should be reported.
> It is clear that a good short example has been provided that can
reproducibly
> cause the crash to happen on more than one machine. The next step is to
> hopefully get one of the programmers to step in and offer an explanation
> as to why it is happening. Even if is does not get a comment by one of
> the programmers the offending code and details of the problem should
> be submitted to povray.bugreports on this server. The bug report should
> mention that the bug has be confirmed by a couple of different people
> here in .general. The POV-Team can track down and fix the problem from
> there.
>
> If any help is needed in posting or wording the bug report let me know
> and I'll do what I can to help.

My only concern is that this looks to be a compiler issue rather than a
POV-Ray source code bug.  This was my reason for requesting some further
testing. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to test a WatCom compiler with
various debugging and optimisation settings - are there any copies of WatCom
compiled POV out there that don't crash with the code posted at the top of
this thread?

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It doesn't crash my Solaris compile of povray. It just says:

test.pov:8: error: No objects in scene.


-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
>   It doesn't crash my Solaris compile of povray. It just says:
> 
> test.pov:8: error: No objects in scene.
> 

Same is true for my IRIX 6.3 compile.

Marc

-- 
Marc Schimmler

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Crash with watcom version 3.1g win.
No crash with 3.1g msvc win and megapov, but error: out of memory. 
Cannot allocate -2116968036 bytes for array.

Ingo

-- 
Photography: http://members.home.nl/ingoogni/
Pov-Ray    : http://members.home.nl/seed7/

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