Boost C++ Libraries: Ticket #773: program_options find assert fails with multibyte characters

status, resolution changed; severity set

Vladimir Prus — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:59:40 GMT

status assigned → closed
resolution None → wontfix
severity → Showstopper

I don't have the slighest idea how char string can include multi-byte characters and how to handle that. Won't fix.

status, component, severity changed; resolution deleted

anonymous — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:03:54 GMT

status closed → reopened
resolution wontfix
component None → program_options
severity Showstopper → Problem

greg.ruthenbeck@… — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:06:11 GMT

This is still an issue and basically makes the component useless under Windows (since cannot run exe's compiled in Debug mode).

Vladimir Prus — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:40:36 GMT

If you notice, the issue was originally closed with "Won't fix" comment. That still stands -- I have zero experience with multibyte strings, and no active windows experience, so there's no chance I'll fix it. Unless you plan on either providing a patch, or providing very detailed background and explanations for the necessary fix, I don't think keeping this issue open makes sense.

greg.ruthenbeck@… — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:54:32 GMT

I've very little experience contributing to open-source projects the size of boost. By opening the bug I was hoping to flag the issue to other, more regular, contributors and/or a mailing list. Is this likely to happen? Since the bug is still present it would make sense to leave it open. At least that way, when next anyone contributes to the module they will have some documentation of the bug. I will continue to seek a solution but won't spend more than a few more hours on this over the next few days. If I don't resolve the issue in that time I won't use this module. In which case ideally the bug would remain open indefinitely pending a fix? Greg

greg.ruthenbeck@… — Tue, 26 May 2009 07:14:10 GMT

This bug is only present when compiler option "Code Generation" is set to /MDd (Multi-threaded Debug DLL). If compiling as /MTd (using Linker option /Force:Multiple) the bug is not present.

The bug occurs on line 121, options_description.cpp, when string::npos is incorrect after string::find() call. Example: When string _name = "version,v", the following code has n = 11, and name.size() = 8.

std::string name(_name); string::size_type n = name.find(','); if (n != string::npos) {

assert(n == name.size()-2);

This suggests that the lib I am linking against "libboost_program_options-vc80-mt-gd-1_38.lib" has been built incorrectly? Since I don't have the source I cannot rebuild at this time to test this.

Vladimir Prus — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:50:49 GMT

Is this issue still outstanding?

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:54:16 GMT

Would it help to replace:

assert(n == name.size()-2);

with: assert(n == (name.size() - 2*sizeof(std::string::char_type)));

Can somebody try that out?

Cheers, Sascha

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:56:44 GMT

better use:

 assert(n == (name.size() - 2*sizeof(std::string::value_type)));

status changed; resolution set

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:02:26 GMT

status reopened → closed
resolution → fixed

(In [58232]) Modify assert, potentially Fixes #773

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:04:48 GMT

I checked in my proposal and set ticket to 'closed'.

If this issue still occurs, please feel free to re-open this ticket, but make sure that it is not a problem of your environment (wrong builds, compiler options etc.)

Thanks, Sascha

Vladimir Prus — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:20:57 GMT

I am probably missing something here, but sizeof(std::string::value_type) is probably always 1. While multibyte strings are strings that consist of ordinary chars, but use more than one byte to represent a single 'logical character'.

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:43:15 GMT

I have no idea what is meant here with 'multibyte'. I assume if there is a multibyte string which uses e.g. 2 chars for a logical char, the library will fail at several other places.

I assume it's a strange platform specific behaviour with an old compiler version (opened 3 years ago). Nobody answered to this ticket anymore (you asked 3 months ago). So, I think its ok to close it.

We can revert my patch, I anyhow can not test or reproduce the bug ... I thought its maybe a potential solution ...

Vladimir Prus — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:43:49 GMT

Hmm, it seems that your patch will only matter if sizeof(char) != 1, and in that case, it will probably do the wrong thing -- that is, 'n' will be in chars and you will decrement 2*number_of_bytes. So, I guess the patch better be reverted and this issue kept closed. Apparently, nobody cares.

Sascha Ochsenknecht — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:58:07 GMT

uh, you're right ... it was wrong. However, I reverted it.

anonymous — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:13:33 GMT

I had this problem for the past 24 hours and it has been driving me nuts. My problem was that I was building an application with

Runtime Library = Multi-threaded Debug DLL runtime library

But some of the static .lib libraries I was linking against were using

Runtime Library = Multi-threaded DLL runtime library

The boost libraries used the correct version of the runtime library, it was a different library that was wrong (opencv). boost::program_options saw the crash first when it tried to dtor vector<string> but any code or library that attempted to dtor a vector<string> would have crashed.

anonymous — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 14:58:33 GMT

I ran into this assert error today. I'm using boost 1_59 with msvc12. My application crashed in debug mode when trying to 'add_options' to boost::options_description. I resolved my issue of ("version, v") by removing the space ("version,v").

yuang86@… — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 05:31:18 GMT

Replying to anonymous:

I ran into this assert error today. I'm using boost 1_59 with msvc12. My application crashed in debug mode when trying to 'add_options' to boost::options_description. I resolved my issue of ("version, v") by removing the space ("version,v").

I have the same issue with boot 1_60 with msvc14. Taking the whitespace away also helped me.

anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 13:08:31 GMT

Problem also occurs with VS 2015 and boost 1_61 in debug mode. That really is an annoyance, Whitespace removal did not help at all. Makes the library worthless imho.