AddressWatcher: Sanitizer-Based Localization of Memory Leak Fixes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Memory leak bugs are a major problem in C/C++ programs. They occur when memory objects are not deallocated. Developers need to manually deallocate these objects to prevent memory leaks. As such, several techniques have been proposed to automatically fix memory leaks. Although proposed approaches have merit in automatically fixing memory leaks, they present limitations. Static-based approaches attempt to trace the complete semantics of memory object across all paths. However, they have scalability-related challenges when the target program has a large number of paths (path explosion). On the other hand, dynamic approaches can spell out precise semantics of memory object only on a single execution path (it does not consider multiple execution paths). In this paper, we complement prior approaches by designing and implementing a novel framework namedAddressWatcher. AddressWatcher allows the semantics of a memory object to be tracked on multiple execution paths. Addresswatcher accomplishes this by using a leak database that allows one to store and compare different execution paths of a leak over several test cases. Also, AddressWatcher performs lightweight instrumentation during compile time that is utilized during the program execution to watch and track memory leak read/writes. We conduct an evaluation of AddressWatcher over five popular packages, namely binutils, openssh, tmux, openssl and git. In 23 out of 50 real-world memory leak bugs, AddressWatcher correctly points to a free location to fix memory leaks. Finally, we submit 25 Pull Requests across 12 popular OSS repositories using AddressWatcher suggestions. Among these, 21 were merged leading to 5 open issues being addressed. In fact, our critical fix prompted a new version release for the calc repository, a program used to find large primes. Furthermore, our contributions through these PRs sparked intense discussions and appreciation in various repositories such as coturn, h2o, and radare2.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".