[9357] in Athena Bugs
rt 7.3P: BSD 4.3 setenv() trashes environ when out of memory
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barr3y Jaspan)
Sun May 24 21:58:05 1992
To: bugs@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 24 May 92 21:57:53 EDT
From: "Barr3y Jaspan" <bjaspan@Athena.MIT.EDU>
System name: bill-the-cat
Type and version: RTPC-ROMPC 7.3P (1 update(s) to same version)
Display type: apa16
What's wrong:
The standard BSD 4.3 setenv() function sets the global variable
"environ" to NULL when there is not enough memory to store the new
environment variable. Here's the code
(bsd-4.3/common/lib/libc/gen/setenv.c):
environ = (char **)realloc((char *)environ,
(u_int)(sizeof(char *) * (cnt + 2)));
if (!environ)
return(-1);
What should have happened:
environ's value should not be changed if an out-of-memory error
occurs. Possible bugs in realloc() do not justify this additional
lossage.
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
setenv(2)
