# Display memory allocation statistics in your program

**URL:** <https://linux-tips.com/t/display-memory-allocation-statistics-in-your-program/232>\
**Category:** Programming\
**Created:** [November 28, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://linux-tips.com/t/display-memory-allocation-statistics-in-your-program/232 "2014-11-28T23:06:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![demirten](https://linux-tips.com/user_avatar/linux-tips.com/demirten/32/64_2.png) [@demirten](https://linux-tips.com/u/demirten)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://linux-tips.com/t/display-memory-allocation-statistics-in-your-program/232/1 "2014-11-28T23:06:21Z")

</div>

It is possible to get memory allocation statistics performed by malloc and related functions within your program.

There are a few alternatives to get allocation stats. First one is `mallinfo(void)` which returns a _struct mallinfo_.

But mallinfo has some drawbacks (see: [mallinfo (3)](http://manpages.org/mallinfo/3#bugs))

You can use `malloc_info(int, FILE*)` to print detailed information as xml string on a _FILE\*_ file pointer or _stderr_.

If neither want to print standard output nor a regular file, but you want to take back xml strings in a memory area pointed by a _char\*_ pointer, you can use `open_memstream(char**, size_t*)` function to get a `FILE*` pointer which address a dynamically allocated memory area. With this model, you have to manually free up allocated buffers.

Here is an example program and its outputs:

```auto
char *buf;
size_t size;
FILE *fp = open_memstream(&buf, &size);
malloc_info(0, fp);
fclose(fp);
/* do whatever you want with buf pointer */
evbuffer_add_printf(out, "# Memory Allocation Stats\n%s\n#> ", buf);
free(buf);

```

Output:

```xml
    <malloc version="1">
    <heap nr="0">
        <sizes>
            <size from="65" to="80" total="80" count="1"/>
            <size from="65" to="65" total="65" count="1"/>
            <size from="97" to="97" total="97" count="1"/>
            <size from="465" to="465" total="465" count="1"/>
            <size from="32625" to="32625" total="32625" count="1"/>
            <size from="302209" to="302209" total="302209" count="1"/>
            <size from="1528385" to="1528385" total="1528385" count="1"/>
            <unsorted from="2689" to="2689" total="2689" count="1"/>
        </sizes>
        <total type="fast" count="1" size="80"/>
        <total type="rest" count="7" size="1866535"/>
        <system type="current" size="6631424"/>
        <system type="max" size="6631424"/>
        <aspace type="total" size="6631424"/>
        <aspace type="mprotect" size="6631424"/>
    </heap>
    <heap nr="1">
        <sizes>
            <size from="433" to="433" total="433" count="1"/>
        </sizes>
        <total type="fast" count="0" size="0"/>
        <total type="rest" count="1" size="433"/>
        <system type="current" size="135168"/>
        <system type="max" size="135168"/>
        <aspace type="total" size="135168"/>
        <aspace type="mprotect" size="135168"/>
    </heap>
    <total type="fast" count="1" size="80"/>
    <total type="rest" count="8" size="1866968"/>
    <system type="current" size="6766592"/>
    <system type="max" size="6766592"/>
    <aspace type="total" size="6766592"/>
    <aspace type="mprotect" size="6766592"/>
    </malloc>

```