From the earliest days, we used MSVC to compile the PVS-Studio C++ analyzer for Windows - then, in 2006, known as Viva64, version 1.00. With new releases, the analyzer's C++ core learned to work on Linux and macOS, and we modified the project's structure to support CMake. However, we kept using the MSVC compiler to build the analyzer's version for Windows. Then, in 2019, on April 29th, Visual Studio developers announced they had included the LLVM utilities and Clang compiler in the IDE. And just recently we've gotten around to try it.
PVS-Studio user support often receives clients' suggestions on product improvement. We are happy to implement many of them. Recently one of the users suggested refining the automatic notification utility for developers (Blame Notifier). They asked us to make Blame Notifier extract the date/the code revision to which the analyzer issued a message using blame information from the version control system. This feature allowed us to expand the utility capabilities, which we'll discuss in this article.
"How much longer are you going to build it?" - a phrase that every developer has uttered at least once in the middle of the night. Yes, a build can be long and there is no escaping it. One does not simply redistribute the whole thing among 100+ cores, instead of some pathetic 8-12 ones. Or is it possible?
Somehow, it so happens that we write about our diagnostics, but barely touch upon the subject of how we enhance the analyzer's internal mechanics. So, for a change, today we'll talk about a new useful upgrade for our data flow analysis.
How many of you have used third-party libraries when writing code? It's a catchy question. Without third-party libraries the development of some products would be delayed for a very, very long time. One would have to reinvent the wheel to solve each problem. When you use third-party libraries you still stumble upon some pitfalls in addition to obvious advantages. Recently PVS-Studio for C# has also faced one of the deficiencies. The analyzer could not finish analyzing a large project for a long time. It was due to the use of the SymbolFinder.FindReferencesAsync method from the Roslyn API in the V3083 diagnostic.
On November 10th, 2020, Microsoft released a new version of .NET Core - .NET 5. The updated platform presents many new enhancements. For example, it allows C# developers to use features the new C# 9 offers: records, relational pattern matching, etc. Unfortunately, there was a disadvantage: PVS-Studio could not analyze these projects. However (and here's the good news)... That used to be the case :) Our next release, PVS-Studio 7.13, will support projects that target .NET 5.
As software developers, we always want our software to work properly. We'll do everything to improve the software quality. To find the best solution, we are ready to use parallelizing or applying any various optimization techniques. One of these optimization techniques is the so-called string interning. It allows users to reduce memory usage. It also makes string comparison faster. However, everything is good in moderation. Interning at every turn is not worth it. Further, I'll show you how not to slip up with creating a hidden bottleneck in the form of the String.Intern method for your application.
This article could have been born about a year ago – that's when the PVS-Studio team decided to try agile. However, we wanted to experience it hands-on before we told the world about it. Aside from introducing agile, we decided to switch from Bitbucket to a new task tracker. We also wanted to upgrade many of our internal development processes. No time for an article!
At the very beginning of this year, Apple released the source code for macOS – Big Sur. It includes XNU, the kernel of the macOS operating system. A few years ago, PVS-Studio has already checked the kernel source code. It coincided with the analyzer release on macOS. It's been a while since then. The new kernel source code has been released. A second check? Why not?
Most influential programmers say that code must be self-documenting. They find comments useful only when working with something uncommon. Our team shares this opinion. Recently we came across a code snippet that perfectly proves it.
Users sometimes ask how new diagnostics appear in the PVS-Studio static analyzer. We answer that we draw inspiration from a variety of sources: books, coding standards, our own mistakes, our users' emails, and others. Recently we came up with an interesting idea of a new diagnostic. Today we decided to tell the story of how it happened.
Security. What does this word mean to you? Nowadays, companies spare no effort to ensure that their product is secured from hacking and all sorts of information leaks. PVS-Studio decided to help its users and expand the functionality in this area. Therefore, one of the main innovations of the upcoming release will be the introduction of analyzer new features which will ensure code safety and security. This article aims to present these features.
Having only programming background, it is impossible to develop software in some areas. Take the difficulties of medical software development as an example. The same is with music software, which will be discussed in this article. Here you need an advice of subject matter experts. However, it's more expensive for software development. That is why developers sometimes save on code quality. The example of the MuseScore project check, described in the article, will show the importance of code quality expertise. Hopefully, programming and musical humor will brighten up the technical text.
C# capabilities keep expanding from year to year. New features enrich software development. However, their advantages may not always be so obvious. For example, the good old yield. To some developers, especially beginners, it's like magic - inexplicable, but intriguing. This article shows how yield works and what this peculiar word hides. Have fun reading!
In our articles, we regularly repeat an important idea: a static analyzer should be used regularly. This helps detect and cheaply fix many errors at the earliest stage. It looks nice in theory. As we know, actions still speak louder than words. Let's look at some recent bugs in new code of the Blender project.
PVS-Studio is a static analyzer that allows to find many problems hidden in the source code. Among them there are also errors related to application security. For example, the analyzer has recently learned to identify the presence of confidential data such as passwords in the code. The OWASP Top Ten list includes this potential vulnerability. It is much more dangerous than it may seem at first glance. What makes it so dangerous? How can a static analyzer save us from it? That's what you'll know about (and more) in this article!
Recently we found out that the new version of the fheroes2 project was released. In our company there are many fans of Heroes of Might and Magic game series. So, we couldn't pass it up and checked the project by PVS-Studio.
An essential part of any modern static code analyzer is data flow analysis. However, from an outside perspective, the use of data flow analysis and its benefit is unclear. Some people still consider static analysis a tool searching for something in code according to a certain pattern. Thus, we occasionally write blog posts to show how this or that technology, used in the PVS-Studio analyzer, helps to identify another interesting error. Today, we have such an article about the bug found in the Base64, one of the encoding standard implementations of binary data.
The recent Qt 6 release compelled us to recheck the framework with PVS-Studio. In this article, we reviewed various interesting errors we found, for example, those related to processing dates. The errors we discovered prove that developers can greatly benefit from regularly checking their projects with tools like PVS-Studio.
Surely every C# developer has used out-parameters. It seems that everything is extremely simple and clear with them. But is it really so? For a kickoff, let's start with a self-test task.
