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A Memory Leak Detection System for C++

Abstract

This article presents a memory leak detection system called D.M.M. (Debug Memory Management) for finding memory leaks in C++ programs when the symbol NDEBUG is not set.

1. The system

Here is a class for implementing DMM:

#ifndef ALREADY_INCLUDED_DMM_CLASS_HH
#define ALREADY_INCLUDED_DMM_CLASS_HH

class Dmm
{
public:
   virtual ~Dmm() { } /// ensures VTABLE* is the first element

public:
#ifdef DMM_ONLINE
   enum_debug_code debug_code;
#endif /* DMM_ONLINE */

   Dmm(enum_debug_code debug_code)
   {
      (void)debug_code;
#ifdef DMM_ONLINE
      this->debug_code = debug_code;
#endif /* DMM_ONLINE */
   }

   ///
   /// NOTE: disables passing and returning by value
   ///
private:
   Dmm(const Dmm&);
   Dmm& operator = (const Dmm&);
};

#endif /* ALREADY_INCLUDED_DMM_CLASS_HH */

Click here to view the definition of the enum enum_debug_code. Every class that implements DMM should inherit from the above class like so:

class Foo : public Dmm
{
public:
   Foo() : Dmm(DCODE_FOO)
   {
   }
};

Here is the header file for DMM: dmm.hh Here is the footer file for DMM: dmm.cc Here is a sample main function:

#include "../../2003/noio/io.hh"
#include "foo.hh"

int main()
{
#ifdef ALLEGRO_ONLINE
   allegro_init();
#endif /* ALLEGRO_ONLINE */

   cout << "**** BEGIN t-dmm.exe\n";

   Foo* f = new Foo();
   (void)f;

#ifdef DMM_ONLINE
   dmm_debug_print();
#endif /* DMM_ONLINE */

   cout << "**** END   t-dmm.exe\n";

   return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
#ifdef ALLEGRO_ONLINE
END_OF_MAIN();
#endif /* ALLEGRO_ONLINE */

When you run this program, it will print a list of all unfreed memory for debugging purposes.

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