xpc_abort(3) BSD Library Functions Manual xpc_abort(3)
NAME
xpc_abort -- conditions which cause XPC to abort
DESCRIPTION
The XPC API will aggressively defend itself against perceived misuse.
Wherever XPC can definitively detect misuse of its APIs or data corrup-
tion, it will abort. For example, if the retain count of an object under-
flows by calling xpc_release(3) on it too many times, XPC will abort the
process.
Many frameworks opt to keep the program limping along in such a state
(and will perhaps print a warning message to the system log), but abort-
ing upon detection provides unmistakable warning that there is a bug
present in the application which should be fixed before shipping.
When XPC aborts a process, it will place information about the condition
which triggered the abort in the Application Specific Information section
of the crash report. The message will be human-readable, prefixed with
"XPC API Misuse:", and the crash report will indicate the stack trace
which caused the abort.
XPC will also abort if it detects unrecoverable data corruption in its
internal state. The messages for these conditions will be prefixd with
"Bug in libxpc:". If you come across such a crash, please file a bug and
include the generated crash log, system log and steps to reproduce (if
there are any identifiable steps).
Currently, the manner in which XPC aborts the process will result in ter-
mination due to SIGILL (illegal instruction). The exact signal raised may
change from release to release (or platform to platform). But on OS X
Lion, SIGILL may be used as a hint that the process was terminated inten-
tionally.
DEBUGGING
When debugging in Xcode or at the gdb command prompt, the debugger acts
as the exception handler for the process being debugged. As a result, if
the process is aborted by XPC, no crash report will be generated, and
thus it may not be obvious why the program was terminated.
As mentioned before, SIGILL is an indication that the process was termi-
nated intentionally. If you observe the last frame in the crashing stack
to be _xpc_api_misuse(), you may use the xpc_debugger_api_misuse_info()
API from within the debugger to obtain a human-readable string describing
why the process was aborted. For example:
Program received signal EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION, Illegal instruction/operand.
0x000000010012b25e in _xpc_api_misuse ()
(gdb) p (char *)xpc_debugger_api_misuse_info()
$1 = 0x7fff5fbff908 "XPC API Misuse: Over-release of object."
(gdb)
This message indicates that xpc_release(3) was called too many times on
an object.
IMPORTANT: The xpc_debugger_api_misuse_info() API can ONLY be called from
within a debugger. It is not meant to be called directly from the pro-
gram. Do not call it directly from your code, and do not rely on the
address of the result for any reason.
SEE ALSO
xpc(3), xpc_object(3), xpc_objects(3)
Darwin 1 July, 2011 Darwin
Mac OS X 10.8 - Generated Sat Aug 25 19:12:48 CDT 2012