Memory allocation debugging

Sometimes it's beneficial to see the actual memory allocations done by an app, but you don't want to code a full memory allocation system. Perhaps you cannot even rebuild the app.

Then a good option is to use a dynamic library to override all the allocation functions.

The idea is simple, make sure the application finds your library before any other, and let it use the custom malloc-functions. Here is the source

On MacOS, you'll use

    $ DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=libmemprofile.dylib ./a.out

and on Linux:

    $ LD_PRELOAD=libmemprofile.so ./a.out

The result will look like this:

$ DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=libmemprofile.dylib ./a.out

Memory used: 

   Total: 512 bytes in 2 allocation(s)

   At exit: 0 bytes in 0 allocation(s)