How to use Application Verifier to find memory leaks

Question

I want to find memory leaks in my application using standard utilities. Previously I used my own memory allocator, but other people (yes, you AlienFluid) suggested to use Mi

Answer 1

CRT memory leaks detection (without stack trace):

// debug_new.h
#pragma once

#include "crtdbg.h"

#ifdef _DEBUG
#ifndef DEBUG_NEW
#define DEBUG_NEW   new( _NORMAL_BLOCK, __FILE__, __LINE__)
#endif
#endif

All .cpp files:

#include "debug_new.h"

...

// After all other include lines:
#ifdef _DEBUG
#define new DEBUG_NEW
#endif

...

Write this once in the program initialization code:

_CrtSetDbgFlag( _CrtSetDbgFlag(_CRTDBG_REPORT_FLAG) | _CRTDBG_LEAK_CHECK_DF);

In MFC, all this is already implemented in MFC headers. You only need to ensure, that every cpp file contains these lines:

#ifdef _DEBUG
#define new DEBUG_NEW
#endif

Restrictions: this catches only "new" memory leaks, all leaks, caused by another functions, like malloc, are not caught.

Don't make any allocations inside of .h files - they will be printed without source lines, because DEBUG_NEW is defined after all #include lines.