continental/vargrind

vargrind

Variable shadowing tool - Tracks data about variables (frequency of use, etc) during program execution

Goals

bolded = important

• Provide shadow states (SS) for all variables in the program (Shadow state - information describing the various aspect of various variables)

  • Information Proper

    • Name
    • Type
    • Parent scope (the name of the function that defined it)
    • Special descriptors (const, volatile, etc)
    • References in code?
    • Lifetime (from declaration to deletion/program exit)
    • Location (In memory)

  • Number of uses

    • Total (Inside of the whole program)
    • Scope (Per scope)

  • Users (functions/operations which used the variable)

    • All (Logged all uses of the variable, program wide or scope specific)
    • Last
    • Most frequent

  • Changes (Variable's value change)

    • History
    • Current value
    • Previous value
    • Instigator (which function/operation changed it)
• Output SS info
  • To terminal
  • To external logs/files (export)
• Support complex data types (struct, class)
  • Shallow analysis mode (Treat complex data types as closed packages)
  • Deep analysis mode (Break complex types down into simple types and analyze each one as a separate variable)
    • Shadow attribute's parent class/struct
• Post-completion optimizations

Prerequisites

In order to use Vargrind, one must have Valgrind source code cloned. Info about cloing Valgrind code can be found here: https://valgrind.org/downloads/repository.html

Installation

1. Place the repository within your Valgrind installation directory
2. Navigate to the repository folder
3. Run the following command: ./SetupVargrind.sh

Troubles while installing

If the user encounters some compilation issues, it is recommended to recursively delete whole valgrind directory and start the installation again.

As a prerequisite, user shall have the autotools and automake installed in order to build the project.

Running the tool

Usage: valgrind --tool=vargrind --read-var-info=yes ./program_name

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2023 Continental AG and subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

This project is licensed under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, see the LICENSE.txt file for details.