debugging strategies

[Larry Fitzpatrick]

I am interested in different approaches that C programmers use (used)
to trace bugs having to do with errant pointers in memory.

Most of us have probably put together a goodly-sized program that
allocates and frees memory for the management of a variety of in-memory
data structures. Programming errors related to the accessing and
management of this memory (mostly:
	1) reference through uninitialized or dangling pointers
	2) reference through a pointer past the bounds of the
	   data structure it is supposed to point to
	3) garbage accumulation)
can be very difficult to detect since the point of detection/damage
can be far removed from the point of infraction.

What I would like to know is what conventions/strategies/techniques
has anyone out there found useful for
	1) preventing these types of errors or
	2) finding them when they occur.

You may mail responses to me and I will summarize to the net.

Thanks
	fitz
	lef at nlm-vax.arpa

	L Fitzpatrick
	National Library of Medicine
	Bethesda, MD 20894