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authorDaniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se>2002-10-13 10:34:33 +0000
committerDaniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se>2002-10-13 10:34:33 +0000
commitfc4d1d9a60d42366c8d79847999da2f25ff27510 (patch)
treed6cd07ce9067ab6b53e790cb3df32324b0a7f057 /lib/README.memoryleak
parent94bae207765a6c388206799f3b22c2603d738120 (diff)
downloadcurl-fc4d1d9a60d42366c8d79847999da2f25ff27510.tar.gz
my first take at a memory leak detection document
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+$Id$
+ _ _ ____ _
+ ___| | | | _ \| |
+ / __| | | | |_) | |
+ | (__| |_| | _ <| |___
+ \___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
+
+ How To Track Down Suspected Memory Leaks in libcurl
+ ===================================================
+
+Build
+
+ Rebuild libcurl with -DMALLOCDEBUG (usually, rerunning configure with
+ --enable-debug fixes this). 'make clean' first, then 'make' so that all
+ files actually are rebuilt properly. It will also make sense to build
+ libcurl with the debug option (usually -g to the compiler) so that debugging
+ it will be easier if you actually do find a leak in the library.
+
+ This will create a library that has memory debugging enabled.
+
+Modify Your Application
+
+ Add a line in your application code:
+
+ curl_memdebug("filename");
+
+ This will make the malloc debug system output a full trace of all resource
+ using functions to the given file name. Make sure you rebuild your program
+ and that you link with the same libcurl you built for this purpose as
+ described above.
+
+Run Your Application
+
+ Run your program as usual. Watch the specified memory trace file grow.
+
+ Make your program exit and use the proper libcurl cleanup functions etc. So
+ that all non-leaks are returned/freed properly.
+
+Analyze the Flow
+
+ Use the tests/memanalyze.pl perl script to analyze the memdump file:
+
+ tests/memanalyze.pl < memdump
+
+ This now outputs a report on what resources that were allocated but never
+ freed etc. This report is very fine for posting to the list!
+
+ If this doesn't produce any output, no leak was detected in libcurl. Then
+ the leak is mostly likely to be in your code.