Bug 143820

Version:           3.2.3 (using KDE KDE 3.5.6)
Installed from:    RedHat RPMs
OS:                Linux

I frequently wish to run valgrind on applications that have long and complicated /bin/sh wrapper scripts.  Typically, the wrapper scripts call lots of utility programs (uname/sed/awk/find/...) before finally executing the main executable.  I want valgrind to run only on the main executable, not the utility programs.  However, --trace-children=yes will pick up everything, which slows things down and spews uninteresting output.

The final invocation usually falls into one of the following types:

  # direct exec
  exec $COMPUTED_PATH/main_exe

  # extra eval for arg splicing
  eval exec $COMPUTED_PATH/main_exe $some_args $more_args

  # just run a subprocess
  $COMPUTED_PATH/main_exe

Currently (vg 3.2.3), without --trace-children=yes, valgrind does not trace into main_exe for any of these cases.  If possible, I'd like to see the first two fixed so that valgrind can automatically follow the "exec" calls.  For the final case, perhaps there could be a new valgrind option to specify by name which children to trace, e.g:

   --trace-children-named=main_exe