Sun X server memory leak when running emacs 21.2

[Alan Morgan]

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In GNU Emacs 21.2.2 (sparc-sun-solaris2.6, OSF/Motif Version 1.2.6)
 of 2002-08-08 on athene
configured using `configure  --with-x-toolkit=motif 
--prefix=/usr/local/src/edcad/gnu'
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

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

On Sun Solaris 2.6, when running emacs 21.2 with the menu bar enabled, the Sun
X server's memory usage increases with time, eventually making the machine
unreasonably slow.  This does not occur in emacs 20, nor in 21.2 if the menu
bar is disabled.

To see the behaviour, start an X login session, monitor the virtual memory
size of the Xsun process, and start a vanilla emacs with emacs -q. When emacs
processes commands, the Xsun memory usage is seen to rise, usually in chunks
of around 4-32k at a time. Opening files (with C-x C-f) and killing buffers
(C-x C-k), with no other activity, seems to show the behaviour. If emacs is
left undisturbed (no input) then the memory usage does not rise but stays
constant, however doing C-x C-f then causes a rise again, even C-x C-f C-g,
i.e. an aborted find file has the same effect.

I am aware that this could be a bug in Xsun, not in emacs, but I'm sorry I
don't know enough about the internals of X to know whether it is possible for
an application to legitimately cause the Xsun process to expand, or if this
has to imply a bug in the X implementation. I'd be interested to know which is
at fault.

Best Regards,

Alan

- 
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Dr Alan Morgan             |                                 
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