Bash sample code: Memory leak test script

This is how to make a simple bash script that detects memory leak -- memory that the application has allocated, but has been lost and cannot be freed -- using any debugger tool that requires installation.

Requirement: The program from which you want to detect memory leak need to be running at least 15 consecutive seconds, enough time for it to generate memory leak (or not) and to let the bash script making its job at the same time.

function detect_memory_leaks
{
    local PROG_PATH=$1       # 1st argument: The path to the executable to test

    ($PROG_PATH >/dev/null 2>&1) &
    local PID=$!

    sleep 5
    if [ -z "$(ps a | awk -v PID=$PID '$1 == PID {print}')" ]
    then
        echo "An error occurred: The program has terminated too quickly"
        return
    fi

    local RESULT=$(leaks --nocontext --nostacks $PID 2>/dev/null | grep 'total leaked bytes')
    kill -9 $PID >/dev/null 2>&1

    if [ -z "$RESULT" ]
    then
        echo "An error occurred: Unable to detect memory leak"
    else
        echo $RESULT
    fi
}

detect_memory_leaks "./ft_ls -R /Users"