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+# rbheap
+
+A tool for working with and analyzing Ruby processes' heap dumps created via
+`ObjectSpace.dump_all`.
+
+## How to dump the heap
+
+Dumping the heap from a running Ruby process is not very difficult as long as
+your app has required the `rbtrace` gem. The steps are:
+
+1. Add the `rbtrace` gem to your application, and require it in your code when
+   the application boots.
+2. Find the PID of your running Ruby process.
+3. Run the following to dump your process' heap to a file called `heap.jsonl`:
+    ```bash
+    rbtrace -p $PID -e 'Thread.new{GC.start;require "objspace";File.open("heap.jsonl","w"){|f|ObjectSpace.dump_all(output: f)}}'
+    ```
+
+## Commands
+
+### `leak`
+
+The leak command is intended to help track down memory leaks. By requiring three
+heap dumps as input, it attempts to find memory that showed up in dump #2, and
+is still there in #3.
+
+The idea is to take a heap dump shortly after the application starts and before
+it's had much of a chance to leak memory. Then take another heap dump after it's
+been running for a while and leaked memory. And finally take a third heap dump
+after it's been running for a while longer and leaked even more.
+
+But comparing these three dumps and extracting only the objects which are held
+in memory during heap dumps #2 and #3, we should mostly be left with objects
+which are leaked memory.
+
+```
+Usage:
+  rbheap leak [flags] <dump-A> <dump-B> <dump-C>
+
+Flags:
+  -f, --format string   output format: "hex" / "full" (default "hex")
+  -h, --help            help for leak
+  -v, --verbose         print verbose information
+```
+
+## Credits
+
+This project is mostly based on the ideas and concepts from the following
+articles:
+
+- [What I Learned About Hunting Memory Leaks in Ruby
+2.1](http://blog.skylight.io/hunting-for-leaks-in-ruby/) by Peter Wagenet
+- [How I spent two weeks hunting a memory leak in
+  Ruby](http://www.be9.io/2015/09/21/memory-leak/) by Oleg Dashevskii
+- [Debugging memory leaks in
+  Ruby](https://samsaffron.com/archive/2015/03/31/debugging-memory-leaks-in-ruby)
+  by Sam Saffron