Re: [xml] zlib 1.2.1 problems(?) + fix

[Igor Zlatkovic <igor zlatkovic com>]

On 25/08/04 00:00, Oliver Stöneberg wrote:
> > > I thought this might be worth of mentioning. 
> > > I am a follower of the arcade emulation scence and the zlib is used in a
> >
> > A follower? Is that a religious cult, or something? :)
>
> For some people it surely is. A lot of freaks and people, that take 
> it way too serious are there. But I meant, that I follow the things, 
> that happen. Bah!

Follow the happenings, follow your beliefs. I am just curious, not a 
Messiah who frees the chained and brings salvation to the damned. :))

> > > few projects attached to it and there have been reports, that the zlib
> > > 1.2.1 has problems with extracting files and I also remember something
> > > else.
> >
> > Why is this a problem for libxml? If zlib is broken, then zlib should be 
> > fixed. This will then automatically propagate to libxml and a myriad of 
> > other things that link to zlib dynamically.
>
> Well...if zlib is known to be buggy, it shouldn't be used as default 
> in something, that considers itself stable. I haven't used the new 
> zlib yet, but Cowering and Roman (people, that do rom managers, that 
> are based on zlib and make an extreme usage of it) ran into problems 
> with 1.21 when extracting files. And I don't know, if Cowering did 
> the fix or Mark Adler (I also saw a fix for 1.21 once, that credited 
> Mark Adler as the author).
> As I wrote before. I just felt, that it might be worth to mention it, 
> if somebody might run into some problems with it in the future.

Okay, that is good to know. It will certainly help handling the next bug 
report when it comes to failed decompression. But still, the bug is in 
zlib, not in libxml, and that is where it must be fixed. If I get 
reports about problems which can be tracked back to zlib, I'll provide a 
fixed zlib binary for Windows along with libxml. I believe the major 
Linux distributions will do the same. Ideally, the zlib team will fix 
their library and put everything straight.

> So long
> Oliver
>
> PS: I have to look into that libxml static thing for the makefiles 
> again and have to consult you about a serious multi-threading multi-
> DLL problem I got in the next days. As soon as I got time, you will 
> get a mail from me.

Threading. I was thinking about this lately. I tried to put its current 
state in words and my tongue grew so sharp, it could split a razorblade 
in two, edgewise. Be welcome, send me your ideas. My well of solutions 
had less depth than my ashtray so far.

Ciao,
Igor