From: ahoward <ahoward@...>
Date: 2003-09-18T15:53:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Testing for memory leaks

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Berger, Daniel wrote:

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> Hi all,
>
> Being as I write a lot of extensions, I've discovered that it's best to
> check for memory leaks.  The way I'm doing this now is something like this:
>
> # pseudo code
> while 1
>     call some_method
>     if Linux or BSD
>        check /proc/Process.pid/fd count
>     elsif Solaris
>        check pfiles Process.pid count
>     elsif Win32
>        start Task Manager and watch used file descriptors and memory for
> Process.pid
>     end
>     sleep 1
> end
>
> # Ctrl-C to break out of loop only after at least 10 iterations
>
> Is there a better and/or more streamlined way to do this?  Any chance of
> adding assert_no_memory_leak to TestUnit, for example?

not ruby specific, but check out dmalloc and electric fence.  they are both
free, easy to use, and work pretty well.

-a
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  | Ara Howard
  | NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
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