Re: Too many files open error with 3.79 not 3.74

[Paul D. Smith]

%% address@hidden writes:

  m> Been using a "suite" of makefiles to compile a java 
  m> project for sometime now. When using gnumake version 
  m> 3.79.1 built for sparc-sun-solaris2.6, make dies with a: 

  m> "ld.so.1: echo: fatal: libc.so.1: open failed: Too many 
  m> open files"

  m> error, which granted looks a lot like a shell error and 
  m> not necessarily a make error. When using 3.74 make, 
  m> thouh, the project compiles on as it has been since the 
  m> last time any major changes were made to the makefiles.

  m> Anyone know what is different between the version 3.74 
  m> and 3.79 of make that could be causing this problem?

I haven't seen anything like this, so you'll have to provide more
information.  It looks like a file descriptor leak.  The only possible
thing I can think of that might be involved with that in make itself is
the new jobserver support in GNU make.

Are you running these builds in parallel (using make -j N)?

If so, please give a little information about how you are structuring
your recursive invocations of make.  How you are invoking sub-makes, for
example (show a sample rule).

Does this happen at a top-level make, or only deep into a recursive make
sequence?  How deep?

What are the commands that appear right before this one?

Are you using the "+" prefix to make command scripts a lot?

Maybe you can cobble up a little program that gives info about all its
open file descriptors, and run that at each submake to see how many FDs
you have as you recurse deeper: it should be constant after the first
level.

Other than that, I can't think of anything.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist