On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 5:24 AM, Beman Dawes <bdawes@acm.org> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 3:22 AM, Andrey Semashev <andrey.semashev@gmail.com> wrote:
On November 5, 2012 6:06:42 AM "Stephan T. Lavavej" <stl@exchange.microsoft.com> wrote:
[Andrey Semashev]
+1, I had reported a memory leak bug [1] to MS and had been told that the behavior is correct as it doesn't contradict the Standard. I can't trust the vendor that treats users this way and declares a memory leak as a valid behavior. I doubt I will ever bother reporting any other bugs in MSVC. [1] The leak appeared in STL streams, if initialized multiple times. Here's a code snippet: https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/boost-log/ticket/2#comment:4 I didn't keep a reference to the MS bug tracker and I can't find it now.
This was Dev10#831920/Connect#518512. I can't load the Connect link anymore (it is supposed to be http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/518512/memory-lea... and I don't know why it's broken) but I can still see the comments through Team Foundation Server. This behavior was really, truly conformant to the Standard - I was surprised too, so I had to ask P.J. Plauger for an explanation. Here are the comments:
[snip]
Thank you Stephan for digging it out. But I still don't agree with your conclusions and consider it a serious bug.
If you read the standard one way and a library supplier reads it another way, you can file a Library Working Group issue. It may be that the standard needs clarification, or there is a mistake in the standard, or the standard is correct as written but the LWG feels the behavior should be changed, or whatever. Resolving this kind of issue is one of the functions of the standards committee.
If some implementations behave one way, and some behave a different way, the LWG is likely to be particularly interested in pursuing the issue.
I've tested this with STLPort when I found the problem and with GCC 4.7 now. Both did not show the leak, so MS STL stands out. Yes, I would like this issue to be resolved in the Standard but I don't think I have the necessary resource to prepare and (most importantly) defend the proposal before the committee.