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