[Visualpython-users] Mac beta: progress and problems

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

With the help of Martin Costabel, I've managed to build the beta version 
of Visual on Mac OSX. The details are in the file MAC-OSX.txt in CVS at 
sourceforge.net.

There are significant bugs which show up when running the example programs:

1) The following sequence crashes if the object is a label, but not with 
other objects:

obj = label(text='hello')
obj.visible = 0
obj = 35

The implication is that the label destructor fails on Mac (works okay on 
Windows and Linux). The rule is that if you make an object invisible, 
then reassign the only name for that object (obj = 35), Python is free 
to destroy the object and reuse the memory, because there is no longer 
any way for your program to get at that object. The only example program 
this bug affects is controlstest.py.

2) rotate(v, angle=something, axis=something) crashes. This free 
function is in vector.hpp. This affects stonehenge.py.

The form v.rotate(angle=something, axis=something) works fine. This is 
in vector.cpp.

Note that in wrap_vector.cpp there are 5 different references to rotate.
One wonders whether this is a Boost problem? Works fine on Windows and 
Linux.

3) Programs that append to a faces object crash (for example, 
faces_heightfield.py, graphs that use gvbars or ghistogram). No problem 
on Windows and Linux, and no problem with faces_cone.py, which does not 
use append.

4) A non-fatal bug is that orbits.py and stars.py have dim or strange 
lighting.

Because these bugs are serious, I haven't made a new tarball for 
Linux/Unix. But it seemed appropriate to make a status report.

Bruce Sherwood