[fpc-devel] According to Valgrind, something is wrong in IndexByte

[Jan Ruzicka]

On Aug 13, 2005, at 10:41, Micha Nelissen wrote:

> On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:03:01 -0400
> Jan Ruzicka <jan.ruzicka at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> On Aug 12, 2005, at 05:04, Micha Nelissen wrote:
>>
>>> But if I use my own version (which I use for delphi and is i386
>>> specific), it reports no errors in this location, for
>>> Dbf_Common/Dbf_Memo.
>>>
>>> i386 IndexByte seems way more complex than my custom MemScan, but
>>> maybe that's necessary somehow.
>>
>> Have you investigated more into the Valgrind behavior?
>> The jump (JNE     @@1) is reacting to "REPNE SCASB" and all values 
>> seem
>> to be defined.
>> Valgrind may be expecting some numerical operation to set the flags.
>> "Flags Affected: None; however, the CMPS and SCAS instructions do set
>> the status flags in the EFLAGS register."
>
> Hmm is your point that valgrind should detect an error in my "REPNE 
> SCASB" ?

No. Sorry did not read the original post carefully enough.
My understanding was that the assembler portion was causing valgrind to 
complain.
Now I finally got it. You were pointing out possible problem in 
System.IndexByte(Buffer, Length, Chr);

The valgrind message is really strange, because the IndexByte function 
is really similar to one you advised.

The svn version has this in rtl/i386/i386.inc

     297 function IndexByte(Const buf;len:SizeInt;b:byte):SizeInt; 
assembler;
     298 var
     299   saveedi,saveebx : longint;
     300 asm
     301         movl    %edi,saveedi
     302         movl    %ebx,saveebx
     303         movl    buf,%edi       // Load String
     304         movb    b,%bl
     305         movl    len,%ecx       // Load len
     306         xorl    %eax,%eax
     307         testl   %ecx,%ecx
     308         jz      .Lcharposnotfound
     309         cld
     310         movl    %ecx,%edx      // Copy for easy manipulation
     311         movb    %bl,%al
     312         repne
     313         scasb
     314         jne     .Lcharposnotfound
     315         incl    %ecx
     316         subl    %ecx,%edx
     317         movl    %edx,%eax
     318         jmp     .Lready
     319 .Lcharposnotfound:
     320         movl    $-1,%eax
     321 .Lready:
     322         movl    saveedi,%edi
     323         movl    saveebx,%ebx
     324 end;

>
> I am not familiar with the internals of valgrind, so to conclude from 
> 1 hour valgrind-experience that valgrind is faulty would be a little 
> over the top IMHO..

Once again sorry for the misunderstanding.

Jan