Memory errors in pango, thoughts on making it optional?

Al Hooton <[email protected]> Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:40:21 -0800
Newsgroups gmane.comp.scigraphica.gtkextra
Message-ID <[email protected]>
	Adrian, Everyone:

	I've been using the Valgrind memory-checking tool
(http://valgrind.kde.org/) on my gtkextra/gtk app.  For those who are
not familiar with it, Valgrind is a *great* tool for finding memory
overwriting bugs, illegal access, and memory leaks.  It's got it's
limitations (it's slow), but the things it tells you are very
informative.

	Like: I'm seeing a *lot* of memory problems down in Pango.  Enough to
be disturbing.  I'm working on a Kiosk-like app, and I need this thing
to be reliable for weeks/months at a time.  Memory leaks or other memory
issues are going to keep me from even getting started with deploying
this app.

	Adrian: I know that going to Pango is/was important in
gtkextra/gtkextra-2, and I don't disagree with any of the reasons for
going that direction.  However, I'm concerned that the memory issues in
Pango are going to make gtkextra-2 essentially unusable for any apps
that need to keep running for more than a few minutes/hours at a time.
I assume the Pango folks will get this stuff cleaned up over time, but
that may take a while.  When I leave my app running for periods longer
than just a few hours, I will often get strange, seemingly random
segfaults.  Based on what I'm seeing from the Valgrind tool, it appears
that incorrect memory accesses down in Pango are causing the trouble.

	So, the question: is it possible to make the use of Pango optional at
compile time in gtkextra-2?  For me, if I can't figure out a way around
the illegal memory access issues in Pango (like avoiding them altogether
for now), it may force me off of gtkextra-2.  I *really* don't want to
have that happen.  I like gtkextra-2.  Besides which, I have a lot of
time invested that I would rather not throw away by having to look for a
different solution.

	Thoughts on making Pango optional?

	Thanks!

- Al





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