memlab
memlab is an E2E testing and analysis framework for finding JavaScript memory
leaks and optimization opportunities.
Features:
- Browser memory leak detection - Write test scenario with puppeteer API,
memlab auto diffs JS heap snapshots, filters out memory leaks, and
aggregates results.
- Object-oriented heap traversing API - Supports self-defined memory leak
detector and programmatically analyzing JS heap snapshots taken from
Chromium-based browsers, Node.js, Electron.js, and Hermes
- Memory CLI Toolbox - Built-in toolbox and APIs for finding memory
optimization opportunities (not necessarily memory leaks)
- Memory assertions in Node.js - Enables unit test or running node.js
program to take a heap snapshot of its own state, do self memory checking,
or write advanced memory assertions
Online Resources:
CLI Usage
Install the CLI
npm install -g memlab
Find Memory Leaks
To find memory leaks in Google Maps, you can create a
scenario file defining how
to interact with the Google Maps, let's name it test-google-maps.js
:
function url() {
return 'https://www.google.com/maps/@37.386427,-122.0428214,11z';
}
async function action(page) {
await page.click('button[aria-label="Hotels"]');
}
async function back(page) {
await page.click('[aria-label="Clear search"]');
}
module.exports = {action, back, url};
Now run memlab with the scenario file, memlab will interact with
the web page and detect memory leaks with built-in leak detectors:
memlab run --scenario test-google-maps.js
memlab will print memory leak results showing one representative
retainer trace for each cluster of leaked objects.
Retainer traces: This is the result from
an example website,
the retainer trace is an object reference chain from the GC root to a leaked
object. The trace shows why and how a leaked object is still kept alive in
memory. Breaking the reference chain means the leaked object will no longer
be reachable from the GC root, and therefore can be garbage collected.
By following the leak trace one step at a time, you will be able to find
a reference that should be set to null (but it wasn't due to a bug).
MemLab found 46 leak(s)
--Similar leaks in this run: 4--
--Retained size of leaked objects: 8.3MB--
[Window] (native) @35847 [8.3MB]
--20 (element)---> [InternalNode] (native) @130981728 [8.3MB]
--8 (element)---> [InternalNode] (native) @130980288 [8.3MB]
--1 (element)---> [EventListener] (native) @131009888 [8.3MB]
--1 (element)---> [V8EventListener] (native) @224808192 [8.3MB]
--1 (element)---> [eventHandler] (closure) @168079 [8.3MB]
--context (internal)---> [<function scope>] (object) @181905 [8.3MB]
--bigArray (variable)---> [Array] (object) @182925 [8.3MB]
--elements (internal)---> [(object elements)] (array) @182929 [8.3MB]
...
To get readable trace, the web site under test needs to serve non-minified code (or at least minified code
with readable variables, function name, and property names on objects).
Alternatively, you can debug the leak by loading the heap snapshot taken by memlab (saved in $(memlab get-default-work-dir)/data/cur
)
in Chrome DevTool and search for the leaked object ID (@182929
).
Self-defined leak detector: If you want to use a self-defined leak detector, add a filterLeak
callback
(doc)
in the scenario file. filterLeak
will be called for every unreleased heap
object (node
) allocated by the target interaction.
function filterLeak(node, heap) {
};
heap
is the graph representation of the final JavaScript heap snapshot.
For more details, view the
doc site.
Heap Analysis and Investigation
View which object keeps growing in size during interaction in the previous run:
memlab analyze unbound-object
Analyze pre-fetched V8/hermes .heapsnapshot
files:
memlab analyze unbound-object --snapshot-dir <DIR_OF_SNAPSHOT_FILES>
Use memlab analyze
to view all built-in memory analyses.
For extension, view the doc site.
View retainer trace of a particular object:
memlab trace --node-id <HEAP_OBJECT_ID>
Use memlab help
to view all CLI commands.
APIs
Use the memlab
npm package to start a E2E run in browser and detect memory leaks.
const memlab = require('memlab');
const scenario = {
url: () => 'https://www.google.com/maps/@37.386427,-122.0428214,11z',
action: async (page) => await page.click('button[aria-label="Hotels"]'),
back: async (page) => await page.click('[aria-label="Clear search"]'),
}
memlab.run({scenario});
Memory Assertions
memlab makes it possible to enable a unit test or running node.js program
to take a heap snapshot of its own state, and write advanced memory assertions:
import type {IHeapSnapshot, Nullable} from '@memlab/core';
import {config, getNodeInnocentHeap} from '@memlab/core';
class TestObject {
public arr1 = [1, 2, 3];
public arr2 = ['1', '2', '3'];
}
test('memory test with heap assertion', async () => {
config.muteConsole = true;
let obj: Nullable<TestObject> = new TestObject();
let heap: IHeapSnapshot = await getNodeInnocentHeap();
rabbitHole(obj)
expect(heap.hasObjectWithClassName('TestObject')).toBe(true);
obj = null;
heap = await getNodeInnocentHeap();
expect(heap.hasObjectWithClassName('TestObject')).toBe(false);
}, 30000);
For other APIs check out the
API documentation.