Re: Breaking the 10-limit : Problems/Questions for Windows build

Hi, Mart, and all.

> I only read your patch, I didn't actually test it (will do later), but I think 
> there is at least one problem with it.
> 
> It is about the function linuxModLoad. What should it do? It should load the 
> module and return if it was succesfull. So, at some point this function is 
> called. Then the caller only knows if loading the module was succesfull or 
> not. So it must obtain the data of the loaded module on another way. This is 
> done by an assumption: modules are always placed in front of the list. So, by 
> dereferencing the module list, it gets the module which has just been loaded.
> 
> But as far as I can see, you break that assumption. If a module is already 
> loaded, nothing happends. 

You are right.

> Because raceinit.cpp in raceengineclient use that 
> assumption, it will assign the wrong robot to a car, and proberbly causes 
> crashes in some cases.

I had not noticed this assumption, and I have not checked robot/car associations
: so I must go on working !

> Of course, there also is an (easy) solution: if a module is already loaded, 
> move it to the front.

Good solution !

> It is possible that one library can be loaded by several sopath's. Think about 
> a relative path and a absolute path. I don't see any circumstanses where this 
> could happen in Torcs. And even if it happends, it will work the same way as 
> it works now. I think documenting this assumption is a good idea.

Your are right : I check if a module has already been loaded only by comparing
the stored sopath. And nothing guarantees that the stored sopath is the absolute
normalized user-expanded ... path of the library. So the check is not perfect !
So, 2 solutions : document or fix !

> I see that you check if calloc was succesfull. It means that Torcs doesn't 
> directly crash if the computer is out of memory. Is this a good thing?

I've always been thinking that a brutal crash whithout any explanation
is NEVER a solution ... So in this case, I printf a message on the console,
and return to the caller ... But you may argue that :
- the message is only seeable in debug mode and if torcs is run
   in a console
- Torcs will soon crash because other m/callocs are not checked ...
But isn't it a (very small) improvement, yet ?

Thank for your help, Mart !

Cheers,

Jean-Philippe.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference 
Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. 
Use priority code J8TL2D2. 
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone