cppcheck/man/writing-rules-2.docbook

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<section>
<info>
<title>Part 2 - The Cppcheck data representation</title>
<author>
<firstname>Daniel</firstname>
<surname>Marjamäki</surname>
<affiliation>
<orgname>Cppcheck</orgname>
</affiliation>
</author>
<pubdate>2010</pubdate>
</info>
<section>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>In this article I will discuss the data representation that Cppcheck
uses.</para>
<para>The data representation that Cppcheck uses is specifically designed
for static analysis. It is not intended to be generic and useful for other
tasks.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>See the data</title>
<para>There are two ways to look at the data representation at
runtime.</para>
<para>Using <parameter class="command">--rule=.+</parameter> is one way.
All tokens are written on a line:</para>
<programlisting> int a ; int b ;</programlisting>
<para>Using <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> is another way.
The tokens are line separated in the same way as the original code:</para>
<programlisting>1: int a@1 ;
2: int b@2 ;</programlisting>
<para>In the <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output there are
"@1" and "@2" shown. These are the
variable ids (Cppcheck gives each variable a unique id). You can ignore
these if you only plan to write rules with regular expressions, you can't
use variable ids with regular expressions.</para>
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<para>In general, I will use the <parameter class="command">--rule=.+</parameter>
output in this article because it is more compact.</para>
</section>
<section>
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<title>Some of the simplifications</title>
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<para>The data is simplified in many ways.</para>
<section>
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<title>Preprocessing</title>
<para>The Cppcheck data is preprocessed. There are no comments, #define,
#include, etc.</para>
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<para>Original source code:</para>
<programlisting>#define SIZE 123
char a[SIZE];</programlisting>
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<para>The Cppcheck data for that is:</para>
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<programlisting> char a [ 123 ] ;</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
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<title>typedef</title>
<para>The typedefs are simplified.</para>
<programlisting>typedef char s8;
s8 x;</programlisting>
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<para>The Cppcheck data for that is:</para>
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<programlisting> ; char x ;</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
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<title>Calculations</title>
<para>Calculations are simplified.</para>
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<programlisting>int a[10 + 4];</programlisting>
<para>The Cppcheck data for that is:</para>
<programlisting> int a [ 14 ] ;</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Variables</title>
<section>
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<title>Variable declarations</title>
<para>Variable declarations are simplified. Only one variable can be
declared at a time. The initialization is also broken out into a
separate statement.</para>
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<programlisting>int *a=0, b=2;</programlisting>
<para>The Cppcheck data for that is:</para>
<programlisting>int * a ; a = 0 ; int b ; b = 2 ;</programlisting>
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<para>This is even done in the global scope. Even though that is
invalid in C/C++.</para>
</section>
<section>
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<title>Known variable values</title>
<para>Known variable values are simplified.</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
int x = 0;
x++;
array[x + 2] = 0;
}</programlisting>
<para>The <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output for that
is:</para>
<programlisting>1: void f ( )
2: {
3: ; ;
4: ;
5: array [ 3 ] = 0 ;
6: }</programlisting>
<para>The variable x is removed because it is not used after the
simplification. It is therefore redundant.</para>
<para>The "known values" doesn't have to be numeric. Variable aliases,
pointer aliases, strings, etc should be handled too.</para>
<para>Example code:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
char *a = strdup("hello");
char *b = a;
free(b);
}</programlisting>
<para>The <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output for that
is:</para>
<programlisting>1: void f ( )
2: {
3: char * a@1 ; a@1 = strdup ( "hello" ) ;
4: ; ;
5: free ( a@1 ) ;
6: }</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>if/for/while</title>
<section>
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<title>Braces in if/for/while-body</title>
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<para>Cppcheck makes sure that there are always braces in if/for/while
bodies.</para>
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<programlisting> if (x)
f1();</programlisting>
<para>The Cppcheck data for that is:</para>
<programlisting> if ( x ) { f1 ( ) ; }</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>No else if</title>
<para>The simplified data representation doesn't have "else
if".</para>
<programlisting>void f(int x)
{
if (x == 1)
f1();
else if (x == 2)
f2();
}</programlisting>
<para>The <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output:</para>
<programlisting>1: void f ( int x@1 )
2: {
3: if ( x@1 == 1 ) {
4: f1 ( ) ; }
5: else { if ( x@1 == 2 ) {
6: f2 ( ) ; } }
7: }
</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Condition is always true / false</title>
<para>Conditions that are always true / false are simplified.</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
if (true) {
f1();
}
}</programlisting>
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<para>The Cppcheck data is:</para>
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<programlisting> void f ( ) { { f1 ( ) ; } }</programlisting>
<para>Another example:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
if (false) {
f1();
}
}</programlisting>
<para>The debug output:</para>
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<programlisting> void f ( ) { }</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
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<title>Assignments</title>
<para>Assignments within conditions are broken out from the
condition.</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
int x;
if ((x = f1()) == 12) {
f2();
}
}</programlisting>
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<para>The <literal>x=f1()</literal> is broken out. The
<parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output:</para>
<programlisting>1: void f ( )
2: {
3: int x@1 ;
4: x@1 = f1 ( ) ; if ( x@1 == 12 ) {
5: f2 ( ) ;
6: }
7: }</programlisting>
<para>Replacing the "if" with "while" in the above example:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
int x;
while ((x = f1()) == 12) {
f2();
}
}</programlisting>
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<para>The <literal>x=f1()</literal> is broken out twice. The
<parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output:</para>
<programlisting>1: void f ( )
2: {
3: int x@1 ;
4: x@1 = f1 ( ) ; while ( x@1 == 12 ) {
5: f2 ( ) ; x@1 = f1 ( ) ;
5:
6: }
7: }</programlisting>
</section>
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<section>
<title>Comparison with &gt;</title>
<para>Comparisons are simplified. The two conditions in this example
are logically the same:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
if (x &lt; 2);
if (2 &gt; x);
}</programlisting>
<para>Cppcheck data doesn't use <literal>&gt;</literal> for
comparisons. It is converted into <literal>&lt;</literal> instead. In
the Cppcheck data there is no difference for <literal>2&gt;x</literal>
and <literal>x&lt;2</literal>.</para>
<programlisting>1:
2: void f ( )
3: {
4: if ( x &lt; 2 ) { ; }
5: if ( x &lt; 2 ) { ; }
6: }</programlisting>
<para>A similar conversion happens when <literal>&gt;=</literal> is
used.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>if (x) and if (!x)</title>
<para>If possible a condition will be reduced to x or !x. Here is an
example code:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
if (!x);
if (NULL == x);
if (x == 0);
if (x);
if (NULL != x);
if (x != 0);
}</programlisting>
<para>The <parameter class="command">--debug</parameter> output is:</para>
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<programlisting>1: void f ( )
2: {
3: if ( ! x ) { ; }
4: if ( ! x ) { ; }
5: if ( ! x ) { ; }
6:
7: if ( x ) { ; }
8: if ( x ) { ; }
9: if ( x ) { ; }
10: }</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</section>