Memory debugger

 ( Memory Management Software ) 

A memory debugger is a debugger for finding software memory problems such as and . These are due to Software bug 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.

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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 anomaly that would exhaust the computer system memory, thus ensuring high reliability of the software even for long runtimes.

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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.

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

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

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See also

• Profiling (computer programming)
• List of performance analysis tools
• Debugger
• Runtime error detection
• Software testing
• Software engineering
• Computer programming
• Core dump

• Michael C. Daconta: C++ Pointers and Dynamic Memory Management, John Wiley & Sons,
• Andrew Koenig: C Traps and Pitfalls, Addison-Wesley,

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External links

• " Hunting Memory Bugs" by Ivan Skytte Jørgensen
• " Comparison of Free Memory Checkers" by Jean-Philippe Martin

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