FIM: Freeing invalid memory in OCIServerAttach

Question

Hi,
I have the following piece of code for making connection to Oracle server -
retCode = OCIEnvCreate(envHandle, OCI_THREADED, (dvoid *)0, 0, 0, 0, (size_t) 0, (dvoid **)0);
if(retCode == OCI_SUCCESS)
isEnvAllocated = PMTRUE;
retCode = OCIHandleAlloc( (dvoid *) envHandle, (dvoid *) &errhp, OCI_HTYPE_ERROR, (size_t) 0, (dvoid **) 0);
// server contexts
retCode = OCIHandleAlloc( (dvoid *) envHandle, (dvoid *) &srvhp, OCI_HTYPE_SERVER,(size_t) 0, (dvoid **) 0);
retCode = OCIHandleAlloc( (dvoid *) envHandle, (dvoid *) &svchp, OCI_HTYPE_SVCCTX,(size_t) 0, (dvoid **) 0);
pError = checkError(*envHandle, errhp, OCIServerAttach(srvhp, errhp, (ptext *)dbName, strlen(dbName), 0));
Purify is reporting FIM: Freeing invalid memory in LocalFree {1 occurrence} and the stack trace is -
[E] FIM: Freeing invalid memory in LocalFree {1 occurrence}
Address 0x001430f8 points into a HeapAlloc'd block in unallocated region of the default heap
Location of free attempt
LocalFree [KERNEL32.dll]
??? [security.dll ip=0x76e71a7f]
AcquireCredentialsHandleA [security.dll]
naunts5 [orannts8.dll]
naunts [orannts8.dll]
sntseltst [oran8.dll]
naconnect [oran8.dll]
naconnect [oran8.dll]
naconnect [oran8.dll]
nsmore2recv [oran8.dll]
nsmore2recv [oran8.dll]
nscall [oran8.dll]
niotns [oran8.dll]
osncon [oran8.dll]
xaolog [OraClient8.Dll]
xaolog [OraClient8.Dll]
upiah0 [OraClient8.Dll]
kpuatch [OraClient8.Dll]
OCIServerAttach [OraClient8.Dll]
OCIServerAttach [OCI.dll]
Does anyone has idea why it is giving that error.
Also there is a leak associated with it too and the stack trace for that is -
MPK: Potential memory leak of 4140 bytes from 2 blocks allocated in nsbfree
Distribution of potentially leaked blocks
Allocation location
calloc [msvcrt.dll]
nsbfree [oran8.dll]
nsbfree [oran8.dll]
sntseltst [oran8.dll]
sntseltst [oran8.dll]
nsdo [oran8.dll]
nscall [oran8.dll]
nscall [oran8.dll]
niotns [oran8.dll]
osncon [oran8.dll]
xaolog [OraClient8.Dll]
xaolog [OraClient8.Dll]
upiah0 [OraClient8.Dll]
kpuatch [OraClient8.Dll]
OCIServerAttach [OraClient8.Dll]
OCIServerAttach [OCI.dll]
Is it a standard leak that is happening in OCI.dll or it is the usage issue so that it can be solved by using OCIServerAttach in a different way.
Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Anil
[email protected]

Answer 1

I believe that both issues are actually the result of false positives. In general, it's not really possible to tell whether C++ code is actually leaking memory or freeing invalid memory handles. Tools like Purify, BoundChecker, etc. will generally give this sort of false positive when the code you're profiling does something 'dangerous'. I believe you can ignore both messages-- at least the Oracle ODBC driver development group did when I was there.
Justin