How to get the full call stack from Valgrind

callstackmemory-leaksvalgrind

I run Valgrind with the following parameters:

--leak-check=full --show-reachable=yes --leak-resolution=high --num-callers=100 --trace-children=yes

In memory leaks log, I see some error messages with full stack trace up to main, but some messages look like following:

==3956== 1,999,140 (68,796 direct, 1,930,344 indirect) bytes in 5,733 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 8,842 of 8,845
==3956==    at 0x4022AB8: malloc (vg_replace_malloc.c:207)
==3956==

How can I get the full stack trace for these errors?

Best Answer

Getting the full stack trace will require debug symbols for all the libraries/executables that may be involved in a leak (and within the limits set by --num-callers).

If you're building any of them yourself, you need to specify the -g flag in gcc (or the relevant flag in any other compiler).

Note that valgrind is not foolproof, and may occasionally miss leaks or be unable to provide full stack traces (especially if you're using threads, or complicated class implementations).

For libraries without debug information, the stack trace will stop at that library.

For a free tool, valgrind is very good at what it does, but there is a reason places like IBM can sell memory profiles for big money.

Related Solutions

Javascript – How to find out the caller function in JavaScript

Note that this solution is deprecated and should no longer be used according to MDN documentation

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/caller

function Hello()
{
    alert("caller is " + Hello.caller);
}

Note that this feature is non-standard, from Function.caller:

Non-standard
This feature is non-standard and is not on a standards track. Do not use it on production sites facing the Web: it will not work for every user. There may also be large incompatibilities between implementations and the behavior may change in the future.

The following is the old answer from 2008, which is no longer supported in modern Javascript:

function Hello()
{
    alert("caller is " + arguments.callee.caller.toString());
}

Javascript – Maximum call stack size exceeded error

It means that somewhere in your code, you are calling a function which in turn calls another function and so forth, until you hit the call stack limit.

This is almost always because of a recursive function with a base case that isn't being met.

Viewing the stack

Consider this code...

(function a() {
    a();
})();

Here is the stack after a handful of calls...

Web Inspector

As you can see, the call stack grows until it hits a limit: the browser hardcoded stack size or memory exhaustion.

In order to fix it, ensure that your recursive function has a base case which is able to be met...

(function a(x) {
    // The following condition 
    // is the base case.
    if ( ! x) {
        return;
    }
    a(--x);
})(10);

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Javascript – How to find out the caller function in JavaScript

Javascript – Maximum call stack size exceeded error

Viewing the stack

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