Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/02/25/21:36:50
On 25 Feb 1997 02:29:27 GMT pderbysh AT chat DOT carleton DOT ca (Paul Derbyshire)
writes:
>
>I have today discovered two very SEVERE BUGS in ALLEGRO that manifest
>themselves when the SOUND features are used.
Amazing. I never encountered any bugs with any of Allegro, WITH OR
WITHOUT the beta version. That means, I found no bugs in the real
version, and I found no bugs in the current beta version. BTW, try
toning down your subject.
>SEVERE BUG #1: After running an Allegro program that executes a
>play_sample at some point, then returning to DOS, if you then run
>another
>DOS program that uses sound, e.g. the test-sbc program that comes with
>a
>creative labs soundblaster, the result is a squawk from the soundcard
>and
>a system hang.
Well, all I can say is that I've got a Creative Labs Soundblaster 2.0 and
I've never encountered _any_ such problems with _any_ program (except
when the computer freezes with a note left on, you have to do a hard boot
or else the not stays on :)
>
>SEVERE BUG #2: load_sample always returns NULL, even if the string it
>is
>sent as parameter is the fille name of a mono WAV exactly as per
>instructions. For instance, if I have C:\DJGPP\SOUND001.WAV, and the
>current directory is C:\DJGPP, absolutely NONE of these work,
>load_sample("SOUND001") or load_sample("SOUND001.WAV") or
>load_sample("C:\DJGPP\SOUND001.WAV") and it shoulld CERTAINLY WORK in
>the
>latter case, where it was given a FULL FILE PATH to a file that
>definitely
>EXISTS and is indeed a WAV file that is mono and not stereo.
Check the example files (ie ex17, I think is the one that plays .wav's).
See if you really are calling the functions correctly.
>
>I cannot imagine that either of these two bugs could have gone
>completely
>undiscovered.
Why not? If nobody ever experiences them, why _should_ they be
discovered?
>There is no way you didn't know about these when you
>released the version of allegro I'm using.
Unless nobody (Shawn included) has ever stumbled on them before, in which
case you may consider yourself an intrepid explorer :)
> Yet the documentation makes
>no
>reference to either of these, as "known bugs" or anywhere else, and I
>can't help feeling somewhat like I've been gypped of the time and
>effort
>it took to download the damn thing.
Anyone who spends any significant portion of time downloading something
only to yell "I'VE BEEN GYPPED!" without giving it a while is rather hard
to comprehend.
>I also think that you should never
>have released it as a full-fledged version with such glaring bugs
>stilll
>unfixed. These are the sorts of things you expect in betas, not in
>"final"
>releases of a version. Yet I didn't download any beta version that I
>am
>aware of. It sure wasn't labeled a beta. I would like to see a new
>version
>that definitely has NEITHER of these bugs somewhere I can get them
>within
>24 hours.
You mean, he has to duplicate a bug that has NEVER been encountered, and
which is probably due to some obscure system setup? Then, he has to find
a way to FIX the darn thing, and do this by fixing Allegro, not fixing
your system?
To do this, Shawn would have to email with you privately (such system
specifics don't belong on this list), and just the lag time between
emails back and forth would probably take more than a day or two (unless
you both sit online just waiting for the next message to arrive).
>I am 100% sure that in the time that has passed since you
>wrote
>the bug-ridden beta-like version I have now, you have had enough time
>to
>track these bugs down, and make a new version that a) has a
>load_sample
>that returns valid pointers and b) does not leave the sound card in
>some
>weird state on program exit such that the computer crashes the next
>time a
>program wants to use sound.
Again, to the extant of my knowledge, these bugs have never even been
ENCOUNTERED. Because of that, I have a few requests:
The offending code which exhibits these bugs,
The makefile (or batch file, or invocation line) you use,
The results of the invocation of 'make' (or whatever you use).
Feel free to post these - I'm sure someone will be able to figure out
what's wrong. On the other hand, if it really is a bug in Allegro, then
you've done us all a favor by pointing it out. But, please, it's not
going to fry your balls in liver oil. Try to calm down a little.
...Chambers
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