NAME

       TCL_MEM_DEBUG - Compile-time flag to enable Tcl memory debugging
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DESCRIPTION

       When  Tcl  is compiled with TCL_MEM_DEBUG defined, a powerful set of memory debugging aids is included in
       the compiled binary.  This includes C and Tcl functions which can aid with debugging memory leaks, memory
       allocation overruns, and other memory related errors.

ENABLING MEMORY DEBUGGING

       To  enable  memory  debugging,  Tcl should be recompiled from scratch with TCL_MEM_DEBUG defined (e.g. by
       passing the --enable-symbols=mem flag to the configure script when building).  This will also compile  in
       a non-stub version of Tcl_InitMemory to add the memory command to Tcl.

       TCL_MEM_DEBUG  must be either left defined for all modules or undefined for all modules that are going to
       be linked together.  If they are not, link errors will occur, with either Tcl_DbCkfree and  Tcl_DbCkalloc
       or Tcl_Alloc and Tcl_Free being undefined.

       Once  memory  debugging  support  has  been compiled into Tcl, the C functions Tcl_ValidateAllMemory, and
       Tcl_DumpActiveMemory, and the Tcl memory command can be used to validate and examine memory usage.

GUARD ZONES

       When memory debugging is enabled, whenever a call to ckalloc is made, slightly more memory than requested
       is  allocated  so the memory debugging code can keep track of the allocated memory, and eight-byte “guard
       zones” are placed in front of and behind the space that will be returned to the caller.   (The  sizes  of
       the  guard  zones  are  defined  by  the C #define LOW_GUARD_SIZE and #define HIGH_GUARD_SIZE in the file
       generic/tclCkalloc.c — it can be extended if you suspect  large  overwrite  problems,  at  some  cost  in
       performance.)   A known pattern is written into the guard zones and, on a call to ckfree, the guard zones
       of the space being freed are checked to see if either zone has been modified in  any  way.   If  one  has
       been,  the  guard  bytes  and  their new contents are identified, and a “low guard failed” or “high guard
       failed” message is issued.  The “guard failed” message includes the address of the memory packet and  the
       file  name and line number of the code that called ckfree.  This allows you to detect the common sorts of
       one-off problems, where not enough space was allocated to contain the data written, for example.

DEBUGGING DIFFICULT MEMORY CORRUPTION PROBLEMS

       Normally, Tcl compiled with memory debugging enabled will make it easy to isolate a  corruption  problem.
       Turning on memory validation with the memory command can help isolate difficult problems.  If you suspect
       (or know) that corruption is occurring before the Tcl interpreter comes up far enough for  you  to  issue
       commands,  you  can  set  MEM_VALIDATE  define, recompile tclCkalloc.c and rebuild Tcl.  This will enable
       memory validation from the first call to ckalloc, again, at a large performance impact.

       If you are desperate and validating memory on every call to ckalloc and ckfree is  not  enough,  you  can
       explicitly  call  Tcl_ValidateAllMemory  directly  at  any point.  It takes a char * and an int which are
       normally the filename and line number of the  caller,  but  they  can  actually  be  anything  you  want.
       Remember to remove the calls after you find the problem.

SEE ALSO

       ckalloc, memory, Tcl_ValidateAllMemory, Tcl_DumpActiveMemory

KEYWORDS

       memory, debug