Using HP Code Advisor in Application Builds: [HP Code Advisor] White Paper

Introduction

HP Code Advisor (cadvise), is a static analysis tool for C and C++ programs. It reports various coding

errors in the source code. Cadvise analyses the source code using the same language mode, defines,

header files etc. as used by your compiler. Therefore, cadvise requires an entire build line as the

input. This is achieved by prefixing cadvise to the regular build line. Cadvise also does extensive

cross-file analysis to find defects across files, in order to do this cadvise must be used with the link line

also.

Cadvise first executes the build line to which it has been prefixed and then performs its own code

analysis. A build that is performed using cadvise does not change anything in the actual compilation

or link process. Cadvise performs the code analysis only after the regular build passes, thereby

providing an interface to facilitate integration of cadvise with an existing build environment. This

document describes techniques to incorporate cadvise into the build environment of an application.

Using cadvise with the builds

Figure1 shows a sample makefile that captures the common elements of a makefile used to build an

application.

Figure 1: A Sample makefile

The elements of the sample makefile are as follows:

# This is a sample Makefile

# This is used to illustrate how Cadvise can be #incorporated into

application builds

# List of source code files

SOURCES = source1.c source2.c

# Create a list of the object files using macro #substitutions

OBJECTS = $(SOURCES:.c=.o)

# Build tools and options

# Use aCC as the default C compiler

CC = aCC

# Flags

CFLAGS = -c -Ae -O -I.

# Use aCC as the linker

LD = aCC

LDFLAGS = -o

# Application target and dependencies

YourApplication: $(OBJECTS)

$(LD) $(LDFLAGS) $@ $(OBJECTS) $(LIBS)

# .o files depend on .c files

$(OBJECTS): includes.h

$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SOURCES)

# Clean built files

clean:

rm -rf *.o *~ YourApplication core