log-malloc2 v0.2 released

I’ve actually released log-malloc2 library for linux, that logs calls to memory allocation functions and should be very helpful when trying to locate memory leaks. It can be used without recompiling application, simply by preloading it using LD_PRELOAD .

Logged functions:

  • malloc
  • realloc
  • calloc
  • free
  • memalign

Every function call  is logged with their parameters, amount of allocated/deallocated memory, total amount of allocated memory, copy of /proc/self/statm content and backtrace (call stack) if possible. Additionally function call counts is logged and printed out when application exits.

Typical usage:

LD_PRELOAD=../liblog-malloc2.so PROGRAM ARGUMENTS 1022>/tmp/malloc.log

More complete description of library, its usage, logging format and internals can be found in README file.

Library can be downloaded from project homepage. Actually there is no script helping with malloc log file analysis included, but logfile format is very simple and there should be no big problem write your own doing exactly what you want.

You should note that using this library harms application performance, is intensively uses allocate/deallocate functions. Consider logging to file located on tmpfs (in memory) filesystem, to improve logging IO throughput 😉