Malloc debug can be used to get information on all of the live allocations in a process. The libc library in Android exports two calls that can be used to gather this data from a process. This tracking can be enabled using either the backtrace option or the backtrace_enabled_on_signal option.
The function to gather the data:
extern "C" void get_malloc_leak_info(uint8_t** info, size_t* overall_size, size_t* info_size, size_t* total_memory, size_t* backtrace_size);
info is set to a buffer allocated by the call that contains all of the allocation information. overall_size is set to the total size of the buffer returned. If this info_size value is zero, then there are no allocation being tracked. total_memory is set to the sum of all allocation sizes that are live at the point of the function call. This does not include the memory allocated by the malloc debug library itself. backtrace_size is set to the maximum number of backtrace entries that are present for each allocation.
In order to free the buffer allocated by the function, call:
extern "C" void free_malloc_leak_info(uint8_t* info);
size_t size_of_original_allocation size_t num_backtrace_frames uintptr_t pc1 uintptr_t pc2 uintptr_t pc3 . . .
The number of uintptr_t values is determined by the value backtrace_size as returned by the original call to get_malloc_leak_info. This value is not variable, it is the same for all the returned data. The value num_backtrace_frames contains the real number of frames found. The extra frames are set to zero. Each uintptr_t is a pc of the callstack. The calls from within the malloc debug library are automatically removed.
For 32 bit systems, size_t and uintptr_t are both 4 byte values.
For 64 bit systems, size_t and uintptr_t are both 8 byte values.
The total number of these structures returned in info is overall_size divided by info_size.
Note, the size value in each allocation data structure will have bit 31 set if this allocation was created by the Zygote process. This helps to distinguish between native allocations created by the application.