Memcheck - Memory Checker

Source	Patch	Date
0.0.0		Jun 18 2002
0.1.0	0.1.0	Aug 13 2002
0.1.1	0.1.1	Aug 27 2002
0.1.2	None	Jul 15 2003
0.1.3	0.1.3	Jul 28 2003
0.1.4	0.1.4	Jul 17 2004
0.1.5	0.1.5	May 31 2005
0.2.0	0.2.0	Jun 09 2006
0.2.1	0.2.1	Jul 08 2006
0.2.2	0.2.2	Oct 28 2006
0.2.3	0.2.3	Jan 11 2007
0.2.4	0.2.4	May 18 2007

This is the source distribution of memcheck, Memory Allocation Checker.
To find out what's new in memcheck, see the file `NEWS'. To find out how to build memcheck, consult the file `INSTALL'.

For further information, consult the following files:
- AUTHORS List of contributing authors.
- COPYING The memcheck license.
- INSTALL How to build and install memcheck.
- NEWS Release information and recent changes.
- README This file.
What:
- Fault on pointer overrun (read or write).
- Fault on freed pointer dereference (read or write).
- Log double free or realloc of already freed pointer.
- Log memory not freed on exit.
- Check for pointer underrun on free/realloc.
- Set level of logging.
- Optionally reverse behaviour of overrun and underrun.
- Optionally "churn" reallocations. Always return a different pointer.
- Optionally log pointer overruns instead of faulting.
- Optionally return freed memory to system. (May hurt checking for freed pointer usage).
- Optionally log "large" allocations.
- Optionally run out-of-memory after a specified amount of memory has been used.
- Very small performance impact.
- Large memory footprint impact.
Where:
- http://hald.dnsalias.net/projects/memcheck/
Who:
- Hal Duston hald@kc.rr.com
How:
- Building:
  - ./configure
  - make
  - make check
  - make install
- Using:
  - On systems using GCC, bash, glibc:
  - For source compilation, you can add `-include memcheck.h' to CPPFLAGS.
  - For binaries, you can add `libmemcheck.so' to LD_PRELOAD
  - On other systems: You will need to recompile after adding #include "memcheck.h" to the source, and `-lmemcheck' to LDFLAGS.
MEMCHECK environment variable:
- comma seperated values place in the MEMCHECK environment variable.
- options with values are set with an `=' equal sign.
- underruns: set to trap on underruns instead of overruns.
- reuse: set to reuse freed memory in later allocations.
- churn: set to return a different pointer on every realloc.
- restart:
  - set to `r' to retry after setting page as read-only.
  - set to `w' to retry after setting page as read/write.
  - available on systems providing the faulting data
  - address to the signal hander.
- backtrace:
  - set to provide a backtrace in the logfile
  - available on glibc systems.
- level:
  - set to `e' to only log "errors".
  - set to `w' to also log "warnings".
  - set to `i' to also log "informational".
- large: set to `n' to log allocations larger than `n' bytes.
- limit: set to `n' to limit total memory usage to `n' bytes. `k', `K', `m', `M', and `g', `G' may be used as multipliers.
Supported platforms:
- alpha-unknown-freebsd5.3
- alpha-unknown-netbsd2.1.0
- alphaev56-dec-osf4.0g
- alphaev6-unknown-linux-gnu
- alphaev67-dec-osf5.1
- alphaev67-unknown-linux-gnu
- alphaev68-dec-osf5.1
- alphaev7-dec-osf5.1
- armv4l-unknown-linux-gnu
- hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11
- hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.23
- hppa64-unknown-linux-gnu
- i386-pc-sco3.2v5.0.4
- i386-unknown-freebsd5.3
- i386-unknown-netbsdelf2.0
- i386-unknown-openbsd3.2
- i686-pc-linux-gnu
- i686-redhat-linux-gnu
- ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (*)
- ia64-redhat-linux-gnu
- mips-sgi-irix65
- powerpc-apple-darwin6.6
- rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
- s390-ibm-linux-gnu
- sparc-sun-solaris2.5
- sparc-sun-solaris2.8
- sparc-unknown-netbsdelf1.5
- sparc64-unknown-linux-gnu (*)
- x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu

(*) Faulting data address not provided to the signal handler. restart won't work, and the address isn't logged.
(**) libtool has some kind of incompatibility with hpux. It can't seem to build shared libraries with either gcc or cc.