Memory Management Errors Debug Tools

• Many libraries and utilities are useful for program debugging, especially with regards to memory leaks and memory corruption in C/C++ programs.
  
  
• "dmalloc" is a library useful for locating memory leaks in programs. It overrides calls to malloc/free, and generates extensive logging of all memory allocations, allowing the programmer to find memory leaks when the program exits.
  
  
• "electric fence" is a library useful for finding memory corruptions, using segmentation faults, by allocating all memory blocks on page boundaries. It comes as standard on various Linux distributions.
  
  
• Look also at GNU Checker and YAMD for similar tools.
  
  
• "valgrind" is a free tool that can track al sorts of memory corruption and leak errors, and notify you about what seems to cause them. This tool is invaluable - and is the most comprehensive such free tool that seems to exist out there. A MUST-HAVE TOOL!! (note - works on Linux on X86 architectures only).
  
  
• A commercial tool, named "Insure++" works similarly to valgrind (and has some features not found in valgrind, while lacking a few others). It has a rather ugly GUI, but that's not relevant for such programs. It is rumored to be problematic with multi-threaded applications.