Manual: memusage
memusage(1) General Commands Manual memusage(1)
NAME
memusage - profile memory usage of a program
SYNOPSIS
memusage [option ...] program [programoption ...]
DESCRIPTION
memusage is a bash(1) script which profiles memory usage of the program, program. It preloads the
libmemusage.so library into the caller's environment (via the LD_PRELOAD environment variable; see
ld.so(8)). The libmemusage.so library traces memory allocation by intercepting calls to malloc(3),
calloc(3), free(3), and realloc(3); optionally, calls to mmap(2), mremap(2), and munmap(2) can also
be intercepted.
memusage can output the collected data in textual form, or it can use memusagestat(1) (see the -p op‐
tion, below) to create a PNG file containing graphical representation of the collected data.
Memory usage summary
The "Memory usage summary" line output by memusage contains three fields:
heap total
Sum of size arguments of all malloc(3) calls, products of arguments (n*size) of all cal‐
loc(3) calls, and sum of length arguments of all mmap(2) calls. In the case of realloc(3)
and mremap(2), if the new size of an allocation is larger than the previous size, the sum
of all such differences (new size minus old size) is added.
heap peak
Maximum of all size arguments of malloc(3), all products of n*size of calloc(3), all size
arguments of realloc(3), length arguments of mmap(2), and new_size arguments of mremap(2).
stack peak
Before the first call to any monitored function, the stack pointer address (base stack
pointer) is saved. After each function call, the actual stack pointer address is read and
the difference from the base stack pointer computed. The maximum of these differences is
then the stack peak.
Immediately following this summary line, a table shows the number calls, total memory allocated or
deallocated, and number of failed calls for each intercepted function. For realloc(3) and mremap(2),
the additional field "nomove" shows reallocations that changed the address of a block, and the addi‐
tional "dec" field shows reallocations that decreased the size of the block. For realloc(3), the ad‐
ditional field "free" shows reallocations that caused a block to be freed (i.e., the reallocated size
was 0).
The "realloc/total memory" of the table output by memusage does not reflect cases where realloc(3) is
used to reallocate a block of memory to have a smaller size than previously. This can cause sum of
all "total memory" cells (excluding "free") to be larger than the "free/total memory" cell.
Histogram for block sizes
The "Histogram for block sizes" provides a breakdown of memory allocations into various bucket sizes.
OPTIONS
-n name
--progname=name
Name of the program file to profile.
-p file
--png=file
Generate PNG graphic and store it in file.
-d file
--data=file
Generate binary data file and store it in file.
-u
--unbuffered
Do not buffer output.
-b size
--buffer=size
Collect size entries before writing them out.
--no-timer
Disable timer-based (SIGPROF) sampling of stack pointer value.
-m
--mmap Also trace mmap(2), mremap(2), and munmap(2).
-?
--help Print help and exit.
--usage
Print a short usage message and exit.
-V
--version
Print version information and exit.
The following options apply only when generating graphical output:
-t
--time-based
Use time (rather than number of function calls) as the scale for the X axis.
-T
--total
Also draw a graph of total memory use.
--title=name
Use name as the title of the graph.
-x size
--x-size=size
Make the graph size pixels wide.
-y size
--y-size=size
Make the graph size pixels high.
EXIT STATUS
The exit status of memusage is equal to the exit status of the profiled program.
BUGS
To report bugs, see http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/bugs.html
EXAMPLES
Below is a simple program that reallocates a block of memory in cycles that rise to a peak before
then cyclically reallocating the memory in smaller blocks that return to zero. After compiling the
program and running the following commands, a graph of the memory usage of the program can be found
in the file memusage.png:
$ memusage --data=memusage.dat ./a.out;
...
Memory usage summary: heap total: 45200, heap peak: 6440, stack peak: 224
total calls total memory failed calls
malloc| 1 400 0
realloc| 40 44800 0 (nomove:40, dec:19, free:0)
calloc| 0 0 0
free| 1 440
Histogram for block sizes:
192-207 1 2% ================
...
2192-2207 1 2% ================
2240-2255 2 4% =================================
2832-2847 2 4% =================================
3440-3455 2 4% =================================
4032-4047 2 4% =================================
4640-4655 2 4% =================================
5232-5247 2 4% =================================
5840-5855 2 4% =================================
6432-6447 1 2% ================
$ memusagestat memusage.dat memusage.png;
Program source
#include
#include
#define CYCLES 20
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i, j;
size_t size;
int *p;
size = sizeof(*p) * 100;
printf("malloc: %zu\n", size);
p = malloc(size);
for (i = 0; i < CYCLES; i++) {
if (i < CYCLES / 2)
j = i;
else
j--;
size = sizeof(*p) * (j * 50 + 110);
printf("realloc: %zu\n", size);
p = realloc(p, size);
size = sizeof(*p) * ((j + 1) * 150 + 110);
printf("realloc: %zu\n", size);
p = realloc(p, size);
}
free(p);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
memusagestat(1), mtrace(1), ld.so(8)
Linux man-pages 6.17 2026-02-08 memusage(1)