C program keeps crashing when calling perl function newSVpv()
c, perl, xs
Solution
I'm usually calling C from Perl, rather than Perl from C, but I'm pretty sure that your problem is that you haven't copied the `PERL_SYS_INIT3`, `perl_alloc`, and `perl_construct` bits from the perlembed example and so you don't actually have a perl interpreter structure to work with. `newSVpv` is bombing out when it tries to access something through the nonexistent interpreter pointer.
The last three lines of that example (`perl_destruct`, `perl_free`, and `PERL_SYS_TERM`) should also be called at the end of your program as a matter of good practice.
Problem
Trying to use perl data structure (partially as a way to support associative array in C), but the following program keep crashing. It compiles fine but will crash on the line with newSVpv(). Not sure why. ``` #include <EXTERN.h> /* from the Perl distribution */ #include <perl.h> /* from the Perl distribution */ static PerlInterpreter *my_perl; /*** The Perl interpreter ***/ int main(int argc, char **argv, char **env) { char *proto = "http"; SV* ret = newSVpv("http", 4); sv_catpvn(ret, "://", 3); STRLEN len = 1; char *result = SvPV(ret, len); printf("result: %p %d\n", result, len); return 0; } ``` The line to compile it is ``` gcc -g -o interp te1.c `perl -MExtUtils::Embed -e ccopts -e ldopts` ``` The perl I have is 5.14.2 running on Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS. Thanks for any tips! UPDATE: Added the gdb trace. Thanks for asking. gdb trace: ``` Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x00007ffff7b235a6 in Perl_newSVpv () from /usr/lib/libperl.so.5.14 (gdb) bt #0 0x00007ffff7b235a6 in Perl_newSVpv () from /usr/lib/libperl.so.5.14 #1 0x0000000000400927 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe1e8, env=0x7fffffffe1f8) at te1.c:7 (gdb) ```