Leak(3) 						User Contributed Perl Documentation						   Leak(3)

NAME

       Devel::Leak - Utility for looking for perl objects that are not reclaimed.

SYNOPSIS

	 use Devel::Leak;
	 ... setup code

	 my $count = Devel::Leak::NoteSV($handle);

	 ... code that may leak

	 Devel::Leak::CheckSV($handle);

DESCRIPTION

       Devel::Leak has two functions "NoteSV" and "CheckSV".

       "NoteSV" walks the perl internal table of allocated SVs (scalar values) - (which actually  contains arrays and hashes too), and records
       their addresses in a table. It returns a count of these "things", and stores a pointer to the table (which is obtained from the heap using
       malloc()) in its argument.

       "CheckSV" is passed argument which holds a pointer to a table created by "NoteSV". It re-walks the perl-internals and calls sv_dump() for
       any "things" which did not exist when "NoteSV" was called. It returns a count of the number of "things" now allocated.

CAVEATS

       Note that you need a perl built with -DDEBUGGING for sv_dump() to print anything, but counts are valid in any perl.

       If new "things" have been created, "CheckSV" may (also) report additional "things" which are allocated by the sv_dump() code.

HISTORY

       This little utility module was part of Tk until the variable renaming in perl5.005 made it clear that Tk had no business knowing this much
       about the perl internals.

AUTHOR

       Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ni-s.u-net.com>

perl v5.16.3							    2004-03-18								   Leak(3)