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sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +00001
nethercote5da1e172003-12-03 21:44:45 +00002Release notes for Valgrind
3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +00004If you are building a binary package of Valgrind for distribution,
5please read README_PACKAGERS. It contains some important information.
sewardj365a8512002-07-01 08:30:05 +00006
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +00007If you are developing Valgrind, please read README_DEVELOPERS. It contains
8some useful information.
9
10For instructions on how to build/install, see the end of this file.
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000011
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000012If you have problems, consult the FAQ to see if there are workarounds.
13
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000014
15Executive Summary
16~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sewardje089f012010-10-13 21:47:29 +000017Valgrind is a framework for building dynamic analysis tools. There are
18Valgrind tools that can automatically detect many memory management
19and threading bugs, and profile your programs in detail. You can also
20use Valgrind to build new tools.
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000021
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000022The Valgrind distribution currently includes six production-quality
sewardje089f012010-10-13 21:47:29 +000023tools: a memory error detector, two thread error detectors, a cache
24and branch-prediction profiler, a call-graph generating cache abd
25branch-prediction profiler, and a heap profiler. It also includes
26three experimental tools: a heap/stack/global array overrun detector,
27a different kind of heap profiler, and a SimPoint basic block vector
njn57b87ea2009-07-14 04:24:18 +000028generator.
nethercote5da1e172003-12-03 21:44:45 +000029
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000030Valgrind is closely tied to details of the CPU, operating system and to
31a lesser extent, compiler and basic C libraries. This makes it difficult
32to make it portable. Nonetheless, it is available for the following
33platforms:
nethercote5da1e172003-12-03 21:44:45 +000034
sewardjca456c72012-08-05 13:44:15 +000035- X86/Linux
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000036- AMD64/Linux
37- PPC32/Linux
38- PPC64/Linux
sewardje089f012010-10-13 21:47:29 +000039- ARM/Linux
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000040- x86/MacOSX
41- AMD64/MacOSX
floriandec4a562011-11-26 04:12:01 +000042- S390X/Linux
sewardjca456c72012-08-05 13:44:15 +000043- MIPS32/Linux
njn567c0142006-03-31 12:24:37 +000044
sewardjca456c72012-08-05 13:44:15 +000045Note that AMD64 is just another name for x86_64, and Valgrind runs fine
njn4be4e2a2009-06-12 23:40:04 +000046on Intel processors. Also note that the core of MacOSX is called
47"Darwin" and this name is used sometimes.
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000048
49Valgrind is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
njn25e49d8e72002-09-23 09:36:25 +000050Read the file COPYING in the source distribution for details.
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000051
sewardje089f012010-10-13 21:47:29 +000052However: if you contribute code, you need to make it available as GPL
53version 2 or later, and not 2-only.
54
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000055
56Documentation
57~~~~~~~~~~~~~
58A comprehensive user guide is supplied. Point your browser at
nethercote5da1e172003-12-03 21:44:45 +000059$PREFIX/share/doc/valgrind/manual.html, where $PREFIX is whatever you
60specified with --prefix= when building.
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000061
62
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000063Building and installing it
64~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
njn0d733b82005-07-26 22:01:04 +000065To install from the Subversion repository :
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000066
njn0d733b82005-07-26 22:01:04 +000067 0. Check out the code from SVN, following the instructions at
njn1b70e822005-11-08 19:38:58 +000068 http://www.valgrind.org/downloads/repository.html.
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000069
70 1. cd into the source directory.
71
72 2. Run ./autogen.sh to setup the environment (you need the standard
73 autoconf tools to do so).
74
njn0d733b82005-07-26 22:01:04 +000075 3. Continue with the following instructions...
76
nethercote5da1e172003-12-03 21:44:45 +000077To install from a tar.bz2 distribution:
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000078
njn801288e2009-08-04 07:02:54 +000079 4. Run ./configure, with some options if you wish. The only interesting
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000080 one is the usual --prefix=/where/you/want/it/installed.
81
njn8b68b642009-06-24 00:37:09 +000082 5. Run "make".
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000083
njn8b68b642009-06-24 00:37:09 +000084 6. Run "make install", possibly as root if the destination permissions
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000085 require that.
86
njn0d733b82005-07-26 22:01:04 +000087 7. See if it works. Try "valgrind ls -l". Either this works, or it
88 bombs out with some complaint. In that case, please let us know
89 (see www.valgrind.org).
nethercoteed7e0732003-12-02 15:30:28 +000090
91Important! Do not move the valgrind installation into a place
92different from that specified by --prefix at build time. This will
93cause things to break in subtle ways, mostly when Valgrind handles
94fork/exec calls.
95
sewardjde4a1d02002-03-22 01:27:54 +000096
njn1b70e822005-11-08 19:38:58 +000097The Valgrind Developers