Type preserving heap profiler for C++

Typegrind is a type preserving heap profiler for C++ - it collects memory allocation information with type information.

Components

Typegrind consists of two main components:

• Instrumentator, which is a source-to-source compiler, decorating the C++ source with code required for the logger.
• Loggers, which do something useful with the information provided by the instrumented code (e.g. write it to a logfile).

Building

See Building.

Usage

Typegrind is a Clang Tool, and uses the same parameters as other, builtin tools like clang-check.

For more details, see how it works.

Example

The original source code:

#include <typegrind/logger/demo_cout.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
  typedef int myint;
  myint* a = new myint(3);
  std::cout << *a << std::endl;
  delete a;
  return 0;
}

Is transformed to:

#include <typegrind/logger/demo_cout.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
  typedef int myint;
  myint* a = TYPEGRIND_LOG_NEW("example.cpp:7", "myint", "int", sizeof(int), myint(3));
  std::cout << *a << std::endl;
  delete TYPEGRIND_LOG_DELETE("example.cpp:9", "myint", "int", a);
  return 0;
}

Which is transformed by a logger, for example by the demo_cout logger to:

#include <typegrind/log_to_cout.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
  typedef int myint;
  int* a = (typegrind::logger::entry_alloc{"myint", "int", "example.cpp:7", sizeof(myint), 0, nullptr} * (new myint(3)))
  std::cout << *a << std::endl;
  delete (typegrind::logger::entry_free{"myint", "int", "example.cpp:9", nullptr} * (a)));
  return 0;
}

Known limitations

• Exotic macros related to object allocation will cause compilation errors. For example:

    #define DECL_AN_INT(name) int* name = new int(0);
  

• Linker settings aren’t modified by typegrind. The projects using it should link to it’s library if it has one.

Future work

• Solve the above limitations
• Improve the usage process (call clang with an in-memory VFS automatically)
• Create production ready standard loggers
• Create a user friendly logger frontend

Credits

Typegrind is based on:

• J. Mihalicza, Z. Porkoláb, and A. Gábor, Type-preserving heap profiler for C++ (2011)
• J. Mihalicza, Analysis and Methods for Supporting Generative Metaprogramming in Large Scale C++ Projects (2014)
• The type-preserving heap-profiler used by NNG Llc., also based on the above articles

License

Typekit is published under the MIT License