1 <?xml version="1.0"?> <!-- -*- sgml -*- --> 2 <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN" 3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" 4 [ <!ENTITY % vg-entities SYSTEM "vg-entities.xml"> %vg-entities; ]> 5 6 <chapter id="manual-intro" xreflabel="Introduction"> 7 <title>Introduction</title> 8 9 <sect1 id="manual-intro.overview" xreflabel="An Overview of Valgrind"> 10 <title>An Overview of Valgrind</title> 11 12 <para>Valgrind is an instrumentation framework for building dynamic analysis 13 tools. It comes with a set of tools each of which performs some kind of 14 debugging, profiling, or similar task that helps you improve your programs. 15 Valgrind's architecture is modular, so new tools can be created easily 16 and without disturbing the existing structure.</para> 17 18 <para>A number of useful tools are supplied as standard.</para> 19 20 <orderedlist> 21 22 <listitem> 23 <para><command>Memcheck</command> is a memory error detector. It helps 24 you make your programs, particularly those written in C and C++, more 25 correct.</para> 26 </listitem> 27 28 <listitem> 29 <para><command>Cachegrind</command> is a cache and branch-prediction 30 profiler. It helps you make your programs run faster.</para> 31 </listitem> 32 33 <listitem> 34 <para><command>Callgrind</command> is a call-graph generating cache 35 profiler. It has some overlap with Cachegrind, but also gathers some 36 information that Cachegrind does not.</para> 37 </listitem> 38 39 <listitem> 40 <para><command>Helgrind</command> is a thread error detector. 41 It helps you make your multi-threaded programs more correct. 42 </para> 43 </listitem> 44 45 <listitem> 46 <para><command>DRD</command> is also a thread error detector. It is 47 similar to Helgrind but uses different analysis techniques and so may 48 find different problems.</para> 49 </listitem> 50 51 <listitem> 52 <para><command>Massif</command> is a heap profiler. It helps you 53 make your programs use less memory.</para> 54 </listitem> 55 56 <listitem> 57 <para><command>DHAT</command> is a different kind of heap 58 profiler. It helps you understand issues of block lifetimes, 59 block utilisation, and layout inefficiencies.</para> 60 </listitem> 61 62 <listitem> 63 <para><command>Ptrcheck</command> is an experimental heap, stack and 64 global array overrun detector. Its functionality overlaps somewhat 65 with Memcheck's, but it can find some problems that Memcheck would 66 miss.</para> 67 </listitem> 68 69 <listitem> 70 <para><command>BBV</command> is an experimental SimPoint basic block 71 vector generator. It is useful to people doing computer architecture 72 research and development.</para> 73 </listitem> 74 75 </orderedlist> 76 77 <para>There are also a couple of minor tools that aren't useful to 78 most users: <command>Lackey</command> is an example tool that illustrates 79 some instrumentation basics; and <command>Nulgrind</command> is the minimal 80 Valgrind tool that does no analysis or instrumentation, and is only useful 81 for testing purposes.</para> 82 83 <para>Valgrind is closely tied to details of the CPU and operating 84 system, and to a lesser extent, the compiler and basic C libraries. 85 Nonetheless, it supports a number of widely-used platforms, listed in full 86 at <ulink url="&vg-url;">&vg-url;</ulink>.</para> 87 88 <para>Valgrind is built via the standard Unix 89 <computeroutput>./configure</computeroutput>, 90 <computeroutput>make</computeroutput>, <computeroutput>make 91 install</computeroutput> process; full details are given in the 92 README file in the distribution.</para> 93 94 <para>Valgrind is licensed under the <xref linkend="license.gpl"/>, 95 version 2. The <computeroutput>valgrind/*.h</computeroutput> headers 96 that you may wish to include in your code (eg. 97 <filename>valgrind.h</filename>, <filename>memcheck.h</filename>, 98 <filename>helgrind.h</filename>, etc.) are 99 distributed under a BSD-style license, so you may include them in your 100 code without worrying about license conflicts. Some of the PThreads 101 test cases, <filename>pth_*.c</filename>, are taken from "Pthreads 102 Programming" by Bradford Nichols, Dick Buttlar & Jacqueline Proulx 103 Farrell, ISBN 1-56592-115-1, published by O'Reilly & Associates, 104 Inc.</para> 105 106 <para>If you contribute code to Valgrind, please ensure your 107 contributions are licensed as "GPLv2, or (at your option) any later 108 version." This is so as to allow the possibility of easily upgrading 109 the license to GPLv3 in future. If you want to modify code in the VEX 110 subdirectory, please also see the file VEX/HACKING.README in the 111 distribution.</para> 112 113 114 </sect1> 115 116 117 <sect1 id="manual-intro.navigation" xreflabel="How to navigate this manual"> 118 <title>How to navigate this manual</title> 119 120 <para>This manual's structure reflects the structure of Valgrind itself. 121 First, we describe the Valgrind core, how to use it, and the options 122 it supports. Then, each tool has its own chapter in this manual. You 123 only need to read the documentation for the core and for the tool(s) you 124 actually use, although you may find it helpful to be at least a little 125 bit familiar with what all tools do. If you're new to all this, you probably 126 want to run the Memcheck tool and you might find the <xref 127 linkend="quick-start"/> useful.</para> 128 129 <para>Be aware that the core understands some command line options, and 130 the tools have their own options which they know about. This means 131 there is no central place describing all the options that are 132 accepted -- you have to read the options documentation both for 133 <xref linkend="manual-core"/> and for the tool you want to use.</para> 134 135 136 </sect1> 137 138 </chapter> 139
