memory_leaks.lyx

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Detecting and Preventing Memory Leaks
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CS1230
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Preventing and detecting memory leaks is a crucial part of coding in C++.
 This doc describes the Valgrind Memory Analyzer, a built-in tool in QtCreator
 that automatically detects memory leaks, as well as some design patterns
 to keep in mind in order to prevent memory leaks from ever happening.
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Valgrind Memory Analyzer
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Valgrind is a great tool for automatically detecting memory leaks, and it
 is built in to QtCreator.
 To use it, select Analyze > Valgrind Memory Analyzer.
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This will run your program, keeping track of the memory that is allocated
 and freed.
 After the program has finished running, you will see a message indicating
 any leaks that occurred.
 In the example below, we never deleted the ConstantBrush, so 32 bytes of
 memory were leaked.
 The message points us to the exact line where this memory was allocated.
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If no memory was leaked during the execution of your program, you will not
 see any messages displayed in that section, as shown below.
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Note that if no messages are displayed, it does not necessarily mean that
 your program is leak-free.
 It only means that no leaks occurred during that run of the program.
 For example, the code below only deletes the object if myBoolean is true.
 If myBoolean happened to be true when running Valgrind Memory Analyzer,
 no leak messages would show up, but your program can still leak memory
 if myBoolean is false.
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MyObject *object = new MyObject();
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if (myBoolean) {
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delete object;
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}
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Valgrind can be a very useful tool for detecting memory leaks, but it will
 not find them if you don't explicitly cause a certain branch of code to
 be executed while using it.
 As a result, you want to make sure you design your program such that memory
 leaks can be prevented in the first place.
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Preventing Memory Leaks
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The rule of thumb for creating objects in C++ is that every new should correspon
d to exactly one delete.
 You shouldn't need to worry about this if you're using smart pointers!
 Remember, don't allocate dynamic memory to a raw pointer.
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Another source of common errors is arrays/vectors.
 As usual, using vectors over arrays whenever possible will solve many of
 your problems.
 You might run into the issue where you access or write to indices past
 the length of the vector.
 If you see unexplained segfaults, check your indices!
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GPU Memory Leaks
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Valgrind will only catch CPU memory leaks, but you can leak GPU memory as
 well.
 To avoid this, make sure that each call to a glGen*() function (usually
 in a constructor) is matched with its corresponding glDelete*() function
 (usually in the destructor).
 If you’re using the GL datatype classes you implemented in the labs, you
 probably won’t need to worry about this either.
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