From owner-freebsd-current  Thu Aug  6 02:52:23 1998
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA05613
          for freebsd-current-outgoing; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:52:23 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG)
Received: from implode.root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA05608
          for <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:52:21 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from root@implode.root.com)
Received: from implode.root.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by implode.root.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA26488;
	Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:48:58 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199808060948.CAA26488@implode.root.com>
To: Mark Huizer <freebsd@xaa.iae.nl>
cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: memory leaks in libc 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 06 Aug 1998 10:08:59 +0200."
             <19980806100859.A312@xaa.iae.nl> 
From: David Greenman <dg@root.com>
Reply-To: dg@root.com
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 02:48:58 -0700
Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

>Hi, a nice user of ours pointed me to the fact that various functions
>like setenv, putenv etc leak memory like crazy. To mention a very
>simple example:
>
>main(){while(1){setenv("A","AA",1);setenv("A","A",1);}}
>
>while consume all memory within short periods of time (see setenv.c for 
>the reason).
>
>Is this wellknown? I think it is bad, and would like to fix it

   The problem with fixing setenv() is that you don't know if a pointer was
malloced, allocated from the env area above the stack, points to read-only
text, points to a static data buffer, etc. There really is no way to know
for sure, so you can't free the memory.

-DG

David Greenman
Co-founder/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message