[Patch] linuxppc gnuplot segfaults in save

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

Hello, LinuxPPC people

Let me give a statement, from the view of a gnuplot developper
who hasn't ever used LinuxPPC:

[...]
> Patch: 
> See below. One just has to split an fprintf command into two.
> It seems that the fprintf in the LinuxPPC libraries does not support
> such long format strings. 

I've had a small look at the patch, and the relevant source code.  If my
knowledge of ANSI regulations for the Standard C library doesn't fail me,
the suspected limitation would constitute an outright bug in fprintf(). 
The only length limit for the *printf() functions allowed by ANSI is that
the output generated (not the format string) can be limited to 509 chars
or so. The gnuplot 3.7 source code doesn't hit that wall, I think, so
fprintf() is not allowed to fail this call. 

Martin: have you tried to boil down the suspected fprintf() problem to a
simpler example case (like a small, complete source code using a long
format string that also crashes)?  If not, the real bug could still be
somewhere else, and fprintf might then just trigger the crash, but not be
the real reason for it.

If ElectricFence or Checker-gcc are available for LinuxPPC, it might be a
good idea to use one of those to see where the problem comes from. 

Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker at physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.