Catching memory errors

The goal of this exercise is to locate some common memory errors using Valgrind.

Steps

1. Go to the exercise directory:

    cd esc15/hands-on/memory
   

2. Examine the little test programs in this directory. You use them for dedicated little studies on container memory allocation behaviour:

   • uninitialised.cc: Catch use of uninitialised memory.

   • array-smash.cc: Catch writing past the end of an object.

   • stack-smash.cc: Catch destruction of stack frame caused by overwriting outside bounds.

3. Build each program. The command is mentioned in each source file. To build all in one go:

    grep -h Compile *.cc | sed 's|// Compile: ||' | sh -x
   

4. Run the programs under Valgrind:

    valgrind --num-callers=50 --leak-check=full ./uninitialised
    valgrind --num-callers=50 --leak-check=full ./array-smash
    valgrind --num-callers=50 --leak-check=full ./stack-smash
   

5. Find the problems, fix them, recompile and repeat until the issues are fixed.

References

• Valgrind