Intel® Inspector is a dynamic memory and threading error checking tool for users developing serial and multithreaded applications on Windows* and Linux* operating systems.
This document summarizes the typical workflow to get started using the Intel Inspector GUI.
Intel Inspector offers:
Standalone GUI and command line operational environments.
Preset analysis configurations (with some configurable settings), as well as the ability to create custom analysis configurations to help you control analysis scope and cost.
Visibility into individual problems, problem occurrences, and call stack information, with problem prioritization and filtering by inclusion and exclusion to help you focus on items that require your attention.
Problem suppressions support to help you focus on only those issues that require your attention, including the ability to:
Create suppression rules based on stacks
Convert third-party suppression files to the Intel Inspector suppression file format
Create and edit suppression files in a text editor
Interactive debugging capability so you can investigate problems more deeply during analysis
Persistent, propagated problem state information to help you avoid investigating issues over and over again
A wealth of reported memory errors, including on-demand memory leak detection
Memory growth measurement to help ensure your application uses no more memory than expected
Data race, deadlock, lock hierarchy violation, and cross-thread stack access error detection, including error detection on the stack
Intel® Software Manager to download and install Intel software updates, manage subscription status of installed software, activate serial numbers, and discover the latest news about Intel software (Windows* OS only)
Intel Inspector is available as a standalone installation and as part of the following products:
You can use the Intel Inspector to analyze memory and threading errors in both debug and release modes of C++ and Fortran binaries. To build applications that produce the most accurate and complete Intel Inspector analysis results:
Build your application in debug mode.
Use optimal compiler/linker settings. For more information, see Building Applications in Intel Inspector Help.
Ensure your application creates more than one thread before you run threading analyses.
In addition:
Verify your application runs outside the Intel Inspector environment.
Ensure you set the EDITOR or VISUAL environment variable to your text editor.
Do one of the following to set up your environment:
Run one of the following source commands:
For csh/tcsh users: source <inspector-install-dir>/inspxe-vars.csh
For bash users: source <inspector-install-dir>/inspxe-vars.sh
For the application as part of an Intel® oneAPI HPC Toolkit or Intel® oneAPI IoT Toolkit installation, run the <inspector-install-dir>\env\vars.bat command. The default install path, <inspector-install-dir>, is below:
Add <inspector-install-dir>/bin32 or <inspector-install-dir>/bin64 to your path.
Follow these steps to get started using the
Intel Inspector.
To launch the: Intel Inspector standalone GUI: Run the inspxe-gui command.
To launch the command line interface: Run the inspxe-cl command. (To get help, append -help to the command line.)
Intel Inspector is based on a project paradigm and requires that you create or open a project to enable analysis features.
Think of an analysis project as a:
Compiled application
Collection of configurable attributes, including suppression rules and search directories
Container for analysis results
Data set size and workload have a direct impact on application execution time and analysis speed.
For best results, choose small, representative data sets that create threads with minimal to moderate work per thread.
Your objective: In as short a runtime period as possible, execute as many paths and the maximum number of tasks (parallel activities) as you can afford, while minimizing the redundant computation within each task to the bare minimum needed for good code coverage.
Data sets that run a few seconds are ideal. Create additional data sets to ensure all your code is inspected.
For more information, see Configuring Projects in Intel Inspector Help.
Intel Inspector offers a range of preset memory and threading analysis types (as well as custom analysis types) to help you control analysis scope and cost. The narrower the scope, the lighter the load on the system. The wider the scope, the larger the load on the system.
Use analysis types iteratively. Start with a narrow scope to verify your application is set up correctly and set expectations for analysis duration. Widen the scope only if you need more answers and you can tolerate the increased cost.
For more information, see Configuring Analyses in Intel Inspector Help.
When you run an analysis, the Intel Inspector:
Executes your application.
Identifies issues that may need handling.
Collects those issues in a result.
Converts symbol information into filenames and line numbers.
Applies suppression rules.
Performs duplicate elimination.
Forms problem sets.
Depending on your analysis configuration options, may launch an interactive debugging session.
For more information, see Running Analyses in Intel Inspector Help.
During analysis, the Intel Inspector displays problems in the order detected. After analysis is complete, Intel Inspector:
Groups detected problems into problem sets (but still provides visibility into individual problems and problem occurrences).
Prioritizes the problem sets.
Offers filtering to help you focus on those problem sets that require your attention.
For more information, see Choosing Problems in Intel Inspector Help.
Use the following Intel Inspector features to enhance your productivity:
Objective |
Feature |
During Analysis/After Analysis Is Complete |
|---|---|---|
Interpret result data. |
Explain Problem Help For more information, see Accessing Explain Problem Help in Intel Inspector Help. |
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Focus only on those issues that require your attention. |
Severity Levels For more information, see Severity Levels in Intel Inspector Help. |
|
States For more information, see States in Intel Inspector Help. |
After analysis is complete |
|
Suppression rules For more information, see Suppressions Support in Intel Inspector Help. |
After analysis is complete |
|
Resolve issues. |
Direct access to a default editor For more information, see Editing Source Code in Intel Inspector Help. |
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Document/Resource |
Description |
|---|---|
An excellent overall resource for novice, intermediate, and advanced users, this page includes links to guides, release notes, videos, featured topics, training samples, and more. |
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Contain up-to-date information about the Intel Inspector, including a description, technical support, and known limitations. This document also contains system requirements, installation instructions, and instructions for setting up the command line environment. |
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Help you learn to use the Intel Inspector. After you copy a training sample compressed file to a writable directory, use a suitable tool to extract the contents. To load a training sample into the Visual Studio* environment, double-click the .sln file. Training samples help you learn to use the Intel Inspector. Training samples are installed as individual compressed files under <inspector-install-dir>/samples/en/. After you copy a training sample compressed file to a writable directory, use a suitable tool to extract the contents. Extracted contents include a short README that describes how to build the training sample and fix issues. Tutorials show you how to find and fix uninitialized memory access, memory leak, and data race errors using C++ and Fortran training samples. |
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The User Guide is the primary documentation for the Intel Inspector. |
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More Resources |
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No product or component can be absolutely secure.
Your costs and results may vary.
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The products described may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request.
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