Skip to content

DEBUG.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
85 lines (65 loc) · 1.79 KB

DEBUG.md

File metadata and controls

85 lines (65 loc) · 1.79 KB
Raw

Memory Leak Detection for cmenu

This guide explains how to detect memory leaks and allocation errors in the cmenu project using various tools.

Prerequisites

macOS

No additional installation needed - macOS has built-in tools.

Linux

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install valgrind

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S valgrind

Available Make Targets

macOS Tools

make asan

Runs the program with AddressSanitizer:

  • Detects memory leaks, buffer overflows, use-after-free
  • Very fast and accurate
  • Built into Clang/GCC

make asan-test

Runs AddressSanitizer with sample input for testing.

make leaks

Runs the program with macOS's built-in leaks tool:

  • Detects memory leaks at program exit
  • No performance impact
  • macOS only

Linux Tools (Valgrind)

make valgrind

Runs a comprehensive Valgrind analysis with:

  • Full leak checking
  • Origin tracking
  • Verbose output
  • Results saved to valgrind-out.txt

make valgrind-quick

Runs a quick Valgrind check with:

  • Full leak checking
  • Suppressed system library false positives
  • Console output only

make valgrind-errors

Runs Valgrind focusing on memory errors:

  • Origin tracking for debugging
  • No leak checking (faster)
  • Good for finding use-after-free and invalid memory access

Running Tests

macOS/Linux - AddressSanitizer

# Quick test with sample input
make asan-test

macOS - Leaks Tool

# Test with built-in leaks tool
make leaks-test

Linux - Valgrind

# Quick test with sample input
make valgrind-test

Tool Comparison

Tool Platform Speed Accuracy Setup
AddressSanitizer All Fast High Easy
Leaks macOS Very Fast Medium None
Valgrind Linux Slow High Easy