Patent ID: 8549503

Claim:
A method for detecting at least one of a dangling pointer and a memory leak location within a software, comprising: at runtime of the software: first tracking, by a digital processor, the software as the software performs at least one of allocating and deallocating memory, said first tracking including maintaining a linked list of at least one pointer and in a memory record specific to pointers of the linked list maintaining explicit indications of status of each pointer in the linked list, the linked list including a reference to the memory that has been allocated or deallocated, and said first tracking maintaining in the memory record explicit indications of statuses of the pointers in the linked list including the memory record explicitly indicating status of the at least one pointer, as invalid or valid; further tracking, by the digital processor, the software as the software performs at least one of writing a new address within a pointer of the linked list and reading an address stored within a pointer of the linked list, said further tracking maintaining the linked list and performing at least one of (i) determining whether the pointer from which the address has been read is a dangling pointer and (ii) detecting a memory leak location based on the writing of the new address; and displaying to a user indications of any determined dangling pointer and any detected memory leak location, wherein the memory record comprises a pointer status table that includes the statuses of the pointers and the status of the at least one pointer as invalid or valid.