PROBLEMS.DOC KNOWN PROBLEMS AND BUGS This document describes known problems and bugs of the SXT programs. They have been found during testing or were reported by users. I provide this list for informational purposes so that every user can have a look at the problems he/she may run into (but hopefully does not). This list may also influence your decision, either positive or negative, whether to register or not, but I think everbody should know about before what he/she will get. For additional information and more general questions you should also look at the chapters 'PROGRAM LIMITATIONS', 'TROUBLE SHOOTING' and 'FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS' in SXT.DOC. If a real bug is reported I try to fix it if this can be done with reasonable effort but I cannot give a guarantee (Remember: I do all these things in my free time, this is not the job I earn my money!). I can do a fix only if I am able to reproduce the bug, therefore it is necessary to provide example code (as small as possible, concentrate on the problem) which causes the error. If possible, the memory address where the error occured would be very helpful. I also need information about your system: OS version (DOS, Windows, Win32, OS/2, NT), available memory size, installed drivers, network, concurrently running programs, ... (everything that could be important to help me searching the problem). NOTE: AS DESCRIBED IN THE "DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY" SECTION OF THE SXT DOCUMENTATION (SXT.DOC) THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THEREFORE THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE THAT THE AUTHOR WILL FIX A BUG. [... it's not a bug, it's a feature!] GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT WITH SXTWIN PROGRAMS It has been reported that SXTWIN programs sometimes crash with a general protection (GP) fault when the Borland IDE is run in a Windows DOS-box at the same time. This may happen also with other programs running in a DOS-box but the Borland IDE is the only reported until now. REASON: This is a probably a problem with limited Windows resources (memory, device contexts, file handles). There may be a conflict with the limited number of only 5 (!) windows device contexts which are necessary to access the screen from an application for writing text output. Probably the IDE takes a lot of the resources especially if many windows are opened. WORKAROUND: None - 1 - SXT COMMAND LINE VERSIONS SOMETIMES CRASH IN WINDOWS DOS-BOX It has been reported by users that under certain unknown circumstances the SXT command line programs hang during execution in a Windows DOS-box. However, they are working well in OS/2 DOS-boxes. REASON: Unknown WORKAROUND: None PROBLEMS WITH CHANGING DRIVE AND/OR DIRECTORY FROM SXTWIN32 PROGRAMS It has been reported that on some systems the Win32s SXTWIN programs cannot change directory and drive from within the file (and other) dialog boxes. On some systems changes to network (e.g. NFS) drives were not possible while changes between local drives work well. Also the behaviour of the same SXTWIN32 program version was different on the various Win32s subsystems it was used (v1.15a, v1.20, v1.25). For example, while all things are working well with v1.15a (including access of network drives), it does not work with v1.20 installed on the same system. The 16 bit Windows versions, however, seem to have no such problems. REASON: Unknown. It is probably related to the Win32s subsystems and/or the (more or less) compatible 32 bit libraries. There may also be changes in the behaviour on the different language versions of Win32s. WORKAROUND: None FATAL ERRORS DURING C PREPROCESSING WITH PROGRAMS THAT COMPILE WITHOUT ERRORS If reasons like missing include paths (-I), (un)defines (-U, -D) or file open/access errors have been excluded as source of the errors, there remain still some cases where the preprocessor reports 'fatal error:...'. REASON: The integrated preprocessor (which is in fact the oldest part of CXT - prior to ANSI-C) has problems with recursive expansion of macros ("rescanning") and with expansion of macro parameters, especially if the source makes extensive use of stringizing # or catenation ##. This is a bug in CFT and CST. Unfortunately, I do currently see no chance to fix this bug, cause this would require a major rewrite of the preprocessor. WORKAROUND: Either use option -NOUNSAFE or, better, preprocess the sources with your compiler specific preprocessor to an intermediate file and analyse the resulting output. Be sure to enable the insertion of '#line ...' directives to get valid filename and line number references. FILEOPEN ERROR MESSAGE 'INVALID ARGUMENTS' WITH OS2 AND NT SXT VERSIONS All SXT programs currently support only the DOS 8.3 file naming convention. Attempts to open files with a longer filename extension than 3 characters may lead the described error. This is especially the case if the OS2 and NT versions are working on files which are stored on a DOS file system. The OS2 and NT - 2 - versions are working well on their 'natural' file systems, HPFS (OS2) resp. NTFS (NT). There is currently no work around for this problem. Copyright (C) Juergen Mueller (J.M.) 1988-1995. All rights reserved world-wide. SXT (TM) SOFTWARE EXPLORATION TOOLS SXTWIN (TM) SOFTWARE EXPLORATION TOOLS for Windows (THIS DOCUMENT HAS 3 PAGES) - 3 -