Difference between revisions of "Debugging with Valgrind"

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Lazarus will show a message when Valgrind issues an exception.
 
Lazarus will show a message when Valgrind issues an exception.
  
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Open valgrind.trc
 
Open valgrind.trc
  
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Revision as of 05:55, 4 March 2020


!!!WORK IN PROGRESS!!!

Introduction

Valgrind is system for debugging and profiling Linux programs. It comprises of the Valgrind framework and set of tools that can automatically detect many memory management and threading bugs, and profile your programs in detail. You can read about Valgrind here https://valgrind.org/

A program running under Valgrind is not executed directly by the CPU. Instead it runs on a synthetic CPU provided by Valgrind. This allows Valgrind to have full control and track program and resources very meticulously.

Valgrind can be used as standalone issue reporting or performance profiling tool. Also it can be used as a debugger. For this it includes VGDB utility that is GDB-compatible interface to Valgrind.

The debugging applications stack is following:

  • GDB
  • VGDB
  • Valgrind executing YourProgram


Though GDB can connect to VGDB directly (via interprocess communication), Lazarus cannot use this mode. You have to use Remote debugging over TCP. In this setup VGDB plays role of GDBServer listening on a TCP port, and Lazarus via GDB connects to it.

So the debugging applications stack with Lazarus will be:

  • Lazarus IDE
  • GDB
  • tcp/ip
  • VGDB
  • Valgrind executing YourProgram


Usually you will run all parts on same computer. But there is possibility to run them on 2 computers via network.

In the following example everything will be on same computer. Network interface will be localhost and TCP port will be 33333.

Configuration

1 - Install valgrind in your system

Refer to Valgrind resources to install it.


2 - Compile your program (here it is named valgrind_test1.pas) with Valgrind option (-gv). Select menu Project -> Project Options

valgrind project options.png


3 - Configure Lazarus debugger. Select menu Tools -> Options

valgrind tools options.png

Debugging

1 - Start Valgrind and VGDB in a separate shell

valgrind --tool=memcheck --leak-check=yes --log-file=valgrind.trc --vgdb-error=0 ./valgrind_test1 &
sleep 2; vgdb --port=33333


2 - Run your program in Lazarus and debug it

Actually the program is already run by Valgrind, it is just staying in debugger and waiting for continue.

Please note Valgrind is accurate but it is not a fastest debugger. Execution will be much slower than usual. Be patient.

Lazarus via VGDB communicates with the program in Valgrind. You can set breakpoints, inspect variable values and so on, like in regular debugger.

Lasarus will stop on lines where Valgrind throws exceptions. Valgrind tracks memory usage very carefully and detects the issues where FPC, RTL and a Memory Manager may ignore memory misuse. Like in example below, at line 4.

  mo:=TMyObj.Create;
  mo.Field:=12345;
  mo.Free;
  if mo.Field = 0 // Mistakenly accessing released memory block 
  then exit;

Lazarus will show a message when Valgrind issues an exception.

valgrind error.png


After you close it Lazasarus will position you on a source row where the exception has happened. Lazarus tells you pretty much nothing about what exactly happened. Valgrind will give you lots of details. To get more details you can either take a look into Valgrind trace file itself. But more convenient is to load the trace file into IDE. Select menu View -> Leaks and Traces Open valgrind.trc

valgrind trace.png


Here you can see the errors descriptions and 3 stack traces for each error: for the place where the exception happened, where the memory was freed and where it was allocated. All this is especially helpful for bug fixing. Select a line, double click and Lazarus will open a file and position cursor at a line in question.

Other suggestions

Sometimes it can be still unclear if some memory misuse or a leak happened inside RTL or OS binaries. You can compile RTL with debugging info for Valgrind and without optimization. Please refer to FPC Wiki how to rebuild RTL.

Sometimes Valgrind can generate some false positives, especially if a small block of memory (less than alignment size) was allocated in stack. Valgrind may decide that it was not fully initialized. Technically it is possible, with 1 byte variable, only 1 byte is initialized, and the rest bytes of alignment can be not initialized. We do not mind because we never use it. But Valgrind accounts even for this. You can suppress reporting for such false positives and for other issues in OS or 3-rd party binaries like GTK, X11 etc, to concentrate more on your code. Please refer to Valgrind documentation regarding suppressions.