Exporting DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES for libgmalloc not working on Big Sur

big surenvironment-variables

I've been struggling with a very weird issue. I'm trying to use libgmalloc (eg per man 3 libgmalloc) on Big Sur (I'm on 11.3.1) to trouble shoot a memory issue in my code. However, I can't set the environment variable DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES. It sets as a shell variable, but not as an environment variable that can be seen by child processes:

stuarts@iMac-Pro ~ % export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES="/usr/lib/libgmalloc.dylib"
stuarts@iMac-Pro ~ % echo $DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
/usr/lib/libgmalloc.dylib
stuarts@iMac-Pro ~ % env |grep DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
stuarts@iMac-Pro ~ %

The variable doesn't show up in the env listing (and isn't detected by my program using getenv() either). I started fooling around setting other randomly named variables, and found that I can export "DYLD" and "A_B", but not "DYLD_A" (or other things that start with "DYLD_").

This seems an extremely strange silent filter in export.

How should one use libgmalloc in Big Sur?

Best Answer

On my (M1) machine:

~$ export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=foo
~$ env | grep DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
~$ /opt/homebrew/bin/bash
dyld: could not load inserted library 'foo' because image not found

Abort trap: 6

So (as you saw), the variable is being set - but since env is a system binary, it is silently removed. Testing with my homebrew installed version of bash, you can see the value is actually set.

See also this StackOverflow answer.

TL;DR works fine for non-system binaries, silently removed from the environment for system binaries.

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