bug#13537: split: memory exhausted when putting at most T/P/E bytes of lines per output file

[Lei Zhang]

Hi All,

In the `split' program of coreutils 8.20, we found a bug which is similar
to the bug reported in bug#13530:

Invoking `split -C T' or `split -C P' or `split -C E' will cause memory
exhaustion.

However, smaller units (e.g., K, M, G) work fine; bigger units (e.g., Z, Y)
fail properly (by outputing "invalid number of bytes").

A bit dig reveals that the bug is introduced at line 1412 of split.c
(coreutils 8.20):

1400: switch (split_type)
1401: {
      ...
1411:   case type_byteslines:
1412:     line_bytes_split (n_units); /* this function calls
xmalloc(n_bytes), which fails. */
1413:     break;
      ...
1434: }

`n_units' before that statement can be very large. In the case of `split -C
T', it is 1099511627776.

We think this is a bug similar to the one reported in bug#13530, so we
bring this issue to your attention. Thanks!


Environments:

$ uname -a
Linux anti-think 3.7.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jan 17 18:52:30 CET 2013
x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ pacman -Qi coreutils
Name           : coreutils
Version        : 8.20-1
URL            : http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils
Licenses       : GPL3
Groups         : base
Provides       : None
Depends On     : glibc  pam  acl  gmp  libcap
Optional Deps  : None
Required By    : ca-certificates  dbus  filesystem  linux  mkinitcpio  perl
 sysvinit-tools  util-linux
Conflicts With : None
Replaces       : None
Installed Size : 13820.00 KiB
Packager       : Allan McRae <address@hidden>
Architecture   : x86_64
Build Date     : Wed 24 Oct 2012 03:57:11 AM EDT
Install Date   : Sun 28 Oct 2012 01:51:06 PM EDT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : Yes
Description    : The basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities of
the GNU operating system

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU
memory: 4GB

Best regards,

-- 
Lei Zhang
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Waterloo
 200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1