From fc4d1d9a60d42366c8d79847999da2f25ff27510 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Daniel Stenberg Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 10:34:33 +0000 Subject: my first take at a memory leak detection document --- lib/README.memoryleak | 49 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 49 insertions(+) create mode 100644 lib/README.memoryleak (limited to 'lib/README.memoryleak') diff --git a/lib/README.memoryleak b/lib/README.memoryleak new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8402dc40e --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/README.memoryleak @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +$Id$ + _ _ ____ _ + ___| | | | _ \| | + / __| | | | |_) | | + | (__| |_| | _ <| |___ + \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| + + How To Track Down Suspected Memory Leaks in libcurl + =================================================== + +Build + + Rebuild libcurl with -DMALLOCDEBUG (usually, rerunning configure with + --enable-debug fixes this). 'make clean' first, then 'make' so that all + files actually are rebuilt properly. It will also make sense to build + libcurl with the debug option (usually -g to the compiler) so that debugging + it will be easier if you actually do find a leak in the library. + + This will create a library that has memory debugging enabled. + +Modify Your Application + + Add a line in your application code: + + curl_memdebug("filename"); + + This will make the malloc debug system output a full trace of all resource + using functions to the given file name. Make sure you rebuild your program + and that you link with the same libcurl you built for this purpose as + described above. + +Run Your Application + + Run your program as usual. Watch the specified memory trace file grow. + + Make your program exit and use the proper libcurl cleanup functions etc. So + that all non-leaks are returned/freed properly. + +Analyze the Flow + + Use the tests/memanalyze.pl perl script to analyze the memdump file: + + tests/memanalyze.pl < memdump + + This now outputs a report on what resources that were allocated but never + freed etc. This report is very fine for posting to the list! + + If this doesn't produce any output, no leak was detected in libcurl. Then + the leak is mostly likely to be in your code. -- cgit v1.2.3