GC Bug?

["Adam P. Jenkins" <ajenkins@cs.umass.edu>]

Hi, I've been trying to write a C extension for O'Caml version 1.05,
on Linux.  I have a C object which I want to be able to pass into
caml, and manipulate it with the C functions.  I'm having some
problems with allocation.  Here's the smallest example I can give.
I've even provided a Makefile, which creates a custom toplevel to test
this in.

The problem occurs in test_copy (see the C file below).   For my
abstract type, I just use two integers set to some magic values, which
should never change.  However, in copy, after I call alloc, sometimes
the input parameter will change.  Here's a sample session:

> ./testtop
        Objective Caml version 1.05

# let o = TestMod.create();;
val o : TestMod.t = <abstr>
# TestMod.copy o;;
- : TestMod.t = <abstr>
# for i = 0 to 10000  do TestMod.copy o done;;
Uncaught exception: Invalid_argument("TestMod.copy: value changed after alloc")
# 

I can run TestMod.copy several times and it works, but then if I run
it several thousand times, the input argument will eventually get
corrupted during the call to alloc in test_copy.

Can anyone tell me if this is a GC bug, or something I'm doing wrong?
Should I be using Abstract_tag for my abstract chunk of memory, or
some other tag?  Thank you for any suggestions.

Adam

--
Adam P. Jenkins 
mailto:ajenkins@cs.umass.edu

---------------- testMod.mli --------------
type t
external create : unit -> t = "test_create"
external copy : t -> t = "test_copy"
    
--------------- testMod.ml ----------------
type t
external create : unit -> t = "test_create"
external copy : t -> t = "test_copy"

--------------- testmod.c ----------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <caml/mlvalues.h>
#include <caml/callback.h>
#include <caml/memory.h>
#include <caml/alloc.h>

typedef long type;

/* how many words to allocate for a pair of longs */
#define ALLOC_LEN ((sizeof(type) * 2) / sizeof(value))

value test_create(value v)
{
  type *p;
  value result = alloc(ALLOC_LEN, Abstract_tag);
  p = (type *)result;
  p[0] = 0xdeadbeef;   /* these are just magic values */
  p[1] = 0xfeedbeef;
  return result;
}

value test_copy(value v)
{
  type *p, a, b;
  value result;
  
  p = (type *)v;
  a = p[0];
  b = p[1];

  if (a != 0xdeadbeef || b != 0xfeedbeef)
    invalid_argument("TestMod.copy: value changed");

  result = alloc(ALLOC_LEN, Abstract_tag);

  /* sometimes v will change after the above alloc call */
  if (a != p[0] || b != p[1])
    invalid_argument("TestMod.copy: value changed after alloc");

  p = (type *)result;
  p[0] = a; p[1] = b;
  return result;
}

---------------- Makefile ----------
testtop:
	ocamlc -c testmod.c
	ocamlc -c testMod.mli
	ocamlc -c testMod.ml
	ocamlmktop -custom -o testtop testmod.o testMod.cmo

----------- End of files --------------