Method and system for shadow heap memory leak detection and other heap analysis in an object-oriented environment during real-time trace processing

A method and system for detecting memory leaks in an object-oriented environment during real-time trace processing is provided. During the profiling of a program executing in a data processing system, a profiler processes events caused by the execution of the program, and the profiler maintains a profile data structure containing execution-related metrics for the program. The execution-related metrics may include object allocation and deallocation metrics that are associated with object processing initiated on behalf of an executing method. An object allocator allocates objects during the execution of the program and modifies object allocation metrics in the profile data structure. Object metrics are stored in a particular location and a pointer to that location is stored in a hash table associated with the object's ID. In another embodiment the pointer to the location is stored in a shadow heap in the same relative position as the position of the object in the heap. The object allocation metrics and the object deallocation metrics may be compared to identify memory leaks.