Re: reclaiming memory before exit, take 2

[Paul Eggert]

On 5/16/20 10:26 AM, Bruno Haible wrote:

> Are you suggesting that QA automation should ignore the global and static
> variables?

No, merely that attention should be focused on important leaks, not unimportant
ones. Memory that is needed during program execution, and that becomes
not-needed just before program exit, does not constitute an important leak (it's
arguably not a leak at all; it depends on one's definition of "leak").

Still-reachable memory can constitute an important leak (if your program has
allocated an object that it will never actually refer to later, for example) and
so in general one should look at globals and statics as well, in order to find
these important leaks.

In the valgrind context, focusing on important leaks may well mean that we need
a suppression file until the tools get better.