Re: alloca() causing SEGFAULT in gnu-make

[Paul Eggert]

> From: <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:27:20 +0530 (IST)

>  I got a segfault while using 'make' to zip close to 78,000 Java class
> files. Memory allocation was failing during dependency calculations...

> $> make -v
> GNU Make version 3.76.1

You should start by upgrading to GNU make 3.79.1.

> $> uname -a
> SunOS ap555sun 5.6 Generic_105181-16 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-80
> 
> The segmentation fault was happening when  alloca() was failing to
> allocate enough memory on the stack. ( I need close to 8MB for the 78000
> filenames )

On Solaris 2.6, the default soft stack limit is 8 MB.  You need to
increase the limit, e.g. the command "ulimit -S -s 65536" increases
the limit to 64 MB (assuming the Bourne shell).

Come to think of it, GNU make should increase the soft limit for you,
just as GCC does.  I'll send in a patch to do that.