valparse, a parser for Valgrind-generated XML files

valparse supports protocol version 4 with Memcheck only, but can be easily modified to support Helgrind and other protocol tools.

Installation

valparse can be insalled by running

pip install valparse

Anaconda hosting may be added in the future.

About Valgrind .xml files

By default, Valgrind output is printed to stderr. While readable, Valgrind's unmodified output is not very easily parsable. However, output can be generated in the form of XML code and redirected to a .xml file by running Valgrind with the following options:

valgrind --leak-check=full --xml=yes --xml-file=<xml-file-name> ./<executable> <args>

Some examples of .xml files generated by Valgrind are included in the /examples directory.

Valgrind does not support XML output for fd leaks as of version 3.18.1.

Usage

Below is an example of basic valparse usage:

import valparse

xml_file = valparse.Parser('./test.xml')
if xml_file.hasLeaks() or xml_file.hasErrors():
    print("Leaks or errors found!")

Features

• Error generation for nonexistent/incorrectly formatted TOPLEVEL tags

• Error generation for nonexistent/incorrectly formatted PROTOCOL tags

• Basic Valgrind output parsing

  • Check for existence of errors or leaks

• Check for fatal signal

  • Count errors and leaks (if applicable)

  • Error and leak parsing (if applicable)

  • Fatal signal parsing (if applicable)

• Optional user-friendly .supp file generation

TOPLEVEL tags

valparse checks for the existence and correct formatting of the following TOPLEVEL tags:

• protocolversion (4)

• protocoltool (memcheck)

PROTOCOL tags

valparse checks for the existence and correct formatting of the following PROTOCOL tags:

• preamble

• pid

• ppid

• tool

• args

• status

• suppcounts

Note: Valgrind supplies an 'errorcounts' tag, but it seems largely unreliable. We've decided to generate this information manually.

Basic Valgrind output parsing

The primary function of valparse is to generate usable content from Valgrind output. valparse was created with our grading scripts in mind, so it counts the number of errors, leaks, unique errors, unique leaks, and total bytes leaked. valparse also checks for the presence of a fatal signal.

.supp file generation

Within each <suppression> tag, Valgrind supplies a <rawtext> tag that can be used to make .supp files, but it's cryptic and requires direct editing. We've assembled this information manually to make it more user-friendly, customizable, and generally better. valparse supports the dynamic generation of .supp files, which can be utilised when running Valgrind to suppress certain leaks or errors. Files can be generated in write (default) or append mode, and users can specify suppression names as well as .supp file names.