Re: [gnu-quality] valgrind

[Jim Meyering]

Simon Josefsson wrote:
> Thanks Karl for getting things up and running!
>
> address@hidden (Karl Berry) writes:
>
>> - how to valgrind to track serious memory bugs
>
> Small starting pointer below.
>
> I'm not sure what format to use.  A texinfo document seems overkill for
> this, but a text file seems to simple.

I agree.  Maybe something like org-mode?
It has decent mark-up and can be rendered in many different formats.

> Valgrind
> --------

Good start.  One suggestion:

> Valgrind (http://valgrind.org/) is a dynamic analysis tool, which means
> it is used during run-time and without any re-compilation.  It is
> typically only useful to check compiled languages that supports
> low-level memory management, like C and C++.  Valgrind can find many
> memory management and threading bugs.  The simplest way is to run
> Valgrind manually on your application, for example:
>
> $ valgrind ./foo --bar

$ valgrind -- ./foo --bar

> It will print out a human readable summary.
>
> Automatic use of Valgrind for self-checks
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Gnulib contains a module called "valgrind" which provides a
> "valgrind-tests.m4" file that will search for the valgrind tool and
> provides the VALGRIND variable to contain commands used to launch it.
> By default it runs valgrind in quiet mode to avoid output when there is
> no problem.  The variable can be used in your tests/Makefile.am like
> this:
>
> TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = $(VALGRIND)
>
> This will cause all your self-tests to be run under Valgrind.  Any
> serious bug will trigger an error message.