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I think it's compiler/architecture dependent. It works fine 
on Linux.

Re-compiling Objects/fileobject.c without optimisation 
cures the problem. I think HP's compiler is a bit dodgy, 
because the last version of Python was dumping core until I 
recompiled longobject.c.

I would try compiling with gcc but I don't have it on our 
HP machine.

I think the README should maybe warn HP PA-RISC 2.0 users 
that the C compiler will occasionally break things.

Thanks for your time.