Memory Profiling and Monitoring
- Use specialized tools for embedded systems, like Segger's SystemView or Tracealyzer, to measure memory usage dynamically. These tools can help visualize memory allocation and detect issues in real-time.
- Incorporate memory profiling into your build environment. Use linkers to track the maximum and current stack/heap usage.
- Implement instrumentation code to log memory usage statistics at various points in your application, especially at entry and exit of functions.
Analyze the Memory Map
- Review the memory map file generated by the linker to understand how memory is allocated at compile time. Check for large global or static allocations.
- Ensure the separation and clear boundaries of stack, heap, and data segments. Look for overlaps that might cause corruption.
- Verify the alignment of memory areas, especially in systems where specific alignment is required for optimization or correctness.
Heap and Stack Management
- Consider using smaller, fixed-size memory allocations rather than variable sizes to prevent fragmentation. Pools of fixed-size blocks can improve performance and predictability.
- Set stack sizes for tasks/threads based on their behavior and expected load. Use OS-provided stack watermarking features to determine actual usage.
- Use defensive coding practices such as stack canaries or guard bands to detect overflows early.
Error Detection Techniques
- Enable memory protection features provided in your hardware, like MMU (Memory Management Unit) or MPU (Memory Protection Unit), to catch illegal accesses and inform you when they occur.
- Implement sanity checks on pointers and data structures regularly to identify corruption before it escalates into a system failure.
- Use consistent error logging to capture memory-related errors with sufficient context to trace them back to the root cause.
Utilize Software Tools and Techniques
- Consider static analysis tools like Cppcheck or PVS-Studio to identify potential memory issues at the code level before run-time.
- Use dynamic instrumentation frameworks like Valgrind or AddressSanitizer in simulated environments for aggressive checking of memory accesses.
- Leverage unit testing with mock functions to simulate and analyze how memory is handled in isolated conditions.
