[OpenIndiana-discuss] Bash bug issue

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Mon, 3 Nov 2014, Bruce Lilly wrote:
>
> As of this late date, /usr/bin/bash here is in fact the bash executable,
> not a link; but that means that it's 32-bit only and might well present
> unexpected issues on 64-bit systems when dealing with large files etc.
> (basically anything that involves pointers, long integers, time_t,
> ptrdiff_t, clock_t, dev_t, off_t, size_t, or ssize_t in the sources).

Such problems are highly unlikely.  Solaris supports large files (LFS) 
in 32-bit applications and Autoconf-configured GNU programs use it by 
default.  Few shell jobs require over 2GB of data, so ptrdiff_t is not 
likely to be a problem, and size_t and ssize_t are unlikely to cause 
problems either.  Perhaps time_t is still an issue.

While it would be nice if Solaris software was all 64-bit, in actual 
practice I notice no difference in day to day use between systems with 
32-bit applications and 64-bit.  Only certain memory-hungry
applications will significantly benefit.

Regardless, the OpenIndiana project did produce an updated bash 
binary.  I initially built my own, but switched to the OpenIndiana 
version when it became available.

Bob
-- 
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/