Release notes for Purify version 2002.05.00 IRIX6 Contents ======== o Changes from previous releases o Supported systems o Restrictions and known issues New in This Release =================== - Bug fixes and compatibility with OS patches. New in Purify 2002.05.00 ========================= - Bug fixes and compatibility with OS patches. New in Purify 2001a.04.00 ========================= - Bug fixes and compatibility with OS patches. - HTML-based online help system. See the "HTML Help" topic in the Restrictions and Known Issues section. - New product versioning system. This release is the successor of: Purify 5.3 for IRIX New in Purify 5.3 ================= - Bug fixes and compatibility with OS patches. - 64-bit applications are now supported. A 64-bit program is one that is built with the compiler option "-64." - Support for Irix 7.3 compiler - Support for gcc 2.8.1 and 2.9.5 compiler. Please read the Restrictions for important related IRIX patch information. New in Purify 5.2 ================= - Bug fixes and compatibility with OS patches. - This release uses a new FlexLm based licensing. Read the new installation guide before installing the product. Use rs_install instead of pure_install for the installation. New in Purify 4.6 ================= - IRIX 5.x is no longer supported. New in Purify 4.5 ================= - Support for Irix 6.5.x and the 7.2.1 compilers - Support for applications using POSIX threads on Irix 6.5.x. Pthread support is not available for versions of Irix prior to 6.5. Please read the Restrictions for important related IRIX patch information. - More aggressive checking of optimized N32 code has been implemented. This can lead to more UMR's. See the option -ignore-n32-o-umr=yes in the Restrictions section for information on how to disable this behavior. - This is the last release to support Irix 5.x ================================================== Supported systems ================= Operating system and Hardware ----------------------------- Purify has been tested with IRIX versions 6.2 and 6.5. Purify also supports 64-bit programs on IRIX64 6.5. A 64-bit program is one that is built with the compiler option "-64." Compilers --------- Purify has been tested with the following compilers: - cc - CC - gcc - g++ Debuggers --------- - dbx, version 6.1 or better - cvd, the Workshop Debugger, version 2.5 or better. See the "Restrictions and Known Issues" section for more details. Threads ------- Purify supports these threads packages: - the sproc interface. - POSIX threads. ================================================== Restrictions and Known Issues ============================= HTML Help --------- As of version 2001a.04.00, the online help has been replaced by a more robust HTML based help system. The new online help incorporates all the information from the product user manual. The following restrictions and notes apply to using the HTML help system: - The only supported browser is Netscape Navigator. You must use Netscape Navigator 4.7 or higher. - Netscape must be on your path when you run your instrumented program. Your path is used to locate the browser. - The first time you request help from a viewer, a new netscape session will be started, even if you already have netscape running. This session will be re-used by subsequent help requests unless you re-use the launched browser for another purpose. If you close the browser, a new browser will be launched upon the next help request. - The new help system uses Javascript. On some platforms, the MOZILLA_HOME environment variable must be set in order for Javascript based web pages to work properly. If you experience Java related problems with the help: Make sure your netscape installation directory is on your path and that MOZILLA_HOME is either not set at all (we will set it for you) or is set to the same installation directory. If MOZILLA_HOME is set but does not point to the same netscape installation as the netscape on your path, the help may not work correctly. If MOZILLA_HOME is not set at all, Purify will attempt to set it when we start netscape. But we will be unable to set it correctly if the netscape found on your path does not resolve to an actual installation directory. For example, if netscape actually references a wrapper script in /usr/local/bin. In this case, you will need to set MOZILLA_HOME explicitly. See the Netscape release notes for more information on MOZILLA_HOME. - Use the Help->Help Topics menu item to access the top level of the help system. In Quantify, you can also access the top level of the help system using the Help button on the initial Quantify Control Panel. - Context sensitive help is available on leaf menu items and on buttons ONLY. For information about a window, such as the Purify viewer, PureCoverage Annotated Source windows, or Quantify Function Detail window, use the Help->On Window menu item. - To view the help standalone, without launching the Purify GUI, point your browser to the following: product_home/UI/html/punix.htm (Where "product_home" is the installation location of Purify. e.g. the result of the -printhomedir option.) - PDF versions of the Purify Quick Reference card is available in the doc/pdf section of your installation, if you have installed PDF documentation. Otherwise, see the corresponding area of your installation CD. 64-bit Development ---------------------------- - Purify supports both 32-bit and 64-bit application development, and will select the correct mode of operation automatically based on inputs. The product banner will report the mode of operation during instrumentation and at runtime. However, the "-version" option will always report 32-bit mode; the product version is the same for both modes. - Starting in version 5.3, the product home directory has been reorganized to support both 32 and 64-bit development. This organization should be transparent for all 32-bit users and most 64-bit users. However, the location of the Purify stubs library is different for 64-bit applications: 32-bit libraries have been moved to the lib32 sub-directory: purifyhome/lib32/purify_stubs.a purifyhome/lib32/libpurify_stubs.a purifyhome/lib32/libpurify_stubs.so purifyhome/lib32/libpurify_stubs_n32.a purifyhome/lib32/libpurify_stubs_n32.so To preserve backward compatibility, the following links are provided in purifyhome: purifyhome/purify_stubs.a purifyhome/libpurify_stubs.a purifyhome/libpurify_stubs.so purifyhome/libpurify_stubs_n32.a purifyhome/libpurify_stubs_n32.so 32-bit API users are encouraged to use the libraries from the lib32 sub-directory, and not from purifyhome. 64-bit API users must link against the equivalent library in the lib64 sub-directory: purifyhome/lib64/purify_stubs.a purifyhome/lib64/libpurify_stubs.a purifyhome/lib64/purify_stubs.so purifyhome/lib64/libpurify_stubs.so The API header file has not moved and is shared for both development modes. - If you use purify -printhomedir to prefix product libraries, you should qualify the library path with the appropriate lib sub-directory: `purify -printhomedir`/lib32/purify_stubs.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib32/libpurify_stubs.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib64/purify_stubs.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib64/libpurify_stubs.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib32/libpurify_stubs.so `purify -printhomedir`/lib32/libpurify_stubs_n32.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib32/libpurify_stubs_n32.so `purify -printhomedir`/lib64/libpurify_stubs.a `purify -printhomedir`/lib64/libpurify_stubs.so General ------- - Purify does not display line numbers for error messages accurately if the code is compiled with both debug and optimization flags. - You may not see Purify error messages from an MPI (Message Passing Interface) test program. An MPI program first creates a given number of children and these children actually execute the test program. The parent doesn't execute the test program. So, one needs to set the purify option -follow-child-processes=yes to get the errors from an MPI test program. Note that when you set this option, a new purify viewer per child will come up. Thus, the number of processes increases. This could have an effect on the performance of your program. So, it is better to test with smaller number of children. User Interface -------------- - In version 5.3, the format of view files has changed. This means that the 5.3 Viewer cannot be used to view older view files, and 5.3 view files cannot be opened by older Viewers. Please use the Viewer of the same version to open view files. - If a large number of items are selected, "Expand all" followed by "Collapse all" can crash some unpatched versions of the OpenWindows 3.0 server. This occurs if you are displaying on a SUN workstation. - If you expand or collapse messages while the "Continue" or "Reset etc. Continue" buttons are displayed, the buttons may subsequently be incorrectly positioned. - The "Edit" toolbar item may be slow to respond. - The Purify GUI menus and buttons become inaccessible if either the NumLock or ScrollLock key is activated. The workaround is to switch them off, or add the following line(s) to your $HOME/.Xdefaults file. ! Ignore the NumLock and ScrollLock keys on ! mouse buttons Purify*ignoreModifierMask: Mod3|Mod2 This second workaround will take effect for a new Purify viewer after you restart your X-session or run a command like 'xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults'. - The "Invoke ClearDDTS" Button has been modified to bring up the ClearQuest web interface. This feature only works with Netscape Navigator. The site-wide URL for ClearQuest can be given during installation or set by manually editing the file pure_clearquest_url in your Purify home directory. A user can override the site-wide URL by setting the environment variable: PURE_CLEARQUEST_URL This feature is partly implemented by a shell script, ("pure_invoke_clearquest" in your Purify home directory) to allow you to tailor its operation to your needs. If you wish, you may copy and customize this. script. As long as the directory containing the script appears in your search path before your Purify home directory, it will be used instead of the original script. If you prefer to use Purify with ClearDDTS, you can do so by setting the X resource: Purify*ddtsCommandString to 'xddts', if xddts is in your search path, or to the full path to your xddts executable. xddts is invoked by a shell script ("pure_invoke_ddts" in your Purify home directory). If you wish to customize it, please read the section on customizing "pure_invoke_clearquest" above. If you already have a customized "pure_invoke_ddts" script in your search path, All you need to do is set your X resource as described above, and Purify will find your customized script automatically. Compilers --------- - Those purified programs compiled with gcc which initialize function pointers globally may dump core. g++ programs with global constructors may also dump core. This is due to a bug (#801456) in SGI assembler. SGI will make it available in Irix 6.5.10 and will also release a patch (#3944) for the previous Irix releases. Please contact SGI Support to obtain this patch. Note that the g++ library libstdc++ may have been built by the old assembler. Please build this with the new assembler to ensure that the purified program runs without dumping. - The GNU gcc extensions are not tested against Purify. Most gcc extensions will probably work fine. Known limitations at present include problems with nested functions (e.g.: making a pointer to a nested function and attempting to call through it will not work). - For systems running IRIX 6.5.7f or higher, Purify may fail to instrument /usr/lib/libc.so with the error message Processing /usr/lib/libc.so.1 - error fatal: Jump registered out of no transformed block [SA906D8, SA90710] /usr/lib/libc.so.1 This is a bug in cord. libc.so is corded, but cord is not updating the notransform information in the shared library correctly. This does not happen with Irix versions below 6.5.7, or with version on the maintenance stream (e.g. 6.5.7m). Rational Support is working with SGI to make a patch available. Please contact Rational Support regarding availability of the patch. - Aggressive Loading Some compilers load data from memory but ignore the data that has been read, especially when optimization is turned on. Purify will signal a UMR if the loaded data is uninitialized. In some sense this is a false error report because the uninitialized data will not affect your program. Purify'ing X Applications ------------------------- - When running a Purify'd X application, there is a potential for deadlock if your application causes Purify to generate a message while the application is holding the X lock, since Purify will be unable to generate the message, and the application is blocked until the message is delivered. To avoid this kind of problem, you should run your application on a different X server than the Purify UI or Purify stderr output, or you should use the -log-file= or -view-file= options to specify a file to capture messages for inspection after your application is finished. A convenient way to debug on two displays is to pre-start the Purify Viewer on one display ("slave"), and then start the application on the other display ("master"): % purify -display slave:0 -view a.out.X & % a.out.X -display master:0 The two commands must be executed on the same computer, but it could be the workstation associated with either display, or altogether another computer remote from both displays. The application will connect to the already started Purify Viewer, and messages will not conflict with the X display interactions of the application under test. Debuggers --------- - Invoking a debugger on a core file generated by a purified program, will cause numerous "mismatch" messages to be printed. These can be ignored, and will not affect debugging. Threads ------- - Call chains describing when memory was malloced or freed do not always include the thread id. - The Purify API functions purify_map_pool() and purify_map_pool_id() are not MT safe. - For applications using Pthreads, the purified program may crash or hang if dlopen is called. This is a bug in rld. SGI released patch (#3910) to correct the problem; please contact SGI Support to obtain the patch. Note that your application may not use dlopen directly, but a library it is using may call dlopen. C++ exception handling may also call dlopen. - Customers using unsupported threads packages should contact Rational Software technical support (support@rational.com) to ensure compatibility. Unsupported Features -------------------- - SBR and SBW errors are not reported on IRIX. - The Initialized Data and BSS sections are not checked for ABR and ABW errors on IRIX. - Statically linked mallocs are ignored: users who implement their own malloc function must put it in a DSO. - Instrumentation of stripped binaries and shared libraries is not supported. Misleading Error Messages ------------------------- - A failure to write to disk may result in a message like: #Error: (system) No such file or directory, write() failed [a.out]. In this case, you can see that you are out of disk space with "df .", and you should clean up or otherwise acquire more disk space. - More aggressive UMR checking has been added. This may cause spurious UMR's in some optimized n32 code. To disable this aggressive checking, use the option: -ignore-n32-o-umr=yes or set the environment variable: PURIFY_IGNORE_N32_O_UMR Purify Swap Usage ----------------- A Purify'd application needs more swap space than the equivalent unpurify'd version. Running under a debugger, you will need even more. To add swap space you may do the following: Do the following as root to add a 40MB swap file: /usr/sbin/mkfile 40m /usr/swap Add this line to /etc/fstab: /usr/swap swap swap pri=3 0 0 Then execute: /etc/init.d/swap stop /etc/init.d/swap start You may also allocate virtual swap to appease the debuggers swap requirements. Check the man page (man swapctl) for caveats. Do the following as root: vi /etc/config/vswap.options >change vswaplen to 250000 /sbin/chkconfig vswap on /etc/init.d/swap stop /etc/init.d/swap start How do I use the API functions? ------------------------------ There are stubs for the Purify API functions in the files libpurify_stubs.so and libpurify_stubs.a. For the N32 ABI, the files are libpurify_stubs_n32.so and libpurify_stubs_n32.a. You use the .so during development, and the .a for shipping your product. If you link with the .a file, the Purify API functions will be stubbed out even if you subsequently Purify your program. Manual Examples --------------- The examples in Chapter 12 of the manual are intended to help the user understand the circumstances that would cause Purify to report what it reports. At least one example does not apply to Purify on IRIX. - The MSE example in Chapter 12 will not produce an MSE on IRIX. Copyright Notice ---------------- The following copyright applies to portions of the ClearQuest integration and HTML based help system. Copyright 1996 Netscape Communications Corporation, all rights reserved. Created: Jamie Zawinski (jwz@netscape.com), 24-Dec-94. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.