nGen Bug List

All Operating Systems

• 3/13/03: The last line in the file must be blank. This sometimes causes problems with the program seeing the last } if the file doesn't end with a carrige return CR. It can also crop up if you have converted a file from another operating system (esp. PC/UNIX to Mac Classic OS).

Mac OS X

• 4/15/05: Update: the problem below fixed itself with newer versions of OSX. It seems that there was a bug in the OSX random number library (system wide). The orginal compile now works correctly on current versions of OSX (Panther). :)
• 3/13/03: The Mac OSX compilation has a random number problem that seems to only affect the SE and MS commands. Gcc (or the random library within OS X) has a peculiar random number algorithm that always generates pairs of even/odd numbers. This results in skipping odd or even positioned listed set elements. For example, se(T 1. [1 2 3 4 5 6]) might only choose from elements 1, 3, 5 on one rendering and 2, 4, 6 during another renering. I am looking into a solution (i.e., a newer version of GCC?) to this strange problem but, for now, here is a work around: se(T 1. [1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6]). Now each element occupies an even and an odd position :). The same bug and temporary solution holds true for MS.