Package: valgrind (1:3.3.1-3)

A memory debugger and profiler

Valgrind is a GPL'd tool to help you find memory-management problems in your programs. When a program is run under Valgrind's supervision, all reads and writes of memory are checked, and calls to malloc/new/free/delete are intercepted.

Valgrind can debug more or less any dynamically-linked ELF x86/Linux, amd64/Linux and ppc/Linux executables, without modification, recompilation, or anything.

Valgrind provides a generic infrastructure for supervising the execution of programs called "tools". This is done by providing a way to instrument programs in very precise ways, making it relatively easy to support activities such as dynamic error detection and profiling. The Valgrind distribution currently includes three tools: a memory error detectors, a cache (time) profiler and a heap (space) profiler.

Tags: Software Development: C Development, C++ Development, Profiling, Testing and QA, Implemented in: C, User Interface: Command Line, Role: Program, Scope: Utility, Works with: Running Programs