Memory Debugging

We recommend using a special debugger to find memory errors, for example Valgrind or Dr. Memory. Commercial versions of these tools include Purify and Insure++.

Valgrind

To use Valgrind...

1. Valgrind is installed by default on most Linux distributions. For MacOSX you'll need to install it yourself -- you may want to try brew.

2. Your program should be compiled with debug information enabled by specifying the -g flag. For example:

     g++ -g main.cpp foo.cpp -o foo.out 
   

3. Then run the program by adding Valgrind to the beginning of your command line (replace foo.out arg1 arg2 with your program name and arguments):

     valgrind --leak-check=full --show-reachable=yes foo.out arg1 arg2
   

   If that example run of your program contains any memory errors Valgrind will output information to help you track down the error. Note that using Valgrind can significantly slow down execution time as it inspects every memory action. You may need to craft a smaller test case that exhibits the same bug you would like to solve.

Dr. Memory

For questions, bug reports, and discussion, use the Dr. Memory Users group:
http://groups.google.com/group/drmemory-users

Dr. Memory on GNU/Linux

1. Obtain Dr. Memory for Linux from http://code.google.com/p/drmemory/downloads/list

2. Untar the package to a directory of your choice. We'll assume ~/DrMemory-Linux-1.5.0-5/ for the rest of these instructions.

3. Ensure your Linux installation is able to build 32-bit applications. On 64-bit Ubuntu you will want these packages:

     sudo apt-get install ia32-libs g++-multilib
   

4. Build your application as 32-bit by passing -m32 to g++ (Dr. Memory does not yet support 64-bit). Be sure to include debug information by passing -g to g++. For example:

     g++ -g -m32 main.cpp foo.cpp -o foo.out
   

5. Run this command, replacing foo.out arg1 arg2 with your executable name and any command line arguments:

     ~/DrMemory-Linux-1.5.0-5/bin/drmemory.pl -brief -- foo.out arg1 arg2
   

6. Dr. Memory will report errors to the screen as it runs. It will print a summary at the end of what it found.

Installing Dr. Memory on Windows

1. Obtain Dr. Memory. To easily place it on the system path, use the installer (the .exe file). Alternately, you can instead obtain the .zip file for a local install.
   http://code.google.com/p/drmemory/downloads/list

2. Run the installer. Select ``Add to system path for current user''.

3. If the installer fails with this message:

   "Warning! PATH too long installer unable to modify PATH!"

   You can instead install the package locally. Download the .zip file and unzip the contents into a directory of your choice. Locate the drmemory.exe file inside the bin directory. You will need to specify this path in the directions below.

4. Follow the instructions below to compile & run your program using MinGW g++, the Visual Studio IDE, or the Visual Studio Command Prompt.

Dr. Memory and MinGW

1. Install Cygwin

2. Run the Cygwin installer (setup.exe), search for "mingw", open Devel, and install "mingw-gcc-g++"

3. Open a Cygwin terminal, navigate to the directory with your files, and compile your program with the mingw compiler by typing:

     i686-pc-mingw32-g++.exe -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ -ggdb -o foo.exe main.cpp foo.cpp
   

4. You can run your program under Dr Memory by typing;

     drmemory -brief -batch -- foo.exe arg1 arg2
   

Dr. Memory and Visual Studio

Alternatively, you can use Dr. Memory with the Microsoft Visual Studio compiler:

1. Build your application as 32-bit with Visual Studio (32-bit is the default). Be sure to include debug information. You can verify that you are including debug information by looking at the properties of your build target:

   Press Alt-F7 to bring up the configuration properties. Under "Configuration Properties | C/C++ | General", the "Debug Information Format" entry should say "Program Database (/Zi)".

   Also, turn off the Debug version of C Library: Under "Configuration Properties | C/C++ | Code Generation", change "Runtime Library" to be "Multi-threaded DLL (/MD)".

   Also, turn off the Debug version of C++ Library: Under "Configuration Properties | C/C++ | Preprocessor", remove "_DEBUG" from the list of "Preprocessor Definitions". It probably says "WIN32;_DEBUG;_CONSOLE" by default. Change it to "WIN32;_CONSOLE".

2. Open a cmd shell. Hit the Windows key and type cmd and press enter. This is the black command-line window. Note: this is not the Cygwin shell.

3. Change to the directory containing your application executable. E.g., cd \projects\datastructures\hw1\Debug

4. Run this command, replacing foo.exe arg1 arg2 with your executable name and any command line arguments:

     drmemory -brief -batch -- foo.exe arg1 arg2
   

   If you don't see any extra output from Dr. Memory as your program runs, remove the -batch flag and the Dr. Memory output will be sent to a file and notepad will launch automatically to display this file.

     drmemory -brief -- foo.exe arg1 arg2
   

5. Dr. Memory will report errors to the screen as it runs. It will print a summary at the end of what it found.

Using the Visual Studio compiler without the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

1. Launch the Visual Studio Command Prompt. From the Start menu, under All Programs, find your Visual Studio version (e.g., 2010) and expand it. Then expand Visual Studio Tools. Select the "Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt". (You don't want the x64 or Cross Tools versions.)

2. At the command line, change to the directory containing your source files.

3. Run the compiler, which is called "cl". This will build hw.exe from all .cpp files in the current directory:

     cl /Zi /EHsc /Fehw.exe *.cpp
   

4. If you installed Dr. Memory before you opened the Command Prompt, you can run drmemory from the same prompt.

   This Command Prompt is a cmd shell in which a batch file that comes with Visual Studio has been executed. This batch file is called vcvars.bat and it sets up the path and environment variables needed to run the compiler from the command line.

   Note: You can extract the environment variables from the batch file and set them up in your .bashrc so you can build from a Cygwin shell.