Re: [Mingw-users] Best memory checker

[Greg C. <chi...@co...>]

On 2006-6-15 12:02 UTC, Dan Osborne wrote:
> Thanks Richard, mpatrol looks well worth a try.
> 
> I'm giving it a go at the moment but having trouble with this bit of mpatrol
> documentation ...
> 
>  but you should note that if your program does not directly call any of the
> functions in the mpatrol library then it will not be linked in and you will
> not see a log file being generated when you run it. You can force the
> linking of the mpatrol library by causing malloc() to be undefined on the
> link line, usually through the use of the `-u' linker option.

Here's what I've been using for years in production code:

    #include <cstdlib> // std::free()

[first line of main(), WinMain(), or what have you:]
    // This line forces mpatrol to link when it otherwise might not.
    // It has no other effect according to C99 7.20.3.2/2, second
    // sentence.
    std::free(0);

No need for a '-u' option that may be dependent on whose linker
or which platform you're using; just standard C++. (The C version
would be trivially different.) Similarly, I prefer free() to
malloc() because I can call it in a way guaranteed to have no
side effect.