MCHECK
Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2014-01-11
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NAME
mcheck, mcheck_check_all, mcheck_pedantic, mprobe - heap consistency checking
SYNOPSIS
#include <mcheck.h>
int mcheck(void (*abortfunc)(enum mcheck_status mstatus));
int mcheck_pedantic(void (*abortfunc)(enum mcheck_status mstatus));
void mcheck_check_all(void);
enum mcheck_status mprobe(void *ptr);
DESCRIPTION
The
mcheck()
function installs a set of debugging hooks for the
malloc(3)
family of memory-allocation functions.
These hooks cause certain consistency checks to be performed
on the state of the heap.
The checks can detect application errors such as freeing a block of memory
more than once or corrupting the bookkeeping data structures
that immediately precede a block of allocated memory.
To be effective, the
mcheck()
function must be called before the first call to
malloc(3)
or a related function.
In cases where this is difficult to ensure, linking the program with
-lmcheck
inserts an implicit call to
mcheck()
(with a NULL argument)
before the first call to a memory-allocation function.
The
mcheck_pedantic()
function is similar to
mcheck(),
but performs checks on all allocated blocks whenever
one of the memory-allocation functions is called.
This can be very slow!
The
mcheck_check_all()
function causes an immediate check on all allocated blocks.
This call is effective only if
mcheck()
is called beforehand.
If the system detects an inconsistency in the heap,
the caller-supplied function pointed to by
abortfunc
is invoked with a single argument argument,
mstatus,
that indicates what type of inconsistency was detected.
If
abortfunc
is NULL, a default function prints an error message on
stderr
and calls
abort(3).
The
mprobe()
function performs a consistency check on
the block of allocated memory pointed to by
ptr.
The
mcheck()
function should be called beforehand (otherwise
mprobe()
returns
MCHECK_DISABLED).
The following list describes the values returned by
mprobe()
or passed as the
mstatus
argument when
abortfunc
is invoked:
- MCHECK_DISABLED (mprobe() only)
-
mcheck()
was not called before the first memory allocation function was called.
Consistency checking is not possible.
- MCHECK_OK (mprobe() only)
-
No inconsistency detected.
- MCHECK_HEAD
-
Memory preceding an allocated block was clobbered.
- MCHECK_TAIL
-
Memory following an allocated block was clobbered.
- MCHECK_FREE
-
A block of memory was freed twice.
RETURN VALUE
mcheck()
and
mcheck_pedantic()
return 0 on success, or -1 on error.
VERSIONS
The
mcheck_pedantic()
and
mcheck_check_all()
functions are available since glibc 2.2.
The
mcheck()
and
mprobe()
functions are present since at least glibc 2.0
CONFORMING TO
These functions are GNU extensions.
NOTES
Linking a program with
-lmcheck
and using the
MALLOC_CHECK_
environment variable (described in
mallopt(3))
cause the same kinds of errors to be detected.
But, using
MALLOC_CHECK_
does not require the application to be relinked.
EXAMPLE
The program below calls
mcheck()
with a NULL argument and then frees the same block of memory twice.
The following shell session demonstrates what happens
when running the program:
$ ./a.out
About to free
About to free a second time
block freed twice
Aborted (core dumped)
Program source
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <mcheck.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *p;
if (mcheck(NULL) != 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "mcheck() failed\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
p = malloc(1000);
fprintf(stderr, "About to free\n");
free(p);
fprintf(stderr, "\nAbout to free a second time\n");
free(p);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
malloc(3),
mallopt(3),
mtrace(3)
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- RETURN VALUE
-
- VERSIONS
-
- CONFORMING TO
-
- NOTES
-
- EXAMPLE
-
- Program source
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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Time: 02:55:03 GMT, September 18, 2014