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Getting started

GUI

It is not required but creating a new project file is a good first step. There are a few options you can tweak to get good results.

In the project settings dialog, the first option you see is "Import project". It is recommended that you use this feature if you can. Cppcheck can import:

Visual studio solution / project
Compile database (can be generated from cmake/qbs/etc build files)
Borland C++ Builder 6

When you have filled out the project settings and click on OK; the Cppcheck analysis will start.

Command line

First test

Here is a simple code

int main()
{
    char a[10];
    a[10] = 0;
    return 0;
}

If you save that into file1.c and execute:

cppcheck file1.c

The output from cppcheck will then be:

Checking file1.c...
[file1.c:4]: (error) Array 'a[10]' index 10 out of bounds

Checking all files in a folder

Normally a program has many source files. And you want to check them all. Cppcheck can check all source files in a directory:

cppcheck path

If "path" is a folder then cppcheck will recursively check all source files in this folder.

Checking path/file1.cpp...
1/2 files checked 50% done
Checking path/file2.cpp...
2/2 files checked 100% done

Check files manually or use project file

With Cppcheck you can check files manually, by specifying files/paths to check and settings. Or you can use a project file (cmake/visual studio/etc).

We don't know which approach (project file or manual configuration) will give you the best results. It is recommended that you try both. It is possible that you will get different results so that to find most bugs you need to use both approaches.

Later chapters will describe this in more detail.

Excluding a file or folder from checking

To exclude a file or folder, there are two options. The first option is to only provide the paths and files you want to check.

cppcheck src/a src/b

All files under src/a and src/b are then checked.

The second option is to use -i, with it you specify files/paths to ignore. With this command no files in src/c are checked:

cppcheck -isrc/c src

This option does not currently work with the --project option and is only valid when supplying an input directory. To ignore multiple directories supply the -i multiple times. The following command ignores both the src/b and src/c directories.

cppcheck -isrc/b -isrc/c

Severities

The possible severities for messages are:

error

used when bugs are found

warning

suggestions about defensive programming to prevent bugs

style

stylistic issues related to code cleanup (unused functions, redundant code, constness, and such)

performance

Suggestions for making the code faster. These suggestions are only based on common knowledge. It is not certain you'll get any measurable difference in speed by fixing these messages.

portability

portability warnings. 64-bit portability. code might work different on different compilers. etc.

information

Configuration problems. The recommendation is to only enable these during configuration.

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