1 <html> 2 <head> 3 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> 4 <title>1.Introduction</title> 5 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="vg_basic.css"> 6 <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1"> 7 <link rel="home" href="index.html" title="Valgrind Documentation"> 8 <link rel="up" href="manual.html" title="Valgrind User Manual"> 9 <link rel="prev" href="manual.html" title="Valgrind User Manual"> 10 <link rel="next" href="manual-core.html" title="2.Using and understanding the Valgrind core"> 11 </head> 12 <body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"> 13 <div><table class="nav" width="100%" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0" summary="Navigation header"><tr> 14 <td width="22px" align="center" valign="middle"><a accesskey="p" href="manual.html"><img src="images/prev.png" width="18" height="21" border="0" alt="Prev"></a></td> 15 <td width="25px" align="center" valign="middle"><a accesskey="u" href="manual.html"><img src="images/up.png" width="21" height="18" border="0" alt="Up"></a></td> 16 <td width="31px" align="center" valign="middle"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html"><img src="images/home.png" width="27" height="20" border="0" alt="Up"></a></td> 17 <th align="center" valign="middle">Valgrind User Manual</th> 18 <td width="22px" align="center" valign="middle"><a accesskey="n" href="manual-core.html"><img src="images/next.png" width="18" height="21" border="0" alt="Next"></a></td> 19 </tr></table></div> 20 <div class="chapter"> 21 <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h1 class="title"> 22 <a name="manual-intro"></a>1.Introduction</h1></div></div></div> 23 <div class="toc"> 24 <p><b>Table of Contents</b></p> 25 <dl class="toc"> 26 <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="manual-intro.html#manual-intro.overview">1.1. An Overview of Valgrind</a></span></dt> 27 <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="manual-intro.html#manual-intro.navigation">1.2. How to navigate this manual</a></span></dt> 28 </dl> 29 </div> 30 <div class="sect1"> 31 <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> 32 <a name="manual-intro.overview"></a>1.1.An Overview of Valgrind</h2></div></div></div> 33 <p>Valgrind is an instrumentation framework for building dynamic analysis 34 tools. It comes with a set of tools each of which performs some kind of 35 debugging, profiling, or similar task that helps you improve your programs. 36 Valgrind's architecture is modular, so new tools can be created easily 37 and without disturbing the existing structure.</p> 38 <p>A number of useful tools are supplied as standard.</p> 39 <div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"> 40 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>Memcheck</strong></span> is a memory error detector. It helps 41 you make your programs, particularly those written in C and C++, more 42 correct.</p></li> 43 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>Cachegrind</strong></span> is a cache and branch-prediction 44 profiler. It helps you make your programs run faster.</p></li> 45 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>Callgrind</strong></span> is a call-graph generating cache 46 profiler. It has some overlap with Cachegrind, but also gathers some 47 information that Cachegrind does not.</p></li> 48 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>Helgrind</strong></span> is a thread error detector. 49 It helps you make your multi-threaded programs more correct. 50 </p></li> 51 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>DRD</strong></span> is also a thread error detector. It is 52 similar to Helgrind but uses different analysis techniques and so may 53 find different problems.</p></li> 54 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>Massif</strong></span> is a heap profiler. It helps you 55 make your programs use less memory.</p></li> 56 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>DHAT</strong></span> is a different kind of heap 57 profiler. It helps you understand issues of block lifetimes, 58 block utilisation, and layout inefficiencies.</p></li> 59 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>SGcheck</strong></span> is an experimental tool that can 60 detect overruns of stack and global arrays. Its functionality is 61 complementary to that of Memcheck: SGcheck finds problems that 62 Memcheck can't, and vice versa..</p></li> 63 <li class="listitem"><p><span class="command"><strong>BBV</strong></span> is an experimental SimPoint basic block 64 vector generator. It is useful to people doing computer architecture 65 research and development.</p></li> 66 </ol></div> 67 <p>There are also a couple of minor tools that aren't useful to 68 most users: <span class="command"><strong>Lackey</strong></span> is an example tool that illustrates 69 some instrumentation basics; and <span class="command"><strong>Nulgrind</strong></span> is the minimal 70 Valgrind tool that does no analysis or instrumentation, and is only useful 71 for testing purposes.</p> 72 <p>Valgrind is closely tied to details of the CPU and operating 73 system, and to a lesser extent, the compiler and basic C libraries. 74 Nonetheless, it supports a number of widely-used platforms, listed in full 75 at <a class="ulink" href="http://www.valgrind.org/" target="_top">http://www.valgrind.org/</a>.</p> 76 <p>Valgrind is built via the standard Unix 77 <code class="computeroutput">./configure</code>, 78 <code class="computeroutput">make</code>, <code class="computeroutput">make 79 install</code> process; full details are given in the 80 README file in the distribution.</p> 81 <p>Valgrind is licensed under the <a class="xref" href="license.gpl.html" title="1.The GNU General Public License"> The GNU General Public License</a>, 82 version 2. The <code class="computeroutput">valgrind/*.h</code> headers 83 that you may wish to include in your code (eg. 84 <code class="filename">valgrind.h</code>, <code class="filename">memcheck.h</code>, 85 <code class="filename">helgrind.h</code>, etc.) are 86 distributed under a BSD-style license, so you may include them in your 87 code without worrying about license conflicts. Some of the PThreads 88 test cases, <code class="filename">pth_*.c</code>, are taken from "Pthreads 89 Programming" by Bradford Nichols, Dick Buttlar & Jacqueline Proulx 90 Farrell, ISBN 1-56592-115-1, published by O'Reilly & Associates, 91 Inc.</p> 92 <p>If you contribute code to Valgrind, please ensure your 93 contributions are licensed as "GPLv2, or (at your option) any later 94 version." This is so as to allow the possibility of easily upgrading 95 the license to GPLv3 in future. If you want to modify code in the VEX 96 subdirectory, please also see the file VEX/HACKING.README in the 97 distribution.</p> 98 </div> 99 <div class="sect1"> 100 <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> 101 <a name="manual-intro.navigation"></a>1.2.How to navigate this manual</h2></div></div></div> 102 <p>This manual's structure reflects the structure of Valgrind itself. 103 First, we describe the Valgrind core, how to use it, and the options 104 it supports. Then, each tool has its own chapter in this manual. You 105 only need to read the documentation for the core and for the tool(s) you 106 actually use, although you may find it helpful to be at least a little 107 bit familiar with what all tools do. If you're new to all this, you probably 108 want to run the Memcheck tool and you might find the <a class="xref" href="quick-start.html" title="The Valgrind Quick Start Guide">The Valgrind Quick Start Guide</a> useful.</p> 109 <p>Be aware that the core understands some command line options, and 110 the tools have their own options which they know about. This means 111 there is no central place describing all the options that are 112 accepted -- you have to read the options documentation both for 113 <a class="xref" href="manual-core.html" title="2.Using and understanding the Valgrind core">Valgrind's core</a> and for the tool you want to use.</p> 114 </div> 115 </div> 116 <div> 117 <br><table class="nav" width="100%" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="2" border="0" summary="Navigation footer"> 118 <tr> 119 <td rowspan="2" width="40%" align="left"> 120 <a accesskey="p" href="manual.html"><<Valgrind User Manual</a></td> 121 <td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="manual.html">Up</a></td> 122 <td rowspan="2" width="40%" align="right"><a accesskey="n" href="manual-core.html">2.Using and understanding the Valgrind core>></a> 123 </td> 124 </tr> 125 <tr><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td></tr> 126 </table> 127 </div> 128 </body> 129 </html> 130
