Tips for Catching Memory Leaks in C++

Thanks for the tip! I also struggled with shared_ptr circular references, but after introducing weak_ptr, it's definitely become more stable. Do you also use static analysis tools during code reviews? I find Clang-Tidy or Cppcheck helpful for catching leak patterns in advance.

It's great that you're already using Valgrind and AddressSanitizer. I'd additionally recommend Dr. Memory. It's relatively lightweight and works well on Windows, making it useful for cross-platform work. It's particularly strong at catching STL-related leaks.

If you're switching to smart pointers, I recommend using unique_ptr as the default and only using shared_ptr when you truly need shared ownership. You can break circular references with weak_ptr, but I missed this part at first and it gave me a headache. Just sharing from experience.

I can relate to that since I've had a similar experience. STL containers managed with raw pointers are really dangerous. One tip is to refactor in small units and test as you go. If you try to change everything at once, it becomes even harder to find the source of the leak.

Legacy code refactoring sounds tough. I've even considered the extreme approach of rewriting it in Rust, but realistically, the combination of smart pointers + Valgrind worked best for me. Hang in there!

I recently discovered a tool called Heaptrack, and its visualization of memory allocation tracking makes it much easier to find leak points. I especially recommend it because it lets you see allocation/deallocation patterns in STL containers at a glance.

Have you tried Visual Studio's CRT debug heap as well? You can easily track leak points with _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks(), and it has decent compatibility with STL containers. It would be even more helpful for legacy code.