Runtime error detection

Program execution
General concepts
Code Translation Compiler Compile time Optimizing compiler Intermediate representation (IR) Execution Runtime system Runtime Executable Interpreter Virtual machine
Types of code
Source code Object code Bytecode Machine code Microcode
Compilation strategies
Ahead-of-time (AOT) Just-in-time (JIT) Tracing just-in-time Compile and go system Precompilation Transcompilation Recompilation
Notable runtimes
Android Runtime (ART) BEAM (Erlang) Common Language Runtime (CLR) and Mono CPython and PyPy crt0 (C target-specific initializer ) Java virtual machine (JVM) LuaJIT Objective-C and Swift's V8 and Node.js Zend Engine (PHP)
Notable compilers & toolchains
GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) LLVM and Clang MSVC
v t e

Runtime error detection is a software verification method that analyzes a software application as it executes and reports defects that are detected during that execution. It can be applied during unit testing, component testing, integration testing, system testing (automated/scripted or manual), or penetration testing.

Runtime error detection can identify defects that manifest themselves only at runtime (for example, file overwrites) and zeroing in on the root causes of the application crashing, running slowly, or behaving unpredictably. Defects commonly detected by runtime error detection include:

Race conditions
Exceptions
Resource leaks
Memory leaks
Security attack vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL injection)
Null pointers
Uninitialized memory
Buffer overflows^[1]

Runtime error detection tools can only detect errors in the executed control flow of the application.^[2]

References

^ Runtime Error Detection by Parasoft
^ MUST: A Scalable Approach to Runtime Error Detection in MPI Programs by Tobias Hilbrich, Martin Schulz, Bronis R. de Supinski, Matthias S. Müller, in Tools for High Performance Computing 2009

v t e Memory management
Memory management as a function of an operating system
Hardware	Memory management unit (MMU) Translation lookaside buffer (TLB) Input–output memory management unit (IOMMU)
Virtual memory	Demand paging Memory paging Page table Virtual memory compression
Memory segmentation	Protected mode Real mode Virtual 8086 mode x86 memory segmentation
Memory allocator	dlmalloc Hoard jemalloc libumem mimalloc ptmalloc
Manual memory management	Static memory allocation C dynamic memory allocation new and delete (C++)
Garbage collection	Automatic Reference Counting Boehm garbage collector Cheney's algorithm Concurrent mark sweep collector Finalizer Garbage Garbage-first collector Mark–compact algorithm Reference counting Tracing garbage collection Strong reference Weak reference
Memory safety	Buffer overflow Buffer over-read Dangling pointer Stack overflow
Issues	Fragmentation Memory leak Unreachable memory
Other	Automatic variable International Symposium on Memory Management Region-based memory management
Memory management Virtual memory Automatic memory management Memory management algorithms Memory management software