[R] mapply() gives seg fault

[Robin Hankin]

Thanks for this everyone.

I didn't know that a seg fault was an operating system error message 
(in fact, I don't really know what a seg fault is... I'm not a C 
programmer, just plain Mr Joe Q Public, R user).

I would say the FAQ makes sense only if you know what kind of error 
messages operating systems are likely to report.  Mentioning seg 
faults  explicitly  in FAQ-9.1 might be helpful for nonprogrammers 
like me.   Something like "a seg fault is always a bug" would be good.

best wishes

robin


>On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Robin Hankin wrote:
>
>>  Hello again
>>
>>  thanks for this.  What I should have asked is, should one always report
>>  repeatable seg faults (even if functions are called with
>>  inappropriate arguments)?
>>
>
>Yes.  Reproducible segfaults that occur `in the wild' are fairly important
>bugs even if they result from errors.
>
>Segfaults from trying to break the system are a much lower priority, but
>even they should probably be reported.
>
>The FAQ (9.1) says
>	If R executes an illegal instruction, or dies with an operating system
>	error message that indicates a problem in the program (as opposed to
>	something like "disk full"), then it is certainly a bug.
>and goes on to explain that the only time this doesn't apply is when you
>call compiled code with the wrong arguments or call your own compiled
>code.
>
>	-thomas
>
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