Destructor call order in Windows/Linux

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I had the following code that worked fine on Windows, but would crash on Linux with a segmentation fault.

{
char memory[1024];
Object(memory);
}

Object would use the memory for its operations. I have two theories about why the crash happened:

1) Destructor call order is different in Linux and Windows, on Windows Object destructor is called before making changes to "memory".
2) Linux marks the "memory" space in some manner that doesn't allow Object destructor to work properly.

I have already fixed the problem with new and delete, but would like to know why this problem manifested itself on one platform and not the other. Used compilers are C++ (GCC 4.2.3 x86) for Linux and your friendly neighborhood VS compiler 6.0. for Windows.

Posted 28-Oct-10 20:43pm

AthosU

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3 solutions

Solution 3

This was in fact caused by the stack being too small.

Posted 1-Nov-10 1:57am

AthosU

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KingsGambit · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-28T21:22:00

Solution 1

C++ destructor call order is specified by the C++ standard. That will not be operating system specific.

Posted 28-Oct-10 21:22pm

KingsGambit

Comments

AthosU 29-Oct-10 4:03am

Thanks for the answer, I'd still like to find out the reason for this. That certainly rules out one option.

Dalek Dave 29-Oct-10 4:28am

Good call.

Aescleal · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-28T23:16:00

Order of destruction isn't up for grabs by compiler writers - it's set by the standard. If you have two objects a and b, declared as:

A a;
B b;

then the destructor of b is always going to be called first. So if b depends on a it will always be destroyed before its dependent object.

So what you've got to ask yourself is... what dodgy practice are you doing that will kill the process? I'd be more inclined to say that VC++6 is likely to be the culprit - it's an antique compiler that isn't particularly good at doing standard things and lets you get away with all sorts of rubbish that a relatively modern compiler (like gcc 4.x) won't.

So...

- crank up the warnings on both compilers to /W4 /WX
- get a new version of VC++ - download the express edition and try compiling with that
- start writing unit tests to find out where you class goes wrong and under what circumstances. e.g. test the behaviour of the class when passed a randomly filled array of characters, a zero pointer, a pointer to an array of all zeros.

I can't be anymore specific than that as you haven't described what "Object" does except for taking a block of characters for some nefarious end.

Cheers,

Ash