How to install valgrind on windows

How to build and run Valgrind for Windows from a command prompt

1. Check out the source code.
2. Open a Windows command prompt (cmd.exe)
3. cd to the source code directory.
4. run: sh ./autogen.sh.
5. configure either for the 32 bit or 64 bit version. …
6. build the source by running: make.
7. build tests by running: make check.

1. Can you run Valgrind on Windows?
2. How do you set up a Valgrind window?
3. Where can I find Valgrind executable?
4. How do I run Valgrind locally?
5. Can we attach Valgrind to a running process?
6. How do I run Valgrind on WSL?
7. What is the difference between valgrind and GDB?
8. What is valgrind C++?
9. Why does valgrind not work on Mac?
10. Does Valgrind work on WSL?
11. How do I use Dr memory in Windows?
12. How do you detect a memory leak in CLion?

Can you run Valgrind on Windows?

Valgrind is a developer tool for C++ developers used to find memory issues including C++ memory leak detection. … Valgrind heavy relies on Linux internals, that’s why Valgrind does not support Windows.

How do you set up a Valgrind window?

press win+s to open Cortana. search for windows features , open Turn Windows features On or Off. find Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta) , click to turn it on. After a restart you could now open your windows command line and input bash , then enter.

Where can I find Valgrind executable?

SOLVED Valgrind executable? There is a field of settings of Analizer > Generic Settings > Valgrind executable.

How do I run Valgrind locally?

To run Valgrind, pass the executable as an argument (along with any parameters to the program). The flags are, in short: —leak-check=full : «each individual leak will be shown in detail» —show-leak-kinds=all : Show all of «definite, indirect, possible, reachable» leak kinds in the «full» report.

Can we attach Valgrind to a running process?

Therefore Memcheck does not support eager checking at this time. 5.4. Is it possible to attach Valgrind to a program that is already running? No.

How do I run Valgrind on WSL?

Make: simply launch make while in the valgrind-3.12. 0 folder. Check the dependencies: launch make check to see whether all the dependencies necessary for the installation are satisfied (e.g: you’ll have to install g++, just launch sudo apt install g++ ) Install valgrind: type sudo make install to install it.

What is the difference between valgrind and GDB?

The GNU Debugger (GDB) allows you to pause a running program and inspect its state. Valgrind’s memcheck monitors a program’s memory accesses and prints warnings if the program accesses invalid locations or attempts to read values that the program never set (initialized).

What is valgrind C++?

valgrind is a tool for finding memory access errors to heap memory (memory that is dynamically allocated with new or malloc) in C and C++ programs. … Tools like valgrind can save you days worth of debugging time by quickly pointing you to the source and type of memory access errors in your code.

Why does valgrind not work on Mac?

However, the sad news is, even the most recent version of Valgrind is not very usable on Mac OS Sierra. The reason is that Apple has not released the part of the source code that makes Valgrind crash, without which, the Valgrind maintainers can hardly do anything.

Does Valgrind work on WSL?

Now that everything is ready you must configure CLion in order to be able to use the CMake of WSL and then valgrind. In File > Settings > Toolchains, click on Add (+) and select WSL.

How do I use Dr memory in Windows?

How do you detect a memory leak in CLion?

On Linux and macOS platforms CLion integrates with Valgrind Memcheck to help you detect memory errors. It lets you run targets with Valgrind Memcheck and then get the results in a special tab in the Run tool window. Users can run both regular targets and unit tests targets with Memcheck.

Valgrind is a famous tool to debug your memory leak, but what sad is it only supports Linux, yeah, not a perfect support even on Mac. But with the new Windows 10 Anniversary update, it’s happening. And works way much better than Mac with OS X. Let’s rock!

1. What, Linux in a Windows?

It is easy since in the new update, windows has Ubuntu as a subsystem. And it is neither a virtual machine nor some kind of a container. It is a subsystem, roughly speaking, all the functions will finally invoked by Windows sys-call. So this is a 1st class, blazing fast solution. But the prerequisite is you need a new Windows 10 version 1607 (Build 14393.187) or above.

2. How to install and use it?

When you search online, you will find that you need to join the Windows Insider program and open the developer mode. But no, you don’t need to.

1. press win+s to open Cortana.
2. search for windows features, open Turn Windows features On or Off.
3. find Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta), click to turn it on.
4. After a restart you could now open your windows command line and input bash, then enter.
5. It will first download and install Ubuntu 14.04 from Windows store.
6. Then you need to configure your default user and password to the system. This is just for this built-in Ubuntu, not Windows
7. Afterwards, every time you need bash, you just open CLI then bash and enter, splendid!

3. Try it first time.

It is a Ubuntu, so you might simply use the command. sudo apt-get install valgrind. Yes, it will work as a charm. But only for this part. If you want to use it, it will totally not work.

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--1791:0:aspacem   -1: ANON 0038000000-00383d5fff 4022272 r-x-- SmFixed d=0x000 i=205168  o=0       (0) m=0 /usr/lib/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux
--1791:0:aspacem  Valgrind: FATAL: aspacem assertion failed:
--1791:0:aspacem    segment_is_sane
--1791:0:aspacem    at m_aspacemgr/aspacemgr-linux.c:1502 (add_segment)
--1791:0:aspacem  Exiting now.

You may abort at this stage, since it is a beta feature, and the translation in the Sys-call level may seems a big deal. And after googling, you decide to abort. But, the story never ends like this

4.How to deal with it?

A brief first:

You just need to compile Valgrind by yourself on your own machine.”

The idea is simple, the procedures is still easy but take a little bit longer than expected. But I will cover all the commands

1. Open bash in Windows.
2. Update your Ubuntu package lists by sudo apt-get update
3. Install SVN first via this command: sudo apt-get install svn
4. Install subversion next: sudo apt-get install subversion (Thanks to Ran Lottem)
5. Find a folder you want to put the valgrind, anywhere is OK, we just need to compile.
6. Download source code of Valgrind via SVN svn co svn://svn.valgrind.org/valgrind/trunk valgrind. It will download the codes and put them into a new folder called valgrind right under then folder you create or locate in step 3.
7. Install the library used when compiling by sudo apt-get install automake
8. Ran Lottem confirmed that you need to sudo apt-get install build-essential
9. Go to the folder of Valgrind via cd valgrind/
10. Running the official bash script first by using ./autogen.sh
11. Configure via ./configure.
12. From now on, things will get much more normal. first, install make via sudo apt-get install make.
13. Then make, this command will build the files from many modules. Add sudo if failed (Thanks Waleed Mahmoud).
14. make install, it will copy compiled files into appropriate locations. Add sudo if failed (Thanks Waleed Mahmoud).
15. It’s done already, but feel free to use make clean, it will delete all the temporary files generated while compiling.
16. A make distclean will make things much better.
17. Use valgrind as you wish.

5.Happily ever after

I have built a linked list to test the leak, it works exactly the same way as linux, even better than Mac, OS X, yes, I mean it. The valgrind on OS X will tell you have some leak problems while there is no leak.

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camus@ALBERTSURFACEB:/mnt/d/github/C_Playground$ valgrind ./main
==2529== Memcheck, a memory error detector
==2529== Copyright (C) 2002-2015, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==2529== Using Valgrind-3.12.0.SVN and LibVEX; rerun with -h for copyright info
==2529== Command: ./main
==2529==

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==2529==
==2529== HEAP SUMMARY:
==2529==     in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==2529==   total heap usage: 6 allocs, 6 frees, 104 bytes allocated
==2529==
==2529== All heap blocks were freed -- no leaks are possible
==2529==
==2529== For counts of detected and suppressed errors, rerun with: -v
==2529== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0)
camus@ALBERTSURFACEB:/mnt/d/github/C_Playground$

And if you have a leak, it will tell you.

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==2539== HEAP SUMMARY:
==2539==     in use at exit: 80 bytes in 5 blocks
==2539==   total heap usage: 6 allocs, 1 frees, 104 bytes allocated
==2539==
==2539== LEAK SUMMARY:
==2539==    definitely lost: 16 bytes in 1 blocks
==2539==    indirectly lost: 64 bytes in 4 blocks
==2539==      possibly lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==2539==    still reachable: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==2539==         suppressed: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==2539== Rerun with --leak-check=full to see details of leaked memory
==2539==
==2539== For counts of detected and suppressed errors, rerun with: -v
==2539== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0)

Furthermore, running valgrind --leak-check=full ./main will give the information of your stack. WOW! Fantastic! After I suffered so much from day 1 for the stupid Surface Book, this is the only time I feel Microsoft is a company you could rely on, haha xD

6. One more thing

Mr Artem reached out to me recently about his awesome software for debugging memory issues. He built Deleaker, which is a modern substitution of
Valgrind. Deleaker supports C as well as C++/Delphi/.Net etc. In general, it doesn’t matter what language is used to write code as it works at lower level, hooking allocation/deallocation functions and storing call stacks.

And having a nice GUI to work with just seems much more efficient to me, which is why I love jetBrains’ products.

• Check this blog for a comparison between Deleaker and Valgrind, why it is better.
• Check the Deleaker official site for more information.

Thanks for reading!

Follow me (albertgao) on twitter, if you want to hear more about my interesting ideas.

Valgrind on Windows: A Powerful Tool for Debugging and Memory Management

Valgrind, a powerful open-source tool for memory leak detection, memory error detection, and performance profiling, is commonly associated with Linux environments. However, it’s possible to harness its benefits on Windows, thanks to a project known as «Valgrind for Windows». This article will guide you through the process of setting up and using Valgrind on Windows to enhance your software development workflow.

Why Valgrind Matters

Memory leaks and other memory-related errors can be a developer’s worst nightmare. They can cause crashes, unpredictable program behavior, and security vulnerabilities. Valgrind excels at identifying these issues early in the development cycle, preventing them from impacting your users. Here’s why Valgrind is a valuable tool for any Windows developer:

• Memory Leak Detection: Valgrind’s Memcheck tool meticulously tracks memory allocations and deallocations. It flags potential memory leaks, where memory is allocated but never released, potentially leading to resource depletion and system instability.
• Memory Error Detection: Valgrind’s Memcheck also detects other memory-related errors like invalid memory accesses (reading or writing to memory locations you shouldn’t) and use-after-free errors, where you attempt to access a memory region that has been freed.
• Performance Profiling: Valgrind’s Callgrind tool profiles your code’s performance, identifying bottlenecks and areas where optimization can significantly improve execution speed.

Getting Started with Valgrind on Windows

1. Installing the Valgrind for Windows Package

The easiest way to get Valgrind running on Windows is by downloading the «Valgrind for Windows» package from the Valgrind for Windows website. This package includes Valgrind itself, along with the required dependencies and tools for a smooth integration.

2. Choosing the Right Version

Several Valgrind versions are available for different architectures and operating systems. Select the version that aligns with your project’s requirements and Windows environment. The «Valgrind for Windows» package typically provides a 32-bit and 64-bit version, so you’ll need to choose the correct version for your project.

3. Integrating Valgrind into Your Development Environment

Once installed, you can integrate Valgrind into your favorite development environment, like Visual Studio or CodeBlocks. Here’s a simple example using Visual Studio:

1. Create a new project or open an existing one.
2. Set the path to Valgrind: In your project’s build settings, specify the directory containing the Valgrind executable.
3. Add a pre-build step: This step should invoke Valgrind to run your application with the desired analysis.

4. Running Your Application with Valgrind

After setup, run your application through Valgrind by using the Valgrind command-line tool. For example, if your executable is called «myprogram.exe»:

valgrind --tool=memcheck --leak-check=full myprogram.exe

This command instructs Valgrind to use the Memcheck tool with full leak checking for your «myprogram.exe» executable.

Understanding Valgrind’s Output

Valgrind’s output can be detailed and comprehensive. It provides specific information about potential memory leaks, invalid memory accesses, and other errors. Here’s a breakdown:

• Error messages: Valgrind will highlight the error type, its location in your code, and the specific memory address involved.
• Memory leak reports: If leaks are detected, Valgrind provides a summary of leaked memory blocks, including their size and the function where they were allocated.
• Performance reports: Valgrind’s performance tools, like Callgrind, provide information on the execution time of different functions, identifying bottlenecks and potential optimization areas.

Valgrind for Specific Programming Languages

While Valgrind works well with C and C++, it can also be used with other languages, including:

• Python: The PyValgrind project provides Valgrind support for Python applications.
• Java: Valgrind can be used to analyze Java applications with the help of a JVM-specific profiling tool.
• C#: Valgrind can be used indirectly to analyze C# applications through the use of a tool like Valgrind for .NET.

Optimizing for Performance

While Valgrind is a powerful tool, it comes with some performance overhead. Your program’s execution will slow down when running under Valgrind. For this reason, it is typically used during development and testing, rather than in production environments.

Conclusion

Valgrind on Windows empowers developers with a powerful tool to find memory-related errors and optimize their code. By integrating Valgrind into your development workflow, you can catch bugs early, improve code quality, and release more stable and performant applications. Remember to carefully analyze Valgrind’s output, understanding the reported errors and their impact on your code. This process will help you write more robust, reliable, and high-quality software.