Date:	Thu, 25 Apr 1996 18:22:36 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To:	Charles Brasted <cbrasted AT physics DOT adelaide DOT edu DOT au>
Cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: should aborting gcc dump garbage on drive?
In-Reply-To:	<9604251037.AA18238@pilot.physics.adelaide.edu.au>
Message-Id:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.960425181438.24542D-100000@is>
Mime-Version:	1.0

On Thu, 25 Apr 1996, Charles Brasted wrote:

> I am not sure if this is related to djgpp or not, as I only use my computer
> for djgpping, I suspect it is - I am compiling economy class, so my 4000
> line program is s-l-o-w. If I get an error come up I simply abort the
> compilation to save time.  Every few days, my hard drive fills up with
> invisible files, which are essentially truncated versions of my code.  It is
> easy to fix, (using scandisk), but a bit annoying, as I am very close to my
> HD capacity and if it happens too much I run out of space.

You never tell, but if I understand correctly, you have a memory-starved 
machine.  If so, when you compile, GCC pages to disk, i.e. uses the swap 
file.  When you abort it, the swap file is not deleted and the filesystem 
is not updated.  Any program that is aborted in the midst of writing to a 
file will produce such errors.  So you should:

	1) try to avoid doing this
	2) if you must do it, run scandisk or any other disk repairing 
tool after every abort (that way, you will also be sure if this is 
DJGPP's fault)
	3) use GCC switches to make it do the minimum work, so you could 
wait until it finishes.  These switches are:

	  -Werror        treats any warnings as errors
	  -fsyntax-only  only checks the syntax correctness

(If there is a switch that makes gcc exit after n errors, use that switch 
with n = 1; I can't find such a switch in the docs, but maybe I don't 
look hard enough.)

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