libc6 version 2.0.3-4 and ecvt

[Douglas Bates <bates@stat.wisc.edu>]

I have reported this as a bug in the libc6 package but I think it is
important enough to warn people on this list also.  It appears that
the ecvt function in libc6 version 2.0.3-4 is producing incorrect
results.  A test program shown below produces different results when
compiled against libc6 and against libc5.  According to the manual
page for ecvt the results from the libc5 version are the correct
results.

 bash-2.00$ cat ecvt_test.c
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>

 void main(int argc, char **argv)
 {
   int decpt, sign; char * result;
   result = ecvt((double) 1234.567, (size_t) 7, &decpt, &sign);
   printf("result is %s, decpt is %d, sign is %d\n", result, decpt, sign);
   result = ecvt((double) -987.654321, (size_t) 7, &decpt, &sign);
   printf("result is %s, decpt is %d, sign is %d\n", result, decpt, sign);
   result = ecvt((double) 0, (size_t) 7, &decpt, &sign);
   printf("result is %s, decpt is %d, sign is %d\n", result, decpt, sign);
 }
 bash-2.00$ /usr/bin/gcc ecvt_test.c -o ecvt_test_libc6
 bash-2.00$ ldd ecvt_test_libc6
	 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4000f000)
	 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
 bash-2.00$ /usr/i486-linuxlibc1/bin/gcc ecvt_test.c -o ecvt_test_libc5
 bash-2.00$ ldd ecvt_test_libc5
	 libc.so.5 => /lib/libc.so.5 (0x4000b000)
 bash-2.00$ ecvt_test_libc5
 result is 1234567, decpt is 4, sign is 0
 result is 9876543, decpt is 3, sign is 1
 result is 0000000, decpt is 0, sign is 0
 bash-2.00$ ecvt_test_libc6
 result is 11234.567, decpt is 4, sign is 0
 result is 9987.6543, decpt is 3, sign is 1
 result is 00.000000, decpt is 1, sign is 0

-- 
Douglas Bates                            bates@stat.wisc.edu
Statistics Department                    608/262-2598
University of Wisconsin - Madison        http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~bates/


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