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Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:12:50 -0400
From: Joe Buehler <jbuehler AT spirentcom DOT com>
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To: rms AT gnu DOT org
CC: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>, emacs_user AT hotmail DOT com, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com,
   emacs-devel AT gnu DOT org
Subject: Re: is there a cygwin maintainer for gnu emacs?
References: <BAY107-F29E79AE5E6EDDEC1D619EBF8BA0 AT phx DOT gbl>	<42F9E707 DOT 1030302 AT spirentcom DOT com> <ull39oevh DOT fsf AT gnu DOT org> <E1E3E1X-0003e9-Kh AT fencepost DOT gnu DOT org>
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Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>     When GC encounters a fatal inconsistency in the Emacs data structures,
>     it is generally unsafe to say anything, since that could easily cause
>     a nested fatal signal.
> 
> It would also not be very useful, since any info we could put into
> such an error message could be quickly discovered by a little
> investigation with a debugger.

I have to disgree with that, it's the instant gut ueber-programmer
reaction to such problems.   Currently the user just gets an exiting
emacs, leaving me with no clue as to why emacs exited.  I then have to
provide instructions to the user as to how to run the $*&$%#!!! debugger
to help me figure out what happened.  The debugger that he may or may
not have installed, and may or may not even be ABLE to install.

A simple last-ditch printf that says "corruption detected during
garbage collection, see you later" would be a much easier way to get an
initial handle on what the heck the problem is.  As it was, without any
message, my initial suspicion was a SEGV or similar, which would be
much more likely to be a Cygwin problem than an emacs problem.
-- 
Joe Buehler


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