cppcheck/man/manual.docbook

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<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
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<book>
<bookinfo>
<title>Cppcheck 1.40</title>
<date>2010-01-17</date>
</bookinfo>
<chapter>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>Cppcheck is an analysis tool for C/C++ code. Unlike C/C++ compilers
and many other analysis tools, it doesn't detect syntax errors. Cppcheck
only detects the types of bugs that the compilers normally fail to detect.
The goal is no false positives.</para>
<para>Supported code and platforms:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>You can check non-standard code that includes various compiler
extensions, inline assembly code, etc.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Cppcheck should be compilable by any C++ compiler that handles
the latest C++ standard.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Cppcheck should work on any platform that has sufficient cpu and
memory.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Accuracy</para>
<para>Please understand that there are limits of Cppcheck. Cppcheck is
rarely wrong about reported errors. But there are many bugs that it
doesn't detect.</para>
<para>You will find more bugs in your software by testing your software
carefully, than by using Cppcheck. You will find more bugs in your
software by instrumenting your software, than by using Cppcheck. But
Cppcheck can still detect some of the bugs that you miss when testing and
instrumenting your software.</para>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Getting started</title>
<section>
<title>First test</title>
<para>Here is a simple code</para>
<programlisting>int main()
{
char a[10];
a[10] = 0;
return 0;
}</programlisting>
<para>If you save that into <filename>file1.c</filename> and
execute:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck file1.c</programlisting>
<para>The output from cppcheck will then be:</para>
<programlisting>Checking file1.c...
[file1.c:4]: (error) Array index out of bounds</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Checking all files in a folder</title>
<para>Normally a program has many sourcefiles. And you want to check
them all. Cppcheck can check all sourcefiles in a directory:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck path</programlisting>
<para>If "path" is a folder then cppcheck will check all sourcefiles in
this folder.</para>
<programlisting>Checking path/file1.cpp...
1/2 files checked 50% done
Checking path/file2.cpp...
2/2 files checked 100% done</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Possible errors</title>
<para>By default, an error is only reported when
<literal><literal>Cppcheck</literal></literal> is sure there is an
error. When <literal>--enable=possibleError</literal> is given issues
will also be reported when <literal>Cppcheck</literal> is unsure.</para>
<para>The <literal>--enable=possibleError</literal> flag is useful but
makes <literal>Cppcheck</literal> more unreliable, you will probably get
false positives.</para>
<para>Here is a simple code example:</para>
<programlisting>void f()
{
Fred *f = new Fred;
}</programlisting>
<para>Execute this command:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=possibleError file1.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output from Cppcheck:</para>
<programlisting>[file1.cpp:4]: (possible error) Memory leak: fred</programlisting>
<para>The "possible" means that the reported message may be wrong (if
Fred has automatic deallocation it is not a memory leak).</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Stylistic issues</title>
<para>By default Cppcheck will only check for bugs. There are also a few
checks for stylistic issues.</para>
<para>Here is a simple code example:</para>
<programlisting>void f(int x)
{
int i;
if (x == 0)
{
i = 0;
}
}</programlisting>
<para>To enable stylistic checks, use the --style flag:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=style file1.c</programlisting>
<para>The reported error is:</para>
<programlisting>[file3.c:3]: (style) The scope of the variable i can be limited</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Saving results in file</title>
<para>Many times you will want to save the results in a file. You can
use the normal shell redirection for piping error output to a
file.</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck file1.c 2&gt; err.txt</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Unused functions</title>
<para>This check will try to find unused functions. It is best to use
this when the whole program is checked, so that all usages is seen by
cppcheck.</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=unusedFunctions path</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Enable all checks</title>
<para>To enable all checks your can use the
<literal>--enable=all</literal> flag:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=all path</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Multithreaded checking</title>
<para>To use 4 threads to check the files in a folder:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck -j 4 path</programlisting>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>XML output</title>
<para>Cppcheck can generate the output in XML format.</para>
<para>Use the --xml flag when you execute cppcheck:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --xml file1.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The xml format is:</para>
<programlisting>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
&lt;results&gt;
&lt;error file="file1.cpp" line="123" id="someError"
severity="error" msg="some error text"/&gt;
&lt;/results&gt;</programlisting>
<para>Attributes:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>file</term>
<listitem>
<para>filename. Both relative and absolute paths are possible</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>line</term>
<listitem>
<para>a number</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>id</term>
<listitem>
<para>id of error. These are always valid symbolnames.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>severity</term>
<listitem>
<para>one of: error / possible error / style / possible style</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>msg</term>
<listitem>
<para>the error message</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Reformatting the output</title>
<para>If you want to reformat the output so it looks different you can use
templates.</para>
<para>To get Visual Studio compatible output you can use "--template
vs":</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --template vs gui/test.cpp</programlisting>
<para>This output will look like this:</para>
<programlisting>Checking gui/test.cpp...
gui/test.cpp(31): error: Memory leak: b
gui/test.cpp(16): error: Mismatching allocation and deallocation: k</programlisting>
<para>To get gcc compatible output you can use "--template gcc":</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --template gcc gui/test.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output will look like this:</para>
<programlisting>Checking gui/test.cpp...
gui/test.cpp:31: error: Memory leak: b
gui/test.cpp:16: error: Mismatching allocation and deallocation: k</programlisting>
<para>You can write your own pattern (for example a comma-separated
format):</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --template "{file},{line},{severity},{id},{message}" gui/test.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output will look like this:</para>
<programlisting>Checking gui/test.cpp...
gui/test.cpp,31,error,memleak,Memory leak: b
gui/test.cpp,16,error,mismatchAllocDealloc,Mismatching allocation and deallocation: k</programlisting>
<para></para>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Suppressions</title>
<para>If you want to filter out certain errors you can suppress these.
First you need to create a suppressions file. The format is:</para>
<programlisting>[error id]:[filename]
[error id]:[filename2]
[error id]</programlisting>
<para>The <literal>error id</literal> is the id that you want to suppress.
The easiest way to get it is to use the <literal>--xml</literal> command
line flag. Copy and paste the <literal>id</literal> string from the xml
output.</para>
<para>Here is an example:</para>
<programlisting>memleak:file1.cpp
exceptNew:file1.cpp
uninitvar</programlisting>
<para>You can then use the suppressions file:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --suppressions suppressions.txt src/</programlisting>
<para></para>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Leaks</title>
<para>Looking for memory leaks and resource leaks is a key feature of
Cppcheck. Cppcheck can detect many common mistakes by default. But through
some tweaking you can both increase the capabilities and also reduce the
amount of false positives.</para>
<section>
<title>Automatic deallocation</title>
<para>A common cause of false positives is when there is automatic
deallocation. Here is an example:</para>
<programlisting>void Form1::foo()
{
QPushButton *pb = new QPushButton("OK", this);
}</programlisting>
<para>Cppcheck can't see where the deallocation is when you have such
code.</para>
<para>If you execute:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=possibleError file1.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The result will be:</para>
<programlisting>[file1.cpp:4]: (possible error) Memory leak: pb</programlisting>
<para>The "possible" in the error message means that the message may be
a false positive.</para>
<para>To avoid such false positives, create a textfile and write the
names of the automaticly deallocated classes.</para>
<programlisting>QLabel
QPushButton</programlisting>
<para>Then execute cppcheck with the <literal>--auto-dealloc</literal>
option:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --auto-dealloc qt.lst --enable=possibleError file1.cpp</programlisting>
</section>
<section>
<title>Userdefined allocation/deallocation functions</title>
<para><literal>Cppcheck</literal> understands many common allocation and
deallocation functions. But not all.</para>
<para>Here is example code that might leak memory or resources:</para>
<para><programlisting>void foo(int x)
{
void *f = CreateFred();
if (x == 1)
return;
DestroyFred(f);
}</programlisting></para>
<para>If you analyse that with Cppcheck it won't find any leaks:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=possibleError fred1.cpp</programlisting>
<para>You can add some custom leaks checking by providing simple
implementations for the allocation and deallocation functions. Write
this in a separate file:</para>
<programlisting>void *CreateFred()
{
return malloc(100);
}
void DestroyFred(void *p)
{
free(p);
}</programlisting>
<para>When Cppcheck see this it understands that CreateFred will return
allocated memory and that DestroyFred will deallocate memory.</para>
<para>Now, execute <literal>Cppcheck</literal> this way:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --append=fred.cpp fred1.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output from cppcheck is:</para>
<programlisting>Checking fred1.cpp...
[fred1.cpp:5]: (error) Memory leak: f</programlisting>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Exception safety</title>
<para>Cppcheck has a few checks that ensure that you don't break the basic
guarantee of exception safety. It doesn't have any checks for the strong
guarantee yet.</para>
<para>Example:</para>
<programlisting>Fred::Fred() : a(new int[20]), b(new int[20])
{
}</programlisting>
<para>By default cppcheck will not detect any problems in that
code.</para>
<para>To enable the exception safety checking you can use
<literal>--enable</literal>:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=exceptNew --enable=exceptRealloc fred.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output will be:</para>
<programlisting>[fred.cpp:3]: (style) Upon exception there is memory leak: a</programlisting>
<para>If an exception occurs when <literal>b</literal> is allocated,
<literal>a</literal> will leak.</para>
<para>Here is another example:</para>
<programlisting>int *p;
int a(int sz)
{
delete [] p;
if (sz &lt;= 0)
throw std::runtime_error("size &lt;= 0");
p = new int[sz];
}</programlisting>
<para>Check that with Cppcheck:</para>
<programlisting>cppcheck --enable=exceptNew --enable=exceptRealloc except2.cpp</programlisting>
<para>The output from Cppcheck is:</para>
<programlisting>[except2.cpp:7]: (error) Throwing exception in invalid state, p points at deallocated memory</programlisting>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>html report</title>
<para>You can convert the xml output from cppcheck into a html report.
You'll need python and the pygments module
(<uri>http://pygments.org/</uri>) for this to work. In the Cppcheck source
tree there is a folder "htmlreport" that contains a script that transforms
a Cppcheck xml file into html output.</para>
<para>This command generates the help screen:</para>
<para><programlisting>htmlreport/cppcheck-htmlreport -h</programlisting></para>
<para>The output screen says:</para>
<para><programlisting>Usage: cppcheck-htmlreport [options]
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--file=FILE The cppcheck xml output file to read defects from.
Default is reading from stdin.
--report-dir=REPORT_DIR
The directory where the html report content is written.
--source-dir=SOURCE_DIR
Base directory where source code files can be found.</programlisting></para>
<para>An example usage:</para>
<programlisting>./cppcheck gui/test.cpp --xml 2&gt; err.xml
htmlreport/cppcheck-htmlreport --file=err.xml --report-dir=test1 --source-dir=.</programlisting>
<para></para>
</chapter>
</book>