c++ - GDB wrong values for vector.size()

Question

A simple vector.push_back() causes some error in my code:

#include <vector>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    vector<unsigned> stack;
    stack.push_back(1);
    stack.push_back(1); //stack.size() becomes 467369971 after this
    stack.push_back(1);
    stack.push_back(1);
    ... more push_back()s ...
    return 0;
}

I'm using GDB to check its behavior... and the weird thing is that stack.size() goes wrong after the second push_back(). It becomes 467369971! What may be wrong? I'm on Win7 64-bit, and I'm using MinGW with G++ 4.7.0

Below is the output of GDB:

(gdb) n
5                       std::vector<unsigned> sta
(gdb) n
6                       stack.push_back(1);
(gdb) display stack.size()
1: stack.size() = 0
(gdb) n
7                       stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 1
(gdb)
8                       stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 467369971 //goes wrong here
(gdb)
9                       stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 467369971
(gdb)
10                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 4         // gets "normal"
(gdb)
11                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 467369971 // wrong again
(gdb)
12                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 6
(gdb)
13                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 7
(gdb)
14                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 8
(gdb)
15                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 467369971
(gdb)
16                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 10
(gdb)
17                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 11
(gdb)
18                      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 12
(gdb)
19                      return 0;

Answer 1

What may be wrong?

It's a bug in your compiler, or in your GDB. It does not reproduce on Linux using g++ (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1) 4.4.3 and GDB 7.4:

(gdb) n
7       stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 0
(gdb) 
8       stack.push_back(1); //stack.size() becomes 467369971 after this
1: stack.size() = 1
(gdb) 
9       stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 2
(gdb) 
10      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 3
(gdb) 
11      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 4
(gdb) 
12      stack.push_back(1); //stack.size() becomes 467369971 after this
1: stack.size() = 5
(gdb) 
13      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 6
(gdb) 
14      stack.push_back(1);
1: stack.size() = 7
(gdb) 
15      return 0;
1: stack.size() = 8
(gdb) 
16  }
(gdb) q

Unfortunately, figuring out which tool is to blame here will be somewhat hard: you'll need to examine the debuginfo generated. Instead you may try to reproduce the problem with different versions of GCC and GDB. If varying GCC causes the bug to disappear, it's probably a bug in GCC. If varying GDB version makes the bug disappear, it's probably a GDB bug.