demingled stack trace,

(dbx) where                                                                  
=>[1] realfree(0x8073840), at 0xfeef8b54 
  [2] _malloc_unlocked(0x30, 0x8047a28, 0x804793c, 0xfee7bfac, 0x8047770, 0xfee678af), at 0xfeef8734 
  [3] malloc(0x2c, 0x8060441, 0x3f, 0xfee6788a), at 0xfeef8553 
  [4] operator new(0x2c), at 0xfee678af 
  [5] TiXmlNode::Identify(0x80478f8, 0x8074817, 0x1), at 0x805ea20 
  [6] TiXmlDocument::Parse(0x80478f8, 0x8074817, 0x0, 0x1), at 0x805e5b5 
  [7] TiXmlDocument::LoadFile(0x80478f8, 0x80731f8, 0x1), at 0x805a9b9 
  [8] TiXmlDocument::LoadFile(0x80478f8, 0x80741e8, 0x1), at 0x805a612 
  [9] TiXmlDocument::LoadFile(0x80478f8, 0x1), at 0x805a4ae 
  [10] main(0x4, 0x8047980, 0x8047994), at 0x805755d 

seems like a double free.

Created attachment 11183 [details]
test program

I found that rarian-sk-preinstall crashes when the first prarameter is exactly
42 characters long regardless of whether the file is valid or not. For example,
rarian-sk-preinstall /12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345 <attachedfile> <outputfile>

Wonder if you can try out if this is the case on Linux, please.

The crash happened here,
> dbx /usr/bin/rarian-sk-preinstall    
For information about new features see `help changes'
To remove this message, put `dbxenv suppress_startup_message 7.5' in your .dbxrc
Reading rarian-sk-preinstall
Reading ld.so.1
Reading librarian.so.0.0.0
Reading libCstd.so.1
Reading libCrun.so.1
Reading libm.so.2
Reading libc.so.1
(dbx) run /12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345 fsexam-es.omf ttty2     
Running: rarian-sk-preinstall /12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345/12345 fsexam-es.omf ttty2 
(process id 11308)
signal SEGV (no mapping at the fault address) in t_splay at 0xfec88f7a
0xfec88f7a: t_splay+0x0022:     movl     0x00000008(%ebx),%ecx
Current function is TiXmlBase::StringToBuffer::StringToBuffer
  130           buffer = new char[ str.length()+1 ];
(dbx) where                                                             
  [1] t_splay(0x8093150), at 0xfec88f7a 
  [2] t_delete(0x8093150), at 0xfec88e55 
  [3] realfree(0x8093058), at 0xfec88b6c 
  [4] _malloc_unlocked(0x600), at 0xfec88734 
  [5] _smalloc(0x10), at 0xfec884e3 
  [6] _malloc_unlocked(0x10, 0x8047c4c, 0x8047b94, 0xfedbbfac, 0xfed90618, 0x8047ac4), at 0xfec88754 
  [7] malloc(0xe, 0xfefc8c24, 0xfeffcd08, 0xfeda788a), at 0xfec88553 
  [8] operator new(0xe, 0xfeffa7d0, 0x8047ac8, 0xfeda6c24, 0xfeffa7d0), at 0xfeda78af 
  [9] operator new[](0xe), at 0xfeda6c36 
=>[10] TiXmlBase::StringToBuffer::StringToBuffer(this = 0x8047b24, str = CLASS), line 130 in "tinyxml.cpp"
  [11] TiXmlDocument::LoadFile(this = 0x8047b58, encoding = TIXML_ENCODING_UTF8), line 984 in "tinyxml.cpp"
  [12] main(argc = 4, argv = 0x8047bd8), line 125 in "rarian-sk-preinstall.cpp"

Found the problem with the right tool :)
In line 99 and 103 of rarian-sk-preinstall.cpp,
Allocation of memory is made to do 
new_url = (char *) malloc (sizeof(char) * (strlen (input) + 6));

where 6 is allowed for 'file:/' which is correct. However, in the
next line, 

sprintf (new_url, "file:/%s", input);

which handle new_url as a NULL terminated string and so padded a '\0'
which was not allocated and hence causea a write unallocated memory 
subsequently. 

so the patch to fix the problem is simply

--- rarian-sk-preinstall.cpp.orig       2007-08-23 13:06:57.429793000 +0100
+++ rarian-sk-preinstall.cpp    2007-08-23 12:37:45.823579000 +0100
@@ -96,11 +96,11 @@
     }
     if (i == 1) {
       /* Normal path.  Add file:/ to the start */
-      new_url = (char *) malloc (sizeof(char) * (strlen (input) + 6));
+      new_url = (char *) malloc (sizeof(char) * (strlen (input) + 7));
       sprintf (new_url, "file:/%s", input);
     } else {
       /* Don't know what to do.  Just copy and append file: to it */
-      new_url = (char *) malloc (sizeof(char) * (strlen(input) + 5));
+      new_url = (char *) malloc (sizeof(char) * (strlen(input) + 6));
       sprintf (new_url, "file:%s", input);
     }
   }

Don, can you apply this please on svn?
Thanks :)

Thanks.  I've got the fix in my (personal) tree however am having trouble committing to SVN.  I will get this done ASAP.  (Leaving as new until committed)

Fixed in 0.6.0.  Not committed to SVN due to bug #12247.  Marking this as a
dependance to remind me to commit when done.

Committed.  Closing.