AmigActive 10/AACD 10.iso/AACD/Programming/mpatrol/info/mpatrol.info

Text File | 2000-05-16 | 342KB | 7,783 lines

This is mpatrol.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.0 from
mpatrol.texi.

INFO-DIR-SECTION Programming tools
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* mpatrol: (mpatrol).           The mpatrol library.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

   This file documents mpatrol, a library for controlling and tracing
dynamic memory allocations.

   Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Graeme S. Roy <[e-mail]>

   This is edition 1.9 of the mpatrol manual for version 1.2.0, 16th
May, 2000.

   Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

   Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

   Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a
translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.

   All product names mentioned in the documentation and source code for
this library are the trademarks of their respective owners.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Foreword,  Up: (dir)

mpatrol
*******

                                 _                     _
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 ____ ___    _____     _____   _| |_   _____   ____   | |
|  _ ~ _ \  |  __ \   / __  | |_   _| |  ___| / __ \  | |
| | | | | | | |  | | | |  | |   | |   | |    | |  | | | |
| | | | | | | |__| | | |__| |   | |   | |    | |__| | | |
|_| |_| |_| |  ___/   \_____|   |_|   |_|     \____/  |_|
            | |
            |_|

   This document describes mpatrol, a library for controlling and
tracing dynamic memory allocations.

   This is edition 1.9 of the mpatrol manual for version 1.2.0, 16th
May, 2000.

* Menu:

* Foreword::                    Motivation and feedback.
* Overview::                    Overview of mpatrol.
* Features::                    Features of mpatrol.
* Installation::                Building and installing.
* Integration::                 Debugging existing programs.
* Memory allocations::          Background.
* Operating system support::    Additional background.
* Using mpatrol::               Using the library.
* Profiling::                   Memory allocation profiling.
* Improving performance::       Life beyond mpatrol.
* How it works::                Implementation details.
* Examples::                    Examples of usage.
* Tutorial::                    Complete example.
* Functions::                   Library functions.
* Environment::                 Library run-time options.
* Options::                     Command line options.
* Library performance::         Comparitive timings.
* Profiling file format::       Profiling output file layout.
* Supported systems::           Known platforms that mpatrol runs on.
* Notes::                       Known bugs and future enhancements.
* Related software::            Similar programs.
* Function index::              Library functions.
* Index::                       Main index.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Foreword,  Next: Overview,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

Foreword
********

   I first started writing this library a few years ago when the
company I work for sent me out to a customer who had reported a memory
leak, which he expected was coming from the code generated by our C++
compiler.  A few years on and the library has changed dramatically from
its first beginnings, but I thought I'd release it publicly in case
anyone else found it useful.

   When writing the library, I placed more emphasis on the quantity and
quality of information about allocated memory rather than the speed and
efficiency of allocating the actual memory.  This means that the
library will use dramatically more memory than normal dynamic memory
allocation libraries and can slow down to a crawl depending on which
options you use.  However, the end results are likely to be accurate
and reliable, and in most cases the library will run quite happily at a
sane speed.

   The mpatrol library is by no means the only library of its kind.
Solaris 7 has no less that 6 different malloc libraries, and there are
plenty available as freeware or as commercial products.  Try to keep in
mind that mpatrol comes with absolutely no warranty and so if it
doesn't work for you and you need a fast solution, try some of the
other libraries or products available.  I have listed some of the most
popular at the end of this manual (*note Related software::).

   This manual is arranged so that complete reference material on the
mpatrol library can be found in the appendices, while introductory and
background material can be found in the preceding chapters and
sections.  For readers who wish to delve right in and use the library,
the Installation (*note Installation::) and Examples (*note Examples::)
chapters should be enough to get started in combination with the quick
reference card.  Otherwise, this manual should be read from beginning
to end in order to get the most out of the software it describes.

   Due to their very nature, problems with dynamic memory allocations
are notoriously difficult to reproduce and debug, and this is likely to
be the case if you find a bug in the mpatrol library as it might be
extremely hard to reproduce on another system.  Details on how to
report bugs are given elsewhere in this document (*note Notes::), but
it would be very useful if you could try to provide as much information
as possible when reporting a problem, and that includes having a look
in the library source code to see if it's obvious what is wrong.
However, please try to read the FAQ first in case your question or
problem is covered there since it is usually updated every time I
receive a question about mpatrol.

   The latest version of the mpatrol library and this manual can always
be found at `http://www.cbmamiga.demon.co.uk/mpatrol/', and any
correspondence relating to mpatrol (bug reports, enhancement requests,
compliments, etc.) should be sent to <[e-mail]>.
The mpatrol library is also registered at FreshMeat
(`http://freshmeat.net/') so you can receive notification of updates
there as well.  I normally only check my e-mail about once or twice a
week, so don't expect an immediate response.  I can also be reached at
<[e-mail]> but that is my work e-mail address.  There is now
also a discussion group at `http://www.egroups.com/group/mpatrol/'
where you can post mpatrol-related questions but you must first
subscribe to the group before you can send mail to it.

   Note that this manual is not just intended to instruct readers on
how to use the mpatrol library -- it is also written to give a detailed
look at how malloc libraries work in general and how to improve the
efficiency of existing code which uses them.  If this subject interests
you, you may find further useful material at _The Memory Management
Reference_ located at `http://www.harlequin.com/mm/reference/'.  It has
links to many documents and research papers in the field of memory
management, and has a large glossary which lists and explains related
terms.  You may also wish to look at _A Memory Allocator_ by Doug Lea
for information on general memory allocation principles.  It is located
at `http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/dl/html/malloc.html'.

   Finally, I'd like to thank Stephan Springl (<[e-mail]>)
for his help on reading debugging information from object files via the
GNU BFD library, and Dave Gibson (<[e-mail]>) for his help on
writing thread-safe code.  Calum Wilkie (<[e-mail]>) also
deserves a mention since the idea for providing stack traces comes from
a similar library he wrote a few years ago.

   Oh, and always remember to do final release builds without the
mpatrol library as the library is much slower than normal malloc
implementations and uses much more memory.

   Happy debugging!

   Graeme Roy, 11th October, 1999.

   Edinburgh, Scotland.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Overview,  Next: Features,  Prev: Foreword,  Up: Top

Overview
********

   The mpatrol library is yet another link library that attempts to
diagnose run-time errors that are caused by the wrong use of
dynamically allocated memory.  If you don't know what the `malloc()'
function or `operator new[]' do then this library is probably not for
you.  You have to have a certain amount of programming expertise and a
knowledge of how to run a command line compiler and linker before you
should attempt to use this.

   Along with providing a comprehensive and configurable log of all
dynamic memory operations that occurred during the lifetime of a
program, the mpatrol library performs extensive checking to detect any
misuse of dynamically allocated memory.  All of this functionality can
be integrated into existing code through the inclusion of a single
header file at compile-time.  On UNIX and Windows platforms (and
AmigaOS when using `gcc') this may not even be necessary as the mpatrol
library can be linked with existing object files at link-time or, on
some platforms, even dynamically linked with existing programs at
run-time.

   All logging and tracing output from the mpatrol library is sent to a
separate log file in order to keep its diagnostics separate from any
that the program being tested might generate.  A wide variety of
library settings can also be changed at run-time via an environment
variable, thus removing the need to recompile or relink in order to
change the library's behaviour.

   A file containing a summary of the memory allocation profiling
statistics for a particular program can be produced by the mpatrol
library.  This file can then be read by a profiling tool which will
display a set of tables based upon the accumulated data.  The profiling
information includes summaries of all of the memory allocations listed
by size and the function that allocated them and a list of memory leaks
with the call stack of the allocating function.

   The mpatrol library has been designed with the intention of
replacing calls to existing C and C++ memory allocation functions as
seamlessly as possible, but in many cases that may not be possible and
slight code modifications may be required.  However, a preprocessor
macro containing the version of the mpatrol library is provided for the
purposes of conditional compilation so that release builds and debug
builds can be easily automated.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Features,  Next: Installation,  Prev: Overview,  Up: Top

Features
********

   An overall list of features contained in the mpatrol library is
given below.  This is not intended to be exhaustive since the best way
to see what the library does is to read the documentation and try it
out.

   * Written for UNIX, AmigaOS, Windows and Netware platforms.

   * Can be built to allocate memory from a fixed-sized static array
     rather than using heap memory from the system.

   * Can be built as archive, shared and/or thread-safe libraries on
     systems that support them, or even as one large object file.  A
     lint library can also be built from the mpatrol library on UNIX
     platforms.

   * Details of memory allocations and free memory are stored
     internally as a tree structure for speed and also to allow the
     best fit allocation algorithm to be used.  This also enables the
     library to perform intelligent resizing of memory allocations and
     can be used to quickly determine if an address has been allocated
     on the heap.

   * Contains 14 replacement C dynamic memory allocation functions:

     `malloc()'    ANSI    Allocates memory.
     `calloc()'    ANSI    Allocates zero-filled memory.
     `memalign()'  UNIX    Allocates memory with a specified alignment.
     `valloc()'    UNIX    Allocates page-aligned memory.
     `pvalloc()'   UNIX    Allocates a number of pages.
     `strdup()'    UNIX    Duplicates a string.
     `strndup()'   old     Duplicates a string with a maximum length.
     `strsave()'   old     Duplicates a string.
     `strnsave()'  old     Duplicates a string with a maximum length.
     `realloc()'   ANSI    Resizes memory.
     `recalloc()'  old     Resizes memory allocated by `calloc()'.
     `expand()'    old     Resizes memory but does not relocate it.
     `free()'      ANSI    Frees memory.
     `cfree()'     old     Frees memory allocated by `calloc()'.

   * Contains 4 replacement C++ dynamic memory allocation functions:

     `operator new'       Allocates memory.
     `operator new[]'     Allocates memory for an array.
     `operator delete'    Frees memory.
     `operator delete[]'  Frees memory allocated by `operator new[]'.

   * Contains 10 replacement C memory operation functions:

     `memset()'    ANSI    Fills memory with a specific byte.
     `bzero()'     UNIX    Fills memory with the zero byte.
     `memccpy()'   UNIX    Copies memory up to a specific byte.
     `memcpy()'    ANSI    Copies non-overlapping memory.
     `memmove()'   ANSI    Copies possibly-overlapping memory.
     `bcopy()'     UNIX    Copies possibly-overlapping memory.
     `memcmp()'    ANSI    Compares two blocks of memory.
     `bcmp()'      UNIX    Compares two blocks of memory.
     `memchr()'    ANSI    Searches memory for a specific byte.
     `memmem()'    UNIX    Searches memory for specific bytes.

   * All of the above functions can also be defined with an additional
     underscore prepended to their external name in order to catch all
     uses of these functions in the system and third-party libraries.

   * Contains support for a user-defined low-memory handler function,
     including a replacement for the C++ function, `set_new_handler()'.

   * Contains support for user-defined prologue and epilogue callback
     functions, which get called before and after every memory
     allocation, reallocation or deallocation.

   * A function is provided to return as much information as possible
     about a given memory allocation, and can be called at any time
     during program execution.  A similar function is also provided for
     calling from within a debugger and an example command file is
     provided for use with `gdb'.

   * A function is provided to display library settings and heap usage
     statistics, including peak memory usage.  This information is also
     displayed at program termination.

   * The library reads any user-controllable options at run-time from
     an environment variable, but this does not have to be set as
     defaults will then be used.  This prevents having to recompile
     anything in order to change any library settings.  An option
     exists to display a quick-reference summary of all of the
     recognised options to the standard error file stream.

   * All diagnostics and logging are sent to a file in the current
     directory, but this can be overridden, including forcing the log
     file to be the standard output or standard error file streams.

   * Options exist to log details of every memory allocation,
     reallocation or deallocation when they occur.

   * Options exist to halt the program at a specific memory allocation,
     reallocation or deallocation when running the program within a
     debugger.  These options have no effect when running the program
     without a debugger.

   * An option exists to enable memory allocation profiling, which
     forces a summary of all memory allocation statistics to be written
     to a specified file for later use by a profiling command.  The
     profiling file can also be written at a specified frequency.

   * A profiling command is provided which reads a profiling output
     file produced by the mpatrol library and displays a set of tables
     based on the accumulated data.  The profiling information includes
     summaries of all of the memory allocations listed by size and the
     function that allocated them and a list of memory leaks with the
     call stack of the allocating function.

   * On UNIX platforms, the `mmap()' function can optionally be used to
     allocate memory instead of the `sbrk()' function, but only if the
     system supports it.  This can be useful if the mpatrol library
     clashes with another malloc library that uses `sbrk()' to allocate
     heap memory.

   * On non-UNIX platforms where the mpatrol library overrides
     `malloc()' without requiring the inclusion of `mpatrol.h',
     versions of the UNIX functions `brk()' and `sbrk()' are provided
     for compatibility with certain libraries.  These should _not_ be
     called by user code as they have only limited functionality.

   * All newly-allocated memory that is not allocated by the `calloc()'
     or `recalloc()' functions will be pre-filled with a non-zero value
     in order to catch out programs that wrongly assume that all
     newly-allocated memory is zeroed.  This value can be modified at
     run-time.

   * Can automatically check to see if there have been any illegal
     writes to bytes located just before and after every memory
     allocation through the use of overflow buffers.  The size of such
     overflow buffers and the value to pre-fill them with can be
     modified at run-time.  The checks will be performed before every
     memory allocation call to ensure that nothing has overwritten the
     overflow buffers, but a function is also provided to perform
     additional checks under the programmer's control and an option
     exists to specify a range in which checks will be performed.

   * On systems that support them, watch point areas can be used
     instead of overflow buffers so that every read and write to memory
     is checked to ensure that it is not within an overflow buffer.

   * Can automatically check to see if there have been any illegal
     writes to free memory blocks.  The value to pre-fill free memory
     blocks with can be modified at run-time.  The check will be
     performed before every memory allocation call to ensure that
     nothing has overwritten the free memory block, but a function is
     also provided to perform additional checks under the programmer's
     control and an option exists to specify a range in which checks
     will be performed.

   * On systems that support memory protection, every memory allocation
     can optionally be allocated at least one page of memory.  That
     way, any free memory blocks can be made read and write protected
     so that nothing can access free memory on the heap.  An option is
     provided to specify whether all memory allocations should be
     allocated at the start or at the end of such pages, and the bytes
     left over within the pages become overflow buffers.

   * All freed memory allocations can optionally be prevented from
     being returned to the free memory pool.  This is useful for
     detecting if use is being made of freed memory just after a memory
     allocation has been freed.  The contents of the memory allocation
     can either be preserved or can be pre-filled with a value in order
     to detect illegal writes to the freed memory allocation.

   * Calls to memory operation functions (such as `memset()' or
     `memcpy()') have their arguments checked to ensure that they do
     not pass null pointers or attempt to read or write memory
     straddling the boundary of a previously allocated memory block,
     although an option exists to turn such an error into a warning so
     that the operation can still be performed.  Tracing from all such
     functions can also optionally be written to the log file.

   * The internal data structures used by the library are kept separate
     from the rest of the memory allocations.  On systems that support
     memory protection, all of these internal data structures will be
     write-protected in order to prevent corruption by the calling
     program.  This feature can be overridden at run-time as it can
     slow the program down.

   * Certain signals can be saved and restored on entry to each library
     function and `errno' is set to `ENOMEM' if memory cannot be
     allocated.

   * On systems that support memory protection, the library attempts to
     detect any illegal memory accesses and display as much information
     as it can obtain about the address in question and where the
     illegal memory access occurred.

   * A call stack traceback from any function performing a memory
     allocation is stored if the library supports this feature on the
     system it is being run on.  This information can then be displayed
     when information about a specific memory allocation is required.
     Two different call stack traceback implementations are provided.

   * Symbol table details from executable files and shared libraries are
     automatically read on systems that support this feature in order
     to make the call stack tracebacks more meaningful.  An option also
     exists to display a complete list of the symbols that were read by
     the library at program termination.

   * Compiler-generated line number tables from any debugging sections
     that exist in executable files and shared libraries can also be
     used by the mpatrol library in order to provide more meaningful
     information in call stack tracebacks.

   * If the library is unable to automatically determine a program's
     executable filename to read symbols from then an option exists to
     specify the full path to the program's executable file.

   * An option exists to change the default alignment used for
     general-purpose memory allocations.

   * Contains support for a user-defined limit to available memory
     which can be useful for stress-testing a program in simulated low
     memory conditions.

   * Contains a feature to randomly fail a specific frequency of memory
     allocations which can be useful for stress-testing error recovery
     code in a program.

   * An option exists to display a complete memory map of the heap at
     program termination.  A function to do this is also available to
     call at any point during program execution.

   * Options exist to display all freed and unfreed memory allocations
     at program termination in order to detect memory leaks.  A
     separate program is also provided for locating memory leaks in
     unfinished log files.

   * An option exists to abort the program with a failure condition if
     there are more than a specified number of unfreed memory
     allocations at program termination.  This could be useful for
     batch testing in order to check that all tests free up most of
     their allocated memory.

   * Functions always report if their arguments are illegal in order to
     pinpoint any errors, and options exist to perform rigorous
     checking of arguments when allocating, reallocating and freeing
     memory.  In addition, checking is performed to ensure that memory
     allocated by `operator new[]' is not freed with `free()' for
     example.

   * The type of function performing a memory allocation is always
     stored along with the allocation, as well as the file and line
     number it was called from.  If compiled with `gcc', the function
     name will also be stored and the thread identifier will be stored
     if using the thread-safe library.

   * The library uses a header file to redefine the memory allocation
     functions as macros in order to obtain more information about
     where they were called from.  This is not strictly required on
     UNIX and Windows platforms (and AmigaOS when using `gcc'), since
     the library automatically redefines the default system memory
     allocation functions.  All redefinitions in the header can also be
     disabled by defining the `NDEBUG' preprocessor macro.

   * A command is supplied to run a program that was linked with the
     mpatrol library with any specified options on the command line.
     On some UNIX platforms, an option also exists to override the
     default memory allocation routines for any dynamically-linked
     program that was not previously linked with the mpatrol library.

   * The mpatrol library can be built to liaise with Parasoft Inuse, a
     commercial graphical memory usage tool that can display the
     current memory map of a running process.  Inuse is supplied with
     Parasoft Insure++.

   * A small test suite is provided in order to test basic features.

   * User documentation is currently available in TeXinfo format as
     well as UNIX manual pages and a quick reference card.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Installation,  Next: Integration,  Prev: Features,  Up: Top

Installation
************

   The mpatrol library was initially developed on an Amiga 4000/040
running AmigaOS 3.1.  I then installed RedHat Linux 5.1 on my Amiga and
added support for Linux/m68k.  I've tried my best to make it as easy as
possible to build and install mpatrol on any system, but it isn't
likely to run smoothly for everybody.  However, there shouldn't be any
major problems if you perform the following steps.

  1. Go into the `build' directory and then into the appropriate
     subdirectory for your system.

  2. Edit the `Makefile' in that directory and check that it is using
     the appropriate compiler and build tools.  The `CC' macro
     specifies the compiler, the `AR' macro specifies the tool used to
     build the archive library and the `LD' macro specifies the tool to
     build the shared library.  The `CFLAGS' macro specifies compiler
     options that are always to be used, the `OFLAGS' macro specifies
     optimisation options for the compiler, the `SFLAGS' macro
     specifies options to be passed to the compiler when building a
     shared library and the `TFLAGS' macro specifies options to be
     passed to the compiler when building a thread-safe library.  You
     may also need to change the library names and library build
     commands on different systems.

  3. Use the `make' command (or equivalent) to build the mpatrol
     library in archive form.  The `all' target builds all possible
     combinations of the mpatrol library for your system.  The `clean'
     target removes all relevant object files from the current
     directory, while the `clobber' target also removes all libraries
     that have been built from the current directory.  On some UNIX
     platforms, the `lint' target will build a `lint' library for the
     mpatrol library.

  4. If the mpatrol library is to be built with support for Parasoft
     Inuse then the `MP_INUSE_SUPPORT' preprocessor macro must be
     defined in the `CFLAGS' portion of the `Makefile' before building.
     This will ensure that Inuse will be notified of every memory
     allocation, reallocation and deallocation, but the Insure++
     runtime library will also have to be linked in with any program
     that uses mpatrol.

  5. Copy all of the libraries that have been built into your local
     library directory.  If there were symbolic links created in the
     `build' directory then these should be recreated in the local
     library directory rather than simply copying them.

  6. Copy the `mpatrol', `mprof' and `mleak' programs that have been
     built into your local bin directory.

  7. Go up two directory levels into the `src' directory and copy the
     `mpatrol.h' header file into your local include directory.

  8. On UNIX platforms, go up one directory level into the `man'
     directory and copy the `man1' and `man3' subdirectories to your
     local man directory.  Unfortunately, the location for manual pages
     varies from system to system so you may or may not also be able to
     copy the `cat1' and `cat3' subdirectories as well.  The `man*'
     subdirectories contain the unformatted manual pages while the
     `cat*' subdirectories contain the formatted manual pages.

  9. Go up one directory level into the `doc' directory and examine the
     files located there.  The `mpatrol.texi' file contains the TeXinfo
     source for this manual and can be translated into a wide variety
     of documentation formats.  The `refcard.tex' file contains the
     LaTeX source for the quick reference card and can be translated
     into formats suitable for printing onto a single page.  There may
     already be translated files in the `doc' directory, but if not you
     will either have to generate them yourself using an appropriate
     tool or you could download an archive containing the latest
     mpatrol manual and reference card in a variety of documentation
     formats from the mpatrol home page.  You can then install or print
     these documents.

   Alternatively, the `pkg' directory contains files that can be used to
automatically generate a _package_ in a specific format suitable for
installation on a system.  Two package formats (PKG and RPM) and two
archive formats are currently supported (generic tape archive and LhA).
The first package format is generally used on UNIX SVR4 systems, while
the second was introduced by Red Hat for use in their Linux
distributions.  The generic tape archive can be used as a distribution
for UNIX systems where no package format is supported, but it does not
contain information on how to install the files on the system once they
have been extracted from the distribution.  The LhA format is roughly
the same, but is intended for Amiga systems and is used for Aminet
distributions.  You should really know what you are doing before you
attempt to build a package, and you should also be aware that some of
the package files may need to be modified before you begin.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Integration,  Next: Memory allocations,  Prev: Installation,  Up: Top

Integration
***********

   The following steps should allow you to easily integrate the mpatrol
library into an existing application, although some of them may not be
available to do on many platforms.  They are listed in the order of
number of changes required to modify existing code -- the last step
will require a complete recompilation of all your code.

  1. This step is currently only available on IRIX, Linux and Solaris
     platforms and on DG/UX 4.20MU07 or later platforms with the
     `LD_PRELOAD' feature.

     If your program or application has been dynamically linked with
     the system C library (`libc.so') or an alternative malloc shared
     library then you can use the `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command
     to override the default definitions of `malloc()', etc. at
     run-time without having to relink your program.

     For example, if your program's executable file is called
     `testprog' and it accepts an option specifying an input file, you
     can force the system's dynamic linker to use mpatrol's versions of
     `malloc()', etc. instead of the default versions by typing:

          mpatrol -d ./testprog -i file

     The resulting log file should be called `mpatrol.<procid>.log' by
     default (where PROCID is the current process id), but if no such
     file exists after running the `mpatrol' command then it will not
     be possible to force the run-time linking of mpatrol functions to
     your program and you will have to proceed to the next step.

  2. This step is currently only available on UNIX and Windows
     platforms (and AmigaOS when using `gcc').

     You should be able to link in the mpatrol library when linking
     your program without having to recompile any of your object files
     or libraries, but this will only be worthwhile on systems where
     stack tracebacks are supported, otherwise you should proceed to
     the next step since there will not be enough information for you
     to tell where the calls to dynamic memory allocation functions took
     place.

     Information on how to link the mpatrol library to an application
     is given at the start of the examples (*note Examples::), but you
     should note that if your program does not directly call any of the
     functions in the mpatrol library then it will not be linked in and
     you will not see a log file being generated when you run it.  You
     can force the linking of the mpatrol library by causing `malloc()'
     to be undefined on the link line, usually through the use of the
     `-u' linker option.

  3. All of the following steps will require you to recompile some or
     all of your code so that your code calls dynamic memory allocation
     functions from the mpatrol library rather than the system C
     library.

     For this step, if you have a rough idea of where the function
     calls lie that you would like to trace or test, you need only
     recompile the relevant source files.  You should modify these
     source files to include the `mpatrol.h' header file before any
     calls to dynamic memory allocation or memory operation functions.

     However, you should take particular care to ensure that all calls
     to memory allocation functions in the mpatrol library will be
     matched by calls to memory reallocation or deallocation functions
     in the mpatrol library, since if they are unmatched then the log
     file will either fill up with errors complaining about trying to
     free unknown allocations, or warnings about unfreed memory
     allocations at the end of execution.

  4. This step requires you to recompile all of your source files to
     include the `mpatrol.h' header file.  Obviously, this will take
     the longest amount of time to integrate, but need not require you
     to change any source files if the compiler you are using has a
     command line option to include a specific header file before any
     source files.

     For example, `gcc' comes with a `-include' option which has this
     feature, so if you had to recompile a source file called `test.c'
     then the following command would allow you to include `mpatrol.h'
     without having to modify the source file:

          gcc -include /usr/local/include/mpatrol.h -c test.c

   In all cases, it will be desirable to compile your source files with
compiler-generated debugging information since that may be able to be
used by the `USEDEBUG' option.  In addition, more symbolic information
will be available if the executable files have not had their symbol
tables stripped from them, although mpatrol can also fall back to using
the dynamic symbol table from dynamically linked executable files.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Memory allocations,  Next: Operating system support,  Prev: Integration,  Up: Top

Memory allocations
******************

   In the C and C++ programming languages there are generally three
different types of memory allocation that can be used to hold the
contents of variables.  Other programming languages such as Pascal,
BASIC and FORTRAN also support some of these types of allocation,
although their implementations may be slightly different.

* Menu:

* Static memory allocations::   Fixed location, fixed size.
* Stack memory allocations::    Variable location, fixed size.
* Dynamic memory allocations::  Variable location, variable size.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Static memory allocations,  Next: Stack memory allocations,  Up: Memory allocations

Static memory allocations
=========================

   The first type of memory allocation is known as a _static memory
allocation_, which corresponds to file scope variables and local static
variables.  The addresses and sizes of these allocations are fixed at
the time of compilation(1) and so they can be placed in a fixed-sized
data area which then corresponds to a section within the final linked
executable file.  Such memory allocations are called static because
they do not vary in location or size during the lifetime of the program.

   There can be many types of data sections within an executable file;
the three most common are normal data, BSS data and read-only data.
BSS data contains variables and arrays which are to be initialised to
zero at run-time and so is treated as a special case, since the actual
contents of the section need not be stored in the executable file.
Read-only data consists of constant variables and arrays whose contents
are guaranteed not to change when a program is being run.  For example,
on a typical SVR4 UNIX system the following variable definitions would
result in them being placed in the following sections:

     int a;           /* BSS data */
     int b = 1;       /* normal data */
     const int c = 2; /* read-only data */

   In C the first example would be considered a _tentative_
declaration, and if there was no subsequent definition of that variable
in the current translation unit then it would become a _common_
variable in the resulting object file.  When the object file gets
linked with other object files, any common variables with the same name
become one variable, or take their definition from a non-tentative
definition of that variable.  In the former case, the variable is
placed in the BSS section.  Note that C++ has no support for tentative
declarations.

   As all static memory allocations have sizes and address offsets that
are known at compile-time and are explicitly initialised, there is very
little that can go wrong with them.  Data can be read or written past
the end of such variables, but that is a common problem with all memory
allocations and is generally easy to locate in that case.  On systems
that separate read-only data from normal data, writing to a read-only
variable can be quickly diagnosed at run-time.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Or more accurately, at link time.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Stack memory allocations,  Next: Dynamic memory allocations,  Prev: Static memory allocations,  Up: Memory allocations

Stack memory allocations
========================

   The second type of memory allocation is known as a _stack memory
allocation_, which corresponds to non-static local variables and
call-by-value parameter variables.  The sizes of these allocations are
fixed at the time of compilation but their addresses will vary
depending on when the function which defines them is called.  Their
contents are not immediately initialised, and must be explicitly
initialised by the programmer upon entry to the function or when they
become visible in scope.

   Such memory allocations are placed in a system memory area called the
_stack_, which is allocated per process(1) and generally grows down in
memory.  When a function is called, the state of the calling function
must be preserved so that when the called function returns, the calling
function can resume execution.  That state is stored on the stack,
including all local variables and parameters.  The compiler generates
code to increase the size of the stack upon entry to a function, and
decrease the size of the stack upon exit from a function, as well as
saving and restoring the values of registers.

   There are a few common problems using stack memory allocations, and
most generally involve uninitialised variables, which a good compiler
can usually diagnose at compile-time.  Some compilers also have options
to initialise all local variables with a bit pattern so that
uninitialised stack variables will cause program faults at run-time.
As with static memory allocations, there can be problems with reading
or writing past the end of stack variables, but as their sizes are
fixed these can usually easily be located.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Or per thread on some systems.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Dynamic memory allocations,  Prev: Stack memory allocations,  Up: Memory allocations

Dynamic memory allocations
==========================

   The last type of memory allocation is known as a _dynamic memory
allocation_, which corresponds to memory allocated via `malloc()' or
`operator new[]'.  The sizes, addresses and contents of such memory vary
at run-time and so can cause a lot of problems when trying to diagnose
a fault in a program.  These memory allocations are called dynamic
memory allocations because their location and size can vary throughout
the lifetime of a program.

   Such memory allocations are placed in a system memory area called the
_heap_, which is allocated per process on some systems, but on others
may be allocated directly from the system in scattered blocks.  Unlike
memory allocated on the stack, memory allocated on the heap is not
freed when a function or scope is exited and so must be explicitly
freed by the programmer.  The pattern of allocations and deallocations
is not guaranteed to be (and is not really expected to be) linear and
so the functions that allocate memory from the heap must be able to
efficiently reuse freed memory and resize existing allocated memory on
request.  In some programming languages there is support for a _garbage
collector_, which attempts to automatically free memory that has had
all references to it removed, but this has traditionally not been very
popular for programming languages such as C and C++, and has been more
widely used in functional languages like ML(1).

   Because dynamic memory allocations are performed at run-time rather
than compile-time, they are outwith the domain of the compiler and must
be implemented in a run-time package, usually as a set of functions
within a linker library.  Such a package manages the heap in such a way
as to abstract its underlying structure from the programmer, providing
a common interface to heap management on different systems.  However,
this _malloc library_ must decide whether to implement a fast memory
allocator, a space-conserving memory allocator, or a bit of both.  It
must also try to keep its own internal tables to a minimum so as to
conserve memory, but this means that it has very little capability to
diagnose errors if any occur.

   In some compiler implementations there is a builtin function called
`alloca()'.  This is a dynamic memory allocation function that allocates
memory from the stack rather than the heap, and so the memory is
automatically freed when the function that called it returns.  This is
a non-standard feature that is not guaranteed to be present in a
compiler, and indeed may not be possible to implement on some systems.
However, some compilers now support variable length arrays which
provide roughly the same functionality.

   As can be seen from the above paragraphs, dynamic memory allocations
are the types of memory allocations that can cause the most problems in
a program since almost nothing about them can be used by the compiler
to give the programmer useful warnings about using uninitialised
variables, using freed memory, running off the end of a
dynamically-allocated array, etc.  It is these types of memory
allocation problems that the mpatrol library loves to get its teeth
into!

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) There is currently at least one garbage collection package
available for C and C++ (*note Related software::).


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Operating system support,  Next: Using mpatrol,  Prev: Memory allocations,  Up: Top

Operating system support
************************

   Beneath every malloc library's public interface there is the
underlying operating system's memory management interface.  This
provides features which can be as simple as giving processes the
ability to allocate a new block of memory for themselves, or it can
offer advanced features such as protecting areas of memory from being
read or written.  Some embedded systems have no operating systems and
hence no support for dynamic memory allocation, and so the malloc
library must instead allocate blocks of memory from a fixed-sized array.
The mpatrol library can be built to support all of the above types of
system, but the more features an operating system can provide it with,
the more it can do.

   On operating systems such as UNIX and Windows, all dynamic memory
allocation requests from a process are dealt with by using a feature
called _virtual memory_.  This means that a process cannot perform
illegal requests without them being denied, which protects the other
running processes and the operating system from being affected by such
errors.  However, on AmigaOS and Netware platforms there is no virtual
memory support and so all processes effectively share the same address
space as the operating system and any other running processes.  This
means that one process can accidentally write into the data structures
of another process, usually causing the other process to fail and bring
down the system.  In addition, a process which allocates a lot of memory
will result in there being less available memory for other running
processes, and in extreme cases the operating system itself.

* Menu:

* Virtual memory::                  Addition facilities.
* Call stacks and symbol tables::   Tracing information.
* Threads::                         Multiple threads of execution.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Virtual memory,  Next: Call stacks and symbol tables,  Up: Operating system support

Virtual memory
==============

   _Virtual memory_ is an operating system feature that was originally
used to provide large usable address spaces for every process on
machines that had very little physical memory.  It is used by an
operating system to fool(1) a running process into believing that it can
allocate a vast amount of memory for its own purposes, although whether
it is allowed to or not depends on the operating system and the
permissions of the individual user.

   Virtual memory works by translating a virtual address (which the
process uses) into a physical address (which the operating system
uses).  It is generally implemented via a piece of hardware called a
_memory management unit_, or MMU.  The MMU's primary job is to
translate any virtual addresses that are referred to by machine
instructions into physical addresses by looking up a table which is
built by the operating system.  This table contains mappings to and
from _pages_(2) rather than bytes since it would otherwise be very
inefficient to handle mappings between individual bytes.  As a result,
every virtual memory operation operates on pages, which are indivisible
and are always aligned to the system page size.

   Even though each process can now see a huge address space, what
happens when it attempts to allocate more pages than actually
physically exist, or allocate an additional page of memory when all of
the physical pages are in use by it and other processes?  This problem
is solved by the operating system temporarily saving one or more of the
least-used pages (which might not necessarily belong that that process)
to a special place in the file system called a _swap file_, and mapping
the new pages to the physical addresses where the old pages once
resided.  The old pages which have been _swapped out_ are no longer
currently accessible, but their location in the swap file is noted in
the translation table.

   However, if one of the pages that has been swapped out is accessed
again, a _page fault_ occurs at the instruction which referred to the
address and the operating system catches this and reloads the page from
the swap file, possibly having to swap out another page to make space
for the new one.  If this occurs too often then the operating system
can slow down, having to constantly swap in and swap out the same pages
over and over again.  Such a problem is called _thrashing_ and can only
really be overcome by using less virtual memory or buying more physical
memory.

   It is also possible to take advantage of the virtual memory system's
interaction between physical memory and the file system in program
code, since mapping an existing file to memory means that the usual
file I/O operations can be replaced with memory read and write
operations.  The operating system will work out the optimum way to read
and write any buffers and it means that only one copy of the file
exists in both physical memory and the file system.  Note that this is
how _shared libraries_(3) on UNIX platforms are generally implemented,
with each individual process that uses the shared library having it
mapped to somewhere in its address space.

   Another major feature of virtual memory is its ability to read
protect and write protect individual pages of process memory.  This
means that the operating system can control access to different parts
of the address space for each process, and also means that a process
can read and/or write protect an area of memory when it wants to ensure
that it won't ever read or write to it again.  If an illegal memory
access is detected then a _signal_ will be sent to the process, which
can either be caught and handled or will otherwise terminate the
process.  Note that as with all virtual memory operations, this ability
to protect memory only applies to pages, so that it is not possible to
protect individual bytes.

   However, some versions of UNIX have programmable software _watch
points_ which are implemented at operating system level.  These are
normally used by debuggers to watch a specified area of memory that is
expected to be read from or written to, but can just as easily be used
to implement memory protection at byte level.  Unfortunately, as this
feature is implemented in software(4) rather than in hardware, watch
points tend to be incredibly slow, mainly as a result of the operating
system having to check every instruction before it is executed.

   There is also an additional problem when using watch points, which
is due to misaligned reads from memory.  These can occur with
compiler-generated code or with optimised library routines where memory
read, move or write operations have been optimised to work at word
level rather than byte level.  For example, the `memcpy()' function
would normally be written to copy memory a byte at a time, but on some
systems this can be improved by copying a word at a time.
Unfortunately, care has to be taken when reading and writing such words
as the equivalent bytes may not be aligned on word boundaries.
Technically, reading additional bytes before or after a memory
allocation when they share the same word is legal, but when using watch
points such errors will be picked up.  The mpatrol library replaces
most of the memory operation functions provided by the system libraries
with safer versions, although they may not be as efficient.

   An operating system with virtual memory is usually going to run ever
so slightly slower than an operating system without it(5), but the
advantages of virtual memory far outweigh the disadvantages, especially
when used for debugging purposes.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Well, perhaps that's too harsh a word, but it will certainly seem
that way to a process running on a 32-bit UNIX system with only 4
megabytes of physical memory, and yet it will be able to read from and
write to over 4 gigabytes of virtual memory!

   (2) The size of a page varies between operating systems and
processor architectures, but they are generally around 4 or 8 kilobytes
in size, and are always a power of two.

   (3) DLLs on Windows platforms.

   (4) The operating system is still considered software.

   (5) Due to the overhead of having to translate every address and
swap in and out pages -- although memory mapped files will usually be
more efficient than using normal file operations on a system without
virtual memory.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Call stacks and symbol tables,  Next: Threads,  Prev: Virtual memory,  Up: Operating system support

Call stacks and symbol tables
=============================

   As stated in the section on stack memory allocations (*note Stack
memory allocations::), when a function is called, a copy of the
caller's state information (including local variables and registers) is
saved on the stack so that it can be restored when the called function
returns.  On many operating systems there is a _calling convention_(1)
which defines the layout of such stack entries so that code compiled in
different languages and with different compilers can be intermixed.
This usually specifies at which stack offsets the stack pointer,
program counter and local variables for the calling function can be
found, although on some processor architectures the function calling
conventions are specified by the hardware and so the operating system
must use these instead.

   On systems that have consistent calling conventions, it is usually
possible to perform call stack _tracebacks_ from within the current
function in order to determine the stack of function calls that led to
the current function.  This is extremely useful for debugging purposes
and is done by examining the current stack frame to see if there is a
pointer to the previous stack frame.  If there is, then it can be
followed to find out all of the state information about the calling
function.  This can be repeated until there are no more stack frames.
This is generally how this information is determined by debuggers when
a call stack traceback is requested.

   In addition to the pointer to the previous stack frame, the saved
state information also always contains the saved program counter
register, which contains either the address of the instruction that
performed the function call, or the address of the instruction at which
to continue execution when the called function returns(2).  This
information can be used to identify which function performed the call,
since the address of the instruction must lie between the start and end
of one of the functions in the process.

   However, in order to determine this symbolic information, it must be
possible to find out where the start and end addresses of all of the
functions in the process are.  This can usually only be read from
object files, since they contain the symbol tables that were used by
the linker to generate the final executable file for the program.  The
object file's symbol tables normally contain information about the
start address, size, name and visibility of every symbol that was
defined, but this depends on the format of the object file and if the
symbol tables have been stripped from the final executable file.

   If the object file was created by a compiler then it may also
contain debugging information that was generated by the compiler for
use with a debugger.  Such information may include a mapping of code
addresses to source lines(3), and this information can be used by the
mpatrol library to provide more meaningful information in call stack
tracebacks.

   On systems that support shared libraries, additional work must be
done to determine the symbolic information for all of the functions
which have been defined in them.  The symbols for functions that are
defined in shared libraries normally appear as undefined symbols in the
executable file for the program and so must be searched in the system
in order to get the necessary information.  It is usually necessary to
liaise with the _dynamic linker_(4) on many systems.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Usually part of the _Application Binary Interface_, or ABI.

   (2) Also known as the _return address_.

   (3) Generally known as a line number table.

   (4) Which is the part of the operating system that performs the
run-time linking of shared libraries.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Threads,  Prev: Call stacks and symbol tables,  Up: Operating system support

Threads
=======

   On systems with virtual memory, such as UNIX and Windows, user
programs are run as _processes_ which have their own address space and
resources.  If a process needs to create sub-processes to perform other
tasks it must call `fork()' or `spawn()' to create new processes, but
these new processes do not share the same address space or resources as
the parent process.  If processes need to share memory they must either
use a message passing interface or explicitly mark a range of memory as
shareable.

   Traditionally, this was not too much of a handicap as parallel
processing was an expensive luxury and could only be made use of by the
kernel of such systems.  However, with the birth of fast processors and
parallel programming, programs could be made to run more efficiently
and faster on multi-processor systems by having more than one _thread_
of control.  This was achieved by allowing processes to have more than
one program counter through which the processor could execute
instructions, and if one thread of control stalled for a particular
reason then another could continue without stalling the entire process.

   Such multithreaded programs allow parallel programming and implicit
shared memory between threads since all threads in a process share the
same address space and resources.  This is similar to operating systems
that have no virtual memory, such as AmigaOS and Netware(1), except
that once a process terminates, all threads terminate as well and all
of its resources are still reclaimed.

   Multithreaded programming generally needs no compiler support, but
does require some primitive operations to be supported by the operating
system for a threads library to call.  The functions that are available
in the threads library provide the means for a process to create and
destroy threads.  There are currently several popular threads libraries
available, although the POSIX threads standard remains the definitive
implementation.

   It is always important to remember when programming a multithreaded
application that because all threads in a process share the same
address space, measures must be taken to prevent threads reading and
writing global data in a haphazard fashion.  This can either be done by
locking with semaphores and mutexes, or can be performed by using stack
variables instead of global variables since every thread has its own
local stack.  Care must be taken to write re-entrant functions -- i.e.
a function will give exactly the same result with one thread as it will
with multiple threads running it at the same time.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Where the kernel is effectively a single process running all
user programs as threads.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Using mpatrol,  Next: Profiling,  Prev: Operating system support,  Up: Top

Using mpatrol
*************

   This chapter contains a general description of all of the features
of mpatrol and how to use them effectively.  You'll also find a
complete reference for mpatrol in the appendices, but you may wish to
try out the examples (*note Examples::) and the tutorial (*note
Tutorial::) before reading further.

* Menu:

* Library behaviour::           Miscellaneous information.
* Logging and tracing::         General information.
* General errors::              Everyday problems.
* Overwrites and underwrites::  Overflow buffers.
* Using with a debugger::       Setting breakpoints.
* Testing::                     Additional checks.
* Library functions::           What's provided.
* Utilities::                   External programs.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Library behaviour,  Next: Logging and tracing,  Up: Using mpatrol

Library behaviour
=================

   Most of the behaviour of the mpatrol library can be controlled at
run-time via options which are read from the `MPATROL_OPTIONS'
environment variable.  This prevents you having to recompile or relink
each time you want to change a library setting, and so makes it really
easy to try out different settings to locate a particular bug.  You
should know how to set the value of an environment variable on your
system before you read on.

   By default, the mpatrol library will attempt to determine the
minimum required alignment for any generic memory allocation when it
first initialises itself.  This may be affected by the compiler and its
settings when the library was built but it should normally reflect the
minimum alignment required by the processor on your system.  If you
would prefer a larger (or perhaps even smaller) default alignment you
may change it at run-time using the `DEFALIGN' option.  The value you
supply must be in bytes, must be a power of two, and should not be
larger that the system page size.  If you encounter bus errors due to
misaligned memory accesses then you should increase this value.

   On systems that have virtual memory the library will attempt to
write-protect all of its internal structures when user code is being
run.  This ensures that it is nearly impossible for a program to
corrupt any mpatrol library data.  However, unprotecting and then
protecting the structures at every library call has a slight overhead
so you may prefer to disable this behaviour by using the `NOPROTECT'
option.  This has no effect on systems that have no virtual memory.

   Usually it is desirable for many system library routines to be
protected from being interrupted by certain signals since they may
themselves be called from signal handlers.  If this is not the case
then it may be possible to interrupt the program from within such
routines, perhaps causing problems if their global variables are left
in an undefined state.  As the mpatrol library replaces some of these
system library routines it is also possible to specify that they are
protected from certain interrupt signals using the `SAFESIGNALS' option.
However, this can sometimes result in it being hard to interrupt the
program from the keyboard if a lot of processor time is spent in
mpatrol routines, which is why this behaviour is disabled by default(1).

   On UNIX systems, the usual way for malloc libraries to allocate
memory from the process heap is through the `sbrk()' system call.  This
allocates memory from a contiguous heap, but has the disadvantage in
that other library functions may also allocate memory using the same
function, thus creating holes in the heap.  This is not a problem for
mpatrol, but you may have a suspicion that your bug is due to a
function from another library corrupting your data so you may wish to
use the `USEMMAP' option.  This is only available on systems that have
the `mmap()' system call and allows mpatrol to allocate all of its
memory from a part of the process heap that is non-contiguous (i.e.
each call to `mmap()' may return a block of memory that is completely
unrelated to that returned by the previous call).

   By default, every time an mpatrol library function is called the
library will automatically check the freed memory and overflow buffers
of every memory allocation, which can slow program execution down,
especially if you suspect the error you are looking for occurs at the
1000th memory allocation, for example.  You can therefore use the
`CHECK' option to specify a range of memory allocations at which the
mpatrol library will automatically check the freed memory and overflow
buffers.  All other allocations that fall outside this range will not
be checked.

   If the mpatrol library that was built for your system supports
reading symbolic information from a program's executable file, but it
cannot locate the executable file, or you wish to specify an
alternative, you can use the `PROGFILE' option to do this.  All this
does is instruct the mpatrol library to read symbols from this file
instead.  Note that on systems that support dynamic linking, the
library can also read symbols from a dynamically linked executable file
that has had its normal symbol table stripped.

   Finally, a list of all of the recognised options in the mpatrol
library can be displayed to the standard error file stream by using the
`HELP' option.  This will not affect the settings of the library in any
way, so you should be able to use other options at the same time.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) In mpatrol release 1.0 it was enabled by default.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Logging and tracing,  Next: General errors,  Prev: Library behaviour,  Up: Using mpatrol

Logging and tracing
===================

   If you would like to see a complete log of all of the memory
allocations, reallocations and deallocations performed by your program,
use the `LOGALL' option.  This provides detailed tracing for each of
the mpatrol library functions, and a full description of the format of
such tracing is given in Example 1 (*note Example 1::).  Alternatively,
you may select one or more types of functions to be traced using the
`LOGALLOCS', `LOGREALLOCS', `LOGFREES' and `LOGMEMORY' options if you
feel that the log file is too large when `LOGALL' is used.  By default
all diagnostics from the mpatrol library get sent to `mpatrol.log' in
the current directory, but this can be changed using the `LOGFILE'
option.

   On systems that support it, every log entry also contains a call
stack traceback that may also include the names of the symbols that
appear on the call stack.  If the object file access library that
mpatrol was built with has support for reading line number tables from
object files then the `USEDEBUG' option will also try to determine the
file name and line number for each entry in the call stack, but only if
the object files contain the relevant debugging information.  This
information will only be available before program termination and so
any call stack tracebacks that appear after the library summary will
not be displayed with their corresponding file name and line number.
This option will also slow down program execution since a search
through the line number tables will have to be made every time a call
stack is displayed.

   The mpatrol library will always try to display as much useful
information as possible in this log file, and will always display a
summary of library settings and statistics when your program terminates
successfully.  If you don't get this then your program did not call
`exit()' and either called `abort()' or was terminated by the operating
system instead.  In such cases, either use a debugger to see where your
program crashed or use the `LOGALL' option to see the last successful
library call in the log file so that you have a rough idea of where
your program crashed.

   It is also possible to get mpatrol to write more summary information
to the log file after it writes out its settings and statistics at
program termination.  Use the `SHOWFREED' and `SHOWUNFREED' options to
display a list of freed and unfreed memory allocations.  The former
will only be displayed if the `NOFREE' option is used, but the latter
can be useful for detecting memory leaks.  The `SHOWMAP' option will
display a memory map of the heap that was valid when the process
terminated, and the `SHOWSYMBOLS' option will display any symbolic
information that the mpatrol library managed to obtain from any
executable files and libraries that were relevant to the program being
tested.  All of these options can be selected with the `SHOWALL' option.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: General errors,  Next: Overwrites and underwrites,  Prev: Logging and tracing,  Up: Using mpatrol

General errors
==============

   By default, the mpatrol library follows the guidelines for ANSI C
regarding the behaviour of the dynamic memory allocation functions it
replaces(1).  This means that calling `malloc()' with a size of zero is
allowed, for example.  However, warnings can be generated for all of
these types of calls by using the `CHECKALL' option.  The `CHECKALLOCS'
option warns only about calls to `malloc()' and similar functions with
a size of zero, the `CHECKREALLOCS' option warns only about calls to
`realloc()' and similar functions with either a null pointer or a size
of zero, and the `CHECKFREES' option warns only about calls to `free()'
and similar functions with a null pointer.

   All newly-allocated memory can be pre-filled with a specified byte
by using the `ALLOCBYTE' option.  This can be used to catch out code
that expects newly-allocated memory to be zeroed, although this option
will have no effect on memory that was allocated with `calloc()'.  All
free memory can also be pre-filled with a different specified byte by
using the `FREEBYTE' option.  This will catch out code that expects to
be able to use the contents of freed memory.

   Alternatively, the mpatrol library can be instructed to keep all
freed memory allocations so that its diagnostics can be clearer about
which freed allocation a piece of code is erroneously trying to access.
This is controlled with the `NOFREE' option, but since it never reuses
any freed allocations it can result in a lot more heap memory being
used.  Note that this option distinguishes between _free_ memory and
_freed_ memory.  _Free_ memory is unallocated memory that has been
taken from the system heap.  _Freed_ memory is a freed memory
allocation, with all of the original details of the allocation
preserved.

   Normally, the `NOFREE' option will fill the freed allocation with the
free byte so that any code that accesses it will hopefully fall over.
However, the original contents can be preserved using the `PRESERVE'
option in case you need to see what the contents were just before it
was freed.  The `NOFREE' option is also affected by the `PAGEALLOC'
option, since then the freed allocation will have its contents both
read and write protected so that nothing can access them.  If the
`PRESERVE' option is used in this case then the freed allocation will
only be made write-protected so that the original contents can be read
from but not written to.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) I attempted to do the same for ANSI C++ but there are still
namespace and exception handling issues to be resolved.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Overwrites and underwrites,  Next: Using with a debugger,  Prev: General errors,  Up: Using mpatrol

Overwrites and underwrites
==========================

   Once a block of memory has been allocated, it is imperative that the
program does not attempt to write any data past the end of the block or
write any data just before the beginning of the block.  Even writing a
single byte just beyond the end of an allocation or just before the
beginning of an allocation can cause havoc.  This is because most
malloc libraries store the details of the allocated block in the first
few words before the beginning of the block, such as its size and a
pointer to the next block.  The mpatrol library does not do this, so a
program which failed using the normal malloc library and worked when
the mpatrol library was linked in is a possible candidate for turning
on overflow buffers.

   Such memory corruption can be extremely difficult to pinpoint as it
is unlikely to show itself until the next call is made to the malloc
library, or if the internal malloc library blocks were not overwritten,
the next time the data is read from the block that was overwritten.  If
the former is the case then the next library call will cause an
internal error or a crash, but only when the memory block that was
affected is referenced.  This is likely to disappear when using the
mpatrol library since it keeps its internal structures separate, and
write-protects them on systems that support memory protection.

   In order to identify such errors, it is possible to place special
buffers(1) on either side of every memory allocation, and these will be
pre-filled with a specified byte.  Before every mpatrol library call,
the library will check the integrity of every such overflow buffer in
order to check for a memory underwrite or overwrite.  Depending on the
number of allocations and size of these buffers, this can take a
noticable amount of time (which is why overflow buffers are disabled by
default), but can mean that these errors get noticed sooner.  The
option which governs this is `OFLOWSIZE'.  The byte with which they get
pre-filled can be changed with `OFLOWBYTE'.  Depending on what gets
written, it might only be possible to see such errors when a different
size of buffer or a different pre-fill byte is used.

   A worse situation can occur when it is only reads from memory that
overflow or underflow; i.e. with the faulty code reading just before or
just past a memory allocation.  These cannot be detected by overflow
buffers as it is not possible using conventional means to interrupt
every single read from memory.  However, on systems with virtual
memory, it is possible to use the memory protection feature to provide
an alternative to overflow buffers, although at the added expense of
increased memory usage.

   The `PAGEALLOC' option turns on this feature and automatically rounds
up the size of every memory allocation to a multiple of the system page
size.  It also rounds up the size of every overflow buffer to a
multiple of the system page size so that every memory allocation
occupies its own set of pages of virtual memory and no two memory
allocations occupy the same page of virtual memory.  The overflow
buffers are then read and write protected so that any memory accesses
to them will generate an error(2).  Following on from the previous
section, the `PAGEALLOC' option also causes free memory to be read and
write protected as well since that will also occupy non-overlapping
virtual memory pages.

   The remaining memory that is left over within an allocation's pages
is effectively turned into traditional overflow buffers, being
pre-filled with the overflow byte and checked periodically by the
mpatrol library to ensure that nothing has written into them.  However,
because of this remaining memory, the library has a choice of where to
place the memory allocation within its pages.  If it places the
allocation at the very beginning then it will catch memory underwrites,
but if it places the allocation at the very end then it will catch
memory overwrites.  Such a choice can be controlled at run-time by
supplying an argument to the `PAGEALLOC' option.  If `PAGEALLOC=LOWER'
is used then every allocation will be placed at the very beginning of
its pages and if `PAGEALLOC=UPPER' is used then the placement will be
at the very end of its pages.  This is probably better explained in
Example 3 (*note Example 3::) where the problems with `PAGEALLOC=UPPER'
and alignment are also discussed.

   Obviously, there are still some deficiencies when using `PAGEALLOC'
since it can use up a huge amount of memory (especially with `NOFREE')
and the overflow buffers within an allocation's pages can still be read
without causing an immediate error.  Both of these deficiencies can be
overcome by using the `OFLOWWATCH' option to install _software watch
points_ instead of overflow buffers, but there are still very few
systems that support software watch points at the moment, and it can
slow a program's execution speed down by a factor of around 10,000.
The reason for this is that software watch points instruct the
operating system to check every read from and write to memory, which
means that it has to single-step through a process checking every
instruction before it is executed.  However, this is a very thorough
way of checking for overflows and is unlikely to miss anything,
although there may be problems with misaligned memory accesses when
using watch points (*note Virtual memory::).

   Note that from release 1.1.0 of mpatrol, the library comes with
replacement functions for many memory operation functions, such as
`memset()' and `memcpy()'.  These new functions provide additional
checks to ensure that if a memory operation is being performed on a
memory block, the operation will not read or write before or beyond the
boundaries of that block.

   Normally, if an error is discovered in the call to such functions,
the mpatrol library will report the error but prevent the operation
from being performed before continuing execution.  If the error was
that the range of memory being operated on overflowed the boundaries of
an existing memory allocation then the `ALLOWOFLOW' option can be used
to turn the error into a warning and force the operation to continue.
This behaviour can be desirable in certain cases where third-party
libraries are being used that make such calls but the end result does
not overflow the allocation boundary.

   To conclude, if you suspect your program has a piece of code which
is performing illegal memory underwrites or overwrites to a memory
allocation you should use each of the following options in sequence,
but only if your system supports them.

  1. `OFLOWSIZE=8'

  2. `OFLOWSIZE=32'

  3. `OFLOWSIZE=1' `PAGEALLOC=LOWER'

  4. `OFLOWSIZE=1' `PAGEALLOC=UPPER'

  5. `OFLOWSIZE=8' `OFLOWWATCH'

  6. `OFLOWSIZE=32' `OFLOWWATCH'

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Commonly known as _overflow buffers_ or _fence posts_.

   (2) This is a feature that was first used by Electric Fence (*note
Related software::) to track down memory corruption.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Using with a debugger,  Next: Testing,  Prev: Overwrites and underwrites,  Up: Using mpatrol

Using with a debugger
=====================

   If you would like to use mpatrol to pause at a specific memory
allocation, reallocation or deallocation in a debugger then this
section will describe how to go about it.  Unfortunately, debuggers
vary widely in function and usage and are normally very
system-dependent.  The example below will use `gdb' as the debugger,
but as long as you know how to set a breakpoint within a debugger, any
one will do.

   First of all, decide where you would like the mpatrol library to
pause when running your program within the debugger.  You can choose
one allocation index to break at using the `ALLOCSTOP' option, or you
can choose to break at a specific reallocation of that allocation by
also using the `REALLOCSTOP' option.  If you use `REALLOCSTOP' without
using `ALLOCSTOP' then you will break at the first memory allocation
that has been reallocated the specified number of times.  You can also
choose to break at the point in your program that frees a specific
allocation index by using the `FREESTOP' option.

   The normal process for determining where you would like to pause
your program in the debugger is by using the `LOGALL' option and
examining the log file produced by mpatrol.  If your program crashed
then you should look at the last entry in the log file to see what the
allocation index (and possibly also the reallocation index) of the last
successful call was.  You can then decide which of the above options to
use.  Note that the debugger will break at a point before any work is
done by the mpatrol library for that allocation index so that you can
see if it was the last successful operation that caused the damage.

   Having decided which combination of mpatrol options to use, you
should set them in the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable before
running the debugger on your program.  Alternatively, your debugger may
have a command that allows you to modify your environment during
debugging, but you're just as well setting the environment variable
before you run the debugger as it shouldn't make any difference(1).

   After you get to the debugger command prompt, you should set a
breakpoint at the `__mp_trap()' function.  This is the function that
gets called when the specified allocation index and/or reallocation
index appears and so when you run your program under the debugger the
mpatrol library will call `__mp_trap()' and the debugger will stop at
that point.  If you are not running your program within a debugger, or
if you haven't set the breakpoint, then `__mp_trap()' will still be
called, but it won't do anything.  Note that there may be some naming
issues on some platforms where the visible name of a global function
gets an underscore prepended to it.  You may have to take that into
account when setting the breakpoint on such systems.

   Now that you have set the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable and
have set the debugger to break at `__mp_trap()', all that is required
is for you to run your program.  Hopefully, the debugger should stop at
`__mp_trap()'.  If it doesn't then you may have to check your
environment variable settings to ensure that they are the same as when
you ran the program outwith the debugger, although obviously with the
addition of `ALLOCSTOP', etc.  Once the program has been halted by the
debugger, you can then single-step through your code until you see
where it goes wrong.  If this is near the end of your program then
you'll have saved yourself a lot of time by using this method.

   The following example will be used to illustrate the steps involved
in using the `ALLOCSTOP', `REALLOCSTOP' and `FREESTOP' options.
However, it is only for tutorial purposes and the same effect could
easily be achieved by breaking at line 18 in a debugger because in this
case it is obvious from the code and the mpatrol log file where it is
going wrong.  In real programs this is hardly ever the case(2).

      1  /*
      2   * Allocates 1000 blocks of 16 bytes, freeing each block immediately
      3   * after it is allocated, and freeing the last block twice.
      4   */


      7  #include "mpatrol.h"


     10  int main(void)
     11  {
     12      void *p;
     13      int i;

     15      for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
     16          if (p = malloc(16))
     17              free(p);
     18      free(p);
     19      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     20  }

   Compile this example code with debugging information enabled and
link it with the mpatrol library, then set `MPATROL_OPTIONS' to
`LOGALL' and run the resulting program.  If you examine `mpatrol.log'
you will see the following near the bottom of the file.

     ...

     ALLOC: malloc (1000, 16 bytes, 2 bytes) [main|test.c|16]
             0x80000D8E main
             0x80000D24 _start

     returns 0x80033000

     FREE: free (0x80033000) [main|test.c|17]
             0x80000DBE main
             0x80000D24 _start

         0x80033000 (16 bytes) {malloc:1000:0} [main|test.c|16]
             0x80000D8E main
             0x80000D24 _start

     FREE: free (0x80033000) [main|test.c|18]
             0x80000DE8 main
             0x80000D24 _start

     ERROR: free: 0x80033000 has not been allocated

     ...

   In this example, we'll want to use `ALLOCSTOP' to halt the program at
the 1000th memory allocation so that we can step through it with a
debugger.  So, set `MPATROL_OPTIONS' to `ALLOCSTOP=1000' and load the
program into the debugger.  If you are using `gdb' you can now do the
following steps, but if you are not you will have to use the equivalent
commands in your debugger.  Note that `(gdb)' is the debugger command
prompt and so anything that appears on that line after that should be
typed as a command.

     (gdb) break __mp_trap
     Breakpoint 1 at 0x80004026
     (gdb) run
     Starting program: a.out
     Breakpoint 1, 0x80004026 in __mp_trap()
     (gdb) backtrace
     #0  0x80004026 in __mp_trap()
     #1  0x800027ec in __mp_getmemory()
     #2  0x80001138 in __mp_alloc()
     #3  0x80000d8e in main() at test.c:16
     (gdb) finish
     Run till exit from #0  0x80004026 in __mp_trap()
     0x800027ec in __mp_getmemory()
     (gdb) finish
     Run till exit from #0  0x800027ec in __mp_getmemory()
     0x80001138 in __mp_alloc()
     (gdb) finish
     Run till exit from #0  0x80001138 in __mp_alloc()
     0x80000d8e in main() at test.c:16
     16              if (p = malloc(16))
     (gdb) step
     17                  free(p);
     (gdb) step
     15          for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
     (gdb) step
     18          free(p);
     (gdb) quit
     The program is running.  Quit anyway (and kill it)? (y or n) y

   After setting the breakpoint and running the program, the debugger
halts at `__mp_trap()'.  Because `__mp_trap()' is a function within the
mpatrol library, you don't want to bother stepping through any of the
library functions, and in this case you can't since the mpatrol library
was not compiled with debugging information enabled.  So, after
returning from all of the library functions, the source line becomes
line 16 because that was the location of the 1000th memory allocation.
Single-stepping twice gets us to line 18 which is our destination.

   Sometimes it is useful to be able to see information about a memory
allocation whilst running a program from within a debugger.  The
`__mp_printinfo()' function is provided for that purpose and takes a
heap address as its only argument.  Using the above example, it would
have been possible to print out information about the pointer `p' at
line 17 from within `gdb':

     (gdb) call __mp_printinfo(p)
     address 0x80033000 located in allocated block:
         start of block:     0x80033000
         size of block:      2 bytes
         allocated by:       malloc
         allocation index:   1000
         reallocation index: 0
         calling function:   main
         called from file:   test.c
         called at line:     16
         function call stack:
             0x80000D8E main
             0x80000D24 _start

   Some debuggers, such as `gdb', also allow you to define your own
commands for use in a debugging session.  The following example defines
a new `gdb' command called `printalloc' which calls
`__mp_printinfo()'(3):

     (gdb) define printalloc
     Type commands for definition of "printalloc".
     End with a line saying just "end".
     >call __mp_printinfo($arg0)
     >end
     (gdb) document printalloc
     Type documentation for "printalloc".
     End with a line saying just "end".
     >Displays information about an address in the heap.
     >end

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Unless you've linked the debugger with the mpatrol library.

   (2) The other reason that this program is simple is because a proper
example would generally involve crashing the program, but on AmigaOS
and Netware that would also involve crashing the system -- not
something you'd want to do whilst trying this out.

   (3) A sample GDB command file for use with mpatrol can be found in
`extra/.gdbinit'.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Testing,  Next: Library functions,  Prev: Using with a debugger,  Up: Using mpatrol

Testing
=======

   The mpatrol library has several features that make it useful when
testing a program's dynamic memory allocations.  These are features
that do not help in fixing an existing bug, but rather help to identify
additional bugs that may be lurking in your code.

   It is possible to set a simulated upper limit on the amount of heap
memory available to a process with the `LIMIT' option, which accepts a
size in bytes, but will be disabled when it is zero.  This can be
extremely useful for testing a program under simulated low memory
conditions to see how it handles such errors.  Of course, you should
set the heap limit to a value less than the amount of actual available
memory otherwise this option will have no effect.  Note that the
mpatrol library may use up a small amount of heap memory when it
initialises itself(1) so the value passed to the `LIMIT' option may
need to be set slightly higher than you would normally expect.

   It is also possible to instruct the mpatrol library to randomly fail
a certain number of memory allocations so that you can further test
error handling code in a program.  The frequency at which failures
occur can be controlled with the `FAILFREQ' option, where a value of
zero means that no failures will occur, but any other value will
randomly cause failures.  For example, a value of `10' will cause
roughly one in ten failures and a value of `1' will cause every memory
allocation to fail.  The random sequence can be made predictable by
using the `FAILSEED' option.  If this is non-zero then the same program
run with the same failure frequency and same failure seed will fail on
exactly the same memory allocations.  If this is zero then the failure
seed will itself be set randomly, but you can see its value when the
summary is displayed at program termination.

   When running _batch tests_(2) it is sometimes useful to be able to
detect if there have been any memory leaks.  Such leaks should normally
be distinguished from code which has purposely not freed the memory
that it allocated, so there may be a certain expected number of unfreed
allocations at program termination.  It may be that you would like to
highlight any additional unfreed allocations since they may be due to
real memory leaks, so the `UNFREEDABORT' option can be set to a
threshold number of expected unfreed allocations.  If the library
detects a number of unfreed allocations higher than this then it will
abort the program at termination so that it fails.  All tests that fail
in this way can then be examined after the test suite finishes.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Actually, it's not really the mpatrol library that uses the
memory but the object file access libraries since they call `malloc()'
to allocate any memory that they require.

   (2) A set of tests that run without user intervention.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Library functions,  Next: Utilities,  Prev: Testing,  Up: Using mpatrol

Library functions
=================

   Along with the standard set of C and C++ dynamic memory allocation
functions, the mpatrol library also comes with an additional set of
functions which can be used to provide additional information to your
program, and which can be called at various points in your code for
debugging purposes.  You must always include the `mpatrol.h' header
file in order to use these functions, but you can check for a specific
version of the mpatrol library by checking the `MPATROL_VERSION'
preprocessor macro.

   It is possible to obtain a great deal of information about an
existing memory allocation using the `__mp_info()' function.  This
takes an address as an argument and fills in any details about its
corresponding memory allocation in a supplied structure.  The following
example illustrates this (it can be found in `tests/pass/test4.c').

     23  /*
     24   * Demonstrates and tests the facility for obtaining information
     25   * about the allocation a specific address belongs to.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"
     30  #include <stdio.h>


     33  void display(void *p)
     34  {
     35      __mp_allocstack *s;
     36      __mp_allocinfo d;

     38      if (!__mp_info(p, &d))
     39      {
     40          fprintf(stderr, "nothing known about address 0x%08lX\n", p);
     41          return;
     42      }
     43      fprintf(stderr, "block:   0x%08lX\n", d.block);
     44      fprintf(stderr, "size:    %lu\n", d.size);
     45      fprintf(stderr, "type:    %lu\n", d.type);
     46      fprintf(stderr, "alloc:   %lu\n", d.alloc);
     47      fprintf(stderr, "realloc: %lu\n", d.realloc);
     48      fprintf(stderr, "func:    %s\n", d.func ? d.func : "NULL");
     49      fprintf(stderr, "file:    %s\n", d.file ? d.file : "NULL");
     50      fprintf(stderr, "line:    %lu\n", d.line);
     51      for (s = d.stack; s != NULL; s = s->next)
     52      {
     53          fprintf(stderr, "\t0x%08lX: ", s->addr);
     54          fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", s->name ? s->name : "NULL");
     55      }
     56      fprintf(stderr, "freed:   %d\n", d.freed);
     57  }


     60  void func2(void)
     61  {
     62      void *p;

     64      if (p = malloc(16))
     65      {
     66          display(p);
     67          free(p);
     68      }
     69      display(p);
     70  }


     73  void func1(void)
     74  {
     75      func2();
     76  }


     79  int main(void)
     80  {
     81      func1();
     82      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     83  }

   When this is compiled and run, it should give the following output,
although the pointers are likely to be different.

     block:   0x8000A068
     size:    16
     type:    0
     alloc:   10
     realloc: 0
     func:    func2
     file:    test4.c
     line:    64
              0x80000BEC: func2
              0x80000C3E: func1
              0x80000C48: main
              0x800009E8: _start
     freed:   0
     nothing known about address 0x8000A068

   As you can see, anything that the mpatrol library knows about any
memory allocation can be obtained for use in your own code, which can
be very useful if you need to write handlers to keep track of memory
allocations, etc. for debugging purposes.  It can also be useful to
have this information when running your program within a debugger, so
you can use the `__mp_printinfo()' function to display information
about a heap address if your debugger supports calling functions from
the command prompt.

   It is also possible for you to be able to intercept calls to
allocate, reallocate and deallocate memory for your own purposes.  You
can install prologue and epilogue functions that the mpatrol library
will call before and after every time one of its functions is called.
These can be used for additional tracing or simply to add extra checks
to your code.  The following code is an example of this and can be
found in `tests/pass/test2.c'.

     23  /*
     24   * Demonstrates and tests the facility for specifying user-defined
     25   * prologue and epilogue functions.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"
     30  #include <stdio.h>


     33  void prologue(const void *p, size_t l)
     34  {
     35      if (p == (void *) -1)
     36          fprintf(stderr, "allocating %lu bytes\n", l);
     37      else if (l == (size_t) -1)
     38          fprintf(stderr, "freeing allocation 0x%08lX\n", p);
     39      else if (l == (size_t) -2)
     40          fprintf(stderr, "duplicating string `%s'\n", p);
     41      else
     42          fprintf(stderr, "reallocating allocation 0x%08lX to %lu bytes\n", p, l);
     43  }


     46  void epilogue(const void *p)
     47  {
     48      if (p != (void *) -1)
     49          fprintf(stderr, "allocation returns 0x%08lX\n", p);
     50  }


     53  int main(void)
     54  {
     55      void *p, *q;

     57      __mp_prologue(prologue);
     58      __mp_epilogue(epilogue);
     59      if (p = malloc(16))
     60          if (q = realloc(p, 32))
     61              free(q);
     62          else
     63              free(p);
     64      if (p = (char *) strdup("test"))
     65          free(p);
     66      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     67  }

   Once again, if you compile and run the above code, you should see
the following output.

     allocating 16 bytes
     allocation returns 0x8000A068
     reallocating allocation 0x8000A068 to 32 bytes
     allocation returns 0x8000A068
     freeing allocation 0x8000A068
     duplicating string `test'
     allocation returns 0x8000A068
     freeing allocation 0x8000A068

   Along with being able to install prologue and epilogue functions,
you can also install a low-memory handler with the `__mp_nomemory()'
function, which will be called by the mpatrol library if it ever runs
out of memory during the call to a memory allocation function.  This
gives you the opportunity to use that handler to either free up any
unneeded memory or simply to abort, thus removing the need to check for
failed allocations.

   Finally, there are three functions which affect the mpatrol library
globally.  The first, `__mp_check()', allows you to force an internal
check of the mpatrol library's data structures at any point during
program execution.  The other two functions, `__mp_memorymap()' and
`__mp_summary()' allow you to force the generation of a memory map or
library statistics at any point in your program, in much the same way
as they would normally be displayed at the end of program execution.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Utilities,  Prev: Library functions,  Up: Using mpatrol

Utilities
=========

   A command is provided with the mpatrol distribution which can run
programs that have been linked with the mpatrol library, using a
combination of mpatrol options that can be set via the command line.
All of these options but one map directly onto their equivalent
environment variable settings and exist mainly so that the user does
not have to manually change the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable.

   The one option that is the exception to this is the `-d' option,
which can be used to run a program under the control of the mpatrol
library, even if it wasn't originally linked with the mpatrol library.
This can only be done on systems that support dynamic linking and where
the dynamic linker recognises the `LD_PRELOAD' or `_RLD_LIST'
environment variables.  Even then, it can only be used when the program
that is being run has been dynamically linked with the system C
library, rather than statically linked.

   The reason for all of these limitations is that some SVR4 UNIX
platforms have a special feature in the dynamic linker which can be
told to override the symbols from one shared library using the symbols
from another shared library at run-time.  In this case, it involves
replacing the symbols for `malloc()', etc., in the system C library
with the mpatrol versions, but only if they were marked as undefined in
the original executable file and would therefore have to have been
loaded from `libc.so'.

   However, if a program qualifies for use with the `-d' option, it
means that you can trace all of its dynamic memory allocations as well
as running it with any of the mpatrol library's debugging options.
This is mainly a _toy_ feature which allows you to view and manipulate
the dynamic memory allocations of programs that you don't have the
source for, but in theory it could be quite useful if you need to debug
a previously released executable and are unable to recompile or relink
it.

   Note that the `mpatrol' command must be set up to use the correct
object file format access libraries that are required for your system
if you wish to use the `-d' option.  If the mpatrol library was built
with `FORMAT=FORMAT_ELF32' support then it must be told to preload the
ELF access library (normally `libelf.so').  If it was built with
`FORMAT=FORMAT_BFD' support then it must be told to preload the GNU BFD
access libraries (normally `libbfd.so' and `libiberty.so').  However,
if these libraries only exist on your system in archive form then you
must build `libmpatrol.so' with these extra libraries incorporated into
it so that there are no dependencies on them at run-time.  However,
there may well be problems if the resulting shared library contains
position-dependent code from the archive libraries you incorporated.
The only way to find out is for you to try it and see.

   In order to build a shared version of the mpatrol library with
embedded object file format access libraries, you must first modify the
`Makefile' you would normally use to build the mpatrol library.  At the
lines where the linker is invoked to build the shared library, you must
explicitly add any object file format access libraries that you want to
use at the end of the linker command line.  This ensures that all
references to such libraries will be resolved at link time rather than
run time.  You must then edit the file `src/config.h' and remove all of
the libraries that you embedded from the definition of the
`MP_PRELOAD_LIBS' preprocessor macro.  Finally, rebuild the shared
version of the mpatrol library and the `mpatrol' command and see if
your efforts were worth it.

   Another utility program that is provided is called `mleak' and is
useful for detecting memory leaks in log files produced by the mpatrol
library.  This program should be used if the mpatrol library could not
finish writing the log file due to abnormal program termination (which
would prevent the `SHOWUNFREED' option from working), but note that
some of the unfreed allocations might have been freed if the program
had terminated successfully.

   The `mleak' command scans through an mpatrol log file looking for
lines beginning with `ALLOC:' and `FREE:' but ignores lines beginning
with `REALLOC:', so only the `LOGALLOCS' and `LOGFREES' options are
necessary when running a program linked with the mpatrol library.  Note
that as a result of this, no attempt is made to account for resizing of
memory allocations and so the total amount of memory used by the
resulting unfreed allocations may not be entirely accurate.

   The `mleak' command takes one optional argument which must be a valid
mpatrol log filename but if it is omitted then it will use
`mpatrol.log' as the name of the log file to use.  The `mleak' command
makes two passes over the log file so the file must be
randomly-accessible.  If the filename argument is given as `-' then the
standard input file stream will be used as the log file.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Profiling,  Next: Improving performance,  Prev: Using mpatrol,  Up: Top

Profiling
*********

   The mpatrol library has the capability to summarise the information
it accumulated about the behaviour of dynamic memory allocations and
deallocations over the lifetime of any program that it was linked and
run with.  This summary shows a rough profile of all memory allocations
that were made, and is hence called _profiling_.  There are several
other different kinds of profiling provided with most compilation
tools, but they generally profile function calls or line numbers in
combination with the time it takes to execute them.

   Memory allocation profiling is useful since it allows a programmer
to see which functions directly allocate memory from the heap, with a
view to optimising the memory usage or performance of a program.  It
also summarises any unfreed memory allocations that were present at the
end of program execution, some of which could be as a result of memory
leaks.  In addition, a summary of the sizes and distribution of all
memory allocations and deallocations is available.

   Only allocations and deallocations are recorded, with each
reallocation being treated as a deallocation immediately followed by an
allocation.  For full memory allocation profiling support, call stack
traversal must be supported in the mpatrol library and all of the
program's symbols must have been successfully read by the mpatrol
library before the program was run.  The library will attempt to
compensate if either of these requirements are not met, but the
displayed tables may contain less meaningful information.

   Memory allocation profiling is disabled by default, but can be
enabled using the `PROF' option.  This writes all of the profiling data
to a file called `mpatrol.out' in the current directory at the end of
program execution, but the name of this file can be changed using the
`PROFFILE' option.  Sometimes it can also be desirable for the mpatrol
library to write out the accumulated profiling information in the
middle of program execution rather than just at the end, even if it is
only partially complete, and this behaviour can be controlled with the
`AUTOSAVE' option.  This can be particularly useful when running the
program from within a debugger, when it is necessary to analyse the
profiling information at a certain point during program execution.

   When profiling memory allocations, it is necessary to distinguish
between small, medium, large and extra large memory allocations that
were made by a function.  The boundaries which distinguish between
these allocation sizes can be controlled via the `SMALLBOUND',
`MEDIUMBOUND' and `LARGEBOUND' options, but they default to 32, 256 and
2048 bytes respectively, which should suffice for most circumstances.

   The `mprof' command is a tool designed to read a profiling output
file produced by the mpatrol library and display the profiling
information that was obtained.  The profiling information includes
summaries of all of the memory allocations listed by size and the
function that allocated them and a list of memory leaks with the call
stack of the allocating function.

   Along with the options listed below, the `mprof' command takes one
optional argument which must be a valid mpatrol profiling output
filename but if it is omitted then it will use `mpatrol.out' as the
name of the file to use.  If the filename argument is given as `-' then
the standard input file stream will be used as the profiling output
file.

`-a'
     Specifies that different call sites from within the same function
     are to be differentiated and that the names of all functions
     should be displayed with their call site offset in bytes.  This
     affects the direct allocation and memory leak tables.

`-c'
     Specifies that certain tables should be sorted by the number of
     allocations or deallocations rather than the total number of bytes
     allocated or deallocated.  This affects the direct allocation and
     memory leak tables.

`-n' <DEPTH>
     Specifies the maximum stack depth to use when calculating if one
     call site has the same call stack as another call site.  This also
     specifies the maximum number of functions to display in a call
     stack.  If DEPTH is `0' then the call stack depth will be
     unlimited in size.  The default call stack depth is `1'.  This
     affects the memory leak table.

`-V'
     Displays the version number of the `mprof' command.

   We'll now look at an example of using the mpatrol library to profile
the dynamic memory allocations in a program.  However, remember that
this example will only fully work on your machine if the mpatrol
library supports call stack traversal and reading symbols from
executable files on that platform.  If that is not the case then only
some of the features will be available.

   The following example program performs some simple calculations and
displays a list of numbers on its standard output file stream, but it
serves to illustrate all of the different features of memory allocation
profiling that mpatrol is capable of.  The source for the program can
be found in `tests/profile/test1.c'.

     23  /*
     24   * Associates an integer value with its negative string equivalent in a
     25   * structure, and then allocates 256 such pairs randomly, displays them
     26   * then frees them.
     27   */


     30  #include <stdio.h>
     31  #include <stdlib.h>
     32  #include <string.h>


     35  typedef struct pair
     36  {
     37      int value;
     38      char *string;
     39  }
     40  pair;


     43  pair *new_pair(int n)
     44  {
     45      static char s[16];
     46      pair *p;

     48      if ((p = (pair *) malloc(sizeof(pair))) == NULL)
     49      {
     50          fputs("Out of memory\n", stderr);
     51          exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
     52      }
     53      p->value = n;
     54      sprintf(s, "%d", -n);
     55      if ((p->string = strdup(s)) == NULL)
     56      {
     57          fputs("Out of memory\n", stderr);
     58          exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
     59      }
     60      return p;
     61  }


     64  int main(void)
     65  {
     66      pair *a[256];
     67      int i, n;

     69      for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
     70      {
     71          n = (int) ((rand() * 256.0) / (RAND_MAX + 1.0)) - 128;
     72          a[i] = new_pair(n);
     73      }
     74      for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
     75          printf("%3d: %4d -> \"%s\"\n", i, a[i]->value, a[i]->string);
     76      for (i = 0; i < 256; i++)
     77          free(a[i]);
     78      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     79  }

   After the above program has been compiled and linked with the
mpatrol library, it should be run with the `PROF' option set in the
`MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable.  Note that `mpatrol.h' was not
included as it is not necessary for profiling purposes.

   If all went well, a list of numbers should be displayed on the
screen and a file called `mpatrol.out' should have been produced in the
current directory.  This is a binary file containing the total amount
of profiling information that the mpatrol library gathered while the
program was running, but it contains concise numerical data rather than
human-readable data.  To make use of this file, the `mprof' command
must be run.  An excerpt from the output produced when running `mprof'
with no options is shown below.

                                  ALLOCATION BINS

                               (number of bins: 1024)

                       allocated                          unfreed
            --------------------------------  --------------------------------
      size   count       %     bytes       %   count       %     bytes       %

         2       8    1.56        16    0.54       8    3.12        16    1.70
         3      99   19.34       297    9.94      99   38.67       297   31.60
         4     118   23.05       472   15.80     118   46.09       472   50.21
         5      31    6.05       155    5.19      31   12.11       155   16.49
         8     256   50.00      2048   68.54       0    0.00         0    0.00

     total     512              2988             256               940

                                 DIRECT ALLOCATIONS

                      (0 < s <= 32 < m <= 256 < l <= 2048 < x)

            allocated                       unfreed
     --------------------------  --------------------------
     bytes       %   s  m  l  x  bytes       %   s  m  l  x  count  function

      2988  100.00  %%             940  100.00  %%             512  new_pair

      2988          %%             940          %%             512  total

                                    MEMORY LEAKS

                              (maximum stack depth: 1)

                     unfreed                      allocated
     ----------------------------------------  ----------------
          %     bytes       %   count       %     bytes   count  function

     100.00       940   31.46     256   50.00      2988     512  new_pair

                  940   31.46     256   50.00      2988     512  total

   The first table shown is the allocation bin table which summarises
the sizes of all objects that were dynamically allocated throughout the
lifetime of the program.  In this particular case, counts of all
allocations and deallocations of sizes 1 to 1023 bytes were recorded by
the mpatrol library in their own specific _bin_ and this information
was written to the profiling output file.  Allocations and
deallocations of sizes larger than or equal to 1024 bytes are counted
as well and the total number of bytes that they represent are also
recorded.  This information can be extremely useful in understanding
which sizes of data structures are allocated most during program
execution, and where changes might be made to make more efficient use
of the dynamically allocated memory.

   As can be seen from the allocation bin table, 8 allocations of 2
bytes, 99 allocations of 3 bytes, 118 allocations of 4 bytes, 31
allocations of 5 bytes and 256 allocations of 8 bytes were made during
the execution of the program.  However, all of these memory allocations
except the 8 byte allocations were still not freed by the time the
program terminated, resulting in a total memory leak of 940 bytes.

   The next table shown is the direct allocation table which lists all
of the functions that allocated memory and how much memory they
allocated.  The `s m l x' columns represent _small_, _medium_, _large_
and _extra large_ memory allocations, which in this case are 0 bytes is
less than a small allocation, which is less than or equal to 32 bytes,
which is less than a medium allocation, which is less than or equal to
256 bytes, which is less than a large allocation, which is less than or
equal to 2048 bytes, which is less than an extra large allocation.  The
numbers listed under these columns represent a percentage of the
overall total and are listed as `%%' if the percentage is 100% or as
`.' if the percentage is less than 1%.  Percentages of 0% are not
displayed.

   The information displayed in the direct allocation table is useful
for seeing exactly which functions in a program directly perform memory
allocation, and can quickly highlight where optimisations can be made
or where functions might be making unnecessary allocations.  In the
example, this table shows us that 2988 bytes were allocated over 512
calls by `new_pair()' and that 940 bytes were left unfreed at program
termination.  All of the allocations that were made by `new_pair()'
were between 1 and 32 bytes in size.

   We could now choose to sort the direct allocation table by the
number of calls to allocate memory, rather than the number of bytes
allocated, with the `-c' option to `mprof', but that is not relevant in
this example.  However, we know that there are two calls to allocate
memory from `new_pair()', so we can use the `-a' option to `mprof' to
show all call sites within functions rather than just the total for each
function.  This option does not affect the allocation bin table so the
new output from `mprof' with the `-a' option looks like:

                                 DIRECT ALLOCATIONS

                      (0 < s <= 32 < m <= 256 < l <= 2048 < x)

            allocated                       unfreed
     --------------------------  --------------------------
     bytes       %   s  m  l  x  bytes       %   s  m  l  x  count  function

      2048   68.54  69               0    0.00                 256  new_pair+14
       940   31.46  31             940  100.00  %%             256  new_pair+110

      2988          %%             940          %%             512  total

                                    MEMORY LEAKS

                              (maximum stack depth: 1)

                     unfreed                      allocated
     ----------------------------------------  ----------------
          %     bytes       %   count       %     bytes   count  function

     100.00       940  100.00     256  100.00       940     256  new_pair+110

                  940   31.46     256   50.00      2988     512  total

   The names of the functions displayed in the above tables now have a
byte offset appended to them to indicate at what position in the
function a call to allocate memory occurred(1).  Now it is possible to
see that the first call to allocate memory from within `new_pair()' has
had all of its memory freed, but the second call (from `strdup()') has
had none of its memory freed.

   This is also visible in the next table, which is the memory leak
table and lists all of the functions that allocated memory but did not
free all of their memory during the lifetime of the program.  The
default behaviour of `mprof' is to show only the function that directly
allocated the memory in the memory leak table, but this can be changed
with the `-n' option.  This accepts an argument specifying the maximum
number of functions to display in one call stack, with zero indicating
that all functions in a call stack should be displayed.  This can be
useful for tracing down the functions that were indirectly responsible
for the memory leak.  The new memory leak table displayed by `mprof'
with the `-a' and `-n0' options looks like:

                                    MEMORY LEAKS

                              (maximum stack depth: 0)

                     unfreed                      allocated
     ----------------------------------------  ----------------
          %     bytes       %   count       %     bytes   count  function

     100.00       940  100.00     256  100.00       940     256  new_pair+110
                                                                 main+88
                                                                 _start+68

                  940   31.46     256   50.00      2988     512  total

   Now that we know where the memory leak is coming from, we can fix it
by freeing the string as well as the structure at line 77.  A version
of the above program that does not contain the memory leak can be found
in `tests/profile/test2.c'.

   Much of the functionality of this implementation of memory
allocation profiling is based upon `mprof' by Benjamin Zorn and Paul
Hilfinger, which was written as a research project and ran on MIPS,
SPARC and VAX machines.  However, the profiling output files are
incompatible, the tables displayed have a different format, and the way
they are implemented is entirely different.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) If no symbols could be read from the program's executable file,
or if the corresponding symbol could not be determined, then the
function names will be replaced with the code addresses at which the
calls took place.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Improving performance,  Next: How it works,  Prev: Profiling,  Up: Top

Improving performance
*********************

   Because of their need to cover every eventuality, malloc library
implementations are very general and most do their job well when you
consider what is thrown at them.  However, your program may not be
performing as well as it should simply because there may be a more
efficient way of dealing with dynamic memory allocations.  Indeed,
there may even be a more efficient malloc library available for you to
use.

   If you need to allocate lots of blocks of the same size(1), but you
won't know the number of blocks you'll require until run-time then you
could take the easy approach by simply allocating a new block of memory
for each occurrence.  However, this is going to create a lot of
(typically small) memory blocks that the underlying malloc library will
have to keep track of, and even in many good malloc libraries this is
likely to cause memory fragmentation and possibly even result in the
blocks scattered throughout the address space rather than all in the
one place, which is not necessarily a good thing on systems with
virtual memory.

   An alternative approach would be to allocate memory in multiples of
the block size, so that several blocks would be allocated at once.
This would require slightly more work on your part since you would need
to write interface code to return a single block, while possible
allocating space for more blocks if no free blocks were available.
However, this approach has several advantages.  The first is that the
malloc library only needs to keep track of a few large allocations
rather than lots of small allocations, so splitting and merging free
blocks is less likely to occur.  Secondly, your blocks will be
scattered about less in the address space of the process, which means
that on systems with virtual memory there are less likely to be page
faults if you need to access or traverse all of the blocks you have
created.

   A memory allocation concept that is similar to this is called an
_arena_.  This datatype requires functions which are built on top of
the existing malloc library functions and which associate each memory
allocation with a particular arena.  An arena can have as many
allocations added to it as required, but allocations cannot usually be
freed until the whole arena is freed.  Note that there are not really
any generic implementations of arenas that are available as everyone
tends to write their own version when they require it, although Digital
UNIX and SGI IRIX systems do come with an arena library called
_amalloc_.

   However, what if you don't plan to free all of the blocks at the
same time?  A slight modification to the above design could be to have
a _slot table_.  This would involve allocating chunks of blocks as they
are required, adding each individual block within a chunk to a
singly-linked list of free blocks.  Then, as new blocks are required,
the allocator would simply choose the first block on the free list,
otherwise it would allocate memory for a new chunk of blocks and add
them to the free list.  Freeing individual blocks would simply involve
returning the block to the free list.  If this description isn't clear
enough, have a look in `src/slots.h' and `src/slots.c'.  This is how the
mpatrol library allocates memory from the system for all of its internal
structures.  For variable-sized structures, a slightly different
approach needs to be taken, but for an example of this using strings
see `src/strtab.h' and `src/strtab.c'.

   Another optimisation that is possible on UNIX and Windows platforms
is making use of memory-mapped files.  This allows you to map a
filesystem object into the address space of your process, thus allowing
you to treat a file as an array of bytes.  Because it uses the virtual
memory system to map the file, any changes you make to the mapped
memory will be applied to the file.  This is implemented through the
virtual memory system treating the file as a pseudo swap file and will
therefore only use up physical memory when pages are accessed.  It also
means that file operations can be replaced by memory read and write
operations, leading to a very fast and efficient way of performing I/O.
Another added bonus of this system means that entire blocks of process
memory can be written to a file for later re-use, just as long as the
file can later be mapped to the same address.  This can be a lot faster
than writing to and reading from a specific format of file.

   If you really don't want to keep track of dynamic memory allocations
at all then perhaps you should consider _garbage collection_.  This
allows you to make dynamic memory allocations that need not necessarily
be matched by corresponding calls to free these allocations.  A garbage
collector will (at certain points during program execution) attempt to
look for memory allocations that are no longer referenced by the
program and free them for later re-use, hence removing all possibility
of memory leaks.  However, the garbage collection process can take a
sizable chunk of processor time depending on how large the program is,
so it is not really an option for real-time programming.  It is also
very platform-dependent as it examines very low-level structures within
a process in order to determine which pointers point to which memory
allocations.  But there is at least one garbage collector(2) that works
well with C and C++ and acts as a replacement for `malloc()' and
`free()', so it may be the ideal solution for you.

   If you do choose to use an alternative malloc library make sure that
you have a license to do so and that you follow any distribution
requirements.  On systems that support dynamic linking you may want to
link the library statically rather than dynamically so that you don't
have to worry about an additional file that would need to be installed.
However, whether you have that choice depends on the license for the
specific library, and some licenses also require that the source code
for the library be made readily available.  Shared libraries have the
advantage that they can be updated with bug fixes so that all programs
that require these libraries will automatically receive these fixes
without needing to be relinked.

   If all of the above suggestions do not seem to help and you still
feel that you have a performance bottleneck in the part of your code
that deals with dynamically allocated memory then you should try using
the memory allocation profiling feature of mpatrol.  This can be used
at run-time to analyse the dynamic memory allocation calls that your
program makes during its execution, and builds statistics for later
viewing with the `mprof' command.  It is then possible for you to see
exactly how many calls were made to each function and where they came
from.  Such information can then be put to good use in order to
optimise the relevant parts of your code.

   And finally, some tips on how to correctly use dynamic memory
allocations.  The first, most basic rule is to _always_ check the
return values from `malloc()' and related functions.  _Never_ assume
that a call to `malloc()' will succeed, because you're unlikely to be
able to read the future(3).  Alternatively, use (or write) an
`xmalloc()' or similar function, which calls `malloc()' but never
returns `NULL' since it will abort instead.  With the C++ operators it
is slightly different because some versions use exceptions to indicate
failure, so you should always provide a handler to deal with this
eventuality.

   Never use _features_(4) of specific malloc libraries if you want
your code to be portable.  Always follow the ANSI C or C++ calling
conventions and never make assumptions about the function or operator
you are about to call -- the standards committees went to great lengths
to explicitly specify its behaviour.  For example, don't assume that
the contents of a freed memory allocation will remain valid until the
next call to `malloc()', and don't assume that the contents of a newly
allocated memory block will be zeroed unless you created it with
`calloc()'.

   Finally, try stress-testing your program in low memory conditions.
The mpatrol library contains the `LIMIT' option which can place an
upper bound on the size of the heap, and also contains the `FAILFREQ'
and `FAILSEED' options which can cause random memory allocation
failures.  Doing this will test parts of your code that you would
probably never expect to be called, but perhaps they will one day!  Who
would you rather have debugging your program -- yourself or the user?

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Such as for use in a linked list.

   (2) A freely distributably library called GC (*note Related
software::).

   (3) If you can, why are you reading this -- you've already read it!

   (4) Whether they are documented or not.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: How it works,  Next: Examples,  Prev: Improving performance,  Up: Top

How it works
************

   The mpatrol library was originally written with the intention of
plugging it into an existing compiler so that the compiler could plant
calls to it in the code it generated when a specific debugging option
was used.  These extra calls would obviously slow the code down, but
along with the stack checking options that would be provided, this
would give the user an enhanced run-time debugging environment.
Unfortunately, this integration never happened, but the way that
mpatrol works is still significantly different from other malloc tracing
libraries.

   In order to quickly determine exactly which memory allocation a heap
address belonged to it was necessary to be able to search the heap in
an efficient manner.  The traditional way of searching along a linked
list was unfeasible, so an implementation based on _red-black trees_
was used, where every known memory allocation in the heap was given an
entry in the tree, with their start addresses as the key.  Another
major design decision was to also choose red-black trees to implement
the _best fit_ allocation algorithm.  Although _first fit_ was
considered, I decided that best fit would allow the library to have
more control over the heap, with every free memory block in the heap
given an entry in the free tree, with their sizes as the key.  There
was a bit of work involved in getting the splitting and merging of free
blocks to work efficiently, but it seems to work well now.

   My original implementation had all of the information about each
memory block stored just before the block itself.  I eventually dropped
that behaviour in favour of storing all of the library's internal
information in a separate part of the heap.  I did that for two
reasons.  The first was because of the problems that would occur due to
memory allocations with different alignment requirements.  The second
reason was that the library's internal structures could be
write-protected on systems with virtual memory, to prevent user code
interfering with the operation of the library.

   Because the library attempts to record as much information as
possible about every memory allocation there will inevitably be a much
larger memory requirement when running a program linked with the
library.  This will typically be two or three times larger in
magnitude, but will be affected by the number of memory allocations
made and also the number of symbols read.  The latter will also affect
how quickly the program starts since the first call to allocate memory
will result in the initialisation of the library and the loading of
symbols from the executable file and any shared libraries.

   Due to its design, it is also possible to allocate memory from the
heap using the mpatrol library functions whilst already within an
mpatrol library function.  This does not normally occur, but on some
platforms calling `printf()' from within the library may result in
`printf()' calling `malloc()' to allocate itself a buffer, which ends
up as a recursive call.  Luckily, this is dealt with by simply not
displaying the allocation in the log file, but all other details of the
allocation are still recorded.  This can sometimes result in _hidden_
memory usage which occurs behind the scenes and alters the peak memory
usage in the summary.  This is particularly evident when the library
uses an object file access library to read program symbols at the time
of library initialisation.

   Memory allocation profiling support was added for mpatrol release
1.2.0.  Every allocation and deallocation is recorded, with the call
stack information being used to differentiate all of the call sites
within the program.  Unlike other profilers that come with UNIX
systems, even the symbolic information about the program being run is
written to the profiling output file, since it makes no sense for
`mprof' to re-read the symbol table from the executable file when it
has already been read and processed by the mpatrol library.  It also has
the added bonus of allowing the user to save profiling output files for
later use even when the executable files which produced them have
changed or no longer exist.

   The library is written in a modular fashion so as to make it easy to
add new functionality.  New modules have already been added, such as
the _stack_, _symbol_ and _profile_ modules.  Extra information about
each memory allocation can be added to the _allocation information_
module in `src/info.h' and `src/info.c' without having to change much
code in any other files.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Examples,  Next: Tutorial,  Prev: How it works,  Up: Top

Examples
********

   Following are a set of examples that are intended to illustrate what
exactly is possible with the mpatrol library and how to go about using
it effectively.

   You should already have built and installed the library and should
know how to link programs with the library.  Unfortunately, it isn't
possible to give specific instructions on how to do this as it varies
from system to system and also depends on your preferred compiler and
development tools.

   However, on a typical SVR4 UNIX system, with mpatrol installed in
`/usr/local', the mpatrol library can usually be incorporated into a
program using the following commands:

   * If the mpatrol library was built with no support for any object
     file format or was built with support for the COFF object file
     format:

          cc -I/usr/local/include <file> -L/usr/local/lib -lmpatrol

   * If the mpatrol library was built with support for the ELF32 object
     file format access library:

          cc -I/usr/local/include <file> -L/usr/local/lib -lmpatrol -lelf

   * If the mpatrol library was built with support for the GNU BFD
     object file format access library:

          cc -I/usr/local/include <file> -L/usr/local/lib -lmpatrol -lbfd
             -liberty

   If you need to link with other libraries, make sure that they don't
contain definitions of `malloc()', etc., or if they do then you must
ensure that the mpatrol library appears before them on the link line.

   You should also know how to set an environment variable on your
specific system.  Again, this varies from system to system and also
depends on the command line interpreter or shell that you use.  The
environment variable that the mpatrol library uses is called
`MPATROL_OPTIONS'.  You can see exactly what options are available for
this environment variable by setting it to `HELP' and then running a
program that has been linked with the library.

* Menu:

* Example 1::                   Getting started.
* Example 2::                   Detecting incorrect reuse of freed memory.
* Example 3::                   Detecting use of free memory.
* Example 4::                   Using overflow buffers.
* Example 5::                   Bad memory operations.
* Example 6::                   Incompatible function calls.
* Example 7::                   Additional useful information.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 1,  Next: Example 2,  Up: Examples

Getting started
===============

   The first example we'll look at is when the argument in a call to
`free()' doesn't match the return value from `malloc()', even though
the intention is to free the memory that was allocated by `malloc()'.
This example is in `tests/fail/test1.c' and causes many existing
`malloc()' implementations to crash.

   Along the way, I'll try to describe as many features of the mpatrol
library as possible, and illustrate them with examples.  Note that the
output from your version of the library is likely to vary slightly from
that shown in the examples, especially on non-UNIX systems.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes and then attempts to free the
     25   * memory returned at an offset of 1 byte into the block.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"


     32  int main(void)
     33  {
     34      char *p;

     36      if (p = (char *) malloc(16))
     37          free(p + 1);
     38      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     39  }

   Note that I've removed the copyright message from the start of the
file and added line numbers so that the tracing below makes more sense.

   After compiling and linking the above program with the mpatrol
library, the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable should be set to be
`LOGALL' and the program should be executed, generating the following
output in `mpatrol.log'.

     @(#) mpatrol 1.2.0 (00/05/16)
     Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Graeme S. Roy

     This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under
     certain conditions; see the GNU Library General Public License for
     details.

     For the latest mpatrol release and documentation,
     visit http://www.cbmamiga.demon.co.uk/mpatrol.

     Log file generated on Tue May  2 23:41:04 2000

     ALLOC: malloc (13, 16 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test1.c|36]
             0x00010AE0 main
             0x000109D4 _start

     returns 0x00028000

     FREE: free (0x00028001) [main|test1.c|37]
             0x00010B24 main
             0x000109D4 _start

     ERROR: free: 0x00028001 does not match allocation of 0x00028000
         0x00028000 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test1.c|36]
             0x00010AE0 main
             0x000109D4 _start

     system page size:  8192 bytes
     default alignment: 8 bytes
     overflow size:     0 bytes
     overflow byte:     0xAA
     allocation byte:   0xFF
     free byte:         0x55
     allocation stop:   0
     reallocation stop: 0
     free stop:         0
     unfreed abort:     0
     small boundary:    32
     medium boundary:   256
     large boundary:    2048
     lower check range: -
     upper check range: -
     failure frequency: 0
     failure seed:      533453
     prologue function: <unset>
     epilogue function: <unset>
     handler function:  <unset>
     log file:          mpatrol.log
     profiling file:    mpatrol.out
     program filename:  ./test1
     symbols read:      3240
     autosave count:    0
     allocation count:  13
     allocation peak:   4720 bytes
     allocation limit:  0 bytes
     allocated blocks:  1 (16 bytes)
     freed blocks:      0 (0 bytes)
     free blocks:       1 (8176 bytes)
     internal blocks:   25 (204800 bytes)
     total heap usage:  212992 bytes
     total compared:    0 bytes
     total located:     0 bytes
     total copied:      0 bytes
     total set:         0 bytes
     total warnings:    0
     total errors:      1

   Ignoring the copyright blurb at the top, let's first take a look at
the initial log message from the library.  I've annotated each of the
items with a number that corresponds to the descriptions below.

      (1)    (2)   (3)    (4)       (5)     (6)    (7)  (8)
       |      |     |      |         |       |      |    |
       V      V     V      V         V       V      V    V
     ALLOC: malloc (13, 16 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test1.c|36]
      (9) -> 0x00010AE0 main
             0x000109D4 _start <- (10)

     returns 0x00028000 <- (11)

  1. Allocation type.  This generalises the type of dynamic memory
     operation that is being performed, and can be one of `ALLOC',
     `REALLOC' or `FREE'.  This should make looking for all
     allocations, reallocations or frees in the log file a lot easier.
     Alternatively, if a memory operation function was called then this
     can also be one of `MEMSET', `MEMCOPY', `MEMFIND' or `MEMCMP'.

  2. Allocation function.  This is the name of the function that has
     been called to allocate the memory, in this case `malloc'.

  3. Allocation index.  This is incremented every time a new memory
     allocation is requested, and persists even if the memory
     allocation is resized with `realloc()', `recalloc()' or
     `expand()', so can be useful to keep track of a memory allocation,
     even if its start address changes.  The mpatrol library may use up
     the first few allocation indices when it gets initialised.

  4. Size of requested allocation.

  5. Alignment for requested allocation.  This is normally the default
     system alignment for general-purpose memory allocations, but may
     be different depending on the type of function that is used to
     allocate the memory.

   The following information contains source file details of where the
call to `malloc()' came from, but is only available if the source file
containing the call to `malloc()' included `mpatrol.h'; otherwise the
fields will all be `-'(1).  Because of the convoluted way this
information is obtained for the C++ operators, you may encounter some
problems in existing C++ programs when making direct calls to `operator
new' for example.  However, if you want to disable the redefinition of
the C++ operators in `mpatrol.h' you can define the preprocessor macro
`MP_NOCPLUSPLUS' before the inclusion of that file.

  6. Function where call to `malloc()' took place.  This information is
     only available if the source file containing the call to
     `malloc()' was compiled with `gcc' or `g++'.

  7. Filename in which call to `malloc()' took place.

  8. Line number at which call to `malloc()' took place.

   The following information contains function call stack details of
where the call to `malloc()' came from, but is only available if the
mpatrol library has been built on a platform that supports this.  The
top-most entry should be the function which called `malloc()' and the
bottom-most entry should be the entry-point for the process.

  9. Address of function call.  This is normally the address of the
     machine instruction immediately after the function call
     instruction, also known as the return address.

 10. Function where call took place.  This information is only
     available if the mpatrol library has been built on a platform that
     supports reading symbol table information from executable files,
     and then only if there is an entry in the symbol table
     corresponding to the return address.  C++ function names may still
     be in their mangled form, but this can be easily rectified by
     processing the log file with a C++ name demangler.

   The following information is only available when the allocation type
is `ALLOC' or `REALLOC' since it makes no sense when applied to `FREE'.

 11. The address of the new memory block that has been allocated by
     `malloc()'.

   As you can see, there is quite a lot of information that can be
displayed from a simple call to `malloc()', and hopefully this
information has been presented in a clear and concise format in the log
file.

   The next entries in the log file correspond to the call to `free()',
which attempts to free the memory allocated by `malloc()', but supplies
the wrong address.

   The first three lines should be self-explanatory as they are very
similar to those described above for `malloc()'.  However, the next
lines signal that a terminal error has occurred in the program, so I've
annotated them as before.

     FREE: free (0x00028001) [main|test1.c|37]
             0x00010B24 main
             0x000109D4 _start

      (1)   (2)
       |     |
       V     V
     ERROR: free: 0x00028001 does not match allocation of 0x00028000
            (3)        (4)       (5)  (6)(7)  (8)    (9)  (10)
             |          |         |    |  |    |      |    |
             V          V         V    V  V    V      V    V
         0x00028000 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test1.c|36]
     (11) -> 0x00010AE0 main
             0x000109D4 _start

  1. Error severity.  The mpatrol library has two different severities
     of error: `WARNING' and `ERROR'.  The first is always recoverable,
     and serves only to indicate that something is not quite right, and
     so may be useful in determining where something started to go
     wrong.  The second may or may not be recoverable, and the library
     terminates the program if it is fatal, displaying any relevant
     information as it does this.

  2. Allocation function.  This is the name of the function used to
     allocate, reallocate or free memory where the error was detected.
     This may be omitted if an error is detected elsewhere in the
     library.

   The following information is related to the information that the
library has stored about the relevant memory allocation.  This
information is always displayed in this format when details of
individual memory allocations are required.  If any information is
missing then it simply means that the library was not able to determine
it when the memory block was first allocated.

  3. Address of memory allocation.

  4. Size of memory allocation.

  5. Allocation function.  This is the name of the function that was
     called to allocate the memory block, in this case `malloc'.  If
     the memory allocation has been resized then this will be either
     `realloc', `recalloc' or `expand'.

  6. Allocation index.

  7. Reallocation index.  This is used to count the number of times a
     memory allocation has been resized with `realloc()', `recalloc()'
     or `expand()'.

  8. Function where original call to `malloc()' took place.  If the
     memory allocation has been resized then this will be the name of
     the function which last called `realloc()', `recalloc()' or
     `expand()'.

  9. Filename in which original call to `malloc()' took place.  If the
     memory allocation has been resized then this will be the filename
     in which the last call to `realloc()', `recalloc()' or `expand()'
     took place.

 10. Line number at which original call to `malloc()' took place.  If
     the memory allocation has been resized then this will be the line
     number at which the last call to `realloc()', `recalloc()' or
     `expand()' took place.

 11. Function call stack of original memory allocation.  If the memory
     allocation has been resized then this will be the call stack of
     the last call to `realloc()', `recalloc()' or `expand()'.

   So, the mpatrol library detected the error in the above program and
terminated it.  When the library terminates it always displays a
summary of various memory allocation statistics and settings that were
used during the execution of the program.

   The various settings and statistics displayed by the library for the
above example have been numbered and their descriptions appear below.

      1  system page size:  8192 bytes
      2  default alignment: 8 bytes
      3  overflow size:     0 bytes
      4  overflow byte:     0xAA
      5  allocation byte:   0xFF
      6  free byte:         0x55
      7  allocation stop:   0
      8  reallocation stop: 0
      9  free stop:         0
     10  unfreed abort:     0
     11  small boundary:    32
     12  medium boundary:   256
     13  large boundary:    2048
     14  lower check range: -
     15  upper check range: -
     16  failure frequency: 0
     17  failure seed:      533453
     18  prologue function: <unset>
     19  epilogue function: <unset>
     20  handler function:  <unset>
     21  log file:          mpatrol.log
     22  profiling file:    mpatrol.out
     23  program filename:  ./test1
     24  symbols read:      3240
     25  autosave count:    0
     26  allocation count:  13
     27  allocation peak:   4720 bytes
     28  allocation limit:  0 bytes
     29  allocated blocks:  1 (16 bytes)
     30  freed blocks:      0 (0 bytes)
     31  free blocks:       1 (8176 bytes)
     32  internal blocks:   25 (204800 bytes)
     33  total heap usage:  212992 bytes
     34  total compared:    0 bytes
     35  total located:     0 bytes
     36  total copied:      0 bytes
     37  total set:         0 bytes
     38  total warnings:    0
     39  total errors:      1

  1. System page size.  This value is used on some platforms when
     allocating and protecting system memory.

  2. Default alignment.  This value is the minimum alignment required
     for general purpose memory allocations, and is usually the
     alignment required by the most restrictive datatype on a given
     system.  It is used when allocating memory that has no specified
     alignment.  It can be changed at run-time using the `DEFALIGN'
     option, but setting this value too small may cause the program to
     crash due to bus errors which are caused by reading from or
     writing to misaligned data.

  3. Overflow size.  This value is the size used by one overflow
     buffer.  If this is non-zero then every memory allocation will
     have two overflow buffers; one on either side.  These buffers are
     used by the library to detect if the program has written too many
     bytes to a memory allocation, thus overflowing into one of the
     buffers, but these extra checks can slow down execution speed.  It
     can be changed at run-time using the `OFLOWSIZE' option.

  4. Overflow byte.

  5. Allocation byte.

  6. Free byte.  These values are used by the library to pre-fill
     blocks of memory for checking purposes.  The overflow byte is used
     to fill overflow buffers, the allocation byte is used to fill
     newly-allocated memory (except from `calloc()' or `recalloc()'),
     and the free byte is used to fill free blocks or freed memory
     allocations.  These can be changed at run-time using the
     `OFLOWBYTE', `ALLOCBYTE' and `FREEBYTE' options.

  7. Allocation stop.

  8. Reallocation stop.

  9. Free stop.  These values are used by the library to halt the
     program when run inside a debugger whenever a specified allocation
     index is allocated, reallocated or freed.  These can be changed at
     run-time using the `ALLOCSTOP', `REALLOCSTOP' and `FREESTOP'
     options.

 10. Unfreed abort.  This value is used when the program terminates and
     is used by the library to check if there are more than a given
     number of unfreed memory allocations.  If there are then the
     library will cause the program to abort with an error.  It can be
     changed at run-time using the `UNFREEDABORT' option.

 11. Small boundary.

 12. Medium boundary.

 13. Large boundary.  These values are used in memory allocation
     profiling and specify the boundaries in bytes between small,
     medium, large and extra large allocations.  These can be changed
     at run-time using the `SMALLBOUND', `MEDIUMBOUND' and `LARGEBOUND'
     options.

 14. Lower check range.

 15. Upper check range.  These values specify the range of allocation
     indices through which the library will physically check every area
     of free memory and every overflow buffer for errors.  A dash
     specifies that either the lower or upper range is infinite, but if
     they are both zero then no such checking will ever be performed,
     thus speeding up execution speed dramatically.  The library
     defaults to performing checks for every allocation index.  These
     can be changed at run-time using the `CHECK' option.

 16. Failure frequency.

 17. Failure seed.  These values are used to specify if random memory
     allocation failures should occur during program execution, for the
     purposes of stress testing a program.  If the failure frequency is
     zero then no random failures will occur, but if it is greater than
     zero then the higher the number, the less frequent the failures.
     The failure seed is used internally by the mpatrol library when
     generating random numbers.  If it is zero then the seed will be set
     randomly, but if it is greater than zero then it will be used to
     generate a predictable sequence of random numbers; i.e. two runs
     of the same program with the same failure frequencies and the same
     failure seeds will generate exactly the same sequence of failures.

 18. Prologue function.

 19. Epilogue function.

 20. Handler function.  These values contain addresses or names of
     functions that have been installed as callback functions for the
     library.  These functions, if set, will be called from the library
     at appropriate times during program execution in order to handle
     specific events.  These can be changed at compile-time using the
     `__mp_prologue()', `__mp_epilogue()' and `__mp_nomemory()'
     functions.

 21. Log file.  Simply contains the name of the file where all mpatrol
     library diagnostics go to.  It can be changed at run-time using
     the `LOGFILE' option.

 22. Profiling file.  Contains the name of the file where all of the
     mpatrol library memory allocation profiling information goes when
     the `PROF' option is used.  It can be changed at run-time using
     the `PROFFILE' option.

 23. Program filename.  Contains the full pathname to the program's
     executable file.  This is used by the mpatrol library to read the
     symbol table in order to provide symbolic information in function
     call stacks.  It can be changed at run-time using the `PROGFILE'
     option.

 24. Symbols read.  This value contains the total number of symbols
     read from a program's executable file and/or the dynamic linker,
     if applicable.

 25. Autosave count.  This value contains the frequency at which the
     mpatrol library should periodically write the profiling data to
     the profiling output file.  When the total number of profiled
     memory allocations and deallocations is a multiple of this number
     then the current profiling information will be written to the
     profiling output file.  It can be changed at run-time using the
     `AUTOSAVE' option.

 26. Allocation count.  This value contains the total number of memory
     allocations that were created by the mpatrol library.  This value
     may be more than expected if the mpatrol library makes any memory
     allocations during initialisation.

 27. Allocation peak.  This value contains the peak memory usage set by
     the program when running.  This value may be more than expected if
     the mpatrol library makes any memory allocations during
     initialisation.

 28. Allocation limit.  This value is used to limit the amount of
     memory that can be allocated by a program, which can be useful for
     stress-testing in simulated low memory conditions.  It can be
     changed at run-time using the `LIMIT' option.

 29. Allocated blocks.

 30. Freed blocks.

 31. Free blocks.  These values contain the total number of allocated,
     freed and free blocks at the time the summary was produced.  A
     freed block is an allocated block that has been freed but has not
     been returned to the free memory list for later allocation.  These
     values may be different from those expected if the mpatrol library
     makes any memory allocations during initialisation.

 32. Internal blocks.  This value contains the total number of memory
     blocks (of varying sizes) that have been allocated from the system
     for the mpatrol library to use internally.  These memory blocks
     will be write-protected on systems that support memory protection
     in order to prevent the program from corrupting the library's data
     structures.  This can be overridden at run-time using the
     `NOPROTECT' option in order to speed up program execution slightly.

 33. Total heap usage.  This value contains the total amount of system
     heap memory that has been allocated by the mpatrol library.

 34. Total compared.

 35. Total located.

 36. Total copied.

 37. Total set.  These values contain the total number of bytes that
     have been tracked by the mpatrol library in byte comparison
     operations (such as `memcmp()'), byte location operations (such as
     `memchr()', byte copy operations (such as `memcpy()') and byte set
     operations (such as `memset()') respectively.  They do not take
     into account any other such operations that occur outwith these
     functions, such as loading and storing from machine instructions.

 38. Total warnings.

 39. Total errors.  The library keeps a count of the total number of
     warnings and errors it has displayed so that you can quickly work
     out this information at program termination.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) This information may also be filled in if the `USEDEBUG' option
is used and supported, and if debugging information about the call to
`malloc()' is available.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 2,  Next: Example 3,  Prev: Example 1,  Up: Examples

Detecting incorrect reuse of freed memory
=========================================

   The next example uses `tests/fail/test2.c' to illustrate how the
mpatrol library can detect whereabouts on the heap an address belongs.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes and then immediately frees it.  An
     25   * attempt is then made to double the size of the original block.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"


     32  int main(void)
     33  {
     34      char *p;

     36      if (p = (char *) malloc(16))
     37      {
     38          free(p);
     39          p = (char *) realloc(p, 32);
     40      }
     41      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     42  }

   The relevant excerpts from `mpatrol.log' appear below.  The format
of the log messages should be familiar to you now.

     ALLOC: malloc (13, 16 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test2.c|36]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     returns 0x00028000

     FREE: free (0x00028000) [main|test2.c|38]
             0x00010B54 main
             0x00010A0C _start

         0x00028000 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test2.c|36]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     REALLOC: realloc (0x00028000, 32 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test2.c|39]
             0x00010B88 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     ERROR: realloc: 0x00028000 has not been allocated

     returns 0x00000000

   The mpatrol library stores all of its information about allocated
and free memory in tree structures so that it can quickly determine if
an address belongs to allocated or free memory, or if it even exists in
the heap that is managed by mpatrol.  The above example should
illustrate this since after the allocation had been freed, the library
recognised this and reported an error.  It was possible for the program
to continue execution even after that error since mpatrol could recover
from it and return `NULL'.

   It is possible for mpatrol to give even more useful diagnostics in
the above situation by using the `NOFREE' option.  This prevents the
library from returning any freed allocations to the free memory pool,
by preserving any information about them and marking them as freed.  If
you add the `NOFREE' option to the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment
variable you should see the following entries in `mpatrol.log' instead.

     ALLOC: malloc (13, 16 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test2.c|36]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     returns 0x00029DE0

     FREE: free (0x00029DE0) [main|test2.c|38]
             0x00010B54 main
             0x00010A0C _start

         0x00029DE0 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test2.c|36]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     REALLOC: realloc (0x00029DE0, 32 bytes, 8 bytes) [main|test2.c|39]
             0x00010B88 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     ERROR: realloc: 0x00029DE0 was freed with free
         0x00029DE0 (16 bytes) {free:13:0} [main|test2.c|38]
             0x00010B54 main
             0x00010A0C _start

     returns 0x00000000

   Note the extra information reported by `realloc()' since the library
knows all of the details about the freed memory allocation and when it
was freed.

   The `NOFREE' option tends to use up much more system memory than
normal since it effectively instructs the mpatrol library to allocate
new memory for every single memory allocation or reallocation.  It can
also slow down program execution when overflow buffers are used, since
with each new memory allocation the library needs to check more and
more overflow buffers every time it is called.  However, it can be
quite useful for problems such as this one.  The test in
`tests/fail/test3.c' has a similar situation.

   Normally, the `NOFREE' option will cause the library to fill all
freed memory allocations with the free byte.  However, the original
contents of such allocations can be preserved with the `PRESERVE'
option.  This could help in situations when you need to determine
exactly if a program is relying on the contents of freed memory.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 3,  Next: Example 4,  Prev: Example 2,  Up: Examples

Detecting use of free memory
============================

   This next example illustrates how the mpatrol library is able to
check to see if anything has been written into free memory.  The test
is located in `tests/fail/test4.c' and simply writes a single byte into
free memory.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes and then immediately frees it.  A
     25   * NULL character is written into the middle of the freed memory.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"


     32  int main(void)
     33  {
     34      char *p;

     36      if (p = (char *) malloc(16))
     37      {
     38          free(p);
     39          p[8] = '\0';
     40      }
     41      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     42  }

   The following output was produced as part of `mpatrol.log'.  Note
that this test was run using the same `MPATROL_OPTIONS' settings as the
last example, but make sure that `PRESERVE' is not set.

     ERROR: freed allocation 0x00029DE0 has memory corruption at 0x00029DE8
             0x00029DE8  00555555 55555555                    .UUUUUUU

         0x00029DE0 (16 bytes) {free:13:0} [main|test4.c|38]
             0x00010B1C main
             0x000109D4 _start

   The library was able to detect that something had been written into
free memory and could report on the memory allocation that was
overwritten.  However, these checks are only performed whenever a
function in the mpatrol library is called.  In the example above, the
code which wrote into free memory could have been miles away from where
the library detected the error.

   On platforms that support memory protection, the library also
supports the `PAGEALLOC' option.  This option instructs the library to
force every single memory allocation to have a size which is a multiple
of the system page size.  Although the library still stores the
original requested size, it effectively means that no two memory
allocations occupy the same page of memory.  It can then use page
protection (which only operates on pages of memory) to protect all free
memory from being read from or written to, and uses similar features to
install a page of overflow buffer on either side of the allocation.

   However, if the requested size for the memory allocation was not a
multiple of the page size this means that there will still be unused
space left over in the allocated pages.  This problem is solved by
turning the unused space into overflow buffers that will be checked in
the normal way.  The positioning of the allocation within its pages is
also important.  If you want to check for illegal reads from the
borders of the memory allocation, unless it fits exactly into its pages
then there is a chance that a program could illegally read the
right-most overflow buffer if the allocation was left-aligned, or
vice-versa.  Two settings therefore exist for the `PAGEALLOC' option:
`LOWER' and `UPPER'.  They refer to the placement of every memory
allocation within its constituent pages.

   The following diagram illustrates the `PAGEALLOC' option.  In the
diagram, the system page size is assumed to be 16 bytes (very unlikely,
but will serve for this example) and each character represents 1 byte.

     x = allocated memory
     o = overflow buffer (filled with the overflow byte)
     . = overflow buffer page (read and write protected)

     PAGEALLOC=LOWER, allocation size is 16 bytes or
     PAGEALLOC=UPPER, allocation size is 16 bytes:
         ................xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx................

     PAGEALLOC=LOWER, allocation size is 8 bytes:
         ................xxxxxxxxoooooooo................

     PAGEALLOC=UPPER, allocation size is 8 bytes:
         ................ooooooooxxxxxxxx................

   In our original example, if the `PAGEALLOC=LOWER' option is added to
the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable then the following error
will be produced instead of the original error.

     ERROR: illegal memory access at address 0x0009E008
         0x0009E000 (16 bytes) {free:13:0} [main|test4.c|38]
             0x00010B1C main
             0x000109D4 _start

         call stack
             0x00010B1C main
             0x000109D4 _start

   On systems that support memory protection, the mpatrol library has a
built-in signal handler which catches illegal memory accesses and
terminates the program.  In the above case, the freed memory was made
write-protected and so could not be written to.  The underlying virtual
memory system in the operating system noticed this and signaled this to
the library immediately after it happened.

   Along with the details of the freed memory allocation that was being
written to, the library also attempts to display the function call
stack for the location in the program that caused the illegal memory
access, although this can be quite unreliable.  A better solution would
be to run the program in a debugger to catch the illegal memory access.

   Note that the `PAGEALLOC' option also modifies the behaviour of the
`NOFREE' and `PRESERVE' options when used together.  The memory
allocation being freed will always be made write-protected when the
`PRESERVE' option is used, otherwise it will also be made read-protected
to prevent further accesses.

   Note also that the `PAGEALLOC=UPPER' option is potentially much less
efficient at catching illegal memory accesses than the `PAGEALLOC=LOWER'
option.  This is due to alignment requirements, since an allocation of
1 byte requiring an alignment of 16 bytes cannot be placed at the very
end of a page of size 4096 bytes.  The following diagram illustrates
this, using the same page size as the last diagram.

     x = allocated memory
     o = overflow buffer (filled with the overflow byte)
     . = overflow buffer page (read and write protected)

     PAGEALLOC=UPPER, allocation size is 16 bytes, alignment is 8 bytes:
         ................xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx................

     PAGEALLOC=UPPER, allocation size is 3 bytes, alignment is 1 byte:
         ................oooooooooooooxxx................

     PAGEALLOC=UPPER, allocation size is 3 bytes, alignment is 8 bytes:
         ................ooooooooxxxooooo................

   Everything is OK until the last allocation, where the alignment
requirement means that there must be two overflow buffers.  This slows
down program execution since the library must check an additional
overflow buffer, and also means that the program would have to read six
bytes beyond the end of the allocation before the illegal memory access
would be detected.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 4,  Next: Example 5,  Prev: Example 3,  Up: Examples

Using overflow buffers
======================

   This example illustrates the use of overflow buffers and so the
`MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable should have `OFLOWSIZE=2' added
to it.  However, turn off any `PAGEALLOC' options for the purposes of
this example.  The test is located in `tests/fail/test5.c', and
`tests/fail/test6.c' is very similar.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes and then copies a string of 16
     25   * bytes into the block.  However, the string is copied to 1 byte
     26   * before the allocated block which writes before the start of the
     27   * block.  This test must be run with an OFLOWSIZE greater than 0.
     28   */


     31  #include "mpatrol.h"


     34  int main(void)
     35  {
     36      char *p;

     38      if (p = (char *) malloc(16))
     39      {
     40          strcpy(p - 1, "this test fails!");
     41          free(p);
     42      }
     43      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     44  }

   The following error should be produced in `mpatrol.log'.

     ERROR: allocation 0x00029E28 has a corrupted overflow buffer at 0x00029E27
             0x00029E26  AA74                                 ªt

         0x00029E28 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test5.c|38]
             0x00010B0C main
             0x00010A00 _start

   Once again, the library attempts to show you as much detail as
possible about where the corruption occurred.  Along with showing you a
memory dump of the overflow buffer that was corrupted, it also shows
you the allocation to which the overflow buffer belongs.

   Using overflow buffers can reduce the speed of program execution
since the library has to check every buffer whenever it is called, and
if the buffers are larger then they'll take longer to check and will
use up more memory.  However, larger buffers mean that there is less
chance of the program writing past one memory allocation into another.

   Alternatively, the `CHECK' option can be used to limit the number of
checks that the library has to perform, thus speeding up program
execution.  This option specifies a range of allocation indices through
which the library will check overflow buffers and free memory for
corruption.  Such checks occur when they normally would, but only if
the current allocation index falls within the specified range.  This
feature can be used when there is a suspicion that free memory
corruption or overflow buffer corruption occurs at a certain point
during program execution, but checking them at every library call would
take too long.

   On systems which support software watch points, there is an extra
option called `OFLOWWATCH' which allows additional memory protection.
Watch points allow individual bytes to be read and/or write protected
as opposed to just pages.  The `OFLOWWATCH' option installs software
watch points at every overflow buffer instead of requiring the library
to check the integrity of the overflow buffers, and can be used in
combination with `PAGEALLOC'.  However, software watch points slow down
program execution to a crawl since every machine instruction must be
checked individually by the system to see if it accesses a watch point
area.  Slowing the program down by a factor of 10,000 is not uncommon
on some systems when the `OFLOWWATCH' option is used.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 5,  Next: Example 6,  Prev: Example 4,  Up: Examples

Bad memory operations
=====================

   In C there are several basic memory operation functions that are
often called to perform tasks such as clearing memory, copying memory,
etc.  The mpatrol library contains replacements for these which allow
for better checking of their arguments to prevent reading and writing
past the boundaries of existing memory allocations.  The following
source can be found in `tests/fail/test9.c'.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes and then attempts to zero the contents of
     25   * the block.  However, a zero byte is also written 1 byte before and 1
     26   * byte after the allocated block, resulting in an error in the log file.
     27   */


     30  #include "mpatrol.h"


     33  int main(void)
     34  {
     35      char *p;

     37      if (p = (char *) malloc(16))
     38      {
     39          memset(p - 1, 0, 18);
     40          free(p);
     41      }
     42      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     43  }

   When this is compiled and run, the following should appear in the
log file.

     ERROR: memset: range [0x00027FFF,0x00028010] overflows [0x00028000,0x0002800F]
         0x00028000 (16 bytes) {malloc:13:0} [main|test9.c|37]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

   As you can see, the library detected that the `memset()' function
would have written past the boundaries of the memory allocation and
reported this to you.  It then proceeded to ignore the request to copy
the memory and continued with the execution of the program(1).  Note
that this will only be done for known memory allocations.  Reading and
writing past the boundaries of static and stack memory allocations
cannot be detected in this way.

   If the `LOGMEMORY' option is added to the `MPATROL_OPTIONS'
environment variable then it is possible to see a log of all the
mpatrol library memory operation functions that were called during
program execution.  For example, adding this option and running the
above program again will produce something similar to the following.

     MEMSET: memset (0x00027FFF, 18 bytes, 0x00) [main|test9.c|39]
             0x00010B18 main
             0x00010A0C _start

   This is similar to the tracing produced for memory allocation
functions, except that the arguments in parentheses mean different
things.  For `MEMSET', the first argument represents the start of the
memory block to set, the second argument represents the number of bytes
to set and the third argument represents the actual byte to set.

   For `MEMCOPY', the first argument represents the source memory
block, the second argument represents the destination memory block, the
third argument represents the number of bytes to copy and the fourth
argument represents a byte to copy up to if `memccpy()' is being
called.  This is similar for `MEMCMP'.

   For `MEMFIND', the first and second arguments represent the source
memory block and its length, while the third and fourth arguments
represent the memory block to search for and its length.  In the
implementation for `memchr()', the byte to search for is copied to a
one byte buffer and the address of that buffer is used as the memory
block to search for.

   Note that as with the memory allocation functions, `MEMCMP',
`MEMFIND', `MEMCOPY' and `MEMSET' are used to generalise the types of
operations being performed and are followed by the names of the actual
functions being used.  In some cases the functions may use a different
ordering of parameters than that shown.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) The error can be turned into a warning with the `ALLOWOFLOW'
option which will also force the operation to be performed.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 6,  Next: Example 7,  Prev: Example 5,  Up: Examples

Incompatible function calls
===========================

   This example illustrates how the mpatrol library checks for calls to
incompatible pairs of memory allocation functions.  It requires the use
of C++, although does not use any C++ features except for overloaded
operators.  The source is in `tests/fail/test7.c', and
`tests/fail/test8.c' is similar.

     23  /*
     24   * Allocates a block of 16 bytes using C++ operator new[] and then
     25   * attempts to free it using C++ operator delete.
     26   */


     29  #include "mpatrol.h"


     32  int main(void)
     33  {
     34      char *p;

     36      p = new char[16];
     37      delete p;
     38      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     39  }

   The relevant parts of `mpatrol.log' are shown below.

     ALLOC: operator new[] (17, 16 bytes, 8 bytes) [int main()|test7.c|36]
             0x00010A28 __builtin_vec_new
             0x00010ADC main
             0x000108D0 _start

     returns 0x00028000

     FREE: operator delete (0x00028000) [int main()|test7.c|37]
             0x00010A74 __builtin_delete
             0x00010AF0 main
             0x000108D0 _start

     ERROR: operator delete: 0x00028000 was allocated with operator new[]
         0x00028000 (16 bytes) {operator new[]:17:0} [int main()|test7.c|36]
             0x00010A28 __builtin_vec_new
             0x00010ADC main
             0x000108D0 _start

   This shows a call to `operator new[]', closely followed by a call to
`operator delete'.  However, in C++ calls to `operator new[]' must be
matched by calls to `operator delete[]' and not `operator delete'.
Hence, the library reports this as an error and does not free the memory
allocation.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Example 7,  Prev: Example 6,  Up: Examples

Additional useful information
=============================

   This last example illustrates the various `SHOW' options that are
available for displaying additional information from the mpatrol
library at program termination.  It also shows how to easily detect
memory leaks.  Use the `OFLOWSIZE=16', `NOFREE' and `SHOWALL' options in
`MPATROL_OPTIONS' before running.

      1  /*
      2   * Introduces a memory leak by clobbering a pointer with a new
      3   * memory allocation.  Use with SHOWUNFREED to display it.
      4   */


      7  #include "mpatrol.h"


     10  int main(void)
     11  {
     12      void *p;

     14      p = malloc(4);
     15      p = malloc(4);
     16      if (p != NULL)
     17          free(p);
     18      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     19  }

   The information that we are interested in comes after the summary of
library statistics generated in the log file.  The first block of data
shows a memory map of the heap that is being handled by mpatrol.  This
can be used to see graphically where a particular allocation is
located, or to look for memory fragmentation.  The `SHOWMAP' option
also displays this information.

   Note that gaps in the memory map can either be due to space used by
internal memory blocks or to some other memory allocation library using
up space.  On some systems that don't have virtual memory, gaps are
likely to be owned by other processes or belong to the system free
memory list.

     memory map:
       / 0x8000A000-0x8000A00F overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000A010-0x8000A077 allocated (104 bytes) {malloc:1:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000A078-0x8000A087 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000A088-0x8000A097 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000A098-0x8000A115 freed (126 bytes) {free:2:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000A116-0x8000A125 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000A126-0x8000A135 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000A136-0x8000AF05 freed (3536 bytes) {free:3:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000AF06-0x8000AF15 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000AF16-0x8000AF25 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000AF26-0x8000AFA3 freed (126 bytes) {free:4:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000AFA4-0x8000AFB3 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000AFB4-0x8000AFC3 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000AFC4-0x8000AFC7 allocated (4 bytes) {malloc:10:0} [main|test.c|14]
       \ 0x8000AFC8-0x8000AFD7 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000AFD8-0x8000AFE7 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000AFE8-0x8000AFEB freed (4 bytes) {free:11:0} [main|test.c|17]
       \ 0x8000AFEC-0x8000AFFB overflow (16 bytes)
     --- 0x8000AFFC-0x8000AFFF free (4 bytes)
         --------------------- gap (12288 bytes)
       / 0x8000E000-0x8000E00F overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000E010-0x8000EA27 freed (2584 bytes) {free:5:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000EA28-0x8000EA37 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000EA38-0x8000EA47 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000EA48-0x8000EAC5 freed (126 bytes) {free:6:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000EAC6-0x8000EAD5 overflow (16 bytes)
       / 0x8000EAD6-0x8000EAE5 overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8000EAE6-0x8000EB63 freed (126 bytes) {free:8:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8000EB64-0x8000EB73 overflow (16 bytes)
     --- 0x8000EB74-0x8000EFFF free (1164 bytes)
         --------------------- gap (8192 bytes)
       / 0x80011000-0x8001100F overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x80011010-0x800127F7 freed (6120 bytes) {free:7:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x800127F8-0x80012807 overflow (16 bytes)
     --- 0x80012808-0x80012FFF free (2040 bytes)
         --------------------- gap (106496 bytes)
       / 0x8002D000-0x8002D00F overflow (16 bytes)
      |+ 0x8002D010-0x8002DBBF freed (2992 bytes) {free:9:0} [-|-|-]
       \ 0x8002DBC0-0x8002DBCF overflow (16 bytes)
     --- 0x8002DBD0-0x8002DFFF free (1072 bytes)

   The next block of data shows a summary of all the symbols that could
be read from the program's executable file and/or any shared libraries
that the program requires.  This can be useful to see which symbols
have actually been read by the mpatrol library.  The `SHOWSYMBOLS'
option also displays this information.

   Note that the following data has been dramatically cut down in size
for the purposes of this example.  The `...' marks text that has been
removed.

     symbols read: 2438
         0x8000076C-0x800007D9 _init [./a.out] (110 bytes)
         0x80000900-0x8000094F _start [./a.out] (80 bytes)
         0x80000950-0x8000096F __do_global_dtors_aux [./a.out] (32 bytes)
         0x80000970-0x80000977 fini_dummy [./a.out] (8 bytes)
         ...
         0x80003B24-0x80003B4B __clear_cache [./a.out] (40 bytes)
         0x80003B4C-0x80003B6F __do_global_ctors_aux [./a.out] (36 bytes)
         0x80003B70-0x80003B77 init_dummy [./a.out] (8 bytes)
         0x80003B78-0x80003BA9 _fini [./a.out] (50 bytes)
         0xC0002604-0xC0002609 _start [/lib/ld.so.1] (6 bytes)
         0xC000260A-0xC0002659 _dl_start_user [/lib/ld.so.1] (80 bytes)
         0xC000265A-0xC0002B1B _dl_start [/lib/ld.so.1] (1218 bytes)
                    0xC000266A here [/lib/ld.so.1] (0 bytes)
         ...
         0xC0007A78-0xC0007AB5 __libc_read [/lib/ld.so.1] (62 bytes)
                    0xC0007A78 read [/lib/ld.so.1] (0 bytes)
                    0xC0007A9A __syscall_error [/lib/ld.so.1] (0 bytes)
         0xC0007AB8-0xC0007ADF __clear_cache [/lib/ld.so.1] (40 bytes)
         0xC0013E70-0xC0013E8B __mp_newlist [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (28 bytes)
         0xC0013E8C-0xC0013EB3 __mp_addhead [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (40 bytes)
         0xC0013EB4-0xC0013EE7 __mp_addtail [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (52 bytes)
         0xC0013EE8-0xC0013F1B __mp_prepend [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (52 bytes)
         ...
         0xC001A0DC-0xC001A0FF __nw__FUi [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (36 bytes)
         0xC001A100-0xC001A123 __arr_nw__FUi [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (36 bytes)
         0xC001A124-0xC001A143 __dl__FPv [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (32 bytes)
         0xC001A144-0xC001A163 __arr_dl__FPv [/usr/lib/libmpatrol.so.1.0] (32 bytes)
         0xC003BB14-0xC003BB45 __libc_global_ctors [/lib/libc.so.6] (50 bytes)
         0xC003BB48-0xC003BB97 __libc_init [/lib/libc.so.6] (80 bytes)
         0xC003BB98-0xC003BBC3 __libc_print_version [/lib/libc.so.6] (44 bytes)
         0xC003BBC4-0xC003BBD7 __libc_main [/lib/libc.so.6] (20 bytes)
         ...
         0xC008F8BC-0xC008FA4D __moddi3 [/lib/libc.so.6] (402 bytes)
         0xC008FA50-0xC008FB19 __udivdi3 [/lib/libc.so.6] (202 bytes)
         0xC008FB1C-0xC008FC1B __umoddi3 [/lib/libc.so.6] (256 bytes)
         0xC008FC1C-0xC008FC4D _fini [/lib/libc.so.6] (50 bytes)

   The next block of data shows a summary of all freed memory
allocations.  This is only possible because the `NOFREE' option was
also given, otherwise there would be no details on freed memory
allocations.  All of these entries show where the allocation was freed,
which can be useful if you quickly needed to see where an allocation
was freed.  The `SHOWFREED' option also displays this information.

   As this example was run on UNIX, the mpatrol library replaces the
default implementations of `malloc()', `free()', etc.  As can be seen
below, this allows the library to trace all calls to allocate dynamic
memory in a process, even from functions that were not compiled with
mpatrol.  The two functions shown below were called by the mpatrol
library in order to read the symbols from ELF object files.  However,
they are located in the ELF access library which was not compiled with
mpatrol.

   Note that the following data has again been cut down in size for the
purposes of this example.  The `...' marks text that has been removed.

     freed allocations: 9 (15740 bytes)
         0x8000A098 (126 bytes) {free:2:0} [-|-|-]
             0x800011BC elf_end
             0xC0019668 __mp_init
             0xC001982A __mp_alloc
             0x8000099C main
             0x80000944 _start

         0x8000A136 (3536 bytes) {free:3:0} [-|-|-]
             0x8000104E _elf_free
             0xC0019668 __mp_init
             0xC001982A __mp_alloc
             0x8000099C main
             0x80000944 _start

         ...

   The final block of data shows a summary of all unfreed memory
allocations.  This can show up memory leaks, although the first unfreed
memory allocation in this example comes from the standard C library.
On systems such as UNIX it does not really matter about these unfreed
allocations since they will automatically be returned to the system on
process termination.

   However, the second unfreed allocation shows an example of a memory
leak, where no pointers referencing that allocation remain in the
program to free it with.  If this was within a loop then the program
could quickly run away with memory, causing at least a decrease in
performance, and at most a memory shortage.  The mpatrol library makes
it easier to spot memory leaks.

   The `SHOWUNFREED' option also displays this information.

     unfreed allocations: 2 (108 bytes)
         0x8000A010 (104 bytes) {malloc:1:0} [-|-|-]
             0xC0052B4A _IO_fopen
             0xC0017A0C __mp_openlogfile
             0xC0019648 __mp_init
             0xC001982A __mp_alloc
             0x8000099C main
             0x80000944 _start

         0x8000AFC4 (4 bytes) {malloc:10:0} [main|test.c|14]
             0x8000099C main
             0x80000944 _start


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Tutorial,  Next: Functions,  Prev: Examples,  Up: Top

Tutorial
********

   In this chapter we'll look at a real example of using the mpatrol
library to debug a program.  All of the following building and
debugging steps were performed on a Linux/m68k machine so the details
may differ slightly on your system, but the concepts should remain the
same.  However, on systems without virtual memory some of the steps may
actually cause the machine to lock up or crash so be aware of this if
you are running such a system -- you may be safer just reading this
tutorial rather than attempting it!

   This tutorial will also make use of the option `USEDEBUG' which
displays source-level file names and line numbers associated with
symbols in call stack tracebacks, but only if the underlying object
file access library supports reading line tables from object files and
even then only if the object files were compiled with debugging
information enabled.

   The program we are going to look at is a simple filter which
processes its standard input and displays the processed information on
its standard output.  In this case the program converts all lowercase
characters to uppercase and removes any blank lines.  The source for
the program is given below, but can also be found in
`tests/tutorial/test1.c'.

     23  /*
     24   * Reads the standard input file stream, converts all lowercase
     25   * characters to uppercase, and displays all non-empty lines to the
     26   * standard output file stream.
     27   */


     30  #include <stdio.h>
     31  #include <stdlib.h>
     32  #include <string.h>
     33  #include <ctype.h>


     36  char *strtoupper(char *s)
     37  {
     38      char *t;
     39      size_t i, l;

     41      l = strlen(s);
     42      t = (char *) malloc(l);
     43      for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
     44          t[i] = toupper(s[i]);
     45      t[i] = '\0';
     46      return t;
     47  }


     50  int main(void)
     51  {
     52      char *b, *s;

     54      b = (char *) malloc(BUFSIZ);
     55      while (gets(b))
     56      {
     57          s = strtoupper(b);
     58          if (*s != '\0')
     59          {
     60              puts(s);
     61              free(s);
     62          }
     63      }
     64      free(b);
     65      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     66  }

   If you quickly skimmed over the above code then you might have
noticed some rather obvious errors, but there are also some less
obvious ones hidden there as well.  After compiling and linking with
the system C compiler and libraries it successfully runs, even when its
source code is piped to it.  So if it runs, why bother trying to debug
it?

   The short answer to that is that this program does in fact contain
one rather major error that is likely to prevent it from running
portably on other systems.  However, for the purposes of this tutorial,
we'll pretend that we've just been handed the source code for this
program and have not worked on it before.  So let's now try to compile
and link it with the mpatrol library(1).

   First, add the inclusion of `mpatrol.h' to line 34 so that we can
replace calls to `malloc()' and `free()' with their mpatrol
equivalents(2).  Then, recompile the program and link it with the
mpatrol library.  This time, running it with even the simplest of
non-empty input lines should cause it to abort!

   If you look at the `mpatrol.log' file produced, you should see
something along the lines of the following at the end of the log file.


     ERROR: free memory corruption at 0x8000706C
             0x8000706C  00555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  .UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000707C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000708C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000709C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070AC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070BC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070CC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070DC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070EC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x800070FC  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000710C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000711C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000712C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000713C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000714C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
             0x8000715C  55555555 55555555 55555555 55555555  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

   This tells us that something has written a zero byte into free
memory at location `0x8000706C'.  Unfortunately, the library only
caught it at the next call to one of its functions so it had already
happened somewhere in between the last call and the current call.
Turning on the `LOGALL' option in the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment
variable allows us to see the last successful function call to the
mpatrol library.

     ALLOC: malloc (50, 8192 bytes, 2 bytes) [main|test1.c|54]
             0x80000A30 main (/usr/users/homedir/graeme/test1.c:54)
             0x80000944 _start

     returns 0x80009000

     ALLOC: malloc (51, 4 bytes, 2 bytes) [strtoupper|test1.c|42]
             0x800009AE strtoupper (/usr/users/homedir/graeme/test1.c:42)
             0x80000A54 main (/usr/users/homedir/graeme/test1.c:57)
             0x80000944 _start

     returns 0x80007068

   Unfortunately, this only tells us that the last successful mpatrol
library function call was `malloc()' called from `strtoupper()'.  If we
add the option `OFLOWSIZE=8' to the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment
variable then we get slightly more information about which memory
allocation was affected(3).

     ERROR: allocation 0x80007080 has a corrupted overflow buffer at 0x80007084
             0x80007084  00AAAAAA AAAAAAAA                    ........

         0x80007080 (4 bytes) {malloc:51:0} [strtoupper|test1.c|42]
             0x800009AE strtoupper (/usr/users/homedir/graeme/test1.c:42)
             0x80000A54 main (/usr/users/homedir/graeme/test1.c:57)
             0x80000944 _start

   Now we can make a better guess about what is happening.  Since the
start of the upper overflow buffer of allocation 51 has been written
to, we can assume that something has written one byte beyond the end of
that memory allocation.  You can probably see where that is happening
now by looking at the code, but let's try to be even more sure that
this is what is wrong.

   The only foolproof way to do this is to add a software watch point
to keep an eye on the address that is being written to.  This can
normally only be done within a debugger, but on systems that support
programmable software watch points, the `OFLOWWATCH' option can be used
to do the same thing.  For the sake of generality, we'll use the
debugger watch point approach, in this case with `gdb'.  In order for
the following example to work correctly you'll need to add the
`ALLOCSTOP=51' option to the `MPATROL_OPTIONS' environment variable so
that we can stop just after the last successful memory allocation.

     (gdb) break main
     Breakpoint 1 at 0x80000a10: file test1.c, line 54.
     (gdb) run
     Starting program: a.out
     Breakpoint 1, main() at test1.c:54
     54          b = malloc(BUFSIZ);
     (gdb) break __mp_trap
     Breakpoint 2 at 0xc00182ac
     (gdb) continue
     Continuing.
     test
     Breakpoint 2, 0xc00182ac in __mp_trap()
     (gdb) backtrace
     #0  0xc00182ac in __mp_trap()
     #1  0xc0016494 in __mp_getmemory()
     #2  0xc001a618 in __mp_alloc()
     #3  0x800009ae in strtoupper(s=0x80009008 "test") at test1.c:42
     #4  0x80000a54 in main() at test1.c:57
     (gdb) step
     Single stepping until exit from function __mp_trap,
     which has no line number information.
     0xc0016494 in __mp_getmemory()
     (gdb) step
     Single stepping until exit from function __mp_getmemory,
     which has no line number information.
     0xc001a618 in __mp_alloc()
     (gdb) step
     Single stepping until exit from function __mp_alloc,
     which has no line number information.
     strtoupper(s=0x80009008 "test") at test1.c:43
     43          for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
     (gdb) watch *0x80007084
     Watchpoint 3: *2147512452
     (gdb) continue
     Continuing.
     Watchpoint 3: *2147512452
     Old value = -1431655766
     New value = 11184810
     strtoupper(s=0x80009008 "test") at test1.c:46
     46          return t;
     (gdb) quit
     The program is running.  Quit anyway (and kill it)? (y or n) y

   After loading the program into `gdb', we need to break at `main()'
so that we can run to a point where all of the shared library symbols
have been loaded into memory(4).  We can then set another breakpoint at
`__mp_trap()' and continue until allocation 51 has been reached.

   Because the mpatrol library has not been built with debugging
information in this example we can quickly step back to the
`strtoupper()' function since `gdb' won't step through functions that
have no debugging information.  We then set a watch point on address
`0x80007084', which is the address of the memory location that has been
causing the problems.  After continuing, the debugger stops at line 46,
but this is more likely to be line 45 since that is where a zero byte
is being written to(5).

   So, we have located the problem, which is simply a case of not
allocating enough memory to contain the copied string _and_ the
terminating zero byte.  We can also improve the `strtoupper()' function
by checking the pointer returned by `malloc()' to see if it is `NULL',
and if so simply exit with an error.  You can try running the program
with the `FAILFREQ' option to see how it would originally behave in a
low memory situation.

   The following listing shows the above modifications that we have
made to our program.  It can also be found in `tests/tutorial/test2.c'.

     23  /*
     24   * Reads the standard input file stream, converts all lowercase
     25   * characters to uppercase, and displays all non-empty lines to the
     26   * standard output file stream.
     27   */


     30  #include <stdio.h>
     31  #include <stdlib.h>
     32  #include <string.h>
     33  #include <ctype.h>
     34  #include "mpatrol.h"


     37  char *strtoupper(char *s)
     38  {
     39      char *t;
     40      size_t i, l;

     42      l = strlen(s);
     43      if ((t = (char *) malloc(l + 1)) == NULL)
     44      {
     45          fputs("strtoupper: out of memory\n", stderr);
     46          exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
     47      }
     48      for (i = 0; i < l; i++)
     49          t[i] = toupper(s[i]);
     50      t[i] = '\0';
     51      return t;
     52  }


     55  int main(void)
     56  {
     57      char *b, *s;

     59      b = (char *) malloc(BUFSIZ);
     60      while (gets(b))
     61      {
     62          s = strtoupper(b);
     63          if (*s != '\0')
     64          {
     65              puts(s);
     66              free(s);
     67          }
     68      }
     69      free(b);
     70      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
     71  }

   Leaving aside the obvious problem with `gets()' and the general
inefficiency of the algorithm, we could assume that our program works
safely now and we can release it to the outside world.  However, a user
soon reports a problem with our program steadily using more and more
memory during its execution when processing very large files.

   This is generally attributable to a memory leak and so we can use the
`SHOWUNFREED' option to try to detect where the memory leak is coming
from.  Following is some example output from the mpatrol log file when
our program is run and is given a relatively small text file as input.

     unfreed allocations: 6 (109 bytes)
         0x80007000 (104 bytes) {malloc:1:0} [-|-|-]
             0xC008DB4A _IO_fopen
             0xC00183DC __mp_openlogfile
             0xC001A3A4 __mp_init
             0xC001A584 __mp_alloc
             0x80000A98 main
             0x80000980 _start

         0x80007068 (1 byte) {malloc:52:0} [strtoupper|test2.c|43]
             0x800009EE strtoupper
             0x80000ABC main
             0x80000980 _start

         0x8000706A (1 byte) {malloc:54:0} [strtoupper|test2.c|43]
             0x800009EE strtoupper
             0x80000ABC main
             0x80000980 _start

         0x8000706C (1 byte) {malloc:56:0} [strtoupper|test2.c|43]
             0x800009EE strtoupper
             0x80000ABC main
             0x80000980 _start

         0x8000706E (1 byte) {malloc:58:0} [strtoupper|test2.c|43]
             0x800009EE strtoupper
             0x80000ABC main
             0x80000980 _start

         0x80007070 (1 byte) {malloc:60:0} [strtoupper|test2.c|43]
             0x800009EE strtoupper
             0x80000ABC main
             0x80000980 _start

   We can discount the first entry since that is obviously coming from
when the mpatrol library first initialises itself.  However, all of the
other entries appear to be coming from line 43 within `strtoupper()'
and appear to be only 1 byte in length.  At that point in the code, the
only possible reason for allocating 1 byte is when the string is empty
and so that must mean that we are not freeing memory that contains
empty strings.  Looking at line 66 we can see that `free()' is only
ever called for non-empty strings and therefore if we move the call to
`free()' outside the test for an empty string we will fix the memory
leak.  The file `tests/tutorial/test3.c' contains the source for the
final program.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) On UNIX systems with dynamic linking it might also be possible
to run the program under the mpatrol command with its `-d' option
without having to recompile or relink, but compiling and linking with
the mpatrol library is a more generic solution across different
platforms.

   (2) This is not strictly necessary on UNIX and Windows platforms
(and AmigaOS when using `gcc'), but it does give us more debugging
information.

   (3) Note that the start address of the allocation has changed
slightly since we added padding around it with the `OFLOWSIZE' option.

   (4) This is only necessary when the mpatrol library has been built
as a shared library.

   (5) This is not necessarily the fault of the debugger or the
debugging information generated by the compiler since on most platforms
such watchpoints can only be caught after they occur, hence most
debuggers show the next statement to be executed rather than the current
one.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Functions,  Next: Environment,  Prev: Tutorial,  Up: Top

Functions
*********

   The mpatrol library contains implementations of dynamic memory
allocation functions for C and C++ suitable for tracing and debugging.
The library is intended to be used without requiring any changes to
existing user source code except the inclusion of the `mpatrol.h'
header file, although additional functions are supplied for extra
tracing and control.  Note that the current version of the mpatrol
library is contained in the `MPATROL_VERSION' preprocessor macro.

   All of the function definitions in `mpatrol.h' can be disabled by
defining the `NDEBUG' preprocessor macro, which is the same macro used
to control the behaviour of the `assert()' function.  If `NDEBUG' is
defined then no macro redefinition of functions will take place and all
special mpatrol library functions will evaluate to empty statements.
It is intended that the `NDEBUG' preprocessor macro be defined in
release builds.

   The following 14 functions are available as replacements for
existing C library functions.  To use these you must include
`mpatrol.h' before all other header files, although on UNIX and Windows
platforms (and AmigaOS when using `gcc') they will be used anyway,
albeit with slightly less tracing information.

`void *malloc(size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be suitably aligned for casting to any type and can be used
     to store data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If SIZE is `0' then
     the memory allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.
     If there is not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The
     allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()' or reallocated
     with `realloc()'.

`void *calloc(size_t nelem, size_t size)'
     Allocates NELEM elements of SIZE zero-initialised bytes from the
     heap and returns a pointer to the first byte of the allocation.
     The pointer returned will be suitably aligned for casting to any
     type and can be used to store data of up to `nelem * size' bytes
     in length.  If `nelem * size' is `0' then the amount of memory
     allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.  If there is
     not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer will be
     returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated
     memory must be deallocated with `free()' or reallocated with
     `realloc()'.

`void *memalign(size_t align, size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be aligned to ALIGN bytes and can be used to store data of up
     to SIZE bytes in length.  If ALIGN is zero then the default system
     alignment will be used.  If ALIGN is not a power of two then it
     will be rounded up to the nearest power of two.  If ALIGN is
     greater than the system page size then it will be truncated to
     that value.  If SIZE is `0' then the memory allocated will be
     implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.  If there is not enough space in
     the heap then the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will
     be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with
     `free()' or reallocated with `realloc()', although the latter will
     not guarantee the preservation of alignment.

`void *valloc(size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be aligned to the system page size and can be used to store
     data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If SIZE is `0' then the
     memory allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.  If
     there is not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer will
     be returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated
     memory must be deallocated with `free()' or reallocated with
     `realloc()', although the latter will not guarantee the
     preservation of alignment.

`void *pvalloc(size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be aligned to the system page size and can be used to store
     data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If SIZE is `0' then the
     memory allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' page,
     otherwise SIZE will be implicitly rounded up to a multiple of the
     system page size.  If there is not enough space in the heap then
     the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will be set to
     `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()'
     or reallocated with `realloc()', although the latter will not
     guarantee the preservation of alignment.

`char *strdup(const char *str)'
     Allocates exactly enough memory from the heap to duplicate STR
     (including the terminating nul character) and returns a pointer to
     the first byte of the allocation after copying STR to the
     newly-allocated memory.  The pointer returned will have no
     alignment constraints and can be used to store character data up
     to the length of STR.  If STR is `NULL' then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned.  If there is not enough space in the heap then
     the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will be set to
     `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()'
     or reallocated with `realloc()'.

`char *strndup(const char *str, size_t size)'
     Allocates exactly enough memory from the heap to duplicate STR
     (including the terminating nul character) and returns a pointer to
     the first byte of the allocation after copying STR to the
     newly-allocated memory.  The pointer returned will have no
     alignment constraints and can be used to store character data up
     to the length of STR.  If STR is `NULL' then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned.  If the length of STR is greater than SIZE then
     only SIZE characters will be allocated and copied, with one
     additional byte for the nul character.  If there is not enough
     space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer will be returned and
     `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be
     deallocated with `free()' or reallocated with `realloc()'.  This
     function is available for backwards compatibility with older C
     libraries and should not be used in new code.

`char *strsave(const char *str)'
     Allocates exactly enough memory from the heap to duplicate STR
     (including the terminating nul character) and returns a pointer to
     the first byte of the allocation after copying STR to the
     newly-allocated memory.  The pointer returned will have no
     alignment constraints and can be used to store character data up
     to the length of STR.  If STR is `NULL' then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned.  If there is not enough space in the heap then
     the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will be set to
     `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()'
     or reallocated with `realloc()'.  This function is available for
     backwards compatibility with older C libraries and should not be
     used in new code.

`char *strnsave(const char *str, size_t size)'
     Allocates exactly enough memory from the heap to duplicate STR
     (including the terminating nul character) and returns a pointer to
     the first byte of the allocation after copying STR to the
     newly-allocated memory.  The pointer returned will have no
     alignment constraints and can be used to store character data up
     to the length of STR.  If STR is `NULL' then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned.  If the length of STR is greater than SIZE then
     only SIZE characters will be allocated and copied, with one
     additional byte for the nul character.  If there is not enough
     space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer will be returned and
     `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be
     deallocated with `free()' or reallocated with `realloc()'.  This
     function is available for backwards compatibility with older C
     libraries and should not be used in new code.

`void *realloc(void *ptr, size_t size)'
     Resizes the memory allocation beginning at PTR to SIZE bytes and
     returns a pointer to the first byte of the new allocation after
     copying PTR to the newly-allocated memory, which will be truncated
     if SIZE is smaller than the original allocation.  The pointer
     returned will be suitably aligned for casting to any type and can
     be used to store data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If PTR is
     `NULL' then the call will be equivalent to `malloc()'.  If SIZE is
     `0' then the existing memory allocation will be freed and the
     `NULL' pointer will be returned.  If SIZE is greater than the
     original allocation then the extra space will be filled with
     uninitialised bytes.  If there is not enough space in the heap
     then the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will be set to
     `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()'
     and can be reallocated again with `realloc()'.

`void *recalloc(void *ptr, size_t nelem, size_t size)'
     Resizes the memory allocation beginning at PTR to NELEM elements of
     SIZE bytes and returns a pointer to the first byte of the new
     allocation after copying PTR to the newly-allocated memory, which
     will be truncated if `nelem * size' is smaller than the original
     allocation.  The pointer returned will be suitably aligned for
     casting to any type and can be used to store data of up to `nelem
     * size' bytes in length.  If PTR is `NULL' then the call will be
     equivalent to `calloc()'.  If `nelem * size' is `0' then the
     existing memory allocation will be freed and the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned.  If `nelem * size' is greater than the original
     allocation then the extra space will be filled with
     zero-initialised bytes.  If there is not enough space in the heap
     then the `NULL' pointer will be returned and `errno' will be set to
     `ENOMEM'.  The allocated memory must be deallocated with `free()'
     and can be reallocated again with `realloc()'.  This function is
     available for backwards compatibility with older C libraries and
     `calloc()' and should not be used in new code.

`void *expand(void *ptr, size_t size)'
     Attempts to resize the memory allocation beginning at PTR to SIZE
     bytes and either returns PTR if there was enough space to resize
     it, or `NULL' if the block could not be resized for a particular
     reason.  If PTR is `NULL' then the call will be equivalent to
     `malloc()'.  If SIZE is `0' then the existing memory allocation
     will be freed and the `NULL' pointer will be returned.  If SIZE is
     greater than the original allocation then the extra space will be
     filled with uninitialised bytes and if SIZE is less than the
     original allocation then the memory block will be truncated.  If
     there is not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer will
     be returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM'.  The allocated
     memory must be deallocated with `free()' and can be reallocated
     again with `realloc()'.  This function is available for backwards
     compatibility with older C libraries and should not be used in new
     code.

`void free(void *ptr)'
     Frees the memory allocation beginning at PTR so the memory can be
     reused by another call to allocate memory.  If PTR is `NULL' then
     no memory will be freed.  All of the previous contents will be
     destroyed.

`void cfree(void *ptr, size_t nelem, size_t size)'
     Frees the memory allocation beginning at PTR so the memory can be
     reused by another call to allocate memory.  If PTR is `NULL' then
     no memory will be freed.  All of the previous contents will be
     destroyed.  The NELEM and SIZE parameters are ignored in this
     implementation.  This function is available for backwards
     compatibility with older C libraries and `calloc()' and should not
     be used in new code.

   The following 5 functions are available as replacements for existing
C++ library functions, but the replacements in `mpatrol.h' will only be
used if the `MP_NOCPLUSPLUS' preprocessor macro is not defined.  To use
these you must include `mpatrol.h' before all other header files,
although on UNIX and Windows platforms (and AmigaOS when using `gcc')
they will be used anyway, albeit with slightly less tracing information.

`void *operator new(size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be suitably aligned for casting to any type and can be used
     to store data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If SIZE is `0' then
     the memory allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.
     If there is not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM' -- no
     exceptions will be thrown.  The allocated memory must be
     deallocated with `operator delete'.

`void *operator new[](size_t size)'
     Allocates SIZE uninitialised bytes from the heap and returns a
     pointer to the first byte of the allocation.  The pointer returned
     will be suitably aligned for casting to any type and can be used
     to store data of up to SIZE bytes in length.  If SIZE is `0' then
     the memory allocated will be implicitly rounded up to `1' byte.
     If there is not enough space in the heap then the `NULL' pointer
     will be returned and `errno' will be set to `ENOMEM' -- no
     exceptions will be thrown.  The allocated memory must be
     deallocated with `operator delete[]'.

`void operator delete(void *ptr)'
     Frees the memory allocation beginning at PTR so the memory can be
     reused by another call to allocate memory.  If PTR is `NULL' then
     no memory will be freed.  All of the previous contents will be
     destroyed.  This function must only be used with memory allocated
     by `operator new'.

`void operator delete[](void *ptr)'
     Frees the memory allocation beginning at PTR so the memory can be
     reused by another call to allocate memory.  If PTR is `NULL' then
     no memory will be freed.  All of the previous contents will be
     destroyed.  This function must only be used with memory allocated
     by `operator new[]'.

`void (*set_new_handler(void (*func)(void)))(void)'
     Installs a low-memory handler specifically for use with `operator
     new' and `operator new[]' and returns a pointer to the previously
     installed handler, or the `NULL' pointer if no handler had been
     previously installed.  This will be called repeatedly by both
     functions when they would normally return `NULL', and this loop
     will continue until they manage to allocate the requested space.
     The default low-memory handler for the C++ operators will
     terminate the program and write an out of memory message to the
     log file.  Note that this function is equivalent to
     `__mp_nomemory()' and will replace the handler installed by that
     function.

   The following 10 functions are available as replacements for
existing C library memory operation functions.  To use these you must
include `mpatrol.h' before all other header files, although on UNIX and
Windows platforms (and AmigaOS when using `gcc') they will be used
anyway, albeit with slightly less tracing information.

`void *memset(void *ptr, int byte, size_t size)'
     Writes SIZE bytes of value BYTE to the memory location beginning at
     PTR and returns PTR.  If SIZE is `0' then no bytes will be
     written.  If the operation would affect an existing memory
     allocation in the heap but would straddle that allocation's
     boundaries then an error message will be generated in the log file
     and no bytes will be written.

`void bzero(void *ptr, size_t size)'
     Writes SIZE zero bytes to the memory location beginning at PTR.  If
     SIZE is `0' then no bytes will be written.  If the operation would
     affect an existing memory allocation in the heap but would
     straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error message will
     be generated in the log file and no bytes will be written.  This
     function is available for backwards compatibility with older C
     libraries and should not be used in new code.

`void *memccpy(void *dest, const void *src, int byte, size_t size)'
     Copies SIZE bytes from SRC to DEST and returns `NULL', or copies
     the number of bytes up to and including the first occurrence of
     BYTE if BYTE exists within the specified range and returns a
     pointer to the first byte after BYTE.  If SIZE is `0' or SRC is
     the same as DEST then no bytes will be copied.  The source and
     destination ranges should not overlap, otherwise a warning will be
     written to the log file.  If the operation would affect an
     existing memory allocation in the heap but would straddle that
     allocation's boundaries then an error message will be generated in
     the log file and no bytes will be copied.

`void *memcpy(void *dest, const void *src, size_t size)'
     Copies SIZE bytes from SRC to DEST and returns DEST.  If SIZE is
     `0' or SRC is the same as DEST then no bytes will be copied.  The
     source and destination ranges should not overlap, otherwise a
     warning will be written to the log file.  If the operation would
     affect an existing memory allocation in the heap but would
     straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error message will
     be generated in the log file and no bytes will be copied.

`void *memmove(void *dest, const void *src, size_t size)'
     Copies SIZE bytes from SRC to DEST and returns DEST.  If SIZE is
     `0' or SRC is the same as DEST then no bytes will be copied.  If
     the operation would affect an existing memory allocation in the
     heap but would straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error
     message will be generated in the log file and no bytes will be
     copied.

`void bcopy(const void *src, void *dest, size_t size)'
     Copies SIZE bytes from SRC to DEST.  If SIZE is `0' or SRC is the
     same as DEST then no bytes will be copied.  If the operation would
     affect an existing memory allocation in the heap but would
     straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error message will
     be generated in the log file and no bytes will be copied.  This
     function is available for backwards compatibility with older C
     libraries and should not be used in new code.

`int memcmp(const void *ptr1, const void *ptr2, size_t size)'
     Compares SIZE bytes from PTR1 and PTR2 and returns `0' if all of
     the bytes are identical, or returns the byte difference of the
     first differing bytes.  If SIZE is `0' or PTR1 is the same as PTR2
     then no bytes will be compared.  If the operation would read from
     an existing memory allocation in the heap but would straddle that
     allocation's boundaries then an error message will be generated in
     the log file and no bytes will be compared.

`int bcmp(const void *ptr1, const void *ptr2, size_t size)'
     Compares SIZE bytes from PTR1 and PTR2 and returns `0' if all of
     the bytes are identical, or returns the byte difference of the
     first differing bytes.  If SIZE is `0' or PTR1 is the same as PTR2
     then no bytes will be compared.  If the operation would read from
     an existing memory allocation in the heap but would straddle that
     allocation's boundaries then an error message will be generated in
     the log file and no bytes will be compared.  This function is
     available for backwards compatibility with older C libraries and
     should not be used in new code.

`void *memchr(const void *ptr, int byte, size_t size)'
     Searches up to SIZE bytes in PTR for the first occurrence of BYTE
     and returns a pointer to it or `NULL' if no such byte occurs.  If
     SIZE is `0' then no bytes will be searched.  If the operation
     would affect an existing memory allocation in the heap but would
     straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error message will
     be generated in the log file and no bytes will be searched.

`void *memmem(const void *ptr1, size_t size1, const void *ptr2, size_t size2)'
     Searches up to SIZE1 bytes in PTR1 for the first occurrence of
     PTR2 (which is exactly SIZE2 bytes in length) and returns a pointer
     to it or `NULL' if no such sequence of bytes occur.  If SIZE1 or
     SIZE2 is `0' then no bytes will be searched.  If the operation
     would affect an existing memory allocation in the heap but would
     straddle that allocation's boundaries then an error message will
     be generated in the log file and no bytes will be searched.

   The following 8 functions are available as support routines for
additional control and tracing in the mpatrol library.  To use these
you should include the `mpatrol.h' header file.

`int __mp_info(const void *ptr, __mp_allocinfo *info)'
     Obtains information about a specific memory allocation by placing
     statistics about PTR in INFO.  If PTR does not belong to a
     previously allocated memory allocation then `0' will be returned,
     otherwise `1' will be returned and INFO will contain the following
     information:

     _Field_       _Description_
     `block'       Pointer to first byte of allocation.
     `size'        Size of allocation in bytes.
     `type'        Type of function which allocated memory.
     `alloc'       Allocation index.
     `realloc'     Number of times reallocated.
     `thread'      Thread identifier.
     `func'        Function in which allocation took place.
     `file'        File in which allocation took place.
     `line'        Line number at which allocation took place.
     `stack'       Pointer to function call stack.
     `freed'       Indicates if allocation has been freed.

`int __mp_printinfo(const void *ptr)'
     Displays information about a specific memory allocation containing
     PTR to the standard error file stream.  If PTR does not belong to
     a previously allocated memory allocation then `0' will be
     returned, otherwise `1' will be returned.  This function is
     intended to be called from within a debugger.

`void __mp_memorymap(int stats)'
     If STATS is non-zero then the current statistics of the mpatrol
     library will be displayed.  If the heap contains at least one
     allocated, freed or free block then a map of the current heap will
     also be displayed.

`void __mp_summary(void)'
     Displays information about the current state of the mpatrol
     library, including its settings and any relevant statistics.

`void __mp_check(void)'
     Forces the library to perform an immediate check of the overflow
     buffers of every memory allocation and to ensure that nothing has
     overwritten any free blocks.

`void (*__mp_prologue(void (*func)(const void *, size_t)))(const void *, size_t)'
     Installs a prologue function to be called before any memory
     allocation, reallocation or deallocation function.  This function
     will return a pointer to the previously installed prologue
     function, or the `NULL' pointer if no prologue function had been
     previously installed.  The following arguments will be used to
     call the prologue function:

     _Argument 1_  _Argument 2_  _Called by_
     `-1'          SIZE          `malloc()', etc.
     PTR           SIZE          `realloc()', etc.
     PTR           `-1'          `free()', etc.
     PTR           `-2'          `strdup()', etc.

`void (*__mp_epilogue(void (*func)(const void *)))(const void *)'
     Installs an epilogue function to be called after any memory
     allocation, reallocation or deallocation function.  This function
     will return a pointer to the previously installed epilogue
     function, or the `NULL' pointer if no epilogue function had been
     previously installed.  The following arguments will be used to
     call the epilogue function:

     _Argument_    _Called by_
     PTR           `malloc()', `realloc()', `strdup()', etc.
     `-1'          `free()', etc.

`void (*__mp_nomemory(void (*func)(void)))(void)'
     Installs a low-memory handler and returns a pointer to the
     previously installed handler, or the `NULL' pointer if no handler
     had been previously installed.  This will be called once by C
     memory allocation functions, and repeatedly by C++ memory
     allocation functions, when they would normally return `NULL'.  Note
     that this function is equivalent to `set_new_handler()' and will
     replace the handler installed by that function.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Environment,  Next: Options,  Prev: Functions,  Up: Top

Environment
***********

   The library can read certain options at run-time from an environment
variable called `MPATROL_OPTIONS'.  This variable must contain one or
more valid option keywords from the list below and must be no longer
than 1024 characters in length.  If `MPATROL_OPTIONS' is unset or empty
then the default settings will be used.

   The syntax for options specified within the `MPATROL_OPTIONS'
environment variable is `OPTION' or `OPTION=VALUE', where `OPTION' is a
keyword from the list below and `VALUE' is the setting for that option.
If `VALUE' is numeric then it may be specified using binary, octal,
decimal or hexadecimal notation, with binary notation beginning with
either `0b' or `0B'.  If `VALUE' is a character string containing
spaces then it may be quoted using double quotes.  No whitespace may
appear between the `=' sign, but whitespace must appear between
different options.  Note that option keywords can be given in lowercase
as well as uppercase, or a mixture of both.

`ALLOCBYTE'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to prefill
     newly-allocated memory.  This can be used to detect the use of
     memory which has not been initialised after allocation.  Note that
     this setting will not affect memory allocated with `calloc()' or
     `recalloc()' as these functions always prefill allocated memory
     with an 8-bit byte pattern of zero.  Default value:
     `ALLOCBYTE=0xFF'.

`ALLOCSTOP'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies an allocation index at which to stop the program when it
     is being allocated.  When the number of memory allocations reaches
     this number the program will be halted, and its state may be
     examined at that point by using a suitable debugger.  Note that
     this setting will be ignored if its value is zero.  Default value:
     `ALLOCSTOP=0'.

`ALLOWOFLOW'
     Specifies that a warning rather than an error should be produced
     if any memory operation function overflows the boundaries of a
     memory allocation, and that the operation should still be
     performed.  This option is provided for circumstances where it is
     desirable for the memory operation to be performed, regardless of
     whether it is erroneous or not.

`AUTOSAVE'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the frequency at which to periodically write the
     profiling data to the profiling output file.  When the total
     number of profiled memory allocations and deallocations is a
     multiple of this number then the current profiling information
     will be written to the profiling output file.  This option can be
     used to instruct the mpatrol library to dump out any profiling
     information just before a fatal error occurs in a program, for
     example.  Note that this setting will be ignored if its value is
     zero.  Default value: `AUTOSAVE=0'.

`CHECK'=<UNSIGNED-RANGE>
     Specifies a range of allocation indices at which to check the
     integrity of free memory and overflow buffers.  The range must be
     specified as no more than two unsigned integers separated by a
     dash.  If numbers on either the left side or the right side of the
     dash are omitted then they will be assumed to be `0' and INFINITY
     respectively.  A value of `0' on its own indicates that no such
     checking will ever be performed.  This option can be used to speed
     up the execution speed of the library at the expense of checking.
     Default value: `CHECK=-'.

`CHECKALL'
     Equivalent to the `CHECKALLOCS', `CHECKREALLOCS' and `CHECKFREES'
     options specified together.

`CHECKALLOCS'
     Checks that no attempt is made to allocate a block of memory of
     size zero.  A warning will be issued for every such case.

`CHECKFREES'
     Checks that no attempt is made to deallocate a `NULL' pointer.  A
     warning will be issued for every such case.

`CHECKREALLOCS'
     Checks that no attempt is made to reallocate a `NULL' pointer or
     resize an existing block of memory to size zero.  Warnings will be
     issued for every such case.

`DEFALIGN'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the default alignment for general-purpose memory
     allocations, which must be a power of two (and will be rounded up
     to the nearest power of two if it is not).  The default alignment
     for a particular system is calculated at run-time.

`FAILFREQ'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the frequency at which all memory allocations will
     randomly fail.  For example, a value of `10' will mean that
     roughly 1 in 10 memory allocations will fail, but a value of `0'
     will disable all random failures.  This option can be useful for
     stress-testing an application.  Default value: `FAILFREQ=0'.

`FAILSEED'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the random number seed which will be used when
     determining which memory allocations will randomly fail.  A value
     of `0' will instruct the library to pick a random seed every time
     it is run.  Any other value will mean that the random failures
     will be the same every time the program is run, but only as long
     as the seed stays the same.  Default value: `FAILSEED=0'.

`FREEBYTE'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to prefill newly-freed
     memory.  This can be used to detect the use of memory which has
     just been freed.  It is also used internally to ensure that freed
     memory has not been overwritten.  Note that the freed memory may
     be reused the next time a block of memory is allocated and so once
     memory has been freed its contents are not guaranteed to remain
     the same as the specified byte pattern.  Default value:
     `FREEBYTE=0x55'.

`FREESTOP'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies an allocation index at which to stop the program when it
     is being freed.  When the memory allocation with the specified
     allocation index is to be freed the program will be halted, and
     its state may be examined at that point using a suitable debugger.
     Note that this setting will be ignored if its value is zero.
     Default value: `FREESTOP=0'.

`HELP'
     Displays a quick-reference option summary to the `stderr' file
     stream.

`LARGEBOUND'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory allocations should
     be classified as large allocations for profiling purposes.  This
     limit must be greater than the small and medium bounds.  Default
     value: `LARGEBOUND=2048'.

`LIMIT'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the limit in bytes at which all memory allocations
     should fail if the total allocated memory should increase beyond
     this.  This can be used to stress-test software to see how it
     behaves in low memory conditions.  The internal memory used by the
     library itself will not be counted as part of the total heap size,
     but on some systems there may be a small amount of memory required
     to initialise the library itself.  Note that this setting will be
     ignored if its value is zero.  Default value: `LIMIT=0'.

`LOGALL'
     Equivalent to the `LOGALLOCS', `LOGREALLOCS', `LOGFREES' and
     `LOGMEMORY' options specified together.

`LOGALLOCS'
     Specifies that all memory allocations are to be logged and sent to
     the log file.  Note that any memory allocations made internally by
     the library will not be logged.

`LOGFILE'=<STRING>
     Specifies an alternative file in which to place all diagnostics
     from the mpatrol library.  A filename of `stderr' will send all
     diagnostics to the `stderr' file stream and a filename of `stdout'
     will do the equivalent with the `stdout' file stream.  Note that
     if a problem occurs while opening the log file or if any
     diagnostics require to be displayed before the log file has had a
     chance to be opened then they will be sent to the `stderr' file
     stream.  Default value: `LOGFILE=mpatrol.log'.

`LOGFREES'
     Specifies that all memory deallocations are to be logged and sent
     to the log file.  Note that any memory deallocations made
     internally by the library will not be logged.

`LOGMEMORY'
     Specifies that all memory operations are to be logged and sent to
     the log file.  These operations will be made by calls to functions
     such as `memset()' and `memcpy()'.  Note that any memory
     operations made internally by the library will not be logged.

`LOGREALLOCS'
     Specifies that all memory reallocations are to be logged and sent
     to the log file.  Note that any memory reallocations made
     internally by the library will not be logged.

`MEDIUMBOUND'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory allocations should
     be classified as medium allocations for profiling purposes.  This
     limit must be greater than the small bound but less than the large
     bound.  Default value: `MEDIUMBOUND=256'.

`NOFREE'
     Specifies that the mpatrol library should keep all reallocated and
     freed memory allocations.  Such freed memory allocations will then
     be flagged as freed and can be used by the library to provide
     better diagnostics.  However, as no system memory will ever be
     reused by the mpatrol library, this option can quickly lead to a
     shortage of available system memory for a process.  Note that this
     option will always force a memory reallocation to return a pointer
     to newly-allocated memory, but the `expand()' function will never
     be affected by this option.

`NOPROTECT'
     Specifies that the mpatrol library's internal data structures
     should not be made read-only after every memory allocation
     reallocation or deallocation.  This may significantly speed up
     execution but this will be at the expense of less safety if the
     program accidentally overwrites some of the library's internal data
     structures.  Note that this option has no effect on systems that
     do not support memory protection.

`OFLOWBYTE'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to fill the overflow
     buffers of all memory allocations.  This is used internally to
     ensure that nothing has been written beyond the beginning or the
     end of a block of allocated memory.  Note that this setting will
     only have an effect if the `OFLOWSIZE' option is in use.  Default
     value: `OFLOWBYTE=0xAA'.

`OFLOWSIZE'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the size in bytes to use for all overflow buffers, which
     must be a power of two (and will be rounded up to the nearest
     power of two if it is not).  This is used internally to ensure
     that nothing has been written beyond the beginning or the end of a
     block of allocated memory.  Note that this setting specifies the
     size for only one of the overflow buffers given to each memory
     allocation; the other overflow buffer will have an identical size.
     No overflow buffers will be used if this setting is zero.
     Default value: `OFLOWSIZE=0'.

`OFLOWWATCH'
     Specifies that watch point areas should be used for overflow
     buffers rather than filling with the overflow byte.  This can
     significantly reduce the speed of program execution.  Note that
     this option has no effect on systems that do not support watch
     point areas.

`PAGEALLOC'=<`LOWER'|`UPPER'>
     Specifies that each individual memory allocation should occupy at
     least one page of virtual memory and should be placed at the
     lowest or highest point within these pages.  This allows the
     library to place an overflow buffer of one page on either side of
     every memory allocation and write-protect these pages as well as
     all free and freed memory.  Note that this option has no effect on
     systems that do not support memory protection, and is disabled by
     default on other systems as it can slow down the speed of program
     execution.

`PRESERVE'
     Specifies that any reallocated or freed memory allocations should
     preserve their original contents.  This option must be used with
     the `NOFREE' option and has no effect otherwise.

`PROF'
     Specifies that all memory allocations and deallocations are to be
     profiled and sent to the profiling output file.  Memory
     reallocations are treated as a memory deallocation immediately
     followed by a memory allocation.

`PROFFILE'=<STRING>
     Specifies an alternative file in which to place all memory
     allocation profiling information from the mpatrol library.  A
     filename of `stderr' will send this information to the `stderr'
     file stream and a filename of `stdout' will do the equivalent with
     the `stdout' file stream.  Note that if a problem occurs while
     opening the profiling output file then the profiling information
     will be sent to the `stderr' file stream.  Default value:
     `PROFFILE=mpatrol.out'.

`PROGFILE'=<STRING>
     Specifies an alternative filename with which to locate the
     executable file containing the program's symbols.  On most
     systems, the library will automatically be able to determine this
     filename, but on a few systems this option may have to be used
     before any or all symbols can be read.

`REALLOCSTOP'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies a reallocation index at which to stop the program when a
     memory allocation is being reallocated.  If the `ALLOCSTOP' option
     is non-zero then the program will be halted when the allocation
     matching that allocation index is reallocated the specified number
     of times.  Otherwise the program will be halted the first time any
     allocation is reallocated the specified number of times.  Note
     that this setting will be ignored if its value is zero.  Default
     value: `REALLOCSTOP=0'.

`SAFESIGNALS'
     Instructs the library to save and replace certain signal handlers
     during the execution of library code and to restore them
     afterwards.  This was the default behaviour in version 1.0 of the
     mpatrol library and was changed since some memory-intensive
     programs became very hard to interrupt using the keyboard, thus
     giving the impression that the program or system had hung.

`SHOWALL'
     Equivalent to the `SHOWFREED', `SHOWUNFREED', `SHOWMAP' and
     `SHOWSYMBOLS' options specified together.

`SHOWFREED'
     Specifies that a summary of all of the freed memory allocations
     should be displayed at the end of program execution.  This option
     must be used in conjunction with the `NOFREE' option and this step
     will not be performed if an abnormal termination occurs or if
     there were no freed allocations.

`SHOWMAP'
     Specifies that a memory map of the entire heap should be displayed
     at the end of program execution.  This step will not be performed
     if an abnormal termination occurs or if the heap is empty.

`SHOWSYMBOLS'
     Specifies that a summary of all of the function symbols read from
     the program's executable file should be displayed at the end of
     program execution.  This step will not be performed if an abnormal
     termination occurs or if no symbols could be read from the
     executable file.

`SHOWUNFREED'
     Specifies that a summary of all of the unfreed memory allocations
     should be displayed at the end of program execution.  This step
     will not be performed if an abnormal termination occurs or if
     there are no unfreed allocations.

`SMALLBOUND'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory allocations should
     be classified as small allocations for profiling purposes.  This
     limit must be greater than zero but less than the medium and large
     bounds.  Default value: `SMALLBOUND=32'.

`UNFREEDABORT'=<UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     Specifies the minimum number of unfreed allocations at which to
     abort the program just before program termination.  A summary of
     all the allocations will be displayed on the standard error file
     stream before aborting.  This option may be handy for use in batch
     tests as it can force tests to fail if they do not free up a
     minimum number of memory allocations.  Note that this setting will
     be ignored if its value is zero.  Default value: `UNFREEDABORT=0'.

`USEDEBUG'
     Specifies that any debugging information in the executable file
     should be used to obtain additional source-level information.
     This option will only have an effect if the executable file
     contains a compiler-generated line number table and will be
     ignored if the mpatrol library was built to support an object file
     access library that cannot read line tables from object files.
     Note that this option will slow down program execution, use up
     more system memory and may leave unaccounted unfreed memory
     allocations at program termination.

`USEMMAP'
     Specifies that the library should use `mmap()' instead of `sbrk()'
     to allocate system memory on UNIX platforms.  This option should
     be used if there are problems when using the mpatrol library in
     combination with another malloc library which uses `sbrk()' to
     allocate its memory.  It is ignored on systems that do not support
     the `mmap()' system call.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Options,  Next: Library performance,  Prev: Environment,  Up: Top

Options
*******

   A utility program called `mpatrol' is provided to run commands that
have been linked with the mpatrol library.

     mpatrol [options] <command> [arguments]

   The `mpatrol' command is used to set various mpatrol library OPTIONS
when running COMMAND with its ARGUMENTS.  In most cases, COMMAND must
have been linked with the mpatrol library, unless the `-d' option is
used in which case COMMAND need only have been dynamically linked.

   All mpatrol library diagnostics are sent to the file
`mpatrol.%n.log' in the current directory by default (where `%n' is the
current process id) but this can be changed using the `-l' option.
Similarly, the default profiling output filename is `mpatrol.%n.out'.
Note that the `LOGALL' option is always implicitly used for commands
that are run by this command.

   Alternatively, the log file and profiling output file names can
contain `%p', which will be replaced with the name of the program being
executed without the directory components.  If the executable filename
could not be determined or was not set then it will be replaced with
`mpatrol'.

   All of the following options (except `-d' and `-V') correspond to
their listed mpatrol library option (*note Environment::).

`-1' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`SMALLBOUND']  Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory
     allocations should be classified as small allocations for
     profiling purposes.

`-2' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`MEDIUMBOUND']  Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory
     allocations should be classified as medium allocations for
     profiling purposes.

`-3' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`LARGEBOUND']  Specifies the limit in bytes up to which memory
     allocations should be classified as large allocations for
     profiling purposes.

`-A' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`ALLOCSTOP']  Specifies an allocation index at which to stop the
     program when it is being allocated.

`-a' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`ALLOCBYTE']  Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to
     prefill newly-allocated memory.

`-C' <UNSIGNED-RANGE>
     [`CHECK']  Specifies a range of allocation indices at which to
     check the integrity of free memory and overflow buffers.

`-c'
     [`CHECKALL']  Specifies that all arguments to functions which
     allocate, reallocate and deallocate memory have rigorous checks
     performed on them.

`-D' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`DEFALIGN']  Specifies the default alignment for general-purpose
     memory allocations, which must be a power of two.

`-d'
     Specifies that programs which were not linked with the mpatrol
     library should also be traced, but only if they were dynamically
     linked.  This option will only work if the system dynamic linker
     has the ability to preload a set of user-specified shared
     libraries via a special environment variable.

`-e' <STRING>
     [`PROGFILE']  Specifies an alternative filename with which to
     locate the executable file containing the program's symbols.

`-F' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`FREESTOP']  Specifies an allocation index at which to stop the
     program when it is being freed.

`-f' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`FREEBYTE']  Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to prefill
     newly-freed memory.

`-G'
     [`SAFESIGNALS']  Instructs the library to save and replace certain
     signal handlers during the execution of library code and to
     restore them afterwards.

`-g'
     [`USEDEBUG']  Specifies that any debugging information in the
     executable file should be used to obtain additional source-level
     information.

`-L' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`LIMIT']  Specifies the limit in bytes at which all memory
     allocations should fail if the total allocated memory should
     increase beyond this.

`-l' <STRING>
     [`LOGFILE']  Specifies an alternative file in which to place all
     diagnostics from the mpatrol library.

`-M'
     [`ALLOWOFLOW']  Specifies that a warning rather than an error
     should be produced if any memory operation function overflows the
     boundaries of a memory allocation, and that the operation should
     still be performed.

`-m'
     [`USEMMAP']  Specifies that the library should use `mmap()' instead
     of `sbrk()' to allocate system memory.

`-N'
     [`NOPROTECT']  Specifies that the mpatrol library's internal data
     structures should not be made read-only after every memory
     allocation, reallocation or deallocation.

`-n'
     [`NOFREE']  Specifies that the mpatrol library should keep all
     reallocated and freed memory allocations.

`-O' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`OFLOWSIZE']  Specifies the size in bytes to use for all overflow
     buffers, which must be a power of two.

`-o' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`OFLOWBYTE']  Specifies an 8-bit byte pattern with which to fill
     the overflow buffers of all memory allocations.

`-P' <STRING>
     [`PROFFILE']  Specifies an alternative file in which to place all
     memory allocation profiling information from the mpatrol library.

`-p'
     [`PROF']  Specifies that all memory allocations are to be profiled
     and sent to the profiling output file.

`-Q' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`AUTOSAVE']  Specifies the frequency at which to periodically
     write the profiling data to the profiling output file.

`-R' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`REALLOCSTOP']  Specifies an allocation index at which to stop the
     program when a memory allocation is being reallocated.

`-S'
     [`SHOWMAP' & `SHOWSYMBOLS']  Specifies that a memory map of the
     entire heap and a summary of all of the function symbols read from
     the program's executable file should be displayed at the end of
     program execution.

`-s'
     [`SHOWFREED' & `SHOWUNFREED']  Specifies that a summary of all of
     the freed and unfreed memory allocations should be displayed at
     the end of program execution.

`-U' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`UNFREEDABORT']  Specifies the minimum number of unfreed
     allocations at which to abort the program just before program
     termination.

`-V'
     Displays the version number of the `mpatrol' command.

`-v'
     [`PRESERVE']  Specifies that any reallocated or freed memory
     allocations should preserve their original contents.

`-w'
     [`OFLOWWATCH']  Specifies that watch point areas should be used for
     overflow buffers rather than filling with the overflow byte.

`-X'
     [`PAGEALLOC=UPPER']  Specifies that each individual memory
     allocation should occupy at least one page of virtual memory and
     should be placed at the highest point within these pages.

`-x'
     [`PAGEALLOC=LOWER']  Specifies that each individual memory
     allocation should occupy at least one page of virtual memory and
     should be placed at the lowest point within these pages.

`-Z' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`FAILSEED']  Specifies the random number seed which will be used
     when determining which memory allocations will randomly fail.

`-z' <UNSIGNED-INTEGER>
     [`FAILFREQ']  Specifies the frequency at which all memory
     allocations will randomly fail.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Library performance,  Next: Profiling file format,  Prev: Options,  Up: Top

Library performance
*******************

   The following times were obtained on a Sun Ultra 5 with an
UltraSPARC IIi processor running at 333MHz and running Solaris 7.  The
test performed was the one in `tests/pass/test1.c' and all tests were
run on a lightly loaded system, but were run several times to obtain an
average result.  Obviously, these times can only be an approximation,
but should serve to illustrate the effects on performance that each
option can have.  All times are given in seconds, and the second time
on each line was obtained with the same options plus the `NOPROTECT'
option.  Running with the `CHECK=0' option would speed things up
dramatically, albeit at the expense of less error checking.

   Running with basic options:

_no options_                                0.618       0.258
`OFLOWSIZE=2'                               0.645       0.296
`OFLOWSIZE=8'                               0.686       0.327
`PAGEALLOC=LOWER'                           7.785       7.372
`PAGEALLOC=UPPER'                           7.821       7.469

   Running when all freed memory allocations are kept:

`NOFREE'                                    0.943       0.506
`NOFREE OFLOWSIZE=2'                        1.026       0.579
`NOFREE OFLOWSIZE=8'                        1.091       0.645
`NOFREE PAGEALLOC=LOWER'                    8.013       7.598
`NOFREE PAGEALLOC=UPPER'                    8.026       7.616

   Running when all freed memory allocations are kept and their
contents are preserved:

`NOFREE PRESERVE'                           0.719       0.292
`NOFREE PRESERVE OFLOWSIZE=2'               0.792       0.367
`NOFREE PRESERVE OFLOWSIZE=8'               0.850       0.419
`NOFREE PRESERVE PAGEALLOC=LOWER'           8.043       7.616
`NOFREE PRESERVE PAGEALLOC=UPPER'           8.052       7.631

   Running using watch points to check the overflow buffers:

`OFLOWSIZE=2 OFLOWWATCH'                    Interrupted after half an
                                            hour as it still hadn't
                                            finished.

   Running using the Solaris 7 malloc libraries:

Solaris 7 malloc(3c) library                0.033
Solaris 7 malloc(3x) library                0.036
Solaris 7 bsdmalloc(3x) library             0.028
Solaris 7 mapmalloc(3x) library             0.033
Solaris 7 watchmalloc(3x) library           40.845


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Profiling file format,  Next: Supported systems,  Prev: Library performance,  Up: Top

Profiling file format
*********************

   The format of the profiling output files that are produced by the
mpatrol library is described here.  Every profiling output file
contains the following components.

   * 4 bytes containing the characters `M', `P', `T' and `L'.

   * 1 unsigned integer representing the value `1'.  This is used by
     `mprof' to determine the endianness of the processor that produced
     the profiling output file so that it can decide whether to perform
     byte-swapping on the input data.

   * 3 unsigned integers containing the small, medium and large
     allocation bounds.

   * 1 unsigned integer containing the allocation bin size.  If the
     allocation bin size is greater than zero then it is followed by
     the allocation bins, the large allocation totals, the deallocation
     bins and the large deallocation totals, where the bins are arrays
     of unsigned integers with dimensions of the allocation bin size
     and the totals are unsigned integers.

   * 1 unsigned integer containing the number of profiling data
     structures.  If the number of profiling data structures is greater
     than zero then it is followed by the profiling data structures
     themselves, which are of the following structure.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the index of this profiling
          data.

        * 4 unsigned integers representing the small, medium, large and
          extra large allocation counts for this profiling data.

        * 4 unsigned integers representing the small, medium, large and
          extra large allocation totals for this profiling data.

        * 4 unsigned integers representing the small, medium, large and
          extra large deallocation counts for this profiling data.

        * 4 unsigned integers representing the small, medium, large and
          extra large deallocation totals for this profiling data.

   * 1 unsigned integer containing the number of call sites.  If the
     number of call sites is greater than zero then it is followed by
     the call sites themselves, which are of the following structure.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the index of this call site.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the index of the parent call
          site.

        * 1 generic pointer representing the code address of this call
          site.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the index of an associated
          symbol.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the offset of the symbol name.

        * 1 unsigned integer representing the index of any associated
          profiling data.

   * 1 unsigned integer containing the number of symbol addresses.  If
     the number of symbol addresses is greater than zero then it is
     followed by the symbol addresses themselves, which are generic
     pointers.

   * 1 unsigned integer containing the size of the symbol name string
     table.  This is followed by the symbol name string table, which is
     an array of characters containing the nul-terminated symbol names.

   * 4 bytes containing the characters `M', `P', `T' and `L'.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Supported systems,  Next: Notes,  Prev: Profiling file format,  Up: Top

Supported systems
*****************

   Following is a list of systems on which the mpatrol library has been
built and tested.  The system details include the operating system and
version, the processor type, the object file format and the C compiler
used to compile the library and tests.  The details following each
system list any features of the library that are not (or cannot be)
supported on that system.

   * AIX 4.1, IBM RS/6000, BFD, `cc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * Cannot automatically determine the program filename.

        * No support for call stack traversal.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * DG/UX 4.20MU07, Intel Pentium Pro, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command does not work unless
          `libelf.so' is available.

   * DG/UX 4.11, Intel Pentium Pro, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * DG/UX 4.11, Motorola 88100, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * Cannot automatically determine the program filename.

        * Call stack traversal only works with unoptimised code.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * DYNIX/ptx 4.5, Intel Pentium Pro, ELF32, `cc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * HP/UX 10.20, HP PA/RISC 9000, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEMMAP' option has no effect.

        * Cannot automatically determine the program filename.

        * No support for call stack traversal.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * IRIX 5.3, MIPS R4000, ELF32, `cc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * No support for call stack traversal.

        * Symbols cannot be read from any shared libraries that a
          program uses.

   * RedHat Linux 6.0, Intel Pentium III, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command does not work unless
          `libiberty.so' is available.

   * RedHat Linux 5.1, Motorola 68040, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command does not work unless
          `libiberty.so' is available.

   * RedHat Linux 5.1, Motorola 68040, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command does not work unless
          `libelf.so' is available.

   * LynxOS 3.0.0, PowerPC, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEMMAP' option has no effect.

        * Cannot automatically determine the program filename.

        * No support for call stack traversal.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * Solaris 2.6, Intel Pentium Pro, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

   * Solaris 2.6, Intel Pentium Pro, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

   * Solaris 7, SPARC V9, BFD, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

   * Solaris 7, SPARC V9, ELF32, `gcc'
        * The thread-safe version of the library does not work.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

   * AmigaOS 3.1, Motorola 68040, BFD, `gcc'
        * No memory protection so the `PAGEALLOC' option has no effect.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `USEMMAP' option has no effect.

        * Limited support for call stack traversal.

        * Limited support for reading symbols.

        * No detection of illegal memory accesses.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * AmigaOS 3.1, Motorola 68040, n/a, SAS/C
        * No automatic override of `malloc()', etc., without inclusion
          of `mpatrol.h'.

        * No memory protection so the `PAGEALLOC' option has no effect.

        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `USEMMAP' option has no effect.

        * No support for call stack traversal.

        * No support for reading symbols.

        * No detection of illegal memory accesses.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

   * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Intel Pentium III, n/a, Microsoft Visual
     C/C++
        * The `OFLOWWATCH' option has no effect.

        * The `USEDEBUG' option has no effect.

        * The `USEMMAP' option has no effect.

        * No support for reading symbols.

        * The address of an illegal memory access cannot be determined.

        * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command has no effect.

* Menu:

* New system support::          Adding a new operating system.
* New processor support::       Adding a new processor architecture.
* New file format support::     Adding a new object file format.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: New system support,  Next: New processor support,  Up: Supported systems

Adding a new operating system
=============================

   * Add a new `TARGET' and/or `SYSTEM' definition in `target.h'.  The
     `TARGET' macro is for fundamentally different operating systems,
     whereas the `SYSTEM' macro is for differentiating variations of a
     particular operating system.

   * Make any necessary modifications to `config.h'.

   * Add any support for memory allocation in `memory.c'.

   * Add any support for stack traversal in `stack.c'.

   * Add any support for signals in `signals.c'.

   * Add any support for threads in `mutex.c'.

   * Add any support for filenames in `diag.c'.

   * Add a new version and date format (or use an existing one) in
     `version.c'.

   * Decide if the `malloc()' replacements should be used from
     `malloc.c'.

   * Add any support for invoking commands in `mpatrol.c'.

   * Add a new subdirectory in the `build' directory that contains a
     `Makefile' and any other files that are required to build the
     library on the new operating system.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: New processor support,  Next: New file format support,  Prev: New system support,  Up: Supported systems

Adding a new processor architecture
===================================

   * Add a new `ARCH' definition in `target.h'.

   * Make any necessary modifications to `config.h'.

   * Add any support for memory allocation in `memory.c'.

   * Add any support for stack traversal in `stack.c'.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: New file format support,  Prev: New processor support,  Up: Supported systems

Adding a new object file format
===============================

   * Add a new `FORMAT' definition in `target.h'.

   * Make any necessary modifications to `config.h'.

   * Add any support for stack traversal in `stack.c'.

   * Add any support for symbol reading in `symbol.c'.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Notes,  Next: Related software,  Prev: Supported systems,  Up: Top

Notes
*****

   This section contains information about known bugs and limitations
in the mpatrol library as well as listing potential future enhancements.

   Bugs should be reported to <[e-mail]> along with
the details of the operating system, processor architecture and object
file format that the mpatrol library is being used with -- and don't
forget to include the version of the mpatrol library you are using!
Keep in mind that I only have access to an Amiga running RedHat
Linux/m68k 5.1 and AmigaOS 3.1, so I will be most likely unable to
reproduce most of the system-specific bugs.  A bug report that comes
with an associated fix will be most welcome.

   Enhancement requests and source code containing enhancements should
also be sent to <[e-mail]> or the mpatrol
discussion group at `http://www.egroups.com/group/mpatrol/'.  If you
are planning to implement an enhancement, let me know first in case I
am (or someone else is) working towards the same goal -- that way, work
won't be wasted.  If you wish to send me source code changes please
send the changes as context diffs or in an e-mail attachment as a
compressed tar archive.

* Menu:

* Generic notes::               Notes for all platforms.
* UNIX notes::                  Notes for UNIX platforms.
* Amiga notes::                 Notes for Amiga platforms.
* Windows notes::               Notes for Windows platforms.
* Netware notes::               Notes for Netware platforms.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Generic notes,  Next: UNIX notes,  Up: Notes

Notes for all platforms
=======================

   * C++ support is still fairly limited, and will possibly only work
     for older C++ code due to the way the operators are overridden
     (i.e. there are no exceptions versions of the functions).  There
     are also likely to be potential problems with the macros which
     redefine `malloc()' and `operator new', etc., since there may be
     member functions in code that will mistakenly be redefined if their
     names match the macro definitions, and also means that calls to
     placement `new' will not work at all.  Also, explicit references to
     `operator new' rather than `new' are likely to result in
     compilation errors, and the way that source level information is
     obtained for `operator delete' means that the resulting code will
     not be thread-safe.

   * Need to add support for 64-bit processors.  This shouldn't be too
     hard, but I haven't got access to a 64-bit environment to test it,
     so I haven't bothered yet.

   * The thread-safe code in the library doesn't yet work properly,
     probably because of the recursion flag which is incremented or
     decremented before the mutex is locked.  Hence, the threads test
     (`tests/pass/test5.c') doesn't work yet.

   * Need to make the library re-entrant.  This could be achieved by
     moving the static variables in `memory.c', `stack.c', `mutex.c',
     `diag.c', `option.c' and `sbrk.c' into the `infohead' structure
     and then having an array of `infohead' structures from which to
     allocate new memory headers when a new one is required.  This is
     only necessary for Amiga shared libraries and Netware NLMs since
     UNIX and Windows platforms allocate a new copy of the data section
     in a shared library or DLL when it is opened by a new process.

   * The current implementation of call stack traversal is limited and
     will only likely work for unoptimised code.  A much better
     solution would be write the implementation at a lower level in
     assembly, but this is much less portable.  Perhaps there is a
     library which can be used to perform this across many operating
     systems and processor architectures, or maybe someone would like to
     write one?  I can think of many applications that would benefit
     from such a library besides this one(1).

   * An alternative implementation for call stack traversal uses the
     functions `__builtin_frame_address()' and
     `__builtin_return_address()' that are available when the library
     is compiled with `gcc'.  However, they can only traverse a number
     of stack frames at compile-time, not run-time so there is a
     maximum number of stack frames that can be traversed at any one
     time.  The implementation depends on both of these builtin
     functions returning `NULL' when the top of stack is reached.  If
     this is not the case then this method cannot be used or should
     only be used with a small number of fixed stack frames.

   * Add a function to display a stack trace of the current call stack
     to a file stream and another function to walk all current memory
     allocations invoking a call-back function for each one
     encountered.  Note that there is still an issue with call-back
     functions if they call mpatrol library functions, since this will
     lead to recursion.

   * In object file formats that support nested symbols (such as ELF),
     the current implementation will tend to show some shortcomings.
     This is because there is currently no nesting count in the
     function that deals with symbol name lookup, so the wrong symbol
     name may be displayed in diagnostics.

   * In object file formats that don't store the sizes of symbols (such
     as basic COFF, or when using the GNU BFD library), the current
     implementation will simply assume that the current symbol
     terminates at the beginning of the next symbol in the virtual
     address space.

   * There still appears to be a problem with the code address to line
     number mapping provided by the GNU BFD library, and this needs to
     be looked into further.  Also need to store filename and line
     number information in all call stacks so that the information can
     be used at program termination.  May also need to display this
     information in the `__mp_printinfo()' function and add this
     information to the profiling output file so that `mprof' can make
     use of it.

   * Perhaps add the ability to profile memory operations such as
     `memcpy()' and `memset()' to the existing memory allocation
     profiling facility.  Also, add options to `mprof' to write out
     files that can be used by graph drawing software for a better
     visualisation of the profiling information.  Finally, perhaps add
     an allocation call graph table to `mprof', similar to that
     produced by `gprof' for execution call graphs.

   * Perhaps add a memory usage profiling feature which would dump out
     memory usage statistics to a file at set intervals during run-time
     so that a table of memory usage could be built up.  This could
     also be extended to having a graphical tool which could display
     this information.

   * Add a CRC checksum to memory blocks and use it to check that freed
     memory allocations have not been corrupted when the `NOFREE' and
     `PRESERVE' options are in use on platforms which have no memory
     protection.  This could also be extended to marking allocated
     memory blocks and then displaying what blocks have changed after a
     certain period from within a debugger.  Another idea could be to
     display all memory allocations, etc.  made since a certain
     function was called from within a program.

   * Improve use of watch points by allowing an option which will only
     install write watch points instead of both read and write watch
     points.  Not only will this speed up the use of watch points, but
     will also cause less problems with reading from misaligned memory
     allocations.

   * Perhaps add memory protection to the simulated `sbrk' heap.

   * Add a `SHOWFREE' option to display a list of all free memory
     blocks at program termination for debugging purposes to view
     memory fragmentation.  If that option is added then perhaps
     `SHOWALL' should only be equivalent to `SHOWFREE', `SHOWFREED' and
     `SHOWUNFREED', and `SHOWMAP' and `SHOWSYMBOLS' should be
     explicitly given.

   * Add an option, similar to `NOFREE', that would prevent a freed
     memory allocation from being used until a certain number of memory
     allocations later.  This would be far less of a resource-hogger
     than the `NOFREE' option and might catch just as many errors but
     might be extremely hard to implement.

   * Add an extra piece of information in the log file summary which
     highlights the peak number of memory allocations in use at any one
     time during program execution.

   * Add versions of `mallopt()', `mallinfo()', `memorymap()',
     `mallocctl()', `mallocblksize()' and `msize()' which are provided
     in many other malloc libraries.  These won't necessarily behave in
     exactly the same way as existing implementations, but at least
     there won't be link errors when compiling source code which uses
     them.

   * Perhaps add debugging/tracing versions of the string manipulation
     functions, such as `strlen()' and `strcmp()' in much the same way
     as was done for the memory operation functions.  The only problem
     with this would be locale support, but perhaps it might be easier
     just to assume the C locale to begin with.  Also need to have
     better detection of internal and free blocks when displaying
     memory range errors.

   * Perhaps add definitions of `xmalloc()', `xrealloc()', etc. which
     never return `NULL' on failure, and perhaps also add definitions of
     `XtMalloc()', `XtRealloc()', etc. for X-Window programming.  Some
     other malloc libraries provide versions of these but perhaps they
     are not needed if they are implemented using `malloc()',
     `realloc()', etc.

   * Add another library which can be linked in instead of mpatrol and
     replaces all calls to `__mp_alloc()', etc., with the original
     calls to `malloc()' and related functions.  This would be very
     useful for quickly removing all mpatrol functionality for perhaps
     even a release build, and might be useful for implementing
     functions such as `memalign()' which don't exist on many systems.

   * Write a set of functions that are compatible with those
     implemented by Checker, the `gcc' run-time memory access checker.
     This would allow every memory access to be checked in object files
     compiled with `gcc', not just pointers into the heap, and would
     provide error checking as effective as source code
     instrumentation.  Could also make use of the `etext', `edata' and
     `end' pointers that are set at run-time on most UNIX systems.

   * Perhaps remove the automatic logging of memory operations from
     programs run through the `mpatrol' command, and instead add an
     option to do it explicitly.

   * Add an option to specify that all failed memory allocations should
     abort (or at least give a warning) instead of returning a `NULL'
     pointer.  Also, perhaps add an option to display the partial
     contents of freed and unfreed allocations in the mpatrol log file.

   * Perhaps use GNU autoconf to automatically work out values for
     `config.h' on the platform it is being built on, and also use
     automake, libtool and install when building and installing files.

   * The postscript version of the quick reference card seems to print
     at an unusual offset on some printers.  Also, the PDF version gets
     created with 1 inch margins rather than half inch margins which
     means that it is one inch too large in both dimensions.  Need to
     figure out what is happening in both cases.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) The latest release of the GNU C library includes a `backtrace()'
function which fills in an array of return addresses, but this requires
the presence of the library and some features of GCC.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: UNIX notes,  Next: Amiga notes,  Prev: Generic notes,  Up: Notes

Notes for UNIX platforms
========================

   * Need to add watch point area support for non-Solaris operating
     systems.  This may be a case of preventing all heap memory from
     being accessed and providing a signal handler that is called when
     a read from or write to such memory triggers a signal.  The
     handler could then determine if the address is in a watch point,
     and if it is not it could unprotect the memory and return.

   * Need to improve watch point facility in order to speed it up by an
     order of magnitudes.  This will most likely involve removing all
     watch points when entering the library and replacing them when
     returning to user code.

   * Need to add advanced signal information for operating systems that
     do not support the `siginfo()' system call.  This information is
     used by the signal handler that handles the `SIGSEGV' signal in
     order to provide useful information about where an illegal memory
     access occurred.  However, there is currently a problem in that
     the call stack displayed from within that handler is not
     necessarily accurate with respect to the function at the top of
     the stack.  Also, signal handlers shouldn't technically call I/O
     functions in case of additional signals being caught so this may
     need to be improved.

   * Need to add a portable way of initialising the thread-safe version
     of the library when it is compiled by a C compiler.  There is
     already a solution to this problem when it is compiled by a C++
     compiler, but it may only work if the final program is linked with
     that specific compiler.

   * Need to add support for call stack traversal for at least the
     Alpha, MIPS, PA/RISC, PowerPC and RS/6000 processor architectures.
     The current implementation of call stack traversal for the
     Motorola 88xx0 family is also a bit flaky and so should only be
     used when the library and program are built unoptimised.

   * Need to add support for obtaining the program name from the stack
     for at least the Alpha, Motorola 88xx0, non-IRIX MIPS, PA/RISC,
     PowerPC and RS/6000 processor architectures.  Also need to add
     support for reading the program symbols from a suitable file in
     `/proc' for other operating systems that support it.  If there is
     no support for either of these methods then the `PROGFILE' option
     can currently be used to specify the program name at run-time.

   * The library cannot currently read any symbols from shared objects
     that have been read via `dlopen()'.  Also, on IRIX platforms no
     symbols can currently be read from any shared libraries that were
     used by a program.  This is because SGI have a slightly different
     interface to their dynamic linker that I haven't been able to
     figure out yet.

   * There is a problem on later Linux releases where the `_DYNAMIC'
     symbol is defined in `elf.h', thus resulting in a conflicting
     definition when compiling `symbol.c'.

   * The `-d' option to the `mpatrol' command does not always work on
     systems whose dynamic linkers support the `LD_PRELOAD' or
     `_RLD_LIST' environment variables.  This is because the object
     file format access libraries do not exist in shared form on such
     systems.  There is also likely to be an issue when running with
     thread-safe libraries.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Amiga notes,  Next: Windows notes,  Prev: UNIX notes,  Up: Notes

Notes for Amiga platforms
=========================

   * Perhaps add support for building mpatrol as an Amiga shared
     library.  I attempted to do this in a previous release of mpatrol,
     but it would have involved too many source changes to get working
     fully.  Perhaps it's not even worth implementing as the archive
     library works fine.

   * Need to add proper support for call stack traversal for both the
     Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC processor architectures.  When `gcc' is
     being used then up to two stack frames can be traversed, but this
     should really be extended without requiring
     `MP_BUILTINSTACK_SUPPORT'.  When SAS/C is being used then there is
     no support for call stack traversal.

   * Need to add proper support for reading symbols from Amiga
     executable files.  When `gcc' is being used then the BFD library
     routines will be called to determine the symbols from the
     executable file, but this will only work for objects compiled with
     `gcc'.  When SAS/C is being used then there is no support for
     reading symbols from executable files.  Also need to add support
     for reading symbols from any shared libraries that are required by
     the program.

   * Possibly make use of other software such as Enforcer, Mungwall or
     MuLib in order to provide some form of memory protection.  The
     features of SegTracker could also be put to good use so that the
     file and hunk location of entries on the call stack could be
     determined.

   * When using SAS/C it is currently not possible to override the
     definition of `malloc()', etc., without including the `mpatrol.h'
     header file first.  This is because the compiler startup code and
     libraries call `malloc()' before everything is set up, and so the
     library cannot properly initialise itself if the `malloc()' that
     the startup code finds is the `malloc()' in the mpatrol library.
     This restriction does not exist when using `gcc'.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Windows notes,  Next: Netware notes,  Prev: Amiga notes,  Up: Notes

Notes for Windows platforms
===========================

   * Need to add watch point area support, possibly by using guard
     pages as a basis for an implementation.

   * Need to add support for reading symbols from Windows executable
     files.  Also need to add support for reading symbols from any DLLs
     that are required by the program.  This may be possible in a
     limited fashion by using the GNU BFD library, but may only work
     with code compiled with `gcc'.

   * There seems to be a problem when mixing the archive version of the
     mpatrol library and the Microsoft C run-time library DLL, and vice
     versa.  This needs to be looked into, but for the moment, don't
     mix them.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Netware notes,  Prev: Windows notes,  Up: Notes

Notes for Netware platforms
===========================

   * The library has not yet been built (let alone tested) on Netware
     platforms.  The names of the system functions that the library
     calls for Netware were obtained by looking at Novell's developer
     documentation, so they may not even compile correctly without
     modification.

   * Need to add support for building the mpatrol library as an NLM.
     This is not currently a high priority requirement as the archive
     library should suffice for most purposes.

   * Need to add way to determine when the base of the stack has been
     reached during call stack traversal, since on Netware every
     application is really a thread running under one large process.

   * Need to add support for reading symbols from Netware load modules.
     Also need to add support for reading symbols from any NLMs that
     are required by the program.  This may be possible in a limited
     fashion by using the GNU BFD library, but may only work with code
     compiled with `gcc'.

   * Need to investigate if it is safe (or even possible) to override
     the definitions of `malloc()', etc., without including the
     `mpatrol.h' header file first.  Currently, non-macro definitions
     for these functions have been disabled in the Netware version of
     the library in case they affect other NLMs that are currently
     running.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Related software,  Next: Function index,  Prev: Notes,  Up: Top

Related software
****************

   A list of software which helps in debugging dynamic memory
allocation problems is given below(1).  They all provide some of the
features that mpatrol contains and you may wish to use one of them to
solve your problem if you have trouble using mpatrol.  I have only ever
used Dbmalloc and Electric Fence, so I can't vouch for any of the
others, although if you have any recommendations feel free to let me
know so I can add them to this list.  In particular, there seems to be
a shortage of such programs for Netware platforms.

   * APurify
    Author
          Samuel Devulder (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/dirs/dev_debug.html'

    Overview
          Instruments an assembler source file to insert code that
          checks all memory accesses.

   * BoundsChecker
    Author
          NuMega Corporation (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          MS-DOS, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.numega.com/'

    Overview
          Detects and diagnoses errors in static, stack and heap memory
          and in memory and resource leaks.

   * Ccmalloc
    Author
          Armin Biere (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://iseran.ira.uka.de/~armin/ccmalloc/'

    Overview
          Can interface with `gdb' to find memory leaks, multiple
          deallocations and memory corruptions in C or C++ programs.

   * Chaperon
    Author
          John Reiser (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://www.BitWagon.com/chaperon.html'

    Overview
          Runs existing Intel Linux binary application programs, but
          checks for and reports bad behaviour in accessing memory.

   * Checker
    Author
          Tristan Gingold (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.gnu.org/'

    Overview
          Detects illegal memory accesses when reading from
          uninitialised memory, writing to freed memory or outside
          memory blocks.  Also contains a garbage collector for
          detecting memory leaks.

   * CSRI malloc
    Author
          Mark Moraes (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/moraes/malloc.tar.gz'

    Overview
          A library of dynamic memory allocation functions with limited
          debugging and profiling support and detection of memory
          leaks.  Also comes with a graphical tool to display a dynamic
          picture of the heap.

   * Dbmalloc
    Author
          Conor P. Cahill (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/dbmalloc/dbmalloc.html'

    Overview
          Provides replacements for memory management library functions
          and provides a full set of debugging features which detect
          memory overruns and other types of misuse.

   * Debauch
    Author
          Jon A. Christopher (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://quorum.tamu.edu/jon/gnu/'

    Overview
          A memory allocation debugger for C which will detect memory
          leaks, corrupted memory, stores to freed memory and more.

   * Debug Heap
    Author
          IBM Corporation (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          IBM AS/400

    Location
          `http://www.as400.ibm.com/developer/porting/heapexternal.html'

    Overview
          A heap debugging environment with stack traceback for IBM
          AS/400 servers.

   * Dmalloc
    Author
          Gray Watson (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, MS-DOS, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.dmalloc.com/'

    Overview
          A drop-in replacement for the system's memory management
          routines, providing powerful debugging facilities
          configurable at run-time.  Formerly known as Malloc_Dbg.

   * Electric Fence
    Author
          Bruce Perens (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `ftp://ftp.perens.com/pub/ElectricFence/'

    Overview
          Uses virtual memory hardware to protect dynamically allocated
          memory in order to detect illegal memory accesses.

   * Enforcer
    Author
          Michael Sinz (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://www.iam.com/amiga/enforcer.html'

    Overview
          Sets up MMU tables to watch for illegal accesses to memory,
          such as the low page and non-existent pages.

   * FDA (Free Debug Allocator)
    Author
          Thomas Helvey (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/devel/fda.html'

    Overview
          Provides routines that can be plugged in to replace
          `malloc()', `calloc()', `realloc()' and `free()'.

   * Fortify
    Author
          Simon Bullen (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/8596/fortify.html'

    Overview
          Provides a fortified shell for memory allocations, trapping
          memory leaks, writes beyond and before memory blocks and
          writes to freed memory.

   * GC (Garbage Collector)
    Author
          Hans-J. Boehm (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, AmigaOS, MS-DOS, Windows, MacOS

    Location
          `http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/'

    Overview
          A general-purpose, garbage-collecting storage allocator that
          is intended to be used as a plug-in replacement for
          `malloc()', but can also be used to detect memory leaks.

   * GlowCode
    Author
          Electric Software, Inc. (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Windows

    Location
          `http://www.glowcode.com/'

    Overview
          Provides a profiler, call coverage tool and resource browser
          which can detail memory leaks.

   * Great Circle
    Author
          Geodesic Systems (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.geodesic.com/'

    Overview
          Provides complete heap profiling, allowing programmers to see
          what parts of a program are using the most memory with
          symbolic stack tracing.

   * HeapAgent
    Author
          MicroQuill (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Windows

    Location
          `http://www.microquill.com/'

    Overview
          Instruments the heap to provide heap error detection without
          the need to recompile any source code.

   * Insure++
    Author
          ParaSoft (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.parasoft.com/'

    Overview
          Uses Source Code Instrumentation and Runtime Pointer Tracking
          technologies to pinpoint memory corruption, memory leaks,
          operations on unrelated pointers and more.  The Inuse
          graphical memory usage display tool is also provided with this
          software.

   * JMalloc
    Author
          Jeff Dunlop

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          MS-DOS, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.snippets.org/'

    Overview
          Provides tracing and debugging for `malloc()' and `operator
          new'.

   * JProbe
    Author
          KL Group (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.klgroup.com/'

    Overview
          Helps pinpoint memory leaks in Java applications by tracking
          which objects hold references to other objects, and allows
          visualisation of memory usage in real-time.

   * Leak
    Author
          Christopher Phillips (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://sources.isc.org/devel/memleak/leak.txt'

    Overview
          Logs all calls to `malloc()' and related functions to
          database files with the filename and line number, then
          attempts to validate reallocations and deallocations and
          detect memory leaks.

   * LeakTracer
    Author
          Erwin Andreasen (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.andreasen.org/LeakTracer/'

    Overview
          Detects memory leaks in C++ programs by overriding `operator
          new' and `operator delete'.

   * Leaky
    Author
          Kipp Hickman (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Netscape Public License

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://www.mozilla.org/unix/leaky.html'

    Overview
          A program which helps find memory leaks and helps debug
          reference count problems with xpcom objects.

   * Malloc Debug
    Author
          Brandon S. Allbery <[e-mail]>

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.leo.org/pub/comp/usenet/comp.sources.misc/malloc-debug/'

    Overview
          A debugging malloc package with stack traceback capability.

   * Malloc Debug Library
    Author
          Rammi (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.escape.de/users/quincunx/rmdebug.html'

    Overview
          Implements wrappers for the normal heap handling functions.

   * MallocTrace
    Author
          Mark Brader (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/comp.sources.unix/volume18/malloc-trace.Z'

    Overview
          A malloc package with call stack tracebacks.

   * MCheck
    Author
          Ronald Veldema (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://www.cs.vu.nl/~rveldema/mcheck/mcheck.html'

    Overview
          A memory usage and malloc checker for C and C++.  Comes with
          a Java application for browsing the trace files produced.

   * MEM
    Author
          Walter Bright

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          MS-DOS

    Location
          `http://www.snippets.org/'

    Overview
          A set of functions for debugging pointer and memory
          allocation problems.

   * MemCheck
    Author
          Stratosware Corporation (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Windows

    Location
          `http://www.stratosware.com/'

    Overview
          Detects various run-time errors related to operating system
          resources and provides information on memory leaks.

   * MemDebug
    Author
          Rene Schmit (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, MS-DOS, Windows, MacOS

    Location
          `ftp://ftp.crpht.lu/pub/sources/memdebug/'

    Overview
          Provides memory management error detection, memory usage
          error detection, memory usage profiling and error simulation.

   * MemLeak
    Author
          Keith Packard (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.4/xc/util/memleak/'

    Overview
          Replaces the C library allocation functions and provides
          extensive memory checking, locating lost memory, detecting
          free memory still in use and stores to free memory along with
          stack tracebacks.

   * Memory Advisor
    Author
          PLATINUM Technology (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.platinum.com/'

    Overview
          Disassembles an object module into system-independent
          assembler code, inserts error checking instructions, then
          re-assembles the code.  Can also replace existing malloc
          libraries in order to provide greater error checking.
          Formerly known as Sentinel.

   * Memory Sleuth
    Author
          TurboPower (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Windows

    Location
          `http://www.turbopower.com/'

    Overview
          Quickly tracks down memory leaks and resource allocation
          errors with C++Builder and Delphi.

   * Memprof
    Author
          Owen Taylor (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://people.redhat.com/otaylor/memprof/'

    Overview
          A tool for profiling memory usage and detecting memory leaks.

   * Memproof
    Author
          AutomatedQA (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Windows

    Location
          `http://www.totalqa.com/'

    Overview
          A memory and resource leak debugger for Borland's family of
          Windows compilers.

   * MemWatch
    Author
          Johan Lindh (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.link-data.com/'

    Overview
          A fault-tolerant memory leak and corruption detection tool.

   * MemWatch
    Author
          Doug Walker (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/dirs/dev_debug.html'

    Overview
          Provides replacement memory allocation routines for adding
          lots of memory debugging features that you link into your
          program.

   * MM (Shared Memory Library)
    Author
          Ralf S. Engelschall (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.engelschall.com/sw/mm/'

    Overview
          Simplifies the usage (and can help debug) the use of shared
          memory between related processes.

   * Mmalloc
    Author
          Mike Haertel (<[e-mail]>) and Fred Fish
          (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.gnu.org/'

    Overview
          Uses `mmap()' to allocate separate pools of memory which can
          be mapped onto files for later reuse.

   * MPR
    Author
          Taj Khattra (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Linux

    Location
          `http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/lang/c/mpr-2.0.tar.gz'

    Overview
          Attempts to find memory leaks in C/C++ programs by writing a
          log file during program execution, which can then be
          processed for obtaining further information.

   * Mprof
    Author
          Ben Zorn (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/misc/mprof-3.0.tar.Z'

    Overview
          Profiles the dynamic memory allocation behaviour of programs
          by logging details for each function than makes a memory
          allocation, including call stack tracebacks.

   * MuForce
    Author
          Thomas Richter (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/thor/index.html'

    Overview
          Uses the MMU to monitor the system for any writes to
          non-existent memory and reports them over the serial port or
          any other output stream.

   * MuGuardianAngel
    Author
          Thomas Richter (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/thor/index.html'

    Overview
          An extension to the MuForce program which protects free
          memory and detects all illegal memory accesses.

   * MuLib
    Author
          Thomas Richter (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/thor/index.html'

    Overview
          Provides access to the MMU in modern Amigas so that features
          such as virtual memory can be implemented.

   * Mungwall
    Author
          Commodore-Amiga, Inc. (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/dirs/dev_debug.html'

    Overview
          Patches the system to check for free memory corruption.

   * NJAMD (Not Just Another Malloc Debugger)
    Author
          Mike Perry (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://fscked.org/proj/njamd.shtml/'

    Overview
          Helps track down a wide range of memory allocation problems
          and is divided into a front end executable and a library back
          end.

   * Optimizeit
    Author
          Intuitive Systems, Inc. (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.optimizeit.com/'

    Overview
          Attempts to locate memory leaks and performance bottlenecks
          in Java programs.

   * Plumber
    Author
          Owen O'Malley (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux, Solaris, SunOS

    Location
          `http://www.ics.uci.edu/~softtest/plumber.html'

    Overview
          A tool that replaces the normal Ada and C/C++ dynamic memory
          allocation functions and detects unfreed memory blocks.

   * Purify
    Author
          Rational Software (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://www.rational.com/'

    Overview
          Uses Object Code Insertion technology to provide run-time
          error checking and memory leak detection.

   * QC
    Author
          Onyx Technology (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          MacOS

    Location
          `http://www.onyx-tech.com/'

    Overview
          Runs in the background as a control panel and detects various
          memory errors which can then be caught and run under a
          debugger.

   * TestCenter
    Author
          CenterLine Development Systems (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Various UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.centerline.com/'

    Overview
          Detects memory leaks, duplicate frees and illegal access
          errors including loads from uninitialised objects.

   * Third Degree
    Author
          Digital Equipment Corporation (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          Digital UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.digital.com/'

    Overview
          A tool that performs memory access checks and memory leak
          detection of C, C++ and Fortran programs at run-time.
          Applications are modified using ATOM to determine if any
          memory locations are accessed when not properly allocated or
          initialised.

   * Vmalloc
    Author
          Kiem-Phong Vo (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          AT&T Source Code License

    Platforms
          Various UNIX, Windows

    Location
          `http://akpublic.research.att.com/sw/tools/vmalloc/'

    Overview
          A discipline and method library for dynamic memory
          allocation, with support for regions, debugging and profiling.

   * Wipeout
    Author
          Olaf Barthel (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Free Software

    Platforms
          AmigaOS

    Location
          `http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/dirs/dev_debug.html'

    Overview
          Runs in the background checking free memory for corruption.

   * YAMD (Yet Another Malloc Debugger)
    Author
          Nate Eldredge (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          GNU General Public License

    Platforms
          Linux, DOS

    Location
          `http://www3.hmc.edu/~neldredge/yamd/'

    Overview
          A tool for finding bugs related to dynamic memory allocation
          in C and C++, and includes paging mechanisms to catch bugs
          immediately.

   * ZeroFault
    Author
          The Kernel Group (<[e-mail]>)

    License
          Commercial Software

    Platforms
          AIX UNIX

    Location
          `http://www.zerofault.com/'

    Overview
          Uses run-time emulator technology to provide run-time error
          checking and memory leak detection.

   However, before you try out any of the above software, there may
already be a malloc library with debugging support on your system that
might be suitable for solving your problem.  For example, on Solaris 7
the following libraries are available:

`malloc(3c)'
     Trade-off between performance and efficiency.

`malloc(3x)'
     Slower performance, space-efficient.

`bsdmalloc(3x)'
     Better performance, space-inefficient.

`mtmalloc(3t)'
     Thread-safe memory allocator.

`mapmalloc(3x)'
     Uses `mmap()' instead of `sbrk()' to allocate heap space.

`watchmalloc(3x)'
     Uses watch point areas to check for overflows.

   On platforms with the GNU C library, such as Linux, there are several
environment variables that can be used to enable various debugging
features of `malloc()', etc.  There are also extra functions provided
in the library which can be used to aid in debugging, and some shell
scripts which can translate return addresses or locate unfreed memory
allocations in the log files produced.  Useful information on the
debugging features available within the GNU C library is located at
`http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/aj_debug.html'.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) This list can be considered to be a slightly more up to date
version of `Debugging Tools for Dynamic Storage Allocation and Memory
Management' (`http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~zorn/MallocDebug.html') by Ben
Zorn (<[e-mail]>).


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Function index,  Next: Index,  Prev: Related software,  Up: Top

Function index
**************

* Menu:

* __mp_check:                            Functions.
* __mp_epilogue:                         Functions.
* __mp_info:                             Functions.
* __mp_memorymap:                        Functions.
* __mp_nomemory:                         Functions.
* __mp_printinfo:                        Functions.
* __mp_prologue:                         Functions.
* __mp_summary:                          Functions.
* bcmp:                                  Functions.
* bcopy:                                 Functions.
* bzero:                                 Functions.
* calloc:                                Functions.
* cfree:                                 Functions.
* expand:                                Functions.
* free:                                  Functions.
* malloc:                                Functions.
* memalign:                              Functions.
* memccpy:                               Functions.
* memchr:                                Functions.
* memcmp:                                Functions.
* memcpy:                                Functions.
* memmem:                                Functions.
* memmove:                               Functions.
* memset:                                Functions.
* operator delete:                       Functions.
* operator delete[]:                     Functions.
* operator new:                          Functions.
* operator new[]:                        Functions.
* pvalloc:                               Functions.
* realloc:                               Functions.
* recalloc:                              Functions.
* set_new_handler:                       Functions.
* strdup:                                Functions.
* strndup:                               Functions.
* strnsave:                              Functions.
* strsave:                               Functions.
* valloc:                                Functions.


File: mpatrol.info,  Node: Index,  Prev: Function index,  Up: Top

Index
*****

* Menu:

* -1:                                    Options.
* -2:                                    Options.
* -3:                                    Options.
* -A:                                    Options.
* -a:                                    Options.
* -C:                                    Options.
* -c:                                    Options.
* -d:                                    Options.
* -D:                                    Options.
* -e:                                    Options.
* -F:                                    Options.
* -f:                                    Options.
* -g:                                    Options.
* -G:                                    Options.
* -L:                                    Options.
* -l:                                    Options.
* -M:                                    Options.
* -m:                                    Options.
* -N:                                    Options.
* -n:                                    Options.
* -O:                                    Options.
* -o:                                    Options.
* -p:                                    Options.
* -P:                                    Options.
* -Q:                                    Options.
* -R:                                    Options.
* -S:                                    Options.
* -s:                                    Options.
* -U:                                    Options.
* -V:                                    Options.
* -v:                                    Options.
* -w:                                    Options.
* -x:                                    Options.
* -X:                                    Options.
* -Z:                                    Options.
* -z:                                    Options.
* .gdbinit:                              Using with a debugger.
* _RLD_LIST:                             Utilities.
* ABI:                                   Call stacks and symbol tables.
* acknowledgements:                      Foreword.
* adding a new object file format:       New file format support.
* adding a new operating system:         New system support.
* adding a new processor architecture:   New processor support.
* address space:                         Operating system support.
* address, physical:                     Virtual memory.
* address, virtual:                      Virtual memory.
* AIX, IBM RS/6000:                      Supported systems.
* alignment:                             Library behaviour.
* all (make target):                     Installation.
* alloca:                                Dynamic memory allocations.
* allocated blocks:                      Example 1.
* allocation algorithm:                  How it works.
* allocation bin table:                  Profiling.
* allocation bins:                       Profiling.
* allocation boundaries:                 Profiling.
* allocation byte:                       General errors.
* allocation index:                      Example 1.
* allocation information:                Functions.
* allocation type:                       Example 1.
* ALLOCBYTE:                             Environment.
* ALLOCSTOP:                             Environment.
* ALLOWOFLOW:                            Environment.
* amalloc:                               Improving performance.
* Amiga 4000/040:                        Installation.
* Amiga notes:                           Amiga notes.
* AmigaOS, Motorola 680x0:               Supported systems.
* ANSI:                                  Improving performance.
* application binary interface:          Call stacks and symbol tables.
* APurify:                               Related software.
* AR:                                    Installation.
* archive library:                       Features.
* arenas:                                Improving performance.
* ATOM:                                  Related software.
* author, contacting:                    Foreword.
* AutomatedQA:                           Related software.
* AUTOSAVE:                              Environment.
* BASIC:                                 Memory allocations.
* batch testing:                         Testing.
* best fit:                              How it works.
* BFD:                                   Examples.
* bin:                                   Profiling.
* binary:                                Environment.
* binary file:                           Profiling.
* blocks:                                Example 1.
* BoundsChecker:                         Related software.
* breakpoint:                            Using with a debugger.
* bsdmalloc(3x):                         Related software.
* BSS:                                   Static memory allocations.
* buffers, overflow:                     Overwrites and underwrites.
* bug reports:                           Foreword.
* bugs:                                  Notes.
* building the library:                  Installation.
* bus errors:                            Library behaviour.
* bytes compared:                        Example 1.
* bytes copied:                          Example 1.
* bytes located:                         Example 1.
* bytes set:                             Example 1.
* C:                                     Memory allocations.
* C++:                                   Memory allocations.
* C++ mangled names:                     Example 1.
* call sites:                            Profiling.
* call stacks:                           Call stacks and symbol tables.
* call-by-value:                         Stack memory allocations.
* callback functions:                    Example 1.
* calling convention:                    Call stacks and symbol tables.
* CC:                                    Installation.
* Ccmalloc:                              Related software.
* CenterLine Development Systems:        Related software.
* CFLAGS:                                Installation.
* Chaperon:                              Related software.
* CHECK:                                 Environment.
* CHECKALL:                              Environment.
* CHECKALLOCS:                           Environment.
* Checker:                               Related software.
* CHECKFREES:                            Environment.
* CHECKREALLOCS:                         Environment.
* clean (make target):                   Installation.
* clobber (make target):                 Installation.
* COFF:                                  Examples.
* command line options:                  Options.
* Commodore-Amiga, Inc.:                 Related software.
* common variables:                      Static memory allocations.
* compiler:                              Installation.
* compiling:                             Installation.
* contacting the author:                 Foreword.
* contributors:                          Foreword.
* crash:                                 Example 1.
* CSRI malloc:                           Related software.
* data sections:                         Static memory allocations.
* Dbmalloc:                              Related software.
* Debauch:                               Related software.
* Debug Heap:                            Related software.
* debugger:                              Using with a debugger.
* debugging:                             Using with a debugger.
* debugging information:                 Call stacks and symbol tables.
* decimal:                               Environment.
* declarations, tentative:               Static memory allocations.
* DEFALIGN:                              Environment.
* demangler:                             Example 1.
* DG/UX, Intel 80x86:                    Supported systems.
* DG/UX, Motorola 88xx0:                 Supported systems.
* Digital Equipment Corporation:         Related software.
* Digital UNIX:                          Improving performance.
* direct allocation table:               Profiling.
* direct allocations:                    Profiling.
* DLLs:                                  Call stacks and symbol tables.
* Dmalloc:                               Related software.
* documentation:                         Installation.
* dumping memory:                        Example 4.
* dynamic link libraries:                Call stacks and symbol tables.
* dynamic linker:                        Call stacks and symbol tables.
* dynamic linking:                       Call stacks and symbol tables.
* dynamic memory allocations:            Dynamic memory allocations.
* DYNIX/ptx, Intel 80x86:                Supported systems.
* Electric Fence:                        Related software.
* Electric Software, Inc.:               Related software.
* ELF32:                                 Examples.
* embedded libraries:                    Utilities.
* embedded systems:                      Operating system support.
* Enforcer:                              Related software.
* enhancements:                          Notes.
* entry-point:                           Example 1.
* environment:                           Environment.
* epilogue function:                     Example 1.
* error severity:                        Example 1.
* errors, run-time:                      Overview.
* examples:                              Examples.
* executable files:                      Call stacks and symbol tables.
* FAILFREQ:                              Environment.
* FAILSEED:                              Environment.
* failure frequency:                     Testing.
* failure seed:                          Testing.
* FAQ:                                   Foreword.
* fatal errors:                          Example 1.
* fault, page:                           Virtual memory.
* FDA (Free Debug Allocator):            Related software.
* features:                              Features.
* fence posts:                           Overwrites and underwrites.
* file scope variables:                  Static memory allocations.
* files, mapping:                        Virtual memory.
* first fit:                             How it works.
* fitting allocations:                   Example 3.
* foreword:                              Foreword.
* Fortify:                               Related software.
* FORTRAN:                               Memory allocations.
* free blocks:                           Example 1.
* free byte:                             General errors.
* free memory:                           General errors.
* FREEBYTE:                              Environment.
* freed blocks:                          Example 1.
* freed memory:                          General errors.
* FREESTOP:                              Environment.
* FreshMeat:                             Foreword.
* function call stacks:                  Call stacks and symbol tables.
* functions:                             Functions.
* functions, callback:                   Example 1.
* functions, handler:                    Example 1.
* future enhancements:                   Notes.
* g++:                                   Example 1.
* garbage collector:                     Dynamic memory allocations.
* GC (Garbage Collector):                Related software.
* gcc:                                   Example 1.
* gdb:                                   Using with a debugger.
* general errors:                        General errors.
* Geodesic Systems:                      Related software.
* getting updates:                       Foreword.
* GlowCode:                              Related software.
* GNU C library:                         Related software.
* Great Circle:                          Related software.
* halting the library:                   Using with a debugger.
* handler functions:                     Example 1.
* heap:                                  Dynamic memory allocations.
* heap usage:                            Example 1.
* HeapAgent:                             Related software.
* HELP:                                  Environment.
* hexadecimal:                           Environment.
* hidden memory:                         How it works.
* hints:                                 Improving performance.
* HP/UX, HP PA/RISC:                     Supported systems.
* IBM Corporation:                       Related software.
* illegal memory accesses:               Example 3.
* implementation details:                How it works.
* improving performance:                 Improving performance.
* information about an allocation:       Functions.
* installation:                          Installation.
* Insure++:                              Related software.
* integration:                           Integration.
* internal blocks:                       Example 1.
* Intuitive Systems, Inc.:               Related software.
* Inuse:                                 Installation.
* IRIX, MIPS:                            Supported systems.
* JMalloc:                               Related software.
* JProbe:                                Related software.
* Kernel Group, The:                     Related software.
* KL Group:                              Related software.
* known bugs:                            Notes.
* LARGEBOUND:                            Environment.
* LaTeX:                                 Installation.
* LD:                                    Installation.
* LD_PRELOAD:                            Utilities.
* Leak:                                  Related software.
* LeakTracer:                            Related software.
* Leaky:                                 Related software.
* library behaviour:                     Library behaviour.
* library functions:                     Library functions.
* library settings:                      Logging and tracing.
* library statistics:                    Logging and tracing.
* library, archive:                      Features.
* library, building:                     Installation.
* library, mpatrol:                      Overview.
* library, shared:                       Features.
* library, thread-safe:                  Features.
* LIMIT:                                 Environment.
* limitations:                           Notes.
* limiting available memory:             Testing.
* line number table:                     Call stacks and symbol tables.
* linker:                                Installation.
* linking:                               Installation.
* links, symbolic:                       Installation.
* lint:                                  Installation.
* lint (make target):                    Installation.
* Linux, Intel 80x86:                    Supported systems.
* Linux, Motorola 680x0:                 Supported systems.
* local static variables:                Static memory allocations.
* log file:                              Example 1.
* LOGALL:                                Environment.
* LOGALLOCS:                             Environment.
* LOGFILE:                               Environment.
* LOGFREES:                              Environment.
* logging:                               Logging and tracing.
* LOGMEMORY:                             Environment.
* LOGREALLOCS:                           Environment.
* low memory handler function:           Example 1.
* LynxOS, PowerPC:                       Supported systems.
* make:                                  Installation.
* Makefile:                              Installation.
* Malloc Debug:                          Related software.
* Malloc Debug Library:                  Related software.
* malloc libraries for Solaris 7:        Related software.
* malloc(3c):                            Related software.
* malloc(3x):                            Related software.
* Malloc_Dbg:                            Related software.
* MallocTrace:                           Related software.
* mangled names:                         Example 1.
* manual layout:                         Foreword.
* manual pages:                          Installation.
* map of memory:                         Logging and tracing.
* mapmalloc(3x):                         Related software.
* mapping files:                         Virtual memory.
* MCheck:                                Related software.
* MEDIUMBOUND:                           Environment.
* MEM:                                   Related software.
* MemCheck:                              Related software.
* MemDebug:                              Related software.
* MemLeak:                               Related software.
* Memory Advisor:                        Related software.
* memory allocation profiling:           Profiling.
* memory allocations:                    Memory allocations.
* memory allocations, dynamic:           Dynamic memory allocations.
* memory allocations, stack:             Stack memory allocations.
* memory allocations, static:            Static memory allocations.
* memory blocks:                         Example 1.
* memory dump:                           Example 4.
* memory leak table:                     Profiling.
* memory leaks:                          Example 7.
* memory management interface:           Operating system support.
* memory management unit:                Virtual memory.
* memory map:                            Logging and tracing.
* memory mapped files:                   Virtual memory.
* memory protection:                     Virtual memory.
* Memory Sleuth:                         Related software.
* memory usage:                          Example 1.
* memory, physical:                      Virtual memory.
* memory, virtual:                       Virtual memory.
* Memprof:                               Related software.
* Memproof:                              Related software.
* MemWatch:                              Related software.
* message passing:                       Threads.
* MicroQuill:                            Related software.
* Microsoft:                             Supported systems.
* misaligned data:                       Library behaviour.
* misaligned memory accesses:            Virtual memory.
* ML:                                    Dynamic memory allocations.
* mleak:                                 Utilities.
* MM (Shared Memory Library):            Related software.
* Mmalloc:                               Related software.
* mmap:                                  Library behaviour.
* MMU:                                   Virtual memory.
* modules:                               How it works.
* MP_NOCPLUSPLUS:                        Functions.
* mpatrol:                               Overview.
* mpatrol command:                       Options.
* mpatrol features:                      Features.
* mpatrol library:                       Overview.
* mpatrol.h:                             Functions.
* mpatrol.log:                           Example 1.
* MPATROL_OPTIONS:                       Environment.
* MPATROL_VERSION:                       Functions.
* MPR:                                   Related software.
* Mprof:                                 Related software.
* mprof:                                 Profiling.
* mtmalloc(3t):                          Related software.
* MuForce:                               Related software.
* MuGuardianAngel:                       Related software.
* MuLib:                                 Related software.
* multi-processor systems:               Threads.
* Mungwall:                              Related software.
* mutexes:                               Threads.
* NDEBUG:                                Functions.
* Netware notes:                         Netware notes.
* NJAMD (Not Just Another Malloc Debugger): Related software.
* NOFREE:                                Environment.
* non-static local variables:            Stack memory allocations.
* NOPROTECT:                             Environment.
* notes:                                 Notes.
* notes for all platforms:               Generic notes.
* notes for Amiga platforms:             Amiga notes.
* notes for Netware platforms:           Netware notes.
* notes for UNIX platforms:              UNIX notes.
* notes for Windows platforms:           Windows notes.
* NuMega Corporation:                    Related software.
* object file formats, adding support:   New file format support.
* object files:                          Call stacks and symbol tables.
* octal:                                 Environment.
* OFLAGS:                                Installation.
* OFLOWBYTE:                             Environment.
* OFLOWSIZE:                             Environment.
* OFLOWWATCH:                            Environment.
* Onyx Technology:                       Related software.
* operating systems:                     Operating system support.
* operating systems, adding support:     New system support.
* optimisation:                          Installation.
* Optimizeit:                            Related software.
* option summary:                        Environment.
* options:                               Options.
* original implementation:               How it works.
* other programs:                        Related software.
* overflow buffers:                      Overwrites and underwrites.
* overflow byte:                         Overwrites and underwrites.
* overflow size:                         Overwrites and underwrites.
* overview:                              Overview.
* overwrites:                            Overwrites and underwrites.
* page:                                  Virtual memory.
* page fault:                            Virtual memory.
* page size:                             Virtual memory.
* PAGEALLOC:                             Environment.
* parallel programming:                  Threads.
* parameter variables:                   Stack memory allocations.
* Parasoft:                              Related software.
* Pascal:                                Memory allocations.
* peak memory usage:                     Example 1.
* performance bottleneck:                Improving performance.
* performance improvements:              Improving performance.
* performance times:                     Library performance.
* physical address:                      Virtual memory.
* physical memory:                       Virtual memory.
* platform-independent notes:            Generic notes.
* platforms:                             Supported systems.
* PLATINUM Technology:                   Related software.
* Plumber:                               Related software.
* portability:                           Improving performance.
* POSIX threads:                         Threads.
* PRESERVE:                              Environment.
* preserve freed contents:               General errors.
* prevent freeing memory:                General errors.
* printing:                              Installation.
* process id:                            Options.
* processor architectures, adding support: New processor support.
* PROF:                                  Environment.
* PROFFILE:                              Environment.
* profiling:                             Profiling.
* profiling file format:                 Profiling file format.
* PROGFILE:                              Environment.
* program counter:                       Call stacks and symbol tables.
* programs:                              Related software.
* prologue function:                     Example 1.
* Purify:                                Related software.
* QC:                                    Related software.
* quick reference card:                  Installation.
* random failures:                       Testing.
* Rational Software:                     Related software.
* re-entrancy:                           Threads.
* read protection:                       Virtual memory.
* REALLOCSTOP:                           Environment.
* recompilation:                         Integration.
* recoverable errors:                    Example 1.
* RedHat:                                Supported systems.
* reference card:                        Installation.
* references:                            Foreword.
* registers:                             Stack memory allocations.
* related software:                      Related software.
* release builds:                        Foreword.
* reporting bugs:                        Foreword.
* return address:                        Call stacks and symbol tables.
* run-time errors:                       Overview.
* SAFESIGNALS:                           Environment.
* sbrk:                                  Library behaviour.
* sections:                              Static memory allocations.
* semaphores:                            Threads.
* Sentinel:                              Related software.
* settings:                              Logging and tracing.
* severity of errors:                    Example 1.
* SFLAGS:                                Installation.
* shared libraries:                      Call stacks and symbol tables.
* shared library:                        Features.
* shared memory:                         Threads.
* SHOWALL:                               Environment.
* SHOWFREED:                             Environment.
* SHOWMAP:                               Environment.
* SHOWSYMBOLS:                           Environment.
* SHOWUNFREED:                           Environment.
* signal handler:                        Example 3.
* signals:                               Features.
* similar programs:                      Related software.
* single-step:                           Using with a debugger.
* slot tables:                           Improving performance.
* SMALLBOUND:                            Environment.
* software:                              Related software.
* Solaris 7 malloc libraries:            Related software.
* Solaris, Intel 80x86:                  Supported systems.
* Solaris, SPARC:                        Supported systems.
* stack:                                 Stack memory allocations.
* stack memory allocations:              Stack memory allocations.
* stack tracebacks:                      Call stacks and symbol tables.
* static memory allocations:             Static memory allocations.
* statistics:                            Logging and tracing.
* Stratosware Corporation:               Related software.
* stress testing:                        Improving performance.
* stripped executable file:              Library behaviour.
* summary of options:                    Environment.
* supported systems:                     Supported systems.
* SVR4:                                  Examples.
* swap file:                             Virtual memory.
* swap in:                               Virtual memory.
* swap out:                              Virtual memory.
* swapping:                              Virtual memory.
* symbol summary:                        Logging and tracing.
* symbol tables:                         Call stacks and symbol tables.
* symbolic links:                        Installation.
* symbols:                               Call stacks and symbol tables.
* system page size:                      Virtual memory.
* systems:                               Supported systems.
* systems, embedded:                     Operating system support.
* tentative declarations:                Static memory allocations.
* test suite:                            Features.
* TestCenter:                            Related software.
* testing:                               Testing.
* TeXinfo:                               Installation.
* TFLAGS:                                Installation.
* Third Degree:                          Related software.
* thrashing:                             Virtual memory.
* thread-safe library:                   Features.
* threads:                               Threads.
* threads library:                       Threads.
* times:                                 Library performance.
* tips:                                  Improving performance.
* tracebacks:                            Call stacks and symbol tables.
* tracing:                               Logging and tracing.
* tree structure:                        Example 2.
* TurboPower:                            Related software.
* tutorial:                              Tutorial.
* type of allocation:                    Example 1.
* underwrites:                           Overwrites and underwrites.
* unfreed allocations:                   Example 1.
* UNFREEDABORT:                          Environment.
* UNIX notes:                            UNIX notes.
* updates:                               Foreword.
* USEDEBUG:                              Environment.
* USEMMAP:                               Environment.
* using mpatrol:                         Using mpatrol.
* using with a debugger:                 Using with a debugger.
* utilities:                             Utilities.
* variable length arrays:                Dynamic memory allocations.
* variables, file scope:                 Static memory allocations.
* variables, local static:               Static memory allocations.
* variables, non-static local:           Stack memory allocations.
* variables, parameter:                  Stack memory allocations.
* VAX:                                   Profiling.
* virtual address:                       Virtual memory.
* virtual memory:                        Virtual memory.
* Vmalloc:                               Related software.
* warranty:                              Foreword.
* watch points:                          Virtual memory.
* watchmalloc(3x):                       Related software.
* Windows notes:                         Windows notes.
* Windows, Intel 80x86:                  Supported systems.
* Wipeout:                               Related software.
* write protection:                      Virtual memory.
* YAMD (Yet Another Malloc Debugger):    Related software.
* ZeroFault:                             Related software.



Tag Table:
Node: Top1252
Node: Foreword3227
Node: Overview8152
Node: Features10602
Node: Installation24770
Node: Integration29847
Node: Memory allocations34657
Node: Static memory allocations35334
Ref: Static memory allocations-Footnote-137795
Node: Stack memory allocations37837
Ref: Stack memory allocations-Footnote-139701
Node: Dynamic memory allocations39740
Ref: Dynamic memory allocations-Footnote-143080
Node: Operating system support43199
Node: Virtual memory45159
Ref: Virtual memory-Footnote-150919
Ref: Virtual memory-Footnote-251175
Ref: Virtual memory-Footnote-351351
Ref: Virtual memory-Footnote-451386
Ref: Virtual memory-Footnote-551445
Node: Call stacks and symbol tables51669
Ref: Call stacks and symbol tables-Footnote-155310
Ref: Call stacks and symbol tables-Footnote-255378
Ref: Call stacks and symbol tables-Footnote-355422
Ref: Call stacks and symbol tables-Footnote-455470
Node: Threads55576
Ref: Threads-Footnote-158313
Node: Using mpatrol58408
Node: Library behaviour59274
Ref: Library behaviour-Footnote-163970
Node: Logging and tracing64028
Node: General errors67074
Ref: General errors-Footnote-169688
Node: Overwrites and underwrites69812
Ref: Overwrites and underwrites-Footnote-176797
Ref: Overwrites and underwrites-Footnote-276860
Node: Using with a debugger76984
Ref: Using with a debugger-Footnote-185802
Ref: Using with a debugger-Footnote-285870
Ref: Using with a debugger-Footnote-386126
Node: Testing86215
Ref: Testing-Footnote-188952
Ref: Testing-Footnote-289133
Node: Library functions89192
Node: Utilities95930
Node: Profiling100950
Ref: Profiling-Footnote-1116729
Node: Improving performance116953
Ref: Improving performance-Footnote-1125647
Ref: Improving performance-Footnote-2125689
Ref: Improving performance-Footnote-3125766
Ref: Improving performance-Footnote-4125838
Node: How it works125882
Node: Examples130527
Node: Example 1132969
Ref: Example 1-Footnote-1154155
Node: Example 2154322
Node: Example 3158553
Node: Example 4165234
Node: Example 5168655
Ref: Example 5-Footnote-1172319
Node: Example 6172448
Node: Example 7174265
Node: Tutorial183687
Ref: Tutorial-Footnote-1197744
Ref: Tutorial-Footnote-2198026
Ref: Tutorial-Footnote-3198175
Ref: Tutorial-Footnote-4198312
Ref: Tutorial-Footnote-5198404
Node: Functions198684
Node: Environment223818
Node: Options241157
Node: Library performance248332
Node: Profiling file format250824
Node: Supported systems254072
Node: New system support260765
Node: New processor support261898
Node: New file format support262324
Node: Notes262714
Node: Generic notes264303
Ref: Generic notes-Footnote-1274453
Node: UNIX notes274652
Node: Amiga notes278148
Node: Windows notes280241
Node: Netware notes281051
Node: Related software282537
Ref: Related software-Footnote-1306083
Node: Function index306326
Node: Index308385

End Tag Table