Updated the README file. It had lots of out-of-date and incorrect information
in it, much of it from 1.0.X days. Did it in such a way that if it doesn't get
touched (and it undoubtedly won't) it won't really go out of date, eg. by
removing temporary details like version numbers, dates, details of specific
software incompatibilities. It's much better to be vague but correct, than
precise but incorrect; having incorrect info in a file as important as the
README is bad. Also removed the README_KDE3_FOLKS file because it's pretty
redundant now. Also added some changes that had been made in the stable branch
but not the HEAD.
Did similar, but smaller changes to README_DEVELOPERS and README_PACKAGERS.
Also updated the valgrind.spec.in file to use the new, post-1.0.X description
in the README.
Also fixed a minor omission in Addrcheck's docs.
MERGE TO STABLE
git-svn-id: svn://svn.valgrind.org/valgrind/trunk@2089 a5019735-40e9-0310-863c-91ae7b9d1cf9
diff --git a/README b/README
index 7eee2c4..71b9eaa 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,9 +1,6 @@
-Release notes for Valgrind, version 1.0.0
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-KDE3 developers: please read also README_KDE3_FOLKS for guidance
-about how to debug KDE3 applications with Valgrind.
-
+Release notes for Valgrind
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are building a binary package of Valgrind for distribution,
please read README_PACKAGERS. It contains some important information.
@@ -12,46 +9,46 @@
For instructions on how to build/install, see the end of this file.
-Valgrind works best on systems with glibc-2.1.X or 2.2.X, and with gcc
-versions prior to 3.1. gcc-3.1 works, but generates code which causes
-valgrind to report many false errors. For now, try to use a gcc prior
-to 3.1; if you can't, at least compile your application without
-optimisation. Valgrind-1.0.X also can't handle glibc-2.3.X systems.
-
+Valgrind works on most, reasonably recent Linux setups. If you have
+problems, consult FAQ.txt to see if there are workarounds.
Executive Summary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Valgrind is a tool to help you find memory-management problems in your
-programs. When a program is run under Valgrind's supervision, all
-reads and writes of memory are checked, and calls to
-malloc/new/free/delete are intercepted. As a result, Valgrind can
-detect problems such as:
+Valgrind is a GPL'd system for debugging and profiling x86-Linux programs.
+With the tools that come with Valgrind, you can automatically detect
+many memory management and threading bugs, avoiding hours of frustrating
+bug-hunting, making your programs more stable. You can also perform
+detailed profiling to help speed up your programs.
- Use of uninitialised memory
- Reading/writing memory after it has been free'd
- Reading/writing off the end of malloc'd blocks
- Reading/writing inappropriate areas on the stack
+The Valgrind distribution includes four tools: two memory error
+detectors, a thread error detector, and a cache profiler. Several other
+tools have been built with Valgrind.
+
+To give you an idea of what Valgrind tools do, when a program is run
+under the supervision of the first memory error detector tool, all reads
+and writes of memory are checked, and calls to malloc/new/free/delete
+are intercepted. As a result, it can detect problems such as:
+
+ Use of uninitialised memory
+ Reading/writing memory after it has been free'd
+ Reading/writing off the end of malloc'd blocks
+ Reading/writing inappropriate areas on the stack
Memory leaks -- where pointers to malloc'd blocks are lost forever
Passing of uninitialised and/or unaddressible memory to system calls
- Mismatched use of malloc/new/new [] vs free/delete/delete []
+ Mismatched use of malloc/new/new [] vs free/delete/delete []
+ Overlaps of arguments to strcpy() and related functions
Some abuses of the POSIX pthread API
Problems like these can be difficult to find by other means, often
lying undetected for long periods, then causing occasional,
-difficult-to-diagnose crashes.
-
-When Valgrind detects such a problem, it can, if you like, attach GDB
-to your program, so you can poke around and see what's going on.
+difficult-to-diagnose crashes. When one of these errors occurs, you can
+attach GDB to your program, so you can poke around and see what's going
+on.
Valgrind is closely tied to details of the CPU, operating system and
to a less extent, compiler and basic C libraries. This makes it
difficult to make it portable, so I have chosen at the outset to
-concentrate on what I believe to be a widely used platform: Red Hat
-Linux 7.2, on x86s. I believe that it will work without significant
-difficulty on other x86 GNU/Linux systems which use the 2.4 kernel and
-GNU libc 2.2.X, for example SuSE 7.1 and Mandrake 8.0. This version
-1.0 release is known to work on Red Hats 6.2, 7.2 and 7.3, at the very
-least.
+concentrate on what I believe to be a widely used platform: x86/Linux.
Valgrind is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
Read the file COPYING in the source distribution for details.
@@ -60,10 +57,8 @@
Documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A comprehensive user guide is supplied. Point your browser at
-docs/index.html. If your browser doesn't like frames, point it
-instead at docs/manual.html. There's also detailed, although somewhat
-out of date, documentation of how valgrind works, in
-docs/techdocs.html.
+$PREFIX/share/doc/valgrind/manual.html, where $PREFIX is whatever you
+specified with --prefix= when building.
Building and installing it
@@ -79,7 +74,7 @@
2. Run ./autogen.sh to setup the environment (you need the standard
autoconf tools to do so).
-To install from a tar.gz archive:
+To install from a tar.bz2 distribution:
3. Run ./configure, with some options if you wish. The standard
options are documented in the INSTALL file. The only interesting
@@ -101,4 +96,5 @@
Julian Seward (jseward@acm.org)
-1 July 2002
+Nick Nethercote (njn25@cam.ac.uk)
+Jeremy Fitzhardinge (jeremy@goop.org)