AddressSanitizer

AddressSanitizer (also known as ASan) is a fast memory error detector. It is a tool that helps in the detection of memory errors in software programs. The tool was developed by Google and is based on the compiler instrumentation and runtime library.

Overview

AddressSanitizer is designed to find out-of-bounds accesses to heap, stack, and globals, use-after-free and use-after-return bugs, and other memory-related errors. It is a part of the LLVM compiler project and has been incorporated into GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as well.

Working Principle

AddressSanitizer works by adding a 'redzone' around the allocated memory, which is then checked at runtime. If a program accesses memory outside of these redzones, AddressSanitizer will terminate the program and report the error.

Usage

To use AddressSanitizer, one needs to compile and link their program with `-fsanitize=address` flag. This will instrument the code with checks for the above-mentioned classes of bugs.

Advantages

AddressSanitizer has several advantages over other memory error detection tools. It is faster and uses less memory. It also provides a detailed report of the error, including the stack trace, type of error, and memory layout around the error.

Limitations

While AddressSanitizer is a powerful tool, it does have some limitations. It cannot detect errors in assembly code or in inline assembler, and it does not support memory-mapped I/O.

See Also

• Memory error
• Software bug
• Compiler
• LLVM
• GCC

References

• Official Documentation: https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/AddressSanitizer