IMallocSpy

The IMallocSpy interface is a debugging interface that allows application developers to monitor (spy on) memory allocation, detect memory leaks and simulate memory failure in calls to IMalloc methods.

Caution  The IMallocSpy interface is intended to be used only to debug application code under development. Do not ship this interface to retail customers of your application, because it causes severe performance degradation and could conflict with user-installed software to produce unpredictable results.

When to Implement

Implement this interface to debug memory allocation during application development.

When to Use

When an implementation of IMallocSpy is registered with CoRegisterMallocSpy, COM calls the pair of IMallocSpy methods around the corresponding IMalloc method. You would not make direct calls to IMallocSpy methods. The COM SDK contains a sample implementation of IMallocSpy. The call to the pre-method through the return from the corresponding post-method is guaranteed to be thread-safe in multi-threaded operations.

Methods in Vtable Order

IUnknown Methods Description
QueryInterface Returns pointers to supported interfaces.
AddRef Increments reference count.
Release Decrements reference count.

IMallocSpy Methods Description
PreAlloc Called before invoking IMalloc::Alloc, and may extend or modify the allocation to store debug information.
PostAlloc Called after invoking IMalloc::Alloc.
PreFree Called before invoking IMalloc::Free.
PostFree Called after invoking IMalloc::Free.
PreRealloc Called before invoking IMalloc::Realloc.
PostRealloc Called after invoking IMalloc::Realloc.
PreGetSize Called before invoking IMalloc::GetSize.
PostGetSize Called after invoking IMalloc::GetSize.
PreDidAlloc Called before invoking IMalloc::DidAlloc.
PostDidAlloc Called after invoking IMalloc::DidAlloc.
PreHeapMinimize Called before invoking IMalloc::DidAlloc.
PostHeapMinimize Called after invoking IMalloc::HeapMinimize.

QuickInfo

  Windows NT: Use version 4.0 or later.
  Windows: Use Windows 95 or later.
  Windows CE: Unsupported.
  Header: Declared in objidl.h.

See Also

IMalloc, CoGetMalloc, CoRegisterMallocSpy