HP C/aC++ Version 6 Features to Improve Developer Productivity

Introduction

The most time consuming and expensive task in software development is to find and fix defects.

The later a defect is found in the software development process, the costlier it gets. A bug found

and fixed at the coding or testing stages is better and less expensive than the same found by a user

after the product release. The HP compilers for Integrity provide a number of features to help

software developers detect potential problems in their programs earlier in the process.

Compile time diagnostics and Run time checks are provided to allow the developer to identify many

common problems before the code is checked in. In addition, the compiler supports enhanced

debugging capabilities. Execution Path Recovery feature of the compiler can provide backtracking

of the execution path from the crash point in a core file or from a breakpoint in the debugger

All of the above features of the compiler lower maintenance and support costs and free up

developers to spend more time implementing new features.

What’s New

The A.06.20 release of the HP C and C++ compilers provides +check=lock|thread feature, in

addition to improvements on the features provided by older versions.

The A.06.15 release of the HP C and C++ compilers provides +wlock, +wperfadvice, +Wmacro

and +check=bounds:pointer|gobals|truncate features, in addition to improvements on the

features provided by older versions. This version also introduces the execution path recovery

(+pathtrace) feature to backtrack the execution path from the crash point in a core file or from a

breakpoint in the debugger.

The A.06.10 release of the HP C and C++ compilers provides +wendian option and improvements

to the existing developer productivity features. This release also introduces a new C/C++ static

analysis tool, HP Code Advisor, which provides all the compile time diagnostic features of Integrity

compilers. This tool is available free of cost on HP-UX Integrity and PA-RISC. For more information,

visit the

HP Code Advisor (cadvise) homepage.

The compiler features to improve developer productivity are available starting with the A.06.05

release of the HP C and C++ compilers. The A.06.05 release provides +wlint, +w64bit,

The Version 6 of HP C and C++ compilers provide a rich set of diagnostics that are available by

default and with +w, +Oinfo and +Oinitcheck options.

Compile Time Diagnostics

The HP compilers contain numerous checks for potential correctness problems. Some diagnostics

are emitted by default while others are enabled via explicit options listed below:

+wlint

This option enables several warnings in the compiler that are similar to the functionality of lint check.

These compile time diagnostics can be very useful in detecting potential problems in the source

code. The number of warnings with this option may be up to 5-10 times more than those emitted by

default by the compiler.