Floating point inexact result exception in TFDTable Component in Delphi [closed] - delphi

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I am using TFDTable component in Delphi Seattle. I have kept this table component at design time.
While executing
TFDTable(Compo).Open
I get error while debugging (Ctrl +F7) "Floating point inexact result at 0042F353"
I googled, but got the reason but didn't get exactly what it is.
Any suggestions?
Reference URL:
http://www.delphigroups.info/2/e8/524771.html
Floating Point inexact result
This exception suggests that you have
the "loss of precision" mask bit in the FPU turned OFF. It is
normally ON. Look for the $0020 bit in the system variable
Default8087CW and try ORing in $0020 into the control word with a
Set8087CW(Default8087CW or $0020) statement.
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~resnik/ling645_sp2002/cmu_manual/node19.html

There is a well known issue that Default8087CW as a global variable can be misused by libraries or even your own code and be changed at any time in ways that cause unexpected results of FP calculations or unexpected exceptions to occur. The six lowest bits of the 8087 FPU Control word are the exception mask bits, meaning that if a bit is set, corresponding exception is masked, that is prevented from being raised.
The "loss of precision" mask bit that John Herbster is talking about is one of those bits, in Delphis TArithmeticException enum called exPrecision. Further he suggests to assure this bit is set by calling the Set8087CW(Default8087CW or $0020). Since you are using Delphi 10 Seattle, it is recommended to use the SetExceptionMask() function (from the System.Math unit) instead, since it handles equally also the corresponding SSE mask on 64 bit hw:
var
OldExceptionMask: TArithmeticExceptionMask;
...
OldExceptionMask := SetExceptionMask(GetExceptionMask + [exPrecision]);
Calling the above before TFDTable(Compo).Open should solve your problem.
The function takes and returns a TArithmeticExceptionMask (set of TArithmeticException). All other exception enums and FPU/SSE related functions are in the documentation.

Related

Passing a string to an oleobject using Delphi [duplicate]

As I am receiving "Floating point division by zero" exception when using TWebBrowser and TEmbeddedWB from time to time, I discovered that I need to mask division by zero exceptions Set8087CW or SetMXCSR.
Q1: What would be the best approach to do this:
to mask such exceptions early in the application startup and never touch them again (the app is multithreaded)?
to use OnBeforeNavigate and OnDocumentComplete events to mask / unmask exceptions? (is there a chance that exception could occur after the document is loaded?)
Q2: What would be the best "command" to mask only "division by zero" and nothing else - if application is 32-bit is there a need to mask 64 bit exception too?
The application I am using it it has TWebBrowser control available all the time for displaying email contents.
Also, if anyone can clarify - is this a particular bug with TWebBrowser control from Microsoft or just difference between Delphi/C++ Builder and Microsoft tools? What would happen if I would host TWebBrowser inside Visual C++ application if division by zero error would appear - it wouldn't be translated into exception but what would happen then - how would Visual C++ handle "division by zero" exception then?
It is kind of strange that Microsoft didn't notice this problem for such a long time - also it is strange that Embarcardero never noticed it too. Because masking floating point exception effectively also masks your own program exception for that particular purpose.
UPDATE
My final solution after some examination is:
SetExceptionMask(GetExceptionMask() << exZeroDivide);
The default state from GetExceptionMask() returns: TFPUExceptionMask() << exDenormalized << exUnderflow << exPrecision. So obviously, some exceptions are already masked - this just adds exZeroDivide to the masked exceptions.
As a result every division by zero now results with +INF in floating point instead of exception. I can live with that - for the production version of the code it will me masked to avoid errors and for the debug version it will be unmasked to detect floating point division by zero.
Assuming that you have no need for floating point exceptions to be unmasked in your application code, far and away the simplest thing to do is to mask exceptions at some point in your initialization code.
The best way to do this is as so:
SetExceptionMask(exAllArithmeticExceptions);
This will set the 8087 control word on 32 bit targets, and the MXCSR on 64 bit targets. You will find SetExceptionMask in the Math unit.
If you wish to have floating point exceptions unmasked in your code then it gets tricky. One strategy would be to run your floating point code in a dedicated thread that unmasks the exceptions. This certainly can work, but not if you rely on the RTL functions Set8087CW and SetMXCSR. Note that everything in the RTL that controls FP units routes through these functions. For example SetExceptionMask does.
The problem is that Set8087CW and SetMXCSR are not threadsafe. It seems hard to believe that Embarcadero could be so inept as to produce fundamental routines that operate on thread context and yet fail to be threadsafe. But that is what they have done.
It's surprisingly hard to undo the mess that they have left, and to do so involves quite a bit of code patching. The lack of thread safety is down to the (mis)use of the global variables Default8087CW and DefaultMXCSR. If two threads call Set8087CW or SetMXCSR at the same time then these global variables can have the effect of leaking the value from one thread to the other.
You could replace Set8087CW and SetMXCSR with versions that did not change global state, but it's sadly not that simple. The global state is used in various other places. This may seem immodest, but if you want to learn more about this matter, read my document attached to this QC report: http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=107411

Delphi XE TMediaPlayer "invalid floating point operation" on Windows 8/10 [duplicate]

As I am receiving "Floating point division by zero" exception when using TWebBrowser and TEmbeddedWB from time to time, I discovered that I need to mask division by zero exceptions Set8087CW or SetMXCSR.
Q1: What would be the best approach to do this:
to mask such exceptions early in the application startup and never touch them again (the app is multithreaded)?
to use OnBeforeNavigate and OnDocumentComplete events to mask / unmask exceptions? (is there a chance that exception could occur after the document is loaded?)
Q2: What would be the best "command" to mask only "division by zero" and nothing else - if application is 32-bit is there a need to mask 64 bit exception too?
The application I am using it it has TWebBrowser control available all the time for displaying email contents.
Also, if anyone can clarify - is this a particular bug with TWebBrowser control from Microsoft or just difference between Delphi/C++ Builder and Microsoft tools? What would happen if I would host TWebBrowser inside Visual C++ application if division by zero error would appear - it wouldn't be translated into exception but what would happen then - how would Visual C++ handle "division by zero" exception then?
It is kind of strange that Microsoft didn't notice this problem for such a long time - also it is strange that Embarcardero never noticed it too. Because masking floating point exception effectively also masks your own program exception for that particular purpose.
UPDATE
My final solution after some examination is:
SetExceptionMask(GetExceptionMask() << exZeroDivide);
The default state from GetExceptionMask() returns: TFPUExceptionMask() << exDenormalized << exUnderflow << exPrecision. So obviously, some exceptions are already masked - this just adds exZeroDivide to the masked exceptions.
As a result every division by zero now results with +INF in floating point instead of exception. I can live with that - for the production version of the code it will me masked to avoid errors and for the debug version it will be unmasked to detect floating point division by zero.
Assuming that you have no need for floating point exceptions to be unmasked in your application code, far and away the simplest thing to do is to mask exceptions at some point in your initialization code.
The best way to do this is as so:
SetExceptionMask(exAllArithmeticExceptions);
This will set the 8087 control word on 32 bit targets, and the MXCSR on 64 bit targets. You will find SetExceptionMask in the Math unit.
If you wish to have floating point exceptions unmasked in your code then it gets tricky. One strategy would be to run your floating point code in a dedicated thread that unmasks the exceptions. This certainly can work, but not if you rely on the RTL functions Set8087CW and SetMXCSR. Note that everything in the RTL that controls FP units routes through these functions. For example SetExceptionMask does.
The problem is that Set8087CW and SetMXCSR are not threadsafe. It seems hard to believe that Embarcadero could be so inept as to produce fundamental routines that operate on thread context and yet fail to be threadsafe. But that is what they have done.
It's surprisingly hard to undo the mess that they have left, and to do so involves quite a bit of code patching. The lack of thread safety is down to the (mis)use of the global variables Default8087CW and DefaultMXCSR. If two threads call Set8087CW or SetMXCSR at the same time then these global variables can have the effect of leaking the value from one thread to the other.
You could replace Set8087CW and SetMXCSR with versions that did not change global state, but it's sadly not that simple. The global state is used in various other places. This may seem immodest, but if you want to learn more about this matter, read my document attached to this QC report: http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=107411

Masking floating point exceptions with Set8087CW, SetMXCSR and TWebBrowser

As I am receiving "Floating point division by zero" exception when using TWebBrowser and TEmbeddedWB from time to time, I discovered that I need to mask division by zero exceptions Set8087CW or SetMXCSR.
Q1: What would be the best approach to do this:
to mask such exceptions early in the application startup and never touch them again (the app is multithreaded)?
to use OnBeforeNavigate and OnDocumentComplete events to mask / unmask exceptions? (is there a chance that exception could occur after the document is loaded?)
Q2: What would be the best "command" to mask only "division by zero" and nothing else - if application is 32-bit is there a need to mask 64 bit exception too?
The application I am using it it has TWebBrowser control available all the time for displaying email contents.
Also, if anyone can clarify - is this a particular bug with TWebBrowser control from Microsoft or just difference between Delphi/C++ Builder and Microsoft tools? What would happen if I would host TWebBrowser inside Visual C++ application if division by zero error would appear - it wouldn't be translated into exception but what would happen then - how would Visual C++ handle "division by zero" exception then?
It is kind of strange that Microsoft didn't notice this problem for such a long time - also it is strange that Embarcardero never noticed it too. Because masking floating point exception effectively also masks your own program exception for that particular purpose.
UPDATE
My final solution after some examination is:
SetExceptionMask(GetExceptionMask() << exZeroDivide);
The default state from GetExceptionMask() returns: TFPUExceptionMask() << exDenormalized << exUnderflow << exPrecision. So obviously, some exceptions are already masked - this just adds exZeroDivide to the masked exceptions.
As a result every division by zero now results with +INF in floating point instead of exception. I can live with that - for the production version of the code it will me masked to avoid errors and for the debug version it will be unmasked to detect floating point division by zero.
Assuming that you have no need for floating point exceptions to be unmasked in your application code, far and away the simplest thing to do is to mask exceptions at some point in your initialization code.
The best way to do this is as so:
SetExceptionMask(exAllArithmeticExceptions);
This will set the 8087 control word on 32 bit targets, and the MXCSR on 64 bit targets. You will find SetExceptionMask in the Math unit.
If you wish to have floating point exceptions unmasked in your code then it gets tricky. One strategy would be to run your floating point code in a dedicated thread that unmasks the exceptions. This certainly can work, but not if you rely on the RTL functions Set8087CW and SetMXCSR. Note that everything in the RTL that controls FP units routes through these functions. For example SetExceptionMask does.
The problem is that Set8087CW and SetMXCSR are not threadsafe. It seems hard to believe that Embarcadero could be so inept as to produce fundamental routines that operate on thread context and yet fail to be threadsafe. But that is what they have done.
It's surprisingly hard to undo the mess that they have left, and to do so involves quite a bit of code patching. The lack of thread safety is down to the (mis)use of the global variables Default8087CW and DefaultMXCSR. If two threads call Set8087CW or SetMXCSR at the same time then these global variables can have the effect of leaking the value from one thread to the other.
You could replace Set8087CW and SetMXCSR with versions that did not change global state, but it's sadly not that simple. The global state is used in various other places. This may seem immodest, but if you want to learn more about this matter, read my document attached to this QC report: http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=107411

x86 Can push/pop be less than 4 bytes? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Why is it not possible to push a byte onto a stack on Pentium IA-32?
(4 answers)
Closed 7 years ago.
Hi I am reading a guide on x86 by the University of Virginia and it states that pushing and popping the stack either removes or adds a 4-byte data element to the stack.
Why is this set to 4 bytes? Can this be changed, could you save memory on the stack by pushing on smaller data elements?
The guide can be found here if anyone wishes to view it:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs216/guides/x86.html
Short answer: Yes, 16 or 32 bits. And, for x86-64, 64 bits.
The primary reasons for a stack are to return from nested function calls and to save/restore register values. It is also typically used to pass parameters and return function results. Except for the smallest parameters, these items usually have the same size by the design of the processor, namely, the size of the instruction pointer register. For 8088/8086, it is 16-bits. For 80386 and successors, it is 32-bits. Therefore, there is little value in having stack instructions that operate on other sizes.
There is also the consideration of the size of the data on the memory bus. It takes the same amount of time to retrieve or store a word as it does a byte. (Except for 8088 which has 16-bit registers but an 8-bit data bus.) Alignment also comes into play. The stack should be aligned on word boundaries so each value can be retrieved as one memory operation. The trade-off is usually taken to save time over saving memory. To pass one byte as a parameter, one word is usually used. (Or, depending on the optimization available to the compiler, one word-sized register would be used, avoiding the stack altogether.)

Heap overflow exploit

I understand that overflow exploitation requires three steps:
1.Injecting arbitrary code (shellcode) into target process memory space.
2.Taking control over eip.
3.Set eip to execute arbitrary code.
I read ben hawkens articles about heap exploitation and understood few tactics about how to ultimatly override a function pointer to point to my code.
In other words, I understand step 2.
I do not understand step 1 and 3.
How do I inject my code to the process memory space ?
During step 3 I override a function pointer with a
Pointer to my shellcode, How can I calculate\know what address
Was my injected code injected into ? (This problem is solved
In stackoverflow by using "jmp esp).
In a heap overflow, supposing that the system does not have ASLR activated, you will know the address of the memory chunks (aka, the buffers) you use in the overflow.
One option is to place the shellcode where the buffer is, given that you can control the contents of the buffer (as the application user). Once you have placed the shellcode bytes in the buffer, you only have to jump to that buffer address.
One way to perform that jump is by, for example, overwriting a .dtors entry. Once the vulnerable program finishes, the shellcode - placed in the buffer - will be executed. The complicated part is the .dtors overwriting. For that you will have to use the published heap exploiting techniques.
The prerequisites are that ASLR is deactivated (to know the address of the buffer before executing the vulnerable program) and that the memory region where the buffer is placed must be executable.
On more thing, steps 2 and 3 are the same. If you control eip, it's logic that you will point it to the shellcode (the arbitrary code).
P.S.: Bypassing ASLR is more complex.
Step 1 requires a vulnerability in the attacked code.
Common vulnerabilites include:
buffer overflow (common i C code, happens if the program reads an arbitrary long string into a fixed buffer)
evaluation of unsanitized data (common in SQL and script languages, but can occur in other languages as well)
Step 3 requires detailed knowledge of the target architecture.
How do I inject my code into process space?
This is quite a statement/question. It requires an 'exploitable' region of code in said process space. For example, Windows is currently rewriting most strcpy() to strncpy() if at all possible. I say if possible
because not all areas of code that use strcpy can successfully be changed over to strncpy. Why? BECAUSE ~# of this crux in difference shown below;
strcpy($buffer, $copied);
or
strncpy($buffer, $copied, sizeof($copied));
This is what makes strncpy so difficult to implement in real world scenarios. There has to be installed a 'magic number' on most strncpy operations (the sizeof() operator creates this magic number)
As coders' we are taught using hard coded values such as a strict compliance with a char buffer[1024]; is really bad coding practise.
BUT ~ in comparison - using buffer[]=""; or buffer[1024]=""; is the heart of the exploit. HOWEVER, if for example we change this code to the latter we get another exploit introduced into the system...
char * buffer;
char * copied;
strcpy(buffer, copied);//overflow this right here...
OR THIS:
int size = 1024;
char buffer[size];
char copied[size];
strncpy(buffer,copied, size);
This will stop overflows, but introduce a exploitable region in RAM due to size being predictable and structured into 1024 blocks of code/data.
Therefore, original poster, looking for strcpy for example, in a program's address space, will make the program exploitable if strcpy is present.
There are many reasons why strcpy is favoured by programmers over strncpy. Magic numbers, variable input/output data size...programming styles...etc...
HOW DO I FIND MYSELF IN MY CODE (MY LOCATION)
Check various hacker books for examples of this ~
BUT, try;
label:
pop eax
pop eax
call pointer
jmp label
pointer:
mov esp, eax
jmp $
This is an example that is non-working due to the fact that I do NOT want to be held responsible for writing the next Morris Worm! But, any decent programmer will get the jist of this code and know immediately what I am talking about here.
I hope your overflow techniques work in the future, my son!

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