Insure++

Insure++ is a memory debugger computer program, used by software developers to detect various errors in programs written in C and C++. It is made by Parasoft, and is functionally similar to other memory debuggers, such as Purify and Valgrind.

Overview

Insure++ can automatically find erroneous accesses to freed memory, array bounds violations, freeing unallocated memory (which often happens when a programmer frees the same memory twice, or when he frees global or stack memory), and many others.

Unlike Purify and Valgrind, Insure++ inserts its instrumentation at the source code level, which allows it to detect errors that the other tools miss. In particular, Insure++ can detect buffer overflows in automatic arrays, and overflows which involve pointers that accidentally "jump" from one valid memory region to another, as in the following example:

#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
 {
    char *p = malloc(1024); /* first dynamically-allocated block */
    char *q = malloc(1024); /* second block */
    p += 1200; /* At this point, "p" is likely to point into the second block. 
                  However, false assumptions about the real behaviour lead to mistakes. */
    *p = 'a';  /* invalid write (past the end of the first block) */
 }

Also the source level instrumentation allows it to not only identify that a leak occurred, but where it occurred. Some tools merely provide information about where the memory was allocated, Insure++ also gives a stack trace for when/where the actual leak occurred.

External links

• Parasoft's Insure++ site
• "A Survey of Systems for Detecting Serial Run-Time Errors" by The Iowa State University’s High Performance Computing Group
• Linux Journal review of Parasoft Insure++

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