Hi, I'm not subscribed to this list, but I have detected a problem with the new release of GiNaC, which I would like to report. After properly building GiNaC-1.2.0 on windows XP using the MinGW / MSYS platform I got a segmentation fault on starting my demo application. This didn't happen with GiNaC-1.1.7. After looking to the source code I found a problem with the current implementation: In file uitils.cpp the following constants are defined: _num0_p _num0 _ex0 These are initialized on behalf of constructor library_init() which is called by statement static library_init library_initialize from file ex.h (line 53). The constructor function_options::function_options(std::string const & n, std::string const & tn) in file function.cpp (line 56) calls function initialize() (line 67 )which has a statement symtree = 0; in its implementation (line 82). Symtree is of type ex which is initialized by ex(int) which calls basic & ex::construct_from_int(int i) in file ex.cpp (line 329). The relevant line is case 0: return const_cast<numeric &>(_num0); Reference counting, now, forces usage of operator-> on the _num0 object. Now, here is the problem: It may happen that the construtor of function_options() is called before the call of library_init(). function_options() is called during registration of class container by statement GINAC_DECLARE_REGISTERED_CLASS(container, basic) in file container.h (line 130). The construction order of static objects in different translation units is undefined in C++. Therefore the problem may or may not show up. With kind regards and a lot of respect Johannes