A Memory Allocation Profiler for C and Lisp Programs

Benjamin Zorn and Paul N. Hilfinger

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-88-404
February 1988

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/CSD-88-404.pdf

This paper describes mprof, a tool used to study the memory allocation behavior of programs. mprof records the amount of memory each function allocates, breaks down allocation information by type and size, and displays a program's dynamic call graph so that functions indirectly responsible for memory allocation are easy to identify. mprof is a two-phase tool. The monitor phase is linked into executing programs and records information each time memory is allocated. The display phase reduces the data generated by the monitor and displays the information to the user in several tables. mprof has been implemented for C and Kyoto Common Lisp. Measurements of these implementations are presented.


BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Zorn:CSD-88-404,
    Author = {Zorn, Benjamin and Hilfinger, Paul N.},
    Title = {A Memory Allocation Profiler for C and Lisp Programs},
    Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {1988},
    Month = {Feb},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/5382.html},
    Number = {UCB/CSD-88-404},
    Abstract = {This paper describes mprof, a tool used to study the memory allocation behavior of programs. mprof records the amount of memory each function allocates, breaks down allocation information by type and size, and displays a program's dynamic call graph so that functions indirectly responsible for memory allocation are easy to identify. mprof is a two-phase tool. The monitor phase is linked into executing programs and records information each time memory is allocated. The display phase reduces the data generated by the monitor and displays the information to the user in several tables. mprof has been implemented for C and Kyoto Common Lisp. Measurements of these implementations are presented.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Zorn, Benjamin
%A Hilfinger, Paul N.
%T A Memory Allocation Profiler for C and Lisp Programs
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1988
%@ UCB/CSD-88-404
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/5382.html
%F Zorn:CSD-88-404