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 The debugger LIST-LOCATIONS command doesn't work properly.
189 (How should it work properly?)
192 Compiling and loading
193 (DEFUN FAIL (X) (THROW 'FAIL-TAG X))
195 then requesting a BACKTRACE at the debugger prompt gives no information
196 about where in the user program the problem occurred.
199 Using the pretty-printer from the command prompt gives funny
200 results, apparently because the pretty-printer doesn't know
201 about user's command input, including the user's carriage return
202 that the user, and therefore the pretty-printer thinks that
203 the new output block should start indented 2 or more characters
204 rightward of the correct location.
207 As reported by Winton Davies on a CMU CL mailing list 2000-01-10,
208 and reported for SBCL by Martin Atzmueller 2000-10-20: (TRACE GETHASH)
209 crashes SBCL. In general tracing anything which is used in the
210 implementation of TRACE is likely to have the same problem.
213 ANSI says in one place that type declarations can be abbreviated even
214 when the type name is not a symbol, e.g.
215 (DECLAIM ((VECTOR T) *FOOVECTOR*))
216 SBCL doesn't support this. But ANSI says in another place that this
217 isn't allowed. So it's not clear this is a bug after all. (See the
218 e-mail on cmucl-help@cons.org on 2001-01-16 and 2001-01-17 from WHN
222 as pointed out by Dan Barlow on sbcl-devel 2000-07-02:
223 The PICK-TEMPORARY-FILE-NAME utility used by LOAD-FOREIGN uses
224 an easily guessable temporary filename in a way which might open
225 applications using LOAD-FOREIGN to hijacking by malicious users
226 on the same machine. Incantations for doing this safely are
227 floating around the net in various "how to write secure programs
228 despite Unix" documents, and it would be good to (1) fix this in
229 LOAD-FOREIGN, and (2) hunt for any other code which uses temporary
230 files and make it share the same new safe logic.
232 (partially alleviated in sbcl-0.7.9.32 by a fix by Matthew Danish to
233 make the temporary filename less easily guessable)
236 RANDOM-INTEGER-EXTRA-BITS=10 may not be large enough for the RANDOM
237 RNG to be high quality near RANDOM-FIXNUM-MAX; it looks as though
238 the mean of the distribution can be systematically O(0.1%) wrong.
239 Just increasing R-I-E-B is probably not a good solution, since
240 it would decrease efficiency more than is probably necessary. Perhaps
241 using some sort of accept/reject method would be better.
244 Internally the compiler sometimes evaluates
245 (sb-kernel:type/= (specifier-type '*) (specifier-type t))
246 (I stumbled across this when I added an
247 (assert (not (eq type1 *wild-type*)))
248 in the NAMED :SIMPLE-= type method.) '* isn't really a type, and
249 in a type context should probably be translated to T, and so it's
250 probably wrong to ask whether it's equal to the T type and then (using
251 the EQ type comparison in the NAMED :SIMPLE-= type method) return NIL.
252 (I haven't tried to investigate this bug enough to guess whether
253 there might be any user-level symptoms.)
255 In fact, the type system is likely to depend on this inequality not
256 holding... * is not equivalent to T in many cases, such as
257 (VECTOR *) /= (VECTOR T).
260 The facility for dumping a running Lisp image to disk gets confused
261 when run without the PURIFY option, and creates an unnecessarily large
262 core file (apparently representing memory usage up to the previous
263 high-water mark). Moreover, when the file is loaded, it confuses the
264 GC, so that thereafter memory usage can never be reduced below that
268 In sbcl-0.6.11.41 (and in all earlier SBCL, and in CMU
269 CL), out-of-line structure slot setters are horribly inefficient
270 whenever the type of the slot is declared, because out-of-line
271 structure slot setters are implemented as closures to save space,
272 so the compiler doesn't compile the type test into code, but
273 instead just saves the type in a lexical closure and interprets it
275 To exercise the problem, compile and load
276 (cl:in-package :cl-user)
278 (bar (error "missing") :type bar))
281 (loop (setf (foo-bar *foo*) x)))
283 (defvar *bar* (make-bar))
284 (defvar *foo* (make-foo :bar *bar*))
285 (defvar *setf-foo-bar* #'(setf foo-bar))
287 (loop (funcall *setf-foo-bar* x *foo*)))
288 then run (WASTREL1 *BAR*) or (WASTREL2 *BAR*), hit Ctrl-C, and
289 use BACKTRACE, to see it's spending all essentially all its time
290 in %TYPEP and VALUES-SPECIFIER-TYPE and so forth.
291 One possible solution would be simply to give up on
292 representing structure slot accessors as functions, and represent
293 them as macroexpansions instead. This can be inconvenient for users,
294 but it's not clear that it's worse than trying to help by expanding
295 into a horribly inefficient implementation.
296 As a workaround for the problem, #'(SETF FOO) expressions
297 can be replaced with (EFFICIENT-SETF-FUNCTION FOO), where
298 (defmacro efficient-setf-function (place-function-name)
299 (or #+sbcl (and (sb-int:info :function :accessor-for place-function-name)
300 ;; a workaround for the problem, encouraging the
301 ;; inline expansion of the structure accessor, so
302 ;; that the compiler can optimize its type test
303 (let ((new-value (gensym "NEW-VALUE-"))
304 (structure-value (gensym "STRUCTURE-VALUE-")))
305 `(lambda (,new-value ,structure-value)
306 (setf (,place-function-name ,structure-value)
308 ;; no problem, can just use the ordinary expansion
309 `(function (setf ,place-function-name))))
312 There's apparently a bug in CEILING optimization which caused
313 Douglas Crosher to patch the CMU CL version. Martin Atzmueller
314 applied the patches to SBCL and they didn't seem to cause problems
315 (as reported sbcl-devel 2001-05-04). However, since the patches
316 modify nontrivial code which was apparently written incorrectly
317 the first time around, until regression tests are written I'm not
318 comfortable merging the patches in the CVS version of SBCL.
321 (TIME (ROOM T)) reports more than 200 Mbytes consed even for
322 a clean, just-started SBCL system. And it seems to be right:
323 (ROOM T) can bring a small computer to its knees for a *long*
324 time trying to GC afterwards. Surely there's some more economical
325 way to implement (ROOM T).
328 When the compiler inline expands functions, it may be that different
329 kinds of return values are generated from different code branches.
330 E.g. an inline expansion of POSITION generates integer results
331 from one branch, and NIL results from another. When that inline
332 expansion is used in a context where only one of those results
335 (aref *a1* (position x *a2*)))
336 and the compiler can't prove that the unacceptable branch is
337 never taken, then bogus type mismatch warnings can be generated.
338 If you need to suppress the type mismatch warnings, you can
339 suppress the inline expansion,
341 #+sbcl (declare (notinline position)) ; to suppress bug 117 bogowarnings
342 (aref *a1* (position x *a2*)))
343 or, sometimes, suppress them by declaring the result to be of an
346 (aref *a1* (the integer (position x *a2*))))
348 This is not a new compiler problem in 0.7.0, but the new compiler
349 transforms for FIND, POSITION, FIND-IF, and POSITION-IF make it
350 more conspicuous. If you don't need performance from these functions,
351 and the bogus warnings are a nuisance for you, you can return to
352 your pre-0.7.0 state of grace with
353 #+sbcl (declaim (notinline find position find-if position-if)) ; bug 117..
358 as reported by Eric Marsden on cmucl-imp@cons.org 2001-08-14:
359 (= (FLOAT 1 DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON)
360 (+ (FLOAT 1 DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON) DOUBLE-FLOAT-EPSILON)) => T
361 when of course it should be NIL. (He says it only fails for X86,
362 not SPARC; dunno about Alpha.)
364 Also, "the same problem exists for LONG-FLOAT-EPSILON,
365 DOUBLE-FLOAT-NEGATIVE-EPSILON, LONG-FLOAT-NEGATIVE-EPSILON (though
366 for the -negative- the + is replaced by a - in the test)."
368 Raymond Toy comments that this is tricky on the X86 since its FPU
369 uses 80-bit precision internally.
372 As of version 0.pre7.14, SBCL's implementation of MACROLET makes
373 the entire lexical environment at the point of MACROLET available
374 in the bodies of the macroexpander functions. In particular, it
375 allows the function bodies (which run at compile time) to try to
376 access lexical variables (which are only defined at runtime).
377 It doesn't even issue a warning, which is bad.
379 The SBCL behavior arguably conforms to the ANSI spec (since the
380 spec says that the behavior is undefined, ergo anything conforms).
381 However, it would be better to issue a compile-time error.
382 Unfortunately I (WHN) don't see any simple way to detect this
383 condition in order to issue such an error, so for the meantime
384 SBCL just does this weird broken "conforming" thing.
386 The ANSI standard says, in the definition of the special operator
388 The macro-expansion functions defined by MACROLET are defined
389 in the lexical environment in which the MACROLET form appears.
390 Declarations and MACROLET and SYMBOL-MACROLET definitions affect
391 the local macro definitions in a MACROLET, but the consequences
392 are undefined if the local macro definitions reference any
393 local variable or function bindings that are visible in that
395 Then it seems to contradict itself by giving the example
397 (macrolet ((fudge (z)
398 ;The parameters x and flag are not accessible
399 ; at this point; a reference to flag would be to
400 ; the global variable of that name.
401 ` (if flag (* ,z ,z) ,z)))
402 ;The parameters x and flag are accessible here.
406 The comment "a reference to flag would be to the global variable
407 of the same name" sounds like good behavior for the system to have.
408 but actual specification quoted above says that the actual behavior
411 (Since 0.7.8.23 macroexpanders are defined in a restricted version
412 of the lexical environment, containing no lexical variables and
413 functions, which seems to conform to ANSI and CLtL2, but signalling
414 a STYLE-WARNING for references to variables similar to locals might
418 (as reported by Gabe Garza on cmucl-help 2001-09-21)
420 (defun test-pred (x y)
424 (func (lambda () x)))
425 (print (eq func func))
426 (print (test-pred func func))
427 (delete func (list func))))
428 Now calling (TEST-CASE) gives output
431 (#<FUNCTION {500A9EF9}>)
432 Evidently Python thinks of the lambda as a code transformation so
433 much that it forgets that it's also an object.
436 Ideally, uninterning a symbol would allow it, and its associated
437 FDEFINITION and PROCLAIM data, to be reclaimed by the GC. However,
438 at least as of sbcl-0.7.0, this isn't the case. Information about
439 FDEFINITIONs and PROCLAIMed properties is stored in globaldb.lisp
440 essentially in ordinary (non-weak) hash tables keyed by symbols.
441 Thus, once a system has an entry in this system, it tends to live
442 forever, even when it is uninterned and all other references to it
445 141: "pretty printing and backquote"
448 ``(FOO SB-IMPL::BACKQ-COMMA-AT S)
450 b. (fixed in 0.8.4.7)
453 (reported by Jesse Bouwman 2001-10-24 through the unfortunately
454 prominent SourceForge web/db bug tracking system, which is
455 unfortunately not a reliable way to get a timely response from
456 the SBCL maintainers)
457 In the course of trying to build a test case for an
458 application error, I encountered this behavior:
459 If you start up sbcl, and then lay on CTRL-C for a
460 minute or two, the lisp process will eventually say:
461 %PRIMITIVE HALT called; the party is over.
462 and throw you into the monitor. If I start up lisp,
463 attach to the process with strace, and then do the same
464 (abusive) thing, I get instead:
465 access failure in heap page not marked as write-protected
466 and the monitor again. I don't know enough to have the
467 faintest idea of what is going on here.
468 This is with sbcl 6.12, uname -a reports:
469 Linux prep 2.2.19 #4 SMP Tue Apr 24 13:59:52 CDT 2001 i686 unknown
470 I (WHN) have verified that the same thing occurs on sbcl-0.pre7.141
471 under OpenBSD 2.9 on my X86 laptop. Do be patient when you try it:
472 it took more than two minutes (but less than five) for me.
476 ANSI allows types `(COMPLEX ,FOO) to use very hairy values for
477 FOO, e.g. (COMPLEX (AND REAL (SATISFIES ODDP))). The old CMU CL
478 COMPLEX implementation didn't deal with this, and hasn't been
479 upgraded to do so. (This doesn't seem to be a high priority
480 conformance problem, since seems hard to construct useful code
483 b. (fixed in 0.8.3.43)
486 Floating point errors are reported poorly. E.g. on x86 OpenBSD
489 debugger invoked on condition of type SB-KERNEL:FLOATING-POINT-EXCEPTION:
490 An arithmetic error SB-KERNEL:FLOATING-POINT-EXCEPTION was signalled.
491 No traps are enabled? How can this be?
492 It should be possible to be much more specific (overflow, division
493 by zero, etc.) and of course the "How can this be?" should be fixable.
495 See also bugs #45.c and #183
498 (reported by Robert E. Brown 2002-04-16)
499 When a function is called with too few arguments, causing the
500 debugger to be entered, the uninitialized slots in the bad call frame
501 seem to cause GCish problems, being interpreted as tagged data even
502 though they're not. In particular, executing ROOM in the
503 debugger at that point causes AVER failures:
506 * (lisp-implementation-version)
512 failed AVER: "(SAP= CURRENT END)"
513 (Christophe Rhodes reports that this doesn't occur on the SPARC, which
514 isn't too surprising since there are many differences in stack
515 implementation and GC conservatism between the X86 and other ports.)
517 This is probably the same bug as 216
520 In sbcl-0.7.3.11, compiling the (illegal) code
521 (in-package :cl-user)
522 (defmethod prove ((uustk uustk))
525 gives the (not terribly clear) error message
527 ; (during macroexpansion of (DEFMETHOD PROVE ...))
528 ; can't get template for (FROB NIL NIL)
529 The problem seems to be that the code walker used by the DEFMETHOD
530 macro is unhappy with the illegal syntax in the method body, and
531 is giving an unclear error message.
534 The compiler sometimes tries to constant-fold expressions before
535 it checks to see whether they can be reached. This can lead to
536 bogus warnings about errors in the constant folding, e.g. in code
539 (WRITE-STRING (> X 0) "+" "0"))
540 compiled in a context where the compiler can prove that X is NIL,
541 and the compiler complains that (> X 0) causes a type error because
542 NIL isn't a valid argument to #'>. Until sbcl-0.7.4.10 or so this
543 caused a full WARNING, which made the bug really annoying because then
544 COMPILE and COMPILE-FILE returned FAILURE-P=T for perfectly legal
545 code. Since then the warning has been downgraded to STYLE-WARNING,
546 so it's still a bug but at least it's a little less annoying.
548 183: "IEEE floating point issues"
549 Even where floating point handling is being dealt with relatively
550 well (as of sbcl-0.7.5, on sparc/sunos and alpha; see bug #146), the
551 accrued-exceptions and current-exceptions part of the fp control
552 word don't seem to bear much relation to reality. E.g. on
556 debugger invoked on condition of type DIVISION-BY-ZERO:
557 arithmetic error DIVISION-BY-ZERO signalled
558 0] (sb-vm::get-floating-point-modes)
560 (:TRAPS (:OVERFLOW :INVALID :DIVIDE-BY-ZERO)
561 :ROUNDING-MODE :NEAREST
562 :CURRENT-EXCEPTIONS NIL
563 :ACCRUED-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
566 * (sb-vm::get-floating-point-modes)
567 (:TRAPS (:OVERFLOW :INVALID :DIVIDE-BY-ZERO)
568 :ROUNDING-MODE :NEAREST
569 :CURRENT-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
570 :ACCRUED-EXCEPTIONS (:INEXACT)
573 188: "compiler performance fiasco involving type inference and UNION-TYPE"
577 (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
578 (declare (optimize (compilation-speed 2)))
579 (declare (optimize (speed 1) (debug 1) (space 1)))
581 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
582 (print (incf start 22))
583 (print (incf start 26))
584 (print (incf start 28)))
586 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
587 (print (incf start 22))
588 (print (incf start 26)))
590 (declare (type (integer 0) start))
591 (print (incf start 22))
592 (print (incf start 26))))))
594 This example could be solved with clever enough constraint
595 propagation or with SSA, but consider
600 The careful type of X is {2k} :-(. Is it really important to be
601 able to work with unions of many intervals?
603 190: "PPC/Linux pipe? buffer? bug"
604 In sbcl-0.7.6, the run-program.test.sh test script sometimes hangs
605 on the PPC/Linux platform, waiting for a zombie env process. This
606 is a classic symptom of buffer filling and deadlock, but it seems
607 only sporadically reproducible.
609 191: "Miscellaneous PCL deficiencies"
610 (reported by Alexey Dejneka sbcl-devel 2002-08-04)
611 a. DEFCLASS does not inform the compiler about generated
612 functions. Compiling a file with
616 (WITH-SLOTS (A-CLASS-X) A
618 results in a STYLE-WARNING:
620 SB-SLOT-ACCESSOR-NAME::|COMMON-LISP-USER A-CLASS-X slot READER|
622 APD's fix for this was checked in to sbcl-0.7.6.20, but Pierre
623 Mai points out that the declamation of functions is in fact
624 incorrect in some cases (most notably for structure
625 classes). This means that at present erroneous attempts to use
626 WITH-SLOTS and the like on classes with metaclass STRUCTURE-CLASS
627 won't get the corresponding STYLE-WARNING.
628 c. (fixed in 0.8.4.23)
630 201: "Incautious type inference from compound types"
631 a. (reported by APD sbcl-devel 2002-09-17)
633 (LET ((Y (CAR (THE (CONS INTEGER *) X))))
635 (FORMAT NIL "~S IS ~S, Y = ~S"
642 (FOO ' (1 . 2)) => "NIL IS INTEGER, Y = 1"
646 (declare (type (array * (4 4)) x))
648 (setq x (make-array '(4 4)))
649 (adjust-array y '(3 5))
650 (= (array-dimension y 0) (eval `(array-dimension ,y 0)))))
652 * (foo (make-array '(4 4) :adjustable t))
655 205: "environment issues in cross compiler"
656 (These bugs have no impact on user code, but should be fixed or
658 a. Macroexpanders introduced with MACROLET are defined in the null
660 b. The body of (EVAL-WHEN (:COMPILE-TOPLEVEL) ...) is evaluated in
661 the null lexical environment.
662 c. The cross-compiler cannot inline functions defined in a non-null
665 206: ":SB-FLUID feature broken"
666 (reported by Antonio Martinez-Shotton sbcl-devel 2002-10-07)
667 Enabling :SB-FLUID in the target-features list in sbcl-0.7.8 breaks
670 207: "poorly distributed SXHASH results for compound data"
671 SBCL's SXHASH could probably try a little harder. ANSI: "the
672 intent is that an implementation should make a good-faith
673 effort to produce hash-codes that are well distributed
674 within the range of non-negative fixnums". But
675 (let ((hits (make-hash-table)))
678 (let* ((ij (cons i j))
679 (newlist (push ij (gethash (sxhash ij) hits))))
681 (format t "~&collision: ~S~%" newlist))))))
682 reports lots of collisions in sbcl-0.7.8. A stronger MIX function
683 would be an obvious way of fix. Maybe it would be acceptably efficient
684 to redo MIX using a lookup into a 256-entry s-box containing
685 29-bit pseudorandom numbers?
687 211: "keywords processing"
688 a. :ALLOW-OTHER-KEYS T should allow a function to receive an odd
689 number of keyword arguments.
692 (flet ((foo (&key y) (list y)))
693 (list (foo :y 1 :y 2)))
695 issues confusing message
700 ; caught STYLE-WARNING:
701 ; The variable #:G15 is defined but never used.
703 212: "Sequence functions and circular arguments"
704 COERCE, MERGE and CONCATENATE go into an infinite loop when given
705 circular arguments; it would be good for the user if they could be
706 given an error instead (ANSI 17.1.1 allows this behaviour on the part
707 of the implementation, as conforming code cannot give non-proper
708 sequences to these functions. MAP also has this problem (and
709 solution), though arguably the convenience of being able to do
710 (MAP 'LIST '+ FOO '#1=(1 . #1#))
711 might be classed as more important (though signalling an error when
712 all of the arguments are circular is probably desireable).
714 213: "Sequence functions and type checking"
715 a. (fixed in 0.8.4.36)
716 b. MAP, when given a type argument that is SUBTYPEP LIST, does not
717 check that it will return a sequence of the given type. Fixing
718 it along the same lines as the others (cf. work done around
719 sbcl-0.7.8.45) is possible, but doing so efficiently didn't look
720 entirely straightforward.
721 c. All of these functions will silently accept a type of the form
723 whether or not the return value is of this type. This is
724 probably permitted by ANSI (see "Exceptional Situations" under
725 ANSI MAKE-SEQUENCE), but the DERIVE-TYPE mechanism does not
726 know about this escape clause, so code of the form
727 (INTEGERP (CAR (MAKE-SEQUENCE '(CONS INTEGER *) 2)))
728 can erroneously return T.
730 215: ":TEST-NOT handling by functions"
731 a. FIND and POSITION currently signal errors when given non-NIL for
732 both their :TEST and (deprecated) :TEST-NOT arguments, but by
733 ANSI 17.2 "the consequences are unspecified", which by ANSI 1.4.2
734 means that the effect is "unpredictable but harmless". It's not
735 clear what that actually means; it may preclude conforming
736 implementations from signalling errors.
737 b. COUNT, REMOVE and the like give priority to a :TEST-NOT argument
738 when conflict occurs. As a quality of implementation issue, it
739 might be preferable to treat :TEST and :TEST-NOT as being in some
740 sense the same &KEY, and effectively take the first test function in
742 c. Again, a quality of implementation issue: it would be good to issue a
743 STYLE-WARNING at compile-time for calls with :TEST-NOT, and a
744 WARNING for calls with both :TEST and :TEST-NOT; possibly this
745 latter should be WARNed about at execute-time too.
747 216: "debugger confused by frames with invalid number of arguments"
748 In sbcl-0.7.8.51, executing e.g. (VECTOR-PUSH-EXTEND T), BACKTRACE, Q
749 leaves the system confused, enough so that (QUIT) no longer works.
750 It's as though the process of working with the uninitialized slot in
751 the bad VECTOR-PUSH-EXTEND frame causes GC problems, though that may
752 not be the actual problem. (CMU CL 18c doesn't have problems with this.)
754 This is probably the same bug as 162
756 217: "Bad type operations with FUNCTION types"
759 * (values-type-union (specifier-type '(function (base-char)))
760 (specifier-type '(function (integer))))
762 #<FUN-TYPE (FUNCTION (BASE-CHAR) *)>
764 It causes insertion of wrong type assertions into generated
768 (let ((f (etypecase x
769 (character #'write-char)
770 (integer #'write-byte))))
773 (character (write-char x s))
774 (integer (write-byte x s)))))
776 Then (FOO #\1 *STANDARD-OUTPUT*) signals type error.
778 (In 0.7.9.1 the result type is (FUNCTION * *), so Python does not
779 produce invalid code, but type checking is not accurate.)
781 233: bugs in constraint propagation
783 (declaim (optimize (speed 2) (safety 3)))
785 (if (typep (prog1 x (setq x y)) 'double-float)
788 (foo 1d0 5) => segmentation violation
790 235: "type system and inline expansion"
792 (declaim (ftype (function (cons) number) acc))
793 (declaim (inline acc))
795 (the number (car c)))
798 (values (locally (declare (optimize (safety 0)))
800 (locally (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
803 (foo '(nil) '(t)) => NIL, T.
805 237: "Environment arguments to type functions"
806 a. Functions SUBTYPEP, TYPEP, UPGRADED-ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE, and
807 UPGRADED-COMPLEX-PART-TYPE now have an optional environment
808 argument, but they ignore it completely. This is almost
809 certainly not correct.
810 b. Also, the compiler's optimizers for TYPEP have not been informed
811 about the new argument; consequently, they will not transform
812 calls of the form (TYPEP 1 'INTEGER NIL), even though this is
813 just as optimizeable as (TYPEP 1 'INTEGER).
815 238: "REPL compiler overenthusiasm for CLOS code"
817 * (defclass foo () ())
818 * (defmethod bar ((x foo) (foo foo)) (call-next-method))
819 causes approximately 100 lines of code deletion notes. Some
820 discussion on this issue happened under the title 'Three "interesting"
821 bugs in PCL', resulting in a fix for this oververbosity from the
822 compiler proper; however, the problem persists in the interactor
823 because the notion of original source is not preserved: for the
824 compiler, the original source of the above expression is (DEFMETHOD
825 BAR ((X FOO) (FOO FOO)) (CALL-NEXT-METHOD)), while by the time the
826 compiler gets its hands on the code needing compilation from the REPL,
827 it has been macroexpanded several times.
829 A symptom of the same underlying problem, reported by Tony Martinez:
831 (with-input-from-string (*query-io* " no")
833 (simple-type-error () 'error))
835 ; (SB-KERNEL:FLOAT-WAIT)
837 ; note: deleting unreachable code
838 ; compilation unit finished
841 241: "DEFCLASS mysteriously remembers uninterned accessor names."
842 (from tonyms on #lisp IRC 2003-02-25)
843 In sbcl-0.7.12.55, typing
844 (defclass foo () ((bar :accessor foo-bar)))
847 (defclass foo () ((bar :accessor foo-bar)))
848 gives the error message
849 "#:FOO-BAR already names an ordinary function or a macro."
850 So it's somehow checking the uninterned old accessor name instead
851 of the new requested accessor name, which seems broken to me (WHN).
853 242: "WRITE-SEQUENCE suboptimality"
854 (observed from clx performance)
855 In sbcl-0.7.13, WRITE-SEQUENCE of a sequence of type
856 (SIMPLE-ARRAY (UNSIGNED-BYTE 8) (*)) on a stream with element-type
857 (UNSIGNED-BYTE 8) will write to the stream one byte at a time,
858 rather than writing the sequence in one go, leading to severe
859 performance degradation.
861 243: "STYLE-WARNING overenthusiasm for unused variables"
862 (observed from clx compilation)
863 In sbcl-0.7.14, in the presence of the macros
864 (DEFMACRO FOO (X) `(BAR ,X))
865 (DEFMACRO BAR (X) (DECLARE (IGNORABLE X)) 'NIL)
866 somewhat surprising style warnings are emitted for
867 (COMPILE NIL '(LAMBDA (Y) (FOO Y))):
869 ; (LAMBDA (Y) (FOO Y))
871 ; caught STYLE-WARNING:
872 ; The variable Y is defined but never used.
874 245: bugs in disassembler
875 a. On X86 an immediate operand for IMUL is printed incorrectly.
876 b. On X86 operand size prefix is not recognized.
879 (defun foo (&key (a :x))
883 does not cause a warning. (BTW: old SBCL issued a warning, but for a
884 function, which was never called!)
887 Compiler does not emit warnings for
889 a. (lambda () (svref (make-array 8 :adjustable t) 1))
892 (list (let ((y (the real x)))
893 (unless (floatp y) (error ""))
898 (declare (optimize (debug 0)))
899 (declare (type vector x))
900 (list (fill-pointer x)
904 Complex array type does not have corresponding type specifier.
906 This is a problem because the compiler emits optimization notes when
907 you use a non-simple array, and without a type specifier for hairy
908 array types, there's no good way to tell it you're doing it
909 intentionally so that it should shut up and just compile the code.
911 Another problem is confusing error message "asserted type ARRAY
912 conflicts with derived type (VALUES SIMPLE-VECTOR &OPTIONAL)" during
913 compiling (LAMBDA (V) (VALUES (SVREF V 0) (VECTOR-POP V))).
915 The last problem is that when type assertions are converted to type
916 checks, types are represented with type specifiers, so we could lose
917 complex attribute. (Now this is probably not important, because
918 currently checks for complex arrays seem to be performed by
922 (compile nil '(lambda () (aref (make-array 0) 0))) compiles without
923 warning. Analogous cases with the index and length being equal and
924 greater than 0 are warned for; the problem here seems to be that the
925 type required for an array reference of this type is (INTEGER 0 (0))
926 which is canonicalized to NIL.
931 (t1 (specifier-type s)))
932 (eval `(defstruct ,s))
933 (type= t1 (specifier-type s)))
938 b. The same for CSUBTYPEP.
940 262: "yet another bug in inline expansion of local functions"
944 (declare (integer x y))
947 (declare (integer u))
948 (if (> (1+ (the unsigned-byte u)) 0)
950 (return (+ 38 (cos (/ u 78)))))))
951 (declare (inline xyz))
953 (* (funcall (eval #'xyz) x)
955 (funcall (if (> x 5) #'xyz #'identity)
960 Urgh... It's time to write IR1-copier.
963 David Lichteblau provided (sbcl-devel 2003-06-01) a patch to fix
964 behaviour of streams with element-type (SIGNED-BYTE 8). The patch
965 looks reasonable, if not obviously correct; however, it caused the
966 PPC/Linux port to segfault during warm-init while loading
967 src/pcl/std-class.fasl. A workaround patch was made, but it would
968 be nice to understand why the first patch caused problems, and to
969 fix the cause if possible.
971 268: "wrong free declaration scope"
972 The following code must signal type error:
974 (locally (declare (optimize (safety 3)))
975 (flet ((foo (x &optional (y (car x)))
976 (declare (optimize (safety 0)))
978 (funcall (eval #'foo) 1)))
981 SCALE-FLOAT should accept any integer for its second argument.
984 In the following function constraint propagator optimizes nothing:
987 (declare (integer x))
988 (declare (optimize speed))
996 Compilation of the following two forms causes "X is unbound" error:
998 (symbol-macrolet ((x pi))
999 (macrolet ((foo (y) (+ x y)))
1000 (declaim (inline bar))
1006 (See (COERCE (CDR X) 'FUNCTION) in IR1-CONVERT-INLINE-LAMBDA.)
1009 CLHS says that type declaration of a symbol macro should not affect
1010 its expansion, but in SBCL it does. (If you like magic and want to
1011 fix it, don't forget to change all uses of MACROEXPAND to
1015 The following code (taken from CLOCC) takes a lot of time to compile:
1018 (declare (type (integer 0 #.large-constant) n))
1021 (fixed in 0.8.2.51, but a test case would be good)
1024 (defmethod fee ((x fixnum))
1027 (fee 1) => type error
1034 (declare (optimize speed))
1035 (loop for i of-type (integer 0) from 0 by 2 below 10
1038 uses generic arithmetic.
1040 b. (fixed in 0.8.3.6)
1042 279: type propagation error -- correctly inferred type goes astray?
1043 In sbcl-0.8.3 and sbcl-0.8.1.47, the warning
1044 The binding of ABS-FOO is a (VALUES (INTEGER 0 0)
1045 &OPTIONAL), not a (INTEGER 1 536870911)
1046 is emitted when compiling this file:
1047 (declaim (ftype (function ((integer 0 #.most-positive-fixnum))
1048 (integer #.most-negative-fixnum 0))
1053 (let* (;; Uncomment this for a type mismatch warning indicating
1054 ;; that the type of (FOO X) is correctly understood.
1055 #+nil (fs-foo (float-sign (foo x)))
1056 ;; Uncomment this for a type mismatch warning
1057 ;; indicating that the type of (ABS (FOO X)) is
1058 ;; correctly understood.
1059 #+nil (fs-abs-foo (float-sign (abs (foo x))))
1060 ;; something wrong with this one though
1061 (abs-foo (abs (foo x))))
1062 (declare (type (integer 1 100) abs-foo))
1067 280: bogus WARNING about duplicate function definition
1068 In sbcl-0.8.3 and sbcl-0.8.1.47, if BS.MIN is defined inline,
1070 (declaim (inline bs.min))
1071 (defun bs.min (bases) nil)
1072 before compiling the file below, the compiler warns
1073 Duplicate definition for BS.MIN found in one static
1074 unit (usually a file).
1076 (declaim (special *minus* *plus* *stagnant*))
1077 (defun b.*.min (&optional (x () xp) (y () yp) &rest rest)
1079 (define-compiler-macro b.*.min (&rest rest)
1081 (defun afish-d-rbd (pd)
1083 (b.*.min (foo-d-rbd *stagnant*))
1084 (multiple-value-bind (reduce-fn initial-value)
1086 (list (values #'bs.min 0))
1087 (vector (values #'bs.min *plus*)))
1088 (let ((cv-ks (cv (kpd.ks pd))))
1089 (funcall reduce-fn d-rbds)))))
1090 (defun bfish-d-rbd (pd)
1092 (b.*.min (foo-d-rbd *stagnant*))
1093 (multiple-value-bind (reduce-fn initial-value)
1095 (list (values #'bs.min *minus*))
1096 (vector (values #'bs.min 0)))
1097 (let ((cv-ks (cv (kpd.ks pd))))
1098 (funcall reduce-fn d-rbds)))))
1100 281: COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD error signalling.
1101 (slightly obscured by a non-0 default value for
1102 SB-PCL::*MAX-EMF-PRECOMPUTE-METHODS*)
1103 It would be natural for COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD to signal errors
1104 when it finds a method with invalid qualifiers. However, it
1105 shouldn't signal errors when any such methods are not applicable to
1106 the particular call being evaluated, and certainly it shouldn't when
1107 simply precomputing effective methods that may never be called.
1108 (setf sb-pcl::*max-emf-precompute-methods* 0)
1110 (:method-combination +)
1111 (:method ((x symbol)) 1)
1112 (:method + ((x number)) x))
1113 (foo 1) -> ERROR, but should simply return 1
1115 The issue seems to be that construction of a discriminating function
1116 calls COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD with methods that are not all applicable.
1118 283: Thread safety: libc functions
1119 There are places that we call unsafe-for-threading libc functions
1120 that we should find alternatives for, or put locks around. Known or
1121 strongly suspected problems, as of 0.8.3.10: please update this
1122 bug instead of creating new ones
1124 localtime() - called for timezone calculations in code/time.lisp
1126 284: Thread safety: special variables
1127 There are lots of special variables in SBCL, and I feel sure that at
1128 least some of them are indicative of potentially thread-unsafe
1129 parts of the system. See doc/internals/notes/threading-specials
1131 286: "recursive known functions"
1132 Self-call recognition conflicts with known function
1133 recognition. Currently cross compiler and target COMPILE do not
1134 recognize recursion, and in target compiler it can be disabled. We
1135 can always disable it for known functions with RECURSIVE attribute,
1136 but there remains a possibility of a function with a
1137 (tail)-recursive simplification pass and transforms/VOPs for base
1140 287: PPC/Linux miscompilation or corruption in first GC
1141 When the runtime is compiled with -O3 on certain PPC/Linux machines, a
1142 segmentation fault is reported at the point of first triggered GC,
1143 during the compilation of DEFSTRUCT WRAPPER. As a temporary workaround,
1144 the runtime is no longer compiled with -O3 on PPC/Linux, but it is likely
1145 that this merely obscures, not solves, the underlying problem; as and when
1146 underlying problems are fixed, it would be worth trying again to provoke
1149 288: fundamental cross-compilation issues (from old UGLINESS file)
1150 Using host floating point numbers to represent target floating point
1151 numbers, or host characters to represent target characters, is
1152 theoretically shaky. (The characters are OK as long as the characters
1153 are in the ANSI-guaranteed character set, though, so they aren't a
1154 real problem as long as the sources don't need anything but that;
1155 the floats are a real problem.)
1157 289: "type checking and source-transforms"
1159 (block nil (let () (funcall #'+ (eval 'nil) (eval '1) (return :good))))
1162 Our policy is to check argument types at the moment of a call. It
1163 disagrees with ANSI, which says that type assertions are put
1164 immediately onto argument expressions, but is easier to implement in
1165 IR1 and is more compatible to type inference, inline expansion,
1166 etc. IR1-transforms automatically keep this policy, but source
1167 transforms for associative functions (such as +), being applied
1168 during IR1-convertion, do not. It may be tolerable for direct calls
1169 (+ x y z), but for (FUNCALL #'+ x y z) it is non-conformant.
1171 b. Another aspect of this problem is efficiency. [x y + z +]
1172 requires less registers than [x y z + +]. This transformation is
1173 currently performed with source transforms, but it would be good to
1174 also perform it in IR1 optimization phase.
1176 290: Alpha floating point and denormalized traps
1177 In SBCL 0.8.3.6x on the alpha, we work around what appears to be a
1178 hardware or kernel deficiency: the status of the enable/disable
1179 denormalized-float traps bit seems to be ambiguous; by the time we
1180 get to os_restore_fp_control after a trap, denormalized traps seem
1181 to be enabled. Since we don't want a trap every time someone uses a
1182 denormalized float, in general, we mask out that bit when we restore
1183 the control word; however, this clobbers any change the user might
1187 (reported by Adam Warner, sbcl-devel 2003-09-23)
1189 The --load toplevel argument does not perform any sanitization of its
1190 argument. As a result, files with Lisp pathname pattern characters
1191 (#\* or #\?, for instance) or quotation marks can cause the system
1192 to perform arbitrary behaviour.