Question

We are trying to figure out if we have memory leaks in our software. So, I have been using various tools and programs to help me find possible memory leaks. One of the software I used was AQTime. As it came with Delphi XE, it was only a demo. So, I was not really able to get any useful information from it. Then, I decided to use free software, MemProof. So far, it has shown me many issues with our software that requires attention. One of which is an error.

As soon as I start my program through MemProof, it lists 2 errors, which is attempting to destroy non-existent object from the unit file, system.pas. So, when I actually put a break point within TObject.Free procedure, it breaks even before my program started all the way. Stepping through the procedure Free in system.pas, I found out that TIconimage is trying to destroy or free itself. In other word, free procedure is not invoked from within my program prior to actually starting up.

Here is the actual Free procedure:

procedure TObject.Free;
begin
  if Self <> nil then
    Destroy;
end;

After that observation, I removed the breakpoint and let the program run all the way. My programs main window popped up ready for user input. However, I also found out that TObject.Free procedure is invoked non-stop if any part of my program’s WINDOW is displayed on the screen. I don’t understand that at all. Why is that? Can anyone explain? How is TForm is related to TObject.Free in any shape or form as the procedure is constantly invoked when the TForm is displayed on the screen?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Regarding why TObject.Free executes a lot, every single time an object is destroyed, any object, that method will be called. All classes derive from TObject, it’s the common ancestor, so almost any action in a Delphi program involves large numbers of object create/destroy pairs and consequently will hit TObject.Free.

Regarding detection of memory leaks, you have all you need built in to Delphi to solve this. The FastMM memory manager can be run in “report memory leaks” mode and it will give you loads of diagnostics of any memory that you leak.

Consider the following trivial program:

program Leaker;
begin
  ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown := True;
  TObject.Create;
end.

This results in the following output:

You just need to set ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown to True somewhere in your app (the start of the .dpr file is as good a place as any).

If you wish to receive more information in the report then you can download the full version of FastMM and configure it to your heart’s content.

Then you get output like this:

A memory block has been leaked. The size is: 84

This block was allocated by thread 0x1304, and the stack trace (return addresses) at the time was:
40455E [System][System.@GetMem]
405A2F [System][System.TObject.NewInstance]
40602E [System][System.@ClassCreate]
4474C2 [Classes][Classes.TStringList.Create]
C275A3 [Main.pas][Main][Main.TMainForm.CreateAuxiliaryForms][997]
C84C8A [OrcaFlex.dpr][OrcaFlex][OrcaFlex.OrcaFlex][351]
75E633CA [BaseThreadInitThunk]
77519ED2 [Unknown function at RtlInitializeExceptionChain]
77519EA5 [Unknown function at RtlInitializeExceptionChain]

The block is currently used for an object of class: TStringList

It’s truly wonderful. It tells me that the leaking memory was allocated in Main.pas line 997, and that’s precisely where I put my intentional leak!