mirror of
https://github.com/Zenithsiz/ftmemsim-valgrind.git
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fc9a6bbced
in it, much of it from 1.0.X days. Did it in such a way that if it doesn't get touched (and it undoubtedly won't) it won't really go out of date, eg. by removing temporary details like version numbers, dates, details of specific software incompatibilities. It's much better to be vague but correct, than precise but incorrect; having incorrect info in a file as important as the README is bad. Also removed the README_KDE3_FOLKS file because it's pretty redundant now. Also added some changes that had been made in the stable branch but not the HEAD. Did similar, but smaller changes to README_DEVELOPERS and README_PACKAGERS. Also updated the valgrind.spec.in file to use the new, post-1.0.X description in the README. Also fixed a minor omission in Addrcheck's docs. MERGE TO STABLE git-svn-id: svn://svn.valgrind.org/valgrind/trunk@2089
101 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
101 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
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Release notes for Valgrind
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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If you are building a binary package of Valgrind for distribution,
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please read README_PACKAGERS. It contains some important information.
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If you are developing Valgrind, please read README_DEVELOPERS. It contains
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some useful information.
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For instructions on how to build/install, see the end of this file.
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Valgrind works on most, reasonably recent Linux setups. If you have
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problems, consult FAQ.txt to see if there are workarounds.
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Executive Summary
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Valgrind is a GPL'd system for debugging and profiling x86-Linux programs.
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With the tools that come with Valgrind, you can automatically detect
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many memory management and threading bugs, avoiding hours of frustrating
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bug-hunting, making your programs more stable. You can also perform
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detailed profiling to help speed up your programs.
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The Valgrind distribution includes four tools: two memory error
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detectors, a thread error detector, and a cache profiler. Several other
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tools have been built with Valgrind.
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To give you an idea of what Valgrind tools do, when a program is run
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under the supervision of the first memory error detector tool, all reads
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and writes of memory are checked, and calls to malloc/new/free/delete
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are intercepted. As a result, it can detect problems such as:
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Use of uninitialised memory
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Reading/writing memory after it has been free'd
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Reading/writing off the end of malloc'd blocks
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Reading/writing inappropriate areas on the stack
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Memory leaks -- where pointers to malloc'd blocks are lost forever
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Passing of uninitialised and/or unaddressible memory to system calls
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Mismatched use of malloc/new/new [] vs free/delete/delete []
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Overlaps of arguments to strcpy() and related functions
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Some abuses of the POSIX pthread API
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Problems like these can be difficult to find by other means, often
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lying undetected for long periods, then causing occasional,
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difficult-to-diagnose crashes. When one of these errors occurs, you can
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attach GDB to your program, so you can poke around and see what's going
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on.
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Valgrind is closely tied to details of the CPU, operating system and
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to a less extent, compiler and basic C libraries. This makes it
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difficult to make it portable, so I have chosen at the outset to
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concentrate on what I believe to be a widely used platform: x86/Linux.
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Valgrind is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
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Read the file COPYING in the source distribution for details.
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Documentation
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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A comprehensive user guide is supplied. Point your browser at
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$PREFIX/share/doc/valgrind/manual.html, where $PREFIX is whatever you
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specified with --prefix= when building.
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Building and installing it
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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To install from CVS :
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0. Check out the code from CVS, following the instructions at
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http://developer.kde.org/source/anoncvs.html. The 'modulename' is
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"valgrind".
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1. cd into the source directory.
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2. Run ./autogen.sh to setup the environment (you need the standard
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autoconf tools to do so).
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To install from a tar.bz2 distribution:
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3. Run ./configure, with some options if you wish. The standard
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options are documented in the INSTALL file. The only interesting
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one is the usual --prefix=/where/you/want/it/installed.
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4. Do "make".
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5. Do "make install", possibly as root if the destination permissions
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require that.
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6. See if it works. Try "valgrind ls -l". Either this works,
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or it bombs out complaining it can't find argc/argv/envp.
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In that case, mail me a bug report.
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Important! Do not move the valgrind installation into a place
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different from that specified by --prefix at build time. This will
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cause things to break in subtle ways, mostly when Valgrind handles
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fork/exec calls.
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Julian Seward (jseward@acm.org)
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Nick Nethercote (njn25@cam.ac.uk)
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Jeremy Fitzhardinge (jeremy@goop.org)
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