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Memory Checker Tools For C++?

Posted by kdawson on from the heaps-and-bounds dept.

An anonymous reader writes "These newfangled memory-managed languages like Java and C# leave an old C++ dev like me feeling like I am missing the love. Are there any good C++ tools out there that do really good memory validation and heap checking? I have used BoundsChecker but I was looking for something a little faster. For my problem I happen to need something that will work on Windows XP 64. It's a legacy app so I can't just use Boosts' uber nifty shared_ptr. Thanks for any ideas."

9 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. two points by sentientbrendan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This isn't really an answer to your question, but it's on topic and there's some questions I wanted to get answered myself.

    First of all, shared_ptr is going into the standard library as part of TR1. Does anyone know when common development environments, i.e. GCC and MSVC, will start including TR1?

    Second, I believe that there are a number of garbage collectors available as libraries for C++. I've heard boehm's garbage collector mentioned numerous times. My question is, are any of these libraries any good? Are they really practical to use in real world applications? Do you have to modify all of your types to use it, or can primitive and stl types work with it?

    1. Re:two points by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting

      too many developers use it for lifetime management (bad).
      Why is it bad? Isn't the whole point of shared_ptr to automatically manage the lifetime of a shared resource?
    2. Re:two points by Craig+Ringer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      gcc has included most of tr1, especially , since at least 4.1. I think it was in 4.0 as well.

      It's a pity there's no way to ensure compatibility between boost::shared_ptr and std::tr1::shared_ptr , nor a really attractive non-preprocessor-reliant mechanism to switch between them (since typedefs in C++ do not work on incomplete template types).

  2. Fluid Studio's Memory Manager (MMGR) by Rezonant · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yep, Paul Nettle's little memory manager rocks. It WILL find leaks in your program. http://www.paulnettle.com/ (Yes, you have to navigate through a horrible flash site to get it, but it's worth it).

  3. Boost? Ugh by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Talk about a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Boost strikes me as the sort of library used by people who want to show off how up to date their skills are , not people who really need to write a program to get a job done. Its bloated , has a wierd syntax that differs from the C++ norm and doesn't solve any problem that isn't already solved or could be done quite easily by standard C++ anyway. What is its point except as intellectual masturbation by its authors? No this isn't a Troll, this is a post by someone who was forced to use Boost for a year and I loath it. Yeah , mod me down , whatever...

    1. Re:Boost? Ugh by pzs · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would be inclined to agree with this. I used the Boost Graph Library for some research code a few years ago. It's been designed to be extremely generic, which although a good thing sometimes makes it pretty difficult to just start coding something without all the bells and whistles. For operations on graphs, such as walking through, you can use their specialised functions for doing things but it takes days and days to work out how to use them and I ended up just using regular loops because they were much easier to understand.

      Getting it to compile was a bit of a nightmare too. It has its own native compilation management tool that you have to download as well. What the hell is wrong with using make like everybody else? It also uses a very complex template hierarchy that produces terrifying error messages.

      I'm sure that once you become an expert, BGL is really powerful and efficient, but I found the learning curve too steep. I just want to get in and build a working prototype quickly so I can see what I'm doing, not spend hours wading through manuals and examples to build the simplest program.

      I'll be with the parent post and get modded a troll by boost developers.

      Peter

  4. eFence by cannonfodda · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't used it for a while, but I used to use Bruce Peren's efence for bits of malloc debugging, it hasn't been actively developed for ages but it's pretty light weight if that's what you need. There appears to be an up to date branch DUMA which I haven't tried. As far as I remember you can use efence under WIN and DUMA claims to work......

    Unfortunately, what you prolly want is valgrind or purify.

    --
    Hmmmmmm
  5. Visual Leak Detector by Tucano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have tried mainly Boundschecker and Purify, and they were usually quite slow and difficult to set up and produced lots of spurious results. Also, quite often they simply didn't work at all and refused to run certain programs. A few years ago I reduced the problem to a 10 line C++ program that would crash Boundschecker or Purify, can't remember anymore which one it was.

    In any case, Visual Leak Detector is a free memory checking tool. It's only for Windows / Visual Studio, but if you are using that, VLD is awesome: http://www.codeproject.com/tools/visualleakdetecto r.asp

    It's super easy to set up, just #include "vld.h" somewhere in your program, and then run the debug mode. No need to rebuild everything in instrumented mode, and no false results (at least I haven't got any). Real memory leaks will be reported in the output window of the IDE.

  6. Re:Valgrind by HRogge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Another link you might like to read (just done some search on google):
    http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Computer/javaCbenchmar k.html

    Of course you can create your own "dynamic" allocator in C++... but that doesn't make allocation/deallocation automatically faster.

    Maybe you should search for some numbers to support your argument... just by stating "I don't buy it, C++ is still faster" it doesn't become reality.