Good job everybody, but you did not go far enough ;--) It's not a bug in XML::Parser, I believe it's a bug in Perl: if you use weaken a few thousand times it will segfault.

The code below shows the bug:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Scalar::Util 'weaken';

# the number of iteration that causes a segmentation fault varies
# on my machine, 5.14.2 18700, 5.12.4 20147, At this thresholds 
# the bug shows up most of the time but not always                    
+                                                            
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+        
my $ITER= $ARGV[0] || 18700;                                          
+                                                                     
+        
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+        
my $head= {};                                                         
+                                                                     
+        
my $tail= $head;                                                      
+                                                                     
+        
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+        
foreach (1..$ITER)
  { my $new_tail= { p => $tail };
    weaken( $new_tail->{p});
    $tail->{n}=  $new_tail;
    $tail= $new_tail;
  }

print "done\n";

[download]

The good news is that the bug is fixed in blead and in recent 5.15.*. I don't know which version exactly, but I know it's fixed in 5.15.7. and in 5.15.8.

So, if possible, you should use perlbrew, install 5.15.8 and get the development version of XML::Twig from xmltwig.org since XML::Twig 3.39 produces warnings in 5.15.8. Once you've re-installed all of the modules you use, your script should then work properly. BTW the development version of XML::Twig passes all the tests, so it is safe to use.

Let me know if you have any more problem.

In reply to Re: XML::Twig too many children? by mirod
in thread XML::Twig too many children? by Anonymous Monk

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