[erlang-questions] Problem with pattern matching in large binaries

[Kostis Sagonas]

Sverker Eriksson wrote:
> 
> Per Gustafsson wrote:
>> I took a look at this and it seems that in the BYTE_OFFSET macro on line 
>>   153 in erl_bits.h there is a cast to unsigned that really should be to 
>> Uint that probably causes this problem, but I do not have a good machine 
>> for testing this change. (Our amd64 does not have enough memory to build 
>> a 1 Gb binary)
> 
> I will take a look at this with my Intel Quad, 64bit, 4 Gb.
> 
> If Per is right, a fix will be released to R12B-3.

I have not seen Per's mail on the mailing list (just the above reply), 
but I can confirm that by modifying the macro on line 153 as Per 
suggested, some things work as expected regarding big binary 
construction on a 64 bit machine.  For example, without the fix, I get:

1> B = <<1:(2 bsl 32)>>.
<<>>

which is clearly bogus, while with the fix:

1> B = <<1:(2 bsl 32)>>.
<<0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
   0,...>>

which seems much more likely to be the correct result.  Indeed:

2> byte_size(B).
1073741824
3> 2 bsl 32.
8589934592


For those eager to try it: the fix is trivial and can be applied by 
interested parties by hand, instead of waiting till the official release 
of R12B-3.


Kostis