Talk:Segmentation fault

message: The second paragraph of the overview reads;
The term "segmentation" has various uses in computing; in the context of "segmentation fault", a term used since the 1950s, it refers to the address space of a program.[citation needed] 
Since the sentence has three phrases I'm not clear on whether the citation is needed for the assertion segmentation has various uses in computing, that it's been used since the '50's or that it refers to the address space of a program.
Martinkunev does not explain.
Not an experienced Wikipedia editor so unsure if the tag should get removed with an explanation or this is just my hyperactive pedantry gland.
Netscr1be (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Citation in Overview 

message: This article from July 31, 2012, says that an Access Violation may occur due to
"exceeding the allowable stack size (possibly due to runaway recursion or an infinite loop)".
I'm fine with the runaway recursion, but infinite loops? Maybe someone should provide an example. StuartRedmann (talk) 09:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stack overflow through infinite loop? 

message: The current text is dominated by kernel theoreticians. Also, the merger of segmentation fault and bus error is very unfortunate. A bus error belongs into the _a_very_bad_thing_is_happening_close_to_the_hardware_category, while the segmentation_fault is invariably a programmer's fault. As an example, in many
Unix implementations, deletion of a binary program file while it is running leads to
a bus error. Such practical knowledge is nowhere to be found. I can tell it my students (they _will_ move a new version of a binary into the directory of an already running instance) but that insight is regularly removed from wikipedia. So get lost, I give up.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.125.178.72 (talk) 15:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prescriptive/Normative discourse vs Reality 

message: I think that POSIX's term "segmentation fault" is a misleading name to this event. Technically it's a "paging fault" on PC computers with Intel/AMD x86/x64 CPU, because it is an error in process of paging, not segmention. Linux for example doesn't use segments at all, so how it could make a segmentation fault? You can generate a technically proper segmentation fault on Linux only by using 48bit far pointers, but they aren't used in GCC compiler at all, are they? Surely the Microsoft's name "access violation" for the situation is better. In addition, Intel calls this event "page fault" and I am sure it has its own page here at wikipedia. In general, it is a situation when we do an invalid memory access.
I think that this page is too Posix oriented and C-language centric, and doesn't clearly describe what segmentation fault really is. I think it should just contain a short information that it is a POSIX's term for bad memory access and link to other wikipedia pages where it is better described in general non C-centric point of view. AleyCZ (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The original term (used since the fifties) is segmentation fault. In this case, "segment" does not refer to the physical "segments" of the CPU (considering that the original PDP-11 that UNIX was implemented on (before the x86 even existed) had no CPU segments either) but to the various parts of an executable, like ".bss" and ".data" segments (also called sections). A "paging fault" is an even more misleading name because segmentation violations can happen on systems that don't use paging (but still have executables divided into segments), and because programs do not necessarily need to access an invalid page to cause a segfault. A segmentation fault can also occur in the middle of a page, by overwriting a sentinel or other data, which is why writing one element beyond an array's limit can cause crashes (segfaults) and why mallocing a few bytes doesn't mean you can use all addresses rounded up to the next page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.54.60.34 (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The original term *on UNIX*. The wikipage should be fixed to clarify that "segfault" is a term used by *NIX-like systems. There are plenty of other systems, some quite a bit older, that had their own terms before UNIX was conceived. 192.19.207.250 (talk) 13:20, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

text: Additionally, page faults can happen without Segmentation Faults, for example if a file is mmapped, then accessing the memory at the mapped virtual address could generate page faults that the kernel is going to resolve by performing the corresponding IO operations, then associating a chunk of actual memory. --165.85.177.204 (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading name 

message: The second code sample does not necessarily initialize a pointer to address zero.  It initializes it using the null pointer constant, which sets it to a value which cannot represent a valid memory address.  That is not necessarily address zero.
See C FAQ:
http://c-faq.com/null/null1.html
and
http://c-faq.com/null/accessloc0.html
131.128.160.100 (talk) 19:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Null pointer 

message: What's the point of comparing gcc's behaviour under OpenBSD vs. Linux? AFAIK the presence of absence or a compilation-time error has nothing to do with the OS, it depends on the behaviour of different gcc versions.--88.149.248.200 (talk) 02:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  OpenBSD vs. Linux ?!? 

message: Why don't we have a section after the example that shows how to do avoid the error?:
After the segfault output, have:
This safely creates the variable s_stack on the memory stack, points variable s to it, produces no such error.
(Can someone please verify that this is correct practice / fix it if necessary?)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.185.240.123 (talk) 11:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solution 

message: This article is a bit hard to read. In particular, the paragraph  This paragraph sounds technical, and has a few grammar errors reducing the legibility further. I am tempted to edit the grammar errors out, but I fear that for lack of knowledge on the subject, I might change the meaning. ShinyCharz (talk) 01:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Difficult to Read 

message: Most of the information in the "Examples" section of this article is ambiguous and misleading.  A “Segmentation fault” is nothing more than an invalid page fault and the OS has chosen, via exception or other means, to close the process that generated the fault.  See the Wiki page on “Page fault”, “General protection fault”, and “Bus Error” for a better idea of what is going on.  This article should be shortened and contain only the information needed to specifically describe the condition and redirect to “Page fault”, “General protection fault”, and “Bus Error” where appropriate to clarify.  The first paragraph is pretty good, the rest is in question. If I don't see any complaints in the next few days I will revise the article. Karl McClendon (talk) 17:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs revision 

message: An image used in this article, File:Windows null ptr dereference.png, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: All Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used.
* If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 21:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: File:Windows null ptr dereference.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: First bullet: this sentence "Note that while most compilers will not output a binary given a compile-time error; " sounds not complete, or maybe it should read "Note that most compilers will not output a binary given a compile-time error," --46.115.36.53 (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common causes