What is wrong with this tiny piece of mutex code?

// A Mutex allows threads mutually exclusive access to a resource.
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------

class Mutex
{
private:
    CRITICAL_SECTION m_mutex;

public:
     Mutex() { InitializeCriticalSection(&m_mutex); }
    ~Mutex() { DeleteCriticalSection(&m_mutex);     }

    void acquire() { EnterCriticalSection(&m_mutex); }
    void release() { LeaveCriticalSection(&m_mutex); }
};

Using the Entrek Codesnitch software to debug and test for any memory leaks, etc., it reports the following error:

InitializeCriticalSection Error: lpCriticalSection (0x000387d4) points to an invalid 
  memory location (0x00018984) Mutex::Mutex in lockmutex.h, line 29

Maybe all my sleepless nights are finally getting to me. But I don't understand what it's exactly complaining about. Any ideas?

From stackoverflow

• I don't see anything wrong with your class definition. Where is it being used though? A particular instance could still be used incorrectly.

  The Win32 definition of a CRITICAL_SECTION includes a pointer to a 'struct _RTL_CRITICAL_SECTION *'. The OS could be being clever in its handling of this struct in ways that confuse the tool.

• CodeSnitch is apparently not smart enough to know that InitializeCriticalSection() expects to be working on a structure containing an uninitialized pointer.

  Think of it from CodeSnitch's point of view. What's the difference between what you're doing, and this:

  struct Customer {
      char * name;
  };
  
  extern void greetCustomer(Customer* c);
  
  class CheckoutLine {
    private:
      Customer m_customer;
    public CheckoutLine() {
      greetCustomer(&m_customer);
    }
  };
  

  This looks way more fishy to the human eye, because we infer that greetCustomer is probably going to rely on m_customer being initialized, which it obviously is not. But semantically, this exactly the same as your code.

  It's probably worth filing a bug with Entrek; InitializeCriticalSection() is a reasonable exception to the "structures should be initialized before passing them to a function" rule.

  Sebastian Dwornik : Very helpful. Thank you.

• I'll bet you can fake out the snitch with ::memset ( & m_mutex, 0, sizeof ( m_mutex ) ); before the call to init it.

  Sebastian Dwornik : lol :) it worked.

  kenny : I am feeling lucky .... please send beer!!