*BSD News Article 13528


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.apps
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!merlin!mel.dit.csiro.au!its.csiro.au!dmssyd.syd.dms.CSIRO.AU!metro!ipso!runxtsa!bde
From: bde@runx.oz.au (Bruce Evans)
Subject: Re: Ghostscript 2.5.2 dies with floating point exceptions
Message-ID: <1993Mar28.121058.15918@runx.oz.au>
Keywords: Ghostscript floating point exception
Organization: RUNX Un*x Timeshare.  Sydney, Australia.
References: <cproto.733031902@marsh> <C4LB1I.3oy@bull.nl>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 12:10:58 GMT
Lines: 18

In article <C4LB1I.3oy@bull.nl> jos@bull.nl (Jos Vos) writes:
>...
>I have a similar problem on my Bull System V system!  When I first
>reported the problem, I was the only one having a problem.
>...
>>2. Has anybody fixed the delayed delivery of SIGFPEs?
>
>I now just ignore the SIGFPE and print the # signals when the programs stops:

This is not likely to help on an x86 system.  The x87 stack pointer will
probably become invalid, and a cascade of errors will result.  Things work
best if SIGFPE handlers never return (they should longjmp).  To make things
work better for dumb signal handlers that return, the kernel would have to
mask x87 exceptions and re-execute the offending instruction to get the
default error actions (e.g., infinity + infinity = infinity).  But this
would interfere with clever signal handlers.
-- 
Bruce Evans  bde@runx.oz.au