Memory debugger

A memory debugger is a debugger for finding software memory problems such as memory leaks and buffer overflows. These are due to bugs related to the allocation and deallocation of dynamic memory. Programs written in languages that have garbage collection, such as managed code, might also need memory debuggers, e.g. for memory leaks due to "living" references in collections.

Overview Memory debuggers work by monitoring memory access, allocations, and deallocation of memory. Many memory debuggers require applications to be recompiled with special dynamic memory allocation libraries, whose APIs are mostly compatible with conventional dynamic memory allocation libraries, or else use dynamic linking. Electric Fence is such a debugger which debugs memory allocation with malloc. Some memory debuggers (e.g. Valgrind) work by running the executable in a virtual machine-like environment, monitoring memory access, allocation and deallocation so that no recompilation with special memory allocation libraries is required.

Finding memory issues such as leaks can be extremely time-consuming as they may not manifest themselves except under certain conditions. Using a tool to detect memory misuse makes the process much faster and easier.

As abnormally high memory utilization can be a contributing factor in software aging, memory debuggers can help programmers to avoid software anomalies that would exhaust the computer system memory, thus ensuring high reliability of the software even for long runtimes.

Comparison to static analyzer Some static analysis tools can also help find memory errors. Memory debuggers operate as part of an application while its running while static code analysis is performed by analyzing the code without executing it. These different techniques will typically find different instances of problems, and using them both together yields the best result.

List of memory debugging tools This is a list of tools useful for memory debugging. A profiler can be used in conjunction with a memory debugger.

NameOSLicenseLanguagesTechnique AddressSanitizer Linux, Mac OS Free/open source (LLVM) C, C++, Rust Compile-time instrumentation (available in Clang and GCC) and specialized library Allinea DDT Linux, Blue Gene commercial C, C++ and F90. Also for parallel programs on supercomputers Runtime - through dynamic linking AQtime Windows (Visual Studio, Embarcadero IDEs) commercial .NET, C++, Java, Silverlight, JScript, VBScript Runtime Bcheck Solaris BoundsChecker Windows (Visual Studio) commercial C++ Runtime intercepts or compile-time Daikon Unix, Windows, Mac OS X Free/open source Java, C/C++, Perl, and Eiffel Runtime dynamic invariant detection Debug_new (general technique) (general technique) C++ Compile-time override Deleaker Windows (standalone, and plugins for Visual Studio, RAD Studio, Qt Creator, CLion) commercial C++, .Net, Delphi Runtime intercepts dmalloc Free/open source (ISC License) C Compile-time override Android, Linux, Windows Free/open source (LGPL and BSD) Runtime intercepts Electric Fence Unix C, C++ Compile-time override FASTMM4 Windows Delphi Compile-time override IBM Rational Purify Unix, Windows commercial C++, Java, .NET Runtime Insure++ Windows (Visual Studio plugin), Unix commercial C, C++ source code instrumentation Intel Inspector Windows (Visual Studio), Linux commercial C, C++, Fortran Runtime libcwd Linux (gcc) Free/open source C, C++ Compile-time override libumem Solaris Bundled with Solaris Link-time override Memwatch (programming library) Free/open source C Compile-time override mtrace GNU C library Built-in, outputs accesses MTuner C, C++ Runtime intercepts, Link-time override (MSVC, Clang and GCC), Leak detection Oracle Solaris Studio (formerly Sun Studio Runtime Checking) Linux, Solaris Proprietary freeware C, C++, Fortran OLIVER (APT international) MVS, MVS/EXA, DOS/VSE software IBM Assembler Runtime intercepts, Hypervisor - Type 2 TotalView Unix, Mac OS X commercial C, C++, Fortran Runtime Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris/illumos, Mac OS, Android Runtime intercepts WinDbg Windows freeware C, C++, .NET, Python Runtime

Memory debugger

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