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| |
| <chapter id="manual-core" xreflabel="Valgrind's core"> |
| <title>Using and understanding the Valgrind core</title> |
| |
| <para>This chapter describes the Valgrind core services, command-line |
| options and behaviours. That means it is relevant regardless of what |
| particular tool you are using. The information should be sufficient for you |
| to make effective day-to-day use of Valgrind. Advanced topics related to |
| the Valgrind core are described in <xref linkend="manual-core-adv"/>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para> |
| A point of terminology: most references to "Valgrind" in this chapter |
| refer to the Valgrind core services. </para> |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.whatdoes" |
| xreflabel="What Valgrind does with your program"> |
| <title>What Valgrind does with your program</title> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind is designed to be as non-intrusive as possible. It works |
| directly with existing executables. You don't need to recompile, relink, |
| or otherwise modify the program to be checked.</para> |
| |
| <para>You invoke Valgrind like this:</para> |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| valgrind [valgrind-options] your-prog [your-prog-options]]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>The most important option is <option>--tool</option> which dictates |
| which Valgrind tool to run. For example, if want to run the command |
| <computeroutput>ls -l</computeroutput> using the memory-checking tool |
| Memcheck, issue this command:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| valgrind --tool=memcheck ls -l]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>However, Memcheck is the default, so if you want to use it you can |
| omit the <option>--tool</option> option.</para> |
| |
| <para>Regardless of which tool is in use, Valgrind takes control of your |
| program before it starts. Debugging information is read from the |
| executable and associated libraries, so that error messages and other |
| outputs can be phrased in terms of source code locations, when |
| appropriate.</para> |
| |
| <para>Your program is then run on a synthetic CPU provided by the |
| Valgrind core. As new code is executed for the first time, the core |
| hands the code to the selected tool. The tool adds its own |
| instrumentation code to this and hands the result back to the core, |
| which coordinates the continued execution of this instrumented |
| code.</para> |
| |
| <para>The amount of instrumentation code added varies widely between |
| tools. At one end of the scale, Memcheck adds code to check every |
| memory access and every value computed, |
| making it run 10-50 times slower than natively. |
| At the other end of the spectrum, the minimal tool, called Nulgrind, |
| adds no instrumentation at all and causes in total "only" about a 4 times |
| slowdown.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind simulates every single instruction your program executes. |
| Because of this, the active tool checks, or profiles, not only the code |
| in your application but also in all supporting dynamically-linked libraries, |
| including the C library, graphical libraries, and so on.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you're using an error-detection tool, Valgrind may |
| detect errors in system libraries, for example the GNU C or X11 |
| libraries, which you have to use. You might not be interested in these |
| errors, since you probably have no control over that code. Therefore, |
| Valgrind allows you to selectively suppress errors, by recording them in |
| a suppressions file which is read when Valgrind starts up. The build |
| mechanism selects default suppressions which give reasonable |
| behaviour for the OS and libraries detected on your machine. |
| To make it easier to write suppressions, you can use the |
| <option>--gen-suppressions=yes</option> option. This tells Valgrind to |
| print out a suppression for each reported error, which you can then |
| copy into a suppressions file.</para> |
| |
| <para>Different error-checking tools report different kinds of errors. |
| The suppression mechanism therefore allows you to say which tool or |
| tool(s) each suppression applies to.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.started" xreflabel="Getting started"> |
| <title>Getting started</title> |
| |
| <para>First off, consider whether it might be beneficial to recompile |
| your application and supporting libraries with debugging info enabled |
| (the <option>-g</option> option). Without debugging info, the best |
| Valgrind tools will be able to do is guess which function a particular |
| piece of code belongs to, which makes both error messages and profiling |
| output nearly useless. With <option>-g</option>, you'll get |
| messages which point directly to the relevant source code lines.</para> |
| |
| <para>Another option you might like to consider, if you are working with |
| C++, is <option>-fno-inline</option>. That makes it easier to see the |
| function-call chain, which can help reduce confusion when navigating |
| around large C++ apps. For example, debugging |
| OpenOffice.org with Memcheck is a bit easier when using this option. You |
| don't have to do this, but doing so helps Valgrind produce more accurate |
| and less confusing error reports. Chances are you're set up like this |
| already, if you intended to debug your program with GNU GDB, or some |
| other debugger.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you are planning to use Memcheck: On rare |
| occasions, compiler optimisations (at <option>-O2</option> |
| and above, and sometimes <option>-O1</option>) have been |
| observed to generate code which fools Memcheck into wrongly reporting |
| uninitialised value errors, or missing uninitialised value errors. We have |
| looked in detail into fixing this, and unfortunately the result is that |
| doing so would give a further significant slowdown in what is already a slow |
| tool. So the best solution is to turn off optimisation altogether. Since |
| this often makes things unmanageably slow, a reasonable compromise is to use |
| <option>-O</option>. This gets you the majority of the |
| benefits of higher optimisation levels whilst keeping relatively small the |
| chances of false positives or false negatives from Memcheck. Also, you |
| should compile your code with <option>-Wall</option> because |
| it can identify some or all of the problems that Valgrind can miss at the |
| higher optimisation levels. (Using <option>-Wall</option> |
| is also a good idea in general.) All other tools (as far as we know) are |
| unaffected by optimisation level, and for profiling tools like Cachegrind it |
| is better to compile your program at its normal optimisation level.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind understands both the older "stabs" debugging format, used |
| by GCC versions prior to 3.1, and the newer DWARF2/3/4 formats |
| used by GCC |
| 3.1 and later. We continue to develop our debug-info readers, |
| although the majority of effort will naturally enough go into the newer |
| DWARF readers.</para> |
| |
| <para>When you're ready to roll, run Valgrind as described above. |
| Note that you should run the real |
| (machine-code) executable here. If your application is started by, for |
| example, a shell or Perl script, you'll need to modify it to invoke |
| Valgrind on the real executables. Running such scripts directly under |
| Valgrind will result in you getting error reports pertaining to |
| <filename>/bin/sh</filename>, |
| <filename>/usr/bin/perl</filename>, or whatever interpreter |
| you're using. This may not be what you want and can be confusing. You |
| can force the issue by giving the option |
| <option>--trace-children=yes</option>, but confusion is still |
| likely.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <!-- Referenced from both the manual and manpage --> |
| <sect1 id="&vg-comment-id;" xreflabel="&vg-comment-label;"> |
| <title>The Commentary</title> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind tools write a commentary, a stream of text, detailing |
| error reports and other significant events. All lines in the commentary |
| have following form: |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| ==12345== some-message-from-Valgrind]]></programlisting> |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>The <computeroutput>12345</computeroutput> is the process ID. |
| This scheme makes it easy to distinguish program output from Valgrind |
| commentary, and also easy to differentiate commentaries from different |
| processes which have become merged together, for whatever reason.</para> |
| |
| <para>By default, Valgrind tools write only essential messages to the |
| commentary, so as to avoid flooding you with information of secondary |
| importance. If you want more information about what is happening, |
| re-run, passing the <option>-v</option> option to Valgrind. A second |
| <option>-v</option> gives yet more detail. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>You can direct the commentary to three different places:</para> |
| |
| <orderedlist> |
| |
| <listitem id="manual-core.out2fd" xreflabel="Directing output to fd"> |
| <para>The default: send it to a file descriptor, which is by default |
| 2 (stderr). So, if you give the core no options, it will write |
| commentary to the standard error stream. If you want to send it to |
| some other file descriptor, for example number 9, you can specify |
| <option>--log-fd=9</option>.</para> |
| |
| <para>This is the simplest and most common arrangement, but can |
| cause problems when Valgrinding entire trees of processes which |
| expect specific file descriptors, particularly stdin/stdout/stderr, |
| to be available for their own use.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem id="manual-core.out2file" |
| xreflabel="Directing output to file"> <para>A less intrusive |
| option is to write the commentary to a file, which you specify by |
| <option>--log-file=filename</option>. There are special format |
| specifiers that can be used to use a process ID or an environment |
| variable name in the log file name. These are useful/necessary if your |
| program invokes multiple processes (especially for MPI programs). |
| See the <link linkend="manual-core.basicopts">basic options section</link> |
| for more details.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem id="manual-core.out2socket" |
| xreflabel="Directing output to network socket"> <para>The |
| least intrusive option is to send the commentary to a network |
| socket. The socket is specified as an IP address and port number |
| pair, like this: <option>--log-socket=192.168.0.1:12345</option> if |
| you want to send the output to host IP 192.168.0.1 port 12345 |
| (note: we |
| have no idea if 12345 is a port of pre-existing significance). You |
| can also omit the port number: |
| <option>--log-socket=192.168.0.1</option>, in which case a default |
| port of 1500 is used. This default is defined by the constant |
| <computeroutput>VG_CLO_DEFAULT_LOGPORT</computeroutput> in the |
| sources.</para> |
| |
| <para>Note, unfortunately, that you have to use an IP address here, |
| rather than a hostname.</para> |
| |
| <para>Writing to a network socket is pointless if you don't |
| have something listening at the other end. We provide a simple |
| listener program, |
| <computeroutput>valgrind-listener</computeroutput>, which accepts |
| connections on the specified port and copies whatever it is sent to |
| stdout. Probably someone will tell us this is a horrible security |
| risk. It seems likely that people will write more sophisticated |
| listeners in the fullness of time.</para> |
| |
| <para><computeroutput>valgrind-listener</computeroutput> can accept |
| simultaneous connections from up to 50 Valgrinded processes. In front |
| of each line of output it prints the current number of active |
| connections in round brackets.</para> |
| |
| <para><computeroutput>valgrind-listener</computeroutput> accepts two |
| command-line options:</para> |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <variablelist id="listener.opts.list"> |
| <varlistentry> |
| <term><option>-e --exit-at-zero</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When the number of connected processes falls back to zero, |
| exit. Without this, it will run forever, that is, until you |
| send it Control-C.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| <varlistentry> |
| <term><option>portnumber</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Changes the port it listens on from the default (1500). |
| The specified port must be in the range 1024 to 65535. |
| The same restriction applies to port numbers specified by a |
| <option>--log-socket</option> to Valgrind itself.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| </variablelist> |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| <para>If a Valgrinded process fails to connect to a listener, for |
| whatever reason (the listener isn't running, invalid or unreachable |
| host or port, etc), Valgrind switches back to writing the commentary |
| to stderr. The same goes for any process which loses an established |
| connection to a listener. In other words, killing the listener |
| doesn't kill the processes sending data to it.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </orderedlist> |
| |
| <para>Here is an important point about the relationship between the |
| commentary and profiling output from tools. The commentary contains a |
| mix of messages from the Valgrind core and the selected tool. If the |
| tool reports errors, it will report them to the commentary. However, if |
| the tool does profiling, the profile data will be written to a file of |
| some kind, depending on the tool, and independent of what |
| <option>--log-*</option> options are in force. The commentary is |
| intended to be a low-bandwidth, human-readable channel. Profiling data, |
| on the other hand, is usually voluminous and not meaningful without |
| further processing, which is why we have chosen this arrangement.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.report" xreflabel="Reporting of errors"> |
| <title>Reporting of errors</title> |
| |
| <para>When an error-checking tool |
| detects something bad happening in the program, an error |
| message is written to the commentary. Here's an example from Memcheck:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| ==25832== Invalid read of size 4 |
| ==25832== at 0x8048724: BandMatrix::ReSize(int, int, int) (bogon.cpp:45) |
| ==25832== by 0x80487AF: main (bogon.cpp:66) |
| ==25832== Address 0xBFFFF74C is not stack'd, malloc'd or free'd]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>This message says that the program did an illegal 4-byte read of |
| address 0xBFFFF74C, which, as far as Memcheck can tell, is not a valid |
| stack address, nor corresponds to any current heap blocks or recently freed |
| heap blocks. The read is happening at line 45 of |
| <filename>bogon.cpp</filename>, called from line 66 of the same file, |
| etc. For errors associated with an identified (current or freed) heap block, |
| for example reading freed memory, Valgrind reports not only the |
| location where the error happened, but also where the associated heap block |
| was allocated/freed.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind remembers all error reports. When an error is detected, |
| it is compared against old reports, to see if it is a duplicate. If so, |
| the error is noted, but no further commentary is emitted. This avoids |
| you being swamped with bazillions of duplicate error reports.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you want to know how many times each error occurred, run with |
| the <option>-v</option> option. When execution finishes, all the |
| reports are printed out, along with, and sorted by, their occurrence |
| counts. This makes it easy to see which errors have occurred most |
| frequently.</para> |
| |
| <para>Errors are reported before the associated operation actually |
| happens. For example, if you're using Memcheck and your program attempts to |
| read from address zero, Memcheck will emit a message to this effect, and |
| your program will then likely die with a segmentation fault.</para> |
| |
| <para>In general, you should try and fix errors in the order that they |
| are reported. Not doing so can be confusing. For example, a program |
| which copies uninitialised values to several memory locations, and later |
| uses them, will generate several error messages, when run on Memcheck. |
| The first such error message may well give the most direct clue to the |
| root cause of the problem.</para> |
| |
| <para>The process of detecting duplicate errors is quite an |
| expensive one and can become a significant performance overhead |
| if your program generates huge quantities of errors. To avoid |
| serious problems, Valgrind will simply stop collecting |
| errors after 1,000 different errors have been seen, or 10,000,000 errors |
| in total have been seen. In this situation you might as well |
| stop your program and fix it, because Valgrind won't tell you |
| anything else useful after this. Note that the 1,000/10,000,000 limits |
| apply after suppressed errors are removed. These limits are |
| defined in <filename>m_errormgr.c</filename> and can be increased |
| if necessary.</para> |
| |
| <para>To avoid this cutoff you can use the |
| <option>--error-limit=no</option> option. Then Valgrind will always show |
| errors, regardless of how many there are. Use this option carefully, |
| since it may have a bad effect on performance.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.suppress" xreflabel="Suppressing errors"> |
| <title>Suppressing errors</title> |
| |
| <para>The error-checking tools detect numerous problems in the system |
| libraries, such as the C library, |
| which come pre-installed with your OS. You can't easily fix |
| these, but you don't want to see these errors (and yes, there are many!) |
| So Valgrind reads a list of errors to suppress at startup. A default |
| suppression file is created by the |
| <computeroutput>./configure</computeroutput> script when the system is |
| built.</para> |
| |
| <para>You can modify and add to the suppressions file at your leisure, |
| or, better, write your own. Multiple suppression files are allowed. |
| This is useful if part of your project contains errors you can't or |
| don't want to fix, yet you don't want to continuously be reminded of |
| them.</para> |
| |
| <formalpara><title>Note:</title> <para>By far the easiest way to add |
| suppressions is to use the <option>--gen-suppressions=yes</option> option |
| described in <xref linkend="manual-core.options"/>. This generates |
| suppressions automatically. For best results, |
| though, you may want to edit the output |
| of <option>--gen-suppressions=yes</option> by hand, in which |
| case it would be advisable to read through this section. |
| </para> |
| </formalpara> |
| |
| <para>Each error to be suppressed is described very specifically, to |
| minimise the possibility that a suppression-directive inadvertently |
| suppresses a bunch of similar errors which you did want to see. The |
| suppression mechanism is designed to allow precise yet flexible |
| specification of errors to suppress.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you use the <option>-v</option> option, at the end of execution, |
| Valgrind prints out one line for each used suppression, giving the number of times |
| it got used, its name and the filename and line number where the suppression is |
| defined. Depending on the suppression kind, the filename and line number are optionally |
| followed by additional information (such as the number of blocks and bytes suppressed |
| by a memcheck leak suppression). Here's the suppressions used by a |
| run of <computeroutput>valgrind -v --tool=memcheck ls -l</computeroutput>:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| --1610-- used_suppression: 2 dl-hack3-cond-1 /usr/lib/valgrind/default.supp:1234 |
| --1610-- used_suppression: 2 glibc-2.5.x-on-SUSE-10.2-(PPC)-2a /usr/lib/valgrind/default.supp:1234 |
| ]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>Multiple suppressions files are allowed. By default, Valgrind |
| uses <filename>$PREFIX/lib/valgrind/default.supp</filename>. You can |
| ask to add suppressions from another file, by specifying |
| <option>--suppressions=/path/to/file.supp</option>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>If you want to understand more about suppressions, look at an |
| existing suppressions file whilst reading the following documentation. |
| The file <filename>glibc-2.3.supp</filename>, in the source |
| distribution, provides some good examples.</para> |
| |
| <para>Each suppression has the following components:</para> |
| |
| <itemizedlist> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>First line: its name. This merely gives a handy name to the |
| suppression, by which it is referred to in the summary of used |
| suppressions printed out when a program finishes. It's not |
| important what the name is; any identifying string will do.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Second line: name of the tool(s) that the suppression is for |
| (if more than one, comma-separated), and the name of the suppression |
| itself, separated by a colon (n.b.: no spaces are allowed), eg:</para> |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| tool_name1,tool_name2:suppression_name]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>Recall that Valgrind is a modular system, in which |
| different instrumentation tools can observe your program whilst it |
| is running. Since different tools detect different kinds of errors, |
| it is necessary to say which tool(s) the suppression is meaningful |
| to.</para> |
| |
| <para>Tools will complain, at startup, if a tool does not understand |
| any suppression directed to it. Tools ignore suppressions which are |
| not directed to them. As a result, it is quite practical to put |
| suppressions for all tools into the same suppression file.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Next line: a small number of suppression types have extra |
| information after the second line (eg. the <varname>Param</varname> |
| suppression for Memcheck)</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Remaining lines: This is the calling context for the error -- |
| the chain of function calls that led to it. There can be up to 24 |
| of these lines.</para> |
| |
| <para>Locations may be names of either shared objects or |
| functions. They begin |
| <computeroutput>obj:</computeroutput> and |
| <computeroutput>fun:</computeroutput> respectively. Function and |
| object names to match against may use the wildcard characters |
| <computeroutput>*</computeroutput> and |
| <computeroutput>?</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para><command>Important note: </command> C++ function names must be |
| <command>mangled</command>. If you are writing suppressions by |
| hand, use the <option>--demangle=no</option> option to get the |
| mangled names in your error messages. An example of a mangled |
| C++ name is <computeroutput>_ZN9QListView4showEv</computeroutput>. |
| This is the form that the GNU C++ compiler uses internally, and |
| the form that must be used in suppression files. The equivalent |
| demangled name, <computeroutput>QListView::show()</computeroutput>, |
| is what you see at the C++ source code level. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>A location line may also be |
| simply "<computeroutput>...</computeroutput>" (three dots). This is |
| a frame-level wildcard, which matches zero or more frames. Frame |
| level wildcards are useful because they make it easy to ignore |
| varying numbers of uninteresting frames in between frames of |
| interest. That is often important when writing suppressions which |
| are intended to be robust against variations in the amount of |
| function inlining done by compilers.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Finally, the entire suppression must be between curly |
| braces. Each brace must be the first character on its own |
| line.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </itemizedlist> |
| |
| <para>A suppression only suppresses an error when the error matches all |
| the details in the suppression. Here's an example:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| { |
| __gconv_transform_ascii_internal/__mbrtowc/mbtowc |
| Memcheck:Value4 |
| fun:__gconv_transform_ascii_internal |
| fun:__mbr*toc |
| fun:mbtowc |
| }]]></programlisting> |
| |
| |
| <para>What it means is: for Memcheck only, suppress a |
| use-of-uninitialised-value error, when the data size is 4, when it |
| occurs in the function |
| <computeroutput>__gconv_transform_ascii_internal</computeroutput>, when |
| that is called from any function of name matching |
| <computeroutput>__mbr*toc</computeroutput>, when that is called from |
| <computeroutput>mbtowc</computeroutput>. It doesn't apply under any |
| other circumstances. The string by which this suppression is identified |
| to the user is |
| <computeroutput>__gconv_transform_ascii_internal/__mbrtowc/mbtowc</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para>(See <xref linkend="mc-manual.suppfiles"/> for more details |
| on the specifics of Memcheck's suppression kinds.)</para> |
| |
| <para>Another example, again for the Memcheck tool:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| { |
| libX11.so.6.2/libX11.so.6.2/libXaw.so.7.0 |
| Memcheck:Value4 |
| obj:/usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2 |
| obj:/usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2 |
| obj:/usr/X11R6/lib/libXaw.so.7.0 |
| }]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>This suppresses any size 4 uninitialised-value error which occurs |
| anywhere in <filename>libX11.so.6.2</filename>, when called from |
| anywhere in the same library, when called from anywhere in |
| <filename>libXaw.so.7.0</filename>. The inexact specification of |
| locations is regrettable, but is about all you can hope for, given that |
| the X11 libraries shipped on the Linux distro on which this example |
| was made have had their symbol tables removed.</para> |
| |
| <para>Although the above two examples do not make this clear, you can |
| freely mix <computeroutput>obj:</computeroutput> and |
| <computeroutput>fun:</computeroutput> lines in a suppression.</para> |
| |
| <para>Finally, here's an example using three frame-level wildcards:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| { |
| a-contrived-example |
| Memcheck:Leak |
| fun:malloc |
| ... |
| fun:ddd |
| ... |
| fun:ccc |
| ... |
| fun:main |
| } |
| ]]></programlisting> |
| This suppresses Memcheck memory-leak errors, in the case where |
| the allocation was done by <computeroutput>main</computeroutput> |
| calling (though any number of intermediaries, including zero) |
| <computeroutput>ccc</computeroutput>, |
| calling onwards via |
| <computeroutput>ddd</computeroutput> and eventually |
| to <computeroutput>malloc.</computeroutput>. |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.options" |
| xreflabel="Core Command-line Options"> |
| <title>Core Command-line Options</title> |
| |
| <para>As mentioned above, Valgrind's core accepts a common set of options. |
| The tools also accept tool-specific options, which are documented |
| separately for each tool.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind's default settings succeed in giving reasonable behaviour |
| in most cases. We group the available options by rough categories.</para> |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.toolopts" xreflabel="Tool-selection Option"> |
| <title>Tool-selection Option</title> |
| |
| <para id="tool.opts.para">The single most important option.</para> |
| |
| <variablelist id="tool.opts.list"> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="tool_name" xreflabel="--tool"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--tool=<toolname> [default: memcheck] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Run the Valgrind tool called <varname>toolname</varname>, |
| e.g. memcheck, cachegrind, callgrind, helgrind, drd, massif, |
| lackey, none, exp-sgcheck, exp-bbv, exp-dhat, etc.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| </variablelist> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.basicopts" xreflabel="Basic Options"> |
| <title>Basic Options</title> |
| |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <para id="basic.opts.para">These options work with all tools.</para> |
| |
| <variablelist id="basic.opts.list"> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.help" xreflabel="--help"> |
| <term><option>-h --help</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Show help for all options, both for the core and for the |
| selected tool. If the option is repeated it is equivalent to giving |
| <option>--help-debug</option>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.help-debug" xreflabel="--help-debug"> |
| <term><option>--help-debug</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Same as <option>--help</option>, but also lists debugging |
| options which usually are only of use to Valgrind's |
| developers.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.version" xreflabel="--version"> |
| <term><option>--version</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Show the version number of the Valgrind core. Tools can have |
| their own version numbers. There is a scheme in place to ensure |
| that tools only execute when the core version is one they are |
| known to work with. This was done to minimise the chances of |
| strange problems arising from tool-vs-core version |
| incompatibilities.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.quiet" xreflabel="--quiet"> |
| <term><option>-q</option>, <option>--quiet</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Run silently, and only print error messages. Useful if you |
| are running regression tests or have some other automated test |
| machinery.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.verbose" xreflabel="--verbose"> |
| <term><option>-v</option>, <option>--verbose</option></term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Be more verbose. Gives extra information on various aspects |
| of your program, such as: the shared objects loaded, the |
| suppressions used, the progress of the instrumentation and |
| execution engines, and warnings about unusual behaviour. Repeating |
| the option increases the verbosity level.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.trace-children" xreflabel="--trace-children"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--trace-children=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will trace into sub-processes |
| initiated via the <varname>exec</varname> system call. This is |
| necessary for multi-process programs. |
| </para> |
| <para>Note that Valgrind does trace into the child of a |
| <varname>fork</varname> (it would be difficult not to, since |
| <varname>fork</varname> makes an identical copy of a process), so this |
| option is arguably badly named. However, most children of |
| <varname>fork</varname> calls immediately call <varname>exec</varname> |
| anyway. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.trace-children-skip" xreflabel="--trace-children-skip"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--trace-children-skip=patt1,patt2,... ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This option only has an effect when |
| <option>--trace-children=yes</option> is specified. It allows |
| for some children to be skipped. The option takes a comma |
| separated list of patterns for the names of child executables |
| that Valgrind should not trace into. Patterns may include the |
| metacharacters <computeroutput>?</computeroutput> |
| and <computeroutput>*</computeroutput>, which have the usual |
| meaning.</para> |
| <para> |
| This can be useful for pruning uninteresting branches from a |
| tree of processes being run on Valgrind. But you should be |
| careful when using it. When Valgrind skips tracing into an |
| executable, it doesn't just skip tracing that executable, it |
| also skips tracing any of that executable's child processes. |
| In other words, the flag doesn't merely cause tracing to stop |
| at the specified executables -- it skips tracing of entire |
| process subtrees rooted at any of the specified |
| executables.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.trace-children-skip-by-arg" |
| xreflabel="--trace-children-skip-by-arg"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--trace-children-skip-by-arg=patt1,patt2,... ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This is the same as |
| <option>--trace-children-skip</option>, with one difference: |
| the decision as to whether to trace into a child process is |
| made by examining the arguments to the child process, rather |
| than the name of its executable.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.child-silent-after-fork" |
| xreflabel="--child-silent-after-fork"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--child-silent-after-fork=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will not show any debugging or |
| logging output for the child process resulting from |
| a <varname>fork</varname> call. This can make the output less |
| confusing (although more misleading) when dealing with processes |
| that create children. It is particularly useful in conjunction |
| with <varname>--trace-children=</varname>. Use of this option is also |
| strongly recommended if you are requesting XML output |
| (<varname>--xml=yes</varname>), since otherwise the XML from child and |
| parent may become mixed up, which usually makes it useless. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb" xreflabel="--vgdb"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb=<no|yes|full> [default: yes] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind will provide "gdbserver" functionality when |
| <option>--vgdb=yes</option> or <option>--vgdb=full</option> is |
| specified. This allows an external GNU GDB debugger to control |
| and debug your program when it runs on Valgrind. |
| <option>--vgdb=full</option> incurs significant performance |
| overheads, but provides more precise breakpoints and |
| watchpoints. See <xref linkend="manual-core-adv.gdbserver"/> for |
| a detailed description. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para> If the embedded gdbserver is enabled but no gdb is |
| currently being used, the <xref linkend="manual-core-adv.vgdb"/> |
| command line utility can send "monitor commands" to Valgrind |
| from a shell. The Valgrind core provides a set of |
| <xref linkend="manual-core-adv.valgrind-monitor-commands"/>. A tool |
| can optionally provide tool specific monitor commands, which are |
| documented in the tool specific chapter. |
| </para> |
| |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb-error" xreflabel="--vgdb-error"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb-error=<number> [default: 999999999] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> Use this option when the Valgrind gdbserver is enabled with |
| <option>--vgdb=yes</option> or <option>--vgdb=full</option>. |
| Tools that report errors will wait |
| for "<computeroutput>number</computeroutput>" errors to be |
| reported before freezing the program and waiting for you to |
| connect with GDB. It follows that a value of zero will cause |
| the gdbserver to be started before your program is executed. |
| This is typically used to insert GDB breakpoints before |
| execution, and also works with tools that do not report |
| errors, such as Massif. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb-stop-at" xreflabel="--vgdb-stop-at"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb-stop-at=<set> [default: none] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> Use this option when the Valgrind gdbserver is enabled with |
| <option>--vgdb=yes</option> or <option>--vgdb=full</option>. |
| The Valgrind gdbserver will be invoked for each error after |
| <option>--vgdb-error</option> have been reported. |
| You can additionally ask the Valgrind gdbserver to be invoked |
| for other events, specified in one of the following ways: </para> |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem><para>a comma separated list of one or more of |
| <option>startup exit valgrindabexit</option>.</para> |
| |
| <para>The values <option>startup</option> <option>exit</option> |
| <option>valgrindabexit</option> respectively indicate to |
| invoke gdbserver before your program is executed, after the |
| last instruction of your program, on Valgrind abnormal exit |
| (e.g. internal error, out of memory, ...).</para> |
| |
| <para>Note: <option>startup</option> and |
| <option>--vgdb-error=0</option> will both cause Valgrind |
| gdbserver to be invoked before your program is executed. The |
| <option>--vgdb-error=0</option> will in addition cause your |
| program to stop on all subsequent errors.</para> |
| |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem><para><option>all</option> to specify the complete set. |
| It is equivalent to |
| <option>--vgdb-stop-at=startup,exit,valgrindabexit</option>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem><para><option>none</option> for the empty set.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.track-fds" xreflabel="--track-fds"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--track-fds=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will print out a list of open file |
| descriptors on exit or on request, via the gdbserver monitor |
| command <varname>v.info open_fds</varname>. Along with each |
| file descriptor is printed a stack backtrace of where the file |
| was opened and any details relating to the file descriptor such |
| as the file name or socket details.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.time-stamp" xreflabel="--time-stamp"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--time-stamp=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, each message is preceded with an indication of |
| the elapsed wallclock time since startup, expressed as days, |
| hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.log-fd" xreflabel="--log-fd"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--log-fd=<number> [default: 2, stderr] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send all of its messages to |
| the specified file descriptor. The default, 2, is the standard |
| error channel (stderr). Note that this may interfere with the |
| client's own use of stderr, as Valgrind's output will be |
| interleaved with any output that the client sends to |
| stderr.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.log-file" xreflabel="--log-file"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--log-file=<filename> ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send all of its messages to |
| the specified file. If the file name is empty, it causes an abort. |
| There are three special format specifiers that can be used in the file |
| name.</para> |
| |
| <para><option>%p</option> is replaced with the current process ID. |
| This is very useful for program that invoke multiple processes. |
| WARNING: If you use <option>--trace-children=yes</option> and your |
| program invokes multiple processes OR your program forks without |
| calling exec afterwards, and you don't use this specifier |
| (or the <option>%q</option> specifier below), the Valgrind output from |
| all those processes will go into one file, possibly jumbled up, and |
| possibly incomplete.</para> |
| |
| <para><option>%q{FOO}</option> is replaced with the contents of the |
| environment variable <varname>FOO</varname>. If the |
| <option>{FOO}</option> part is malformed, it causes an abort. This |
| specifier is rarely needed, but very useful in certain circumstances |
| (eg. when running MPI programs). The idea is that you specify a |
| variable which will be set differently for each process in the job, |
| for example <computeroutput>BPROC_RANK</computeroutput> or whatever is |
| applicable in your MPI setup. If the named environment variable is not |
| set, it causes an abort. Note that in some shells, the |
| <option>{</option> and <option>}</option> characters may need to be |
| escaped with a backslash.</para> |
| |
| <para><option>%%</option> is replaced with <option>%</option>.</para> |
| |
| <para>If an <option>%</option> is followed by any other character, it |
| causes an abort.</para> |
| |
| <para>If the file name specifies a relative file name, it is put |
| in the program's initial working directory : this is the current |
| directory when the program started its execution after the fork |
| or after the exec. If it specifies an absolute file name (ie. |
| starts with '/') then it is put there. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.log-socket" xreflabel="--log-socket"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--log-socket=<ip-address:port-number> ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send all of its messages to |
| the specified port at the specified IP address. The port may be |
| omitted, in which case port 1500 is used. If a connection cannot |
| be made to the specified socket, Valgrind falls back to writing |
| output to the standard error (stderr). This option is intended to |
| be used in conjunction with the |
| <computeroutput>valgrind-listener</computeroutput> program. For |
| further details, see |
| <link linkend="&vg-comment-id;">the commentary</link> |
| in the manual.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| </variablelist> |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.erropts" xreflabel="Error-related Options"> |
| <title>Error-related Options</title> |
| |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <para id="error-related.opts.para">These options are used by all tools |
| that can report errors, e.g. Memcheck, but not Cachegrind.</para> |
| |
| <variablelist id="error-related.opts.list"> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.xml" xreflabel="--xml"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--xml=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, the important parts of the output (e.g. tool error |
| messages) will be in XML format rather than plain text. Furthermore, |
| the XML output will be sent to a different output channel than the |
| plain text output. Therefore, you also must use one of |
| <option>--xml-fd</option>, <option>--xml-file</option> or |
| <option>--xml-socket</option> to specify where the XML is to be sent. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>Less important messages will still be printed in plain text, but |
| because the XML output and plain text output are sent to different |
| output channels (the destination of the plain text output is still |
| controlled by <option>--log-fd</option>, <option>--log-file</option> |
| and <option>--log-socket</option>) this should not cause problems. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>This option is aimed at making life easier for tools that consume |
| Valgrind's output as input, such as GUI front ends. Currently this |
| option works with Memcheck, Helgrind, DRD and SGcheck. The output |
| format is specified in the file |
| <computeroutput>docs/internals/xml-output-protocol4.txt</computeroutput> |
| in the source tree for Valgrind 3.5.0 or later.</para> |
| |
| <para>The recommended options for a GUI to pass, when requesting |
| XML output, are: <option>--xml=yes</option> to enable XML output, |
| <option>--xml-file</option> to send the XML output to a (presumably |
| GUI-selected) file, <option>--log-file</option> to send the plain |
| text output to a second GUI-selected file, |
| <option>--child-silent-after-fork=yes</option>, and |
| <option>-q</option> to restrict the plain text output to critical |
| error messages created by Valgrind itself. For example, failure to |
| read a specified suppressions file counts as a critical error message. |
| In this way, for a successful run the text output file will be empty. |
| But if it isn't empty, then it will contain important information |
| which the GUI user should be made aware |
| of.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.xml-fd" xreflabel="--xml-fd"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--xml-fd=<number> [default: -1, disabled] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send its XML output to the |
| specified file descriptor. It must be used in conjunction with |
| <option>--xml=yes</option>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.xml-file" xreflabel="--xml-file"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--xml-file=<filename> ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send its XML output |
| to the specified file. It must be used in conjunction with |
| <option>--xml=yes</option>. Any <option>%p</option> or |
| <option>%q</option> sequences appearing in the filename are expanded |
| in exactly the same way as they are for <option>--log-file</option>. |
| See the description of <option>--log-file</option> for details. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.xml-socket" xreflabel="--xml-socket"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--xml-socket=<ip-address:port-number> ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies that Valgrind should send its XML output the |
| specified port at the specified IP address. It must be used in |
| conjunction with <option>--xml=yes</option>. The form of the argument |
| is the same as that used by <option>--log-socket</option>. |
| See the description of <option>--log-socket</option> |
| for further details.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.xml-user-comment" xreflabel="--xml-user-comment"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--xml-user-comment=<string> ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Embeds an extra user comment string at the start of the XML |
| output. Only works when <option>--xml=yes</option> is specified; |
| ignored otherwise.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.demangle" xreflabel="--demangle"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--demangle=<yes|no> [default: yes] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Enable/disable automatic demangling (decoding) of C++ names. |
| Enabled by default. When enabled, Valgrind will attempt to |
| translate encoded C++ names back to something approaching the |
| original. The demangler handles symbols mangled by g++ versions |
| 2.X, 3.X and 4.X.</para> |
| |
| <para>An important fact about demangling is that function names |
| mentioned in suppressions files should be in their mangled form. |
| Valgrind does not demangle function names when searching for |
| applicable suppressions, because to do otherwise would make |
| suppression file contents dependent on the state of Valgrind's |
| demangling machinery, and also slow down suppression matching.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.num-callers" xreflabel="--num-callers"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--num-callers=<number> [default: 12] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies the maximum number of entries shown in stack traces |
| that identify program locations. Note that errors are commoned up |
| using only the top four function locations (the place in the current |
| function, and that of its three immediate callers). So this doesn't |
| affect the total number of errors reported.</para> |
| |
| <para>The maximum value for this is 500. Note that higher settings |
| will make Valgrind run a bit more slowly and take a bit more |
| memory, but can be useful when working with programs with |
| deeply-nested call chains.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.unw-stack-scan-thresh" |
| xreflabel="--unw-stack-scan-thresh"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--unw-stack-scan-thresh=<number> [default: 0] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--unw-stack-scan-frames=<number> [default: 5] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Stack-scanning support is available only on ARM |
| targets.</para> |
| |
| <para>These flags enable and control stack unwinding by stack |
| scanning. When the normal stack unwinding mechanisms -- usage |
| of Dwarf CFI records, and frame-pointer following -- fail, stack |
| scanning may be able to recover a stack trace.</para> |
| |
| <para>Note that stack scanning is an imprecise, heuristic |
| mechanism that may give very misleading results, or none at all. |
| It should be used only in emergencies, when normal unwinding |
| fails, and it is important to nevertheless have stack |
| traces.</para> |
| |
| <para>Stack scanning is a simple technique: the unwinder reads |
| words from the stack, and tries to guess which of them might be |
| return addresses, by checking to see if they point just after |
| ARM or Thumb call instructions. If so, the word is added to the |
| backtrace.</para> |
| |
| <para>The main danger occurs when a function call returns, |
| leaving its return address exposed, and a new function is |
| called, but the new function does not overwrite the old address. |
| The result of this is that the backtrace may contain entries for |
| functions which have already returned, and so be very |
| confusing.</para> |
| |
| <para>A second limitation of this implementation is that it will |
| scan only the page (4KB, normally) containing the starting stack |
| pointer. If the stack frames are large, this may result in only |
| a few (or not even any) being present in the trace. Also, if |
| you are unlucky and have an initial stack pointer near the end |
| of its containing page, the scan may miss all interesting |
| frames.</para> |
| |
| <para>By default stack scanning is disabled. The normal use |
| case is to ask for it when a stack trace would otherwise be very |
| short. So, to enable it, |
| use <computeroutput>--unw-stack-scan-thresh=number</computeroutput>. |
| This requests Valgrind to try using stack scanning to "extend" |
| stack traces which contain fewer |
| than <computeroutput>number</computeroutput> frames.</para> |
| |
| <para>If stack scanning does take place, it will only generate |
| at most the number of frames specified |
| by <computeroutput>--unw-stack-scan-frames</computeroutput>. |
| Typically, stack scanning generates so many garbage entries that |
| this value is set to a low value (5) by default. In no case |
| will a stack trace larger than the value specified |
| by <computeroutput>--num-callers</computeroutput> be |
| created.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.error-limit" xreflabel="--error-limit"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--error-limit=<yes|no> [default: yes] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind stops reporting errors after 10,000,000 |
| in total, or 1,000 different ones, have been seen. This is to |
| stop the error tracking machinery from becoming a huge performance |
| overhead in programs with many errors.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.error-exitcode" xreflabel="--error-exitcode"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--error-exitcode=<number> [default: 0] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies an alternative exit code to return if Valgrind |
| reported any errors in the run. When set to the default value |
| (zero), the return value from Valgrind will always be the return |
| value of the process being simulated. When set to a nonzero value, |
| that value is returned instead, if Valgrind detects any errors. |
| This is useful for using Valgrind as part of an automated test |
| suite, since it makes it easy to detect test cases for which |
| Valgrind has reported errors, just by inspecting return codes.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.sigill-diagnostics" xreflabel="--sigill-diagnostics"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--sigill-diagnostics=<yes|no> [default: yes] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Enable/disable printing of illegal instruction diagnostics. |
| Enabled by default, but defaults to disabled when |
| <option>--quiet</option> is given. The default can always be explicitly |
| overridden by giving this option.</para> |
| |
| <para>When enabled, a warning message will be printed, along with some |
| diagnostics, whenever an instruction is encountered that Valgrind |
| cannot decode or translate, before the program is given a SIGILL signal. |
| Often an illegal instruction indicates a bug in the program or missing |
| support for the particular instruction in Valgrind. But some programs |
| do deliberately try to execute an instruction that might be missing |
| and trap the SIGILL signal to detect processor features. Using |
| this flag makes it possible to avoid the diagnostic output |
| that you would otherwise get in such cases.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.show-below-main" xreflabel="--show-below-main"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--show-below-main=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>By default, stack traces for errors do not show any |
| functions that appear beneath <function>main</function> because |
| most of the time it's uninteresting C library stuff and/or |
| gobbledygook. Alternatively, if <function>main</function> is not |
| present in the stack trace, stack traces will not show any functions |
| below <function>main</function>-like functions such as glibc's |
| <function>__libc_start_main</function>. Furthermore, if |
| <function>main</function>-like functions are present in the trace, |
| they are normalised as <function>(below main)</function>, in order to |
| make the output more deterministic.</para> |
| |
| <para>If this option is enabled, all stack trace entries will be |
| shown and <function>main</function>-like functions will not be |
| normalised.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.fullpath-after" xreflabel="--fullpath-after"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--fullpath-after=<string> |
| [default: don't show source paths] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>By default Valgrind only shows the filenames in stack |
| traces, but not full paths to source files. When using Valgrind |
| in large projects where the sources reside in multiple different |
| directories, this can be inconvenient. |
| <option>--fullpath-after</option> provides a flexible solution |
| to this problem. When this option is present, the path to each |
| source file is shown, with the following all-important caveat: |
| if <option>string</option> is found in the path, then the path |
| up to and including <option>string</option> is omitted, else the |
| path is shown unmodified. Note that <option>string</option> is |
| not required to be a prefix of the path.</para> |
| |
| <para>For example, consider a file named |
| <computeroutput>/home/janedoe/blah/src/foo/bar/xyzzy.c</computeroutput>. |
| Specifying <option>--fullpath-after=/home/janedoe/blah/src/</option> |
| will cause Valgrind to show the name |
| as <computeroutput>foo/bar/xyzzy.c</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para>Because the string is not required to be a prefix, |
| <option>--fullpath-after=src/</option> will produce the same |
| output. This is useful when the path contains arbitrary |
| machine-generated characters. For example, the |
| path |
| <computeroutput>/my/build/dir/C32A1B47/blah/src/foo/xyzzy</computeroutput> |
| can be pruned to <computeroutput>foo/xyzzy</computeroutput> |
| using |
| <option>--fullpath-after=/blah/src/</option>.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you simply want to see the full path, just specify an |
| empty string: <option>--fullpath-after=</option>. This isn't a |
| special case, merely a logical consequence of the above rules.</para> |
| |
| <para>Finally, you can use <option>--fullpath-after</option> |
| multiple times. Any appearance of it causes Valgrind to switch |
| to producing full paths and applying the above filtering rule. |
| Each produced path is compared against all |
| the <option>--fullpath-after</option>-specified strings, in the |
| order specified. The first string to match causes the path to |
| be truncated as described above. If none match, the full path |
| is shown. This facilitates chopping off prefixes when the |
| sources are drawn from a number of unrelated directories. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.extra-debuginfo-path" xreflabel="--extra-debuginfo-path"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--extra-debuginfo-path=<path> [default: undefined and unused] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>By default Valgrind searches in several well-known paths |
| for debug objects, such |
| as <computeroutput>/usr/lib/debug/</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para>However, there may be scenarios where you may wish to put |
| debug objects at an arbitrary location, such as external storage |
| when running Valgrind on a mobile device with limited local |
| storage. Another example might be a situation where you do not |
| have permission to install debug object packages on the system |
| where you are running Valgrind.</para> |
| |
| <para>In these scenarios, you may provide an absolute path as an extra, |
| final place for Valgrind to search for debug objects by specifying |
| <option>--extra-debuginfo-path=/path/to/debug/objects</option>. |
| The given path will be prepended to the absolute path name of |
| the searched-for object. For example, if Valgrind is looking |
| for the debuginfo |
| for <computeroutput>/w/x/y/zz.so</computeroutput> |
| and <option>--extra-debuginfo-path=/a/b/c</option> is specified, |
| it will look for a debug object at |
| <computeroutput>/a/b/c/w/x/y/zz.so</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para>This flag should only be specified once. If it is |
| specified multiple times, only the last instance is |
| honoured.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.debuginfo-server" xreflabel="--debuginfo-server"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--debuginfo-server=ipaddr:port [default: undefined and unused]]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This is a new, experimental, feature introduced in version |
| 3.9.0.</para> |
| |
| <para>In some scenarios it may be convenient to read debuginfo |
| from objects stored on a different machine. With this flag, |
| Valgrind will query a debuginfo server running |
| on <computeroutput>ipaddr</computeroutput> and listening on |
| port <computeroutput>port</computeroutput>, if it cannot find |
| the debuginfo object in the local filesystem.</para> |
| |
| <para>The debuginfo server must accept TCP connections on |
| port <computeroutput>port</computeroutput>. The debuginfo |
| server is contained in the source |
| file <computeroutput>auxprogs/valgrind-di-server.c</computeroutput>. |
| It will only serve from the directory it is started |
| in. <computeroutput>port</computeroutput> defaults to 1500 in |
| both client and server if not specified.</para> |
| |
| <para>If Valgrind looks for the debuginfo for |
| <computeroutput>/w/x/y/zz.so</computeroutput> by using the |
| debuginfo server, it will strip the pathname components and |
| merely request <computeroutput>zz.so</computeroutput> on the |
| server. That in turn will look only in its current working |
| directory for a matching debuginfo object.</para> |
| |
| <para>The debuginfo data is transmitted in small fragments (8 |
| KB) as requested by Valgrind. Each block is compressed using |
| LZO to reduce transmission time. The implementation has been |
| tuned for best performance over a single-stage 802.11g (WiFi) |
| network link.</para> |
| |
| <para>Note that checks for matching primary vs debug objects, |
| using GNU debuglink CRC scheme, are performed even when using |
| the debuginfo server. To disable such checking, you need to |
| also specify |
| <computeroutput>--allow-mismatched-debuginfo=yes</computeroutput>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>By default the Valgrind build system will |
| build <computeroutput>valgrind-di-server</computeroutput> for |
| the target platform, which is almost certainly not what you |
| want. So far we have been unable to find out how to get |
| automake/autoconf to build it for the build platform. If |
| you want to use it, you will have to recompile it by hand using |
| the command shown at the top |
| of <computeroutput>auxprogs/valgrind-di-server.c</computeroutput>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.allow-mismatched-debuginfo" |
| xreflabel="--allow-mismatched-debuginfo"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--allow-mismatched-debuginfo=no|yes [no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When reading debuginfo from separate debuginfo objects, |
| Valgrind will by default check that the main and debuginfo |
| objects match, using the GNU debuglink mechanism. This |
| guarantees that it does not read debuginfo from out of date |
| debuginfo objects, and also ensures that Valgrind can't crash as |
| a result of mismatches.</para> |
| |
| <para>This check can be overridden using |
| <computeroutput>--allow-mismatched-debuginfo=yes</computeroutput>. |
| This may be useful when the debuginfo and main objects have not |
| been split in the proper way. Be careful when using this, |
| though: it disables all consistency checking, and Valgrind has |
| been observed to crash when the main and debuginfo objects don't |
| match.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.suppressions" xreflabel="--suppressions"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--suppressions=<filename> [default: $PREFIX/lib/valgrind/default.supp] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies an extra file from which to read descriptions of |
| errors to suppress. You may use up to 100 extra suppression |
| files.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.gen-suppressions" xreflabel="--gen-suppressions"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--gen-suppressions=<yes|no|all> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When set to <varname>yes</varname>, Valgrind will pause |
| after every error shown and print the line: |
| <literallayout><computeroutput> ---- Print suppression ? --- [Return/N/n/Y/y/C/c] ----</computeroutput></literallayout> |
| |
| The prompt's behaviour is the same as for the |
| <option>--db-attach</option> option (see below).</para> |
| |
| <para>If you choose to, Valgrind will print out a suppression for |
| this error. You can then cut and paste it into a suppression file |
| if you don't want to hear about the error in the future.</para> |
| |
| <para>When set to <varname>all</varname>, Valgrind will print a |
| suppression for every reported error, without querying the |
| user.</para> |
| |
| <para>This option is particularly useful with C++ programs, as it |
| prints out the suppressions with mangled names, as |
| required.</para> |
| |
| <para>Note that the suppressions printed are as specific as |
| possible. You may want to common up similar ones, by adding |
| wildcards to function names, and by using frame-level wildcards. |
| The wildcarding facilities are powerful yet flexible, and with a |
| bit of careful editing, you may be able to suppress a whole |
| family of related errors with only a few suppressions. |
| <!-- commented out because it causes broken links in the man page |
| For details on how to do this, see |
| <xref linkend="manual-core.suppress"/>. |
| --> |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>Sometimes two different errors |
| are suppressed by the same suppression, in which case Valgrind |
| will output the suppression more than once, but you only need to |
| have one copy in your suppression file (but having more than one |
| won't cause problems). Also, the suppression name is given as |
| <computeroutput><insert a suppression name |
| here></computeroutput>; the name doesn't really matter, it's |
| only used with the <option>-v</option> option which prints out all |
| used suppression records.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.db-attach" xreflabel="--db-attach"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--db-attach=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will pause after every error shown |
| and print the line: |
| <literallayout><computeroutput> ---- Attach to debugger ? --- [Return/N/n/Y/y/C/c] ----</computeroutput></literallayout> |
| |
| Pressing <varname>Ret</varname>, or <varname>N Ret</varname> or |
| <varname>n Ret</varname>, causes Valgrind not to start a debugger |
| for this error.</para> |
| |
| <para>Pressing <varname>Y Ret</varname> or |
| <varname>y Ret</varname> causes Valgrind to start a debugger for |
| the program at this point. When you have finished with the |
| debugger, quit from it, and the program will continue. Trying to |
| continue from inside the debugger doesn't work.</para> |
| |
| <para> |
| Note: if you use GDB, more powerful debugging support is |
| provided by the <option>--vgdb=</option> <varname>yes</varname> |
| or <varname>full</varname> value. This activates Valgrind's |
| internal gdbserver, which provides more-or-less full GDB-style |
| control of the application: insertion of breakpoints, continuing |
| from inside GDB, inferior function calls, and much more. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para><varname>C Ret</varname> or <varname>c Ret</varname> causes |
| Valgrind not to start a debugger, and not to ask again.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.db-command" xreflabel="--db-command"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--db-command=<command> [default: gdb -nw %f %p] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specify the debugger to use with the |
| <option>--db-attach</option> command. The default debugger is |
| GDB. This option is a template that is expanded by Valgrind at |
| runtime. <literal>%f</literal> is replaced with the executable's |
| file name and <literal>%p</literal> is replaced by the process ID |
| of the executable.</para> |
| |
| <para>This specifies how Valgrind will invoke the debugger. By |
| default it will use whatever GDB is detected at build time, which |
| is usually <computeroutput>/usr/bin/gdb</computeroutput>. Using |
| this command, you can specify some alternative command to invoke |
| the debugger you want to use.</para> |
| |
| <para>The command string given can include one or instances of the |
| <literal>%p</literal> and <literal>%f</literal> expansions. Each |
| instance of <literal>%p</literal> expands to the PID of the |
| process to be debugged and each instance of <literal>%f</literal> |
| expands to the path to the executable for the process to be |
| debugged.</para> |
| |
| <para>Since <computeroutput><command></computeroutput> is likely |
| to contain spaces, you will need to put this entire option in |
| quotes to ensure it is correctly handled by the shell.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.input-fd" xreflabel="--input-fd"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--input-fd=<number> [default: 0, stdin] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When using <option>--db-attach=yes</option> or |
| <option>--gen-suppressions=yes</option>, Valgrind will stop so as |
| to read keyboard input from you when each error occurs. By |
| default it reads from the standard input (stdin), which is |
| problematic for programs which close stdin. This option allows |
| you to specify an alternative file descriptor from which to read |
| input.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.dsymutil" xreflabel="--dsymutil"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--dsymutil=no|yes [no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This option is only relevant when running Valgrind on |
| Mac OS X.</para> |
| |
| <para>Mac OS X uses a deferred debug information (debuginfo) |
| linking scheme. When object files containing debuginfo are |
| linked into a <computeroutput>.dylib</computeroutput> or an |
| executable, the debuginfo is not copied into the final file. |
| Instead, the debuginfo must be linked manually by |
| running <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput>, a |
| system-provided utility, on the executable |
| or <computeroutput>.dylib</computeroutput>. The resulting |
| combined debuginfo is placed in a directory alongside the |
| executable or <computeroutput>.dylib</computeroutput>, but with |
| the extension <computeroutput>.dSYM</computeroutput>.</para> |
| |
| <para>With <option>--dsymutil=no</option>, Valgrind |
| will detect cases where the |
| <computeroutput>.dSYM</computeroutput> directory is either |
| missing, or is present but does not appear to match the |
| associated executable or <computeroutput>.dylib</computeroutput>, |
| most likely because it is out of date. In these cases, Valgrind |
| will print a warning message but take no further action.</para> |
| |
| <para>With <option>--dsymutil=yes</option>, Valgrind |
| will, in such cases, automatically |
| run <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput> as necessary to |
| bring the debuginfo up to date. For all practical purposes, if |
| you always use <option>--dsymutil=yes</option>, then |
| there is never any need to |
| run <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput> manually or as part |
| of your applications's build system, since Valgrind will run it |
| as necessary.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind will not attempt to |
| run <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput> on any |
| executable or library in |
| <computeroutput>/usr/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/bin/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/sbin/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/opt/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/sw/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/System/</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>/Library/</computeroutput> or |
| <computeroutput>/Applications/</computeroutput> |
| since <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput> will always fail |
| in such situations. It fails both because the debuginfo for |
| such pre-installed system components is not available anywhere, |
| and also because it would require write privileges in those |
| directories.</para> |
| |
| <para>Be careful when |
| using <option>--dsymutil=yes</option>, since it will |
| cause pre-existing <computeroutput>.dSYM</computeroutput> |
| directories to be silently deleted and re-created. Also note that |
| <computeroutput>dsymutil</computeroutput> is quite slow, sometimes |
| excessively so.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.max-stackframe" xreflabel="--max-stackframe"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--max-stackframe=<number> [default: 2000000] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>The maximum size of a stack frame. If the stack pointer moves by |
| more than this amount then Valgrind will assume that |
| the program is switching to a different stack.</para> |
| |
| <para>You may need to use this option if your program has large |
| stack-allocated arrays. Valgrind keeps track of your program's |
| stack pointer. If it changes by more than the threshold amount, |
| Valgrind assumes your program is switching to a different stack, |
| and Memcheck behaves differently than it would for a stack pointer |
| change smaller than the threshold. Usually this heuristic works |
| well. However, if your program allocates large structures on the |
| stack, this heuristic will be fooled, and Memcheck will |
| subsequently report large numbers of invalid stack accesses. This |
| option allows you to change the threshold to a different |
| value.</para> |
| |
| <para>You should only consider use of this option if Valgrind's |
| debug output directs you to do so. In that case it will tell you |
| the new threshold you should specify.</para> |
| |
| <para>In general, allocating large structures on the stack is a |
| bad idea, because you can easily run out of stack space, |
| especially on systems with limited memory or which expect to |
| support large numbers of threads each with a small stack, and also |
| because the error checking performed by Memcheck is more effective |
| for heap-allocated data than for stack-allocated data. If you |
| have to use this option, you may wish to consider rewriting your |
| code to allocate on the heap rather than on the stack.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.main-stacksize" xreflabel="--main-stacksize"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--main-stacksize=<number> |
| [default: use current 'ulimit' value] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Specifies the size of the main thread's stack.</para> |
| |
| <para>To simplify its memory management, Valgrind reserves all |
| required space for the main thread's stack at startup. That |
| means it needs to know the required stack size at |
| startup.</para> |
| |
| <para>By default, Valgrind uses the current "ulimit" value for |
| the stack size, or 16 MB, whichever is lower. In many cases |
| this gives a stack size in the range 8 to 16 MB, which almost |
| never overflows for most applications.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you need a larger total stack size, |
| use <option>--main-stacksize</option> to specify it. Only set |
| it as high as you need, since reserving far more space than you |
| need (that is, hundreds of megabytes more than you need) |
| constrains Valgrind's memory allocators and may reduce the total |
| amount of memory that Valgrind can use. This is only really of |
| significance on 32-bit machines.</para> |
| |
| <para>On Linux, you may request a stack of size up to 2GB. |
| Valgrind will stop with a diagnostic message if the stack cannot |
| be allocated.</para> |
| |
| <para><option>--main-stacksize</option> only affects the stack |
| size for the program's initial thread. It has no bearing on the |
| size of thread stacks, as Valgrind does not allocate |
| those.</para> |
| |
| <para>You may need to use both <option>--main-stacksize</option> |
| and <option>--max-stackframe</option> together. It is important |
| to understand that <option>--main-stacksize</option> sets the |
| maximum total stack size, |
| whilst <option>--max-stackframe</option> specifies the largest |
| size of any one stack frame. You will have to work out |
| the <option>--main-stacksize</option> value for yourself |
| (usually, if your applications segfaults). But Valgrind will |
| tell you the needed <option>--max-stackframe</option> size, if |
| necessary.</para> |
| |
| <para>As discussed further in the description |
| of <option>--max-stackframe</option>, a requirement for a large |
| stack is a sign of potential portability problems. You are best |
| advised to place all large data in heap-allocated memory.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| </variablelist> |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.mallocopts" xreflabel="malloc-related Options"> |
| <title>malloc-related Options</title> |
| |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <para id="malloc-related.opts.para">For tools that use their own version of |
| <computeroutput>malloc</computeroutput> (e.g. Memcheck, |
| Massif, Helgrind, DRD), the following options apply.</para> |
| |
| <variablelist id="malloc-related.opts.list"> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.alignment" xreflabel="--alignment"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--alignment=<number> [default: 8 or 16, depending on the platform] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>By default Valgrind's <function>malloc</function>, |
| <function>realloc</function>, etc, return a block whose starting |
| address is 8-byte aligned or 16-byte aligned (the value depends on the |
| platform and matches the platform default). This option allows you to |
| specify a different alignment. The supplied value must be greater |
| than or equal to the default, less than or equal to 4096, and must be |
| a power of two.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.redzone-size" xreflabel="--redzone-size"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--redzone-size=<number> [default: depends on the tool] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> Valgrind's <function>malloc, realloc,</function> etc, add |
| padding blocks before and after each heap block allocated by the |
| program being run. Such padding blocks are called redzones. The |
| default value for the redzone size depends on the tool. For |
| example, Memcheck adds and protects a minimum of 16 bytes before |
| and after each block allocated by the client. This allows it to |
| detect block underruns or overruns of up to 16 bytes. |
| </para> |
| <para>Increasing the redzone size makes it possible to detect |
| overruns of larger distances, but increases the amount of memory |
| used by Valgrind. Decreasing the redzone size will reduce the |
| memory needed by Valgrind but also reduces the chances of |
| detecting over/underruns, so is not recommended.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| </variablelist> |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.rareopts" xreflabel="Uncommon Options"> |
| <title>Uncommon Options</title> |
| |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <para id="uncommon.opts.para">These options apply to all tools, as they |
| affect certain obscure workings of the Valgrind core. Most people won't |
| need to use them.</para> |
| |
| <variablelist id="uncommon.opts.list"> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.smc-check" xreflabel="--smc-check"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--smc-check=<none|stack|all|all-non-file> [default: stack] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This option controls Valgrind's detection of self-modifying |
| code. If no checking is done, if a program executes some code, then |
| overwrites it with new code, and executes the new code, Valgrind will |
| continue to execute the translations it made for the old code. This |
| will likely lead to incorrect behaviour and/or crashes.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind has four levels of self-modifying code detection: |
| no detection, detect self-modifying code on the stack (which is used by |
| GCC to implement nested functions), detect self-modifying code |
| everywhere, and detect self-modifying code everywhere except in |
| file-backed mappings. |
| |
| Note that the default option will catch the vast majority |
| of cases. The main case it will not catch is programs such as JIT |
| compilers that dynamically generate code <emphasis>and</emphasis> |
| subsequently overwrite part or all of it. Running with |
| <varname>all</varname> will slow Valgrind down noticeably. |
| Running with |
| <varname>none</varname> will rarely speed things up, since very little |
| code gets put on the stack for most programs. The |
| <function>VALGRIND_DISCARD_TRANSLATIONS</function> client |
| request is an alternative to <option>--smc-check=all</option> |
| that requires more programmer effort but allows Valgrind to run |
| your program faster, by telling it precisely when translations |
| need to be re-made. |
| <!-- commented out because it causes broken links in the man page |
| ; see <xref |
| linkend="manual-core-adv.clientreq"/> for more details. |
| --> |
| </para> |
| |
| <para><option>--smc-check=all-non-file</option> provides a |
| cheaper but more limited version |
| of <option>--smc-check=all</option>. It adds checks to any |
| translations that do not originate from file-backed memory |
| mappings. Typical applications that generate code, for example |
| JITs in web browsers, generate code into anonymous mmaped areas, |
| whereas the "fixed" code of the browser always lives in |
| file-backed mappings. <option>--smc-check=all-non-file</option> |
| takes advantage of this observation, limiting the overhead of |
| checking to code which is likely to be JIT generated.</para> |
| |
| <para>Some architectures (including ppc32, ppc64, ARM and MIPS) |
| require programs which create code at runtime to flush the |
| instruction cache in between code generation and first use. |
| Valgrind observes and honours such instructions. Hence, on |
| ppc32/Linux, ppc64/Linux and ARM/Linux, Valgrind always provides |
| complete, transparent support for self-modifying code. It is |
| only on platforms such as x86/Linux, AMD64/Linux, x86/Darwin and |
| AMD64/Darwin that you need to use this option.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.read-var-info" xreflabel="--read-var-info"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--read-var-info=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will read information about |
| variable types and locations from DWARF3 debug info. |
| This slows Valgrind down and makes it use more memory, but for |
| the tools that can take advantage of it (Memcheck, Helgrind, |
| DRD) it can result in more precise error messages. For example, |
| here are some standard errors issued by Memcheck:</para> |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| ==15516== Uninitialised byte(s) found during client check request |
| ==15516== at 0x400633: croak (varinfo1.c:28) |
| ==15516== by 0x4006B2: main (varinfo1.c:55) |
| ==15516== Address 0x60103b is 7 bytes inside data symbol "global_i2" |
| ==15516== |
| ==15516== Uninitialised byte(s) found during client check request |
| ==15516== at 0x400633: croak (varinfo1.c:28) |
| ==15516== by 0x4006BC: main (varinfo1.c:56) |
| ==15516== Address 0x7fefffefc is on thread 1's stack]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>And here are the same errors with |
| <option>--read-var-info=yes</option>:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| ==15522== Uninitialised byte(s) found during client check request |
| ==15522== at 0x400633: croak (varinfo1.c:28) |
| ==15522== by 0x4006B2: main (varinfo1.c:55) |
| ==15522== Location 0x60103b is 0 bytes inside global_i2[7], |
| ==15522== a global variable declared at varinfo1.c:41 |
| ==15522== |
| ==15522== Uninitialised byte(s) found during client check request |
| ==15522== at 0x400633: croak (varinfo1.c:28) |
| ==15522== by 0x4006BC: main (varinfo1.c:56) |
| ==15522== Location 0x7fefffefc is 0 bytes inside local var "local" |
| ==15522== declared at varinfo1.c:46, in frame #1 of thread 1]]></programlisting> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb-poll" xreflabel="--vgdb-poll"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb-poll=<number> [default: 5000] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> As part of its main loop, the Valgrind scheduler will |
| poll to check if some activity (such as an external command or |
| some input from a gdb) has to be handled by gdbserver. This |
| activity poll will be done after having run the given number of |
| basic blocks (or slightly more than the given number of basic |
| blocks). This poll is quite cheap so the default value is set |
| relatively low. You might further decrease this value if vgdb |
| cannot use ptrace system call to interrupt Valgrind if all |
| threads are (most of the time) blocked in a system call. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb-shadow-registers" xreflabel="--vgdb-shadow-registers"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb-shadow-registers=no|yes [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> When activated, gdbserver will expose the Valgrind shadow registers |
| to GDB. With this, the value of the Valgrind shadow registers can be examined |
| or changed using GDB. Exposing shadow registers only works with GDB version |
| 7.1 or later. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.vgdb-prefix" xreflabel="--vgdb-prefix"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--vgdb-prefix=<prefix> [default: /tmp/vgdb-pipe] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para> To communicate with gdb/vgdb, the Valgrind gdbserver |
| creates 3 files (2 named FIFOs and a mmap shared memory |
| file). The prefix option controls the directory and prefix for |
| the creation of these files. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.run-libc-freeres" xreflabel="--run-libc-freeres"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--run-libc-freeres=<yes|no> [default: yes] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>This option is only relevant when running Valgrind on Linux.</para> |
| |
| <para>The GNU C library (<function>libc.so</function>), which is |
| used by all programs, may allocate memory for its own uses. |
| Usually it doesn't bother to free that memory when the program |
| ends—there would be no point, since the Linux kernel reclaims |
| all process resources when a process exits anyway, so it would |
| just slow things down.</para> |
| |
| <para>The glibc authors realised that this behaviour causes leak |
| checkers, such as Valgrind, to falsely report leaks in glibc, when |
| a leak check is done at exit. In order to avoid this, they |
| provided a routine called <function>__libc_freeres</function> |
| specifically to make glibc release all memory it has allocated. |
| Memcheck therefore tries to run |
| <function>__libc_freeres</function> at exit.</para> |
| |
| <para>Unfortunately, in some very old versions of glibc, |
| <function>__libc_freeres</function> is sufficiently buggy to cause |
| segmentation faults. This was particularly noticeable on Red Hat |
| 7.1. So this option is provided in order to inhibit the run of |
| <function>__libc_freeres</function>. If your program seems to run |
| fine on Valgrind, but segfaults at exit, you may find that |
| <option>--run-libc-freeres=no</option> fixes that, although at the |
| cost of possibly falsely reporting space leaks in |
| <filename>libc.so</filename>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.sim-hints" xreflabel="--sim-hints"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--sim-hints=hint1,hint2,... ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Pass miscellaneous hints to Valgrind which slightly modify |
| the simulated behaviour in nonstandard or dangerous ways, possibly |
| to help the simulation of strange features. By default no hints |
| are enabled. Use with caution! Currently known hints are:</para> |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>lax-ioctls: </option> Be very lax about ioctl |
| handling; the only assumption is that the size is |
| correct. Doesn't require the full buffer to be initialized |
| when writing. Without this, using some device drivers with a |
| large number of strange ioctl commands becomes very |
| tiresome.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>enable-outer: </option> Enable some special |
| magic needed when the program being run is itself |
| Valgrind.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>no-inner-prefix: </option> Disable printing |
| a prefix <option>></option> in front of each stdout or |
| stderr output line in an inner Valgrind being run by an |
| outer Valgrind. This is useful when running Valgrind |
| regression tests in an outer/inner setup. Note that the |
| prefix <option>></option> will always be printed in |
| front of the inner debug logging lines.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>fuse-compatible: </option> Enable special |
| handling for certain system calls that may block in a FUSE |
| file-system. This may be necessary when running Valgrind |
| on a multi-threaded program that uses one thread to manage |
| a FUSE file-system and another thread to access that |
| file-system. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.fair-sched" xreflabel="--fair-sched"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--fair-sched=<no|yes|try> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| |
| <listitem> <para>The <option>--fair-sched</option> option controls |
| the locking mechanism used by Valgrind to serialise thread |
| execution. The locking mechanism controls the way the threads |
| are scheduled, and different settings give different trade-offs |
| between fairness and performance. For more details about the |
| Valgrind thread serialisation scheme and its impact on |
| performance and thread scheduling, see |
| <xref linkend="&vg-pthreads-perf-sched-id;"/>.</para> |
| |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> <para>The value <option>--fair-sched=yes</option> |
| activates a fair scheduler. In short, if multiple threads are |
| ready to run, the threads will be scheduled in a round robin |
| fashion. This mechanism is not available on all platforms or |
| Linux versions. If not available, |
| using <option>--fair-sched=yes</option> will cause Valgrind to |
| terminate with an error.</para> |
| <para>You may find this setting improves overall |
| responsiveness if you are running an interactive |
| multithreaded program, for example a web browser, on |
| Valgrind.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> <para>The value <option>--fair-sched=try</option> |
| activates fair scheduling if available on the |
| platform. Otherwise, it will automatically fall back |
| to <option>--fair-sched=no</option>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> <para>The value <option>--fair-sched=no</option> activates |
| a scheduler which does not guarantee fairness |
| between threads ready to run, but which in general gives the |
| highest performance.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.kernel-variant" xreflabel="--kernel-variant"> |
| <term> |
| <option>--kernel-variant=variant1,variant2,...</option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Handle system calls and ioctls arising from minor variants |
| of the default kernel for this platform. This is useful for |
| running on hacked kernels or with kernel modules which support |
| nonstandard ioctls, for example. Use with caution. If you don't |
| understand what this option does then you almost certainly don't |
| need it. Currently known variants are:</para> |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>bproc: </option> Support the |
| <function>sys_broc</function> system call on x86. This is for |
| running on BProc, which is a minor variant of standard Linux which |
| is sometimes used for building clusters.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.merge-recursive-frames" xreflabel="--merge-recursive-frames"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--merge-recursive-frames=<number> [default: 0] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Some recursive algorithms, for example balanced binary |
| tree implementations, create many different stack traces, each |
| containing cycles of calls. A cycle is defined as two identical |
| program counter values separated by zero or more other program |
| counter values. Valgrind may then use a lot of memory to store |
| all these stack traces. This is a poor use of memory |
| considering that such stack traces contain repeated |
| uninteresting recursive calls instead of more interesting |
| information such as the function that has initiated the |
| recursive call. |
| </para> |
| <para>The option <option>--merge-recursive-frames=<number></option> |
| instructs Valgrind to detect and merge recursive call cycles |
| having a size of up to <option><number></option> |
| frames. When such a cycle is detected, Valgrind records the |
| cycle in the stack trace as a unique program counter. |
| </para> |
| <para> |
| The value 0 (the default) causes no recursive call merging. |
| A value of 1 will cause stack traces of simple recursive algorithms |
| (for example, a factorial implementation) to be collapsed. |
| A value of 2 will usually be needed to collapse stack traces produced |
| by recursive algorithms such as binary trees, quick sort, etc. |
| Higher values might be needed for more complex recursive algorithms. |
| </para> |
| <para>Note: recursive calls are detected by analysis of program |
| counter values. They are not detected by looking at function |
| names.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.num-transtab-sectors" xreflabel="--num-transtab-sectors"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--num-transtab-sectors=<number> [default: 6 |
| for Android platforms, 16 for all others] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind translates and instruments your program's machine |
| code in small fragments. The translations are stored in a |
| translation cache that is divided into a number of sections |
| (sectors). If the cache is full, the sector containing the |
| oldest translations is emptied and reused. If these old |
| translations are needed again, Valgrind must re-translate and |
| re-instrument the corresponding machine code, which is |
| expensive. If the "executed instructions" working set of a |
| program is big, increasing the number of sectors may improve |
| performance by reducing the number of re-translations needed. |
| Sectors are allocated on demand. Once allocated, a sector can |
| never be freed, and occupies considerable space, depending on the tool |
| (about 40 MB per sector for Memcheck). Use the |
| option <option>--stats=yes</option> to obtain precise |
| information about the memory used by a sector and the allocation |
| and recycling of sectors.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.aspace-minaddr" xreflabel="----aspace-minaddr"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--aspace-minaddr=<address> [default: depends |
| on the platform] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>To avoid potential conflicts with some system libraries, |
| Valgrind does not use the address space |
| below <option>--aspace-minaddr</option> value, keeping it |
| reserved in case a library specifically requests memory in this |
| region. So, some "pessimistic" value is guessed by Valgrind |
| depending on the platform. On linux, by default, Valgrind avoids |
| using the first 64MB even if typically there is no conflict in |
| this complete zone. You can use the |
| option <option>--aspace-minaddr</option> to have your memory |
| hungry application benefitting from more of this lower memory. |
| On the other hand, if you encounter a conflict, increasing |
| aspace-minaddr value might solve it. Conflicts will typically |
| manifest themselves with mmap failures in the low range of the |
| address space. The |
| provided <computeroutput>address</computeroutput> must be page |
| aligned and must be equal or bigger to 0x1000 (4KB). To find the |
| default value on your platform, do something such as |
| <computeroutput>valgrind -d -d date 2>&1 | grep -i minaddr</computeroutput>. Values lower than 0x10000 (64KB) are known to create problems |
| on some distributions. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.show-emwarns" xreflabel="--show-emwarns"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--show-emwarns=<yes|no> [default: no] ]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When enabled, Valgrind will emit warnings about its CPU |
| emulation in certain cases. These are usually not |
| interesting.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.require-text-symbol" |
| xreflabel="--require-text-symbol"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--require-text-symbol=:sonamepatt:fnnamepatt]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When a shared object whose soname |
| matches <varname>sonamepatt</varname> is loaded into the |
| process, examine all the text symbols it exports. If none of |
| those match <varname>fnnamepatt</varname>, print an error |
| message and abandon the run. This makes it possible to ensure |
| that the run does not continue unless a given shared object |
| contains a particular function name. |
| </para> |
| <para> |
| Both <varname>sonamepatt</varname> and |
| <varname>fnnamepatt</varname> can be written using the usual |
| <varname>?</varname> and <varname>*</varname> wildcards. For |
| example: <varname>":*libc.so*:foo?bar"</varname>. You may use |
| characters other than a colon to separate the two patterns. It |
| is only important that the first character and the separator |
| character are the same. For example, the above example could |
| also be written <varname>"Q*libc.so*Qfoo?bar"</varname>. |
| Multiple <varname> --require-text-symbol</varname> flags are |
| allowed, in which case shared objects that are loaded into |
| the process will be checked against all of them. |
| </para> |
| <para> |
| The purpose of this is to support reliable usage of marked-up |
| libraries. For example, suppose we have a version of GCC's |
| <varname>libgomp.so</varname> which has been marked up with |
| annotations to support Helgrind. It is only too easy and |
| confusing to load the wrong, un-annotated |
| <varname>libgomp.so</varname> into the application. So the idea |
| is: add a text symbol in the marked-up library, for |
| example <varname>annotated_for_helgrind_3_6</varname>, and then |
| give the flag |
| <varname>--require-text-symbol=:*libgomp*so*:annotated_for_helgrind_3_6</varname> |
| so that when <varname>libgomp.so</varname> is loaded, Valgrind |
| scans its symbol table, and if the symbol isn't present the run |
| is aborted, rather than continuing silently with the |
| un-marked-up library. Note that you should put the entire flag |
| in quotes to stop shells expanding up the <varname>*</varname> |
| and <varname>?</varname> wildcards. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| <varlistentry id="opt.soname-synonyms" |
| xreflabel="--soname-synonyms"> |
| <term> |
| <option><![CDATA[--soname-synonyms=syn1=pattern1,syn2=pattern2,...]]></option> |
| </term> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>When a shared library is loaded, Valgrind checks for |
| functions in the library that must be replaced or wrapped. |
| For example, Memcheck replaces all malloc related |
| functions (malloc, free, calloc, ...) with its own versions. |
| Such replacements are done by default only in shared libraries whose |
| soname matches a predefined soname pattern (e.g. |
| <varname>libc.so*</varname> on linux). |
| By default, no replacement is done for a statically linked |
| library or for alternative libraries such as tcmalloc. |
| In some cases, the replacements allow |
| <option>--soname-synonyms</option> to specify one additional |
| synonym pattern, giving flexibility in the replacement. </para> |
| |
| <para>Currently, this flexibility is only allowed for the |
| malloc related functions, using the |
| synonym <varname>somalloc</varname>. This synonym is usable for |
| all tools doing standard replacement of malloc related functions |
| (e.g. memcheck, massif, drd, helgrind, exp-dhat, exp-sgcheck). |
| </para> |
| |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| |
| <para>Alternate malloc library: to replace the malloc |
| related functions in an alternate library with |
| soname <varname>mymalloclib.so</varname>, give the |
| option <option>--soname-synonyms=somalloc=mymalloclib.so</option>. |
| A pattern can be used to match multiple libraries sonames. |
| For |
| example, <option>--soname-synonyms=somalloc=*tcmalloc*</option> |
| will match the soname of all variants of the tcmalloc library |
| (native, debug, profiled, ... tcmalloc variants). </para> |
| <para>Note: the soname of a elf shared library can be |
| retrieved using the readelf utility. </para> |
| |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Replacements in a statically linked library are done by |
| using the <varname>NONE</varname> pattern. For example, if |
| you link with <varname>libtcmalloc.a</varname>, memcheck |
| will properly work when you give the |
| option <option>--soname-synonyms=somalloc=NONE</option>. Note |
| that a NONE pattern will match the main executable and any |
| shared library having no soname. </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>To run a "default" Firefox build for Linux, in which |
| JEMalloc is linked in to the main executable, |
| use <option>--soname-synonyms=somalloc=NONE</option>. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </listitem> |
| </varlistentry> |
| |
| |
| </variablelist> |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.debugopts" xreflabel="Debugging Options"> |
| <title>Debugging Options</title> |
| |
| <!-- start of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| <para id="debug.opts.para">There are also some options for debugging |
| Valgrind itself. You shouldn't need to use them in the normal run of |
| things. If you wish to see the list, use the |
| <option>--help-debug</option> option.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you wish to debug your program rather than debugging |
| Valgrind itself, then you should use the options |
| <option>--vgdb=yes</option> or <option>--vgdb=full</option> |
| or <option>--db-attach=yes</option>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <!-- end of xi:include in the manpage --> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| <sect2 id="manual-core.defopts" xreflabel="Setting Default Options"> |
| <title>Setting Default Options</title> |
| |
| <para>Note that Valgrind also reads options from three places:</para> |
| |
| <orderedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>The file <computeroutput>~/.valgrindrc</computeroutput></para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>The environment variable |
| <computeroutput>$VALGRIND_OPTS</computeroutput></para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>The file <computeroutput>./.valgrindrc</computeroutput></para> |
| </listitem> |
| </orderedlist> |
| |
| <para>These are processed in the given order, before the |
| command-line options. Options processed later override those |
| processed earlier; for example, options in |
| <computeroutput>./.valgrindrc</computeroutput> will take |
| precedence over those in |
| <computeroutput>~/.valgrindrc</computeroutput>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>Please note that the <computeroutput>./.valgrindrc</computeroutput> |
| file is ignored if it is marked as world writeable or not owned |
| by the current user. This is because the |
| <computeroutput>./.valgrindrc</computeroutput> can contain options that are |
| potentially harmful or can be used by a local attacker to execute code under |
| your user account. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>Any tool-specific options put in |
| <computeroutput>$VALGRIND_OPTS</computeroutput> or the |
| <computeroutput>.valgrindrc</computeroutput> files should be |
| prefixed with the tool name and a colon. For example, if you |
| want Memcheck to always do leak checking, you can put the |
| following entry in <literal>~/.valgrindrc</literal>:</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| --memcheck:leak-check=yes]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>This will be ignored if any tool other than Memcheck is |
| run. Without the <computeroutput>memcheck:</computeroutput> |
| part, this will cause problems if you select other tools that |
| don't understand |
| <option>--leak-check=yes</option>.</para> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.pthreads" xreflabel="Support for Threads"> |
| <title>Support for Threads</title> |
| |
| <para>Threaded programs are fully supported.</para> |
| |
| <para>The main thing to point out with respect to threaded programs is |
| that your program will use the native threading library, but Valgrind |
| serialises execution so that only one (kernel) thread is running at a |
| time. This approach avoids the horrible implementation problems of |
| implementing a truly multithreaded version of Valgrind, but it does |
| mean that threaded apps never use more than one CPU simultaneously, |
| even if you have a multiprocessor or multicore machine.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind doesn't schedule the threads itself. It merely ensures |
| that only one thread runs at once, using a simple locking scheme. The |
| actual thread scheduling remains under control of the OS kernel. What |
| this does mean, though, is that your program will see very different |
| scheduling when run on Valgrind than it does when running normally. |
| This is both because Valgrind is serialising the threads, and because |
| the code runs so much slower than normal.</para> |
| |
| <para>This difference in scheduling may cause your program to behave |
| differently, if you have some kind of concurrency, critical race, |
| locking, or similar, bugs. In that case you might consider using the |
| tools Helgrind and/or DRD to track them down.</para> |
| |
| <para>On Linux, Valgrind also supports direct use of the |
| <computeroutput>clone</computeroutput> system call, |
| <computeroutput>futex</computeroutput> and so on. |
| <computeroutput>clone</computeroutput> is supported where either |
| everything is shared (a thread) or nothing is shared (fork-like); partial |
| sharing will fail. |
| </para> |
| |
| <!-- Referenced from both the manual and manpage --> |
| <sect2 id="&vg-pthreads-perf-sched-id;" xreflabel="&vg-pthreads-perf-sched-label;"> |
| <title>Scheduling and Multi-Thread Performance</title> |
| |
| <para>A thread executes code only when it holds the abovementioned |
| lock. After executing some number of instructions, the running thread |
| will release the lock. All threads ready to run will then compete to |
| acquire the lock.</para> |
| |
| <para>The <option>--fair-sched</option> option controls the locking mechanism |
| used to serialise thread execution.</para> |
| |
| <para>The default pipe based locking mechanism |
| (<option>--fair-sched=no</option>) is available on all |
| platforms. Pipe based locking does not guarantee fairness between |
| threads: it is quite likely that a thread that has just released the |
| lock reacquires it immediately, even though other threads are ready to |
| run. When using pipe based locking, different runs of the same |
| multithreaded application might give very different thread |
| scheduling.</para> |
| |
| <para>An alternative locking mechanism, based on futexes, is available |
| on some platforms. If available, it is activated |
| by <option>--fair-sched=yes</option> or |
| <option>--fair-sched=try</option>. Futex based locking ensures |
| fairness (round-robin scheduling) between threads: if multiple threads |
| are ready to run, the lock will be given to the thread which first |
| requested the lock. Note that a thread which is blocked in a system |
| call (e.g. in a blocking read system call) has not (yet) requested the |
| lock: such a thread requests the lock only after the system call is |
| finished.</para> |
| |
| <para> The fairness of the futex based locking produces better |
| reproducibility of thread scheduling for different executions of a |
| multithreaded application. This better reproducibility is particularly |
| helpful when using Helgrind or DRD.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind's use of thread serialisation implies that only one |
| thread at a time may run. On a multiprocessor/multicore system, the |
| running thread is assigned to one of the CPUs by the OS kernel |
| scheduler. When a thread acquires the lock, sometimes the thread will |
| be assigned to the same CPU as the thread that just released the |
| lock. Sometimes, the thread will be assigned to another CPU. When |
| using pipe based locking, the thread that just acquired the lock |
| will usually be scheduled on the same CPU as the thread that just |
| released the lock. With the futex based mechanism, the thread that |
| just acquired the lock will more often be scheduled on another |
| CPU.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind's thread serialisation and CPU assignment by the OS |
| kernel scheduler can interact badly with the CPU frequency scaling |
| available on many modern CPUs. To decrease power consumption, the |
| frequency of a CPU or core is automatically decreased if the CPU/core |
| has not been used recently. If the OS kernel often assigns the thread |
| which just acquired the lock to another CPU/core, it is quite likely |
| that this CPU/core is currently at a low frequency. The frequency of |
| this CPU will be increased after some time. However, during this |
| time, the (only) running thread will have run at the low frequency. |
| Once this thread has run for some time, it will release the lock. |
| Another thread will acquire this lock, and might be scheduled again on |
| another CPU whose clock frequency was decreased in the |
| meantime.</para> |
| |
| <para>The futex based locking causes threads to change CPUs/cores more |
| often. So, if CPU frequency scaling is activated, the futex based |
| locking might decrease significantly the performance of a |
| multithreaded app running under Valgrind. Performance losses of up to |
| 50% degradation have been observed, as compared to running on a |
| machine for which CPU frequency scaling has been disabled. The pipe |
| based locking locking scheme also interacts badly with CPU frequency |
| scaling, with performance losses in the range 10..20% having been |
| observed.</para> |
| |
| <para>To avoid such performance degradation, you should indicate to |
| the kernel that all CPUs/cores should always run at maximum clock |
| speed. Depending on your Linux distribution, CPU frequency scaling |
| may be controlled using a graphical interface or using command line |
| such as |
| <computeroutput>cpufreq-selector</computeroutput> or |
| <computeroutput>cpufreq-set</computeroutput>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>An alternative way to avoid these problems is to tell the |
| OS scheduler to tie a Valgrind process to a specific (fixed) CPU using the |
| <computeroutput>taskset</computeroutput> command. This should ensure |
| that the selected CPU does not fall below its maximum frequency |
| setting so long as any thread of the program has work to do. |
| </para> |
| |
| </sect2> |
| |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.signals" xreflabel="Handling of Signals"> |
| <title>Handling of Signals</title> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind has a fairly complete signal implementation. It should be |
| able to cope with any POSIX-compliant use of signals.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you're using signals in clever ways (for example, catching |
| SIGSEGV, modifying page state and restarting the instruction), you're |
| probably relying on precise exceptions. In this case, you will need |
| to use <option>--vex-iropt-register-updates=allregs-at-mem-access</option> |
| or <option>--vex-iropt-register-updates=allregs-at-each-insn</option>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>If your program dies as a result of a fatal core-dumping signal, |
| Valgrind will generate its own core file |
| (<computeroutput>vgcore.NNNNN</computeroutput>) containing your program's |
| state. You may use this core file for post-mortem debugging with GDB or |
| similar. (Note: it will not generate a core if your core dump size limit is |
| 0.) At the time of writing the core dumps do not include all the floating |
| point register information.</para> |
| |
| <para>In the unlikely event that Valgrind itself crashes, the operating system |
| will create a core dump in the usual way.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.install" xreflabel="Building and Installing"> |
| <title>Building and Installing Valgrind</title> |
| |
| <para>We use the standard Unix |
| <computeroutput>./configure</computeroutput>, |
| <computeroutput>make</computeroutput>, <computeroutput>make |
| install</computeroutput> mechanism. Once you have completed |
| <computeroutput>make install</computeroutput> you may then want |
| to run the regression tests |
| with <computeroutput>make regtest</computeroutput>. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>In addition to the usual |
| <option>--prefix=/path/to/install/tree</option>, there are three |
| options which affect how Valgrind is built: |
| <itemizedlist> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>--enable-inner</option></para> |
| <para>This builds Valgrind with some special magic hacks which make |
| it possible to run it on a standard build of Valgrind (what the |
| developers call "self-hosting"). Ordinarily you should not use |
| this option as various kinds of safety checks are disabled. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><option>--enable-only64bit</option></para> |
| <para><option>--enable-only32bit</option></para> |
| <para>On 64-bit platforms (amd64-linux, ppc64-linux, |
| amd64-darwin), Valgrind is by default built in such a way that |
| both 32-bit and 64-bit executables can be run. Sometimes this |
| cleverness is a problem for a variety of reasons. These two |
| options allow for single-target builds in this situation. If you |
| issue both, the configure script will complain. Note they are |
| ignored on 32-bit-only platforms (x86-linux, ppc32-linux, |
| arm-linux, x86-darwin). |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>The <computeroutput>configure</computeroutput> script tests |
| the version of the X server currently indicated by the current |
| <computeroutput>$DISPLAY</computeroutput>. This is a known bug. |
| The intention was to detect the version of the current X |
| client libraries, so that correct suppressions could be selected |
| for them, but instead the test checks the server version. This |
| is just plain wrong.</para> |
| |
| <para>If you are building a binary package of Valgrind for |
| distribution, please read <literal>README_PACKAGERS</literal> |
| <xref linkend="dist.readme-packagers"/>. It contains some |
| important information.</para> |
| |
| <para>Apart from that, there's not much excitement here. Let us |
| know if you have build problems.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.problems" xreflabel="If You Have Problems"> |
| <title>If You Have Problems</title> |
| |
| <para>Contact us at <ulink url="&vg-url;">&vg-url;</ulink>.</para> |
| |
| <para>See <xref linkend="manual-core.limits"/> for the known |
| limitations of Valgrind, and for a list of programs which are |
| known not to work on it.</para> |
| |
| <para>All parts of the system make heavy use of assertions and |
| internal self-checks. They are permanently enabled, and we have no |
| plans to disable them. If one of them breaks, please mail us!</para> |
| |
| <para>If you get an assertion failure |
| in <filename>m_mallocfree.c</filename>, this may have happened because |
| your program wrote off the end of a heap block, or before its |
| beginning, thus corrupting heap metadata. Valgrind hopefully will have |
| emitted a message to that effect before dying in this way.</para> |
| |
| <para>Read the <xref linkend="FAQ"/> for more advice about common problems, |
| crashes, etc.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.limits" xreflabel="Limitations"> |
| <title>Limitations</title> |
| |
| <para>The following list of limitations seems long. However, most |
| programs actually work fine.</para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind will run programs on the supported platforms |
| subject to the following constraints:</para> |
| |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>On x86 and amd64, there is no support for 3DNow! |
| instructions. If the translator encounters these, Valgrind will |
| generate a SIGILL when the instruction is executed. Apart from |
| that, on x86 and amd64, essentially all instructions are supported, |
| up to and including AVX and AES in 64-bit mode and SSSE3 in 32-bit |
| mode. 32-bit mode does in fact support the bare minimum SSE4 |
| instructions to needed to run programs on MacOSX 10.6 on 32-bit |
| targets. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>On ppc32 and ppc64, almost all integer, floating point and |
| Altivec instructions are supported. Specifically: integer and FP |
| insns that are mandatory for PowerPC, the "General-purpose |
| optional" group (fsqrt, fsqrts, stfiwx), the "Graphics optional" |
| group (fre, fres, frsqrte, frsqrtes), and the Altivec (also known |
| as VMX) SIMD instruction set, are supported. Also, instructions |
| from the Power ISA 2.05 specification, as present in POWER6 CPUs, |
| are supported.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>On ARM, essentially the entire ARMv7-A instruction set |
| is supported, in both ARM and Thumb mode. ThumbEE and Jazelle are |
| not supported. NEON, VFPv3 and ARMv6 media support is fairly |
| complete. |
| </para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>If your program does its own memory management, rather than |
| using malloc/new/free/delete, it should still work, but Memcheck's |
| error checking won't be so effective. If you describe your |
| program's memory management scheme using "client requests" (see |
| <xref linkend="manual-core-adv.clientreq"/>), Memcheck can do |
| better. Nevertheless, using malloc/new and free/delete is still |
| the best approach.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind's signal simulation is not as robust as it could be. |
| Basic POSIX-compliant sigaction and sigprocmask functionality is |
| supplied, but it's conceivable that things could go badly awry if you |
| do weird things with signals. Workaround: don't. Programs that do |
| non-POSIX signal tricks are in any case inherently unportable, so |
| should be avoided if possible.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Machine instructions, and system calls, have been implemented |
| on demand. So it's possible, although unlikely, that a program will |
| fall over with a message to that effect. If this happens, please |
| report all the details printed out, so we can try and implement the |
| missing feature.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Memory consumption of your program is majorly increased |
| whilst running under Valgrind's Memcheck tool. This is due to the |
| large amount of administrative information maintained behind the |
| scenes. Another cause is that Valgrind dynamically translates the |
| original executable. Translated, instrumented code is 12-18 times |
| larger than the original so you can easily end up with 150+ MB of |
| translations when running (eg) a web browser.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind can handle dynamically-generated code just fine. If |
| you regenerate code over the top of old code (ie. at the same |
| memory addresses), if the code is on the stack Valgrind will |
| realise the code has changed, and work correctly. This is |
| necessary to handle the trampolines GCC uses to implemented nested |
| functions. If you regenerate code somewhere other than the stack, |
| and you are running on an 32- or 64-bit x86 CPU, you will need to |
| use the <option>--smc-check=all</option> option, and Valgrind will |
| run more slowly than normal. Or you can add client requests that |
| tell Valgrind when your program has overwritten code. |
| </para> |
| <para> On other platforms (ARM, PowerPC) Valgrind observes and |
| honours the cache invalidation hints that programs are obliged to |
| emit to notify new code, and so self-modifying-code support should |
| work automatically, without the need |
| for <option>--smc-check=all</option>.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind has the following limitations |
| in its implementation of x86/AMD64 floating point relative to |
| IEEE754.</para> |
| |
| <para>Precision: There is no support for 80 bit arithmetic. |
| Internally, Valgrind represents all such "long double" numbers in 64 |
| bits, and so there may be some differences in results. Whether or |
| not this is critical remains to be seen. Note, the x86/amd64 |
| fldt/fstpt instructions (read/write 80-bit numbers) are correctly |
| simulated, using conversions to/from 64 bits, so that in-memory |
| images of 80-bit numbers look correct if anyone wants to see.</para> |
| |
| <para>The impression observed from many FP regression tests is that |
| the accuracy differences aren't significant. Generally speaking, if |
| a program relies on 80-bit precision, there may be difficulties |
| porting it to non x86/amd64 platforms which only support 64-bit FP |
| precision. Even on x86/amd64, the program may get different results |
| depending on whether it is compiled to use SSE2 instructions (64-bits |
| only), or x87 instructions (80-bit). The net effect is to make FP |
| programs behave as if they had been run on a machine with 64-bit IEEE |
| floats, for example PowerPC. On amd64 FP arithmetic is done by |
| default on SSE2, so amd64 looks more like PowerPC than x86 from an FP |
| perspective, and there are far fewer noticeable accuracy differences |
| than with x86.</para> |
| |
| <para>Rounding: Valgrind does observe the 4 IEEE-mandated rounding |
| modes (to nearest, to +infinity, to -infinity, to zero) for the |
| following conversions: float to integer, integer to float where |
| there is a possibility of loss of precision, and float-to-float |
| rounding. For all other FP operations, only the IEEE default mode |
| (round to nearest) is supported.</para> |
| |
| <para>Numeric exceptions in FP code: IEEE754 defines five types of |
| numeric exception that can happen: invalid operation (sqrt of |
| negative number, etc), division by zero, overflow, underflow, |
| inexact (loss of precision).</para> |
| |
| <para>For each exception, two courses of action are defined by IEEE754: |
| either (1) a user-defined exception handler may be called, or (2) a |
| default action is defined, which "fixes things up" and allows the |
| computation to proceed without throwing an exception.</para> |
| |
| <para>Currently Valgrind only supports the default fixup actions. |
| Again, feedback on the importance of exception support would be |
| appreciated.</para> |
| |
| <para>When Valgrind detects that the program is trying to exceed any |
| of these limitations (setting exception handlers, rounding mode, or |
| precision control), it can print a message giving a traceback of |
| where this has happened, and continue execution. This behaviour used |
| to be the default, but the messages are annoying and so showing them |
| is now disabled by default. Use <option>--show-emwarns=yes</option> to see |
| them.</para> |
| |
| <para>The above limitations define precisely the IEEE754 'default' |
| behaviour: default fixup on all exceptions, round-to-nearest |
| operations, and 64-bit precision.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind has the following limitations in |
| its implementation of x86/AMD64 SSE2 FP arithmetic, relative to |
| IEEE754.</para> |
| |
| <para>Essentially the same: no exceptions, and limited observance of |
| rounding mode. Also, SSE2 has control bits which make it treat |
| denormalised numbers as zero (DAZ) and a related action, flush |
| denormals to zero (FTZ). Both of these cause SSE2 arithmetic to be |
| less accurate than IEEE requires. Valgrind detects, ignores, and can |
| warn about, attempts to enable either mode.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind has the following limitations in |
| its implementation of ARM VFPv3 arithmetic, relative to |
| IEEE754.</para> |
| |
| <para>Essentially the same: no exceptions, and limited observance |
| of rounding mode. Also, switching the VFP unit into vector mode |
| will cause Valgrind to abort the program -- it has no way to |
| emulate vector uses of VFP at a reasonable performance level. This |
| is no big deal given that non-scalar uses of VFP instructions are |
| in any case deprecated.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Valgrind has the following limitations |
| in its implementation of PPC32 and PPC64 floating point |
| arithmetic, relative to IEEE754.</para> |
| |
| <para>Scalar (non-Altivec): Valgrind provides a bit-exact emulation of |
| all floating point instructions, except for "fre" and "fres", which are |
| done more precisely than required by the PowerPC architecture specification. |
| All floating point operations observe the current rounding mode. |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>However, fpscr[FPRF] is not set after each operation. That could |
| be done but would give measurable performance overheads, and so far |
| no need for it has been found.</para> |
| |
| <para>As on x86/AMD64, IEEE754 exceptions are not supported: all floating |
| point exceptions are handled using the default IEEE fixup actions. |
| Valgrind detects, ignores, and can warn about, attempts to unmask |
| the 5 IEEE FP exception kinds by writing to the floating-point status |
| and control register (fpscr). |
| </para> |
| |
| <para>Vector (Altivec, VMX): essentially as with x86/AMD64 SSE/SSE2: |
| no exceptions, and limited observance of rounding mode. |
| For Altivec, FP arithmetic |
| is done in IEEE/Java mode, which is more accurate than the Linux default |
| setting. "More accurate" means that denormals are handled properly, |
| rather than simply being flushed to zero.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| |
| <para>Programs which are known not to work are:</para> |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>emacs starts up but immediately concludes it is out of |
| memory and aborts. It may be that Memcheck does not provide |
| a good enough emulation of the |
| <computeroutput>mallinfo</computeroutput> function. |
| Emacs works fine if you build it to use |
| the standard malloc/free routines.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.example" xreflabel="An Example Run"> |
| <title>An Example Run</title> |
| |
| <para>This is the log for a run of a small program using Memcheck. |
| The program is in fact correct, and the reported error is as the |
| result of a potentially serious code generation bug in GNU g++ |
| (snapshot 20010527).</para> |
| |
| <programlisting><![CDATA[ |
| sewardj@phoenix:~/newmat10$ ~/Valgrind-6/valgrind -v ./bogon |
| ==25832== Valgrind 0.10, a memory error detector for x86 RedHat 7.1. |
| ==25832== Copyright (C) 2000-2001, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward. |
| ==25832== Startup, with flags: |
| ==25832== --suppressions=/home/sewardj/Valgrind/redhat71.supp |
| ==25832== reading syms from /lib/ld-linux.so.2 |
| ==25832== reading syms from /lib/libc.so.6 |
| ==25832== reading syms from /mnt/pima/jrs/Inst/lib/libgcc_s.so.0 |
| ==25832== reading syms from /lib/libm.so.6 |
| ==25832== reading syms from /mnt/pima/jrs/Inst/lib/libstdc++.so.3 |
| ==25832== reading syms from /home/sewardj/Valgrind/valgrind.so |
| ==25832== reading syms from /proc/self/exe |
| ==25832== |
| ==25832== Invalid read of size 4 |
| ==25832== at 0x8048724: BandMatrix::ReSize(int,int,int) (bogon.cpp:45) |
| ==25832== by 0x80487AF: main (bogon.cpp:66) |
| ==25832== Address 0xBFFFF74C is not stack'd, malloc'd or free'd |
| ==25832== |
| ==25832== ERROR SUMMARY: 1 errors from 1 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0) |
| ==25832== malloc/free: in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks. |
| ==25832== malloc/free: 0 allocs, 0 frees, 0 bytes allocated. |
| ==25832== For a detailed leak analysis, rerun with: --leak-check=yes |
| ]]></programlisting> |
| |
| <para>The GCC folks fixed this about a week before GCC 3.0 |
| shipped.</para> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| <sect1 id="manual-core.warnings" xreflabel="Warning Messages"> |
| <title>Warning Messages You Might See</title> |
| |
| <para>Some of these only appear if you run in verbose mode |
| (enabled by <option>-v</option>):</para> |
| |
| <itemizedlist> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>More than 100 errors detected. Subsequent |
| errors will still be recorded, but in less detail than |
| before.</computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>After 100 different errors have been shown, Valgrind becomes |
| more conservative about collecting them. It then requires only the |
| program counters in the top two stack frames to match when deciding |
| whether or not two errors are really the same one. Prior to this |
| point, the PCs in the top four frames are required to match. This |
| hack has the effect of slowing down the appearance of new errors |
| after the first 100. The 100 constant can be changed by recompiling |
| Valgrind.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>More than 1000 errors detected. I'm not |
| reporting any more. Final error counts may be inaccurate. Go fix |
| your program!</computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>After 1000 different errors have been detected, Valgrind |
| ignores any more. It seems unlikely that collecting even more |
| different ones would be of practical help to anybody, and it avoids |
| the danger that Valgrind spends more and more of its time comparing |
| new errors against an ever-growing collection. As above, the 1000 |
| number is a compile-time constant.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>Warning: client switching stacks?</computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind spotted such a large change in the stack pointer |
| that it guesses the client is switching to a different stack. At |
| this point it makes a kludgey guess where the base of the new |
| stack is, and sets memory permissions accordingly. At the moment |
| "large change" is defined as a change of more that 2000000 in the |
| value of the stack pointer register. If Valgrind guesses wrong, |
| you may get many bogus error messages following this and/or have |
| crashes in the stack trace recording code. You might avoid these |
| problems by informing Valgrind about the stack bounds using |
| VALGRIND_STACK_REGISTER client request. </para> |
| |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>Warning: client attempted to close Valgrind's |
| logfile fd <number></computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind doesn't allow the client to close the logfile, |
| because you'd never see any diagnostic information after that point. |
| If you see this message, you may want to use the |
| <option>--log-fd=<number></option> option to specify a |
| different logfile file-descriptor number.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>Warning: noted but unhandled ioctl |
| <number></computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>Valgrind observed a call to one of the vast family of |
| <computeroutput>ioctl</computeroutput> system calls, but did not |
| modify its memory status info (because nobody has yet written a |
| suitable wrapper). The call will still have gone through, but you may get |
| spurious errors after this as a result of the non-update of the |
| memory info.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| <listitem> |
| <para><computeroutput>Warning: set address range perms: large range |
| <number></computeroutput></para> |
| |
| <para>Diagnostic message, mostly for benefit of the Valgrind |
| developers, to do with memory permissions.</para> |
| </listitem> |
| |
| </itemizedlist> |
| |
| </sect1> |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| </chapter> |