'\" t
.\" Copyright (c) 2012 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH mtrace 3 2024-02-26 "Linux man-pages 6.7"
.SH NAME
mtrace, muntrace \- malloc tracing
.SH LIBRARY
Standard C library
.RI ( libc ", " \-lc )
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B "#include <mcheck.h>"
.P
.B "void mtrace(void);"
.B "void muntrace(void);"
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR mtrace ()
function installs hook functions for the memory-allocation functions
.RB ( malloc (3),
.BR realloc (3)
.BR memalign (3),
.BR free (3)).
These hook functions record tracing information about memory allocation
and deallocation.
The tracing information can be used to discover memory leaks and
attempts to free nonallocated memory in a program.
.P
The
.BR muntrace ()
function disables the hook functions installed by
.BR mtrace (),
so that tracing information is no longer recorded
for the memory-allocation functions.
If no hook functions were successfully installed by
.BR mtrace (),
.BR muntrace ()
does nothing.
.P
When
.BR mtrace ()
is called, it checks the value of the environment variable
.BR MALLOC_TRACE ,
which should contain the pathname of a file in which
the tracing information is to be recorded.
If the pathname is successfully opened, it is truncated to zero length.
.P
If
.B MALLOC_TRACE
is not set,
or the pathname it specifies is invalid or not writable,
then no hook functions are installed, and
.BR mtrace ()
has no effect.
In set-user-ID and set-group-ID programs,
.B MALLOC_TRACE
is ignored, and
.BR mtrace ()
has no effect.
.SH ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
.BR attributes (7).
.TS
allbox;
lbx lb lb
l l l.
Interface	Attribute	Value
T{
.na
.nh
.BR mtrace (),
.BR muntrace ()
T}	Thread safety	MT-Unsafe
.TE
.\" FIXME: The marking is different from that in the glibc manual,
.\" markings in glibc manual are more detailed:
.\"
.\"      mtrace: MT-Unsafe env race:mtrace const:malloc_hooks init
.\"      muntrace: MT-Unsafe race:mtrace const:malloc_hooks locale
.\"
.\" But there is something wrong in glibc manual, for example:
.\" glibc manual says muntrace should have marking locale because it calls
.\" fprintf(), but muntrace does not execute area which cause locale problem.
.SH STANDARDS
GNU.
.SH NOTES
In normal usage,
.BR mtrace ()
is called once at the start of execution of a program, and
.BR muntrace ()
is never called.
.P
The tracing output produced after a call to
.BR mtrace ()
is textual, but not designed to be human readable.
The GNU C library provides a Perl script,
.BR mtrace (1),
that interprets the trace log and produces human-readable output.
For best results,
the traced program should be compiled with debugging enabled,
so that line-number information is recorded in the executable.
.P
The tracing performed by
.BR mtrace ()
incurs a performance penalty (if
.B MALLOC_TRACE
points to a valid, writable pathname).
.SH BUGS
The line-number information produced by
.BR mtrace (1)
is not always precise:
the line number references may refer to the previous or following (nonblank)
line of the source code.
.SH EXAMPLES
The shell session below demonstrates the use of the
.BR mtrace ()
function and the
.BR mtrace (1)
command in a program that has memory leaks at two different locations.
The demonstration uses the following program:
.P
.in +4n
.RB "$ " "cat t_mtrace.c"
.\" SRC BEGIN (t_mtrace.c)
.EX
#include <mcheck.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
\&
int
main(void)
{
    mtrace();
\&
    for (unsigned int j = 0; j < 2; j++)
        malloc(100);            /* Never freed\-\-a memory leak */
\&
    calloc(16, 16);             /* Never freed\-\-a memory leak */
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
.EE
.\" SRC END
.in
.P
When we run the program as follows, we see that
.BR mtrace ()
diagnosed memory leaks at two different locations in the program:
.P
.in +4n
.EX
.RB "$ " "cc \-g t_mtrace.c \-o t_mtrace"
.RB "$ " "export MALLOC_TRACE=/tmp/t"
.RB "$ " "./t_mtrace"
.RB "$ " "mtrace ./t_mtrace $MALLOC_TRACE"
Memory not freed:
-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
   Address     Size     Caller
0x084c9378     0x64  at /home/cecilia/t_mtrace.c:12
0x084c93e0     0x64  at /home/cecilia/t_mtrace.c:12
0x084c9448    0x100  at /home/cecilia/t_mtrace.c:16
.EE
.in
.P
The first two messages about unfreed memory correspond to the two
.BR malloc (3)
calls inside the
.I for
loop.
The final message corresponds to the call to
.BR calloc (3)
(which in turn calls
.BR malloc (3)).
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mtrace (1),
.BR malloc (3),
.BR malloc_hook (3),
.BR mcheck (3)