[ale] C++ memory leak

Jim ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com
Wed Oct 11 08:58:34 EDT 2006


I'm about to go batty here.  Maybe I am. 

I have a fairly complex application that uses a number of third party 
class libraries, all open source.  I've got a slight memory leak.  It 
seems to grab about a meg a day.  I've attempted to locate the leak 
using a variety of methods including Electric Fence, setting the log to 
output almost all steps and including frequent memory checks to see what 
it is doing when the memory gets incremented.  I pretty much haven't 
found a thing.  The problem seemed to occur at random.   I converted all 
of my pointers to boost smart pointers and am fairly sure I'm using them 
legally to eliminate a missing "delete" somewhere.  

I'm about to break down and purchase a package to help me, but I need to 
know what works.  Does anyone have any experience with anything to chase 
down memory leaks in C++ apps?  I did try an open source package but it 
was giving me bad data.  I don't think the STL has any memory leaks, 
however this package accused it along with almost everything else.  I 
don't recall the name of the package right now.

Thanks for any tips.

Jim.



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