Tools

Generally, we recommend using the standard allocator with memory tracking tools, but mimalloc can also be build to support the address sanitizer or the excellent Valgrind tool. Moreover, it can be build to support Windows event tracing (ETW). This has a small performance overhead but does allow detecting memory leaks and byte-precise buffer overflows directly on final executables. See also the test/test-wrong.c file to test with various tools.

Valgrind

To build with valgrind support, use the MI_TRACK_VALGRIND=ON cmake option:

> cmake ../.. -DMI_TRACK_VALGRIND=ON

This can also be combined with secure mode or debug mode. You can then run your programs directly under valgrind:

> valgrind <myprogram>

If you rely on overriding malloc/free by mimalloc (instead of using the mi_malloc/mi_free API directly), you also need to tell valgrind to not intercept those calls itself, and use:

> MIMALLOC_SHOW_STATS=1 valgrind  --soname-synonyms=somalloc=*mimalloc* -- <myprogram>

By setting the MIMALLOC_SHOW_STATS environment variable you can check that mimalloc is indeed used and not the standard allocator. Even though the Valgrind option is called --soname-synonyms, this also works when overriding with a static library or object file. To dynamically override mimalloc using LD_PRELOAD together with valgrind, use:

> valgrind --trace-children=yes --soname-synonyms=somalloc=*mimalloc* /usr/bin/env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libmimalloc.so -- <myprogram>

See also the test/test-wrong.c file to test with valgrind.

Valgrind support is in its initial development – please report any issues.

ASAN

To build with the address sanitizer, use the -DMI_TRACK_ASAN=ON cmake option:

> cmake ../.. -DMI_TRACK_ASAN=ON

This can also be combined with secure mode or debug mode. You can then run your programs as:'

> ASAN_OPTIONS=verbosity=1 <myprogram>

When you link a program with an address sanitizer build of mimalloc, you should generally compile that program too with the address sanitizer enabled. For example, assuming you build mimalloc in out/debug:

clang -g -o test-wrong -Iinclude test/test-wrong.c out/debug/libmimalloc-asan-debug.a -lpthread -fsanitize=address -fsanitize-recover=address

Since the address sanitizer redirects the standard allocation functions, on some platforms (macOSX for example) it is required to compile mimalloc with -DMI_OVERRIDE=OFF. Address sanitizer support is in its initial development – please report any issues.

ETW

Event tracing for Windows (ETW) provides a high performance way to capture all allocations though mimalloc and analyze them later. To build with ETW support, use the -DMI_TRACK_ETW=ON cmake option.

You can then capture an allocation trace using the Windows performance recorder (WPR), using the src/prim/windows/etw-mimalloc.wprp profile. In an admin prompt, you can use:

> wpr -start src\prim\windows\etw-mimalloc.wprp -filemode
> <my_mimalloc_program>
> wpr -stop <my_mimalloc_program>.etl

and then open <my_mimalloc_program>.etl in the Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA), or use a tool like TraceControl that is specialized for analyzing mimalloc traces.