[gentoo-dev] severe gnumeric bug

[gentoo-dev] severe gnumeric bug

[Andrew Ebling]

Here is how to crash your system using gnumeric 1.0.8
(or bring it close):

(this is the simplest routine that demonstrates the bug).

- open gnumeric
- Edit->Select->All
- Copy
- File->New
- Edit->Paste

The result is long periods of CPU activity, first I watch RAM fill up,
followed by all the swap.

If left to its own devices, gnumeric eventually quits with this message:

---------8<--------------8<-------------------

GLib-ERROR **: could not allocate 16777216 bytes
aborting...

---------8<--------------8<-------------------

Ahem... that is a _lot_ of bytes!

I can see what it is trying to do (allocate enough memory to copy every
(blank) cell of the spreadsheet).  However, it really ought to be more
intelligent than to actually try and do that, especially if the cells
are empty.

I don't have time to go through the motions of a formal bug report, I've
briefly searched bugzilla.gnome.org and not come across anything.

Is anyone else able to give this severe bug the attention it deserves? 
I discovered it doing everyday work, so it must be affecting quite a lot
of people out there.  It also exhibits behaviour that could potentially
endanger the stability of the whole system, especially those that
pre-date the kernel Out Of Memory killer, introduced late in 2.4 iirc.

thanks,

Andy

PS.  Please CC me on replies.  I'd love to keep up with all the goings
on with this list, but I can't afford the time :-(.
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