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Memory Leak
In computer science, a memory leak is a type of resource leak that occurs when a computer program incorrectly manages memory allocations in a way that memory which is no longer needed is not released. A memory leak may also happen when an object is stored in memory but cannot be accessed by the running code (i.e. unreachable memory). A memory leak has symptoms similar to a number of other problems and generally can only be diagnosed by a programmer with access to the program's source code. A related concept is the "space leak", which is when a program consumes excessive memory but does eventually release it. Because they can exhaust available system memory as an application runs, memory leaks are often the cause of or a contributing factor to software aging. Effects Minor leaks If a program has a memory leak and its memory usage is steadily increasing, there will not usually be an immediate symptom. In modern operating systems, normal memory used by an application is releas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, applied disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Software engineering, software). Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of computational problem, problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and preventing security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Programming language theory considers different ways to describe computational processes, and database theory concerns the management of re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kernel (operating System)
A kernel is a computer program at the core of a computer's operating system that always has complete control over everything in the system. The kernel is also responsible for preventing and mitigating conflicts between different processes. It is the portion of the operating system code that is always resident in memory and facilitates interactions between hardware and software components. A full kernel controls all hardware resources (e.g. I/O, memory, cryptography) via device drivers, arbitrates conflicts between processes concerning such resources, and optimizes the use of common resources, such as CPU, cache, file systems, and network sockets. On most systems, the kernel is one of the first programs loaded on startup (after the bootloader). It handles the rest of startup as well as memory, peripherals, and input/output (I/O) requests from software, translating them into data-processing instructions for the central processing unit. The critical code of the kernel is usua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BoundsChecker
BoundsChecker is a memory checking and API call validation tool used for C++ software development with Microsoft Visual C++. It was created by NuMega in the early 1990s. When NuMega was purchased by Compuware in 1997, BoundsChecker became part of a larger tool suite, DevPartner Studio. Micro Focus purchased the product line from Compuware in 2009. Comparable tools include Purify, Insure++ and Valgrind. BoundsChecker may be run in two distinct modes: ActiveCheck, which will work against any application as is, or FinalCheck, which makes use of instrumentation added to the application when it is built. ActiveCheck performs a less intrusive analysis and monitors all calls by the application to the C Runtime Library, Windows API and calls to COM objects. By monitoring memory allocations and releases, it can detect memory leaks and overruns. Monitoring API and COM calls enables ActiveCheck to check parameters, returns and exceptions and report exceptions when they occur. Thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programming Tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that is used to develop another computer program, usually by helping the developer manage computer files. For example, a programmer may use a tool called a source code editor to edit source code files, and then a compiler to convert the source code into machine code files. They may also use build tools that automatically package executable program and data files into shareable packages or install kits. A set of tools that are run one after another, with each tool feeding its output to the next one, is called a toolchain. An integrated development environment (IDE) integrates the function of several tools into a single program. Usually, an IDE provides a source code editor as well as other built-in or plug-in tools that help with compiling, debugging, and testing. Whether a program is considered a development tool can be subjective. Some programs, such as the GNU compiler collection The GNU Compiler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debugging
In engineering, debugging is the process of finding the Root cause analysis, root cause, workarounds, and possible fixes for bug (engineering), bugs. For software, debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, Logfile, log file analysis, monitoring at the application monitoring, application or system monitoring, system level, memory dumps, and profiling (computer programming), profiling. Many Programming language, programming languages and Programming tool, software development tools also offer programs to aid in debugging, known as debuggers. Etymology The term ''bug'', in the sense of defect, dates back at least to 1878 when Thomas Edison wrote "little faults and difficulties" in his inventions as "Bugs". A popular story from the 1940s is from Admiral Grace Hopper. While she was working on a Harvard Mark II, Mark II computer at Harvard University, her associates discovered a moth stuck in a relay that impeded operation and wrote in a log book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Bug
A software bug is a design defect ( bug) in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as ''buggy''. The effects of a software bug range from minor (such as a misspelled word in the user interface) to severe (such as frequent crashing). In 2002, a study commissioned by the US Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that "software bugs, or errors, are so prevalent and so detrimental that they cost the US economy an estimated $59 billion annually, or about 0.6 percent of the gross domestic product". Since the 1950s, some computer systems have been designed to detect or auto-correct various software errors during operations. History Terminology ''Mistake metamorphism'' (from Greek ''meta'' = "change", ''morph'' = "form") refers to the evolution of a defect in the final stage of software deployment. Transformation of a ''mistake'' committed by an analyst in the early stages of the softw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unreachable Memory
In computer programming, unreachable memory is a block of dynamically allocated memory where the program that allocated the memory no longer has any reachable pointer that refers to it. Similarly, an unreachable object is a dynamically allocated object that has no reachable reference to it. Informally, unreachable memory is dynamic memory that the program cannot reach directly, nor get to by starting at an object it can reach directly, and then following a chain of pointer references. In dynamic memory allocation implementations that employ a garbage collector, objects are reclaimed after they become unreachable. The garbage collector is able to determine if an object is reachable; any object that is determined to no longer be reachable can be deallocated. Many programming languages (for example, Java, C#, D, Dylan, Julia) use automatic garbage collection. In contrast, when memory becomes unreachable in dynamic memory allocation implementations that require explicit d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamic Memory Allocation
Memory management (also dynamic memory management, dynamic storage allocation, or dynamic memory allocation) is a form of resource management applied to computer memory. The essential requirement of memory management is to provide ways to dynamically allocate portions of memory to programs at their request, and free it for reuse when no longer needed. This is critical to any advanced computer system where more than a single process might be underway at any time. Several methods have been devised that increase the effectiveness of memory management. Virtual memory systems separate the memory addresses used by a process from actual physical addresses, allowing separation of processes and increasing the size of the virtual address space beyond the available amount of RAM using paging or swapping to secondary storage. The quality of the virtual memory manager can have an extensive effect on overall system performance. The system allows a computer to appear as if it may have more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
C (programming Language)
C (''pronounced'' '' – like the letter c'') is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of the targeted Central processing unit, CPUs. It has found lasting use in operating systems code (especially in Kernel (operating system), kernels), device drivers, and protocol stacks, but its use in application software has been decreasing. C is commonly used on computer architectures that range from the largest supercomputers to the smallest microcontrollers and embedded systems. A successor to the programming language B (programming language), B, C was originally developed at Bell Labs by Ritchie between 1972 and 1973 to construct utilities running on Unix. It was applied to re-implementing the kernel of the Unix operating system. During the 1980s, C gradually gained popularity. It has become one of the most widely used programming langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garbage Collection (computer Science)
In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory that was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called ''garbage (computer science), garbage''. Garbage collection was invented by American computer scientist John McCarthy (computer scientist), John McCarthy around 1959 to simplify manual memory management in Lisp (programming language), Lisp. Garbage collection relieves the programmer from doing manual memory management, where the programmer specifies what objects to de-allocate and return to the memory system and when to do so. Other, similar techniques include stack-based memory allocation, stack allocation, region inference, and memory ownership, and combinations thereof. Garbage collection may take a significant proportion of a program's total processing time, and affect computer performance, performance as a result. Resources other than memory, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programming Language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually defined by a formal language. Languages usually provide features such as a type system, Variable (computer science), variables, and mechanisms for Exception handling (programming), error handling. An Programming language implementation, implementation of a programming language is required in order to Execution (computing), execute programs, namely an Interpreter (computing), interpreter or a compiler. An interpreter directly executes the source code, while a compiler produces an executable program. Computer architecture has strongly influenced the design of programming languages, with the most common type (imperative languages—which implement operations in a specified order) developed to perform well on the popular von Neumann architecture. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Device Driver
In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used. A driver communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects. When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driver issues commands to the device (drives it). Once the device sends data back to the driver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program. Drivers are hardware dependent and operating-system-specific. They usually provide the interrupt handling required for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface. Purpose The main purpose of device drivers is to provide abstraction b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
