C/C++: About __FILE__ & __LINE__ Macros

__FILE__ & __LINE__ macros specified in C & C++ standards are useful to provide some debugging information, during run-time. During pre-processing stage of compilation, __FILE__ macro expands to the name of the file being compiled, in the form of a C string constant; and __LINE__ expands to the line number of the source file that is being compiled, in the form of an integer constant.Run-time anomalies are not uncommon in production environment. Some developers check for pre-, post-conditions for a block of code with the help of assertions....

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My Favorite Music V

Here comes another long list of my favorite singles. Previous posts of this series are at: I | II | III | IV3 Doors Down - Let Me GoAbba - Dancing QueenAce Of Base - The SignAerosmith - AngelAha - Take On MeAlannah Myles - Black VelvetAnita Baker - Giving You The Best I GotBeck - E-proBee Gees - Night FeverBelinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On EarthBette Midler - Wind Beneath My WingsBlondie - Heart of GlassBlondie - One Way or AnotherBlues Traveler - Run AroundBobby Brown - Every Little StepBobby McFerrin - Dont Worry Be HappyBon Jovi - Livin...

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Solaris: pthread_attr_getstack() broken?

Apparently there seems to be some confusion1 2 around when the structure pthread_attr_t gets updated. In one of the above threads, it appears that the initiator believes that the attribute structure must be updated at least when a thread was created by calling pthread_create().Let's start with an example:(Taken from: pthread_attr_getstack(), pthread_attr_getstackaddr() thread -- for simplicity, I just removed the error checking code)#include <pthread.h>#include <stdio.h>#include <unistd.h>#include <errno.h>#include <stdlib.h>void*...

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Handling SIGFPE

Couple of days back I was asked to look into simple C code that tries to get into division by zero problem deliberately. Signal handler was installed, and there's some code to catch signal SIGFPE (Floating Point Exception), and to print simple message when the relevant code in the signal handler is called. Here's the code (courtesy: Dheeraj):% cat fpe.c#include <sys/types.h>#include <signal.h>#include <stdio.h>#include <stdlib.h>#include <limits.h>void signal_handler (int signo, siginfo_t *si, void *data) { ...

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Sun Studio: Investigating memory leaks with dbx

Some time back I have had a blog entry with the title Sun Studio: Investigating memory leaks with Collector/Analyzer. It is possible to check memory leaks {along with memory use and memory access checking} with the Sun Studio debugger tool, dbx, as well. This blog post attempts to show the steps involved in generating the memory leak report, with a simple example (taken from Collector/Analyzer example).Runtime checking with dbxdbx uses the word runtime checking (RTC) for detecting runtime errors, like memory leaks and memory access errors. Extensive...

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Dynamic TSB support in Solaris 10

Recently at our partner (ISV, short for Independent Software Vendor) site, I was asked to look into some unexpected {huge} performance improvement {compared to Solaris 9} in running their application on a UltraSPARC based server running Solaris 10. The application was compiled/built on Solaris 8. Although Solaris 10 has many improvements, the mileage of the customer applications vary depending on the nature of the application being run. The application under discussion is a userland, CPU intensive financial application, written in C++. Apparently...

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