segfault after changing max-lisp-eval-depth and max-specpdl-size

[Paul Stoeber]

In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu)
 of 2002-05-26 on xyz
configured using `configure  --prefix=/e --without-x'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Built without modification from
MD5:f4b58e5c2d923fc92495e0c2f167c5db 
URL:ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-21.2.tar.gz


I have this expression in my `*scratch*' buffer:

(progn
  (setq max-lisp-eval-depth 30000)
  (setq max-specpdl-size 30000)
  (defun seq (a b)
    "Return sequence of integers A, A+1, ..., B as a list."
    (if (> a b)
        ()
      (cons a (seq (1+ a) b))))
  (length (seq 1 10000)))

I go to its last line and type C-e C-x C-e, and then it looks like this:

  (length (seq 1 10000)))Segmentation fault
q@xyz~$ 


The descriptions of `max-lisp-eval-depth' and `max-specpdl-size'
both say "You can customize this variable."

I have not found this problem in etc/PROBLEMS or info/efaq* .


I think it should be possible to put your functional programmer's hat on
by saying

  (setq max-lisp-eval-depth (setq max-specpdl-size 134217727))

or better still

  (setq have-lisp-limits nil) ; don't bother me



---

Avoid arbitrary limits on the length or number of _any_ data structure [...]
                -- GNU Coding Standards