From: "Chr. Rippel" <chr_news@...>
Date: 2002-01-18T00:16:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Possible bug in Mac version?

"ts" <decoux@moulon.inra.fr> wrote in,
....
> pigeon% b.rb 400
> Segmentation fault
which is a bug in my opinion.
> pigeon%

Anyway, I don't have a Mac around either however the same
script gracefully throws an SystemStackError if n = 500 on cygwin
(1.7.2). On mswin -(1.7.1)  the system hangs if n = 800 . You can
see the same behavior on more complicated methods like the
ackerfunction

----
def ack (m,n)
  return n.succ if m.zero?
  return ack (m-1,1) if n.zero?
  return ack (m-1,ack(m,n-1))
end

p ack(3,4)  # => SystemStackError on 1.7.2 cygwin
p ack(3,5) # => hangs on 1.7.1 mswin
----

On older cvs versions  ~ year ago the recursion behavior on windows
was as good (``good meaning'' you could calculate at least ack(3,8)) as
linux and I have seen that the behavior of hanging/SystemStackError
for the ackermann method alternating from one cvs-revision to the
next.

/Christoph