Re: Linking legacy PHP stuff

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Tom Lane wrote:
> Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> writes:
> > However, I _have_ seen memory leaks and other problems with a client
> > that was statically linked with a pre-6.4 libpq on post 6.4 that worked
> > perfectly with pre-6.4 server.

> Interesting --- this would imply some problem in the current backend's
> handling of the v1 protocol, I think.  Is it worth your time to dig
> into it further and see where the leak is coming from?  I'm not sure
> I care very much about pre-6.4 code myself, but am willing to look
> at the problem if you can provide specifics.

I'll see what  can find -- and I mean that literally, as that client may or may
not still be available in that form on my disk (AOLserver 2.2.1 through
AOLserver 2.3b4 binary distribution's postgres.so -- the 2.3.2, 2.3.3, and 3.0
drivers don't exhibit the problem....) -- and the AOLserver site no longer
distributes the closed source versions -- only the open source AOLserver 3,
which is also available in binary form, but linked to a post-6.4 libpq.

The symptom was, on any database error whatsoever, the database connection
would blowup and cause a segmentation fault for the master thread in the
multithreaded AOLserver core -- which is _not_ supposed to happen.  This would
lock up the entire server process, requireing kill -9 to recover.  Recompiling
the postgres driver and linking against a post-6.4 libpq cleared the problem.

The problem did not happen if a pre-6.4 server was in use.  I ran for two years
with the old postgres.so's and 6.2.1/6.3.2 with little to no incident -- then I
upgraded to 6.5, and had to recompile the driver to get things right.

I could have been the libpq.a that the postgres driver was linked against -- I
asked the developers at that time what version it was, and they replied that it
was so old that they had no idea.  That's when I realized I should have been
recompiling and relinking all along! :-)  I _do_ know the docs to the driver
mentioned Postgres95 1.0.1......

But, that's about the same age as PHP/FI 2, isnt' it?

Of course, you found Simon's problem -- for which I am glad.  Much simpler than
I erroneously thought.

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11