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From: smith@NRL-AIC.ARPA (Russ Smith)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Possible \"spell\" bug + no fix
Message-ID: <8978@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 09:39:00 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.8978
Posted: Wed Mar  6 09:39:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 11:08:27 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 35

The following script shows a possible bug with "spell" under 4.2 BSD
on a VAX-11/780. The spell input has been reduced to the apparent
minimum needed to reproduce the error. The ".PS" is needed, other
".XX" don't appear to cause a problem. This is a reduction from the
actual text which caused the problem.
===================================================================
Script started on Wed Mar  6 09:28:52 1985
% cat sp
.PS
"A'
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
12345678901234567890123456789
% spell sp
/usr/bin/spell: 14285 Bus error - core dumped
% exit
==================================================================
The input text consists of the above visual text appended with a single
newline per line...no blanks at the end of lines. The line causing the
problem is the second, where thru a typo a single quote (') was used
instead of a double quote ("). The actual ".PS" stuff was input to the
"pic" processor and originally was surrounded with other nroff commands
and text. The ' instead of " was the only typo present in the original
text.

Russ 
Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence