Statically analyzing source code
As the name implies, static source code analysis examines the source code for a computer program and provides a report on issues it identifies in the code.
What is static code analysis?
A static source code analyzer is similar in some ways to a compiler for the same programming language. Both tools ingest source code for a program and process it under the rules of the associated programming language, which is C or C++ in the current discussion.
The difference between the two types of tools is that the compiler intends to generate executable code that implements the logic defined in legal source code. A source code analyzer, on the other hand, performs an extensive assessment of the code, generally far beyond that performed by a compiler, and analyzes the code for compliance with a lengthy list of rules.
The output of the source code analyzer is a set of messages indicating potential problems it discovered in the code. It is then up to the...
