GCC memory leak detection equivalent to Microsoft crtdbg.h?

You should have a look at "Cross-Platform Memory Leak Detector", looks very similar to the crtdbg.h technique.

You have a number of options available to you.

First, and most popularly, you can run your application under tools like Valgrind. That should point you to a number of memory abuses, such as NULL pointer reads and writes and memory leaks. There are a number of tools available in the Valgrind suite, so be sure to check them out.

Second, you can always use a library that uses the LD_PRELOAD trick. Basically, the LD_PRELOAD trick allows for DLL injection, which means that tools can be created to help track your memory usage within your application without changing anything. You will find tools such as dmalloc and efence to be quite extensive in the debugging facilities that they offer.

Lastly, recent GCC releases included a tool called Mudflap. This basically uses the function instrumentation to wrap calls around the same memory functions that dmalloc, efence, and Valgrind. The program will be noticably slower, and can be tuned at runtime, though it still looks like it has much potential.

I have used all three and found Valgrind to be very useful. I have been very interested in using Mudflap as well, though I haven't been able to yet.