[mp-implementors] Re: [tex-live] mpost segfault

[Thomas Esser]

Hi Taco,

> Using texexec is the normal|advised way to run mpost with
> metafun.mem preloaded, sop this solution will work just
> fine in practise. The only bug on Hans' side  is that he
> swapped the if/else branch so that the wrong case was
> selected.
> 
> Why do you feel that metafun should use the mpost settings
> instead of its own, btw? To me that sounds like you have
> fmtutil set up backwards.

    From: Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl>
    Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 17:56:41 +0200
    To: Gerben Wierda <sherlock at rna.nl>
    Cc: Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>,
       Thomas Esser <te at informatik.uni-hannover.de>
    Subject: Re: Mpost crashes when run from texexec

    At 05:23 PM 4/9/2002 +0200, Gerben Wierda wrote:
    >On Tuesday, April 9, 2002, at 04:22 , Hans Hagen wrote:
    >
    >>The last postings of fabrice for windows, mp crashed on win too, maybe 
    >>this has to do with the latest patch? Looks like a mem overflow or so 
    >>(metafun is larger than mpost, but not that much). It also crashes 
    >>outside texexec.
    >
    >No, this cannot be the case, because the crash only depends on how 
    >metafun.mem has been created. When it has been created using fmtutil, the 
    >crash occurs. When it has been created with texexec --make, the crash does 
    >not occur.


    but texexec generates mems and calls metafun with the same --progname=mpost 
    directive,

    Hans

I have not heard anything else until then, so I have assumed that
--progname=mpost is what "context" does. If you are right, this has been
changed without telling me (so I could not adjust fmtutil).

So, gentlemen, just tell me what you want, I can easily follow this
in fmtutil. The only important thing is that *all* ways to generate
formats use the same array sites (fmtutil should not be different from
texexec in that respect) and that all *uses* of a format use these array
settings, too.

So, should the metafun format use -progname=mpost?
If yes,
  * change context so that the format is generated with -progname=mpost
  * remove the metafun settings from texmf.cnf
If no,
  * remove -progname=mpost from context
  * I'll change fmtutil

All I am for, is that things match and that they are compatible. Changes
(e.g. dropping an esstial thing such as passing -progname=mpost) should
be communicated to everyone involved.

Maybe, I am not involved?

Thomas