Jim Buchanan

 jbuchana@iquest.net          (preferred)
 c22jrb@dawg.delcoelect.com   (intermediate)
 jrbuchan@mail.delcoelect.com (disliked, but it's gonna stay around)

mem_test is a library which is used to help locate memory leaks in a
program under development.

mem_test is certainly not the only such library in existence, but it
is the one that I wrote for my own use, and I felt that others may
find it to be of value.

mem_test was originally written under SunOS 4.1.2 and has been used
under HPUX 9.05 and Red Hat Linux 4.0 and 5.0, as well as
Slackware 3.4

An example program with some deliberate and easy to find memory leaks
has been provided. It is called example_program.c The INSTALL file
shows how to compile the example program and link it with libmem_test.

Although libmem_test normally requires root privileges for
installation, you can install it in directories under your home
directory without being root. When linking to libmem_test installed in
a non-standard location, use the -L switch to tell the linker where to
look for the library. You'll also want to use quote marks around the
full path name of the include file instead of angle brackets, or use
the -I switch to tell the preprocessor where to find it.

When a program linked with libmem_test executes, it creates a log file
that records most memory allocations/deallocations. This file may be
analyzed with the supplied program, mem_analyze, a program of your
own, or manually. The latter is not recommended, as the logs files can
become quite large for real-life programs.

mem_test works by using defines in a header called mem_test_user.h to
call special functions that replace the most common memory
allocation/deallocation with special functions. These functions call
the normal functions and log what has been done.

For more information, and some limitations, see the man pages,
mem_analyze(1) and libmem_test(3)