3 Bugs can be reported on the help mailing list
4 sbcl-help@lists.sourceforge.net
5 or on the development mailing list
6 sbcl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
8 Please include enough information in a bug report that someone reading
9 it can reproduce the problem, i.e. don't write
10 Subject: apparent bug in PRINT-OBJECT (or *PRINT-LENGTH*?)
11 PRINT-OBJECT doesn't seem to work with *PRINT-LENGTH*. Is this a bug?
13 Subject: apparent bug in PRINT-OBJECT (or *PRINT-LENGTH*?)
14 In sbcl-1.2.3 running under OpenBSD 4.5 on my Alpha box, when
15 I compile and load the file
16 (DEFSTRUCT (FOO (:PRINT-OBJECT (LAMBDA (X Y)
17 (LET ((*PRINT-LENGTH* 4))
20 then at the command line type
22 the program loops endlessly instead of printing the object.
27 There is also some information on bugs in the manual page and
28 in the TODO file. Eventually more such information may move here.
30 The gaps in the number sequence belong to old bug descriptions which
31 have gone away (typically because they were fixed, but sometimes for
32 other reasons, e.g. because they were moved elsewhere).
36 DEFSTRUCT almost certainly should overwrite the old LAYOUT information
37 instead of just punting when a contradictory structure definition
38 is loaded. As it is, if you redefine DEFSTRUCTs in a way which
39 changes their layout, you probably have to rebuild your entire
40 program, even if you know or guess enough about the internals of
41 SBCL to wager that this (undefined in ANSI) operation would be safe.
43 3: "type checking of structure slots"
45 ANSI specifies that a type mismatch in a structure slot
46 initialization value should not cause a warning.
48 This one might not be fixed for a while because while we're big
49 believers in ANSI compatibility and all, (1) there's no obvious
50 simple way to do it (short of disabling all warnings for type
51 mismatches everywhere), and (2) there's a good portable
52 workaround, and (3) by their own reasoning, it looks as though
53 ANSI may have gotten it wrong. ANSI justifies this specification
55 The restriction against issuing a warning for type mismatches
56 between a slot-initform and the corresponding slot's :TYPE
57 option is necessary because a slot-initform must be specified
58 in order to specify slot options; in some cases, no suitable
60 However, in SBCL (as in CMU CL or, for that matter, any compiler
61 which really understands Common Lisp types) a suitable default
62 does exist, in all cases, because the compiler understands the
63 concept of functions which never return (i.e. has return type NIL).
64 Thus, as a portable workaround, you can use a call to some
65 known-never-to-return function as the default. E.g.
67 (BAR (ERROR "missing :BAR argument")
68 :TYPE SOME-TYPE-TOO-HAIRY-TO-CONSTRUCT-AN-INSTANCE-OF))
70 (DECLAIM (FTYPE (FUNCTION () NIL) MISSING-ARG))
71 (DEFUN REQUIRED-ARG () ; workaround for SBCL non-ANSI slot init typing
72 (ERROR "missing required argument"))
74 (BAR (REQUIRED-ARG) :TYPE TRICKY-TYPE-OF-SOME-SORT)
75 (BLETCH (REQUIRED-ARG) :TYPE TRICKY-TYPE-OF-SOME-SORT)
76 (N-REFS-SO-FAR 0 :TYPE (INTEGER 0)))
77 Such code should compile without complaint and work correctly either
78 on SBCL or on any other completely compliant Common Lisp system.
80 b: &AUX argument in a boa-constructor without a default value means
81 "do not initilize this slot" and does not cause type error. But
82 an error may be signalled at read time and it would be good if
88 The "compiling top-level form:" output ought to be condensed.
89 Perhaps any number of such consecutive lines ought to turn into a
90 single "compiling top-level forms:" line.
93 It would be nice if the
95 (during macroexpansion)
96 said what macroexpansion was at fault, e.g.
98 (during macroexpansion of IN-PACKAGE,
99 during macroexpansion of DEFFOO)
102 (I *think* this is a bug. It certainly seems like strange behavior. But
103 the ANSI spec is scary, dark, and deep.. -- WHN)
104 (FORMAT NIL "~,1G" 1.4) => "1. "
105 (FORMAT NIL "~3,1G" 1.4) => "1. "
108 Sometimes (SB-EXT:QUIT) fails with
109 Argh! maximum interrupt nesting depth (4096) exceeded, exiting
110 Process inferior-lisp exited abnormally with code 1
111 I haven't noticed a repeatable case of this yet.
114 The printer doesn't report closures very well. This is true in
118 #<Closure Over Function "DEFUN STRUCTURE-SLOT-ACCESSOR" {134D1A1}>
119 It would be nice to make closures have a settable name slot,
120 and make things like DEFSTRUCT and FLET, which create closures,
121 set helpful values into this slot.
124 And as long as we're wishing, it would be awfully nice if INSPECT could
125 also report on closures, telling about the values of the bound variables.
128 The compiler assumes that any time a function of declared FTYPE
129 doesn't signal an error, its arguments were of the declared type.
130 E.g. compiling and loading
131 (DECLAIM (OPTIMIZE (SAFETY 3)))
132 (DEFUN FACTORIAL (X) (GAMMA (1+ X)))
134 (DECLAIM (FTYPE (FUNCTION (UNSIGNED-BYTE)) FACTORIAL))
136 (COND ((> (FACTORIAL X) 1.0E6)
137 (FORMAT T "too big~%"))
139 (FORMAT T "exactly ~S~%" (FACTORIAL X)))
141 (FORMAT T "approximately ~S~%" (FACTORIAL X)))))
144 will cause the INTEGERP case to be selected, giving bogus output a la
146 This violates the "declarations are assertions" principle.
147 According to the ANSI spec, in the section "System Class FUNCTION",
148 this is a case of "lying to the compiler", but the lying is done
149 by the code which calls FACTORIAL with non-UNSIGNED-BYTE arguments,
150 not by the unexpectedly general definition of FACTORIAL. In any case,
151 "declarations are assertions" means that lying to the compiler should
152 cause an error to be signalled, and should not cause a bogus
153 result to be returned. Thus, the compiler should not assume
154 that arbitrary functions check their argument types. (It might
155 make sense to add another flag (CHECKED?) to DEFKNOWN to
156 identify functions which *do* check their argument types.)
157 (Also, verify that the compiler handles declared function
158 return types as assertions.)
161 The definitions of SIGCONTEXT-FLOAT-REGISTER and
162 %SET-SIGCONTEXT-FLOAT-REGISTER in x86-vm.lisp say they're not
163 supported on FreeBSD because the floating point state is not saved,
164 but at least as of FreeBSD 4.0, the floating point state *is* saved,
165 so they could be supported after all. Very likely
166 SIGCONTEXT-FLOATING-POINT-MODES could now be supported, too.
169 a slew of floating-point-related errors reported by Peter Van Eynde
171 c: Many expressions generate floating infinity on x86/Linux:
176 PVE's regression tests want them to raise errors. sbcl-0.7.0.5
177 on x86/Linux generates the infinities instead. That might or
178 might not be conforming behavior, but it's also inconsistent,
179 which is almost certainly wrong. (Inconsistency: (/ 1 0.0)
180 should give the same result as (/ 1.0 0.0), but instead (/ 1 0.0)
181 generates SINGLE-FLOAT-POSITIVE-INFINITY and (/ 1.0 0.0)
183 d: (in section12.erg) various forms a la
184 (FLOAT 1 DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON)
185 don't give the right behavior.
188 type safety errors reported by Peter Van Eynde July 25, 2000:
189 k: READ-BYTE is supposed to signal TYPE-ERROR when its argument is
190 not a binary input stream, but instead cheerfully reads from
191 string-input streams, e.g. (MAKE-STRING-INPUT-STREAM "abc").
192 [ Bug was reported as "from character streams", but in 0.8.3.10 we
193 get correct behaviour from (WITH-OPEN-FILE (i "/dev/zero") (READ-BYTE i)) ]
197 The debugger LIST-LOCATIONS command doesn't work properly.
198 (How should it work properly?)
201 Compiling and loading
202 (DEFUN FAIL (X) (THROW 'FAIL-TAG X))
204 then requesting a BACKTRACE at the debugger prompt gives no information
205 about where in the user program the problem occurred.
208 Using the pretty-printer from the command prompt gives funny
209 results, apparently because the pretty-printer doesn't know
210 about user's command input, including the user's carriage return
211 that the user, and therefore the pretty-printer thinks that
212 the new output block should start indented 2 or more characters
213 rightward of the correct location.
216 As reported by Winton Davies on a CMU CL mailing list 2000-01-10,
217 and reported for SBCL by Martin Atzmueller 2000-10-20: (TRACE GETHASH)
218 crashes SBCL. In general tracing anything which is used in the
219 implementation of TRACE is likely to have the same problem.
222 ANSI says in one place that type declarations can be abbreviated even
223 when the type name is not a symbol, e.g.
224 (DECLAIM ((VECTOR T) *FOOVECTOR*))
225 SBCL doesn't support this. But ANSI says in another place that this
226 isn't allowed. So it's not clear this is a bug after all. (See the
227 e-mail on cmucl-help@cons.org on 2001-01-16 and 2001-01-17 from WHN
231 as pointed out by Dan Barlow on sbcl-devel 2000-07-02:
232 The PICK-TEMPORARY-FILE-NAME utility used by LOAD-FOREIGN uses
233 an easily guessable temporary filename in a way which might open
234 applications using LOAD-FOREIGN to hijacking by malicious users
235 on the same machine. Incantations for doing this safely are
236 floating around the net in various "how to write secure programs
237 despite Unix" documents, and it would be good to (1) fix this in
238 LOAD-FOREIGN, and (2) hunt for any other code which uses temporary
239 files and make it share the same new safe logic.
241 (partially alleviated in sbcl-0.7.9.32 by a fix by Matthew Danish to
242 make the temporary filename less easily guessable)
245 RANDOM-INTEGER-EXTRA-BITS=10 may not be large enough for the RANDOM
246 RNG to be high quality near RANDOM-FIXNUM-MAX; it looks as though
247 the mean of the distribution can be systematically O(0.1%) wrong.
248 Just increasing R-I-E-B is probably not a good solution, since
249 it would decrease efficiency more than is probably necessary. Perhaps
250 using some sort of accept/reject method would be better.
253 Internally the compiler sometimes evaluates
254 (sb-kernel:type/= (specifier-type '*) (specifier-type t))
255 (I stumbled across this when I added an
256 (assert (not (eq type1 *wild-type*)))
257 in the NAMED :SIMPLE-= type method.) '* isn't really a type, and
258 in a type context should probably be translated to T, and so it's
259 probably wrong to ask whether it's equal to the T type and then (using
260 the EQ type comparison in the NAMED :SIMPLE-= type method) return NIL.
261 (I haven't tried to investigate this bug enough to guess whether
262 there might be any user-level symptoms.)
264 In fact, the type system is likely to depend on this inequality not
265 holding... * is not equivalent to T in many cases, such as
266 (VECTOR *) /= (VECTOR T).
269 The facility for dumping a running Lisp image to disk gets confused
270 when run without the PURIFY option, and creates an unnecessarily large
271 core file (apparently representing memory usage up to the previous
272 high-water mark). Moreover, when the file is loaded, it confuses the
273 GC, so that thereafter memory usage can never be reduced below that
277 In sbcl-0.6.11.41 (and in all earlier SBCL, and in CMU
278 CL), out-of-line structure slot setters are horribly inefficient
279 whenever the type of the slot is declared, because out-of-line
280 structure slot setters are implemented as closures to save space,
281 so the compiler doesn't compile the type test into code, but
282 instead just saves the type in a lexical closure and interprets it
284 To exercise the problem, compile and load
285 (cl:in-package :cl-user)
287 (bar (error "missing") :type bar))
290 (loop (setf (foo-bar *foo*) x)))
292 (defvar *bar* (make-bar))
293 (defvar *foo* (make-foo :bar *bar*))
294 (defvar *setf-foo-bar* #'(setf foo-bar))
296 (loop (funcall *setf-foo-bar* x *foo*)))
297 then run (WASTREL1 *BAR*) or (WASTREL2 *BAR*), hit Ctrl-C, and
298 use BACKTRACE, to see it's spending all essentially all its time
299 in %TYPEP and VALUES-SPECIFIER-TYPE and so forth.
300 One possible solution would be simply to give up on
301 representing structure slot accessors as functions, and represent
302 them as macroexpansions instead. This can be inconvenient for users,
303 but it's not clear that it's worse than trying to help by expanding
304 into a horribly inefficient implementation.
305 As a workaround for the problem, #'(SETF FOO) expressions
306 can be replaced with (EFFICIENT-SETF-FUNCTION FOO), where
307 (defmacro efficient-setf-function (place-function-name)
308 (or #+sbcl (and (sb-int:info :function :accessor-for place-function-name)
309 ;; a workaround for the problem, encouraging the
310 ;; inline expansion of the structure accessor, so
311 ;; that the compiler can optimize its type test
312 (let ((new-value (gensym "NEW-VALUE-"))
313 (structure-value (gensym "STRUCTURE-VALUE-")))
314 `(lambda (,new-value ,structure-value)
315 (setf (,place-function-name ,structure-value)
317 ;; no problem, can just use the ordinary expansion
318 `(function (setf ,place-function-name))))
321 There's apparently a bug in CEILING optimization which caused
322 Douglas Crosher to patch the CMU CL version. Martin Atzmueller
323 applied the patches to SBCL and they didn't seem to cause problems
324 (as reported sbcl-devel 2001-05-04). However, since the patches
325 modify nontrivial code which was apparently written incorrectly
326 the first time around, until regression tests are written I'm not
327 comfortable merging the patches in the CVS version of SBCL.
330 (TIME (ROOM T)) reports more than 200 Mbytes consed even for
331 a clean, just-started SBCL system. And it seems to be right:
332 (ROOM T) can bring a small computer to its knees for a *long*
333 time trying to GC afterwards. Surely there's some more economical
334 way to implement (ROOM T).
337 When the compiler inline expands functions, it may be that different
338 kinds of return values are generated from different code branches.
339 E.g. an inline expansion of POSITION generates integer results
340 from one branch, and NIL results from another. When that inline
341 expansion is used in a context where only one of those results
344 (aref *a1* (position x *a2*)))
345 and the compiler can't prove that the unacceptable branch is
346 never taken, then bogus type mismatch warnings can be generated.
347 If you need to suppress the type mismatch warnings, you can
348 suppress the inline expansion,
350 #+sbcl (declare (notinline position)) ; to suppress bug 117 bogowarnings
351 (aref *a1* (position x *a2*)))
352 or, sometimes, suppress them by declaring the result to be of an
355 (aref *a1* (the integer (position x *a2*))))
357 This is not a new compiler problem in 0.7.0, but the new compiler
358 transforms for FIND, POSITION, FIND-IF, and POSITION-IF make it
359 more conspicuous. If you don't need performance from these functions,
360 and the bogus warnings are a nuisance for you, you can return to
361 your pre-0.7.0 state of grace with
362 #+sbcl (declaim (notinline find position find-if position-if)) ; bug 117..
367 as reported by Eric Marsden on cmucl-imp@cons.org 2001-08-14:
368 (= (FLOAT 1 DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON)
369 (+ (FLOAT 1 DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON) DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON)) => T
370 when of course it should be NIL. (He says it only fails for X86,
371 not SPARC; dunno about Alpha.)
373 Also, "the same problem exists for LONG-FLOAT-EPSILON,
374 DOUBLE-FLOAT-NEGATIVE-EPSILON, LONG-FLOAT-NEGATIVE-EPSILON (though
375 for the -negative- the + is replaced by a - in the test)."
377 Raymond Toy comments that this is tricky on the X86 since its FPU
378 uses 80-bit precision internally.
381 Even in sbcl-0.pre7.x, which is supposed to be free of the old
382 non-ANSI behavior of treating the function return type inferred
383 from the current function definition as a declaration of the
384 return type from any function of that name, the return type of NIL
385 is attached to FOO in 120a above, and used to optimize code which
389 As of version 0.pre7.14, SBCL's implementation of MACROLET makes
390 the entire lexical environment at the point of MACROLET available
391 in the bodies of the macroexpander functions. In particular, it
392 allows the function bodies (which run at compile time) to try to
393 access lexical variables (which are only defined at runtime).
394 It doesn't even issue a warning, which is bad.
396 The SBCL behavior arguably conforms to the ANSI spec (since the
397 spec says that the behavior is undefined, ergo anything conforms).
398 However, it would be better to issue a compile-time error.
399 Unfortunately I (WHN) don't see any simple way to detect this
400 condition in order to issue such an error, so for the meantime
401 SBCL just does this weird broken "conforming" thing.
403 The ANSI standard says, in the definition of the special operator
405 The macro-expansion functions defined by MACROLET are defined
406 in the lexical environment in which the MACROLET form appears.
407 Declarations and MACROLET and SYMBOL-MACROLET definitions affect
408 the local macro definitions in a MACROLET, but the consequences
409 are undefined if the local macro definitions reference any
410 local variable or function bindings that are visible in that
412 Then it seems to contradict itself by giving the example
414 (macrolet ((fudge (z)
415 ;The parameters x and flag are not accessible
416 ; at this point; a reference to flag would be to
417 ; the global variable of that name.
418 ` (if flag (* ,z ,z) ,z)))
419 ;The parameters x and flag are accessible here.
423 The comment "a reference to flag would be to the global variable
424 of the same name" sounds like good behavior for the system to have.
425 but actual specification quoted above says that the actual behavior
428 (Since 0.7.8.23 macroexpanders are defined in a restricted version
429 of the lexical environment, containing no lexical variables and
430 functions, which seems to conform to ANSI and CLtL2, but signalling
431 a STYLE-WARNING for references to variables similar to locals might
435 (as reported by Gabe Garza on cmucl-help 2001-09-21)
437 (defun test-pred (x y)
441 (func (lambda () x)))
442 (print (eq func func))
443 (print (test-pred func func))
444 (delete func (list func))))
445 Now calling (TEST-CASE) gives output
448 (#<FUNCTION {500A9EF9}>)
449 Evidently Python thinks of the lambda as a code transformation so
450 much that it forgets that it's also an object.
453 Ideally, uninterning a symbol would allow it, and its associated
454 FDEFINITION and PROCLAIM data, to be reclaimed by the GC. However,
455 at least as of sbcl-0.7.0, this isn't the case. Information about
456 FDEFINITIONs and PROCLAIMed properties is stored in globaldb.lisp
457 essentially in ordinary (non-weak) hash tables keyed by symbols.
458 Thus, once a system has an entry in this system, it tends to live
459 forever, even when it is uninterned and all other references to it
462 141: "pretty printing and backquote"
465 ``(FOO SB-IMPL::BACKQ-COMMA-AT S)
468 * (write '`(, .ala.) :readably t :pretty t)
471 (note the space between the comma and the point)
474 (reported by Jesse Bouwman 2001-10-24 through the unfortunately
475 prominent SourceForge web/db bug tracking system, which is
476 unfortunately not a reliable way to get a timely response from
477 the SBCL maintainers)
478 In the course of trying to build a test case for an
479 application error, I encountered this behavior:
480 If you start up sbcl, and then lay on CTRL-C for a
481 minute or two, the lisp process will eventually say:
482 %PRIMITIVE HALT called; the party is over.
483 and throw you into the monitor. If I start up lisp,
484 attach to the process with strace, and then do the same
485 (abusive) thing, I get instead:
486 access failure in heap page not marked as write-protected
487 and the monitor again. I don't know enough to have the
488 faintest idea of what is going on here.
489 This is with sbcl 6.12, uname -a reports:
490 Linux prep 2.2.19 #4 SMP Tue Apr 24 13:59:52 CDT 2001 i686 unknown
491 I (WHN) have verified that the same thing occurs on sbcl-0.pre7.141
492 under OpenBSD 2.9 on my X86 laptop. Do be patient when you try it:
493 it took more than two minutes (but less than five) for me.
497 ANSI allows types `(COMPLEX ,FOO) to use very hairy values for
498 FOO, e.g. (COMPLEX (AND REAL (SATISFIES ODDP))). The old CMU CL
499 COMPLEX implementation didn't deal with this, and hasn't been
500 upgraded to do so. (This doesn't seem to be a high priority
501 conformance problem, since seems hard to construct useful code
504 b. (fixed in 0.8.3.43)
507 Floating point errors are reported poorly. E.g. on x86 OpenBSD
510 debugger invoked on condition of type SB-KERNEL:FLOATING-POINT-EXCEPTION:
511 An arithmetic error SB-KERNEL:FLOATING-POINT-EXCEPTION was signalled.
512 No traps are enabled? How can this be?
513 It should be possible to be much more specific (overflow, division
514 by zero, etc.) and of course the "How can this be?" should be fixable.
516 See also bugs #45.c and #183
519 (reported by Robert E. Brown 2002-04-16)
520 When a function is called with too few arguments, causing the
521 debugger to be entered, the uninitialized slots in the bad call frame
522 seem to cause GCish problems, being interpreted as tagged data even
523 though they're not. In particular, executing ROOM in the
524 debugger at that point causes AVER failures:
527 * (lisp-implementation-version)
533 failed AVER: "(SAP= CURRENT END)"
534 (Christophe Rhodes reports that this doesn't occur on the SPARC, which
535 isn't too surprising since there are many differences in stack
536 implementation and GC conservatism between the X86 and other ports.)
538 This is probably the same bug as 216
541 In sbcl-0.7.3.11, compiling the (illegal) code
542 (in-package :cl-user)
543 (defmethod prove ((uustk uustk))
546 gives the (not terribly clear) error message
548 ; (during macroexpansion of (DEFMETHOD PROVE ...))
549 ; can't get template for (FROB NIL NIL)
550 The problem seems to be that the code walker used by the DEFMETHOD
551 macro is unhappy with the illegal syntax in the method body, and
552 is giving an unclear error message.
555 The compiler sometimes tries to constant-fold expressions before
556 it checks to see whether they can be reached. This can lead to
557 bogus warnings about errors in the constant folding, e.g. in code
560 (WRITE-STRING (> X 0) "+" "0"))
561 compiled in a context where the compiler can prove that X is NIL,
562 and the compiler complains that (> X 0) causes a type error because
563 NIL isn't a valid argument to #'>. Until sbcl-0.7.4.10 or so this
564 caused a full WARNING, which made the bug really annoying because then
565 COMPILE and COMPILE-FILE returned FAILURE-P=T for perfectly legal
566 code. Since then the warning has been downgraded to STYLE-WARNING,
567 so it's still a bug but at least it's a little less annoying.
569 183: "IEEE floating point issues"
570 Even where floating point handling is being dealt with relatively
571 well (as of sbcl-0.7.5, on sparc/sunos and alpha; see bug #146), the
572 accrued-exceptions and current-exceptions part of the fp control
573 word don't seem to bear much relation to reality. E.g. on
577 debugger invoked on condition of type DIVISION-BY-ZERO:
578 arithmetic error DIVISION-BY-ZERO signalled
579 0] (sb-vm::get-floating-point-modes)
581 (:TRAPS (:OVERFLOW :INVALID :DIVIDE-BY-ZERO)
582 :ROUNDING-MODE :NEAREST
583 :CURRENT-EXCEPTIONS NIL
584 :ACCRUED-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
587 * (sb-vm::get-floating-point-modes)
588 (:TRAPS (:OVERFLOW :INVALID :DIVIDE-BY-ZERO)
589 :ROUNDING-MODE :NEAREST
590 :CURRENT-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
591 :ACCRUED-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
594 188: "compiler performance fiasco involving type inference and UNION-TYPE"
598 (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
599 (declare (optimize (compilation-speed 2)))
600 (declare (optimize (speed 1) (debug 1) (space 1)))
602 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
603 (print (incf start 22))
604 (print (incf start 26))
605 (print (incf start 28)))
607 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
608 (print (incf start 22))
609 (print (incf start 26)))
611 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
612 (print (incf start 22))
613 (print (incf start 26))))))
615 This example could be solved with clever enough constraint
616 propagation or with SSA, but consider
621 The careful type of X is {2k} :-(. Is it really important to be
622 able to work with unions of many intervals?
624 190: "PPC/Linux pipe? buffer? bug"
625 In sbcl-0.7.6, the run-program.test.sh test script sometimes hangs
626 on the PPC/Linux platform, waiting for a zombie env process. This
627 is a classic symptom of buffer filling and deadlock, but it seems
628 only sporadically reproducible.
630 191: "Miscellaneous PCL deficiencies"
631 (reported by Alexey Dejneka sbcl-devel 2002-08-04)
632 a. DEFCLASS does not inform the compiler about generated
633 functions. Compiling a file with
637 (WITH-SLOTS (A-CLASS-X) A
639 results in a STYLE-WARNING:
641 SB-SLOT-ACCESSOR-NAME::|COMMON-LISP-USER A-CLASS-X slot READER|
643 APD's fix for this was checked in to sbcl-0.7.6.20, but Pierre
644 Mai points out that the declamation of functions is in fact
645 incorrect in some cases (most notably for structure
646 classes). This means that at present erroneous attempts to use
647 WITH-SLOTS and the like on classes with metaclass STRUCTURE-CLASS
648 won't get the corresponding STYLE-WARNING.
649 c. the examples in CLHS 7.6.5.1 (regarding generic function lambda
650 lists and &KEY arguments) do not signal errors when they should.
652 201: "Incautious type inference from compound types"
653 a. (reported by APD sbcl-devel 2002-09-17)
655 (LET ((Y (CAR (THE (CONS INTEGER *) X))))
657 (FORMAT NIL "~S IS ~S, Y = ~S"
664 (FOO ' (1 . 2)) => "NIL IS INTEGER, Y = 1"
668 (declare (type (array * (4 4)) x))
670 (setq x (make-array '(4 4)))
671 (adjust-array y '(3 5))
672 (= (array-dimension y 0) (eval `(array-dimension ,y 0)))))
674 * (foo (make-array '(4 4) :adjustable t))
677 205: "environment issues in cross compiler"
678 (These bugs have no impact on user code, but should be fixed or
680 a. Macroexpanders introduced with MACROLET are defined in the null
682 b. The body of (EVAL-WHEN (:COMPILE-TOPLEVEL) ...) is evaluated in
683 the null lexical environment.
684 c. The cross-compiler cannot inline functions defined in a non-null
687 206: ":SB-FLUID feature broken"
688 (reported by Antonio Martinez-Shotton sbcl-devel 2002-10-07)
689 Enabling :SB-FLUID in the target-features list in sbcl-0.7.8 breaks
692 207: "poorly distributed SXHASH results for compound data"
693 SBCL's SXHASH could probably try a little harder. ANSI: "the
694 intent is that an implementation should make a good-faith
695 effort to produce hash-codes that are well distributed
696 within the range of non-negative fixnums". But
697 (let ((hits (make-hash-table)))
700 (let* ((ij (cons i j))
701 (newlist (push ij (gethash (sxhash ij) hits))))
703 (format t "~&collision: ~S~%" newlist))))))
704 reports lots of collisions in sbcl-0.7.8. A stronger MIX function
705 would be an obvious way of fix. Maybe it would be acceptably efficient
706 to redo MIX using a lookup into a 256-entry s-box containing
707 29-bit pseudorandom numbers?
709 211: "keywords processing"
710 a. :ALLOW-OTHER-KEYS T should allow a function to receive an odd
711 number of keyword arguments.
714 (flet ((foo (&key y) (list y)))
715 (list (foo :y 1 :y 2)))
717 issues confusing message
722 ; caught STYLE-WARNING:
723 ; The variable #:G15 is defined but never used.
725 212: "Sequence functions and circular arguments"
726 COERCE, MERGE and CONCATENATE go into an infinite loop when given
727 circular arguments; it would be good for the user if they could be
728 given an error instead (ANSI 17.1.1 allows this behaviour on the part
729 of the implementation, as conforming code cannot give non-proper
730 sequences to these functions. MAP also has this problem (and
731 solution), though arguably the convenience of being able to do
732 (MAP 'LIST '+ FOO '#1=(1 . #1#))
733 might be classed as more important (though signalling an error when
734 all of the arguments are circular is probably desireable).
736 213: "Sequence functions and type checking"
737 a. MAKE-SEQUENCE, COERCE, MERGE and CONCATENATE cannot deal with
738 various complicated, though recognizeable, CONS types [e.g.
739 (CONS * (CONS * NULL))
740 which according to ANSI should be recognized] (and, in SAFETY 3
741 code, should return a list of LENGTH 2 or signal an error)
742 b. MAP, when given a type argument that is SUBTYPEP LIST, does not
743 check that it will return a sequence of the given type. Fixing
744 it along the same lines as the others (cf. work done around
745 sbcl-0.7.8.45) is possible, but doing so efficiently didn't look
746 entirely straightforward.
747 c. All of these functions will silently accept a type of the form
749 whether or not the return value is of this type. This is
750 probably permitted by ANSI (see "Exceptional Situations" under
751 ANSI MAKE-SEQUENCE), but the DERIVE-TYPE mechanism does not
752 know about this escape clause, so code of the form
753 (INTEGERP (CAR (MAKE-SEQUENCE '(CONS INTEGER *) 2)))
754 can erroneously return T.
757 SBCL 0.6.12.43 fails to compile
760 (declare (optimize (inhibit-warnings 0) (compilation-speed 2)))
761 (flet ((foo (&key (x :vx x-p)) (list x x-p)))
764 or a more simple example:
767 (declare (optimize (inhibit-warnings 0) (compilation-speed 2)))
768 (lambda (x) (declare (fixnum x)) (if (< x 0) 0 (1- x))))
770 215: ":TEST-NOT handling by functions"
771 a. FIND and POSITION currently signal errors when given non-NIL for
772 both their :TEST and (deprecated) :TEST-NOT arguments, but by
773 ANSI 17.2 "the consequences are unspecified", which by ANSI 1.4.2
774 means that the effect is "unpredictable but harmless". It's not
775 clear what that actually means; it may preclude conforming
776 implementations from signalling errors.
777 b. COUNT, REMOVE and the like give priority to a :TEST-NOT argument
778 when conflict occurs. As a quality of implementation issue, it
779 might be preferable to treat :TEST and :TEST-NOT as being in some
780 sense the same &KEY, and effectively take the first test function in
782 c. Again, a quality of implementation issue: it would be good to issue a
783 STYLE-WARNING at compile-time for calls with :TEST-NOT, and a
784 WARNING for calls with both :TEST and :TEST-NOT; possibly this
785 latter should be WARNed about at execute-time too.
787 216: "debugger confused by frames with invalid number of arguments"
788 In sbcl-0.7.8.51, executing e.g. (VECTOR-PUSH-EXTEND T), BACKTRACE, Q
789 leaves the system confused, enough so that (QUIT) no longer works.
790 It's as though the process of working with the uninitialized slot in
791 the bad VECTOR-PUSH-EXTEND frame causes GC problems, though that may
792 not be the actual problem. (CMU CL 18c doesn't have problems with this.)
794 This is probably the same bug as 162
796 217: "Bad type operations with FUNCTION types"
799 * (values-type-union (specifier-type '(function (base-char)))
800 (specifier-type '(function (integer))))
802 #<FUN-TYPE (FUNCTION (BASE-CHAR) *)>
804 It causes insertion of wrong type assertions into generated
808 (let ((f (etypecase x
809 (character #'write-char)
810 (integer #'write-byte))))
813 (character (write-char x s))
814 (integer (write-byte x s)))))
816 Then (FOO #\1 *STANDARD-OUTPUT*) signals type error.
818 (In 0.7.9.1 the result type is (FUNCTION * *), so Python does not
819 produce invalid code, but type checking is not accurate.)
821 233: bugs in constraint propagation
823 (declaim (optimize (speed 2) (safety 3)))
825 (if (typep (prog1 x (setq x y)) 'double-float)
828 (foo 1d0 5) => segmentation violation
830 235: "type system and inline expansion"
832 (declaim (ftype (function (cons) number) acc))
833 (declaim (inline acc))
835 (the number (car c)))
838 (values (locally (declare (optimize (safety 0)))
840 (locally (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
843 (foo '(nil) '(t)) => NIL, T.
845 237: "Environment arguments to type functions"
846 a. Functions SUBTYPEP, TYPEP, UPGRADED-ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE, and
847 UPGRADED-COMPLEX-PART-TYPE now have an optional environment
848 argument, but they ignore it completely. This is almost
849 certainly not correct.
850 b. Also, the compiler's optimizers for TYPEP have not been informed
851 about the new argument; consequently, they will not transform
852 calls of the form (TYPEP 1 'INTEGER NIL), even though this is
853 just as optimizeable as (TYPEP 1 'INTEGER).
855 238: "REPL compiler overenthusiasm for CLOS code"
857 * (defclass foo () ())
858 * (defmethod bar ((x foo) (foo foo)) (call-next-method))
859 causes approximately 100 lines of code deletion notes. Some
860 discussion on this issue happened under the title 'Three "interesting"
861 bugs in PCL', resulting in a fix for this oververbosity from the
862 compiler proper; however, the problem persists in the interactor
863 because the notion of original source is not preserved: for the
864 compiler, the original source of the above expression is (DEFMETHOD
865 BAR ((X FOO) (FOO FOO)) (CALL-NEXT-METHOD)), while by the time the
866 compiler gets its hands on the code needing compilation from the REPL,
867 it has been macroexpanded several times.
869 A symptom of the same underlying problem, reported by Tony Martinez:
871 (with-input-from-string (*query-io* " no")
873 (simple-type-error () 'error))
875 ; (SB-KERNEL:FLOAT-WAIT)
877 ; note: deleting unreachable code
878 ; compilation unit finished
881 241: "DEFCLASS mysteriously remembers uninterned accessor names."
882 (from tonyms on #lisp IRC 2003-02-25)
883 In sbcl-0.7.12.55, typing
884 (defclass foo () ((bar :accessor foo-bar)))
887 (defclass foo () ((bar :accessor foo-bar)))
888 gives the error message
889 "#:FOO-BAR already names an ordinary function or a macro."
890 So it's somehow checking the uninterned old accessor name instead
891 of the new requested accessor name, which seems broken to me (WHN).
893 242: "WRITE-SEQUENCE suboptimality"
894 (observed from clx performance)
895 In sbcl-0.7.13, WRITE-SEQUENCE of a sequence of type
896 (SIMPLE-ARRAY (UNSIGNED-BYTE 8) (*)) on a stream with element-type
897 (UNSIGNED-BYTE 8) will write to the stream one byte at a time,
898 rather than writing the sequence in one go, leading to severe
899 performance degradation.
901 243: "STYLE-WARNING overenthusiasm for unused variables"
902 (observed from clx compilation)
903 In sbcl-0.7.14, in the presence of the macros
904 (DEFMACRO FOO (X) `(BAR ,X))
905 (DEFMACRO BAR (X) (DECLARE (IGNORABLE X)) 'NIL)
906 somewhat surprising style warnings are emitted for
907 (COMPILE NIL '(LAMBDA (Y) (FOO Y))):
909 ; (LAMBDA (Y) (FOO Y))
911 ; caught STYLE-WARNING:
912 ; The variable Y is defined but never used.
914 245: bugs in disassembler
915 a. On X86 an immediate operand for IMUL is printed incorrectly.
916 b. On X86 operand size prefix is not recognized.
918 248: "reporting errors in type specifier syntax"
919 (TYPEP 1 '(SYMBOL NIL)) says something about "unknown type
923 (defun foo (&key (a :x))
927 does not cause a warning. (BTW: old SBCL issued a warning, but for a
928 function, which was never called!)
931 Compiler does not emit warnings for
933 a. (lambda () (svref (make-array 8 :adjustable t) 1))
936 (list (let ((y (the real x)))
937 (unless (floatp y) (error ""))
942 (declare (optimize (debug 0)))
943 (declare (type vector x))
944 (list (fill-pointer x)
948 Complex array type does not have corresponding type specifier.
950 This is a problem because the compiler emits optimization notes when
951 you use a non-simple array, and without a type specifier for hairy
952 array types, there's no good way to tell it you're doing it
953 intentionally so that it should shut up and just compile the code.
955 Another problem is confusing error message "asserted type ARRAY
956 conflicts with derived type (VALUES SIMPLE-VECTOR &OPTIONAL)" during
957 compiling (LAMBDA (V) (VALUES (SVREF V 0) (VECTOR-POP V))).
959 The last problem is that when type assertions are converted to type
960 checks, types are represented with type specifiers, so we could lose
961 complex attribute. (Now this is probably not important, because
962 currently checks for complex arrays seem to be performed by
966 (compile nil '(lambda () (aref (make-array 0) 0))) compiles without
967 warning. Analogous cases with the index and length being equal and
968 greater than 0 are warned for; the problem here seems to be that the
969 type required for an array reference of this type is (INTEGER 0 (0))
970 which is canonicalized to NIL.
975 (t1 (specifier-type s)))
976 (eval `(defstruct ,s))
977 (type= t1 (specifier-type s)))
982 b. The same for CSUBTYPEP.
985 * (let () (list (the (values &optional fixnum) (eval '(values)))))
986 debugger invoked on condition of type TYPE-ERROR:
987 The value NIL is not of type FIXNUM.
989 262: "yet another bug in inline expansion of local functions"
993 (declare (integer x y))
996 (declare (integer u))
997 (if (> (1+ (the unsigned-byte u)) 0)
999 (return (+ 38 (cos (/ u 78)))))))
1000 (declare (inline xyz))
1002 (* (funcall (eval #'xyz) x)
1004 (funcall (if (> x 5) #'xyz #'identity)
1009 Urgh... It's time to write IR1-copier.
1012 SB-EXT:RUN-PROGRAM is currently non-functional on Linux/PPC;
1013 attempting to use it leads to segmentation violations. This is
1014 probably because of a bogus implementation of
1015 os_restore_fp_control().
1018 David Lichteblau provided (sbcl-devel 2003-06-01) a patch to fix
1019 behaviour of streams with element-type (SIGNED-BYTE 8). The patch
1020 looks reasonable, if not obviously correct; however, it caused the
1021 PPC/Linux port to segfault during warm-init while loading
1022 src/pcl/std-class.fasl. A workaround patch was made, but it would
1023 be nice to understand why the first patch caused problems, and to
1024 fix the cause if possible.
1026 268: "wrong free declaration scope"
1027 The following code must signal type error:
1029 (locally (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
1030 (flet ((foo (x &optional (y (car x)))
1031 (declare (optimize (safety 0)))
1033 (funcall (eval #'foo) 1)))
1036 SCALE-FLOAT should accept any integer for its second argument.
1039 In the following function constraint propagator optimizes nothing:
1042 (declare (integer x))
1043 (declare (optimize speed))
1051 Compilation of the following two forms causes "X is unbound" error:
1053 (symbol-macrolet ((x pi))
1054 (macrolet ((foo (y) (+ x y)))
1055 (declaim (inline bar))
1061 (See (COERCE (CDR X) 'FUNCTION) in IR1-CONVERT-INLINE-LAMBDA.)
1064 CLHS says that type declaration of a symbol macro should not affect
1065 its expansion, but in SBCL it does. (If you like magic and want to
1066 fix it, don't forget to change all uses of MACROEXPAND to
1070 The following code (taken from CLOCC) takes a lot of time to compile:
1073 (declare (type (integer 0 #.large-constant) n))
1076 (fixed in 0.8.2.51, but a test case would be good)
1079 (defmethod fee ((x fixnum))
1082 (fee 1) => type error
1089 (declare (optimize speed))
1090 (loop for i of-type (integer 0) from 0 by 2 below 10
1093 uses generic arithmetic.
1095 b. (fixed in 0.8.3.6)
1097 279: type propagation error -- correctly inferred type goes astray?
1098 In sbcl-0.8.3 and sbcl-0.8.1.47, the warning
1099 The binding of ABS-FOO is a (VALUES (INTEGER 0 0)
1100 &OPTIONAL), not a (INTEGER 1 536870911)
1101 is emitted when compiling this file:
1102 (declaim (ftype (function ((integer 0 #.most-positive-fixnum))
1103 (integer #.most-negative-fixnum 0))
1108 (let* (;; Uncomment this for a type mismatch warning indicating
1109 ;; that the type of (FOO X) is correctly understood.
1110 #+nil (fs-foo (float-sign (foo x)))
1111 ;; Uncomment this for a type mismatch warning
1112 ;; indicating that the type of (ABS (FOO X)) is
1113 ;; correctly understood.
1114 #+nil (fs-abs-foo (float-sign (abs (foo x))))
1115 ;; something wrong with this one though
1116 (abs-foo (abs (foo x))))
1117 (declare (type (integer 1 100) abs-foo))
1122 280: bogus WARNING about duplicate function definition
1123 In sbcl-0.8.3 and sbcl-0.8.1.47, if BS.MIN is defined inline,
1125 (declaim (inline bs.min))
1126 (defun bs.min (bases) nil)
1127 before compiling the file below, the compiler warns
1128 Duplicate definition for BS.MIN found in one static
1129 unit (usually a file).
1131 (declaim (special *minus* *plus* *stagnant*))
1132 (defun b.*.min (&optional (x () xp) (y () yp) &rest rest)
1134 (define-compiler-macro b.*.min (&rest rest)
1136 (defun afish-d-rbd (pd)
1138 (b.*.min (foo-d-rbd *stagnant*))
1139 (multiple-value-bind (reduce-fn initial-value)
1141 (list (values #'bs.min 0))
1142 (vector (values #'bs.min *plus*)))
1143 (let ((cv-ks (cv (kpd.ks pd))))
1144 (funcall reduce-fn d-rbds)))))
1145 (defun bfish-d-rbd (pd)
1147 (b.*.min (foo-d-rbd *stagnant*))
1148 (multiple-value-bind (reduce-fn initial-value)
1150 (list (values #'bs.min *minus*))
1151 (vector (values #'bs.min 0)))
1152 (let ((cv-ks (cv (kpd.ks pd))))
1153 (funcall reduce-fn d-rbds)))))
1155 281: COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD error signalling.
1156 (slightly obscured by a non-0 default value for
1157 SB-PCL::*MAX-EMF-PRECOMPUTE-METHODS*)
1158 It would be natural for COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD to signal errors
1159 when it finds a method with invalid qualifiers. However, it
1160 shouldn't signal errors when any such methods are not applicable to
1161 the particular call being evaluated, and certainly it shouldn't when
1162 simply precomputing effective methods that may never be called.
1163 (setf sb-pcl::*max-emf-precompute-methods* 0)
1165 (:method-combination +)
1166 (:method ((x symbol)) 1)
1167 (:method + ((x number)) x))
1168 (foo 1) -> ERROR, but should simply return 1
1170 The issue seems to be that construction of a discriminating function
1171 calls COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD with methods that are not all applicable.
1173 282: "type checking in full calls"
1174 In current (0.8.3.6) implementation a CAST in a full call argument
1175 is not checked; but the continuation between the CAST and the
1176 combination has the "checked" type and CAST performs unsafe
1177 coercion; this may lead to errors: if FOO is declared to take a
1178 FIXNUM, this code will produce garbage on a machine with 30-bit
1181 (foo (aref (the (array (unsigned-byte 32)) x)))
1183 283: Thread safety: libc functions
1184 There are places that we call unsafe-for-threading libc functions
1185 that we should find alternatives for, or put locks around. Known or
1186 strongly suspected problems, as of 0.8.3.10: please update this
1187 bug instead of creating new ones
1189 localtime() - called for timezone calculations in code/time.lisp
1191 284: Thread safety: special variables
1192 There are lots of special variables in SBCL, and I feel sure that at
1193 least some of them are indicative of potentially thread-unsafe
1194 parts of the system. See doc/internals/notes/threading-specials
1196 286: "recursive known functions"
1197 Self-call recognition conflicts with known function
1198 recognition. Currently cross compiler and target COMPILE do not
1199 recognize recursion, and in target compiler it can be disabled. We
1200 can always disable it for known functions with RECURSIVE attribute,
1201 but there remains a possibility of a function with a
1202 (tail)-recursive simplification pass and transforms/VOPs for base
1205 287: PPC/Linux miscompilation or corruption in first GC
1206 When the runtime is compiled with -O3 on certain PPC/Linux machines, a
1207 segmentation fault is reported at the point of first triggered GC,
1208 during the compilation of DEFSTRUCT WRAPPER. As a temporary workaround,
1209 the runtime is no longer compiled with -O3 on PPC/Linux, but it is likely
1210 that this merely obscures, not solves, the underlying problem; as and when
1211 underlying problems are fixed, it would be worth trying again to provoke
1214 288: fundamental cross-compilation issues (from old UGLINESS file)
1215 288a: Using host floating point numbers to represent target
1216 floating point numbers, or host characters to represent
1217 target characters, is theoretically shaky. (The characters
1218 are OK as long as the characters are in the ANSI-guaranteed
1219 character set, though, so they aren't a real problem as
1220 long as the sources don't need anything but that.)
1221 288b: The compiler still makes assumptions about cross-compilation-host
1222 implementation of ANSI CL:
1223 288b1: Simple bit vectors are distinct from simple vectors (in
1224 DEFINE-STORAGE-BASE and elsewhere). (Actually, I'm not *sure*
1225 that things would really break if this weren't so, but I
1226 strongly suspect that they would.)
1227 288b2: SINGLE-FLOAT is distinct from DOUBLE-FLOAT. (This is
1228 in a sense just one aspect of bug 288a.)
1230 289: "type checking and source-transforms"
1232 (block nil (let () (funcall #'+ (eval 'nil) (eval '1) (return :good))))
1235 Our policy is to check argument types at the moment of a call. It
1236 disagrees with ANSI, which says that type assertions are put
1237 immediately onto argument expressions, but is easier to implement in
1238 IR1 and is more compatible to type inference, inline expansion,
1239 etc. IR1-transforms automatically keep this policy, but source
1240 transforms for associative functions (such as +), being applied
1241 during IR1-convertion, do not. It may be tolerable for direct calls
1242 (+ x y z), but for (FUNCALL #'+ x y z) it is non-conformant.
1244 b. Another aspect of this problem is efficiency. [x y + z +]
1245 requires less registers than [x y z + +]. This transformation is
1246 currently performed with source transforms, but it would be good to
1247 also perform it in IR1 optimization phase.
1249 290: Alpha floating point and denormalized traps
1250 In SBCL 0.8.3.6x on the alpha, we work around what appears to be a
1251 hardware or kernel deficiency: the status of the enable/disable
1252 denormalized-float traps bit seems to be ambiguous; by the time we
1253 get to os_restore_fp_control after a trap, denormalized traps seem
1254 to be enabled. Since we don't want a trap every time someone uses a
1255 denormalized float, in general, we mask out that bit when we restore
1256 the control word; however, this clobbers any change the user might