[petsc-users] valgrind complains about string functions

[Satish Balay]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2012, Alexander Grayver wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm using PETSc-3.3-p4 compiled with ICC 12.0 + IntelMPI 4.0.3 and getting a
> bunch of the errors related to the string functions:
> 
> ==22020== Conditional jump or move depends on uninitialised value(s)
> ==22020==    at 0x4D3109: __intel_sse2_strcpy (in /home/main)
> ==22020==    by 0xE87D51D: PetscStrcpy (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE87B6A4: PetscStrallocpy (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE796769: PetscFListGetPathAndFunction (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE79652A: PetscFListAdd (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE64ACB8: MatMFFDRegister (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE64FA7D: MatMFFDRegisterAll (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE64F65B: MatMFFDInitializePackage (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE48D8C2: MatInitializePackage (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE5157DB: MatCreate (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> ==22020==    by 0xE29A74C: MatCreateSeqAIJ (in
> /home/lib/petsc-3.3-p4/intelmpi-intel12-double-release-c-shared/lib/libpetsc.so)
> 
> Same thing for PetscStrncat etc.
> 
> There was similar question two years ago in this mailing list and advice was
> to use a different compiler. It is not an option for me.

You can always use a separate build of PETSc with gcc,--download-mpich
to get a valgrind clean build [for debugging purposes]

> Thus, my question is can those errors potentially cause any serious troubles?

Generally we can ignore issues valgrind finds in system/compiler
libraries. [Jed has a valid explanation for this one].

And generally valgrind provides 'default suppression files' for known
glibc versions. But for such issues as with ifc, you can ask valgrind
to create a supression file - and then rerun valgrind with this custom
supression file - to get more readable output.

Satish

> I came across with time trying to debug a weird segmentation fault.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
>