AIX: Why does throwing an exception abort multithreaded code?

Question

We get an abort when a C++ exception is thrown when running code compiled with -pthread.

Platform: AIX 5.3 technical level 8 Compiler: gcc 3.4.6 Linker: AIX linker 1.65.2.4

Test Code:

// exception.cpp
#include <iostream>

class MyException
{
public:
        MyException(){}
        virtual ~MyException(){};
};

void gTest()
{
        throw MyException();
}

int main()
{
        try
        {
                gTest();
        }
        catch(MyException const & ex)
        {
                std::cout << "exception was caught" << std::endl;
        }

        return 0;
}


$ g++ exception.cpp
$ ./a.out
exception was caught
$ g++ -pthread exception.cpp
$ ./a.out
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'MyException'
IOT/Abort trap (core dumped)
$ gdb a.out
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This GDB was configured as "powerpc-ibm-aix5.1.0.0"...
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/leeder/except/a.out
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'MyException'

Program received signal SIGABRT, Aborted.
Switching to Thread 1
0xd0124834 in pthread_kill () from /usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_xpg5.o)
(gdb) bt
#0 0xd0124834 in pthread_kill () from /usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_xpg5.o)
#1 0xd01242a8 in _p_raise () from /usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_xpg5.o)
#2 0xd0359bdc in raise () from /usr/lib/libc.a(shr.o)
#3 0xd03b7efc in abort () from /usr/lib/libc.a(shr.o)
#4 0xd0ca1800 in __gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler() () at ../../.././libstdc++-v3/libsupc++/vterminate.cc:96
#5 0xd0ca1220 in __cxxabiv1::__terminate(void (*)()) (handler=0)
at ../../.././libstdc++-v3/libsupc++/eh_terminate.cc:43
#6 0xd0ca128c in std::terminate() () at ../../.././libstdc++-v3/libsupc++/eh_terminate.cc:53
#7 0xd0ca7cfc in __cxa_throw (obj=0x200084e8, tinfo=0xffffffff, dest=Cannot access memory at address 0xffffffff
)
at ../../.././libstdc++-v3/libsupc++/eh_throw.cc:80
#8 0x100008dc in gTest() ()
#9 0x100009f0 in main ()
(gdb)

Has anyone seen anything similar?

Do you think upgrading to gcc 4 would help?

What about switching to IBM's xl compiler?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Tried your program on AIX:

oslevel -r

5200-08

with g++ --version

g++ (GCC) 3.3.2

g++ -o ex -pthread ex.cpp

will result in symbols not found at runtime (pthread_mutex_t)

However if you build it like:

g++ -o ex -lpthread ex.cpp

works just fine with expected effects. I guess this might be a link problem with right pthread libraries.

Answer 2

g++ 4.3.2 seems to work Ok for this problem. Also xlC v10 works.