I had always assumed that when such an error occurred, the OS would simply kill the perl process... Is my assumption incorrect ?

Actually, the OS is't involved. Perl just exits (via my_exit() in perl.c):

      if ((p = nextf[bucket]) == NULL) {
        MALLOC_UNLOCK;
#ifdef PERL_CORE
        {
            dTHX;
            if (!PL_nomemok) {
#if defined(PLAIN_MALLOC) && defined(NO_FANCY_MALLOC)
                PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr(),"Out of memory!\n");
#else
            char buff[80];
            char *eb = buff + sizeof(buff) - 1;
            char *s = eb;
            size_t n = nbytes;

            PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr(),"Out of memory during request 
+for ");
#if defined(DEBUGGING) || defined(RCHECK)
            n = size;
#endif
            *s = 0;            
            do {
                *--s = '0' + (n % 10);
            } while (n /= 10);
            PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr(),s);
            PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr()," bytes, total sbrk() is ");
            s = eb;
            n = goodsbrk + sbrk_slack;
            do {
                *--s = '0' + (n % 10);
            } while (n /= 10);
            PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr(),s);
            PerlIO_puts(PerlIO_stderr()," bytes!\n");
#endif /* defined(PLAIN_MALLOC) && defined(NO_FANCY_MALLOC) */
            my_exit(1); ************************************
            }
        }
#endif
          return (NULL);
    }

[download]
"What's the surefire way of generating an OOM error in a perl script ?"

This does it for me:

c:\test\perl-5.13.6>perl -E"$x = chr(0)x2**31"
Out of memory!

[download]

Personally, I think that if malloc fails for a request larger than say 64k, Perl should die not exit.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

In reply to Re^2: die rather than exit on out-of-memory failure? by BrowserUk
in thread die rather than exit on out-of-memory failure? by chm

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