Valgrind

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Valgrind is a Linux tool often for finding memory errors and leaks. In fact, it is a suite that contains tools for profiling and other kinds of debugging, but this page primarily discusses to debugging memory errors.

Valgrind's home page is located at http://valgrind.org/. It supports x86, x86-64, and to some degree PPC versions of Linux. Note that the name Valgrind is pronounced with a short "i"; the word is from Norse mythology.

[edit] Running VisIt under Valgrind

Valgrind is a runtime debugging tool, so one can compare its usage to that of a debugger like GDB: to use it, it is not necessary to build your code any differently, other than the fact that it is eminently more useful if you include debugging symbols in your binary before running. This means it is most useful when you are debugging a version of the code you built from soruce.

Typical usage of Valgrind for most programs is to simply prepend your command line with "valgrind". However, because VisIt comprises several processes with some environment variables needed for proper operation, it is often simplest to use command-line options to the visit program to launch the desired component under Valgrind.

For example, the following commands will launch the various components under Valgrind:

  • visit -valgrind gui
  • visit -valgrind viewer
  • visit -valgrind mdserver
  • visit -valgrind engine_ser
  • visit -valgrind engine_par

[edit] Known warnings which can be ignored/suppressed

Some of the libraries to which VisIt links can cause some spurious warnings which can be safely ignored or suppressed:

  • Source and destination overlap in strcpy, in lite_PD_ls in libESiloDatabase_ser.so
  • Source and destination overlap in strcpy, in lite_SC_firsttok in libESiloDatabase_ser.so
  • Syscall param write() points to uninitialised byte(s) in /usr/X11R6/lib64/libX11.so
  • Syscall param writev() points to uninitialised byte(s) in /usr/X11R6/lib64/libX11.so
  • Syscall param socketcall.sendto() points to uninitialised byte(s) in SocketConnection::Flush in SocketConnection.C
  • Conditional jump or move depends on uninitialised value(s) in AttributeGroup::WriteType in AttributeGroup.C
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