Microsoft KB Archive/76217

= FIX: Nested Structures May Hang Macro Assembler 6.0 =

Article ID: 76217

Article Last Modified on 10/29/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Macro Assembler 6.0 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q76217



SYMPTOMS
Nested structures may cause the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) version 6.0 to hang when one structure contains a field of the type of another structure and it is initialized. The code below demonstrates the problem more clearly.



RESOLUTION
Pad the initializer to make it the size declared. In the sample code below, padding the initializer for the member called People to three characters corrects the problem.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MASM version 6.0. This problem was corrected in MASM version 6.0a.



MORE INFORMATION
In the sample code, notice that the structure member Nme has a length of three bytes. However, the structure called People initializes its Nme member to 'R', which is one character instead of three. This produces the problem.

Under MS-DOS, the assembler logo will appear, and the system will hang. Under OS/2, the following message appears:

The process has stopped.

The software diagnostic code (trap number) is 013.

Sample Code
; Assemble options needed: /c

.MODEL small

aStruct STRUCT Nme BYTE 3 DUP (?) aStruct ENDS

bStruct STRUCT People aStruct <'R'>


 * Replace above line with the following line to work around problem.
 * People aStruct <'R '>    ; 'R' is followed by two spaces
 * People aStruct <'R '>    ; 'R' is followed by two spaces

bStruct ENDS

.DATA Crash bStruct { }

END

Additional query words: LOCK HANG STRUCT buglist6.00 fixlist6.00a

Keywords: kbfix KB76217

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