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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Canaries in Wmem

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:59:28 -0800
On Dec 19, 2012, at 7:51 AM, Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> They've been on my to-do list for a while, as emem provides them.
> 
> However, I've never personally used emem's canaries, and I've never
> actually heard of or seen anyone else using them. Are they actually
> useful anymore, or has Moore's law made valgrind the better tool in
> all situations?

	http://valgrind.org/info/platforms.html

It's not a better tool for developers working on platforms not listed there.  In particular:

	There are many platforms not mentioned here. Some are of little interest (eg. SPARC/*, */AIX). Some would be technically difficult (eg. IA64/*). In particular Windows is not under consideration here because porting to it would require so many changes it would almost be a separate project.

Note also

	http://valgrind.org/downloads/

"Valgrind 3.8.1

	...

For {x86,amd64,arm,ppc32,ppc64,s390x,mips32}-linux, arm-android (2.3 and later), x86-android (4.0 and later) and {x86,amd64}-darwin (Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7, *with limited support for 10.8*)."

(emphasis mine).

Whether that says we should keep the canaries around is another matter, but it indicates that not everybody can use Valgrind.