Re: caGateway crashes / use of *MustSucceed functions

[Michael Davidsaver <mdavidsaver@bnl.gov>]

On 5/18/2011 8:51 AM, Benjamin Franksen wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 18, 2011, Dirk Zimoch wrote:
> > I got several caGateway crashes with the error message:
> > "errSymBld callocMustSucceed failed count 256 size 4"
> > Obviously it has some memory problems.
> >
> > But is it really a good idea to abort a server only because of (probably
> > temporary ?) resource problems? I think no.
> I think we all agree on that!
+1

> > I would even go so far to
> > say that the whole idea of the *MustSucceed functions is wrong. Many
> > parts of EPICS are meant to run continuously as servers. Aborting the
> > program when something goes wrong is probably the worst thing one can
> > do. Thus I would consider any call of a *MustSucceed function during
> > run-time a design flaw of the program.
> Right.
>
> > (It is probably a different
> > question if this makes sense during startup.)
> I am fairly sure that this is exactly what *MustSucceed was invented for.
How about a nice big warning in cantProceed.h?  Something to the effect 
of "Don't use this unless you understand the consequences for your users".
Personally, I'm inclined to deprecate them just to remove the temptation 
to use them at runtime.  I doubt there are any cases where they are more 
then a convenience.
> > Therefore I propose to remove all *MustSucceed functions from future
> > EPICS releases and allow and require proper error handling by the
> > application.
> The use of these functions during startup is legitimate. Using them during
> run-time is an error. The error in this case seems to be in the function
> errSymBld which should not use callocMustSucceed.
See attached patch which adds a warning when *llocMustSucceed is called 
after iocInit().  For some fun try this with the softIoc executable.  
Things to try: Just press enter at the ioc shell, and do a caget.

Michael

diff --git a/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.c b/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.c
index 832622a..e84c3e7 100644
--- a/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.c
+++ b/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.c
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@
 #include "cantProceed.h"
 #include "epicsThread.h"
 
+static int warnMust = 0;
+
 epicsShareFunc void * callocMustSucceed(size_t count, size_t size, const char *msg)
 {
     void * mem = NULL;
@@ -33,6 +35,10 @@ epicsShareFunc void * callocMustSucceed(size_t count, size_t size, const char *m
             epicsThreadSuspendSelf();
         }
     }
+    if(warnMust) {
+        errlogPrintf("Warning: callocMustSucceed(%lu, %lu) - %s - Called after init\n",
+                (unsigned long)count, (unsigned long)size, msg);
+    }
     return mem;
 }
 
@@ -49,6 +55,10 @@ epicsShareFunc void * mallocMustSucceed(size_t size, const char *msg)
             epicsThreadSuspendSelf();
         }
     }
+    if(warnMust) {
+        errlogPrintf("Warning: mallocMustSucceed(%lu) - %s - Called after init\n",
+            (unsigned long)size, msg);
+    }
     return mem;
 }
 
@@ -68,3 +78,9 @@ epicsShareFunc void cantProceed(const char *msg, ...)
     while (1)
         epicsThreadSuspendSelf();
 }
+
+epicsShareFunc void warnMustSucceed(void)
+{
+    errlogPrintf("> warnMustSucceed <\n");
+    warnMust = 1;
+}
diff --git a/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.h b/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.h
index 9f4dc1c..697fd10 100644
--- a/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.h
+++ b/src/libCom/misc/cantProceed.h
@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ epicsShareFunc void cantProceed(const char *errorMessage, ...);
 epicsShareFunc void * callocMustSucceed(size_t count, size_t size, const char *errorMessage);
 epicsShareFunc void * mallocMustSucceed(size_t size, const char *errorMessage);
 
+/* Call this once */
+epicsShareFunc void warnMustSucceed(void);
+
 #ifdef __cplusplus
 }
 #endif
diff --git a/src/misc/iocInit.c b/src/misc/iocInit.c
index 3100ffd..56cf6bc 100644
--- a/src/misc/iocInit.c
+++ b/src/misc/iocInit.c
@@ -151,6 +151,7 @@ int iocBuild(void)
 
     iocState = iocBuilt;
     initHookAnnounce(initHookAfterIocBuilt);
+
     return 0;
 }
 
@@ -179,6 +180,7 @@ int iocRun(void)
         "IOC restarted");
     iocState = iocRunning;
     initHookAnnounce(initHookAfterIocRunning);
+    warnMustSucceed();
     return 0;
 }