Debugging memory leaks

Wed Apr 20 15:44:00 GMT 2005

Hans Boehm writes:
 > Unfortunately, you currently have to rebuild libgcj to get this
 > functionality. You need to build with --enable-gc-debug.
Okay. Is this disabled by default because it harms performance?
 > If you are debugging an application that can be made to leak most of
 > the memory in its heap, you can usually get the information you want by
 > setting the GC_BACKTRACES environment variable to a small integer. This
 > will print the indicated number of backtraces from random addresses at
 > each pc.
 > 
 > If you need something more specific, look at gc_backptr.h. You should be
 > able to use this directly from a debugger. But watch out for unintended
 > reflection: It's easy for this stuff to accidentally find "pointers" from
 > your debugging code itself.
I'll have a look.
Andrew.
 > On 2005年4月15日, Andrew Haley wrote:
 > 
 > > I've been having a great deal of difficulty tracking down memory leaks
 > > in libgcj.
 > >
 > > What I need is some sort of interface that allows me to enquire who
 > > points to an object. The ideal interface would be something like
 > > points_to (obj) -> obj. I realize that in practice there is a set of
 > > objects that point to a particular object, but that doesn't concern
 > > me: one is all I need.
 > >
 > > Is there any interface within the GC that can give me this function?
 > > If not, how hard would it be to provide? Can you provide me with some
 > > guidance?
 > >
 > > Ideally, I'd love to have something like Glasgow Haskell Compiler's
 > > heap profiling, but I'll settle for much less.
 > >
 > > Thanks,
 > > Andrew.
 > >