zsh crash, unable to log in

[Dominik Vogt <dominik.vogt@xxxxxx>]

Yesterday, I encountered a pretty severe problem with the history
file that prevented me from logging in (I have zsh as my login
shell).  I used the zsh version shipping with SuSE 7.2:

   $ zsh --version
   zsh 4.0.1pre3 (i386-suse-linux)

What happened is this:  After a hard reboot, i.e. switching off
the machine, my ~/.zsh_history file was corrupt.  It only
contained 38k of binary trash.  Now, every time when I tried to
log in I just got the message

  $ zsh
  zsh: fatal error: out of memory

If this happens for the root user, the system is out of business.
I can reproduce the problem at will by copying a random executable
file over my .zsh_history:

  $ cp /bin/ls ~/.zsh_history
  $ zsh
  zsh: fatal error: out of memory

  $ rm ~/.zsh_history
  $ zsh
  (works fine)

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

P.S.: Please CC me, I'm not on the list.

-- 
Dominik Vogt, email: d.vogt@xxxxxxxxxxx
LifeBits Aktiengesellschaft, Albrechtstr. 9, D-72072 Tuebingen
fon: ++49 (0) 7071/7965-0, fax: ++49 (0) 7071/7965-20