Welcome to Purify -Getting Ahead with Purify -

Run-time errors and memory leaks are among the most difficult errors to locate and the most important to correct. The symptoms of incorrect memory use are unpredictable, and typically appear far from the cause of the error. The errors often remain undetected until triggered by some random event, so that a program can seem to work correctly when in fact it's only working by accident.

That's where Rational^® Purify^® can help you get ahead. Purify provides:

The fastest and most comprehensive run-time error detection available for Visual C/C++ programs
Error checking even when the source is not available
Code-coverage data that pinpoints untested code

Purify automatically integrates into Microsoft Developer Studio 97 and later, and requires no special builds. You can use Purify without changing the way you work.

Find errors before they occur

Purify detects the following kinds of memory errors - and many others - before they actually occur, so you can resolve them before they do any damage:

Array bounds errors
Accesses through dangling pointers
Uninitialized memory reads
Memory allocation errors
Memory leaks

More information? For a complete list of the errors Purify detects, select Purify Messages in the Purify Help menu.

Check every component in your program

Software development today is component based. To deliver quality applications on time, you not only need to make sure your own code is error free, you also need a way to check the components your software uses - even when you don't have the source code.

Purify can check every component in your program, even in complex multi-threaded, multi-process applications, including:

COM-enabled applications using OLE and ActiveX controls
DLLs, including Windows DLLs and Microsoft Foundation Class Library DLLs
Visual C/C++ components embedded within Visual Basic applications, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or any Microsoft Office application
Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word plug-ins

Purify also checks calls to Windows API functions, including GDI, Internet services, system registry, and COM and OLE interface API functions, and validates parameters such as memory handles and pointers.

Look for errors in the right places

In addition to finding the critical errors that occur when you exercise your program, Purify can also tell you how thoroughly you've covered your program's code. Purify can collect coverage data automatically for every run, report exactly how much of your code you've checked, and identify untested lines and functions. Using this information you can be sure you're finding the errors in all your code, and that you won't be caught off-guard by undiscovered problems in lines or functions that you overlooked.

Purify is able to collect coverage data if Rational PureCoverage^® is installed on your system along with Purify.

More information? Look up coverage data in the Purify online Help index.

Don't wait--use Purify early and often

For maximum benefit, start using Purify as soon as your code is ready to run and continue using it regularly throughout your development cycle, especially for:

Code check-in: Reduce the risk that bugs in your code might impact other code modules.
Nightly builds: Incorporate Purify into your test harness to verify that modules work together, and to expose code dependencies and collisions. Collect coverage data for every run to make sure that your tests are exercising any code that has been added or modified.
Acceptance tests: Validate third-party code or code from other development groups before incorporating it into your application.

By using Purify early and often, you'll release clean, reliable products - on time.

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